001Heat. Heat. [Music] Nat. [Music] by [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Kathleen Brown, chair of the Virginia Beach School Board, and I call this formal meeting to order on September 9th. 9, 2025 at 6 p.m. Madame Clerk, would you please announce the role? Thank you, Madam Chair. Present in the school board chamber are Chair Brown, Vice Chair Williams, Mr. Bowensteel, Mr. Kalen, Mr. Co Pepper, Mr. Cummings, Miss Dwire, Miss Felton, Dr. Green, Miss Melnik, and Miss Rogers. Thank you. Um, would all who are able join me in a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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 for all. All right. Now, we have the honor to
002recognize um some of our schools and students this evening. Dr. Green, would you begin the celebration? Thank you, Miss Williams. Our first recognition this evening is for Virginia High School League class 5600 meter state champion in track. Please welcome Danielle Maynor. [Applause] In June, Danielle, who's now a junior at Cox High School, placed first in the 1600 meter class 5 Virginia High School League competition. Track and field coach Lanny Don said Danielle is the first female in school history to do so. Danielle has been running track since she was an eighth grader at Great Neck Middle School. She has run cross country, indoor, and outdoor track her freshman and sophomore years. Due to her outstanding dedication and lots of hard work, she has steadily improved in all three events. Although never a state champion prior
003to her outdoor win, she was the regional 3,200 meet champion and has qualified for the state championships in every cross country and track season. She is a great teammate. Congratulations, Danielle. We are proud of you. Our next recognition is for the Virginia High School League's National Guard Cup with represent representatives of Kellum High School. Please come forward. [Applause] This award is presented by the Virginia Army National Guard for year-long athletic success. Six cups are awarded for academic activities and athletics in each of the Virginia High School League's six enrollment classifications. A point system determines the winners based on overall performance in VHSL state championship competitions. For the 2024 2025 school year, Kellum had 13 regional championships, four state runner up runners up, and two state champions. This is the first time that Kellum has received
004this award. Congratulations, Kellum High School. We are proud of you. Our next recognition is for the VHSL Claudia Dodson sportsmanship ethnics and integrity award and the VHSL stay in the game award. We'd like to welcome representatives of Tallwood High School to join Kellum High for recognition. The athletes program at Kellum and Tallwood High School both received the Claudia Doppson VHSL sportsmanship ethics and integrity award which recognized schools that have established policies and procedures that make sportsmanship a priority. The VHSL consider this award its most prestigious because it only it's the only award that the entire school is graded on. The selection process include a self assessment and a peer review. Kellum High School is committed to promoting leadership, integrity, and unity. Students and staff take pride in representing their school and understanding the significance of
005wearing the black and gold. Their success is determined not only by athletics performance, but also by how they demonstrate respect for the games, the officials, and the opponents. These core values give the Kellum Knights in their conduct both on and off the field. Force a positive future and a stronger, more inclusive community. The Tallwood Athletic Department mission is to empower student athletes with discipline, teamwork, and accountability to cultivate a lasting sense of pride, which stands for perseverance, respect, integrity, discipline, and effort. Tall with Athletics is a program that isn't just about winning. It's about accountability, building character, and fostering a positive environment for every participant field value. Tallwood Athletics is proud of their coaches and athletes for setting the highest standards of sportsmanship. Kellerman Tallwood also won the VHSL stay in the game award for
006having no players ejection throughout the entire year. Congratulations Tallwood and Kellum. We are proud of you. Yes. Give it up. Our final recognition is for the VHSL class 5 coach of the year. Pete Zel of Ocean Lakes High School couldn't be here tonight, but we are glad to honor him. Coach Dell was named the VHSL class 5 coach of the year after leading Ocean Lakes to the VHSL class 5 state baseball championship. It is the school's first baseball title in its 31-year history. Coach Zel led the Dolphins to a 21-5 record. He was also named VHSL region 5A coach of the year. Coach Zel has worked tirelessly year after year to build competitive teams while prioritizing the character development of his players. He is deeply committed to their growth, providing countless opportunities for those who
007wish to pursue athletics at the collegiate level. Most importantly, he instills lasting values of respect, resilience, hard work, and reflection, essential life skills that extend far beyond the game. Virginia Beach City Public Schools and Ocean Lakes High School are proud of Coach Zel and the dedication he has poured into the baseball program. Ocean Lakes is especially grateful for the mentorship and guidance he has provided to student athletes over the years. Congratulations, my friend, Coach Zel, we are proud of you. [Applause] And Madam Chair, this concludes the schoolboard recognitions for this evening. Thank you. Um we are now on to the adoption of the agenda. Um just right before this meeting I talked to Miss Rogers and um Mr. Cummings. I'm sorry I drew blank. And um the sister cities uh committee now only wants one
008liaison. And so I'm going to add uh to 15C a vote related to committee assignments for sister cities um so that we can be consistent with that. That way nobody's getting nicked for attendance on that. Um are there any other modifications to the agenda as presented? Seeing none, I call for a motion to approve the agenda as presented and modified. Moved by Miss Dwire, seconded by Miss Green. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to approve the agenda as modified. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. The motion did pass for the adoption of the agenda. Thank you. Uh we are now on to the superintendent recognitions. Dr. Robertson, do you have any recognitions tonight? Uh yes, I do. Uh we were busy over the summer staffing administrative positions. We get the opportunity
009tonight to recognize these individuals who are now in their new positions. We'll start with Denise Fico, who is now the assistant principal at Diamond Springs Elementary School. Congratulations. I see you have some guests. This is my mother. Outstanding. Congratulations. Next up, we have Skyler Harrison, who's now the assistant principal at Redmill Elementary School. [Applause] Tyler, you have some guests. I do. So I have my husband Brandon here with me. My son Braden joined us tonight. My mom Starlet is here. My current principal Kathy Brum is here with me. And I have support from my former president. Yes. Congratulations. Next up, we've got Katherine Johnson all the way from Cass Center School District in Illinois who's now assistant principal here at Strawbridge Elementary School. I see you have some guests. I do. I have my youngest
010daughter Jane who's a third grader at John right now and also my principal Jackie Sergeant with me. All right. Congratulations. Next up, we have Caitlyn Buck Holtz uh who is now joining us in another promotion position. She's now the assistant principal at Independence Middle School. [Applause] And I know you have some guests. I have my son Henry and my daughter Avery who are proud students. And of course my husband who without your support I couldn't do any of it. Z. Yeah. So Zach's Zach's Zach's one of ours, too. How you doing? How's a foot? Yeah, he took a tumble. Yeah. Well, we miss you, man. We're waiting for you to get back. Next up, we have Diane Rockill, who's now the assistant principal at Kilsville Middle School. My husband, Mark, my son Dylan, my daughter
011Kayla, proud alumni of school, Bowser. Congratulations. Next up, we have Tory Beck. currently used to be an elementary or a middle school principal is now assistant principal at Lancetown High School. I know you have some guests. Yes. So, this is my husband Gary and my friends and Haley and somewhere around here is my amazing principal Dr. Johnson. Congratulations. Next up, we have Derek Braxton, currently assistant principal at Salem High School. We got him from Chesapeake, by the way. I'm just saying [Applause] I have my sister, my mom, and then my current. Congratulations. And then last but not least, we have Sarah Rutsus, who formerly was a teacher at Kville High School, is now the coordinator of business and information technology in the office of technology, technical and career education. I know you have some guests.
