001are never gonna and I'm going to um participation dealing with the uh custodial you see how it's Here the award of a public contract for the custodial services portion but not particularly feedback like this statement yeah all right I'm gonna start over I'm going to participate in the portion of this closed session that deals with the award of a contract for custodial services but not in the portion that addresses the acquisition of real property for the construction of diagnology school and additional easements needed for construction in the high school because of potential conflict with clients all right now do we have a question I'm not sure we haven't had a vote on the agenda yet oh I'm sorry all right promotion to approve the agenda second emotions that was the same as the first but
002before just roll into it um all in favor the Motions all right now do we have to protect its bargaining position or negotiation strategy I knew that the school board convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-371183 of the code of Virginia to discuss and or consider the acquisition of real property for construction of an elementary school and additional easements needed for the construction of high school number six and pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-3711-829 to discuss the award of a public contract for custodial services that involves the expenditure of public funds second motion second all in favor aye all pose emotions carry unanimously we are known okay there you go camera I don't need to do that for tonight pursuant to section 2.2-3712 of Dakota Virginia I move that the closed meeting of the
003school board of Stafford County on October 11th 2022 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved that the school board of Stafford County hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters wobbly Exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion meaning the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board second ly Dr Chase agreed to this guy every Miss Allstate agree sincerely agree um agreed and Dr Warren agreement I move that the school board authorized the superintendent or his designee on behalf of the school board one to make an offer to purchase an identified and specific parcel or Parcels of real
004estate for construction of an elementary school and additional easements for the construction of high school 6 at appraised value two to engage in negotiations with the owners for such purchases and three to return to the board for review of the negotiated contract terms for approval second all in favor aye aye opposed emergency okay so we can move into our work session yes all right let's add the order we don't need all authorization to participate electronically we'll call motion to approve the agenda for the work session all in favor um uh the first item uh up is a standalone vpsa Bond issuance not to exceed a million 100 million dollars and Mr Fulmer is gonna um bring a couple a couple of uh points to your attention regarding uh this Bond issuance and to get our
005high school six project going uh so uh we had Mr muns who is the Chief Financial Officer for the county actually uh present to the Pepsi and explain a few things as far as a little bit different borrowing procedure for this and what we've done in the past um and so I'm gonna have Tim present um so I'm going to kick it over to John while I make sure we're sharing the screen property great well good evening everybody my name is John Munch I'm CFO at Stanford County and uh I just wanted to give a brief presentation about um the borrowing procedure for high school six um as Chris said it's going to be a little bit different from what we've typically done in the past I'm going to try to just basically give a
006thrift studs version of this if that's okay and then if you all have any questions I'd be more than happy to either answer those or take them down and get an answer to follow up um so basically as you all know in the adopted CIP the high school six project has been approved in about 165.1 million dollars of that 165.1 approximately 155.5 million is slated for debt financing we've already issued about 9.3 so what that means is we have about 146.2 million dollars of debt remaining to issue on the project um the CIP originally contemplated issuing that debt um a little bit over the next four years but um because of the interest rate great environment that we appear to be in what we're trying to figure out is whether or not it would be
007advantageous to look at a couple of different ideas for how we can do that and potentially save a little bit of money on the project it won't be a ton but every little bit helps in the in the era that we're living through right now so one idea was to just go ahead and issue the entire 146.2 million in fiscal 23 but as you can see from the projected expenditures on the project the issue that we run into there is simply that we don't think that we can spend it down quickly enough in order to avoid some of the Hang-Ups that we would have when we do a tax exempt financing in terms of the interest earnings we get on the project we wouldn't be able to realize the full benefit of those interests is
008there a percentage of the borrow that we're supposed to pay down over different periods of time or is it just a it's so basically the the best rule I can say the most simple rule with that is um the 24 month Safe Harbor so if you borrow the money um as long as you spend all of those proceeds within the 24 month Safe Harbor then you get to keep and apply all of the interest earnings to the project you don't have to pay the IRS back anything it's trying to prevent you from arbitraging the market right right I just didn't know if there was a percentage or if it was a if it was at all or no yeah the simple rule is the 24 month Safe Harbor and that's typically so um as as
009you probably can see on the short version on the interest rates is of course nobody knows exactly where interest rates are going to go in the future but it certainly appears um in the current period that we're in we're definitely in a rising interest rate environment and most people most observers would uh probably agree that they expect that Rising interest rate environment to continue into the foreseeable future so with that being in the case um you know we basically are going to be advantaged if if that happens to go ahead and issue more of the debt than we originally planned so right now even though interest rates are definitely going up it's helpful to look at it in the context of history as well and what we're seeing right now is that our borrowing rate
010um you know at the time that we prepared this analysis was still slightly lower than the overall 30-year average on a 20-year borrow those numbers have slightly changed and were probably basically right on par with the Third your average for a 20-year debt right now right around four percent if we were to issue today the FED is expected to raise interest rates again when they meet on November 2nd what I'm hearing from the financial advisors is that that expected increase is already kind of baked into these rates in other words they wouldn't expect that when they meet on November 2nd and increase it by 75 basis points if that's going to have an immediate result of 75 in terms of what we would experience um but certainly what we're seeing though is that the interest
011rates that were that were experiencing today are not what we've become accustomed to over the last uh five to ten years especially the last two years where our borrowing rate has been as low as on average about one and a half percent of um so again um uh switching to kind of the decision points you know what will happen with interest rates over the borrowing period again we don't really know but if they continue to rise then there's a lot of benefit to issuing earlier um if they fall then there would actually be some benefit to delaying but most people are not in the from the camp saying that they believe the interest rates are going to go down how quickly do they need to be extended again we talked about a 24-month rule in
012order to retain and utilize all the interest earnings and then in terms of the borrowing program a lot of times typically we would go into the vpsa pool financing program but in this particular case because the dollar amount is over 20 million we're eligible to participate in What's called the vpsa Standalone program and that allows us to use the AAA Bond ratings that we have to get a lower cost of funds on the project the vpsa pooled program typically sells equivalent to the Double A Plus so the rates are slightly higher with that the other advantage with the Standalone program is that we get to be in full control of the timing and the structure of the issuance so if we look at interest rates and it looks like we've got a maybe a temporary
013dip in the market we may be able to react a little bit more quickly and take advantage to that dip in the market as opposed to waiting if we were to do like a spring pool we're at the BS the bpsa is timing they're going to sell it at the beginning of May and that's just when they're going to sell it regardless of what the rates are looking like at that time um and then yes again looking at the savings uh probably the biggest thing I would point out here is the interest earnings where if we follow the adopt the CIP we'd be looking at an estimated 1.6 million dollars in interest earnings um that number jumps to approximately 3.0 million if we do the two issuance model and then the total debt service you
014can see there's about 2.8 million dollars of savings in the overall Debt Service for the project so we think that that's beneficial and then in terms of the proposed schedule where we go from here um you know there's a discussion point at today's school board meeting a work session to answer any questions that you all have on the October 18th I'll be asking the board to authorize the County Administrator to advertise a public hearing actually two public hearings for November 15th so that we can consider the issuance of debt with the Board of Supervisors and there'll be some Appropriations that have to change because we'll be varying away from the adopted CIP and then I plan to if with your all's approval come back on Tuesday November 8th to the school board meeting to discuss
015again the authorization of an application of epsa and also a formal request to the county to issue General obligation and with that I would be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have I'm going to summarize real quickly so historically we've done a pulled program through vpsa so anybody that's been on the board for a couple of years or are familiar with that and so we pull with the other school divisions and the state to try to get a better borrowing uh better interest rate or cut down on our cost of issuance and so what we're doing differently here is we're doing a standalone which is still through vpsa they help organize it but we're doing a standalone just for Stafford County so Stafford County is going to be the only one
016actually you know selling bonds to take out that debt um but that allows the county to use the AAA Bond rating and get a slightly lower rate the other piece of it that's different is we're borrowing more up front instead of throughout the project because we expect the interest rates to rise over uh During the period of the project which means the cost of borrowing is going to slowly get higher and higher so going on our own to use AAA lower interest rate borrowing now instead of 12 months 24 months from now um because also interest rates will go up so we're keeping a lower interest rate there and even though it's a standalone the school board still approves kind of the application the process for that and then the county does the final approval
017and receives the funds the school board doesn't actually borrow the money the county borrows the money and then provides the funding and Appropriations so fabsy also uh received the same presentation yeah see you have any position I mean I should have done this three years ago yeah my big question coming out of fabsy is why are we only talking about high school six especially because we have the approval for the elementary school at the very least like should we be looking and that's one of the questions I wanted to bring to the full board is you know what is the process do we want to and what would the process be to expand that scope um either at the same time or immediate like come back next month and talk about elementary school 18 in
018the same process so that so we are the answer is yes but not now and you wouldn't do them together because you're further along in terms sure because within the next several months you're going to be moving dirt for high school six you're not going to be moving dirt in the same time frame for the elementary school but you're going to go through a very similar process a very similar discussion more likely with the Elementary School uh we could use that or we could do another yeah and it depends on which is more Market advantageous right um you know doing the pooled vpsa who cares what your bond rating is because you're getting your bonds at a very different rate you're getting in at what is it double A Plus yes double A Plus right
019now we're definitely taking advantage of the fact that the county has a triple a bond rating which is a great opportunity right now and gives us just a hairs margin of a better rate well financially that is the right decision and you certainly could replicate this exact process or you could go with the pool process the pool process is going to have specific timelines throughout the year that they're going to solicit applications to be a part of that pool process versus doing the Standalone which is a little bit more on our calendar but you're going to go through a very similar process to answer Mrs sigman's question as we are doing right now and you're going to do this same process again as we get further down the road on the high school project and
020you take out more debt issuance to cover the remainder cost of the project when you're 100 million dollars is spent and you're concluding the construction of your project you're going to do this same process again so we just have to be patient because I have the same question as heard well you're not going to take out a bunch of debt right now that you're not going to spend right away so it's like you're you're right now going through the process to take out 100 million can spend 100 million dollars over the next 24 months to build this school but if you were going to take out a debt issuance right now for the next Elementary School well you're not going to spend your your money right away you're going to spend it in a few
021months so you're going to start that process okay great great question yeah the clock starts sticking yeah so this will come to the to the board for action after they've ever been okay let me know I I don't know the answer I'll give Mr Mike thank you Mr thank you so much oh yes ma'am do you think any uh response from the supervisors at a work session on September 20th and we basically outlined the same thing with them that we went over with you today and that we went over with the finance and budget committee meeting last week they had to give questions but nothing that I would appear to be concerning I can never really speak for them and know exactly how they will vote so I can't say that but based on the
022questions that they had my expectation is that they would probably vote to me with this and to that um to that and it is on right now scheduled to be on consent agenda for the off the authorization effort advertisement consent agenda we will get more uh I think view of whether or not they have any hesitation about it at that time if anybody asks for it to be called and then how soon would the public hearing date after the public hearing would be scheduled for November 15th so it would be just following the school boards um hopefully vote to formally requested that I didn't catch that date yesterday okay so it's the 18th of October oh I'm sorry thank you so yes they're gonna hopefully vote to advertise the public hearings on October 18th um
023we would come back to the full school board on November 8th for the resolutions to authorize the application to vpsa as well as the informal request for the board to issue the geodet and then the following Tuesday on November 15th the County Board would hold the two public hearings on the two resolutions to change the Appropriations and then dpsa would then do a meeting for us either late November or early December to approve the applications and what about that little 10 million that was not accounted for and then it was 165 and 155 and nine and barley wasn't there a little 10 million dollar Gap we've already either used cash or Bond money for like the design cost so some of them all right so this accounts for all future we don't have to come
024up with anymore okay and there's a likelihood that the project because of inflation inflationary factors which the county and our staff are we're all well aware of this inflationary factors building materials a whole host of issues will cost more than what was originally projected all on the same page in terms of our understanding The increased cost is already reflected in our CIP request sort of go back to the Board of Supervisors but we use the same inflation factors as the Board of Supervisors on their projects as the county staff on their projects but traditionally air figure is higher than what's been approved for us by the supervisors for the construction is if I recall well so last year they approved the full requested amount but now we're a year later and because of inflation for
025another year it went up so they did approve it all the way up to 165 million last year but we already yeah but now it's 365 days later and we know yeah so we won't know that until we actually awarded contract correct that would be this spring that Ellen will be advertised this winter yeah and then we'll have to come back yeah and that'll be Andrea um maybe we could just have a really good bake sale before the rest of the money also joining us is Andrea white who's the director of budgeting managers Management on the county side and she's here to talk a little bit about the technical Review Committee process so so everyone is aware um we have listed all the projects with the county and the school projects they have are currently
026being presented to the TRC so they have not been ranked yet this year so this isn't about the ranking and where Things fall for this year this is to talk a little bit about the process and make sure our board fully understands that process because we do have a joint experience for board a supervisors meeting next week so I'm gonna let Android get started to talk to you about the process committee and CIP planning process I always don't seem to um go after anybody talks about interest rates because I find that so fascinating and I'm sure we all are dead car seat um so this really shows what rcip improvement process uh what our whole process is in um like Mr Palmer said we are here in the September October uh TRC review meeting we
027certainly have a couple um dates coming up that are really important to this will bring School staff with next week being The Joint School board for the supervisor meeting we scheduled this specifically before we do the TRC presentation to the board so that the school board has the opportunity to talk to the Board of Supervisors prior to getting any information from the TRC so the so this Board of Supervisors other than what you have requested is not have a list of all of our requests has not had any sort of dialogue or discussion about any of those projects um so it is really a fresh start with every CIP process that you're able to have that opportunity to speak with them um and then in December we have a Joint School Board a supervisor meeting
028and that is where we provide to the school board and the Board of Supervisors advisor analysts and ranking of all of the person we will have done it that once one supervisors in November but this is also a second opportunity for the school board to come back to the four supervisors and and and disagree with the DRC ranking um you know maybe we put in elementary school in front of my middle school I'm filling out projects on my head and this billboard has real reason that you know we got that wrong and we need to really look at this in in a different way and that is this book where it's a real opportunity to um to say to ask that the Board of Supervisors look at that in a different way we do have
029the final input that we ask for the board as we're preparing the budgets in the January February time um we do have then proposed CIP in March and March April we have work sessions both under Capital Improvement program individually and then there's an experience supervisors meeting which is again an opportunity for the boards to speak and that art is supposed to be April I don't know what tarp is when we have the public hearings in final cfp adoption yeah so the TRC is um this is really provided in policy which I think is attached to me and this is approved by the Florida supervisors it was last to prove this last uh September I believe and the TRC what we're doing right now is looking at each one of those being at the cost of
030them how you've been up with the cost why you need them what's the documentation for the the schools have a considerable number of facility condition reports and we have the opportunity then to read all of them we are very fortunate um so we get to read and go all through that and what our members really do what we've been doing over the past years in September they have died in all of the documentation all of the members of the TRC so that they can start getting into this we meet with each of those departments as a um since last year based on some um advice from Dr Chase actually we had started going to some of those localities last year this year we have had the opportunity so far to go to two different School
031sites we've edited here in melchers and we've been to North Stafford and I think we're going somewhere else on Thursday I don't remember where um and so that is the opportunity for that for the department or the schools all of the people that are going to present their projects and they have all of the information like a couple Improvement plan policy so they know we are looking for very specific things on how we bring them um we do have our members myself on the chair we have a member of our director of Department of capital projects and the county director about planning and zoning typically is the executive director of facilities and maintenance for Stafford County Public Schools this year we have we're lucky to have Mr White and we have a member from Public
032Safety and then the uh the academy Administration May designate up to two Personnel each CIP so we have one additional member can I ask a question of course um what percentage of the projects um that the TRC reviews are school projects versus County projects uh typically not this year but in the past our CIP has been made up of just over 50 percent is uh school projects okay but one only one representative from the schools is the school's representative allowed to rate County projects absolutely yeah um so when Mr Anderson your last executive directly um such a wonderful person he actually went um drove all the roads um he went to fire stations and he looked at them he had me he really did his due diligence about now I will say when when I
