Stafford School Board 9/28/2021

001good evening and welcome to the 5 30 special called meeting of the stafford county school board as of right now we don't need an authorization to participate electronically at this time i have not heard from ms hollerbach be coming um miss hall can you take the role please yes sam dr chase here miss hazard here miss healy miss hollerbeck is not yet present miss randall here dr warner here and miss young here but i'm sure you have a quorum all right um if we could read into our um first motion to approve the agenda i'm sorry all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously now we can read into closed session number one i move that the school board convene a closed meeting as authorized by section 2.2-3711a1 of the

002code of virginia to review discuss and consider the applications of candidates for the position of superintendent i thought that wasn't that that was the second one that's the first one okay okay fine all right is there a second second all right all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously we are in closed session so everybody let's adjourn to them section 2.2-3712 of the code of virginia i mean that the first of two closed meetings of the school board of stafford county held on september 28 2021 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 only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed

003meeting to which the certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board second and moved and seconded all those in favor please are uh yes all those in favor please say all right i agree dr chase agree miss hazard agree miss healy agree miss heller back agreed miss randall agree with dr warner agree and miss young agree miniature motion passes all right um ms randall can you uh for our brief close second session i move that the school board convene a closed meeting pursuant to virginia code section 2.2-3711a1 to discuss and consider a grievance filed by a licensed employee second it's been moved and seconded any discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye

004aye any opposed motion carries unanimously we are in closed session with appropriate staff as needed we stay here two closed meetings of the school board of stafford county held on september 28 2021 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved that the school board of stafford county hereby certifies to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board second miss hall can you pull the board please yes ma'am dr chase agree miss hazard agree ms healy miss holler back agreed miss randall agreed dr warner agree and

005miss young okay madam share motion passes all right we have um no action coming out of closed session so i will close our special called meeting and i will call us to order for our regular seven o'clock meeting no members need to participate electronically before we have our presentation of the colors i'm going to have ms hall go ahead and take the roll call for all those present and then we will move on to our um color guard all right dr chase here miss hazard here miss healy here miss heller back here miss randall here dr warner here and miss young here i'm sure you have a quorum all right i would ask everybody to rise as we have the color guard presentation by the mountain view high school marine jr otc mark todd oh

006set i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice cut oh thank you you may be seated i would like to thank our mountain view high school marine rotc we have members tonight of zachary johnson brian casselberry michael hurd adam jones michael tangray and rylan harding our instructors are lieutenant colonel richard barnes and sergeant major alan tanner and so wonderful to have our students back in our chambers and presenting our colors moving on uh for approval of the agenda is there a motion motion to approve second it's been moved and seconded any um comments hearing none all those in favor please say i i any opposed motion carries unanimously agenda is approved our first presentation

007is our transportation uh update i'm going to turn to dr jones to do the intro and lead us in the discussion thank you good evening madam chair members of the board members of community we don't have a formal presentation for you tonight but some information i did share with the board on friday that i'll pass around if i recall correctly from the last meeting the board challenged the staff to look at minimal adjustments to the start time for the bell schedule while trying to honor the existing bus schedule so what you have before you is is our proposal it does indicate that there's a 10 minute reduction in the instructional day so presently our instructional day is six hours and 10 minutes so it'll be six hours for this for this proposal and it does

008also offer an opportunity for a little more time between tiers between elementary and middle and high so and mr baldwin is also here tonight to give you some data related to i think the question from the last board meeting was what number of routes have been consolidated so he has that information but again we don't we don't have it in it in a format of a formal presentation all right sure come on forward mr baldwin it would be great and while he's coming up again you'll note that the only real change to this is a little bit of an adjustment in elementary shift one by by five minutes presently presently we start at 7 45 so this would be 7 40 a 7 40 start and then a five minute addition to the end of

009the high school day from right now our dismissal's at 3 30 will be 3 35. and and the reason for that was to create equity between each school having the same instructional hours they're happy to respond to any questions you might have and i'll just note also that my recommendation because i know this community needs time to adjust it would be to start this on october 12th go ahead mr baldwin all right good evening madam chair board members dr jones just to um continue our conversation from the last meeting just to update about some of the questions about total routes unassigned routes wanted to bring that back to you and just share some information with you about that so just to begin right now we tried to do a simple comparison from the first day

010of school until september 24th was the date of collection where we just did our comparison so first day of school we had a total of 500 excuse me total routes as of september 24th we were down to 599 total routes and that is from the elementary tiers the middle school and the high school tears all together that's a reduction of about 26 total robbers as mentioned from the scheduling for what we try to do is determine how many drivers how many routes per tier needed so in that first tier we started with about 114 total routes which equal to roughly a total of 114 drivers from august 9th to september 24th we've actually gone up by one to 115 total routes and that's primarily special needs we've had an uptake and students that need transportation

011that are in um have ieps so obviously that will number will change throughout the year fluctuate but as far as the mainstream routes we pretty much remained constant the second tier elementary so mr ball is going to make sure i'm clear because you're talking about routes or drivers because i think you're talking about drivers yes okay so yes so i try to make my comparison with when we talk about a route it's a bus it's a driver from that standpoint okay let me talk about the tier 2 second shift elementary we started the year with 123 total drivers total routes for those nine elementary schools here again we've actually uh went up one total route which was again a special needs to 124 okay total routes needed for those second tier elementary schools so you

012have 123 routes on the second tier 100 yes it didn't go up it didn't go up like the first year yes ma'am it did 124. your one was one yes ma'am just one and again that's a special needs run which will fluctuate the third tier our middle schools we started the year with 176 total routes we're down to 168 right now and that number again that is the route consolidation what we're working with between our middle schools how many drivers right there equal it goes 176 drivers need it now we don't have necessarily 176 total to fill it but that's what we're working on okay so these routes are not equal in this tier three the routes are not equal to the drivers you're on question ma'am so the routes are equal to drivers but

013what i'm saying we may not have the drivers to fill that void so this is why i say routes and buses okay okay does that make sense it makes sense but that's going to be the question that i'm going to ask later gotcha and which routes do you don't have drivers right now all right good deal and when we get to the high school we started the year with 212 total routes and we're down to 194 currently 194 yes ma'am and again these are total routes between our mainstream and special needs so it's the combination does that include um transfer students and travel kids or no ma'am that's just picking them up and getting them to school yes ma'am but i will tell you head start is included in this count on the middle school

014level i did include it and the the specialty schools like c c cgs and all those they're we're still using the charter buses to get them back and forth to yes ma'am some of them yes ma'am so they wouldn't impact these numbers so um so or what you're saying is that if we had all the elementary schools going at the same time we would have 237 routes and so we would need 237 drivers yes ma'am okay and that's just personnel okay 239 and that's just personnel because what we still have to consider when we do this is the time and distance for each route okay can can i ask how many drivers we have all right so total drivers we have 193. okay that's the number that has been fluctuating because we've been adding to

015the driver pool but we've also lost folks and we also have folks that are on our long-term medical that have not driven with us since the start of the school year but we have to maintain them on our roster as a driver so those numbers um the 193 is reflective of actual drivers driving right now today as of september 24th yes ma'am so how many did we have as of august 9th as of august 9th we were roughly about right now it's the number of drivers that we have that's around 12 short we were 12 less than 193 because if i take the drivers that are adding give me a second yes ma'am it was about one total number yeah about 180 and over almost how many weeks has it been seems like a lifetime

016eight weeks we've um only gained 12 drivers yes ma'am somehow i thought we were doing better than that but that's all right i'll put that aside why do i remember a number that was 163 as far as number of drivers at some point i remember hearing that we only had 163 drivers am i i had 167. yeah something 67. yeah so i'm surprised to hear that we had 181 on the first day of school because i thought we had 167. yeah so we all heard 160 something somewhere so i'm about to check my numbers to get back with you because that might have been i know i've started mine i just did just 81. okay ms young has been waiting jumping i just want to clarify on my numbers because dr chase asked a question

017and then my numbers went haywire for a minute um tier one you had 114 drivers yes and then it went up to 215 rounds one went up to 215 rounds no ma'am no no tier one was 115. 115. it was 114 on august okay so the 115 routes which is 115 drivers and then the second tier is 124 drivers right yes ma'am so that's a total of 2 39 right yes ma'am and so we have i think you already answered that how many drivers we have 193 yes ma'am and that includes special needs okay so when you think about jay we're missing 46. yes right and this is just general this is not including who calls out yes who's sick or who could be quarantined correct that is a i can give you that average

018in terms of the call out sick on average where is 19 from i yes ma'am i started from august 18 yes ma'am it's usually about 10 percent or more that sounds high to me better than anybody else every day yep yes um are you do you know if the um the route planners are looking to take care of some of the larger communities like there's a quiet harbor there's every mill where there's going to be a more condensed number of kids are are we when we close up that gap and we're trying to condense bus routes are we taking care of these communities yes we're getting the most kids from these areas right correct so so i guess my question is is i had two emails from constituents over the last week in acquire harbor

019who have said the buses are like an hour late is there what if if we're sending buses in there why are they an hour late for high school what chances are those buses are doing a double elementary or middle school first so if they're doing those first that's going to trickle down or push their times back anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes so by the time they get into the harbor to do their high school they're already running 45 minutes late or more because they're helping with the elementary and the middle schools if if we have 191 193 drivers and even with 10 percent of the mouth that gives us 170 some why are we only starting with tier 1 with 114 routes i mean why don't we start all of our drivers so early