012My mom former teacher as well. My oldest daughter is excited. 2-year-old right now. Congratulations. Yes. And and Dr. Lockit. So, to all of you, we certainly appreciate uh all the effort that it took for you to get to where you are today. We look forward to what you can bring to this school division in these new roles. And for the families, thank you very much for sharing them with us. Have a good evening. [Applause] Thank you so much. So this where all the chocolate chip cookies went. No, I don't want any. I'm not shy. No, I don't want any picking at you. No. Nobody else. Those little mini cookies were good. I had one. I had the macadamia. I had a macadamia. Most chocolate. Waste calories. Okay, we are on to the approval of the
013meeting minutes from August 12th, 2025. Are there any modifications to the minutes as presented? Seeing none, I call for a motion to approve the August 12th meeting minutes as presented. Moved by Mr. Kellen, seconded by Miss Dwire. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to approve the August 12th, 2025 meeting minutes as presented. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes, the motion to pass for the approval of the August 12th meeting minutes. Thank you. We are now on to public comments. Uh, the school board will hear public comments on matters relevant to preK through 12 public education in Virginia Beach and the business of the school board and the school division from citizens and delegations who signed up with the school board clerk prior to noon today. The purpose for the public comment
014section is for the board to offer an orderly form to receive public comments during the schoolboard meeting. I call upon all speakers and all persons in chambers to be civil and discussion and decorum. Whatever views you wish to express, the school board wants to hear from you and to ensure that all viewpoints and perspectives are heard. The best way to do this is for all of us to strive for civility and respect. Madame clerk, would you please announce the first Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to make one note that speaker number four had to cancel this evening. So our first speakers will be Cody Connor, Heather Cyp, and then Diane Muskavac. Originally, I was going to talk about what a poor leadership decision it was to give the superintendent a big raise while
015giving your teachers the shaft on health care costs, but I think you're going to get plenty of that. I don't know if you're trying to look bot, Dr. Robertson, but you look bot. I was also going to talk about how the federal directives to eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion um were deemed illegal by a federal judge, but those weren't directives for you. They were just an excuse to do what you already wanted to do. You know, as I witness more and more of what you would call making America great, I wonder what this America first agenda has put our kids first in line for. Exactly. From where I stand, it looks like they're first to see their education diluted and destroyed as teachers are attacked and books are banned and history is censored and education defunded.
016It looks like they're first to feel like they won't belong, like there's no place for them here. As diversity isn't celebrated, it's condemned. Equity and inclusion no longer no longer valued, but reviled. Looks like they might be the first to lose their freedom of speech as descent against tyranny is being criminalized by this administration. And we all know they're the first to feel the sting of bullets because too many would rather keep guns easily accessible than keep our kids alive. And then when they get out of school, what jobs are they first in line for? all of the lowpaying manual labor jobs that are becoming available because according to the reports our country isn't making any other jobs is that what you call greatness. A rose by any other name still smells just as sweet
017and a pile of garbage by any other name still smells like rot. So call it what you want, call it greatness. But as this rot fers, the stench of desperate fascism only becomes more obvious. These lies that you so eagerly devour, they're not grand facads. They're blindfolds. You're not covering or changing the truth. You're just preventing yourself from seeing it. And so you stand in piles of your own waste and accuse others of making your life stink. Now, you take way too much comfort from your ignorance for anything I say to make you see, but I do hope someday you realize where that smell's really coming from. Our next speaker is Heather Cip, Diane Buscoach, and then Amanda Kimble. Good evening, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, members of the school board, and Dr. Robertson. My
018name is Heather Cyp and I am president of the Virginia Beach Education Association and I'm here this evening to speak about employee compensation and benefits. The so scores for the 2524 school year are out and BBCPS is number one in the seven cities on almost every test. Yet staff compensation remains dead last. Throw in the absurd premium changes which were not presented to staff and the public during budget season and which were decided behind closed doors at a point in time where it was too late to make budget changes. And now VBCPS is dead last across all years of service for compensation. Staff should not have to choose a lower premium highdeductible insurance plan so that it still fits in their budget and pray that no one in their family gets sick or injured. And
019what about those who are already on the high deductible plan and barely able to afford their insurance as well scores can't pay premiums or deductibles or mortgages or car payments or prescription costs or even buy groceries. At the August 12th schoolboard meeting, Dr. Robertson mentioned the possibility of providing staff with a $500 stipend in December. Stipen is unacceptable. It is taxed at a much higher rate and it does not count towards VRS. Additionally, it would only provide true relief for those on a couple of the lower tiers of the plans. Anyone on a POS family plan would barely get one month's worth of premium increase covered. BBCPS staff deserve an additional raise to be effective January 1st, 2026. An additional 5% raise would go a long way toward ensuring BBCPS staff are compensated at or
020close to number one in the seven cities. Close. Not quite there. Dr. Robertson, a superintendent, is now compensated thanks to his renegotiated salary at a level comparable to Fairfax, Louden, and Prince William. A first year teacher in those divisions makes 5 to 8,000 a year more than here in BBCPS. And at year 30, they're making 20 to 30,000 a year more. Virginia Beach's cost of living index for 2025 is comparable to all three of those divisions. Yet, school employees make far less in Virginia Beach than in their counterparts in Northern Virginia. And here's a fun fact. All three of those divisions also have a collectively bargained, negotiated contract. An additional 5% raise effective January 1st, 2026. Lobby city council for the funding. Do what you have to do. Find the money. Find the revenue streams.