033as you look at large projects projects together the schools do their own three-hour projects accounting to their own three-hour projects and it's because it's laborious there is there is a significant amount of effort that goes into all of those three-hour projects which will probably tell you just from his side how how difficult that is and getting to a basic understanding may be rather difficult so the two Personnel um that the County Administrator can designate can one of them be a school side person okay with it this year they were not we had one additional person um in in Spring Southall who is the director of parks recreation and Community facilities and we do like to keep the the one or two we've never had two additional Personnel I will say um but when we do
034have that we like to rotate that among um at least on the county side from different departments so that we always have a fresh perspective maybe it might be a good idea to always have one extra School Personnel person since you always usually don't do two what you can do it yeah I think that's an excellent idea and we can um I would certainly bring that up introduce that into um next year's process like I think the schools deserve just a little bit more consideration from some people who happen to be the experts from the school physical people and and they actually had rankings it was It was kind of detail I mean go back a while but prior to this one I think the last time we had a joint CIP process um was
035uh about 2018 when the word and the school board had three members of each board that sat as a TRC kind of oversight committee and then it was school board and board a supervisor and I will say when um that these these numbers that are dedicated on here have specific expertise um that help with the process like um the director of Planning and Zoning brings a lot of information about um what our company plan is um what is coming up in uh different areas so I think it it looks at many different levels of expertise I'm not questioning this I just thought and we've had turnover on our staff since then but I recall when we first started this process of working together with the school board and the Board of Supervisors we had a
036very specific agreement and I think we both signed off on it um and there were a few different levels and it was like this but they actually got into the rankings because we said you know how many points were you getting different elements on on the projects it probably goes back a year I imagine it might be before 2018 I don't know if we can you know check but respond to your question there was more than one person from the school Sunday so this is this policy which is about to buy the suit and the supervisors in 2019 then said um essentially there have been some small tweaks to it said today yes but on the back of that policy the last page would have listed I hope um any uh that's any revision States
037and that's the new school's policy um yeah it's a much larger document so at the back the last place all of the revision dates should be listed and I believe we also listed in the school board adopted their uh joint question and that was it that's what I I'm just curious as to how we went from a joint to a almost Force yeah it's still a joint we just might have lost a member on part of the doing so and our member does rank the projects I mean in putting the policy oh yeah the policy then the changes the policy applies worked on between the school board and the boys who brought so it really was staff I'm sure you know the bulk of the work but then there was an agreement between the two
038boards and then somehow that went out the window and now we have a new one all right um so these project ranking criteria how are those percentages set and how do they like how often are they yeah um the ranking is based on the development policy that in board sets um they look at them every other year try to update your nurse last year they did look at these rankings they only changed the 3r rankings for again that relates only to the county side that does not relate to the school side and so I haven't presented them here but these are the most current rankings so health and safety is 20 impact on operational budget is 20 special considerations Regulatory Compliance um so if we have something that's mandated we would get some questions that's
039really but it doesn't get extra and that I think this is just me I feel like that disproportionately impacted schools because we are required bylaw to educate every student who resides in this in this County whether they show up yesterday today tomorrow we are required by law to have a certain number of students in classrooms whether it's 6 or 36. and we are constrained by the buildings we have and we are going to be days there because you know you think health and safety all of these you know fire and rescue which are essential especially for our kids but we're getting told to put our kids in trailers because five percent because we have to and then that comes out of our budget it doesn't come out of the infrastructure budget because we don't know
040I mean we have Lionel we get really really darn close but like if we can't if that's not Regulatory Compliance and health and safety are like the two most important things we do and if they're not even on the same measurement then that impacts the schools tremendously and and just as an example you've got uh not you they have a fire and rescue joint training center before Elementary School 18. based on just their ranking criteria now which is why I put all this out so there's that's kind of flaw to me when you start to look at your health and safety criteria is flood control when a lot of the health and safety impacts of our kids as you have a credit in schools and so that's not listed here and the understanding of what
041those things do and what the schools actually need so that's just a concern for me but then and I get that these are all all County projects All County projects and all puts money and all sorts of stuff but if the ranking system is flawed then we're going to be constantly we're like you're automatically 20 of the score behind but I think that needs to be a discussion that we have at the board yeah no I agree I agree I'm just trying to give an example of what she's talking about I mean we don't need a joint training center before we need another school so I mean this is I mean everything before I mean our highest School rule is 49. a question so right um I'm just noticing in here so we have uh
042we often argue about design capacity versus program capacity specifically at the elementary schools and I notice in here that it says the Board of Supervisors will only recognize nice changes to design capacity which are voted on and approved by the school board so do we just need to have some votes to guess the design capacity change for our schools is that how we make it happening because that's what your document says I'm on uh I don't there aren't page numbers so um I'm under existing school capacity score I think it's under the new school planning policy and um Dr Chase um so the organ supervisors does not collect their own applications [Music] sure we comprehensive plan also it was recommended by the Planning Commission to use program capacity and the Board of Supervisors voted to
043have that ascended to design capacity um so those those changes that the board the school board may vote on would be changes to the design of this school so if you're adding another win to a school and you're adding four more classrooms those classrooms holds um X number of children sure but it just says we can vote to to change design capacity I don't see why we can't vote right I mean if I'm using four classrooms for special ed I'm gonna have to redesign those four rooms and I can put them all together and call actually regulation how many students we are allowed to have in special educational classrooms right now we're not even in compliance with that because we don't have the space so at any rate I would suggest that we may want
044to have some votes about money have some votes on this yeah well also just and I mean and you know we're not picking on you right like this is just like as I'm reading this it's interesting this time but it does is there a facility being replaced that has exceeded its use to life and to what extent like for the schools if that's your criteria then that's 100 of this and that brings us right up to 75 points so it's just it's interesting to me to see the perception of the criteria um from each side of the fence because it's very different and even the quality of life your quality of life criteria I mean for some of these kids um the stuff that we're putting in plate trying to put in place for them
045and giving them access to like it's it's a big deal it's a big deal so I great vote I think we can put a good presentation um just for your information this is a list of all of this year um Parks and Rec uh judicial of course there's the courthouse this school's uh 1.4 billion um of course it doesn't includes we are share of transportation and a fire and rescue so there's a significant amount of project the police supervisors will look at and consider how they uh how they adoption in their Capital program but do I mean do they understand that ignoring our projects doesn't make them go away like the kids are coming and they will need rooms and teachers and books and computers and we get Space already came well for the long-term
046plan like just saying you're not going to fund a school doesn't mean we're not going to need a school they can answer that right but that's I think this is a conversation for the joint session yeah let's not pick on anything what I like to do it would be so much easier um but if you don't mind I'd like to if you'd indulge me for a few more minutes about poppers we do um there's often questions about proper and it really kind of comes into the CIP process each spring our Planning and Development Department begins with a review a comprehensive review of all of our Shoppers and projection of when new propers may be received over a five-year period the County finance department updates our June 30th year-end collections so we have projections we have
047a good cut off your end and then late summer early fall only two weeks ago or last week I believe all departments including the schools Stitch out and we review those properties available and what's projected and we look at those properties compared to what is in our CIP how we might be able to fit those answers now properly don't change significantly from year to year so we feel like this is still a good process to look at to look back at to look forward with and we can consider what croppers we may have available and we might be able to use this this year we did a little bit extra in this proper meeting as we started to um discuss some synergies that we may have there's a lot of needs throughout the county and
048the schools that kind of overlap and how how can we come together as staff and make continued recommendations to those projects through this proper discussion or through our CIP that may make it us into a better spot so what if we co-located a Fleet Services building in a joint Training Center what does that look like and so we're trying to continue to work together to do that um this here is a list of school croppers this is a cutout from the budget the fiscal year 2023 uh budget book um and where we're projected to use those so our current actuals is what we had on June 30th of 2021 again this is a year behind um our future years is what's projected what's programmed in the CIP and then uh was available for project and
049you can find the county CIP um on our website and also the proper list is also on our way can you put that proper uh spreadsheet backup yes so um the elementary school 18 they're using all sort of proffers and Garrisonville um if Elementary School 18 is in the southern end of the county would the profits then come potentially from the Heartwood Rocky Run West Lake or is that all already spent on high school six so we we would probably have to make adjustments I mean we we try to do this in projections of where we think maybe this is going to maybe end up um and and things change and we have to make adjustment it so we have to pull back some prospers and then we have to add maybe some more Bond
050funding maybe some more urine fund balance so we make those adjustments right so I mean so in elementary school 18 is in the southern end of the county we can't use Northern proffers for it right it has to provide relief specifically for that area yes yes and Dr Jason each proper is different it has its own restriction so they're a lot of fun for Planning and Zoning to go through and try to you know what what this can go to this and can go to this right so thank you but generally yes traditionally we've been told that the troppers have to go to the a school where the subdivision feeds into whether it's the elementary middle or high is that not the case anymore it depends on proper stipulations each one is different so by
051my correct and assuming then since we've got five different districts that are all earmarked for elementary 18 there are no restrictions on those properties I would have to look at those specifically but that's what we have programmed in at this time again we make adjustments every CIP cycle we try to make this better we try to make improvements and to use them to the broadest extent of available so as an example um you've got one for Rock Hill uh that that doesn't seem like it might fit given a potential Elementary School forget the number in that zone however it may have a peripheral impact on the project because it relieves pressure in that community and that may be tied to the proper depends on what's written in it but that that is that is not
052irregular to have a proper written in a way that a new school would benefit another school that's servicing the area right but some of these profits yeah some of these adults and whose decision was that that they would all go to elementary school 18. um when we look at this as a group we try to see which project that is going to benefit that that's already in the CFE or the seat and that's how we assign them the county attorney or County Deputy County attorney is available as we go through these so we are kind of talking about these um not as theoretically as maybe I'm making it sound but um and then Planning and Zoning helps to guide that so it was we include schools yeah it would and In fairness to the county
053folks they're also operating off of a CIP document that at the time when it was passed it did identify Elementary School 18 in the specific Geographic Zone but that was 365 days ago so you know In fairness then they're they're operating off of a document the divorce Revisited a couple of times so Elementary School 18 is not 100 rebuild correct is that correct that is correct that was from last year's a quick easy question is there a way when we change the document that they may look at in the future this might be a silly question but how do we get it to them so that they can have what we have yeah so at your last monthly board meeting you adopted a capital Improvement plan and um that week we forwarded that document to
054the county but In fairness to them this is week three of their position that document or week four of it so they're they're processing it as a part of this process just like we all are a part of this as well and so as the board has reprioritized its projects they now have to do the work of and so does the TRC in aligning proffers to go with the projects that the board has re-prioritized so what about the crawfords that are going to be used for the trip fields which is um those properties so this document came from um the 23 CIP which I do not believe was adopted the the turf fields weren't adopted on the day that the board adopted this or they were adopted on the day because it was late April
055early May and so this is a point in time this is a picture in time of what we had in Hopper it's already out of date yeah this isn't as of today by any means [Music] okay so I'm just curious as to where the croppers are coming from that are gonna pay back for the winter Fields so we have that information it was specified it was definitely specified and I don't want to miss yeah so so now that I know this is not accurate then that makes more sense well I would say that it was accurate at a point in time yeah get out the next day it's pushing but it's always School 18th as of today's document as of tomorrow's document it might be right now okay yes so um we're fluid in our
056process um but this you can find on the CIP so at least you have a list of all those offers and I hope that you have a good feeling that there is a school and County process that we look at those together we do look at those shortly so when do you say that the supervisors will look at their language you said that they changed some of their 3r language but they didn't change necessarily the um the process of how projects are ranked they didn't change any of that language but you said they do it every two years exactly we try to bring our policies up being update okay so this will come up next year next year at what time of year um well planning goes uh I would like to have a May
057June July so that we have a set document so that when the Departments inside yeah okay okay thank you I saved the the slide you guys presented when you were discussing the funding um and again I don't know that this is 100 of what was officially decided on but the conversation was around um 400 000 from Woodson Woods a million dollars from Winding Creek properties for the North Stafford field um 939 000 from the Liberty Knolls West properties and about 500 000 from Westgate crawfords for the Colonial Forge fields and we are allowed to use properties for fields expanded the use of that field because it just expanded the time yes okay thank you and you know the subtext says that they had been previously earmarked for elementary night or I'm sorry 18 and then
058we're essentially being pulled forward um to use for this okay all right thank you thank you Andrew we'll see you next week thank you all right accreditation um I know we are a little bit tight on time this evening so I am going to go over this fairly quickly and then we process for additional um follow-up questions or research needed um based on how we go through that so uh as you all know um this is the first year we've had accreditation uh since the um pandemic um so the good news is that all of our schools are fully accredited by the Virginia Department of Education um the um we all have all of our schools have room for improvement right um so no matter how high they are obviously that's already but some of
059us have additional room for improvement um okay and then we're going to get into some of the strategies we're using to support schools that are needing some additional assistance right now and then just a little bit to go over some of the changes that they need with accreditation um so starting with that last one first the last year we had accreditation in the division was also the first year of a newly adopted accreditation process in the state and then they have also been making shifts throughout the pandemic to move towards the Sol growth assessments Etc um so there is you know I brought with me there's a 30-some page booklet that goes over the nuts and bold it's a super simple process it factors in a lot of different pieces um partially because figuring out
060how kids are doing is complicated right um so there's a number of different factors that go into that um speaking about the good news right so all of our schools are fully accredited coming out of the pandemic and then the vast majority I know this is small and the vast majority of our schools are continually um show gains and you know encouraging delivery in the last couple years come up so 13 of our 17 elementary schools um kind of nothing was flagged whatsoever by the state for five high schools nothing was flagged whatsoever okay um there are a number of schools that have level two concerns and one of the things I want to point out here is that we've got two different ways we categorize this so um on our level two quality indicators
061these schools are highlighted because there was a um a gap between performance between different reporting groups right so the overarching achievement may have been in the green but then when you um went into different reporting categories there was two significant other gap and I will tell you for our middle schools it is all related um not all related our worst category there is our um our students with disabilities across all of those schools right now was in the right area Okay um this is an area where the state allows us to focus on division monitoring internally so that we can figure out what we need to do we've got plans our school leadership team and certainly speak to that to the work they are actively doing to work with those schools that's a good question
062there are students with disabilities since it seems to impact that Gap do we have schools with a higher percentage of students with disabilities than other schools we do um and I would say division wide we're about 13 and a half percent students with disabilities and we have some schools that are in the high teens and then we have some schools that are 10 11 so there are there are there are 13 is about the national averages yeah it is and we're on par with that all right then the second piece here is our schools with level two academic achievement indicators which means overarching performance across all students is below where we would like it to be right so we're not at a level three but we're not at the level one that we want to
063be and this is so um during fit into that category Park Ridge Elementary um I believe the levels I'd have to refresh but I believe this was science was the area science seems to be an area in all of our schools but then um for the two middle schools there were also some of the um the Gap pieces okay um so one of the things that's interesting and I will be interesting to see where our scores go this year but um the 8th grade science does so well as many of you are probably familiar covers for years of science right um so our kids that took that last year had the majority of their middle school experience through virtual and different platforms and then level three concerns you were looking at significant so this is
064quality indicators so you're looking at a significant levels of gaps there and overarching performance and here we have um again the science across all of those elementary schools and then mathematics for separate senior okay um so I'm gonna oh thank you um so here are some of the themes kind of I've seen as we've been seeing as we've been going through this um definitely some need for holistic support with science instruction and prioritization at the elementary and middle school levels um so we've maybe aired slightly on the side of really trying to make sure that our literacy and Mathematics skills worked um going unattended during the pandemic um and we've definitely seen that science has suffered because of that it's a little science I mean having taught it too but science is something that you
065can introduce a topic with the Hands-On piece of it is crucial to the understanding of it and without the kids being there it wasn't Hands-On piece that would have helped them um and then need for holistic literacy support at the second kind of our big gap area in all of our middle schools was in the literacy area um Esau or is that just across the board literacy um there were it depended on the school which the gaps were the students with disabilities was pretty much right across all of them and then you saw definitely some level twos with economically disadvantaged students some schools um El students some schools different um minority Advocate groups so it just it really did depend on the school um in terms of the combination of those factors um we all