020that goes to because the later the drivers start the later they're going to to be right we never had these tiers before we had a little small pilot program that included two schools and i think it expanded to two other schools and it seemed to be working but this year all of a sudden we had this major change which you were not a part of because it was i assume designed before you got here but if we start later we're going to end later so you know i go back to why are we not having all of our buses start at the earliest time right so the question was asked about moving some elementaries down but you have to consider the time and distance on where we have to pick children up and the time

021span in between each level so right now we have basically 30 minutes to get kids to school and home and back to another school for a timely manner because of the condensed time between schools we've had to shorten the ride times which means we have to add more drivers so that's in effect why we can't have all the drivers you may have all the drivers to start but because of the time and distance from their second shelf of elementary schools or excuse me the middle schools or second shift elementary schools the driver may be able to get them in in the morning but they will not be able to help out as much in the afternoon because they have to travel so far to drop kids off and then by the time they drop the

022kids off and try to make it back to the next school it won't be a second shift elementary it may be a middle schools or high school so you have to take into consideration the boundary and the time and distance where it takes us to pick a student up and get them back to school and then vice versa in the afternoon getting them home so if we did that it would not we would still run into the issues because someone will still be late and that's essentially what we're doing now for covering the shortage we have buses drivers that are doing the first shift elementary then they're going to do a second shift in elementary and then a middle school well because of their first shift route and how long it is we would not

023have them do a second shift elementary because of the time and distance of the route but because of our shortage that's what we're having to do and so as we plug new drivers in place we plug them in to those extra runs that we're having drivers to do so we can eliminate that so that driver that assigned bus can do their elementary can do their middle can do their high school on time right now because of the lack of drivers for time and the distance we have to plug people in place to fill the void which causes us to be late okay so last week we got to hear from the two elementary principals uh burns and kate waller barrett and they were talking about how and i know kate waller barrett is a title

024one school is there any kind of um they have i think seven unassigned routes maybe six unassigned routes and is there any kind of consideration given to those school because i mean that seems like an awfully high number do all second-tier elementary schools have roughly six unassigned um routes or is it just only a couple of schools and like i said i'm just a little concerned that a title one school has that many but you probably thank you so what we have of course those second tier schools are schools that have other elementaries that have unassigned routes our number here let me share this with you for the second tier and i can go back and show the first tier we started with 39 on august 9th we're down to 26 now they are a

025priority for us to feel with with new drivers these routes we pretty much cannot combine because our elementaries ride the bus and they fill the buses so we need people to feel the bus fill the routes so as our new folks come in we plug them in that's a priority plug them into a second shelf elementary especially one that has been doubled because if we can put a new driver into an elementary run that's been doubled that frees up the assigned driver that's been doubling to run their route on time and now we can get two buses running on time because i have a bodies to fill that void okay um let me give you the first shift numbers i've moved over to the unassigned right mr baldwin before you do that i just want

026to make sure i understand your numbers so you're saying on august 9th we had 39 unassigned second-tier elementary routes correct second tier that's second tier and then as of september 24th through 26th on the on the side yes sir okay just to make sure i'm clear and but are we given i'm sorry are we giving priority to title one schools are you giving priority like how is that done right now i'm i'm just giving it to our elementary schools and just six six of the nine second-tier elementary schools are title one schools just as point of clarification but before you move on um mr baldwin i guess i'm going to just go ahead and ask the question um i'm not sure it's been asked yet and i don't want anybody to have a stroke because

027i'm asking this it's just a question if is there anything that might suggest that if we take after holiday break at starting when we go back to school in january and we flip-flop the schedules again and we put high school back to where it was and put the elementary kids back on the on the end would that help in any way have you looked at that oh it's hard for me to tell you um i would say right now because i've been so much focused on combining trying to fix this schedule what i can tell you from past experience is it may not be as advantageous for us to do that okay so do we have the consultant on board now at this point correct yes ma'am can we have them at least look at

028it because i want to make sure that we're weighing all of our options and if that's an option to help even a little bit then we need to be looking at it okay thank you so let's go back to the problem which is we don't have enough bus drivers right so even if we want to flip the schedule back we still need to contend with minimal bus drivers so transportation brought us one solution back in may brought a solution a couple of weeks ago partials partial of board decided we are going to create a proposed bell schedule the word i'm looking at says a temporarily relief what does that mean temporary so this would not necessarily solve the problem it's on here yeah that's so if i'm interpreting what the board asked the staff to

029do was to come back with a schedule that would allow us to keep relatively the same bus reporting times but would allow kids not to be late for class or less late for class thank you for clarifying that um and then the other requirement from that meeting was temporarily so four weeks was the term that was mentioned so what happens after the four weeks that's one question but how many buses would not be late with this schedule like what what do we gain with the current schedule with this current one here what would be this new well i'll go back to the data that was presented to you at our last board meeting of the range and the number of buses that arrive 15 minutes after their tardy bill those buses that number would now

030be on time and and we were looking at significant for high schools almost close to 100 or so buses that came in 15 minutes after the bill would be on time so you're looking at a game that those folks will be on time in addition with the route consolidation that our coordinators are constantly doing to condense those we will eventually see the reduction of late buses i can't speak to an actual percentage or the number that we're going to see because we always still have to take in consideration the total number of drivers available each day but as far as the scheduling goes we're trying to make that a factor that produces more of a on-time schedule with drivers that we have didn't answer your question did i miss you yeah so um and and

031maybe i don't know if the rest of the board is ready to to talk about this but um i've i've heard from another number of families this week about their children just being late i'm i'm concerned about two things one if we aren't going to implement this for another two weeks those students will continue to lose instructional time so if it's only a five-minute change i wonder if we want to consider implementing it sooner so that's just a question for for the board um i yeah that that's all i got yeah thank you doctor can i before i um if we were to think that way or if we think i best the biggest thing that has come up in most every email that i have is communication so i think that's you know we

032don't i don't want to get ahead on a communication plan that transportation is not ready to implement um i mean i think dr you and i are thinking the same but i also we want the best thing to happen but we also need to make sure that it is communicated if there is efficiencies that are going on um what is in the best interest i think and then the other question i had is um we're also hearing from people who say i've just been driving my child since the beginning of school so i want to stop driving my child so are these times going to change if these families who have been driving their children since the beginning of the year suddenly decide their child will again be riding the bus that's my concern it

033should not change significantly we have to individually check to make sure that an assignment is made in most cases the assignment is still made where a child is assigned to the bus of course adding more kids to the bus if we have to add more stops that means we add to the travel time of that bus going to school that happens in any time not through the course of a school year and our situation right now uh with the kids that we are that are currently taking um the buses are late picking those kids up we understand that part when we're able to place a driver a dedicated driver on the run so that they can run that bus on their regular schedule then we can anticipate probably an increase of ridership because they know

034the bus is coming we anticipate that and so we'll deal with that as opposed well from that stem form thank you um you said uh i believe that the last time you were here 72 people signed letters of intent at the um job fair um would you say that about 40 percent of the people it are what we get through training and on to the routes so that's only about another 28 29 drivers so we but we need like 53 yes ma'am okay just wanted to get those numbers correct the recruiting never ends the 30 bus drivers that were in class that supposedly finished class and that we're going to be ready to roll where are we with those 30 is probably down to like five so for obvious reasons from the july and august

035class i still have people that are working to finish the class with their license i've had people to fall out and i've have people that are currently driving and so it's about pushing those folks to try to push them along but with those folks i've had other classes that have started and some of those folks have excelled all the way through and have been able to obtain their license in front of some of those folks that started in july and august with us and so it's it's all about our numbers and keep what we do to push those folks to um finish the course and be able to obtain their license i have one other question if i could okay i'm i'm still somewhat perplexed about this tier one and tier two because this is

036brand new at this volume and this may be a question for dr jones and i'm sure this was made by your predecessor but if we've got first tier routes and we've got approximately 173 drivers reporting every day and that takes out your 10 that call in that means we have approximately 68 drivers who are not starting first thing and it would seem to me that the earlier we started picking children up the more likelihood that we could be on time you know for the middle and the high if we if we pick them up so i i just like to know why we and this this is not a question necessarily for today but why we have these two tiers you know with with this significant amount of schools starting second tier that aren't even

037getting to school in time when if we had you know more bus drivers starting early we could roll right through so i just i don't i don't really get it because this is this somebody came up with this plan and i'm sure the the premise was this is going to improve our transportation right so clearly i mean it hasn't and those probably would be helpful to know too you know how many bus drivers we had in last year you know and if we've dropped significantly then you know that that could be a calls and effect as well but we've always had a shortage of bus drivers but we've never had this late in in the year students getting to school an hour late we're i'm still getting emails about kids being left at the bus

038stop and maybe picked up an hour late so of our second tier correct me from wrong but of our second-tier schools there's nine of them 66 percent of those schools are getting to school on time every single day there's three main schools that aren't that's kate wallaber anthony burns and parkridge and those schools have pretty condensed populations i mean i mean park rangers issue with those those schools correct again from wrong was on assigned buses right correct and and just and some of that has been corrected and this proposal adds an additional 40 minutes an additional 10 minutes between tiers so i would anticipate that the reduction in routes the additional bus drivers plus the additional time is going to result in the second tier schools those three in particular arriving on time well when

039you say additional drivers you mean beyond the 12 we've added yes because we continue to add drivers it doesn't sound like we're having much luck if we got five out of 30. it's it's a process right five out of that 130 class there's still two other classes correct right 20 is not a good batting average to me and i will tell you um but can i i want i can go back onto the drivers but i just want to add a note missily on while we're the 68 drivers are just not sitting they're actually running the runs remember i said about the time in the distance so we may have middle school because of the distance to travel we need that time span between the first shift and the second shift elementary to pick up