021Compensate your staff where they deserve to be. and get creative to ensure our retirees get the relief they need as well. Thank you. Our next speaker is Diana Muskavac, then Amanda Kimble, then Melissa Lucen. Chapency in education. So what does chapency mean in education? First, chapency thoroughly educates the whole student inside and outside the classroom. Chaplain affirm that education includes the acquisition of information and much appreciated personal character formation and transformation. Students are far more than intellect and learning is far more than grades. Chaplain help to ensure that students receive something more than a ticket to an entry-level job. Instead, they help launch young people on a trajectory towards an extraordinary life as a whole person. Chapency honors identity and cultivates community and eliminates and ignites a sense of purpose in a crisis. Chapency brings
022clarity. As a result, we should appreciate, strengthen and sustain those who who are called to serve as chaplain. Separation of church and state, constitutionality of school chaplain. Throughout the years, US chaplain have honored the historic separation of church and state as they represent God in state institutions. The courts consistently uphold chapency because chaplain represent God, not the church. As godly counselors, chap chaplain are trusted biblical adviserss, which is why chaplain are paid to serve schools, the military, law enforcement, hospitals, US Senate, and Congress. The constitutional history of chapency is consistently affirmative, which is why Congress has consistently rejected challenges. Far from an establishment of religion, chapency is an essential bark of religious liberty. Chapy in public institutions is a wellestablished precedent. The phrase separation of church and state, which has become so familiar, was taken
023from an exchange of letters between President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danberry, Connecticut, and is not found in the US Constitution. The Danberry Baptist Association wrote Thomas Jefferson because they wanted to convey their opposition to the state sponsored religion in Connecticut and assert their right to religious freedom. In Jefferson's reply to the letter, he articulated his view that the First Amendment created a wall of separation between church and state, ensuring that religion was a matter between an individual and God and not one of government interference. This story will be continued next month, but until then, think about helping to change the hearts of people at a young age starting as early as kindergarten. Thank you. Our next speaker is Amanda Kimell, then Melissa Lucen, then Nicole Heminger. Good evening, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair
024Williams, members of the school board, and Dr. Robertson. My name is Mandy Kimell and I'm a kindergarten teacher. And boy, do I love this time of the year. I get a whole new batch of kindergarten students filled with excitement to start their school journey. It brings me back to my own memories of kindergarten with Mrs. Eastman. She taught me fun songs like bingo and five little ducks. And my first school memories are sitting on the rug in circle time singing those songs with the hand motions. I have so many memories from my past educators that I could really speak all night from my own journey starting with Mrs. Eastman in kindergarten and going all the way to high school. Well, Mandy, of course you have all those fond memories of school. You wanted to be
025a teacher. Well, actually, no. I graduated from JMU with a Bachelor of Music specializing in music industry and a business minor. Teaching was not even on my radar. It wasn't until I spent a few unhappy years with the world of the music business that I started to reflect on about what I really wanted to do with my life to make a difference. I thought back to some of my own teachers and how they so passionately shared their strengths and instilled in me a love of learning. I mean, what could be more noble than providing the next generation with the knowledge and skills to navigate the world successfully? But don't get me wrong, I know who the real stars are, our students. Our students are superstars. But like superstars, they can't do it alone. They need
026their stage hands, supporting cast, lighting, directors, all for their own performance of life. Your educators are their support team and Virginia Beach, you have got to do a better job at supporting your staff because we are the ones who are supporting our students. My colleagues and I have repeatedly given you facts about how underpaid we are compared to our district neighbors and in the state. Raises have not kept up with inflation and our raises barely cover the cost of living. And while pay is a huge issue, the schoolboard and the district's decisions still leave us feel undervalued and unsupported while dealing with the difficult demands of our job. For example, I stood here advocating for a calendar that gave elementary and middle schools one extra early release to ease the burden of our closeouts at
027the end of the school year. It was voted against. Our early release days were taken away um and we that were given for us to complete statemanded training. 92% of the staff at my school required to complete this training did so over the summer, including myself. And what a mess with this insurance. You have to do better with for your employees. As stated in the email you sent yesterday, you should be taking extraordinary steps to take care of your staff. We are left feeling deflated and undervalued. And what about wellness days, too? We used to have two, then one, and now zero. As a member of the community and representative for educators, I can attest that we are in a dire situation. If Virginia Beach plans on retaining and attracting highly qualified educators for your
028students, please step up and take care of us so we can take care of our students. Our next speaker is Melissa Lucen and then Nicole Heminger. Good evening. Let's talk about audacity because Superintendent Robertson seems to have a surplus. Back in the spring when teachers and staff asked for raises, we were told the budget was too tight. After all the hand ringing, the board scraped together 4.5%. Not enough to keep up with inflation, not enough to lift Virginia Beach teachers out of the embarrassment of being the lowest paid in Hampton Roads, but apparently that was the best we could do. Then just a few months later, Dr. Dr. Robertson strolls in asking for a 9% raise for himself, twice what the teachers got. The man who said we couldn't afford to pay our frontline workers
029suddenly decides he's underpaid. He's not the superintendent, he's super entitled. And here's the kicker. Barely a week after he asked for the raise, the district announced a $20 million deficit in employee health insurance. Under Dr. Under Robertson's leadership, staff will now see increases of $250 to $500 a month starting in January 2026. And because contracts are already signed, teachers were trapped. Their raises are gone before they ever hit their paychecks. Some will even take home less than before. So, while Dr. Robertson cashes in, the people who actually teach our kids are literally losing money. This isn't about merit. This raise was a reward. It was a thank you for helping push book bans, for enforcing Governor Yncan's discriminatory policies against trans youth, and for dismantling DEI. Robertson's pay bump is the price of political loyalty,
030not educational leadership. And let's not forget the so-called fiscal conservatives who voted for this. You can't cry poverty when it comes to teachers, then magically find the cash to fatten Robertson's paycheck. Especially when Chair Brown, you knew for over a year that employees were about to get slammed with higher insurance costs. That's not fiscal responsibility. That's hypocrisy with a price tag. And the cherry on top, you thought this board would sail through quietly. But thanks to one board member whipping the votes, a few board members united to vote against the raise. And instead of slipping by unnoticed, your little gifted dawn got the spotlight it deserved. and we will be reminding voters in 2026 what you did this summer. Teachers don't need another lecture on budgets. They need leaders who stand with them. If you
031want to be at the bottom, excuse me, if you want to be at the top of the pay scale, Dr. Robertson, you should first prove you're not the bottom of the barrel. Thank you. Y'all have a good night. Our next speaker is Nicole Heminger. Good evening. I'm here to talk about the DLI program there. It's going to be on the agenda tonight. Um they're talking about uh changing that a little bit. I am a parent of three students in that program. Two of them have gone through the middle school program, one's in an elementary school program. I'm actually also a um we're a military spa family. So I ca we came from Spain and I actually looked for a place where my students could continue their language skills. um and we've been pleased with the
032program, but at this point they're looking at change making some changes. While I'm not opposed to um one change, I don't understand why other options were not considered. For example, the um concern is staffing. Um they I believe there's a there's a diff staffing the content specific um curriculum in Spanish, the teachers for that. and that but um the one what option B was to have students attend their neighborhood middle school and take a high school Spanish one course in sixth grade. And um what what I think would be a better option, which was not proposed, would be that they do have Spanish one high school in sixth grade, but it be at a Spanish immersion level. Because after all these years, they've been in this program for since first grade. they have had a
033lot of exposure to the language. They've they their comprehension is very high. I'm not sure why they would not want to you would not want to continue that at some degree. Um and um it makes sense to me to offer that as a third another option so that they are continuing getting a high level of the language um wherever that may be. Thank you. And Madam Chair, that was the last speaker for this evening. Okay. Thank you. We are now on to information. And we have a WHRO educational services update. And we welcome Bert Schmidt, WHRO President and Chief Executive Officer, and Elmer El Elmer Stewart, WHRO Vice President of Education. Madame Chair, Dr. Robertson, members of the board, thank you for allowing me to speak with you tonight. My name is Bert Schmidt. I'm
034the president and CEO of WHRO. Elmer Seward is my vice president of education. And so, if you have the hard questions, I got my backup with me tonight. Um, we provide you I'm here tonight because you're one of the 21 school divisions that literally own the license to WHRO. We are the only media company in the entire country owned by collaboration of of K12 school divisions. And so we meet regularly and I want to in particular thank Mike Ken. Mike is the chair of our schoolboard group. Um and so Mike, thank you for leader your leadership there. I appreciate he's got he's got the chairmanship for the entire uh up this school year. So thank you very much for that. Um we provide you each year an impact statement. This is customized to the division.