066know we're facing critical mathematics teacher shortages we've definitely seen that impact um and then you know the need for a continuing to support we have a number of schools that had um high levels of absenteeism this year while we know some of that was related to kind of quarantines and we expect that to improve there's also um the need to really make sure we're supporting kids with um them being in the building um and then as we've already mentioned kind of the performance of students with disabilities and English Learners so the attendance um we're we were well below the state average was the state average not also having to deal with quarantines and such my no no no I I've kind of debated this internally myself so it may partially have to do with um
067how much did you know certain localities record absenteeism if they you know what I mean like that could have been a really nuanced category in the last couple years where maybe if a kid was still attending remotely they were counting them as present what you know what I mean so it um my hunches you maybe had across different localities different okay counting absenteeism differently because I'm fascinated that the state would have a metric s well and and candidly there there was not tight regulation over how that looks and what's on the ground a lot of this is dependent on how it is reported not how it is collected and that there isn't an auditing mechanism with less than 200 people who work in the Virginia Department of Education to supervise 130 school systems and so
068that's where you might get some of the variants I had a conversation with a superintendent uh today who asked about our attendance practices because his neighboring attendance uh his neighboring School District he was trying to check to see how they were doing because they were still granting extended covetly for students and marking them present which is not accurate and not what you should do and he was he was questioning whether whether that was a practice that he was unaware of or that that was something that should be continued and that if we missed a memo so were there other metrics that are wishy-washy like that that we should be aware of uh well that a lot of the metrics that are collected um discipline is is one of those that is definitely we are reporting
069the discipline data but the other metrics that are being collected as it relates to accreditation are all collected by the state okay so the the two that that we don't are the environmental ones tied to um discipline and attendance am I the only one that thinks that attendance and mental health go together though right like it depends we group them together because they do go together yeah but it depends on how you're like if you have a like a consistent metric across the state and how you're collecting that data otherwise okay so some of the different um areas we're striving to improve um we this summer had a rollout of the new school Improvement cleaning process really focused on Improvement science and the plan do study act process School Improvement plans are currently in the
070process of being revised to include specific targeted strategies right so we don't have the full accreditation data until um school already starts um so as additional data has come out schools have been adjusting and adding additional areas and wraparound supports um so this just highlights some of the different ways we're trying to Think Through The Way We report and utilize data to support as we are going through the year process our instructional leadership team has been collaborating very closely with the video office of school quality a number of us have been attending webinars going to on-site training in Virginia Beach Etc with administrators from the buildings that are really focused on Improvement to do some really deep digging um also looking at kind of getting back to and refining some instructional learning walkthroughs to really
071help us increase the rigor of our tier one instructional strategies um during access to curricular resources is in an area academic programs is working on they're also working with school leadership on a school-time programming to support and reinforce content areas we do have some Grant funds to support that work right now so they're really trying to be strategic about how to leverage that particular the elementary school level and Middle School level with um some of our areas and then um intentional um professional learning to support with effective tier one and differentiation strategies um and then obviously um you know continuing to focus on those targeted areas at each School with their school leadership team ask a question what's the response then of the schools you know looking at what needs to be you know focused
072on and and they ask for additional resources are they able to do it with what they have or you know what can we do to help the schools where they need to be going to send that one over to the school leadership team because I think they would be best able to answer that question I know Rodney had a school Improvement plan meeting for parents and you know a handful of us showed up um and listened to that and they outlined like what their you know where explained this to us and you know parent understanding terms and what that means and how they're going to address it at the school level yeah I don't know how that translates to what they are asking us for here but they seem to have a plan be on
073top of it nowhere you know essentially they screwed up like what needs to be redirected to reach their goals they seem to be pretty confident of us I'm really glad you mentioned that yeah Widewater did as well and they went to Virginia Beach for training and they've brought in Mike Pratt to help with their science curriculum and they've become more intentional about it I think they were so focused on math and reading skills that science kind of got lost in the shuffle but they are refocusing that energy on it but I know that they also had a meeting with parents to explain what their strategy was so the probably the most significant change from last year to this year in terms of focusing on on continuous Improvement is having a continuous Improvement plan for every
074single School two of the components that are a little different than anything that our folks have experienced other than going through a full 45-day plan view study act process they're already in their second cycle very exciting that they've completed one cycle they're already on to the next cycle coincidentally they coincide with nine-week marking periods is that they actually have to have Community meetings that are quarterly with the community to discuss their school Improvement plan and also post their plans on their website so you know we want to be very transparent with what the schools are working on specifically the the thing that this slide doesn't really capture is how each plan is nuanced to the school's specific needs and though these are the the general um themes that Rebecca and the school leadership team have
075pulled out um that they are very specific to the targeted needs and goals of the individual schools and that's probably our biggest crowning achievement coming out of the summer in terms of looking at continuous Improvement so do we have resources that are available should absolutely and on November 7th it's our professional development day and those schools are involved with along with Mike Pratt providing intensive training in the area of science for elementary I can't imagine three years getting tested on three years two of which were out and especially because of the way we offer science some of the kids like took it mid-year and some of the kids had to wait to the end of the year because they put all the kids in science for one half the year and then yeah whatever social
076studies for the other half of the year it wasn't like a normal normal schedule um could be the best we could so are we gonna know any kind I know since they've enacted Sol's more than once in a year is any of that going to help us in driving some of what you guys are planning or improving in schools so one of the things we've done with them into the court which lets schools see okay how did it breaks it it's all aligned to the Sol standards and then substandard so they can see how the kids which they're not going to do very well because it's on last year it was a combination of the previous year like third graders were covering second grade standards as well as third so this year it was strictly
077third grade standards kind of thing um and then so so you'll have some kids that already know that a few things but most of it you'll start to see by the mid-year data you know are we seeing some games there and then those pieces um long-term goals would then be to start to longitudinally align that so that you get back by the beginning of the next year your fourth grade teacher has okay what did that look like for third grade okay so when you submit your data available we should have that in January yep okay Madam chair the next one should be a quick one uh thank you Dr Towery um uh and uh lots of compliments to the Fab C for giving some feedback on how we might tighten up uh proposed budget priorities
078for the board's consideration for the fiscal 24 budget we landed on three uh budget priorities that came out of Fab suite and I got to give credit to fabsy for this really important recommendation which was how to establish the rationale behind the request and so we think we landed in the right spot with these the first one focuses on having a high quality teacher in every classroom and how we might approach that through compensation and benefits and making sure that we're competitive not just on our teacher scale but for our entire Workforce the second one is very much focused on providing supports in our trouble areas for subjects but also looking at Staffing and making sure that that we're meeting our school needs in terms of uh in terms of the support staff that are
079in place and the third one has to do with our learning environment and making sure that we have the high quality things that we need to to accommodate for our growth and uh and also to make sure that our our spaces are safe and have space for students still I just want to say I think these are much better the app did a good job I just have a couple little complaints not really complaints um I just think um I think they're really good the only thing I really um didn't like is in number two to reverse our adverse performance trajectory I think I would rather have to focus on a more positive outcome instead of the negative outcome and then in the last one we have a CIP for our Capital needs and this
080is an operational budget so I would just prefer if we truncated part of this and just said our needs for space and resources and just kept it a little simpler but that's just my opinion and and can I say that for the first one um it says one strategy but it doesn't say we want to do it so I would just get rid of that and have it read to attract and retain high quality teachers and staff we must establish and maintain competitive salaries and benefits right we will need to edit this in the next half hour because this is going for you um so we're just going to make sure and I just I just my thought was just um teachers and administration critical to um to ensure Student Success just keep it simple
081or student achievement all right so let's go one by one edits to section one yes that you want to see right so what I would say is get rid of one strategy and just change it to to attract and retain high quality teachers and staff we must establish and maintain competitive salaries and benefits comma and then get rid of this strategy should include and just make it a multi-year maintain competitive salaries and benefits including a multi-year approach to enhance teacher step scale blah blah blah blah okay I I have a question about putting the teacher's step scale there and we got rid of that um into a bind uh years ago when we didn't have money to do raises and teachers among other employees came to the board and said you promised me you know
082when I was hired I would I was just getting these phrases yeah I I just would be reluctant too put out there that there is now going to be a teacher step scale because we so just change step to salaries that I mean yes teacher compensation strategy now what are you going to say so it's where he says a multi-year approach to enhance uh teacher compensation teacher compensation yeah potato Brown one to include just that competes with surrounding School teachers yes we don't want to give them you know what can you read that I'm just trying to get the sentence after and maintain competitive salaries and benefits he said comma and then I would agree I said to include a multi-year approach to enhance teacher compensation that competes that competes with surrounding school districts offer
083regionally competitive uh compensation for non-teaching positions and provide comprehensive benefits and opportunities for advancement for all employees just get very consciously on this multi-year yep because we can only commit a year yeah absolutely everything we know it when we're sitting here but once we adopt this and publish it there is going to be an expectation that it literally you know it means what it says I I don't have I agree we need to have the multi-year approach but I don't want there to be a misunderstanding that we can commit for right multi-years more than one year at a time correct I know there was at least one other change somebody suggested so I just want to get done number two number two um it just I would cross out critical to I would cross out
084the reverse our adverse performance trajectory and just say critical to ensure Student Success or student achievement and I would change plummeted to Fallen plummeted just seems so dramatic yeah it's just like it was pretty dramatic you lost 50 points yeah but I was pretty good I would still make it has fallen for this but if we plummeted it'll be that much better when we um well then we can say crater have yeah [Laughter] all right and other areas which have fallen in my singers you know I don't think we have to I don't think we have to exaggerate that we've got a depth of our our our hope we don't need to exaggerate it it's there we know it's there um the goal is this is to tell you how to spend money to fix
085it so and then in the third one the only thing I would just take out after additional space and resources and and then take out parking to um the end of that sentences and then add building because I think that's all part of it space and resources and you know parking whatever because you can't enumerate everything that we might need to do so I just wouldn't I wouldn't list them that's the only thing I would change another thing that I think they're great good jobs thank you fam I appreciate it you're welcome Madam chair um we there's one more item can we just make sure you're all know what's coming back if we could just just read those three changes with what you've got so we're all on you know in sync and then when
086we come back at Jess that's what we wanted we're not going in here but some of the verbiage might might pretty good as I go we need to yeah we're going to expect to see when it comes up for a vote and we'll get the corrected one before the appointment so uh and number one changing the sentence the state to attract and retain high quality teachers and staff we must establish and maintain competitive salaries and benefits comma including a multi-year approach to enhance the teacher of compensation to enhance teacher compensation that competes with surrounding school districts and then the rest of the number one all good there yeah the number two we're changing limited to fallen in the second or third sentence it says additional Staffing for Sykes social workers counselors special education teachers ESL
087teachers administrators it is critical to student achievement period correct to ensure to ensure student achievement okay let me go back to this first line has School attendance plummeted or is just the performance of the literacy and the other they just goes so attendance has formed well we did see that in them yeah yeah okay it depends it depends on how you measure it we measured it that it that it was um chronic absenteeism in some of our schools based on the state scan but it may have been quarantined that resulted in that or not the other people not right right but if students aren't there they aren't learning so so let's so I think the attendance really needs to be there and that's in the number three the third and last line will say Drive
088the determination of needs for additional space and resources period yes no I mean that really isn't is it the covet years or is it beyond the covered years I think beyond the creators you've had a you've had a slope three or four times every year it's appalling they want to grab a sandwich and go into the um say five minutes we'll come back at 6 10. we'll go until 6 20. um one tonight freaky and yeah so marine and Ms Randall was one of the people named here but traditionally we always put this on the agenda before we go to the conference so that the board has a chance to talk about the bsda legislative agenda and if there's anything that we have comments on I mean it's a couple times we've had some cases
089where we've you know directed our delegate to vote against certain things or not to support them but this is an opportunity for the board members to raise any questions that they have about the suggested legislative positions and also if they're you know if there are ones that there's some concern about then we can put it on the agenda for the next meeting to take a vote so right now it's just for purposes of discussing the um so we have always legislative take minutes she's this is isn't this recorded it is um so in a in addition to that so first of all I want to say this kind of stuff is like my fantasy football this is what I track this is what I follow like my day job I love it um also I
090did read that in these are only the changes to their policy platform if we as a board go through the policy platform annually and find something in there that the sitting board does not support we have to vote in a in public to oppose that position tell them or when they send their sign-on letter they're going to sign us all on and I think that happened once I forget what it was with the superintendent thing where it said all the superintendents did this and you were like no I didn't like oh they just we did a blanket approval because nobody opted out and so um we don't do it this way we usually made the delegates will make discuss these things but you have to just request like if you're going to have want to
091change the language is something you have to submitted ahead of time it's discussed and then they're all voted on right but the plot that's like the platform after we've done it all different ways both in November that becomes the policy platform for the year and then if we are like well we still don't like it then we can vote to essentially up out of that section yeah we did and um and that's fine so like as far as the SBA is concerned we can continue to discuss so a lot of what I really like one I was really surprised and I don't know how this happens everything suggested was brought here by Fairfax County it's um is it because they have the most experience and it's it's not that they did everything because almost always
092there's a joint conversation it's just they may be the ones that finalize the language with um visit JD Kessler the objects of that is pretty terrible I agree some of these are perennials though that have been on here several years yeah then don't put I mean is it do they have to tell us who or just I think it's part of well of course they want credit thank you I was really interested in seeing the state testing and coordination support one of the English um English Learners I think that's great that's pretty in line with what we talked about here yeah the testing support I've been visiting a lot of schools and one of my principals said like we love our special ed person if I could ask for one more thing and would be
093a testing coordinator in particular I've not had a note for that on that one but I read it wrong now I'm reading it right now that you're talking about so the edtech funding one I like funding however I don't know how I feel about Richmond setting what the purchasing guidelines and replacement guidelines are um because I don't think there's a one-size-fits all best practices counties that are more rural I mean I know they want us all to have internet but I don't think you know everything else they talk about it's about local control and local decision making so having Richmond kind of add a layer of bureaucracy to make you know some counties feel like rock stars and some counties feel like Underachievers I think is you know I don't think this is a good
094use of our efforts um yeah I don't think that they should be dictating I agree um the school bus purchased I really don't care for that one either I don't mind the whole thing about the distributor just dealer thing I think we should buy from whoever we want but I you know Mr Fulmer has told us how financially essentially irresponsible it is to have school buses and the divisions that can afford school buses don't need support to purchase school buses those of us who are waiting 100 years to get school buses need help and that if we're going to help for transportation it should not go so that you know other counties can spend Millions on buses that the rest of us I also do I don't want students on electric buses because some counties
095they're not going to be viable they're not going to be viable here they're not viable here unfortunately and if we're a big division so we will lose so I don't think there should be something that this is very individual and your counties I I agree well and not only that I mean the state is going to do what it wants let's face it but as a school board organization we're asking for this so yeah but that's the thing it's like if it's not for the benefit I mean if it's not to our benefit then there are probably divisions much much smaller than us that are right also not going to benefit like I feel like we're kind of like the threshold between big schools and small schools and yeah but we're Alaska or something you
096have this incredible attendance so right and you're not going to be able to use to get the kids from there all the way over here right so I didn't like that one it might work in yours no yes and it Garrisonville should just be completely Owasso no buses in Garrisonville at all foreign no cars either yeah all gated um standards of quality and accreditation is a little confusing to me which one is that the 91 it seems like even when I go down to um you know it makes advocacy more General and highlights potential local fiscal impacts of changes together I mean it doesn't really say anything this is editorial yeah [Laughter] so safe School environment what does it mean oppose legislation and this is like too many words that seem to cancel each other
097out oppose legislation requiring the designation of school Personnel to carry concealed weapons in schools so what they're saying is is that they're fine with law enforcement carrying a firearm they don't want legislation to require that screen Personnel yeah Virginia they don't want Richmond requiring us to arm our staff they want okay again um but it doesn't prevent us from doing it either if I mean everyone's saying I would I'm just saying they talk about local control and every division should have I think what they're trying to say is they don't want Virginia telling us right and that's what I was trying that's how I read it but I wasn't 100 sure um children with disabilities I'm fully funding the idea so this is actually a pretty big deal because uh right now this is no