040those kids to get them to school on time because we don't they're going to be super late so just i just don't want you to think that we have drivers sitting waiting um to run their second tier elementary that's not the case so are they starting later is that i what are what are the drivers other than 115 on the first tier buses are they just starting the day later no ma'am they may be starting a middle school run or even some of our high school runs at in the same time span we start the first shift elementary and or second shift elementary wherever we can find the driver for example if i have a driver that has time to do say a first shift but i know i need them to run the middle

041school we try to get it done but typically because of the time and distance for some of these middle schools and high school runs they they're starting at the same time we are starting our first shift elementary and second shift elementary runs so they're just not sitting waiting they're working they just have a longer ride okay has it always been like that because i i we used to do elementary high school would get there then middle school would get there and then elementary would get there pick up and then they reversed in the the end of the day they they drop off the high school then pick up the middle and pick up the elementary but you're saying that the middle and high school runs are out while the elementary's going well that answers your

042question about why the elementaries are late because the buses are due in the middle and the high school before the elementaries get there i okay i've i'm i'm still looking for the data at some point if i could see this data this is helpful the explanation but i like to to see it on paper so at some point dr jones when that data is available to the public to the board to the board meaning to the public i would i would like to see it you know because that explains some of it doesn't i don't think makes sense for me but so the board was presented data by level what's coming is data about what you asked for was data by school so you've already been given data by elementary middle and high which you

043know 15 minutes or more you know those those tiers of lateness what's coming to the board next is and the data you asked for was data by school so we're gathering that data as we speak yeah i asked for the raw data meaning all the data that was available and i presume that's what we got at the last meeting all the data that was available it is ms young is next go ahead so you are in competition with getting bus drivers because we're in competition with amazon that is paying more paying health insurance and who knows what more so um we i i feel your pain but um how long is the course and why is it like why some individuals are dropping out before they're finished like is there something that we need to

044do no ma'am we i mean again thanks to mr burnett mr fomer for providing the updated salary scale and the sign-on bonuses that has helped tremendously but everything goes on our numbers so we had a draw of over 100 plus close to 200 applications but not all 200 applications meet the criteria so from screening from doing their dmv driving records that eliminates folks just background checks eliminate folks just to get them in the class once they're in the class that's two weeks of classroom instruction at the end of that two-week period we encourage all to test for their learner's permit that's a process it's four tests that they have to pass and if they fail anyone there is a wait time before they can test again and if they fail three times they have to

045um kind of go through the process all over again we can manipulate that'll help that alone a little bit with the waiver but that that becomes a process but once they obtain their lunch permit there's a 14-day period that we have to wait before they can actually test for their actual cdl license so in that 14-day period we teach them all the functions of the bus they get to drive the bus without students they learn all the safety features they learn all the skills needed to operate that bus at the end of that 14-day period we schedule a test if they pass that their test they obtain their cdl i try to do backflips to congratulate them and then they do some student driving time usually it's about 10 hours where we want to get

046them on the mainstream bus and we want to get them on a special needs bus so so i know i have asked this question before but i'm not sure if there was an answer to it i know the bus drivers need that attendant and i was wondering if we were trying to get the attendance to become bus drivers because they're already there know the routes yes ma'am we do there's a summer class that we offer for attendance and we've had um a small number to take advantage of it and they do very well okay i'm not gonna ask you questions and and tell you how you to do your job because this is your job you're the expert here one thing i'm not gonna do is sit up here and ask you all these questions

047in terms of and changing the processes and i'm still getting emails about middle schoolers arriving home before the elementary and two of those schools are mine but all the schools are ours right and so kate wilder barrett parkridge anthony burns these kids are not arriving on time and i want to know if i agree to approve this will these kids get to school on time and if the answer is no and if any of the other suggestions you made is better than this i need to know i just need to know what we are going to do to get these kids to school because i am tired of talking about transportation every single time we're up here i'm tired hold on i think there was one this way then i'll come back this way so

048i i just wanted to you know when you were answering miss healey's question i wanted to make sure i i kind of understood so tier one starts with a 115 drivers and roots that that's the first but at the same time are you telling me that other bus drivers are starting tier two or starting to pick up middle or high schools is that what's happening okay and so so the 115 elementary they drop their kids off and then maybe they are going to do tier two or maybe they're going to start in on a middle or high school run yes ma'am okay i just wanted some i just want to make sure i understood that thank you ms randall but then also some of those tier one drivers instead of going to a tier two

049could be doing a double run is that correct excuse me okay so one of the things um and talking like i just said about you were talking about the nine schools on tier two and kate waller barrett parkridge and anthony burns is there a possibility of moving them to tier one since there are so many unassigned drivers and and to try i know you have all of your drivers deployed but i'm just trying to see if maybe we uh extend tier one um to especially those school you know parkridge has a very high population kate waller barrett is title one and i'm just wondering if there's a possibility if they got moved to tier one would that help them and not to complicate things i know i know i'm just out wondering if that would

050be something to consider moving more schools to tier one earlier time would help eventually tier three eventually tier four i'm just wondering it it has been a discussion but because of the drivers you know we'll be faced with the same pollution where we would not have enough because we have those other drivers doing routes that for time and the distance they need to start earlier so it's just a so it also sounds like part of the problem is is that we we have we have 17 elementary schools but as we go up the tier we go down in the number of schools so the distances are longer to get them to where they need to be so like mountain view seems to have that seems to be where so many of my emails come from

051is the students that are transported to mountain view seem to have to travel the longest distance so they may start at tier one and still not get there on time so i you know i think it's it's you know this is another example of why high school six is important is we need to condense those attendance zones so buses aren't traveling as far because that's contributing this time and distance factors contributing to to the delays and i will say when my son was driving riding his bus it was an hour each way each day because i'm all the way to the king george line so and he went to school where did you have further did you think okay i have a couple questions um i've sort of waited um the um we are very

052focused i know right now on drivers um you know where i'm going do we have the buses even if we get the drivers because i know having spoken with several people even the buses that we have ordered from last spring aren't even here and may not get here until january correct so right now we've prior to it we had a great assigned bus to spare ratio and that number we want to keep about 20 spare buses on hand for the mainstream buses that may break down for whatever reason so adding all of these folks to our fleet depletes the spare ratio so yes we do need buses if we're going to continue to add folks to the fleet in the manner that we're doing we're going to need more buses yes ma'am so we have

053approved at the last meeting um i think it was like 15 or 9 and six or some some amount but those buses probably will not be here till the spring we've been told mid-january but here again our manufacturers face the same problems as other industries about spare parts the computer chips is what i get a lot now and so they're working as hard as they can to get it in because they want to please us as much as possible and they know the dire need that we are in because of the dry driver shortage that's across the country so they don't want to be part of the problem they want to be part of the solution so we know that they're working very hard to give us our buses in a timely manner but like

054i said if those that were from may are still not here and not expected i have a feeling that the ones we just ordered are not going to get to the top of the list hopefully they will but i'm just trying to be realistic um i'm sure this is just you know additional suggestions i did talk with mr fulmer about it i think even dr jones for the many areas in virginia that are losing students as we seem to be gaining students to be reaching out i know that is not our preferred option we like to get a new bus tailor it to our specs however if we are aware of buses in divisions that are losing students and i think we just have to be exploring every option um so anyway so right now

055i know you've said it before how many buses we so we have a driver per bus right now plus 20 percent or yes so we have a total of 270 buses in the fleet 70 70 270 okay and out of that number i think we have assigned and the spares so between the mainstream buses and our special needs buses we're operating around a hundred and thirty somewhere around 135 mainstream buses so these are our 77 passenger buses and somewhere around the range mark for our special needs buses and these are the active assigned buses that are utilized every day okay the second question relates to we heard i believe last week about the charter buses can you reiterate how they are helping how they support how they support the big picture okay so right now

056they're used for our middle school sports primarily and we're using five of the buses to pick up some of our largest bus stops where we have close to 45 plus students these stops are located inside of a neighborhood so we're pulling the bus in to the neighborhood to a side where we can load students effectively not the best ideal but right now we're just working to get our kids to school safely and timely so i'm hoping that with the drivers that are coming out in recent weeks that we can move to eliminate the try to buses as far as the mainstream we may want to explore as far as the cte programs the specialty side if that's still going to be a use a possibility but we definitely want to kind of streamline them out

057of the mainstream pickups and drop-offs and with these five it sounds like so it is five buses going to bus stops are how are we ensuring the safety of our students so we have a staff member that's on the bus with them with the roster the bus has signage on it they get off the bus they kind of herd the students to the bus it's been pretty consistent now with the time and so the kids know to be there and so everything so far has been great i've been out to check some of the stops myself just to see how the kids are and how the traffic situation is around and so again not the ideal situation but we try to put the bus in the most safest situation that we can to minimize the

058traffic flow the kids are all getting picked up on door side there are some that have to cross the street but they were already doing it anyway with the regular bus and so we have that attendant that monitors those kids that are using the crosswalk to cross over from that standpoint but we are constantly looking out for their safety from that standpoint all right any other question what what are we doing for the students that are significantly more than 15 minutes late and and i'm i'm i presume that this temporary proposal will address at a minimum the 15 minutes late but there's still a fairly large number that are up to an hour late and and you're getting the emails we're getting them that that have been an hour late for the past eight weeks