035Uh but rather than going through the details of that and having me drone on, we've prepared a video for you that will summarize what you will find in this report. WHRO stands out as the nation's sole public media station owned by a collaboration of 21 school divisions. This distinctive ownership model places education at the heart of our mission, influencing every aspect of our work. Our team of educators is committed to offering students, teachers, and families innovative, free, high-quality programs and services. One key service that WHRO offers is Edia VA, Virginia's leading digital content repository. With nearly 100,000 free top quality instructional resources, E Media VA provides educators and students with videos, interactive tools, games, lesson plans, images, and more. This platform is designed to enhance personalized learning and make classroom experiences more engaging. For our
036youngest learners, WHRO offers exciting educational activities to spark their imagination. Our three education vans visit elementary schools with programs tailored to Virginia's standards of learning, covering literacy, numeracy, scientific investigation, and technology. We also support parents and caregivers, ensuring children are prepared for kindergarten and set up for success in their early school years. For secondary educators, WHRO provides a catalog of 29 award-winning customizable online courses and digital resources. These mediarich so aligned courses are designed to integrate seamlessly with various learning management systems. They offer flexibility for face-to-face, flipped, blended, and fully online teaching environments, enriching lessons with engaging content. At WHRO, we celebrate students achievements through competitions that showcase their talents. The Great Computer Challenge, for example, gathers school teams from across the region at Old Dominion University to tackle realworld technology problems. Another highlight is
037the Town Bank Regional Spelling Bee, where middle school champions compete at WHRO Studio for a chance to advance to the scripts National Spelling Bee. The local competition is recorded and aired on WHRO each April. Elementary students also have an opportunity to shine through our PBS Kids Writers Contest. This competition invites young writers to craft and illustrate their original stories, fostering creativity and critical thinking. Our student advisory board reflects our commitment to student engagement. This group of high school students offers feedback on WHRO's content and has opportunities to create their own, influencing our online courses and emeddia VA resources. We're equally devoted to supporting educators through our professional development programs. Our workshops and training sessions provide teachers with cuttingedge strategies and tools, empowering them to inspire and guide their students effectively. Visit WHRO's education web page
038to learn more about how these amazing free materials, programs, and resources can benefit you. At WHRO Public Media, we're proud to partner with our local school divisions and the Virginia Department of Education to shape the future of education, one student at a time. And again, as I mentioned, the report here is customized to Virginia Beach. Um, I would note that our whole model here is to do services one time and then provide them to all 21 school divisions. This of course saves saves taxpayers money at the same time elevates the educational experience for our children and and teachers. So, we're excited about that. As school board members, you do care about the finances. Page two is an executive summary of the entire report, but I'm going to bring your attention to the second to last
039paragraph with the return on the investment. Virginia Beach City Public Schools invested $222,000 in WHRO services during the during the 2425 school year and received direct and indirect uh benefits valued at $938,000, a return of $4.20 for every dollar invested. We hope you like that return. Um, and I'm happy to take any questions, Miss Rogers. Thanks so much for the presentation. I'm a former teacher and um so I have a couple questions for the e media Virginia access. Um how do the teachers access your your stuff? You simply go to uh emeddiava.org on the website. Um your division has and I think I'm not sure which somebody on the in the division has the login for each teacher. Each school division has an administrator who's assigned in school division. They create excuse me sorry we
040record everything so you have to say it for the I understand each school division has an administrator assigned and that person is responsible for creating accounts for their uh school division staff. Uh 94% of the content in e media can be accessed without logging in. Uh the other 6% is usually content that we've acquired um specifically for Virginia and our arrangement with those providers requires us to limit to Virginia access and so we have to u require login to prove that you're Virginia educator that totally fine and and then Dr. Robertson do the teachers have access through uh do we use Canva now? It's it's there's a link in um class link to media or Yes. Great. There's a there is a um integration with class link. Okay, perfect. And then your um STEM vans,
041do they visit I I don't know how many you have. Do they visit all the elementary schools in each division or is it limited? They visit by um invitation. Okay. So, elementary school asks for those vans, they'll come out. Okay. And then um do is anyone taking advantage in our division of the flipped aspect of your of your stuff? Do you do you have that information or do you not know? No, I don't. Okay. I only because I'm very interested in flipped classrooms. I think they're so fascinating. Our role with the courses, we manu think of us as the manufacturer. We manufacture the course, provide them to you, then it's your school policy however you want to use them. You have all those courses within your LMS. You guys decide how you want to use
042them. Okay, cool. And then Dr. Robertson, I guess this is for you. How uh many of the PD programs that we take advantage of that they're offering. Sorry, I'm trying to to know off the top of your head. So, we through our partnership that used to be led by Dr. Schubri, so I'm assuming it's going to be Dr. Goldberg now. Yeah. Um, yes. And Trey Males. Um, do you want to reference? I know you're brand new. Have you? If you don't, if you need to send it to me, that's fine. I'm just curious. Perfect. That's fine. Yeah. I will say that um for just about every one of the PBS Kids programs. you will find instructional segments, brief instructional segments instead of the whole um program in e media. So teachers can access those and
043use them in the classroom as opposed to having to stream them online from the PBS uh kids site because I used to do that is stream from the PBS Kids site um using some of that access those materials but I didn't realize that we had that partnership and I don't I'm assuming it's been going on for a while and I just was unaware for quite a few years. We we were founded in 1961 by Northol and Hampton. Okay. the beach came on board I don't even know 50 years a long time ago. So again I stepped out of the classroom in 2022. I was a prek teacher for 5 years with the school division and I didn't even know that there was an access um through that login and all of that. So I just
044want to make sure teachers are aware and they know how to use it because I think it's a really great resource. Thank you. Yeah, we'd love to help with any marketing to get let let folks know. Yeah. Mr. Cummings. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. Um, and it is super insightful just reading the materials. Um, you know, hear reading everything about the kids writers contest about our kids making, you know, books. I see, you know, Glennwood on there. I see Northlanding Theelia, Thorogood, Redmill Elementary. Um, I think that's awesome. It's great to read. And then I see things about web design, cyber security, all these different challenges. And so I love that we're tapping into um creativity and into STEM and some of those different uh buckets. So I think as a new board
045member, it's great to read through uh the materials in this document. So my only question is really just going back to that return on investment. So when you lump together something that you know the first board thinking I'm thinking about is like how does that break down with direct and indirect benefits? Tell me more about you know the 938 number. you know, how much is, you know, a cash? I'll reference you to page 13. Write that down. Okay. And we periodically will sit down with with the school representatives to check in to make sure they feel that's a fair representation of the of the ROI. Perfect. All right. Thank you so much for sharing. All right. Thank you. And I I think um our partnership here with WHRO has been a great one. Um every
046year I'm impressed by what you guys are doing and thank you Mr. Kalen for chairing that committee as well. Um so thank you and I don't see any more questions at this time. All right. Thank you very much. We will now move on to our policy review committee recommendations and we welcome Cammy Lenetti, schoolboard attorney. Good evening, madam chair, vice chair, school board members, and Dr. Robertson. I'm Cammy Lanetti, the schoolboard attorney. Tonight, I will be bringing you recommendations from the August 27th policy review committee meeting. Fortunately, tonight we only have five. I will note that our August 27th meeting was our first time virtually uh streaming that meeting on there. That went well. You can look forward to us. Our next meeting is um I believe Mrs. Williams is September 24th also will be
047streamed on there. So, we've worked through that piece. Now, moving on to our recommendations. Our first one will be policy 323. Again, we're working our way through the business and non-instructional operation sections on the five-year review. This one is sale, exchange, lease of property. The recommendations for this one are mostly formatting changes and a couple of scriveners changes. Nothing substantial in there. We're just making sure that the um it matches up with some of the requirements of the law and some language. Other than that, they are minor formatting changes and we're recommending those to the school board. Are there any questions about 323? Hearing no questions on 323, I will move on to 325, which is trust funds. We are not recking any recommendations. This is just your five-year review coming in. So, are there