098mystery idea is a federal program but yet we're measured on performance of students with disabilities even though no real direct funding is committed in a meaningful way to students with disabilities at the state level because trying to get some you know nobody's talking about funding 100 but trying to because it's such an expensive item and it's a huge unfunded mandate yeah yeah it is and and but the rub of course with the state is like well if it's a federal program then why do you measure performance in this area against why do they ding us for performance in that area so there's some Merit to getting the teeth out on that one and I do like that they are trying to keep that Circle nice and tight rather than broadening it wasn't a really tough
099spot oh okay um can you go back up to the one under safe School environment um I would just like for them to expand upon that if they're going to be talking about the one that says I mean I hate to tell you but past legislation when we afford greater protection to students who are exposed to buy with fluids or uh put them at risk of dangerous infectious diseases sexual sexually transmitted infections or whatever this is going to be I think a little bit more of a hotbed topic than they that's uh the third bullet so I don't know how we're getting back with but this is a much bigger beast and I they already do have a state mandate under that for Emergency Management planning anyway um as we all know I wrote those
100plans as well but the fact is is that this is way more than just what they're saying and this could have been a very big box of Pandora's Box just based on what is happening currently in our school systems with some people that call me and tell me we have promiscuity problems so um I just want it now and that's a lot different and that that includes then revamping some education on STIs and STDs particularly in middle and high school um I don't oppose the work-based learning opportunities one and I think it's I don't either write it like this I just don't pronounce it correctly it is correct yeah I mean barriers to yeah maybe because we have it so nicely set up here that I don't understand where everybody else is coming from they
101just probably don't have is this so here's they probably don't push in for Community Partners yeah um or or even having some local control over bigger requirements that you may have to meet for students there's some there's something can I ask why they've deleted all together legislative position 11 yeah yeah love it [Music] so they're not opposing it then okay one more new number 11 because that new number 11 there the non-public school student that was just training in Virginia High School leads and activities yes that's gone and now they're they're proposing this other one so what they're not going back to address the um they're going to allow local control and determining participation in vhsl activities within the local division so they will no longer be using bsba resources to Advocate when aware um
102all right thank you okay yes none course student transportation and bus drivers love that that was a really good one and I don't have a lot of impact here um and I don't know the process I don't know if we want to look at it separately or just refer to governance and have them look at it for us but the total policy platform there are some things that I don't think mesh well with things we've already done and may not mesh well which direction you want to be in in the next session I certainly don't want anything in their policy which I haven't like totally get to read it multiple times I want to make sure that nothing in there contradicts like what we send to our delegates we actually publish something because we don't
103want to end up on a list that we didn't mean to be um I'm concerned just about that we don't make it so easy that we have people who really aren't qualified to be talking about it's also going to be necessary and also where like people wear the Jersey like I'm not sure that I want a high school student driving high school students to school on the bus in South Carolina well we used to do it here yeah it just it's just that we have a problem when teachers look young and have a hard time managing a classroom because the students aren't that much younger than they are I can't imagine high school students on a bus with a fellow high school student s unnecessary barriers because to me says red tape and bureaucracy right
104and then would allow us to determine what hiring standards we want they still have to meet all the requirements and I think that some of the the things that have been added to that for school bus transportation specifically relate to the number of hours that they have to drive without students versus the hour number of hours that they have to grab with students the number of hours that they have to spend in classroom and I hate to point out the obvious but the number of hours does not necessarily correlate with performance yeah versus a driver demonstrating capacity to do those things you could get a driver through a training program in a week versus getting an experienced driver through a training program a week versus somebody who's inexperienced no matter how many times they go
105through the training program this still won't pass as well because there's some unnecessary amount of carriers there that would open up a lot of opportunities for us driver's license so obviously this is the board's choice but from a process standpoint you have one meeting before um the bsba conference it may be a good idea for um board members to opine and give their opinions to the chair of the governance committee and the governance committee to uh to discuss this and then bring forward a recommendation based on um opinions shared by board members to the governance committee chair But ultimately you're going to have to you're going to bring this before you're next that it would be nice if they were working in conjunction well traditional I guess I'm confused about the delegate I mean traditionally
106the delegate is just the person that we always represent to go and go for us yeah I mean I don't know that the delegate I mean yeah but I mean there's there's never been any special right um requirements or extra work or right extra credit or anything like that go with it other than you know you get extra credit in most cases so yeah thanks you know it's it's a board you know we have people on the board that want to volunteer now um Melissa we have we meet Thursday under um you want to get the comments to um yes so if they wanted to make changes to this language like we just did with our you know our priorities um because that's something that's at least up for discussion or are they just an
107opt-out well they're pretty they're pretty much you have to notify them ahead of time if you want to make any changes to the language and then you have to be prepared to discuss it and then they'll vote on changes to the language we have three virtual meetings I'd say unless it's particular language I mean if it's if it's like um well yes Shao and Will are a big deal yeah well because of what they mean but anyway I I'd say if the meeting's gonna start to go after our next meeting then we'll just come down our next board meeting is two days before this evening yeah this is who I can recycle the public hearing and that's going to begin with the presentation of the national colors and pledge of allegiance to the flag of
108the United States of America I pledge allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you know we'd like to thank Stafford High School's Navy JROTC for being with us this evening the member of tonight's Color Guard our Cadet Emily Burnett Cadet Brandon Smith Cadet William Truitt and Cadet Junior boney and the instructors of the Stafford High School Navy JROTC program our Command Master Chief Louis Wilson retired and Petty chief officer Damian Wilson retired good evening Madam chair school board members Dr Taylor tonight I get the opportunity to present to you the draft proposals of the 23-24 and the 24-25 school calendars tonight I'm going to go over our feedback process talk about the advisory groups and the
109feedback recommendations highlight some of the changes and then show you Ashley the draft calendars for the 23 24 and the 24-25 school year we presented the calendar at the work session back in September and since then we've had six advisory meetings where we met with parents teachers students faith-based advisory committees business advisor and the community advisory committees we also had the opportunity to share with our principals our Pre-K 12. and again tonight I'd like to share with you some of those recommendations based on these groups folks groups that we worked with where we talked to them and gave them the draft one calendars and asked them to provide us feedback based on what they liked and what they'd like to see changed on the proposed calendars based of those recommendations it was clear that there
110was no consensus on most of the elements of the camp or the calendar however transition day was a big hit everybody liked the transition day to start off the day so our younger kids our kindergarteners sixth grade and our ninth graders could actually attend school before all the other students also our parents came across very clear stop changing schedules we need a consistent calendar many of the folks liked the post-labor day start however the overwhelmingly they wanted to have the first semester finished before the winter break in December so in order to do that we must start before Labor Day there were mixed reviews on uh finishing the end of the year but the majority of folks felt that we should finish before Memorial weekend then again staff is Stafford County public schools are becoming
111very diverse as our community is changing and several students parents faith-based in our community came out and asked that we looked at adding some more faith Traditions into our calendar we also had parents and students who talked about our graduation dates where they were conflicting with college graduations and then our teachers they really liked the fact that we had end of the quarter work days in order to prepare grades and get report cards completed staff also liked that we had a two-week winter break and would prefer that our parents in community made a great recommendation based on our calendar that we make it clear what our no student days and what are no student teacher days and reduce all the colors on the calendar so I think you'll see some changes to that so basically
112what you're going to see is that we have a calendar that we're proposing for both the next coming years that we will have a pre-labor day start we'll include the transition day the first semester will finish before the winter break we'll end school before the Memorial Day weekend we will have nine weeks off from the time students finish and teachers leave to the time teachers come back for the teacher work week we also provide consistency for families and Community planning with this calendar our winter break will be approximately anywhere between 14 to 16 days almost two weeks there our spring break we're consistent with having it the second week of March and then our teacher professional days are clearly distinguished between teacher work days where they can do what they need to do without being
113bothered by any other meetings and also having specific teacher professional days will provide professional learning we also have in our calendar this year we're adding Yom Kippur and also rash rosh hashan and we're also going to add Eid into our calendars and then again the changes regarding graduation we have moved graduation to the last week of school to occur on Thursday and Friday evenings with possible rain dates on Saturday or later should we be I also like to show that with comparison we had some questions about it seemed that we were starting earlier and earlier so what I did I put in a draft and again this was just draft for comparison the last column on your right shows the 2526 school year and so it shows you that we are going back starting a
114little later where this year we started August 1st in 25 26 we teachers would come back on August 4th so again I just put that in there to show some comparisons of the dates and that although we are starting a little earlier the next two cycles the third year out we'd be going back so if you take a look at the draft 2.0 calendar for the 20 23 2024 you're going to notice that we have included those items that we highlighted I will point out though that in September or in this calendar you will not see rosh hashan because that date falls on a Sunday you will also see that the week the second week in November where we had some concern with having a professional Day election day followed by another day off that
115week for Veterans Day we've corrected that to where we'll be off for election day and Veterans Day that week also if you look at the winter break there'll be two weeks 14 days for that break you'll notice that we have Easter on the 29th of March and the first of April Eid is on the 10th of April and then I hope you notice that we have probably doesn't come across the best year but on your copies you'll see the bright colors we do have we're using our staff County Public Schools themed colors and trying to be more clear in identifying which are no student days and which are no students and staff days and then graduation you'll see is on the last two days of school Thursday Friday at the 24-25 calendar you'll also notice
116that we have the same dates but this year you're going to notice that we do not have Yom Kippur because that falls on a Saturday but you will see that Rosh Hashanah is now on the calendar and again teacher work days teacher professional days are clearly marked under each calendar or each month you'll also see that we have added Eid in March for this year and again we have graduation which are the last day of school and the teacher work week that Thursday Friday so basically those are the 23 24 and 24 25 calendars that we're the superintendent is recommending that the board adopt these two calendars at the November school board meeting thank you any questions for Dr Nichols Ms Randall so am I to understand with the graduation that the graduation on Thursday
117and Friday that Monday following both of these calendars is Memorial Day is that correct that is correct okay thank you Sigma I just wondered if anybody had had done the math because I too have heard a lot of we want to come back after Labor Day but we want to end before June how long would the instructional day have to be if that was actually a possibility it was kind of like buying all those buses all at once right you would have to subtract 19 days we have 19 days in the month of August and if we would still finish by the 2022nd of December we'd be 19 days shorter for that first semester oh so is that the first semester that's the issue no I agree it's not possible but I wanted to really
118just put the math out there that we would have to make it up by having you know a 14-hour school day it's not 14 but like whatever that looks like like you can't just take days away without making it up somewhere and that also eats into yeah absolutely there's a give and take right if you take something away you have to add right and that would be equally um argued but it's about an hour and a half per day that would have to be so we'd have to go from six and a half to an eight hour school day to to be within those parameters and that's yeah so that's significant considering you know more precisely it's about an hour and 20 minutes but just in the first semester which is awesome so so we
119would change all the times for the second semester oh yeah oh yeah um I have a question yeah can we go to Dr Chase first and then miss Halsted yeah so um is there I'm just curious is the reason we couldn't start August 10th and 11th as transition days and not start winter break until the 23rd and then have it go through the fourth and the fifth in order to give some families that second week of August for for uh for continued summer break right I mean there are people who would really appreciate having that extra week to be able to to do stuff absolutely you could look at that but again when we looked at the calendar or when we heard from our teachers one of the things they really requested that they had
120those 14 to 16 days off for two weeks total and I know you'd adjust that a little bit on the other end in January that's an option for the board to consider um I I think it's important and you think I think you've figured out the the first big bottleneck in this calendar which is um making sure that there's somewhat of a balance between first and second semester so if you're going to take days away from the first semester you have to find them somewhere else and I think you've identified that as a bottleneck so that theoretically you could move a couple of days from one end to the other end yes and right now that that calendar specifically is balanced at 8 88 days a piece okay Miss Halstead notoriously High absent days of
121kids and students because of a holiday right before um that while Thanksgiving is one of them that comes to mind Halloween is another one Super Bowl Sunday um so well going to school on Halloween might be different for the kids than it is for the parents but um so I was just curious if we had um so my first question is curious if we had any options for stuff like that where we have these very high absentee rates because parents can't get up or kids Dr Warner can I hold that until Miss Hall said finishes so that's question one and then the other question is I know on this calendar we have like three days off in one week in November that's not the Thanksgiving week I don't see that in the next two years
122but to the extent that just for child care purposes and everything else I've got some emails that have asked me to make sure that we're cognizant of that as well so yeah we we addressed the uh 23 24 school year by going to school on Monday we're off for election day on Tuesday right then the end of the week you have Veterans Day right and the following year we have we do have a three-day week because we did add in a professional day which we thought was important and then the election day but then Veterans Day moves to the Monday the following week and then all good yeah absolutely um you bring up a great point and I guess that becomes part of what our trade-offs are um we talk about hanging weeks two days
123during a week is a hanging week and that does create sometimes you have families that will take off for the whole week of Thanksgiving um yes Dr Taylor has stated uh Super Bowl Monday is a day that you know I'm sure a lot of people would like to take off I know um but again trying to find that balance to try to meet within the parameters to finish before the Memorial Day weekend and trying to get the total number of hours that we need again thinking in there also that we may have some inclement weather well I'm hoping um so no I appreciate that and I also just you know for the purposes looking at this we don't have too many of the days but it is hard for parents who are full-time working parents
124to have these like I'm taking Tuesday off from work if you can't balance or juggle that specifically if you're a single parent you don't have the ability we have a lot of military families don't have family here to to watch the kids for them so they can go to work and do that so I just want us all to be cognizant of that too I know you all are but just as a reminder that trying to find child care for multiple days often a week that aren't consecutive is super hard so I appreciate here that we we do have to on we honor our federal holidays particularly our Veterans Day of course an election day but just some consideration for the parents that might be struggling with having to take that much time off from
125work absolutely cool thank you Dr Warner no I always get in trouble for school for talking when I wasn't supposed to well now I it's not personal it's just when we're trying to have one person speak it's distracting and sometimes it's you know gets picked up and it's just better if we just have one person talk at a time but I say you can write notes so that works too Miss Sigmund um my question was kind of piggybacking off what she said as far as high absentee dates and I've been to several of these conversations but I think that's one of the reasons why we have the 20 we start Christmas break on the 21st and 22nd is because it does look nice and neat to be out of school or to be in school
126the 21st and 22nd and then to give them back um you know make them up in January but then we have parents pulling their kids out and faculty and staff leaving and then you know how do we handle that so I mean I think that's what part of how we decided on those dates though okay any other be nice about any other comments this guy the only thing I wanted us to address was the same thing that I got in my emails about an educator asking if there's any way possible to have the entire Thanksgiving week off but I do think it's a give and take we'll we'll you know um I I don't I don't see how we could take something away so the only alternative would be to start earlier which I know
127I mean I'm not suggesting it but you either we can make that change if you'd like well I wanted to mentioned it so they knew that we we at least did consider it and that's something that we had already thought about but we can't you know we can't possibly again that's the trade-offs well that's the purpose of you know have this presentation have this discussion we have a public hearing this evening we're not going to be voting on this until our November meeting um and I I know we want to get it through but if there's still a lot of questions or work being done on trying to accommodate some of these if if the board wants it could be put off till December and I'm sure that's not ideal but I mean it is
128next year so I I'd be more willing to put that off than some of these other things that we have to take immediate action on so if there's no other questions for Dr Nichols we will open the public hearing um the public hearing we allow three minutes for each speaker or group speaker shall identify themselves by name and organizational affiliation if this person represents an organization speakers should limit their comments to the subject of the 2023 and 2024 and 2024 to 2025 school calendars that's because this is a public hearing on the calendars when we finish this hearing we'll go back to our regular meeting at which time we have our general citizen comment so this is strictly on these two proposed calendars citizen comment which is propane abusive or which threatens imminent physical harm
129shall be ruled out of order by the chairperson now we have our our practice our policy in our General meetings that you have to sign up ahead of time we did not write anything in that policy about the public hearings signing up ahead of time so for that reason the public comment here we will begin with the people that signed up but if there are other people who are here who wish to address the board on the calendars you will be able to come forward and address the board Miss Hall can you read the names of the persons who signed up in advance we have two people Megan gray followed by Michelle Wickman are either of those people here oh I see Miss Wickman what what was that first name missile Megan gray is Miss
130gray here no well Ms wigman we'll start with you good evening members of the board Dr Taylor my name is Michelle Wickman I live in Hampton Oaks I've got two kids in Stafford schools and I teach at North Stafford High School I'm speaking this evening as Stafford Education Association secretary on behalf of some common member concerns we would like to see addressed regarding on the calendar first we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to provide input we've encouraged our members to reach out and share their feedback as well but these are some consistent issues that we've been asked to address so the first thing would be inclusivity which I saw that you've already made some changes in this direction we appreciate that our School Division consists of students and staff with a wide variety