059i mean what are we doing for these families so i'll just share we we talked about this in previous board meetings we're we're recording lessons excuse me dr jones i'm talking about today okay not what we've done in the past i mean we every week we're we're getting better but i'm saying what what are we what are we doing for these families that are writing this week saying my child is still an hour late so it's in that price we didn't take the proposal yeah what are we doing for them today well i'm bringing you proposals as directed to try to address it and i'm hoping that we'll take some action that will result in more time between tears and fewer students being late in addition to that the things that we talked about previously

060in terms of teachers not penalizing students that are late recording lessons etc so we continue to do the things that we can to help the students make up for missed instructional time okay i'm specifically right now talking about the hour the the up to an hour that i'm i'm you know that we've known for eight weeks that they're not getting picked up for an hour late i'm not placing blame here the blame is on on as far as i'm concerned on me on this board because ultimately you know we're responsible but what are we doing and and i if this is going to help the people that are an hour late that's good i thought this was primarily for the 15 minutes i think this will help any student it's like because it adds more

061time and it doesn't penalize for students who come to school we you know we we've reduced our instructional day so the kids aren't missing instruction that's what this proposal does i'm not fond of that idea but if it's going to result in students not missing instruction and being in school in time it will make a difference and and that's the way i interpreted the direction from the board in terms of the proposal i may i may i say something i i guess what i'm concerned a little bit about is that you all need to be careful that you don't over promise and so what i'm concerned about is yes i think this will help and it will probably help a lot of students but it is not going to help all students and i i

062just think the public that are listening need to understand that as you said last last our last meeting that you know there were like five different things that you were trying to do to address the problem and we aren't doing all five of those things or all five of those things can't be done immediately so i think i don't want to over promise people that if we pass this or if we approve this that it's going to be a complete and total fix it will help but it is not going to completely fix it because we're still waiting on those drivers now if we don't get enough drivers what happens in a month when you can no longer take out this instructional time um so just just bringing that up miss hazard let me go

063miss randolph this way sorry um two things um first of all communication is another thing where parents have been writing into us about you know now i find out sort of thing and i i was talking um this morning and one of the things that i was curious about is like when we have i know you talked about how your app has a certain time range of when it can be used and what have you but when you get that call and i'm and i'm just giving a big picture here but say at six o'clock or 6 30 in the morning you have the 19 drivers called in and you know the drivers or their routes or their bus number or whatever you use to is there a way at like we get the snow

064day tweets and the snow day text and the you know all of these things is there a way that you when you get that call or whatever that early in the morning can you message out that early in the morning to all levels that your driver isn't there but we're covering and so you know patients we will update you as the morning goes or as the afternoon goes i'm just wondering if they do they have to wait until it's their window to be contacted i'm just curious about that no they don't the team as they get the play play-by-play or the puzzle that they put together in the morning they have a good idea of what they can cover quickly and what they may need some more time to help cover that's documented and then

065calls are placed and so the status of the calls is just that it's communication to let them know hey we do not have a driver or the bus will be delayed or it may be substituted we're getting those messages out the parents that i talk to a lot you know they they they're not happy because it's not what they want to hear but i tell them that we're doing our best to communicate with what we are working with at that present time and if we don't have a driver we want to tell you we don't have a driver we're going to send a bus back through but chances are it will be running late that's not anything anyone wants to hear from that standpoint but the fact that we're working we're trying to communicate i

066can't give them an absolute time each time we send the message and i explain that to them i encourage them to call i still encourage them to use the app because in many situations that is working in many situations it's not working and so some of it is is if i do it one way i'm good if i do it a different way i'm not good okay but we do work and i do encourage the parents that i communicate with you know if something is happening and it's continuing to happen because we try to have some type of temporary reprieve whether i can alternate a driver or have somebody run through it at an earlier time that finishes up a route that is the quickness that we try to work i can't guarantee it's going

067to happen every single day but if there's a possibility where we can push a bus through quicker than what we've said in a message we will and we have to do that side of communicating and so happen having parents sign up for the my stop app we get the push notifications um those are things that we can push out if we do have a bus where we put a message out that says hey well the bus is going to run late but ironically i have a driver that finished up something they're available we can push it out to them to let know but they have to sign up for it okay and and that's the issue that we deal with now and while we're using one mode and dr jones is this permanent or is

068this this is temporary and do you have a end date so let me let me try to review i think all the things that we're doing to try to address transportation and i want to come into what first of all you passed a new seattle school for bus drivers that's made a difference um as a result of that we've had more more bus drivers apply and we're bringing more bus drivers on board i mentioned in my friday memo that we're and i think mr cook shared this with you he talked about from the communication perspective this idea of the and this was actually part of the first transportation update the tablets on buses which will allow us to communicate in real time that's happening at the same time is this um we're trying to add

069additional time based on this proposal uh you have an ad hoc committee that's going to continue to study transportation um and again i'll go back to the proposed schedule so i would say there's five or six strategies that we're trying to implement all at once that will make a significant difference none of them are panacea none of them are perfect solutions but if we don't make a decision we're going to continue to have the challenges that we're having now so i would respectfully ask the board to make some decision in terms of the proposal the additional time what we're doing to bring additional drivers what we're doing to pilot technology and what the ad hoc committee will bring along with the transformers our consultants what they will bring is additional recommendations if we do something

070in the short term we buy ourselves time for other strategies to implement other strategies so that was that's what i humbly request so but there's no end date or look at well again i'll go back to what i was directed the board said four weeks so um it really it's in your hands but the intent of this was to be temporary and if i go back to the last meeting the proposal was for four weeks i'm sure i have another question uh mr baldwin are we when when the elementary buses whether it's first tier or second tier more concerned about first here when if the bus arrives on time maybe even a little bit early are they required to hold the kids on the bus or can they just drop and go well it all

071depends what the school and the timing they get there so can we maybe talk to the buildings and see how flexible the principles are with because if if they're holding students for 15 20 minutes when they could actually be out on the road it would it would appear to be that just dropping them and going and having staff maybe come in a few minutes earlier or having pta ptos come in and help out in the morning but these are other things that maybe we should be looking at right yeah most schools have already adjusted a couple things they've adjusted their their car driver lines so that they don't compete with buses so most schools have already done that and most schools are already bringing their staff in a little earlier for supervision so but my

072question is basically are the buses being held are the bus drivers holding the kids on the bus not to my knowledge again that's if you could look into that that would be yeah helpful we have a couple of our bus drivers here who can probably answer that question yeah usually on that the first shift or the schools are working very well with us that if we are there in that 20-minute time span and staff are available they unload the bus so that bus can move out okay so i don't think we're holding 15 minutes of kids on the bus from that standpoint not less that driver is just getting there super early and there's just no staff available but it's bad i'd be interested to know if any if any schools are doing that because

073that could be part of the problem correct and i'll add one other piece of data we were asked this question several weeks ago about how particularly at the elementary how long it takes to load a bus and for students to leave the first week it was 11 minutes now it's five at our elementary schools so we do track that data go ahead thanks jim um i i think this comment is more for um dr jones i did mention this before to check into hr to see if um employees are mandatory to like if they're sick or if they know the night before they're overwhelmed tired sick and they know they're not going to be in that they could at least call in is there something in in the handbook that says that that needs to

074happen so that you could at least know um by 6 30 that they're not going to be there right so that is a policy in the handbook um the time is 5 45 that if staff know they're sick and they're not going to come in they are to call in at 5 45 and let our dispatch and when they don't do that what happens well they are listed as a certain status and it's followed up by our supervisor in terms of if it's a consistent call out by time it is reviewed with the supervisor so because one of the comments that this application does is you're saying that a bus it you know it's gonna be late instead of saying that it's not coming at all so i have parents that are in dc or

075somewhere working and can do that run back to pick up their child on the side of the road and so i think that you there needs to be a two-fold in terms of that communication piece if your application is not doing that is there a way then for you to specifically target the individuals on that bus and send them that morning message or something and say no bus do not promise them a bus and say it's going to be late and if it's not coming because their children are going to be on the side of the road right so we do that um in terms of a phone email are you doing that or you're telling me right now that you're doing that no we do that that's part of the regular communication okay so

076then why am i getting comments that it's not being done well i have to look at it on a case by case because every time i'll send you that email yes ma'am please and then the other is just a comment a suggestion and you know what if if individuals want to write me about my suggestions that's one thing but do not talk about my character okay i'm going to make dimension again um their their school the day schools i mean the um the um what am i talking about like child care places they have these buses in between time and i was wondering if we were taking a look at that for just additional writers perhaps do some communication with them because i know that during covet they worked with us with our students when

077we were virtual and so i'm wondering if we we have the relationship already with them is there somewhere something that they could help us with there because they have these buses and i've seen some of the buses only have like two children on it sometimes and so i'm wondering if there's something that we could do and work work it out with them and see that that's an option on dr jones i just have one quick question i would imagine that some routes not all of our drivers can drive all routes so are there any areas that seem to be under more pressure as far as having no assigned drivers i know we're familiar with kate waller barrett and rodney thompson and park ridge but are there any other areas where an absence or a lack

078of an assigned driver is a particular pro problem yes ma'am colonial forge mountain view ronnie thompson's one gail was one but we've been working i think we've kind of filled that void where we've assigned all on drivers to a gale rodney thompson i think we're getting to that point and colonial forge they had the highest number of unassigned routes we're down to eight where we were at 23 beforehand so that's just to continue to work and that's just because of the zone and where the buses have to travel thank you i appreciate it like i said it looks like our our completion rate for our driver hires is about 40 which is pretty low and it takes six weeks correct yes ma'am he said five out of 30. that was just that one class overall