048any questions on policy 325? Hear no questions on 325. I will move on to policy 326. This is entitled investments. The only recommendations we are making at this time would be updating the legal references. Other than that, we will have no further recommendations for 326. Any questions? Hearing no questions on 326, I will move on to 342. Financial recordkeeping of individual school funds. Again, minor scrivener change and some additions to the legal references. Other than that, we are making no further recommendations for 342 financial recordkeeping of individual schools funds. Any questions? Hearing no questions on we're going to move on to section seven. In section seven is our community section relations. You'll start seeing more policies coming out of this section over the next couple meetings. This is entitled awards to students. Again, we are
049making no recommendations other than to remove the editor's notes which now will appear in the related links. Other than that, we have no further recommendations. Any questions on 744? I believe at that time that is the end of our recommendations for the information section. Thank you. Thank you. We are now on to middle school dual language immersion considerations and we welcome Dr. Crystal Wilkerson, director of K through2 and gifted program and Kelly Arbal, world languages coordinator. Hi, good evening school board chair Brown, Vice Chair Williams, school board members, and Dr. Robertson. I'm Crystal Wilkerson, director of K12 and gifted programs, and I'm joined tonight by Mrs. Kelly Arbal, the K12 world languages coordinator. This evening, I will provide an overview of the current middle school dual language immersion or DLI program, identify some challenges with
050implementing the current program model, and outline two proposed solutions to address these challenges. Allow me to first provide some background information on the elementary Spanish DLI programs in BBCPS to frame our discussion about the middle school DLI program. DLI is an instructional approach where students learn core content in both English and Spanish, developing strong skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in both languages. VBCPS offers two elementary DLI models. In our one-way 5050 model at Allenton, Christopher Farms, and Trantwood, primarily Englishspeaking students receive 50% of their instruction in Spanish, in math and science, and 50% in English, in language arts, and social studies. Each grade level includes two DLI classrooms. In our two-way 8020 model at Bayside and Cook Elementary, a balance of native English and Spanish speakers learning together and serving as peer language
051models are part of the program. Each grade level includes one DLI classroom. VBCPS is one of 15 Virginia divisions offering elementary language immersion programs and operates one of the state's longestr running DLI programs. The first began at Christopher Farms Elementary in 2002 through 2003. As students advanced, Lanstown Middle School added a DLI program in 2007 and 2008. Allent Elementary launched its program in 2015, followed by Trantwood Elementary in 2016. Students from these programs continue to Great Neck Middle School DLI program established in 2020 and 2021, which is now fully implemented in grades 6 through 8. The two most recent elementary DLI programs opened at Bayside and Cook Elementary in 2021-22. These sites were chosen for their two-way immersion model supported by significant Spanishspeaking English learner populations. These programs currently serve grades K through four with
052grade five planned for implementation in the 2026 27 school year. This slide presents elementary DLI enrollment for the 2526 school year across all five participating elementary schools. Enrollment is higher in the one-way programs at Allenton, Christopher Farms, and Trantwood Elementary, which each operate two classrooms per grade and begin in grade one. The two-way programs at Bayside and Cook Elementary start in kindergarten with one classroom per grade. In both program models, new students may not enter after the first semester of the second year except for Spanishspeaking students or those transferring from comparable DLI programs. Understanding these elementary DI models and enrollment patterns is essential for planning at the middle school level. Displayed here are the current DLI feeder patterns and the proposed expansion in the Bayside and Cook elementary school zones as we move into the
0532728 school year. This proposed expansion plan for Bayasine and Cook was approved by the school board in the fall of 2019 and will add two additional middle school DLI programs at Bayside and Virginia Beach Middle Schools to our existing middle school programs. The middle school DLI program offers students completing elementary DLI a unique opportunity to build on their strong foundation of Spanish language learning. The program includes two Spanish courses at each grade level. Immersion social studies and immersion Spanish 1, two, or three. The immersion Spanish courses are high school credit bearing world language courses specifically designed for the higher Spanish proficiency level of DLI students, more rigorous than the traditional courses that students take. In sixth and seventh grade, students take immersion social studies and immersion Spanish 1 and two. The program model originally included
054immersion civics in eighth grade. However, this course is no longer offered due to limitations with bilingual staff. In 8th grade, students take immersion Spanish 3. Since 2021, which was the first year Spanish proficiency data was available, 87 DLI students have qualified for the diploma seal of biiteracy by the end of 8th grade, a distinction usually not earned until the end of 11th or 12th grade. While immersion Spanish 1, 2, and three fulfill the advanced studies diploma requirement of three years of a world language, almost all of our DLI students continue to take upper level Spanish courses in high school. Middle school DLI enrollment is shown here. As I mentioned previously, students from Allen and Trentwood DLI attend Great Neck Middle School DLI programs. Some of these students are zoned for Great Neck. However, most are
055zoned for Lin Haven. Out of zone students who reside at the Allenton and Trentwood zones are provided transportation to Great Neck. Students from the Christopher Farms DLI program attend Lanstown Middle School. Most Christopher Farms Elementary students are zoned for Lanstown Middle School and Princess Anne Middle School with a smaller number zoned for Corporate Landing Middle School. Out of zone students who reside in the Christopher Farm zone are provided transportation to Lanstown. Since Great Neck has two DLI feeder elementary schools, they have a higher enrollment in their middle school DLI program with a total of 178 students. Lanstown has a smaller program with 41 students. Attrition between elementary and middle school DLI is higher for the Lanstown program as noted on the slide. While there are many benefits to the middle school DLI program, there are
056also challenges with the current model, including staffing, scheduling, and offering social studies as the immersion core content course. Staffing is the number one challenge for DLI programs, and this is true for middle school. It's difficult to hire and retain bilingual teachers, particularly for social studies. It is also difficult for teachers to sustain the workload of teaching multiple preps and translating content material. Scheduling is another challenge. Low DLI enrollment at Lanstown Middle School overloads nonDLI courses while high DLI enrollment at Great Neck Middle School creates a need for additional allocations across all content areas. The curriculum also poses challenges. Resources for US history and civics and Spanish are limited and social studies is not aligned with the Spanish taught subjects in elementary DLI which are math and science. research recommends at least two content areas in
057Spanish for a true DLI program, but we currently only offer one in our middle school program. The current expansion plan adds Bayside and Virginia Beach Middle School to the two existing DLI middle school programs for a total of four middle school sites. The two additional sites would likely experience similar challenges. Keeping in mind the benefits and challenges of the middle school DLI program, we have developed two proposed solutions. The first option is to con consolidate the middle school DLI program into a single site at Virginia Beach Middle School and continue to offer immersion Spanish and at least one core class in Spanish. All elementary school DLI programs would feed into Virginia Beach Middle School, which was already targeted for expansion in the 2728 school year. The second option is to phase out the middle school
058DLI program beginning with this year's fifth graders. Students completing the elementary DLI program would attend their zone school and regular Spanish one would be made available to these feeder middle schools in sixth grade. When developing the proposed solutions, many factors were taken into account, including school sites with their current and projected enrollment, including school sites, I'm excuse me, including established transportation costs, courses offered, the impact on DLI and nonDLI staffing, and communication with families who are in the elementary DLI programs. Option one. Option one consolidates the middle school DLI program into a single site at Virginia Beach Middle School. The programs at Great Neck Middle School and Lanstown Middle School would shift to Virginia Beach Middle School. There would not be a new program at Bayside Middle School as previously planned. Students would continue to
059take immersion Spanish and at least one core content area in Spanish in grades 6 through 8. The core content course offered in Spanish would shift from social studies to math or science, which aligns better with the elementary DLI program. Additionally, Spanish, math, and science curriculum materials are more readily available, and Spanish-speaking teaching candidates are more likely to be certified in math or science than social studies, particularly US history and civics, which are taught in middle school, potentially minimizing staffing challenges. The estimated net increase to transportation out of zone students enrolled in the middle school DLI program from the Allenton Bayside Christopher Farms and Trantwood attendance zones to Virginia Beach Middle would be around $186,000 per year. For comparison, the transportation cost for the current middle school DLI program is a little over 90,000 per year.