131of religious affiliations we ask that you keep this diversity in mind when developing the school calendar because planning division-wide holidays that consistently favor one religion over another does not align with the board's commitment to keep an equitable safe and inclusive environment for staff and students so right now we've still got a four day weekend over Easter but I'm only saying you know we've got one day for Rosh Hashanah one for the other days maybe we can spread the wealth a little bit there make it a little more equitable work hours would be the second thing so since teacher work days and professional days are designated it would be fabulous if you could also determine work hours at each level for those days and incorporate them into the employee work calendar we heard from many Educators
132who had to jump through some hoops recently to rearrange their schedules or cancel appointments due to the hours for a parent-teacher conference day being altered with less than a month's notice the practice of setting work hours for these days well in advance will allow Educators to plan for what is expected of them and it will ensure consistency between buildings at every level we also would like you to consider employees with young children when planning for teacher work days professional days and considering those work hours I just mentioned please keep in mind our staff especially with young children indigenous people day and I'm sorry indigenous people's day is a good example since this is a Federal holiday many day cares were closed but Educators in Stafford traditionally are at work that day please consider offering maybe
133division sponsored child care or ensure alternate accommodations can be made for those Educators who don't have a child care option since not all staff have Partners assisting them or access to alternate child care as some do just like Miss Halstead was mentioning about our parents who have that same issue we need to think of Equitable Solutions here so offering an accommodation on the conference days for those Educators would be helpful also if you could work something so that Educators who also have children in Stafford County schools are able to attend conferences for their own children that would be much appreciated thank you again for the opportunity to provide input on this we look forward to seeing the proposed calendars once you've gathered feedback from all stakeholders all right is there anyone in the um the
134room who would like to address the calendars Miss Brown if there's anyone else if you could just line up on the side then we can just have you come right down thank you I'm Dana Brown I'm from The Rock Hill district and tonight I am here to ask you to please please stop trying to Snuff the joy out of our children's childhood and that starts with fixing the school calendar let's be clear this is a calendar for staff not for parents not for kids I think that you're stealing the summer and you're stealing the spring break staff has them starting in the hottest part of Summer and the spring break occurs during meteorological winter that's really great Beach weather and I'd like to know why you are only presented with one calendar choice for the
135next two years you only received a pre-labor day calendar with no other options who thought it was a good idea to endanger the staff for kids like that staff would like the kids to start August 8th next year and August 6th the year after that again when it's super hot do you or staff need to be reminded that the staff convocation was August 5th this year one day before your proposing school to start you had staff and teachers wailing that it was wrong of you to force them on extremely hot school buses and make them go outside to attend convocation I think every news Outlet in the DC area ran the story that it was dangerously hot here EMS treated staff at the scene due to heat sickness and some were taken to the hospital
136staff was so traumatized they even demanded extra money from taxpayers to compensate them for the Heat and Trauma they endured you know pain and suffering if it's too hot for the staff to be outside and too hot for the staff to be on school buses then it's probably too hot for our kids I don't know what's so hard to figure out about that oddly the same aggrieved employees gave you the new August 6th start date for kids that's pretty hypocritical I remember a few years back staff said oh we need to start school early so we can match all the surrounding counties like Prince William for first day of school and spring break for the convenience of our teachers and child care well that didn't happen that was fake fake fake fake and those surveys
137also mostly fake and I say this as a former member of the calendar committee for several years I don't know I've been around long enough to remember the former Garrisonville School Board member caught staff stuffing ballot boxes it's in your minutes please fix this do the right thing for the kids you represent the parents and the voters not the staff unless they happen to be residents here the superintendent represents staff and it's possible do the calendar like that we've done it for at least 22 years and I noticed you added a bunch of new religious holidays yet we're still calling Christmas winter break so maybe we need to fix that thank you is there anyone else who'd like to address the board seen no more close to public hearing and this is slated to come
138back in November which is our next meeting for a vote so if anyone has any comments please feel free to send them an email to the school boards on the website is that the correct address miss all and and that will get to all the school board members all right that brings us to our meeting agenda too much paper here oh you took my meeting agent oh thank you I guess we will call to order once again we don't need an authorization to participate electronically on Ms Hall will you do the roll call please yes ma'am Dr Chase president this guy here miss Halstead here miss Healey here Miss Randall here Mr Sigmund here and Dr Warner here and I'm sure you have a quorum okay do we have a motion for approval of the
139agenda Dr Chase yes um Madam chair I would like to uh move to approve the agenda with two amendments the first to um we were sent two sets of minutes yesterday morning and I have not had an opportunity to look at them so I would like those to be removed and and return to the agenda next month and then I would like item 3.06 move from consent to um action okay um would you mind giving us the specifics for those agendas so it's clear yeah let me find them hold on a second uh so under consent yeah it's a 3.01 and I believe it's Miss Hall will have to be I believe it's September 27th and October 4th yeah and then uh 3.06 for Action approval of the award of contract for water fountain testing
140all right do we have a second uh motion by Dr Chase second by Miss Sigmund any discussion all in favor of the motion for the revised agenda please say oh I'm sorry cast your vote tally the vote motion carries unanimously all right that brings us to the consent items do we have a motion for approval of the revised consent motion to approve the biased consent agenda okay there's a motion my doctor second by Miss Halstead I thought I heard you miss guy I was telling I was encouraging oh that's supportive thank you Miss Halston and Miss guy all right um no discussion cast your votes tally the vote motion carries unanimously it brings us to presentations all the favorite time of year 4.01 2022 band together to Fight Hunger fundraising event or should we say
141this is also a food raising event welcome good evening chair Healey Vice chair Randall members of the board and Dr Taylor my name is Debbie Pickerel and I am the coordinator of this year's band together to Fight Hunger on behalf of our five high school band parent associations I am very proud to introduce you to the drum majors of our five high school bands for the 12th annual band together to Fight Hunger our band leaders are banned leadership includes Emma board drum major at Brook Point High School Nicole Simpson and Ivana de Leon Cassis drum majors at Colonial Forge High School Sydney Shore drum major at Mountain View High School Josh Novak drum major at North Stafford High School Claire Clara Jacob and Lydia zambon drum majors at Stafford High School these outstanding musicians have
142a very special message for you and our community we are here tonight to cordially invite each each of you to join us on Tuesday November 1st at 7 pm for the 12th anniversary of band together to Fight Hunger if it should rain this event will be held on Monday November 7th gates open at 5 30 PM so you have plenty of time to drop off your donations and enjoy dinner while you wait for the performances to begin at seven we hope you are all planning to attend and join us um uh band together to Fight Hunger is an exciting Showcase of talented musicians from our five high schools this is the early event during the year and we're in less than two hours you have the opportunity to hear and see all five high school
143marching bands in concert and give back to our community at the same time our event supports a Fredericksburg Regional food bank which Services the counties our fellow students faculty and support staffers item Stafford Spotsylvania Caroline King George Locust Grove and the City of Fredericksburg none non-perishable food donations and monetary donations are gladly accepted monetary donations can be made by mailing a check to band together at Mountain View High School or through our online donation page you can find a link from the band together social media pages in the last 11 years we've provided over 300 000 meals this year our goal is to provide over 45 000 meals for citizens in our area our Fredericksburg Regional food bank is the storehouse for the food and other products collected these items are then distributed to our
144local food pantries and other programs in our communities they are seeing more of our neighbors than ever parents who have lost work or had a reduction in hours their children going to bed on an empty stomach and retired seniors unable to afford groceries but we can help if we as a community band together to Fight Hunger last quarter alone the food bank distributed 1 million 642 687 pounds of food which served over close to 20 000 of our neighbors by collaborating with the food bank we can reach more people in need through the through their many Partnerships and business connections it's incredible that we are able to touch the lives of so many adults and children and all these surrounding counties by giving back for just one night after our on-field presentation to the Fredericksburg
145Regional Food Bank attendees will be treated to the grand finale where all of our Bands Will band together to Fight Hunger 400 plus High School band students on the field playing together is pretty amazing this year we are also excited to honor our military families and students as November is military family month with a newly commissioned work that was written especially for our School Division in our event it is an arrangement of all the military service songs and is the first to include the sixth service space force we will have invited military musicians in the community to celebrate with us as well as scps graduates who are currently serving in our military music ensembles it's also one of the highlights of our season the need in our community is real we hope you will join
146us in this campaign to fight food insecurity in our community with your monetary or non-perishable food donation thank you for your time this evening and your continued commitment to our band programs we look forward to seeing you on Tuesday November 1st at 7 pm at Mountain View High School thank you and then if anyone has not been to this event I strongly urge you to go oh I'm sorry I thought you were done I just have one more thing um I would like to invite you guys to North Stafford's 40th annual Invitational that's happening this Saturday from five to nine if you would like to come is that outside or inside outside okay thank you oh the turf field Stadium right all right all right back to my editorial this is I was in graduation
147I think my favorite event of the year it is absolutely amazing if you haven't gone please try to go encourage your friends and neighbors they don't have to have kids in school to come I mean if you bring food that's even better but it's not a requirement and and this military thing sounds so exciting wow it's another another first for for Stafford County so I know Dr um Dr Taylor's got that on his calendar right the whole family is coming when he when he came on board last December I said wait till next November be great all right that brings us to the postgraduate programs showcase all right good evening Madam chair School Board Dr Taylor we have an awesome treat for you this evening where we would like to take some time to showcase
148our post-grad program we have a former intern as well as his mom is here this evening that is going to share their experience with the post-grad program here in Stafford County and please keep in mind that the post-grad program is one piece to transition planning for our students with disabilities but it is a big piece because it's a time where we provide our students with real life application of their skills to be contributing members of society so with that being said I want to hand it off to my assistant director Annie Villanueva and our transition coordinator Bethany Ventura thank you Dr Hammer good evening school board members Madam chair Dr Taylor transition is such an important part of our students lives even our youngest learners um oh I'm sorry I'm so nervous up here but
149I told myself just talk about it you talk about transition all the time our transition focuses on education employment individual independent living and transition our students and our schools are encouraged to go on community-based instruction trips so that our students with disabilities get real life experiences within our community partnering with our parent teacher Resource Center we host events that showcase our postgraduate programs and connect our families with outside resources Stafford County currently has three postgraduate programs they are housed at Stafford High School Brook Point High School and Colonial Forge our instructor from Stafford High School Kate Diedrich is here with us tonight the goal of this program is to help our students gain daily living and workplace Readiness skills that are necessary for them After High School these students benefit a significant amount of time
150in the Community Learning on the job recently we've been able to partner with departments within Stafford County Schools like our preschools ADM our technology department and nutrition services to have our students learn while they're here with us this month our students will even go to Dr Taylor's office and to other offices within this building to Shadow our administrative assistance to learn some clerical skills these Partnerships have actually led to some of our students being hired directly by Stafford County Schools another program that we are really proud of is our project search program our instructor Heather pribble she's here with us too project search is a nationwide program that helps students with disabilities transition into competitive employment our program is a partnership between the Department of Aging and rehabilitative services RSVP the Virginia Department of Education
151and Mary Washington Healthcare our interns go to Mary Washington Healthcare every single day and they rotate between three internships throughout the year within the hospital some of our students have been hired by Mary Washington and then they've come back and been the mentors for our current intern so it's really great to see it kind of come full circle other students have been hired within the community and some again here with Stafford County Schools most of our interns have gained competitive employment by the time that they have finished their third rotation with Mary Washington have the ease part of this entire presentation because it is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you all a former project search intern Joel zaraski and his mother Amy and they're going to come up and share a few words about
152their experience with the program okay hello my name is Jill zaraski thank you for allowing me to talk with you I can talk but it can be hard to understand so this program helps me I work at volacelli Pizza I prep marinara cups and pizza boxes two days a week I graduated from Stafford High School in 2019. I attended the project search program at Mary Washington Hospital in the 2020-2021 school year are some areas where I interned the medical imaging department volunteer services the gift shop for the Emergency Department the cafeteria and Engineering Services I learned so many skills I learned to follow my mentor's directions I also learned life skills like basic math and reading how to take my work seriously and how to be part of a team the scps project search team
153also worked with me on interviewing skills I loved work the job coach worked with us at project search helped me get my iPad program for my interview for volcelli and guess what I got the job I have been working there since July 2021. is there anything you would like to know about I love project search I felt like I was like everyone else going to their job everyone expected a lot of me and I surprised myself with what I learned now I can make money and buy things myself just like all of you is there anything you would like to know about my time with project search why it's okay does anyone have any questions Miss Sigman I was just curious which assignment in Mary Washington you like best out of all of them what's
154your favorite what's your favorite Daniel what department uh okay engineering his name is okay all right thank you I have a question but what pizza do you recommend obviously Daniel Mighty oh he's he's full time first paycheck oh yeah and me my hair will oh yeah yeah a fourth day over yeah yeah congratulations thanks guys okay all right he's gonna take the show thank you so thank you all very much one last plug that I wanted to to give is we are hosting an undetermined event on March 4th at Mountain View High School please mark your calendars we are going to be sending out a save the date to the community for our families and students and it is going to be Pre-K to 12 inclusive and we're very very excited about this event if
155you don't know about I'm determined please go and research it it is a video rerun program that actually provides students with the supports they need to essentially run their own IEP meeting and run the goals of what they want to do in their lives in their career so we're really excited about it March 4th Mountain View High School let me know if you have any questions and thank you all very much for your time I really appreciate it thank you Dr Hammer thank you all right that brings us to the presentation of the bullying month I'm sorry no the first recognition of the Bryant family for their life-saving CPR efforts Miss Osborne good evening school board members and Dr Taylor this evening we will recognize students staff and community members that epitomize our values of
156students Integrity respect Community opportunity and excellence tonight we recognize students Angelia Bryant Naomi Lee Coleman Nani Perez Kaylee yukika Amelia Nix and John hatsis as well as our very own director of programming Mr Lionel White at this time while Angelia Naomi Lee and Nani please come forward the school system is deeply inspired by the quick thinking of three students who use training they received in school to help save a life and what has been described as a joint effort Colonial Forge Junior Angelia Bryant alongside her nieces ayomi Lee Coleman and Nani Perez of Winding Creek Elementary School worked together to save the life of a loved one experiencing a frightening medical emergency on separate on September 13th aomi Lee and Nani observed their grandmother Charles E in distress and in need of immediate attention both
157girls reacted quickly and rushed to alert angelia's father Keenan who then alerted Angelia remaining calm and coaching her father to assist Angelia began performing the CPR techniques she learned last year in her health and PE class at Colonial Forge to administer Aid to her grandmother until paramedics arrived in addition to being honored by the school division angeliaomi Lee and Nani are all being recognized by the American Heart Association Angelia is also joining the organization as an ambassador and has been nominated for the Lifesavers award joining me to present this honor is Miss Marjorie Church born of the American Heart Association thank you so much thank you for having me with you yes my name is Marjorie churchborn I'm the proud heart partner to Stafford County Schools it is my great honor to present Miss Angelia
158Bryant with our American Heart Association heart Savers award for your heroic effort in helping to save your grandma thank you foreign also really quickly I just have to say I had the great honor of meeting with Dr Taylor over the summer he is a wonderful Advocate and supporter of our mission of American Heart Association he himself chose our challenge this year to be kind to his heart and others he invited me to his principal's meeting and another Stafford County First every principal there took the challenge as well so it looks like we're going to be able to bring the program to every school in Stafford and we're going to be able to create create a community of Lifesavers here thank you for your leadership you are receiving our heart of gold superintendent award doctor thank
159you yes I'd also like to point out that grandma is here tonight [Applause] can you get okay [Laughter] thank you for being so brave thank you so much right here everybody it's just I know we're very proud of all three heroines and Mr Bryant for having the confidence to trust their instincts and the presence of mind to help in a time of need thank you ladies congratulations [Applause] thank you at this time we'll read the proclamation to declare October 2022 as bullying prevention month here to accept the proclamation is Olga Escobar project manager at Stafford Junction a proclamation to recognize October 2022 as bullying prevention month whereas school bullying has become an increasingly significant and prevalent problem throughout the Commonwealth and the nation and whereas it is estimated that more than 20 percent of America's
160youth are involved in bullying each year either as a victim or as an aggressor and his words bullying can assume many forms including verbal physical emotional and cyber and can happen both on and off school grounds and whereas it is important for all Stafford County parents students teachers and school administrators to be aware of and address bullying and to encourage discussion of the problem as a school community and whereas leadership must clearly communicate that unsafe or harmful behavior is clearly unacceptable and that the code of conduct will be upheld and whereas everyone in a position of leadership is responsible for modeling consistent respectful behavior and for intervening to address unsafe Behavior and whereas any person who feels threatened upset or endangered by someone's Behavior or perceives this happening to someone else has both the right