079that's all we've got so far well i've got some more i was thinking because we've added 12 since the beginning of the year so that's do we have any more i thought you said there were 12 bus drivers added and there was a class of 30. there's been multiple classes i think that overall it's about forty percent but we've added twelve drivers so you're saying twelve is forty percent we're at it twelve drivers that have been driving and this is the problem of us trying to do the math you know while we're sitting here i apologize but all i heard was we've added 12 drivers since the beginning of the year and we had we've had a class of 30. so if we had more than a class of 30 and we've added 12 drivers

080that's even lower we the big the big hit from the new initiative was bringing in drivers with the current cdl we brought in 10 and of that we have about seven or eight that have started to drive and we're hoping to finish that out and that was an abbreviated class that we were able to do to get them in motion quicker than we do the four to six weeks and so that's part of the target plan that we've been doing as well not only training the non-cdl drivers but attracting the current cdl drivers with the right endorsement so we can give them an abbreviated course and have them start in a shorter time window and so we've had 10 and we're moving them through the process just as well and we have i think about

08110 more based upon the job fair that we did on the 18th so whenever we can process those folks with the paperwork and get them started we're hoping it would be no longer than two weeks and that is depending on all of the requirements and credentials background checks all of that go through with no problems all right madam chairman i'd like to ask if we can look at some other subdivisions where we could use some charter buses that could free up some buses to help these elementary schools that have very close in populations i mean i i know parkridge is doesn't have it far out i know anthony burns you know may have some you know farther away but they've still got pretty tight populations and kate waller barrett you know that district isn't that

082big so if we could free up some buses so that we could have them there on time that might help i mean i just i i want to do something so we do not continue to have kids an hour late and i appreciate we're not considering them tardy but that's not getting them the instruction that they've missed and this this this 10 minutes 15 minutes that's going to help but that means they'll miss that much less but they're still missing a lot so i'd like to put a focus on that for our next our next review and i mean if we we do i think it's you know it's not ideal but but it seems to be working you know so far to have the charter buses but if we can look and see if

083on a temporary basis there's anywhere else we could use them then we could free up buses to come in and help with these second-tier schools that are late all right let's let's um move forward within um as we have this four-week study period uh well i won't say study period but time for this temporary to implement the various strategies that are going on again as dr chase noted this will not solve everything it is is an attempt to um have some temporary fixes as we move forward i do believe that the board in within the two weeks we should maybe have it as a work session potentially because we need an update because i know that you have those new um the additional um group studying things we would like to probably know as soon

084as possible if they recognize or notice something early that we we should change because again communication it is a balance between how we are trying to handle those so i'm looking at board members is there um in general a support for the new proposal um that was brought forth by staff yes i would just say that um i'm still concerned that we're having families wait till october 12th and we are taking away instructional time so i i mean given that staff has brought us a plan that's really only shifting things by five minutes are we really do we really want to wait another two weeks before we implement it just a question no i think it's a valid concern so i would do it looking at the board i think that we shouldn't wait i

085do not like the fact that we are taking instructional time from a already condensed day in a with a plethora of other problems but i think we need to start this as soon as possible because this is right now the best that we have on the table i would like to then make sure that the communication and the routing or whatever that needs to be done to implement this i would um i i don't want to pick that date i i would like you all to feel comfortable with because the communication plan has to be there for us either through the app through all the various media so i i am i agree with my colleagues i just also want to again not over promise and then have there not be madam chair may i

086also just piggyback on that too um maybe like an all hands with the entire transportation department to make sure that they're ready to pivot i don't want to push it on them if they're not prepared to do that and just making sure as part of the communication plan that the transportation folks are all kind of brought into this for their input and uh to hear their concerns in schools and that the schools and that the school staff are ready for this too dr jones do you have a suggestion or would you like to think on i mean i'm not trying to push the i think you are given the leeway but we also are concerned about the communication and we've already talked with schools i mean they know they're awaiting a decision so i think

087schools are ready i guess the big question is from mr baldwin and the transportation staff because every time we've considered a change they begin to look at what changes they need to make so i'll let you spread that right it's just a matter of being able to make the change in our system some parts become a little tedious some parts we can do in a batch type of assignment but with this time change we've already been working on the consolidations uh with adding new drivers the assignments there and by having this by october 12th we just we can you know we'll have to push it to the wire to make sure that we can get it out we need to make sure our drivers understand if there's any changes to their actual routes times in

088that standpoint we need that time to be able to get that to them for our drivers to be able to review it and be able to start it and so that time is is is warranted for us so mr ball i want to make sure i'm clear because with the exception of the elementary shift one starting five minutes early and hospital ending five minutes late the bus route schedule should be about the same correct so do you need to october 12th or do you need i would say yes sir um because no matter what we still have to update this in the system with the new build times okay and and even though we're not seeing the fluctuation the time fluctuation uh we want to make sure that we match it i understand the concept

089and that should not change for us but we do have to update it in our system and so if we can make it happen before the 12th dr jones madam chair board members we will definitely do that i'm trying to understand this the buses are going to run the same time okay so there's no change in the bus schedule this doesn't change the bus schedule this just changes the school day not the bus schedule correct so if there's no change in the bus schedule there there are some schedule changes here five minutes on one and five minutes on the other on the other side so it says right here minus 10 minus 10 minus 10 but 40 instead of what seven well 45 okay because what i was talking about before was not changing the

090bus schedule leaving the buses as they are and then just starting 10 minutes later and actually i wasn't even talking about elementary because i assumed that they were coming in first that we shouldn't be having problems but so we are changing the bus schedule i okay this is this is not what i talked about so okay so maybe we maybe we could have just a a brief explanation of what this change is because it always helps me when i'm looking at a change to see what it's changing from to what is changing too um i thought the buses were going to run on the same schedule they are now okay can i can i that's different than i i don't can get somebody explain to me what this change is i know it's a change

091in the instructional hours do you want to explain it ms young no i i'm not trying to explain anything here like uh like i said before we're reducing instructional time here for four weeks per ms healey's request but now i think miss healy is understanding that the bus schedule is going to change i'm not sure she's for that but the promise that this is going to help us where students in my communities and i'm sure if we're all school board members here one board that those students that are 40 minutes late it's okay for them to continue to be late i am not good with that i am not good with only the kids that are 15 minutes late gonna be getting on time by decreasing the instructional time i'm not for that okay uh

092and we have not talked to the parents i'm sure some parents are right now emailing us like what is this another change like i said before i am so tired that we did not adopt the schedule that you all presented before and now we're still discussing changes where in october in two days if this works for you all then fine but i i'm i'm not for this i'm i would like an explanation of what this is because what i asked for and and and this is up to the board but just to be clear what i wish for was have the buses come on the exact same schedule they're on now if we took if we started the classes later then the children that were 15 minutes late would be there for the start of

093the class but it would not change any bus schedule so if this is changing the bus schedule i need to know what's happening here this is going to disrupt i i just put this back to where we were last yeah i mean what is this so i'll i'll explain it thank you the elementary shift shifts up five minutes in terms of the start time that's that's a really only bell scheduled change in terms of right now the elementary shift one starts at 7 45. the the the the the middle school and early childhood the actual start time for school as of today it's 8 45. so if the buses run the same as they do now the class will start at 8 55. that's 10 minutes later than where we are today and for the

094high school it is a five minute differential i'm sorry a 15-minute differential from the start time as of today so this allows for buses to run the same schedule theoretically that they run now without students being late for class which is what the board asked me to present the only exception is the elementary shift one and the reason for that is the bus problem is universal it's not just at one level it's at every level mr mr baldwin will have to speak to the specifics right of the transportation i mean that's not not my area of expertise but it's theoretically the bus schedule should be about what they are right now correct it's just the background settings that we need to do to make sure that we have all of our routes accounted for we

095are going to run the schedule as is but there are some things in the background in our system that we need to fix to make sure that's done accurately because right now the times are still within the times of the recommended schedule are still within the regular bus times that they run right now well i just want to make clear for the record i was not requesting a change in the elementary i don't think the elementary needs to reduce their instructional day if because if we should be able to get those elementary kids to school on time they're the first ones there the problem is middle school in high school right so now this this five minutes i mean i so you're saying everybody's the same except the first tier elementary every school has a

096six-hour instructional day i'm talking about the bus schedules yes the elementary has shifted by five minutes the second tier as well nope the first two on first year and and that's you know i i what's that five minutes going to get us that's going to cause a lot of angst that five minutes is going to prevent the second tier from being late right now the second tier buses are late at least 33 of them are and that's trickling into the middle school in the high school yeah we've added time between the middle and high school so that that's how we're addressing it okay all right i think that we have talked this enough is there um [Music] a motion to accept these times um as presented by staff in response to the discussions that were

097held two weeks ago i personally would like to i mean we keep i know we keep punting this but i think most of us have said we wanted to hear from our schools our teachers our parents and again we're not giving any input to our parents about what they want um i i don't know i don't know what the answer is right now ma'am jeremy this is a surprise it's five minutes early now five minutes doesn't sound like a lot but when you're you've got a five-year-old child that's sitting i'm gonna have to go out and wait for a bus at 6 15 in the morning or what time does our earlier bus what's times our first bus stop most of our stops run around 6 30. okay when's our first bus stop the release