060There are currently two DLI social studies teachers, one at each middle school site. Staffing a single middle school DLI site would maintain the same number of core content staff, although the content area would shift to math and/or science, making recruitment and retention easier and improving access to quality curriculum. A final consideration is the development of a communication plan for existing DLI families whose middle school feeder pattern may be impacted. Ultimately, consolidating the middle school DLI program into a single site would create a more effective program with more opportunities for students to develop Spanish language proficiency and global citizenship. Projected enrollment for a centralized middle school DLI site at Virginia Beach Middle School is shown on this slide. Virginia Beach Middle School was identified as the location for a single site due to its available space
061based on current enrollment and avail and an ability to leverage existing bus routes from the school's gifted art program to minimize transportation cost. Displayed here is the total projected enrollment for the 2728 school year when the first cohort of DLI 6th graders would begin through 2930 with full implementation of DLI in grades 6 through 8. Additional information will be needed from division demographers to get accurate enrollment projections beyond 2728 school year. However, based on current building usage data, Virginia Beach Middle School can accommodate the increased number of students. Option two. Option two phases out the middle school DLI program. All students completing the elementary DLI program would then attend their zoned middle schools. A traditional Spanish one course would be offered in sixth grade at DLI feeder middle schools. Currently, Spanish 1 is only available
062to sixth graders in the middle school DLI program and other specialty programs. DLI students would not have access to any core content areas in Spanish or immersion Spanish world language courses. Since students would attend their zoned middle school, there would be a savings in transportation costs. Beginning in the 2930 school year when all middle school DLI students have cycled out of the program, there would be an overall transportation cost savings of around $90,000. Phasing out middle school DLI eliminates the need for DLI content teachers, but would increase the staffing allocation for Spanish across middle school and the elementary DLI feeder patterns. Finally, middle school, excuse me, finally, families of all DLI elementary school students would need to receive communication regarding the phasing out of the program. As a reminder, beginning with this year's fifth graders
063with this option, students completing the elementary DLI program would begin attending their zoned school and regular Spanish one would be made available to these feeder middle school students in sixth grade. Following a thorough review of the current middle school DLI program and planned expansion, consolidating the DLI program into a single site at Virginia Beach Middle School provides the best opportunity for effectively implementing the program as designed and promoted to families. This recommendation aligns with the BBCPS strategic framework and enhances program coherence. Centralizing the middle school DLI program not only maintains the continuity of the DLI pathway presented to families but also strengthens the existing model by providing increased opportunities for students to attain high levels of language proficiency through contentbased instruction. Furthermore, operating from a single site addresses persistent challenges related to scheduling and staffing
064while also supporting improved teacher recruitment and retention. We recognize that change is hard and some families may be disappointed by either of these proposed options as it may change the middle school that they expected their child to attend and or the ability to participate in the middle school DLI program. However, budget, curriculum, and staffing challenges exist, and we felt it is fiscally prudent to bring forth these options as alternatives to the proposed expansion, which will also strengthen the DLI program. Ultimately, we believe that establishing a single DLI site at Virginia Beach Middle School will result in a stronger, more sustainable program with minimal budget impact. Oops. We are asking the school board to take action at the meeting on September 23rd to select the option that you feel is best for the beginning of the
0652728 school year. Thank you very much for your time today. And at this time, I invite our world languages coordinator, Kelly Arbal, to join me. And we welcome any questions that you might have at this time. Miss So, I'm old and I started late. Um, so I practice every day. See? Um, and I'm really proud of what I've accomplished. And so I mean I'm almost 59 and I look here and the most impressive thing I've ever seen is since 2021 87 middle school DLI students qualified for the diplomacy at of biiteracy at the end of grade 8. That is remarkably impressive. Um so I you can't ignore that. But I do have a couple of questions before I get into anything about the next phase of of um our DLI program. Um do you know
066how many students that are zoned for Princess Anne Middle School attend they continue to go um to Lanstown Middle School because I I'm a Christopher Farms. I live in Christopher Farms. that's where my kids went and that's where I saw the drop off with kids um that go to Princess Middle School. They're not attending the Spanish immersion program. So that's my first question. Do you I don't know specific numbers. I don't know the specific number, but it's very few. That's why we see so much attrition between the Christopher Farms and Lancetown program. Most of the students who are who are zoned for Princess Anne Middle School attend Princess Middle School. Yeah. Okay. So that was my first worry. Um my other question is um these children that start in first grade and end in fifth
067grade, if you visit a Spanish immersion school, you will see and you will hear that they know a lot. They can read and write in Spanish. Their conversations are in Spanish um in and out of those classrooms. um how much more do they know that might be an actual turnoff for wanting to go to middle school and being put into a Spanish one class in middle school. So, I know the curriculum, the way we teach Spanish um in in in classrooms in school is probably different than the way I'm learning it on on Dualingo, which is not the introduction of colors and um in in a specific order. Like, for example, I've been taking Spanish um for 1,45 day 1,145 days or maybe 1,146 today. Um, I just learned the color purple, right? Like you
068would think, why wouldn't I know that already? But it teaches it in a different way. These kids are going to be far beyond Spanish one. And are we do we have the ability to have like a test where they can test out that the state might recognize the importance of this program and that they're beyond a basic Spanish one level class? Yeah. So that's a really good question. Um, and that's why we feel like the immersion Spanish one, two, and three classes are so important because it gives our students curriculum that's more appropriate to their proficiency level. Um, offering regular Spanish one in sixth grade if we phase out the program is sort of the best we can do, right? with the staffing that we have available and with the number of students who would
069be um at each school, we wanted to offer an option since you have the decision to make between the two options if they if you chose the option for us to phase out the program. We wanted to for them to have an option because currently that isn't an option for Spanish one for sixth graders. So we wanted them to have an option to have something available for them. It's not an option for sixth graders Spanish one except at old donation. Correct. And platon and that cannot be extended for immersion students the way it is for our gifted students. That that's what we're proposing. That's what the proposal is. If we if we do away with or phase that program out. Yes. But they're going to be so far advanced. Yeah. And so our teachers are
070great at differentiating. And so it would there's a big differentiation though. It's big. It's big. Yeah. Um Spanish one students are not typically writing in Spanish in mathematics and science, which is what these students are doing. And so that is a real step back for those students who have invested the time in elementary school. However, um it comes with a price tag. The dreaded transportation price tag, which um it's kind of an ugly word right now with our budget. Um but we would really be doing these students a disservice to push them back. Um but we also have the the balance of the staffing. So there's um there's fewer staffing requirements with the single site that would be for um if we phase out the program then we would have to have more staffing. Yeah.