161and responsibility to speak up now therefore be it proclaimed that the school board of Stafford County hereby designates October 2022 as bullying prevention month throughout the School Division and encourages all schools and community members to join in this recognition adopted by the school board of Stafford County on this 11th day of October 2022. [Applause] October is National bullying prevention month and Stafford schools is pleased to announce the winners of our very first anti-bullying campaign the campaign took place in mid-september and was open to the entire School Division at this time will Kaylee Amelia and John please come forward Stephanie can we go participants were given the prompt how does Stafford schools create a world without bullying in response to this question elementary students were invited to design a poster middle school students were invited to
162create a video and high school participants were invited to write an essay at this time we would like to announce the elementary middle and high school winners Kaylee yukica third grader at Conway Elementary School will be presented a 50 check from the Stafford Education Foundation [Applause] Amelia Nix eighth grader at T Benton Gale Middle School will receive a hundred dollars for her video submission and John hatsis a senior at Mountain View High School will received 250 dollars for his essay foreign schools appreciates all students who participate in this campaign we received many great entries from our talented students thank you for your commitment to a safe inclusive learning environment for all [Applause] right pink yep and we want to thank Miss Stephanie Johnson and the Stafford Education Foundation for providing awards for this competition thank
163you [Music] [Laughter] at this time we will recognize Mr Lionel white directors of facility planning and geographic information systems thank you Mr White's accuracy in projecting the Stafford County Public Schools Enrollment for 2022-2023 school year student enrollment is the foundation of school planning school districts relying on enrollment projections to anticipate future needs and plan accordingly enrollment projections are crucial for Staffing budgeting and classroom allocations Additionally the projections are imperative for the preparation of the construction Improvement plan the school board submits annually to the County Board of Supervisors Mr White projected a new moment of thirty thousand six hundred and fifteen students on September 30th enrollment was thirty thousand six hundred and twenty two students a difference of only seven students or point zero two percent [Applause] accuracy or two percent error for a one-year system-wide
164projection Stafford was 99.98 accurate a standard used by many planners is that at least 80 percent four out of five individual schools are 95 accurate or better Stafford achieved 90 27 out of 30 schools which is 10 percent higher than the goal last year's one-year projections exceeded the industry standard for system-wide accuracy and standard for individual School accuracy Mr White's insights reliability and knowledge have proven time and again to be keen and he is acutely attuned to the growth in Stafford County please join me in extending thank you and appreciation to Mr White for a job well done foreign s yeah that brings us to Citizen comments three minutes are allotted to each speaker or group speakers are encouraged to provide a copy of the comments to the board clerk speakers shall identify themselves by
165name and organizational affiliation if the spokesperson represents an organization speakers shall also announce the purpose or topic of their comments citizen comment which is profane abusive or which threatens imminent physical harm shall be ruled out of order by the chairperson although the board provides the opportunity for citizen comment individuals Desiring to register complaints against division employees or division programs services or activities may also utilize the procedures outlined in Stafford County Public Schools policy 1113 public complaints Miss Hall can you confirm the number of people that have signed up yes ma'am it's 15 15 all right there's 15 people that have signed up I'm going to ask Miss Hall to um call the first four and then call each four after that we'll end up with three but if you couldn't line up because we do
166have a number of citizens commenting I'd like to keep it keep it moving forward so if you call the first four yes ma'am we appreciate it Sean van levender Bryce Baxter Bridget Ferrell kuzma and Lucia Jimenez you can pull the microphone down so you don't it's ever comfortable my name is Lucia Jimenez I live in the district Falmouth I'm an 8th grader at Dixon Smith Middle School I'm here to support the custodial workers in our schools they need to be treated fairly and with dignity everyone needs to earn a living wage cleaners make our surroundings beautiful and make us safe from diseases cleaners should be respected and valued they should be part of the family my mom is a cleaner thank you all right who is the second person no third move on yes okay
167next is Sarah Taylor Catherine facemeyer Stephanie Hughes and Ezra Jackson yeah okay good Farrell kuzma I'm here tonight as an exasperated and enraged parent expressing an imminent safety danger I live in the Eastern View neighborhood directly across Garrisonville Road from North Stafford High School my concerns are all related to the safety of children all students at North Stafford High School I have four children this is our sixth year having children who walk to the high school every year I have expressed safety concerns about the ongoing daily pedestrian safety and traffic situations I am frustrated with the ongoing lack of solutions or answers I have received from various organizations about these children's safety two weeks ago I conducted my own traffic observations in the morning I sat close to the intersection of Joy Street and Garrisonville
168Road Monday through Friday from 6 55 a.m to 7 35 a.m to provide you data of what occurs on average during that morning time frame each day more than 17 Vehicles make a right turn out of the high school campus with children in the crosswalk these children are walking in the crosswalk with the crosswalk light when cars turn in front of them the pedestrians obviously have the legal right-of-way the drivers have signs reminding them of laws which state to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk yielding to pedestrians does not mean stopping just before you hit them I cannot begin to express the emotions I experience when I see a car almost hit a high schooler walking in the crosswalk I have directly contacted Stafford schools transportations when I have witnessed school buses turned into and
169through the crosswalk with pedestrians present this school year I reported such occurrences directly witnessed by me or experienced by one of my children as a pedestrian on August 10 August 23rd September 19th and October 5th that is four times in nine weeks and those are only the occurrences of which I'm aware in 2018 when similar situations occurred and I reached out to Stafford Schools transportation the then director of Transportation made the decision to alter the exit route for All Buses at North Stafford High School during arrival and dismissal time for students that change was obviously not permanent and here we are with vehicles to include school buses endangering pedestrians in the crosswalk now the sticking point with the Sheriff's Office and Stafford Schools transportation seems to be the location of the pedestrians in the crosswalk
170and even specifically on which side of the media the pedestrians are to be clear there are pedestrians in the crosswalk and they have the right-of-way I have heard from both the Sheriff's Office and Stafford Schools transportation about what is reasonable and a reasonable solution that fits all needs how have we gone from watching out for pedestrians and protecting them to discussing their precise location on the crosswalk and doing what is reasonable for our for all parties what is reasonable is whatever it takes for a pedestrian to not be injured and for vehicles to follow established traffic laws I have been told that communication has been sent to All bus drivers reminding them of existing laws and to watch for pedestrians given I've witnessed repeated I have witnessed this repeatedly during this school year including after
171said communication has been sent this communication to drivers is ineffective and there are still pedestrians in danger every day two of them are mine I have shared data that shows the risk to students I implore you to join me in a call to action to protect our children a call to action for safety is the only reasonable answer thank you hi my name is Sarah Taylor from Falmouth District my comment is about the unofficial policy that requires gender expansive students to have a gender support plan or GSP in place before staff may honor their name and pronoun requests this is my 21st year as a teacher in my 12th at North Stafford I actually graduated from North in 95 so I've been in Stafford schools for an accumulated 20 years in those two decades I've
172seen little evidence to support the idea that anyone involved in scps has the intention to harm any of our students however as every parent and educator knows good intentions do not prevent us from doing harm and that's how I see this unofficial policy harmful despite good intentions it's harmful to the gender expansive students regardless of whether or not they have support at home because it others them it sends the message that they are so unusual so different so dangerous to themselves and others that their teachers need to report them to their counselors and they need to negotiate a contract just to be called by the name they choose gender normative students don't need to go through this process to be called by their nicknames this is a rule only for one group of students the
173gender expansive students I'm sure you already know what it's called when one group is targeted for prejudicial treatment and that would put this unofficial policy and direct violation of federal law state law and our own adopted non-discrimination policy furthermore it forces teachers to participate as accomplices in the discrimination against gender expansive students in other words this rule forces us to bully our students and that's just not something a lot of us are willing to do and I truly believe it's not what you intend given that this is bullying prevention month you've all been great about reaching out to the teachers to ask us how the board and admin can help us do our jobs and help us stay in Stafford this rule will push even more teachers out of this County and into the counties
174where the school boards have already taken the step of announcing that they reject the governor's anti-trans model policy with which Stafford's unofficial policy has some unfortunate commonalities I'm not pretending that you have an easy job when it comes to this issue I can see where you will be in a position to be sued either way teachers are very familiar with being in no one situations so the advice I give you is based on many years of experience when we're stuck between a rock and a hard place choose what's best for the students all of the students always so please members of the board and Dr Taylor please reevaluate this unofficial policy thank you can you call the names following this speaker please yes Stephanie I think I called Miss Hughes um Esther Jackson Brenda Edwards
175Rowan kuzma Bo belletti Bellotti and Clifford heinzer good evening members of the board Dr Taylor um the first thing I want to say is I agree we should be we should be protecting all students and that means all students not just the ones who um like to identify with a certain group of people so I'm here tonight to talk about the dangers of transgenderism in our schools we've been talking about the dangers of putting an agenda before an education we talk about negatively affecting our students by confusing them with harmful indoctrination techniques if you don't believe this is harmful and indeed indoctrination here are a couple examples if you do not agree with every talking point you're transphobic if you do not wish to change in the same bathroom or locker room as somewhere the
176opposite sex you were a bigot if you're uncomfortable with men with all the anatomy that goes along with the title walking into a woman's locker room you're Brewing stigma and you are the problem in society we're no longer talking about how to help transgender students we're talking about how to give them everything they want at the expense of the 98 of students who do not conform with the um with this new group when when I'm required to change in the same room as as a girl because they identify as a man that makes me feel uncomfortable I can't imagine how a girl feels changing in the same room with as someone with a penis like that's awful many people may not know this but many doors of Colonial Forge are labeled with one of these
177it has a website on it and um those in that website encourages students to join gender and sexuality alliances and encourages them to work with pride festivals which often promote Kink and sexual sexual experimentation this website recommends teachers to ask students when they come out to them if it's a secret they're keeping from their parents we have this up in our schools um does that make you uncomfortable because as a student I'm uncomfortable and that's what we're encouraging every time I walk into a classroom my religious beliefs are being pressured if a Christian symbol were to be put up in a classroom that teacher would be violating laws regarding what teachers can say during display teacher puts symbols up that are clearly pushing a political agenda a political agenda under the guise of inclusivity it
178seemed it's seen as normal and encouraged it terrifies me that schools can still willingly push this I went to a gender and sexuality education Club at my school recently or the sage Club the guest speaker encouraged students to explore their sexuality and gender at school because schools are supposed to be safe places well I disagree schools should be places of learning where students can go to seek truth and learn about the complexities of science math history and English rather than the complexities of sexuality I will list a couple signs that are associated with groomers encouraging students to come to them with issues that do not pertain to the subject taught desensitizing communication regarding sexual topics targeting a student's particular vulnerabilities you're going to face this description a teacher who's no longer teaching at Colonial Forge
179we'll just say that a man who let his students know that they could come and talk to him about anything that they're questioning a man who had a BDSM relationship with a 12 year old girl on the internet so um I'm running low on time so I just want to remind you guys to protect our parents defend our bathrooms and keep the parents involved thank you foreign next speaker can come on down please hey thank you very much first of all I just want to say that I sincerely appreciate that this board in particular is a place where you all listen we sincerely appreciate that and there are Level heads and you consider everything to be said we don't always have to agree with it and that's okay but I appreciate that that is a
180wonderful thing um so I'm Brenda Edwards I teach art at Stafford High School and I am here to discuss junkins transgender youth policy specifically not the policy that was passed by Stafford County I am asking that the board please consider rejecting this as many other Counties have in the state of Virginia already for various reasons but most specifically because as teachers we are your front lines and we need to be able to show the respect and the support to our students that you expect us to show to them on a daily basis every single student every single day so when kids walk into my class on day one I tell them the number one rule in here and the most important rule that I really need you to remember is respect I need you to
181show respect for everybody in here I don't care what they look like I don't care how they dress I don't care how they talk and I don't care what their belief system is you don't have to agree with them you just have to show respect for who they are as a person this is what I am asking you to allow us the ability to do so I understand that there's a big rush and a big push in One Direction or another but we are simply asking you to slow down and please consider what this would actually do in the county and specifically what this would do in a classroom when I need to look at a child and I need to say I am sorry that's not something that we're allowed to talk about here
182and the reason that that is an issue is because if we are sending a trans student to counseling you are immediately implying that there is a mental issue there specifically because they're trans and if we are saying that a student that is trans cannot go by their nickname because it is associated with being trans however Bobby can go by Bubba because that has nothing to do with being trans that is an issue at that point in time we are targeting a group of students and that is something we do need to consider so I know that you are all intelligent wonderful people and I know that you simply want the best for what our students have in this school system you try every day to provide them with that and I'm simply asking that you
183please consider this because if we can't provide them with a safe space we've provided them with nothing so please for the sake of being kind and respectful to our students please reject that policy thank you foreign what an incredibly hard act to follow um that was be eloquently put um but as some of you may know today is National Coming Out day it is also lgbtq History Month there's also bullying prevention month so what a better day for me to make my return to this board I actually the first time I addressed this board was in 2017 as a high schooler I graduated from Colonial Forge in 2018. I had a student threaten my life because I was trans and then I bring a knife to school the next day and after that I decided
184that queer and trans youth like me deserved better and I decided to do my political and civic duty and come to these school board meetings and I did so for a school year as a full school year and a half until I graduated and even after I entered College to come back when you all have voted on the anti-discrimination policy so I'm incredibly dedicated to this and I just want to to share my thoughts as a previous student and as someone who works in legislation now we know through numerous studies and surveys that supporting trans youth improves their academic and mental health outcomes I know this to be true because I lived it I had teachers that were both supportive and unsupportive I've had teachers use my name and pronouns and being my true self
185in their classrooms allowed me to focus on my learning I had 21 absences my senior year and a lot of that had to do with this bullying that I experienced and through studies we actually know that this is not uncommon for Trans youth it impacts their entire life trajectory of whether it's a lower GPA and therefore not getting into college and eventually leading to other outcomes such as like our risk of our heightened risk of living below the poverty line and you all have like a very special Duty and responsibility to make sure that these students are on the best possible life trajectory as you do with each student right so I'm just asking that you oppose these policies and that you provide teachers with real Clarity and transparency around exactly what you're asking them
186to do because they deserve that so that way they can speak and honor trans students um yeah so um trying to think if there's anything else I had to say I also just very quickly I know it's it's rude and improper to address previous speakers so I'm not doing that but um trans experiences have actually existed as far as we know as long as written language whether we're talking about the ancient Greece pre-colonial indigenous people the transgenderism which isn't like a real thing as it's not an ideology instead it's an innate sense of oneself as it's actually predates the the colonial idea is that we understand today so with that in mind I hope that you will support trans youth could could you give us your name please I don't think any pronouns thank you
187[Applause] my name is Rowan kuzma and I'm currently a sophomore at North Stafford High School I live in the Eastern View neighborhood directly across 610 from the high school every morning I walk to school and each morning I use the crosswalk there's normally at least one car that turned in front of me as it exits to high school on some occasion some buses have even turned in front of me when I'm in the crosswalk I'm always legally using the crosswalk when I have the light to walk across I had to Legal right-of-way as a pedestrian in the crosswalk I'm sharing this information because I'm always worried the vehicle will hit me as it turns out as a high school there are also cars that turn around in our neighborhood either in driveways or intersections and
188sometimes three-point turns in the road these cars turn out in our neighborhood because they don't want to wait for the light to turn left into the high school I don't feel safe when this happens because I'm worried those drivers won't be paying attention and will hit me as they back up on the road in my neighborhood when I'm walking to school my brother is a senior at North Stafford he has sports practice and couldn't make it here tonight so he has asked me to share his thoughts walking to school every morning I come too close to her Comfort to cars in the closet walk on the daily without fail at least one car turns in front of me in the crosswalk after I'm already on the side of the school on the road it becomes
189a problem when two or three cars do this and turn so close to me that I feel like I can just Reach Out And Touch them recently I was crossing and got almost entirely to the other side I was probably 10 feet away from the other edge of the road and a car tried to turn right into me luckily it slammed on its brakes right before it would have hit me I believe this problem stems to a light turning out of the school being green while the crosswalk light is on once one car turns at the green light the one behind them assumes that it's safe to go and the next one in the next because the light is green they all just go because they see the ones in front of them go because
190there are cars in front of them they can't even see the crosswalk to know that there are people walking I'm the person in the crosswalk they don't see and then almost hit this situation feels dangerous every morning [Applause] Madam chair after Mr heinzer will be Deborah Snyder Steve Robson and Dwayne Edwards good evening I'm Cliff heinzer I'm the chair of the Stafford County Democratic committee and I just wanted to come to the board this evening to remind you that we need to seek a permanent solution to the plight of our custodial workers and it's not lost upon me that with the decision of ABM to withdraw you have a challenge right now there are Contracting issues there are hiring requirements and you have to keep the schools clean and safe in the interim but I'd
191like to keep focused on a permanent solution which involves bringing our custodial workers back in fully into the family of the public schools as they once were and they are in wider permanent solution when the custodial workers are once again employees of the county thank you so much for your time [Applause] good evening um I agree with the last speaker I went on Friday to get a [Music] Freedom of Information actual request um wanted you guys to know I I don't think I need need to say anything but it was for um the school system to request um and access to abm's how ABM is handling the contract that they have and um I I received a Monday I received um an email from Dr stempel saying that one man is on record in other