098time is around that 6 30 times okay so no okay because i've gotten some emails that talk about 6 15 6 20 so no but none of our buses stop at those times we may still have some of them but most of them are okay i'm just talking about the first one even if it's just one no longer than an hour so if school starts at 7 45 then we're looking at the earliest bus stop should be around at 6 30. there may be some exceptions where i may have them at 6 20 but usually an hour from the start of school would be that first bus stop so for the sake of clarity 75 of our schools technically are not changing right so this proposal only changes about eight of our schools which are

099the first shift elementary schools so if i round up that's it's really 73 but 75 percent of our schools are going to pretty much have the exact same schedule they have right now with more time between levels with students not being late to school but you told us some of those buses for middle and high schools are starting the same time the first tier elementary school starts correct did i remember that correctly seems like a long time ago but all right so so they're starting so are they going to be five minutes earlier with the adjustment they should be but it they're running the same time five minutes with us still is in the window of the arrival time our arrival time to school is 15 to 20 minutes before the start of the day

100so that's why the bus schedule should not interfere with this build time we'll still get buses there all the building administration has been briefed on this and they are convinced that this is going to help we we actually had their input in designing this schedule we met with every principal at every level than once does this have the advantage that you're i mean we're taking a snow day away um to to cover this but but but but the original plan was we were only taking it away from high school so in this plan we're taking it away from all grade levels is that right and that was just to be clear again this is not what i suggested right okay but yeah i i understand that it's just the the in terms of i would

101imagine in terms of keeping track of snow days and things like that that maybe it makes sense to do it this way but but yeah absolutely yeah we're still ahead of the minimum required state hours which is 990. so this does allow us to meet the minimum instructional hours set by the state which is another reason why we got staff input on what is the current ed end time for the high schools three pascal wins at 3 30 this moves it to 3 35. so the the proposal that you brought us last time it it added actually like 30 minutes to more to the to the kids in real time what is this five-minute change going to add to a high school student's afternoon not not much i would argue i'm not sure what you

102mean about what well because you were only you were only proposing a 15-minute change in in the proposal you brought us last week right but in reality it was going to be they weren't getting out until four o'clock or even if i remember it was 355. so so this is just rounding up given traffic yeah so this is 15 minutes less than my original proposal okay because this is this is where i'm getting most of my and who's up here's what i would say uh miss missy and right now by default students are leaving at 3 35 3 45 as of now as of today by default that's what's happening with the high school schedule kids are already leaving later than 3 35 so this is to try to correct that okay well as much

103as um so i'm going to speak since there seems to be no consensus i think at this point we continue to try to find solutions there is not an easy solution but we are trying to get towards a solution i very much um it weighs very heavily on me to make changes however when i know at the high school level buses aren't coming till 4 30 i know it i watch them i go buy it i know that for me this five minutes is something i am willing to try for the four weeks as we get additional um support however i believe that if we are finding that we are not getting that support we will have to make some radical radical changes and that does not sit well with me but i'm not willing

104to do that i am willing to work with five minutes seeing that some of my constituents have said sometimes the bus is early anyway we used to we were supposed to be there 10 minutes before the bus came before i know in the past i'm not thrilled that we have to do this but i also believe we as a board have to do something and have to support some help five minutes for me is much more palatable than um almost four o'clock for the high school students so i will say i am in favor of us moving to this uh schedule it does not um i'm not thrilled but i also believe we have to make some kind of change for our students at the beginning and at the end and this is some a

105way to get there i don't know where other board members are i can pass a gavel for a motion it is up to the board before you vote i just have to share this i know on the interim superintendent but the board directed me to do something i feel like i presented something i would i would respectfully request that we make some decision that's going to benefit our community i make a motion that we accept this proposal we have got to start solving this problem and this is the best we have on the table right now and we can sit here and belabor it but we are not the experts staff has studied this they've been studying this for eight weeks it's time to do something second all right it's been moved and seconded to

106accept the proposal as discussed this evening for four weeks um any further discussion i can't believe i'm saying that but i will all i'm going to say is is i hope there's only a five-minute impact because you know i i heard from my parents last week when when um dr jones's proposal was brought up and i heard from hundreds of constituents and families about what that 30-minute actual impact was going to be to them um and child care and kids working after school and getting home at a reasonable reasonable time to do homework and things like that and i i just don't want this five-minute change here to actually result in that 30 minute that that 30 extra minutes that i was trying to avoid by not voting for this last week and i do

107want to apply i'm going to support this because i think we need to do something i've heard from a lot of other folks freshmen sophomore parents my kids are not being picked up or they're they're an hour late for class so i'm hoping that this kind of is the middle of the road it's a compromise when when both sides aren't happy with it you know it's a good compromise right so i'm going to support it i want to apologize to my elementary school parents if this does not work for you but we we need to do something so i will support this all right all those in favor oh i'm sorry i thought you were just going for your mic so i apologize yes i'm gonna reluctantly support this i don't like this this five

108minutes in the morning i don't like the five minutes in the afternoon but if you say this is going to get those kids to school and at least the ones who are 15 minutes late that's a good start it's a good start for the next month while we're waiting for the other solutions but i want to hear what we're going to be doing for the ones that are more than 15 minutes late the ones that are an hour late and i think there are at least several people miss young miss egan that have articulated their concern tonight i think it's appalling that we have two months after school started students standing out there for an hour waiting for a bus so i want to hear what we're going to be doing for that not what

109we've done so far but what we're going to do now because this will help this will help but it does very little to the ones that are very late and in addition to what we're going to do about getting them to school on time i'd like to hear what we're doing to help them academically you know we're not holding them you know tardy but what are we doing to offer them the instruction that they've missed that's not on you mr baldwin but but i i think that's something that we really need to address because we're talking about almost a semester by the time we get through this we're already halfway through the semester so i'd like to get that in the next transportation report madam chair i'm just going to say i'm not going to

110support this because i'm not going to pick and choose which which kids are going to be in school or on time and um the ones that are not i'm sure you all could pass it but when you brought the the previous proposal i was ready for that one and that one didn't pass and this is the one that you all came up with last last time so go ahead and pass this one but i'm not going to support it i want all kids in school and this is not what's happening i don't care um obviously this isn't the proposal that we came up with last time this was something that dr jones and his staff did but i also want to say that we have we have students that i'm talking we have students that

111are getting to school late that are having to go on their own to get their instruction and these are not kids that necessarily are able to we've heard in conversations with executive function and things like that these are not kids that should have to go and find their education they have they have the right to have in-person instruction with teacher support and they're not getting that because a recorded lesson is still a recorded lesson it's not live so i reluctantly will support this for the four weeks to see where we go with it but i'm very concerned about the education piece the academic piece i know that's on you in ensuring that these kids are actually getting face time instruction with their and with their teachers thank you all right all those in favor please

112say aye any opposed no all right miss hall dr chase no miss hazard aye ms healey yes miss heller back yes miss randall yes dr warner yes and miss young no madam share motion passes all right sorry turn that off all right thank you let's move on to our citizen comments i have two people who have signed up this evening if you would um also like to speak i would ask that if you want to speak to go ahead and stand on the side so you can come forward quickly and not have to kind of crawl over the seats i'm going to go ahead and give the invitation this evening and then i'll call those who have signed up and again then others can follow so three minutes are allotted to each speaker you're encouraged

113to provide a copy of your comments to the board clerk if you have them or you may follow up later by email speakers shall identify themselves by name and any organizational affiliation if you represent an organization shall also announce the purpose or topic of your comments the chair reserves the right to restrict total citizen comment to a predetermined maximum number of minutes with the approval of the board citizen comment which is profane abusive or which threatens imminent physical harm shall be ruled out of order although the board provides the opportunity for citizen comment individuals desiring to register complaints against the division employees or programs services or activities may also utilize the procedures outlined in stafford county public school policy 1113. when you come forward it's a stop light system the green light will come on

114when you have one minute remaining the yellow light will come on when the red light comes on you have like a second or two to wrap up your comments and then if you will then if you cannot finish your comments go ahead and hand them to the clerk or follow up with us by email all right i have tim rudy and haley mccarthy and anyone else who's interested please stand to the side so you can come forward good evening madam chair members of the board my name is tim rudy i'm resident of stafford county specifically of the acquire district i've been sitting in the back for an hour and a half listening to the transportation issue and you all are diplomats i've never been accused of being a diplomat so i'm just going to say

115it someone either the previous superintendent or the interim superintendent did not have the forward thinking forward sight to see this problem happening i've been i raised two wonderful children in stafford county i've talked to a number of people about this issue and it's never been like this so i just think someone dropped the ball on this thing which segues into one of my points but two points i want to bring to the board's attention one i want to publicly thank miss hollerbach for her service on the on the board her long and exemplary service on the board and her faithful valuable service to the residents of stafford county specifically those in the acquired district ms hollerbeck you've addressed so many important issues over the years and you've always fought the good fight thank you you've

116always been responsive to the needs of your constituents and always for the right reasons for the good of the students so on behalf of the rudy family i'd like to thank you and i you'll be missed sorely missed so thank you i know there are other members of the board that may not may not be back after this term so for you thank you too i appreciate your service on the board the second issue i'd like to discuss is the selection and appointment of the next superintendent if my recollection of history is correct the past handful of superintendents have been imported from outside of stafford county they either use stafford county as a stepping stone or just left after a very short tenure either way we all know it's difficult to establish a culture from