071So you would have to consider that in order to be able to Yeah. I have more heartburn about sending um the students to Lanstown with that number. What was it? 25 at Christopher Farms in fifth grade. I mean, that's that's more cost prohibitive to me than um the ne the next piece, but I'm going to yield for right now. My head is swirling, but um Okay, thank you. Sure, Miss Rogers. Thank you. Um so, I heard you say something and I just want to clarify. You had said that one of the um challenges were the preps and that the um translating the content for the teachers. Is that what I heard you say? Okay. So why are the teachers doing this? Why why are we having our teachers take their preps and like instead of
072having some of this prepared? That's a great question. And so some of it is um but because of the way that these courses are offered and the small number of students, we inevitably have teachers teaching across multiple grade levels and multiple preps. So, we had a seventh grade teacher at Great Neck Middle who was teaching seventh grade social studies, immersion Spanish 2, immersion Spanish 3, and regular Spanish 3. And there's just no avoiding the preparation, right? And and and I understand that. So, I hear that you guys are saying that there's two options. I would like to see a third option proposed. Um, and what I would like to see, I am not thrilled about the transportation and taking the kids all to one school. My um worry is that we're going to ODS ourselves
073out of a building that there's going to have eventually so many students in this program going to one school and there's not going to be enough room and then we can't, you know, give this to everyone and then we're going to be in the same position that we are with ODS where not all the kids can fit in the building. So, I'm just not a fan of that at all. I am absolutely a fan of the kids going to their home schools. However, I agree that Spanish one is not appropriate. Can we do an accelerated program for our students? What would the cost be? H like how I mean would that be something we could do? I think that that would be a good compromise is if we had some sort of accelerated program for
074our dual language learners at their home school. It would then you know we have Spanish teachers. Yes, they would be teaching Spanish one and accelerated Spanish for our dual language learners, but to me that seems like a better compromise and perhaps more coste effective without leaving our dual language learners in in the dust when they hit sixth grade. And I would love to see the cost on that and how that would work. Um, if that would that be possible, Dr. Robertson? So the the team has spent months on this to get to these two approaches. So I can't answer that until they've had a t chance to digest what you're asking. I think the real challenge that we all need to understand staffing is a significant significant challenge. A teacher teaching four preps is a
075significant challenge. We want to continue to offer all the programs we can and in months of discussion amongst the team, these are the two options that we feel are the most achievable. Okay. And and again, I understand that. Um, I I think that having a teacher translating math, science, social studies is more difficult than a Spanish teacher accelerating the content that they have. That's why I'm asking and that's why I think that this would be possibly a compromise. But I mean again, this is just as an educator what I'm thinking. You know, we have Spanish already offered. It's something that we have teachers that are already teaching at the middle schools. I mean, my kids at Pam's, Spanish is available. So, that's what I'm thinking. Like some of the Christopher Farms kids that would be
076dropping off, would they do an accelerated Spanish class at the middle school at Princess Anne because it's being offered at like one class? Would that be impossible? That I guess would be my question. And um I it I realize that this has taken a lot of prep work, but I do think that if it's something that's a possibility, maybe we can look at it. Thanks. That would be a much easier option to explore with option two. That's what I was saying. Yeah, sorry. That's what I mean is that they go to their home school, but maybe instead of just Spanish one, we can offer an accelerated for them. That was we're used to that with accelerated courses. Kids are taking algebra one and sixth grade, right? And and that's what I'm saying like not just
077because when you have kids that are taking Spanish for the first time, they're going to be slower. And the um the dual language students aren't going to want to sit there through it. So, can we offer them an accelerated program where they go back to their home school, do something accelerated just with that Spanish teacher? it would allow them to then not get dropped off. And that when I say dropped off, they just don't have to, you know what I'm saying? So that was what my question is. Would that be like something we could see if we could do? We could definitely look at that with the feeder with the existing elementary school feeder patterns. Yes, that's what I was asking about. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ken. Uh question number one, may I get a
078copy of your notes so that I can process the significant additional statements that you've made beyond that which was available on the screen? Yes. Number two, if I understand your challenge correctly, it is three-fold. It's budgetary, it's curriculum based, and it's also staffing based. Yes. If that's correct, is the staffing something that you are being surprised by now that you weren't anticipating four years ago or so when these dual language immersion classes were being implemented in the elementary school? Or is this No, no, it wasn't it wasn't a surprise. It's always been challenging to staff dual language immersion programs. I think the challenge with staffing middle school is compounded because we teach US history and civics and economics at the middle school level. And so when you have teachers who are coming from other countries,
079they're not certified to teach US history and civics and economics. Whereas we do have teachers who are interested in teaching math or science which do have resources that are more readily available in Spanish. And so it would significantly diminish the amount of prep time that is required by teachers. So even though we have these three challenges, budgetary, curriculum, and staffing in option one, having everything concentrated at Virginia Beach Middle School, we can still do what we were trying to do. Accurate. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Green. Thank you. Um mine a more comment but one question uh very quickly. Um, I have concerns that after a student has been and and I'm thinking now as a former administrator, my fear is you'll have a singleton at a middle school. Um, for those from a
080scheduling point that, you know, they get to middle school because it's not the same type of program. We have one this child who's used to with being with a cohort of students. They don't like this model at the mi at being at a middle school and I know the challenges that come with that when you are a singleton because they're not going to get the same type of service. Um that's a concern. The other the question I have um if the board decides on option one uh which I think is a good option. It may not be costefficient but but I think um from a perspective of ensuring all the nuances I know that go with programming and and and making sure that we have quality will the students have an opportunity maybe as an
081elective say be dy enrolled with the arts program as well the the that we have at VB Middle um because they will need electives as Well, so is that would that be an option to participate in the uh visual arts program, too? Oh, yeah. And you don't have to I know there something you may have to research, but I I just thought about Yeah. And we hadn't really talked about that. Of course, they would have to be um identified as receiving services for um visual arts, but um you know, we would certainly have to explore that as well. Right. And it may help with another problem we have with uh as well because some of these students may be eligible for both programs. Sure. Mr. Co Pepper. Thank you. I'll ask the easy question first.
082Uh looking at your slide 11, you put on there estimated net transportation cost $186,000. Somewhere else you said that it was currently 90 thou 90,000, right? So is that 186,000 on top of the 90? So the 90,000 is what it currently costs to transport out of zone students from the Allent and Trentwood zones to Great Neck and from the Christopher Farm zone to Lancetown. Um the 186,000 is the overall net cost for um the DLI program and for gifted art. Okay. So your slide actually said it's a 186,000 increase. It's actually 187. It's a $90,000 increase based on what you just said. Um no. So the so that number takes into account the savings for the current programs, the current gifted art program and then adds in the additional cost of transporting the additional students.