192words no news is good news in other words is to me as a text or seems to be going along just fine when we know for certain that is far from the truth and so that can't be because I know that labor laws of being trampled on and uh and also a public health situation now we all think that over it is a thing of the past I don't know but if if it should happen God forbid that a variant comes to town and affects our children in school they need the staff to keep uh our schools sanitized and it's this custodial workers wish themselves to do a much better job and Adrian has almost prevented them from doing so by not um equipping them properly either with um suitable clothing for the for Sanitary
193Commission and conditions or or even supplies so so things have not changed I wish um I'll have to stop here but thank you thank you [Applause] foreign I teach in the department of modern languages and literatures at the University of Mary Washington there are many close connections between the University of Mary Washington and the Stafford school system many of our students are graduates of the Stafford schools tonight I met one of your teachers who was my student at the University of Mary Washington a few years ago and as everyone knows the custodial staff at Mary Washington or any college is essential to the healthy and proper functioning of of a university or a school and this means that the staff should receive adequate compensation and fair working conditions it's only common sense the proposal for
194the new contract that I saw today seems eminently fair fifteen dollars an hour 40 hour a week um I know that most people in here are probably um aware of that and that uh this this should be as they say a no-brainer but I also want to address the decision to turn over the administration of the custodial staff to a private company some years ago at Mary Washington the same thing was done to our food services the Food Services were turned over to a private company and staff members report that the promises the conditions for working and the conversation that were made by the University have not been honored by this private company and the students report that the food quality has deteriorated something that I can confirm myself having eaten occasionally at the at
195the dining Halls if a private company is contracted to administer the custodial staff or any function of an institution it must be carefully monitored with appropriate remedies for financial and labor abuses this has not happened here clearly so I am agreeing with the previous speaker that the custodial Services should be brought back under the administration of the Stafford County school system thank you foreign Mr Edwards Dwayne Edwards um [Music] my name is Dwayne Edwards I'm the vice chair of Virginia organized State governing board and I want to say a little bit over a year ago I was oh we had brought an issue of a lady to find out it was a cleaning worker that ABM and she was talking about how her how she was being treated on the job now as I was
196talking to this young lady she also informed me that she had worked at a school in Stafford that there was only one person being clean and cleaning the school in the evening and I'm I live in Spotsylvania but both of my daughters are Stafford County uh students and so that was a little shocking and so as we started speaking more and another thing about Virginia organized I talked to a lot of people in the community but as you can probably tell I'm not bilingual right so and then we finally had somebody in our group that was very bilingual so we was able they have communication with a big segment of people in Stafford County that actually end up working in the same schools and they all had the same issue with this company and then
197we found out this company has been cleaning schools for 15 years so and so this is not something new and then when I we talk with teachers and they they always complain about having to do extra cleaning in their classrooms and then as we dig more with over this year we're going to find out that the company doesn't have enough cleaning supplies and then so everybody's speculating about PPE loans what business has got money but they 5.9 million dollars was paid to them or being paid to them for this contract so I'm pretty sure they should all have had the finances for cleaning supplies and Personnel regardless if there's a spike in in employment or a drop in employment 5.9 million dollars give me 5.9 million dollars I'll make sure everybody we got boots on
198the ground that's what I do you know me come on Doc come on all right so what I mean I really want us to really get into this because the people that you have cleaning the school system they have pride in their work I mean I didn't know I didn't know I actually look at them more when I go in other buildings because of the crew that you have through this contracting company now I know my time is short if we can't hire these people at Stafford County and protect them under Fair wages and and all of that as we should then we still need to hold the companies who's doing business in Stafford County to the standard that y'all have we're in a government area and I did I did a Big Boy Construction
199government contract so Mavis Beacon you can't work on a military base and pay your workers at a certain pace so we had a company here had a job here we paid them 10 hour 15 we did a project on Quantico we had to raise everybody to twenty five dollars because they was on base thank you [Applause] can you call the final speakers Miss Hall please oh that was it all right that closes the citizen comment period brings us to action items item 7.01 second slash final review and Adoption of amendments to policy 1701 strategic planning do we have a motion motion to approve second motion by Miss Randall second by Dr Warner any discussion no I'd like to thank Dr Taylor and your team and all the members of the community who contributed to the
200Strategic plan look forward look forward to seeing uh results final product yeah yes shout out to Dr Tower who yeah thank you Dr Tower I remember the what did you call them the focus uh sessions wow all right uh cast your votes tally the votes motion carries 7-0 7.02 authorization for the school board chair to execute a lab school Grant application do we have a motion a motion to approve the application which by Miss Sigmund second by Miss Randall any discussion Madam chair if I could just uh chime in there's been a lot of discussion about this in the state but not a whole lot of discussion uh at the Stafford County uh Public Schools level this is an exploratory opportunity to partner with umw to apply for a potential grant that could lead to
201the creation of a Regional Lab School in partnership with the University of Mary Washington we look forward to sharing more information should we be the recipients of this Grant and bringing that back to the board at a later date at this point this is just exploratory thank you all right any discussion cast your votes tally the votes motion carries 7-0 7.03 adoption of the FY 24 School Board operating budget priorities now these priorities were revised based on discussion at the work session do we have are they attached now to the agenda okay all right do we have a motion motion to approve second motion by Miss Halstead second by Miss Sigmund any discussion it's literally still reading it do you need some time I just finished okay I'll read it thank you I appreciate that
202all right cast your votes tally the votes motion passes 7-0 7.04 adoption of the school board legislative priorities do we have a motion motion to approve second most by Miss Halstead second by Dr Warner any discussion and these are the priorities as revised per discussion of the work session correct yes all right uh cast your votes the last shall be first Miss guy I think I heard that somewhere oh tally the votes motion passes seven to zero all right we have a new 7.05 um which was removed from the consent agenda approval of the award of a contract in the amount of 286 thousand two hundred seventy nine dollars to Apex companies LLC for water fountain testing using FY 22 Esser funds do we have a motion motion to approve motion by Ms Randall do
203we have a second I second who who was it am I a guy did you whisper it I don't know why I'm sorry trying to use your sexy voice [Laughter] I hear you thank you for seconding that Miss guys more chocolate oh over here do you need some of it all right noticed by Miss Randall second by Miss guy any discussion Dr Chase did you want to yeah so I just wanted to um you know sort of publicly have a little discussion about this to um you know I've heard from families who are upset that the water fountains are closed I've heard from people that the water fountains were open and then they were closed and what did that mean and so just a little sort of explanation before I defer to Mr Fulmer um
204I don't for the life of me understand why this is not a bigger topic of conversation in other parts of the Commonwealth uh and I may be a touch sensitive to this uh coming from my previous School District where uh through routine testing of cooling towers in Chesterfield County we discovered a good bit of standing water in Legionella and that was from regular use uh so we can only imagine um water fountains that hadn't been used for an extended period of time when schools were closed down that was problematic and so we we went about a pretty rigorous course of investigation and testing we discovered that several of our water fountains were not in as good a working order and required repair not to mention uh that there there's all kinds of nasty bacteria and
205potential other harmful things having them tested treated repaired and restored as safety being our number one priority 30 really was a top priority for us so I'm going to defer to Mr Fulmer to fill in some additional details but that really was the impetus of this is is just out of an abundance of caution uh really taking a look at the things that we know needed attention and again I'm astonished why this is not a bigger conversation in other places so I'm gonna I'll just build on that a little bit and give you a little bit of background so as Dr Taylor mentioned our water fountains across the division were closed for approximately two years or or more during kind of the shutdown and during covet even when we came back just to prevent the
206spread it was a mitigation strategy so we were coming back this year late last spring started planning with the maintenance staff of since those water fountains had been had not been in use for so long wanted to test it to make sure there hadn't been any bacteria growth this wasn't a requirement there was a recommendation by CDC to do some testing but Adam in abundance of caution we started by testing 25 percent of every water fountain in the division while we kept all of them closed uh and um we found some of them some schools came back with no hits on those 25 in those schools some came back with one or two you know low levels of of some bacteria so um we wanted to uh keep all water fountains closed except the ones
207that came back clean so if we had tested them they came back negative for any sort of uh bacteria and we did our normal flushing we went ahead and opened them back up so some schools had all 25 percent of their water fountains open many of them had more than that or the full 75 percent were were closed and and then after that we wanted to come up with a remediation plan for how we what we did to these water fountains that did test positive and what we did with the other 75 so since the 25 percent tested since we did have a few only a handful at some school some schools had none as I mentioned we expanded that to test all 100 so we tested 25 so we tested the other 75 percent
208of every water water fountain in the division and kept kept them all out of commission and covered up until I get back and happy to say actually this week we're starting to get some of those results back it is a lengthy process so I apologize for for how long that's taken but during that period we were one figuring out how to remediate the ones that did come back positive before we could open them back up so we're going through some some testing or some treatments and then some retesting but then ultimately decided let's go ahead and test all 75 so we can open up any of them that do test negative so we're at that point now where we're starting to get test results and here in the next uh probably I'll say seven to
209ten days max we should have all the results back for all the schools I'm happy to report that three schools will open back up with 100 of their water fountains tomorrow actually we got test results back this afternoon so they are already in action for opening those back up first thing tomorrow morning so have we already done this I'm like I'm being asked to vote for something that's already been done yes we we notif we notified you as kind of treated as an emergency that we wanted we needed to get this testing going because it is a very long process so we notified you but then we wanted to retroactively bring this to the board and have you approve it especially since we were using Esser federal dollars got it okay um I have just
210one question is there a reason why we wouldn't um like you know those they have those water bottle ones and you just put yourself is this is this sort of like a duplicative like do we need to do this I mean our water fountains are clearly probably as old as our building would this money be better spent on new systems great question because actually that was part of the reason why it took this long is because I said if we're going to spend 300 000 could we just replace all of our water fountains and not have to test them all and actually just replacing the water fountain doesn't always fix the issue is what we found so we actually did replace some of the ones that tested positive we replaced the water fountains come to
211find out because the water line going back into the wall could actually where the valve is it could be sitting there and in the valve and that's where the bacteria so that was actually why we delayed the initial testing of all of them and we're just now getting those test results back to open them back up is because we didn't want to spend three hundred thousand dollars to then have it go to waste so so we kind of had to come up with a game plan so we did replace um four four water fountains some in classrooms some in hallways with bottle fill stations Etc and they did not one of them was fixed three of them were not so we knew that wasn't the actual solution to all of them so instead of just
212replacing every water fountain we had to actually test them all and then we're working on the remediation for the ones that we're going to keep out of service and so we can get a clean hit on this so I should point out that we do have water fill stations throughout the division yes in all of our schools and that's kind of been an effort over the last several years to convert some of those but those are actually pretty expensive and just so you know they don't work in every you can't replace every water fountain with a battlefield because of some of the plumbing and the way the walls are it doesn't work out perfectly but we're trying to expensive like what's the number I'd just like to know uh a few thousand dollars for a
213water fountain with a bottle fill station I think and the kind of the work and plumbing involved for coolers at five gallons oh gosh well he actually has a mad look on his face I've never seen one on his face Randall he's like please don't put any ideas in their head um and when do you expect to have all fountains or water bottle filling stations back online so I will say 98 of them probably in the next 10 days 98. yeah and that's almost like a ballpark number because I know not everyone is going to have a clean hit but since we've tested 100 and those test results are due back this week and next week and as soon as they come back and they're clean we're going to open up the water fountains but
214there's going to be a handful that we're gonna have to keep close until we can finish the remediation and then how long do you think remediations will take um months I would say yeah but that's only that's not I need to know yeah it'll be a handful at some schools you know none at some schools but we are supplying water for those schools that don't have the access yes ma'am we've been providing bottled water all and we will continue to do that until all the fountains are open correct that yes at each individual School however and I and I will note this we will stop supplemental water bottle uh placement if we have the vast majority of the fountains open at a school if it's just one or two Fountains at a school we we
215will not supply water bottles at that point but if we have critical mass at a school where you know we we do need to keep the majority of the fountains closed we're going to continue our water bottle service will you all let those communities know when they need to remember to bring their own water bottles or they're filling whatever yeah and I'm assuming if we have students with disabilities that have issues that we would continue to supply the water there as well correct sure yes ma'am okay any other questions no all right cast your votes tally the vote motion passes seven to zero wow that was a roll we'll roll right into the superintendent's reports and comments thank you madam chair my superintendent's report is uh very short um as uh I prepare to enter
216my 11 month uh 11th month of service my time as your new superintendent is wearing off I'm fully aware of that and I am quickly running out of Firsts uh for for me to attend um which is both a delight but also a little sad too um one of the first that I'm really looking forward to is of course band together uh against hunger I have been looking forward to that for an entire year as I was hired uh immediately after that event last year and and have really been looking forward to that uh the focus of my comments are actually two-fold tonight um we have a special uh day uh plan for our secondary students tomorrow our 8th grade ninth grade 10th and 11th grade students will all be taking the PSAT test this
217is is a great opportunity for us to track our student performance against a national pool of students and also for several of our 11th graders to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship it's a it's a great opportunity for us to see how we are doing in terms of student achievement but there's also another special event that we're trying new this year and it has a community component our 12th graders while our underclassmen are taking the PSAT I have the opportunity to visit the Fredericksburg Expo Center for our first ever chart your future event and this is a two-part event the first part of it is tomorrow and it really is the culmination of their 13 years in school and their preparation for transitions to Life After High School we heard earlier today from one of
218our graduates who transitioned to a successful start to his professional life at acelli's Pizza thanks to some of our programming and project search but we have a lot of students who are looking for New Opportunities For Life After High School whether that be employment enlistment or enrollment in a post-secondary opportunity and we want to expose our kids to as many of those opportunities as possible we have 84 exhibitors that will be there tomorrow at the Fredericksburg Expo Center that represent employers that are hiring colleges that are looking for students and our military branches will all be represented as well looking for folks willing to give service to their country many of our students know exactly what they want to do after high school and that's great and we certainly want to give them an opportunity
219to reaffirm some of their decisions moving forward but we do have several students that are still a big question mark and we're hoping that this event helps to answer some of those questions so we're asking all of our seniors to fill out a card as a deliverable for tomorrow's event indicating what their plans are as of today for life after May 21st and whenever graduation is this year and kids who are I shouldn't say even kids are young adults who are getting ready to graduate who are undecided we're going to Target some support for those students to help them decide so that all of our kids upon graduation have a game plan for either being employed enlisted or enrolled in a post-secondary opportunity and we'll have an opportunity to celebrate those decisions on May 1st
220of 2023 which is National decision day and we are all looking forward to that as uh as a follow-up event to tomorrow's chart your future event so please stay tuned it's a great opportunity to hear how our seniors are performing but to make this event even better we are opening it up to the community at large from 2 to 6 PM folks can come to the Fredericksburg Expo Center and interact with the same exhibitors that our kids interacted with earlier that day our senior seniors will also have the opportunity to attend a couple of conference style sessions of their choosing on topics like personal finance credit cards managing dietary needs for Life After High School basically adulting which is a great opportunity for our kids to get one more dose of Life preparation before they
221graduate and we're hoping to make this an annual thing but this is our first time doing it so we're hoping to see how it goes it is something new and different and we hope that folks will join us tomorrow at the Fredericksburg Expo Center for this event the second thing that I want to talk about is very brief I'd like to give a follow-up endorsement to the item that Dr Hummer talked about during his remarks the I'm determined Summit I'm determined is a is a great opportunity for not just our kids but also our parents of students with disabilities to help to develop self-advocacy tools so that our kids can advocate for themselves and learn uh some some survival skills for Life After High School and be prepared confidently to take charge of their life
222and not to be limited by a perceived a disability or actual disability we're very proud of our of our students with disabilities and the ones that we hope that will participate in this very special event I've participated in I'm determined events before and I know that that we're going to do a great job supporting our kids and families and this is just a a great event for kids of all ages and parents of all ages too if you're looking for a dose of inspiration I promise you that you will be able to find it at Mountain View High School on March 4th thank you madam chair that concludes my report I do indeed thank you I appreciate that my daughter just dropped in my husband's itching to get her home so she wants to wait
223for my comments to be done um hi Sylvia so um okay so I have a few things one does anybody have a field report from National Night Out we missed it well I actually ran into someone from the sheriff's department this morning who was doing some shopping for it and I told her you know I was sorry we couldn't make it and she goes oh no I've been telling everybody the supervisors and the school board will be here so apparently there was a miscommunication about our meeting night and it was set up for tonight of course this is second hand but so that the supervisors could attend but I was told that there's nothing magic about it being on a Tuesday and that next year they will definitely look into making it another night so
224that we will all be able to attend and I think she told me it was wrapping up around eight so they're probably uh closing down yeah about now um okay so a few things I just want to comment on the first thing is um the kids the submissions that were received for Bully prevention month I you know I watched the video I'd say probably three times that I mean it's just aside from the fact that it was a middle schooler that put the whole thing together the creativity and she just said she did all that stuff all by herself from scratch so to me that's exactly what I had hoped to get from something like that was these kids really thinking about it being able to use their talents and see um how far they