117the top down when the superintendent isn't around long enough to establish that culture how about trying to appoint this superintendent the upcoming superintendent from within someone who has worked within the school district at every level someone who has succeeded and earned the respect of everyone at every level someone who has known our stafford community and knows the issues that we'll face and will speak with authority knowledge and familiarity of those issues appointing a call appointing a quality candidate from within excuse me we'll also show our many talented administrators that they too through hard work and dedication can succeed and advance to that highest level as the issues of critical race theory gender issues and cancer culture continue to work their way into all areas of our society let's put the right person in place in

118our school system that best knows the attitude of our community we have such counties or such candidates within our school system i'm happy to discuss this further with you if that's what you choose thank you for your consideration in time hello my name is haley mccarthy and i'm a 10th grader at colonial forge high school although i've spoken to dr jones through email and he offered to meet with me and other students privately i asked him if i could do this in person so that i could share the voices and concerns of many students as i told dr jones in our chats public speaking is not something that i've ever done before and although i'm super nervous i wanted to do this because the schedule flip is one that i along with so many so

119many others feel strongly about when i first heard about this slip in the schedule with high school starting last i was upset just like many others as children though we're always told what to do from rules to homework and everything in between we're also told where to be at what time etc and this was no different for the most part we typically get used to things and they get better but this schedule flip has not improved we've now had this schedule for almost two months and it's just getting worse although we've heard so many different reasons for why this change was made none of them make sense because our opinions weren't taken into account i personally think this is wrong because now we're the ones living with the change and it's not easy high school

120curriculum and classes are difficult count towards college and the pressure to do well is real colleges don't just look at gpa acts and sets anymore in order to really stand out our high school experience has to include leadership opportunities volunteer hours and activities that go above and beyond unfortunately this flip is not giving us the opportunity to do this we start late and late and barely have time for one activity let alone homework it has not only been disruptive to us but also to our families and teachers too although i could share several issues with this current schedule i've narrowed them down to the ones that have been shared with me by other students and parents i got the idea to start a petition when i heard from so many students and parents about how

121unhappy they all were with the schedule i only started collecting signatures on september 17th and thanks to some friends the petition even made its way into other high schools too even though we only had a few days and a few minutes before school started to obtain these we still managed to collect hundreds of names [Music] thank you but only one time i know this would have been so much higher because the petitions that have been posted online are now in the thousands by sharing these problems i hope you will see the negative impact that this change has had on our lives number one because of the schedule flip in starting school in early august many extracurricular activities in sports like football golf and cross country are now meeting between six and seven in the morning

122haley i'm gonna have to have you um can you submit the rest to us by giving them to our clerk is that okay you did a great job thank you thank you for coming this evening it looks like you have a big stack so if you want to either to give that to our clerk or you can follow up with her all right thank you for coming all right anyone else wishing to speak come on down hello i'm maureen sigman i'm from the garrisonville district the start of the school year our middle school daughter was assigned an elective she was really excited about she gets to school the first day and learns her class will be virtual with a paraprofessional in the room to monitor them we had no idea but things happen maybe the

123teacher was quarantined i emailed the teacher and was told that there was one teacher for two middle schools so that each school would have one semester virtual and one semester in person okay fine then the paraprofessional was pulled from the classroom and now administration monitors the class this is strange for an ongoing situation there's a saying about the tip of the iceberg and part of the ice and that is the part of the iceberg we see it's just a tiny bit as an indicator for the remainder of what lies beneath the surface i would like to suggest that the transportation issue we have been dealing with is just the tip of the iceberg and because that and because it is the part that is visible it's the part we the families have been most unconcerned

124about but over the past few weeks i've become aware of what's lurking beneath the surface we immediately felt the impact of the personnel shortage in the transportation department because it happened on our doorsteps but we're about to feel the impact of a staffing of our staffing shortage stafford county currently has 86 licensed positions posted 28 elementary 28 middle 30 in high school we do not have enough substitutes in the poll to even cover this shortage let alone the increased absences for teachers who must be absent so how are they coping the short answer is they're not doing well we're paying our teacher where our teachers are giving up their planning time to cover other classes they're staying late to cover bus delays in some schools where the student population is high cafeterias sit empty all

125day and children eat in the classroom where their teacher continues to monitor them sometimes they get a break during encore but not always because in some schools those subjects are on carts so they come to the classrooms as well our teachers are now having to teach concurrent hybrid learning after thinking that was a thing of the past again with no planning period or and reduced ex after school time uh due to the increased student monitoring students have building specific subs and the subpool but there are still uncovered classes every block every day and our teachers and administrators continue to pour from their emptying cups to provide the best possible learning experience for our kids with this much piled on the plates of our staff something has to give and what basically gives is their spirit

126what gives us their ability to pour their heart and soul and passion creativity and all the reasons we hired them they just don't have the time or god love them the energy after that long of a day of full student contact and no opportunity for down time no lunch time and borrowed moments to use the bathroom as a parent i'd like to know what we're doing to bridge the gap my neighbor applied and interviewed to be a para got no response i know we're hiring but what's actually happening i'm very concerned we're going to lose our incredibly dedicated and gifted staff because of our failure to provide time thank you all right come on down good evening my name is melissa angel i'm in the acquia district i didn't really plan on speaking tonight but

127after listening to everyone discuss the transportation issue i did want to just say a few things as far as my middle schooler goes she was one of the students that was over an hour late she's now down to 15 minutes late so it is an improvement and i definitely do appreciate it however we are dealing with the repercussions of that late time her first class of the day was german and she has an f currently and just like maureen was talking about with an issue of a shortage of staff with teachers the teacher that she has is also a high school teacher so she is only there for half of the class and that is the portion that my daughter missed now she has done all of her assignments it's just a matter of that

128teacher having time to update the grade so even though it shows an f that's not actually what she has in a class but it is preventing her from playing a sport so it was a little bit frustrating in regards to changing a schedule hollerback hit the nail on the head with why can we not just go back to the old schedule we know that science shows something that kisner thought would be best for our students but i have not met one single parent that agrees with that study they are doing it because it's we have no choice um some are okay with it and a lot are not the biggest issue for me is there was no transparency why did we not get a survey for the parents to answer that question whether or not

129we would be okay with that change my youngest is in elementary school and she is typically a morning person but right now she gets up at six o'clock and i understand it's only five minutes that we're changing it so now instead of getting on the bus at 6 50 it's going to be 6 45 or if the earliest pickup time is 6 30 and now we're looking at 6 20 6 25 you're having to get a five or six year old up at 5 30 in the morning it's just absolutely ridiculous and i believe parents should have some input so if we are talking about schedule changes can we not talk about a schedule change that goes back to what we originally were at because it appears that the elementary school is the largest group

130of students that need to be transported so shouldn't they be the last one that we're transporting that's all i have to say thank you very much hello my name is eva mccarthy and i did not plan on speaking today but i am taking over for where haley left off um so this is not written by me i'm reading yours number two even when activities are scheduled after school practices end between six and seven and depending on the sport game days are even later because of this many students are staying up late into the night to study and complete homework number three this schedule is also problem a problem for teachers who have lives and families to get to after work office hours with teachers are now being scheduled before school starts this early start once

131again means less sleep and parents having to figure out how to get their children to school early number four students that want to have jobs or need to have jobs now have to start their work day later and end later too once again equalling less sleep because of studying and homework that has to be completed after their late shifts number five with the old schedule high school students were able to watch younger siblings or do this as their after school job for others now because they are still in school they no longer have this option for the parents who i spoke to and who don't have flexible jobs this has caused them to have to find less convenient and more expensive child care for their younger children number six since life after high school generally

132requires an early start for jobs or college classes many of us don't feel that this schedule is preparing us for what is to come in the real world number seven with this later start time in the covet restrictions our only real socialization time at school which is lunch has been cut short after one and a half years of virtual instruction and not having much interaction outside of our phones and computers getting this time back is important not only does it give us time with friends or just for ourselves it also gives us the mental and physical break we need from classes responsibilities and life in general number eight we've all heard that high school is supposed to be the best four years of our lives some of us like me miss their entire first year

133while others miss their last or their middle years in all scenarios we missed out on normalcy even though we're back in school now things are anything but normal and this has just added stress to so many lives the material and assignments are getting more difficult as the weeks go on and having less time to do the same amount of work is a lot of pressure my hope is that that in hearing the negative impacts that this is having on very many students families and teachers that you will realize that this new schedule is not working the way that it was intended i'm not stating that every student parent or faculty member feels this way but i have spoken to several hundred that do so what i'm asking is that you please meet with us obtain

134opinions and make a decision that is better for our overall health and education and is less stressful for everyone thank you for your time and please consider going back to the old schedule and i know as haley's mom she does have a petition that she started on her own and this is not anything she's done so her coming here hats go off to her because i don't know thank you i do this for you thank you um for anybody who did speak i'm sorry i forgot to say um can you sign into the um um haley you don't need to but if anybody um has spoken can um already can you come up and sign the clipboard i i'm sorry i forgot so come on down anybody else who wants to speak she's already spoken

135but if you want to sign in while she's speaking that would be perfect hi i'm laura brewer i'm a stafford county school bus driver i live in the garrisonville district stafford county public schools historically has always had high school start first the board approved a change during the pandemic and nationwide driver shortage to reverse that to elementary starting first then after the schedule change was made there was a decision made to compress the hours to accommodate the outcries of the parents students staff and community i can tell you that driver shortage or no shortage you set us up to fail from the start there are uncontrollable issues and uncountable issues that can array to cause delays for example kindergarten and first must be met by an adult do you realize how much time is involved