225could take those things and I hope that we continue to do it year over year and maybe get bigger and better at doing more stuff um I have made a point made um I should say scheduled appointments for visits to AG Wright and Moncure Drew Middle um and hopefully Anthony Burns tomorrow um and have just really tried to hold true to the commitment to get to all of our 33 schools in a short period of time recognizing that November there's a large piece of time taken out um so you know since I've gone to the school board and I'm going on Mile 10 of course I'm fine the whole time I go to talk now I'm all choked up but um what are we coming up on 10 months on the school board it has
226been very interesting to me to see not just the um the intensity within which each of these topics is really kind of approached but also the the difficulty of making decisions um that are really based on what that decision has to be based on not an emotion not a feeling not a um you know on on it has to be on a legality on what's best for the school system what's best for the kids and we get these emails all the time that say you can't please anybody and when I tell you you have no idea what that statement actually means overall um so so there's a few things I just want to say on that um I will never understand maybe it's my age but I will never understand this new push to to
227throw adult level issues and burdens into our school systems I just I don't get it our kids they stopped having fun they stopped figuring out who they are and what actually defines them as a human being and they continually focus on what they are on what label has been assigned to them by someone it's the antithesis of what most of us teach our kids because we teach our kids be kind be happy be smart read do stuff like that and we've allowed Society to come in and inject this big burden on them to identify a what I'm 51 years old I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up I have changed the music type that I like I've changed hairstyles thank God it was the 80s if you
228all remember when I was a kid so hairstyles careers I've changed opinions likes dislikes sports teams this school year these school years are such a small part of what your life will be but the burden they carry is that they Define so much of what you take out there with you and so much of what you're going to become so when I hear folks come up and talk about a lot of these things particularly in Bully prevention month um I get very stressed out thinking about the fact that we teach our kids to be who they're going to be or be what they're going to be and all that other stuff but we don't we we cease to tell them not to funnel themselves or dig themselves in so deep they can't get out pick
229something now be something now have something now or be flexible figure out that today you like a French braid tomorrow you want your hair curly the next day it's gonna be straight and all of that is okay we don't do that anymore and I wish that we could come to an agreement that our only goal is to make sure that in our school systems our kids are focused on reading learning science friendships heartbreak I had a woman tell me her anger about the school closures during covet is because her son went away to college got his first girlfriend and she wasn't even there for any of it she was anticipating all that stuff was going to happen in high school he was going to meet his first girlfriend have his first heartbreak she was gonna
230take him out for ice cream to talk about the Heartbreak and none of that happened let's just let kids be kids and if and and if anyone has any issues we have the resources so to show you that I'm putting my money where my mouth is I have reached out to our health department I did just get some dates from them um and I've I've let them know we're in a serious crisis mode here and it is time to sit down and find out where the loopholes as a school board as a if if we can help push legislation through if we can help marry up our community service help them identify not just they're not just responsible for schools we are but we need to be taking our kids who need help and we
231need to be matching them up with people right away not when they can get an appointment in five months not when the doctor's office you know says okay you've met a b and c and d and you can come in now but right away so please stay tuned because I do hope to come out with some initiatives from that meeting that we can all work on together I promise you mental health is my number one Focus for these kids it's it's enough they've had enough on the mental health note Maya said earlier there were little spiders falling from the ceiling and I didn't believe her until I saw four we killed one over here yeah so I just want to ask as a final closing note could we call an exterminator and have them check
232out the spider problem School Board hi yeah sure they stay away from him why they only go to witches oh never mind anyway I thought it was a Halloween theme or something so um so yeah so on that note guys just you know make sure you hug your kids good night every night make sure you tell them they're great no matter what they are no matter who they are no matter what somebody thinks they are it's never going to matter what somebody else thinks of you only would you think of you and that's where we stop teaching our kids we don't teach our kids enough about forget what he thinks what she thinks or they think what do you think so much so much scrutiny on these kids I can't imagine the pressure that's all
233I mean are we going to address the fact that I told you something and then you didn't believe me until you saw it four times that's an issue but that's okay I'm gonna we'll work on that we will work on that with our relationship um but there seriously are little spiders and I don't know where they're coming from and some of us are allergic yeah right this is this is not okay but that's fine um we're leaving soon I I do want to address um the public comments I I do believe that every person gets um gets a response for the public comments is that correct okay because there was a choir resident that had some issues and I'm glad that you guys are going to direct it so but if that person um is
234listening call me on my cell phone my number is on the website um and or if you don't get the information you're looking for and I'm happy to um I don't know if it's appropriate to say their name so um but you're a woman okay thank you um I just I don't I want them it's all public information anyone can fool you it okay her name is Amanda call me Amanda um so I I do think um I appreciate your comments about just letting people be who they are or letting them find their way I will just say as a member of an individual in a marginalized Community sometimes how we identify is a part of Who We Are and um when you can acknowledge that we internalize that as respect um so that is
235the reason why some individuals do choose to I don't know live in a particular way where their Identity or how they identify is is like maybe a very um I don't want to say aggressive because it's not aggressive you know what I'm saying like they're a lot about it because it's important especially when you're when you've been marginalized and and when you think that people don't understand your issues so I do agree we should allow kids to find their way and be who they are and teach them a b and C's and one two threes but some people need a little extra care and concern some people need a little a little extra Grace and so I think that we can we can do that as well I think we can teach and be a
236little holistic when it comes to comes to our students and the other thing I just want to say is um I found out that my kids teachers have been doing something incredibly considerate and just like super specific for my child who's um in fourth grade and this had been going on at least since last year I had no idea and it's just one more thing that reminds me of how we are so freaking blessed in Stafford County with our employees because these people are doing I mean this is not in a book I don't know where they came up with this idea to help my child but it's just the most beautiful thing and then it reminded me um I'm not going to get all emotional but one day my kid came home this is
237years ago but this is just another example of Stafford County employees and she said Mom if we there would ever be a school shooting you never have to worry about me because I know my teachers love me and they will save me and like that just keeps happening in my life I know it happens in others and I just have to say thank you and that's just that's it Miss Randall wow this is good stuff ladies okay I'm taking a left turn at the light no pedestrians right yeah yeah no they are all safe in mind good all right so first of all I would like to um thank Dr Taylor for the listen and learn that he held in White Oak I really appreciated uh him coming out and the attendees as well and
238I would also um like to thank uh Chief Bootsy Bullock who was able to take um Dr Taylor to the tribal Center if you have not been it is they're not all the way open but pretty close and but you they still hold events there and uh if you don't know where it is just go like a mile past dairy farm on the right hand side same side uh it's a pretty pretty great place that has been helped along with the Board of Supervisors so um I also attended Community night at Dixon Smith I've always wanted Middle School to have other than sporting events always have like some sort of a community event so it's really nice to walk through there and um I got to I read about it um that they have a
239former I think she's a umw student um that took an ambulance and retrofitted it into like a bookmobile and she I actually got I've read about it seen pictures I actually got to go see it so that was really fun and walking around the school lots of different activities and things for families there that even had dinner there and I understand that they will be Dixon Smith will be hosting the second annual model UN in our own County all middle schools will be there December 3rd from 9 to 4. um they have some pretty cool topics looking for some um specific people to help with the kids with some of their topics there too so um I I got to peek in in it last year um and the kids sitting there all dressed up
240um talking to each other being very formal really learning good diplomatic procedures and policies um I got to I have to say I was gone for most of September because I went on a retreat which was awesome and I'm glad I did that because then I embarked on a over two week trip across the country in my RV with my husband and we were two feet apart 24 7. so I'm really glad I went to The Retreat before I did that but I have to say if you ever have an opportunity to do a little traveling around the country and I did see so many things mostly out the window because the answer to can we stop and look at this was always no um so but still to be able to see Cowboys cowboying
241that was really like one of my highlights was to see Cowboys cowboying but also to see large farm fields and from early morning how much work these people are doing to supply food not only for humans but for animals so that the animals can supply food or some other Goods or service to see fields and Fields of different kinds of animals and the work it's so much work at early morning to late night hours and just really some amazing people and amazing places um so I did the trip on purpose because my son my Stafford County former Stafford County teacher student uh left and moved out to Washington State miss him a lot so Mom had to take a run out there and but I did text everybody when I was like oh I'm in
242your kids Community oh I passed your kids college so but if you ever get a chance to do any kind of just long drive even go to Shenandoah see the leaves change we've got some pretty pretty cool places around here to see so that's online Miss Sigmund it has been a very busy month and I want to see if anybody in Stafford County is bored they are not paying attention because there are not enough nights in the week to go to all the cool things that our kids are doing um our daughter is on cloning a forge chorus and so I went to their fall chorus concert which is awesome because you sit outside and your camp chairs and they bring the Kona Ice Truck and you can order your dinner from Mission Barbecue they
243do a vocal Arrangement at the end with where it's all of the service anthems not space force force though so I'm looking forward to that addition with band together to Fight Hunger we opened our Sports Fields our turf fields at North and at Colonial Forge uh president or president yikes governor and Mrs Younkin visited Stafford County uh with one of our work based learning Partners um and honored some and visited with our Esports kids I visited a lot of the schools that are residents in Garrisonville attend um tomorrow is one book for all dragons at Anthony Burns I will be there I am not I'm going to warn my colleagues that I might have not had a ton of time to practice my flash mob dance but I will try um I'm gonna video it
244oh it's going to be terrible if we come we don't have to do that right no that's just oh thank goodness North Stafford High School's homecoming was last week Colonial four just this week we had a great meeting with our PTO and PTA leaders in the community it is always great to sit down with them and kind of get the unique um needs perspective activities from every school we've encouraged them all to invite us to stuff so that we can you know go see what all of our kids are doing we had our legislative dinner with our delegates and my big plug tonight is to recommend that everyone apply for a school board advisory committee we have 10 committees that you can join they will start in January applications will be accepted through December 1st
245our committees are the capital Improvement plan Career and Technical education citizens budget committee diversity equity and inclusion gifted school health special education technology Transportation Visual and Performing Arts the applique patients online and really easy to find and we all want to have fully staffed committees so that we can get feedback from all parts of our County and work together to bring you know about change and improvements to all of these facets to our kids education that's it thank you Dr Warner thank you madam chair um I want to say that I've been to almost every High School to see how Power Hour is going and I'm not going to lie it was a little scary in the first part of the school year but my last visits I've seen kids with a strategy they've had
246they've talked about how great it is to be able to catch up on work and to meet with teachers to do test corrections I've seen the art rooms open I kids have had a plan then they seem to know what they're doing and I I'm getting more optimistic about Power Hour at the high school I think it's an opportunity for kids to catch up with work I just remember as a chemistry teacher and tutoring students at 7am which was not my favorite time of the day um I do want to share what Miss Sigmund said we do rely on parents for our advisory committees we are taking applications there's lots of opportunities for you to share your skills and your concerns with us on these committees and the more parents that we have that apply
247and volunteer the the more we can get a good broad cross-section to the community to advise us um I do want to thank all the ptos it's very it's always a really helpful meeting to meet with the ptos because most of those parents are in our schools they're seeing things that we don't necessarily see and they offer a lot of good tips to what's going on I've had the opportunity to visit several elementary schools that I had not been to since I started and it's exciting to see what our kids are doing in school it's exciting to see our our staff and and and how great they are and just how I'm just so thankful for everything and I look forward to going to Anthony Burns tomorrow and seeing miss Sigmund Flash Dance Dr Chase
248I'm sorry I had no idea I just I I hope you're going to do it before 10 15 because I'm gonna have to leave then to go down the courthouse for a meeting oh my goodness uh yeah I would also like to thank all the parents who are serving on ptos and and ptas in Stafford County as a former PTO PTA officer um it's it's a lot of work but it does help to really make school a better place for all our students I got an opportunity to go to Widewater and see the dual immersion program and I would recommend that everybody when you get a chance to go check it out because it was really fantastic and while I was there a shout out for Miss Austin I I learned that principal Bingham had
249covid the first day of school and she couldn't open her school and Miss Austin stepped in for her and did an amazing job so I just wanted to to give a shout out for that um this is just a question for uh when when Dr Taylor gets a chance when can parents go back to having lunch with their kids in elementary school because I remember that was a great thing to do and it made our kids so happy and I don't know what needs to happen but I'd love to know when when we can get around to that and then um you know I've gotten quite a few emails about um this the the gender issue um and I have to say it's it's hard for me as a teacher and a professor um I
250it's very hard for students to learn if we don't use the name that they want to be used and I always ask my students what name do you want to go by and then I I respect that now the difference is my students are adults and so I do understand that that's that that is a little bit different but it is hard to to learn when people are calling you a name that is not the name that you um that you recognize and so I don't know how that works and and it does feel very discriminatory to me that if I'm going to require some students parents to give permission for a nickname or a different name that I'm not requiring that for all students um you know and and I I understand you know
251like if your name's Antoinette maybe you go by Tony well that's kind of a boy's name but it's kind of a girl's name we don't have as much of that like there aren't so many of those nicknames that go the other way so it's just a question that I'm struggling with in terms of is this is this really fair um we do have an anti-discrimination and it does feel somewhat discriminatory so maybe we need a policy where you use the name that's there for everybody unless we ask all parents to to provide acceptable nicknames for their students I don't know but it just it's just something I'm struggling with thank you well I had the uh the pleasure of visiting Garrisonville Elementary with Miss Sigmund and uh happy to say that all the new students
252are doing great and the school is very happy to to be uh you know what is it a hundred almost a hundred percent full so things are things are working out well in Gatorland and we also visited a Winding Creek which was really um unique because when we visited there was no it was a teacher work day so there were no students in school and usually when I'm in school there's lots of kids and lots of things going on but there were there were a lot of things going on but what I really appreciated was the opportunity we had to to walk through the school with Mrs Wardlow and also and to talk to the teachers there were quite a few teachers in the and it was a very relaxed atmosphere because they didn't have
253to worry about all the the kids in the classroom and and it reminded me of this guy of you know what you were saying you know about how the teachers go the extra way because we really could tell that they were they were speaking from their heart and I mean we saw what looked like brand new teachers we saw teachers that probably have several decades of experience teaching and it was across the board this this commitment to to the students but you know one thing that um that I I did notice is and this came up in the PTO PTA PTSA meeting is that we do have schools that have a lot more resources available from the the parents and um we we were you know shown some pretty amazing gifts that the that the
254PTO had had given to to the school um in the music room and and also water bottle stations that that the ptos had paid for and I I think I think that's great because I know how committed the parents are um and and they have the time and they have the resources to to give to the schools but then we have other schools and and uh I hope you don't mind Dr Warner but why water um you know came up in in the PTO meeting that the the president of the PTO was talking about how how challenging it is to raise funds and that they do a school-wide fundraiser you know at one of the local restaurants and and and make the tops eighty dollars um so I I think you know if there's something
255we can do to help out some of the schools that don't have those you know extra resources I'm not saying you know make it all equal but I think we have to recognize that some of our schools are very very fortunate because of the communities that they have you know in their their student population and the resources those families have and are are you know are generous to to give to the to the schools while there are other schools that just don't have it and we need to make a special effort I think to help particularly the the teachers in those schools because that's really what a lot of the ptos do they they make life better for our teachers and they they help them with resources I mean cheese food all kinds of things
256going on but but if there's some way we can think about that and we actually were encouraging schools to adopt other schools which I've seen happen in the past with um you know after one of these these PTO meetings so um I'd like to you know look into that I know we're going to be looking at school-based resources and I assume that's for the the educational setting but if there's anything we can do and and if not as a Stafford County Public Schools if there's something that we could um you know match up Community organizations or community members who want to do something with the schools to kind of focus someone on some of our schools that don't have all those resources from their um you know their parent populations that I think would be
257very very helpful but we had we had a great meeting and I'm looking forward to tomorrow I had no idea about the dancing I mean it's wow it's like getting up getting a bonus um looking forward to National Night Out next year because that's always one of my favorite events I'm really sorry we're not able to go today but we have something to look forward to um to next year and I wanted to let everybody know next Tuesday between 5 15 and 6 30 that our entire School Board is meeting with the entire Board of Supervisors to discuss Capital Improvement plan which I think anybody who keeps up with us knows this very important to this board and you know making sure that the supervisors understand our view of the priorities and the needs of
258Stafford County Public Schools and the agenda said that was tentatively scheduled at brookpoint library is at the the place that's firm okay so that's all right well is that is that a final that's what they um the calendar says it's tentative but check check our website students are preparing um oh wow culinary arts wow that'll be uh that'll be a real treat maybe we'll we'll we can't we can't line them but we can sure dine them we'll have to do the whining ladies um close the meetings and everybody home and thank you for coming thank you