136in returning these students back to their school i drive three elementary runs taking one student back is detrimental to the schedules stop with the band-aid fixes put the schedule back to pre-cover times listen to the experts you hired and let them do the job you hired them to do as you say they are the experts not you thank you anyone else want to speak come on down good evening my name is jody fagan um i'm just going to talk about the vaccine mandates because i know they're coming um boys between 12 and 15 with no underlying medical conditions are more are four to six more times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than being hospitalized with covet if i am forced to make my child part of this human experiment who will be

137responsible if he is one of those unlucky ones that is vaccine injured and can no longer play his high school sports or after school sports or worse if my child becomes depressed and does the unthinkable are you prepared to have that on your conscience i have done my research i am not prepared to vaccinate my children i have spoken to our doctor and he can provide me with no additional information because there isn't any information um maybe when more parents add their children into the human experiment there will be more data but i do not intend to be one of those parents that is my choice to make for my children not yours thank you is there anybody else who was anybody else who wishes to address the board all right seeing none then i

138am going to close public comments next we have our board committee standing our stand board standing committee any reports this evening there are no reports for fab or governance this week excellent all right doc yes i'm sorry yeah that's okay so i was just going to say the governing board of the commonwealth governor school met had their first meeting there has been a reduction in the number of students which lowered the budget so they made adjustments to the budget to reflect that and i also wanted to say that they have hired a counselor to work with students and she gave a presentation that was very impressive and she is um dividing her time between stafford spotsylvania and king george and really trying to work you know in some ways maybe help relieve the counselors at

139the various schools by providing services and that's it thank you dr jones you're up next i won't say much i do want to thank haley before she leaves because i did have an opportunity to email probably about 100 students about 100 students email me and i try to respond every single one of them and you know both sides of the issue but that's not the point the point is that students did contact to contact staff and um i i certainly respect um in my view our most important constituents are the 30 000 students we serve so the more we can get them involved the better otherwise i just want to thank the board for trusting the staff to bring forward recommendations this has been grueling as you know you feel it as well as i

140do i feel like i spend 60 of my time on transportation which i don't mind doing but i hope we get to a point where i don't have to do that so thank you for your support all right thank you moving on to our consent agenda agenda with three items is there a motion to approve the consent items i had i had just a question on the consent agenda sure um and it was simply i noticed that we have a number of international teachers who've been hired and i was just wondering if we could get any more information about that i'm not sure that i see mr burnett here right now um dr jeff but he did give me an answer so if you'll bear with me um i believe we've hired eight international teachers

141uh here it is um we fired eight via our j-1 partnership program according to mr burnett they're doing very well i think we are including them in the fit program um so i think they're participating in fit so they're a part of the class of our new teachers that have joined us um [Music] and we also have some of our retired teachers who are who are working to help them transition so we're trying to provide as much support to those teachers as possible i i will share with you i was at anthony burns last thursday and visited a class i think was a first or second grade class of one of our international teachers who seem to be doing just fine and can we ask where our international teachers are coming from i didn't get

142that information but i can share that with you you know in my friday memo all right thank you any other uh questions i saw mr burnett oh go ahead yeah i would like to know so i could practice my languages so please let us know it could be the ambassador a second all right all those in favor of the three consent items please say i i any opposed motion carries unanimously there are no action items this evening our first information item is uh regarding our agreement with the vsba for policy services this is a standard item that comes every year but no need to expedite any questions on that particular item all right hearing then let's move on to 10.02 which is about the um let's see the chiller at chiller at colonial forge high

143school using the three r set aside funds questions just a comment just to make sure that we have coverage on on these hvacs i know in the past we had some issues so just make sure that we have some kind of coverage yeah mr anderson's probably going to have to answer this one mr hallerman miss hollerbeck so while you're walking i'll i'll ask um how old are the chillers at colonial forage the chiller that we're replacing is 22 years old and how old is brooke points it's about 10 years old so it's being rebuilt it's been replaced since the school was built and it's being rebuilt per the manufacturer's instructions and that is that currently happening yes the school board's already approved that work okay just wanted to make sure thank you okay that was

144easy all right next one is um the proposed revision oh no excuse me the uh 4 800 uh chromebooks for elementary and high school uh using the vpsa technology grant funds and technology department operating funds questions i had one i noticed that the middle school was not in there so there must be a reason for that so if i understand the question the middle schools are not in the kindergarten is getting touchscreen and the which looks like this and it's rubberized and ruggedized and then the high schools are getting this one which is 14 inch bigger higher definition screen the middle schools are getting the ones that we already have in stock so when we give these to ninth graders we get the newest like last year's version from the rising ninth graders and reissue

145those you know making sure they're the latest version okay last year we were able to get rid of our oldest ones a whole model year of those so we're we're good on the middle schools okay everybody's got what they need okay so even though they're all three different you're using the same platform background and everything to update them yes they're all chromebooks okay thank you jay all right our next one is an adoption of proposed revisions to policy 1121 which is about electronic participation as this was discussed in the uh governance committee this is in compliance with the new um uh state mandate or state law that was passed in this regard so we are tracking with with that um with that new electronic participation which they updated which was helpful any questions um yeah

146is it going backwards it's going forward it's going forward starting when because i thought the policy was 25 of your meetings and so i wasn't sure if any past meetings are part of this or how does that work i mean it doesn't really matter it's almost the end of the year so is it july one it'll um go into effect as soon as the board passes it um but as far as the counting the counting starts from this this year can we move this forward to pass it today can we i think let's hold it to it's policy but yeah i mean it may affect some of us let's have a question the 25 of the school board or committee meetings held per calendar year is that um all meetings i mean we have special

147meetings we have uh i think it's all meetings it's everything which is the way it was explained by the vsbi yep so that you told me during our committee meeting that this gave us more opportunity to do that it does it kind of takes into account that people have a real life and sometimes there are family members that you may need to take care of of course but you can still participate in the meeting yeah so it expands it it makes it more i i just like to be clear and this the meetings because we have we approve a calendar with regular meetings but then we add on a lot of special meetings so it it this is intended to say all meetings regular or special because those are the only kind of meetings we

148have regularly scheduled or special meetings right is there any reason we could not put that in there so that it's clear we can't or whoever you know reads it later because that could always be a question that came up no i i think this is good i i support this i'm just trying to make it um simple yes people have questions in the future can we just add in there also that it's going forward not it doesn't add anything well as soon as you pass it it goes forward so we can add in regular or special okay we don't have any other kind of meetings um i think just i think we should bring it back with the revised language okay i would just feel better that it has to have two readings anyway should

149it be regular or special or should be regular and special we don't have any other meetings it's the combination it's 25 of the total meetings i mean we all would know it's the total meetings but somebody reading this next year may say well maybe they meant the meetings that they have proven which is somebody said or and i was like isn't it so that was well actually in this case i think the or would be the same as the and at least i would interpret it the same way and the special meetings mean work sessions also all meetings that's what it means weather just all board meetings all right thank you all right let's see our next one is the proposed revision student policy 2105. dr warner this has been discussed in fab this would

150be in help with retention of our support staff and we expect that the impact would be very slight it's currently i think about 160 students overall in the division for licensed staff we expect it would be somewhat less than that since more of our support staff actually lives in county so maybe 50 over 33 schools madam chair i'm i'm very happy um that i see this been taken up by the fab and um that the administrative moncura brought this forward and spoke on it so i'm very happy that it's here and hoping that we pass this the next time going around i just have a question about this and it has to go with our closed schools how is how is that going to be interpreted because we've always had you know questions about transfer

151you know once the school was closed to transfer i mean how i think this says something about if there's room um it was is it the beginning of the the documents um again i i i want to be clear here as to what we're you know what what we're approving um the the factors taken into consideration one of the factors is space and program availability if the child it would go to see it's someone that works at a school that is closed would we open it for that i believe we would send them to the next closest school that has space so currently we um allow non-resident children of non-resident um teachers instructional staff to come to stafford so that teacher let's just say for instance works at one of the high schools all of

152our high schools are closed and the teacher has a high school child that teacher can bring the child to that school regardless of whether it's closed or not okay and and if the and i understand that because the child would be coming with the teacher but if it was a school say it was a elementary school a staff person and they they had a middle school child would that middle school child go to the closest middle school or would it go if that middle school were closed it's the closest middle school regardless of whether it's closed or not because that is seen as a benefit to staff okay all of our schools are going to be closed probably next year yeah well yes you know i i'm going to support this but i would ask

153that we have get a report on it you know after the you know beginning of next year to see what impact this is and that this be uh reviewed a year from now to see what the potential impact is and i understand the retention and at one point this this policy was in back well before me in the 90s and then it was rescinded and then it was put back in because retention you know of of teachers or licensed staff i haven't seen any um any data i mean i know it's a hardship to some staff people and certainly i want to you know give the benefits where we can but i don't want to do it at a cost to our our citizens in stafford county because they're the ones whose families are paying

154the taxes which are supporting you know our our schools so i would like to get a report on this um as to the you know the the impact of you know what the increase is what the total is and what the increase is and if and and what the schools are whether they're closed or open yes that information is tracked yeah i mean that would be next year after they register all right our last information item is a continuation of policies that were reviewed the 40 100 or really the 4000 series many of these if you looked at most of them were being updated to meet either new requirements or to consolidate language to make it easier to read mr burnett any particular comments if or no just happy to answer any questions any questions

155most of them were fairly straightforward if upon review there are some questions please make sure you send them to ms hall um so they can be forwarded to um dr jones and mr burnett for uh the board to see the responses all right all right we our next meeting um uh official meeting of the board is october 12th at 7 pm at this point but stay tuned everyone have a great evening this meeting is adjourned thank you for your service