083Okay. I think I feel like we're talking past each other. I think so too. 186,000 in place of 90,000 or is it 186,000 on top of 90,000? I think what I'm hearing from from Kelly is that perhaps transportation also included in the 186,000 total the art also so we can try to get an estimate later of what that difference would be or at least get the clarification from that team. Okay. But that really leads me to the next point and I appreciate the clarification. Thank you. But it does lead me to my big point which is my colleague pointed out this is about three things. Curriculum, budget and staffing. Based on what you told me here, I I can't quantify any of those things. I can I could toss a coin here and pick pick
084a path and I really need you to quantify for me the budget impacts of one choice versus the other. You know, one of the ones I just pointed out is a good example. And I have no idea what the staffing requirements are because there actually three choices here, right? There's keep doing what we're doing that don't change anything and then there's the two other choices you've given us here. I I think you really need to give me some information about the budget impact and the staffing impacts of those three courses of action for me to even have a chance of making a choice here. Yeah, sure. So, a third choice maintaining and implementing the two additional programs. I figured that one was was right out the door as planned. Well, we have to serve the
085students who are coming from Bayside Elementary and Cook Elementary somewhere. Okay. Um Okay. Then there's four, right? Right. There's the one you just pointed out, but based on what you've briefed so far, I figured adding two more schools was was out of the question. That's why I didn't offer that. If it is, okay, that's that's course of action one. Course of action two is keep the two schools you have and then the other two that you've offered here. That's why I didn't offer a fourth. There's enough. Um, anyway, you I think you get my point, which is I I really I'm having a I understand the dilemma that you're that you're offering me, but I don't have enough information in here to really make an educated choice about how we should proceed. I think that's
086fair. And I will say that it's really difficult to determine staffing costs because we don't know exactly how many students are going to choose to go out of zone and not out of zone. Um, we do know that all of these students have to be enrolled in core social studies. Um, we know that they all have to be enrolled in core math and core science. Um, and we know that they're all going to take Spanish. Um, so the staffing, the number of allocations is the same really across all of these options. The difficulty is when you have smaller groups of students and you have classes of 12 and 13 that you now have to provide a class for and then you're overloading classes in other in other sections. Okay. And that may or may not
087choose to take that as an elective um as they metriculate to the middle school. So it might it would be an offered elective but that may or may not be their choice. Okay. Well, I certainly understand you got to make some assumptions here and you're obviously going to make those assumptions when you you staff the first year. So, I I suppose that's how you could tell me the answer is if we were projecting on how we were going to put this in place next year, this is what we would do. That's a good starting position. Mr. Cummings, thank you. Um, I echo some of my colleagues comments as well about some quantified numbers and that's kind of where my head was going as well is trying to put some budget around it. But I first
088and foremost before I get to my question, um, I just I took some time reading a little bit more about DLI um, and seeing what the Virginia Department of Education website had on information it had about it because I just wanted to learn take some time and learn more. So I wanted to share some of that information for the public consumption but also for my colleagues as well to explore the DLI website on the VDOE's web page as it has a lot of the research that goes into um why these programs exist along with some of their outcomes and I was actually I was very impressed reading through the outcomes on the VDE's website where it talked and I'm going to read some of those and then I'll get to my question. Um, talking about
089academic content, DLI students outperform peers in reading, writing, math, and science. English proficiency st students who stay in K through five DLI programs outperform peers in English language arts and general English proficiency. You know, we see better results on assessments behavior. Um, bilingual students are less likely to drop out of high school, more likely to attend college, obtain higher paying jobs. You know, it then has some employer outcomes on there as well that nine out of 10 US employers rely on employees with language skills other than English. 56% say their foreign language demand will increase in the next 5 years. 47% state a need for language skills exclusively for the domestic market. Um, and one in four lost business due to due to a lack of language skills. And so when I think about, you
090know, the future of education and how we are in an innovative space in Virginia Beach City public schools, you know, I love the fact that we're designing a program that is, you know, built upon research, built upon academic excellence and preparing our students to enter the workforce. Um, is extremely exciting just to read through uh the DLI work on the DO VDE's web page and I encourage folks to do that. And I also as a schoolboard member before we do vote on this um I haven't had the opportunity to visit and so I'd also encourage you know myself and other folks to go visit and observe um some of the classrooms as well that have these programs. So I will be following up with that in the next two weeks. Um, my question is that's
091really I kind of put myself in the parents spot a little bit because I think parents are probably a little surprised to see this on the agenda. Um, and I had a I had great conversations today and yesterday with some parents who had kids in these schools and just hearing their experience um, talking about how, you know, their kid was able to walk around and understand Spanish um, you know, in an elementary age and just how they're getting cultural exposure and I thought that was such a great aspect of, you know, the benefits of the program. So, I'm a little bit curious. You know, there's probably going to be, as you were saying, we can't please every single person with every single solution. There's always going to be transportation. Someone's going to be on the
092bus. But I do imagine there's a little bit of parent shock. So, what is what has been kind of the communication to stakeholders about some of these um proposed changes? Is this kind of the first launch of the two ideas? What's that been like? Yeah, that's a good question. So, thank you for highlighting the research around DI. It is so powerful and we would welcome any of the board members to come to visit the DI schools. Um and yes, so we have been looking at these proposals and as Dr. Robertson said, talking as a team about these proposals um for months and so this these this is when it's being brought to the public. So I'm curious, you know, just from other board members perspectives, you know, to chime in as well. I mean, so
093we're we're scheduled to vote for this in two weeks and with this I mean pretty significant number of votes. I mean, do we think that we need some more stakeholder input or parental opportunity or do we think like two weeks is efficient enough? I don't I don't know if I have the answer to that question, but I'd be curious to hear some of my other board mates perspectives. And then also what is just kind of communication to parents. um you know who might we know not everybody's going to sit and watch school board meetings. I mean they might follow us on social media and get their updates. I know. Can you believe that? I mean WHRO gave such a great presentation. You think we're all famous and celebrity? No. But you know I would love
094to learn more if we can how we can kind of like announce that this is in the pipeline. Um because I do I have a worry that there's going to be some parental backlash of Wait, what's going on next year or in two years? Yeah, so it's in two years. The purpose of doing it right now is uh to get it out in the first semester or two years out. Um, kids typically start scheduling their classes December, January, so they can start thinking about what they're going to take next year with an understanding based upon whatever decision the board has made that for implementation in 2728. Um, and we can certainly, you know, Mr. Co Pepper asked for some information. We may not be able to have that in two weeks. So we may have
095to just come back and we this hasn't happened before where questions have resulted in us taking information back and coming back into a workshop and then re the rinse and repeat workshop information action because we still have time. So, uh, if there wants to be more conversation, we certainly can do that and provide information. But again, this is the for the time we want to get it done now is to give everybody time before they start scheduling classes in December, January for next year, knowing what a decision would is going to be for two years out. Yeah. So um I'm trying to think was I say I do I was I was going to say that you know for me I do want to priorit I do like the option of keeping a middle school
096program. Um especially after reading a lot of the materials that I've read on the VDOE's website. Uh, but I lean in more to folks to think if they need more time or if we need more time for getting input and to our parents that have emailed us already, you know, I do thank you for, you know, the passion that they have for this program, for their kids' experience. Um, and yeah, so thank you so much for sharing and and whatnot. Vice Chair Williams. All right. If you could clarify because somebody said something that and it kind of confused me. So right now currently Spanish is offered at which of our middle schools? So Spanish is offered at all of our for all sixth graders. Not for all six. Okay. For sixth graders. Where's it offered
097that that somebody could take it in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. It's only Plaza and ODS. Correct. And Great Neck and Landown. Right. Okay. Okay. So only sixth graders can take it there. All right. Now if we go with option one where everybody's at VB middle school and so these students are doing the immersion the DLI for sixth 7th 8th then when they go to high school what are they going to take? That's a great question. So, we have students who are going to high school now um after completing the DLI program and they can go to an academy program or they can go to their zone school and they take upper level Spanish. They take Spanish four or five and the two AP Spanish courses that we have available. Okay. So, they can take
098Spanish every year. Every year. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And there's there will be enough students to make up classes like how what is the size of these classes? So, we can leverage distance learning to offer the classes if they don't meet the floor um to hold them face to face. Um but we haven't really had that issue so far um with the upper level. Okay. But we could do that. Okay. All right. Well, I think I I guess it comes down with what do we want the end product to be with foreign language? Do we want them students to be able to mark the box that they took three years because some of their colleges require it, which four of my children did and they can't speak a lick of any language that they took for
099three years because they started in high school and but then I had one that that went to Plaza and took 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th. She went to France and she's bilingual. Um, so, so I guess we just decide, you know, are they just checking the box and gonna take it or do we really want to have students that are bilingual and that can open up opportunities? And I think the earlier that you teach them, all the data shows that's where I mean, Miss Melnik is just an exception to the rule, obviously. Um, but the younger that you I mean it's just like sponges. You just, you know, they soak it up and they learn it so easily. I visited Christopher Farms when Amy Cashville was there, our friend Amy, right after it started
100a few years. I was blown away. They did a play in Spanish, these little second and third graders. Then I went to Allent years later, blown away. um you know I so it's it's a it's it's a lot to think about but again if we're going to offer Spanish I'd rather have kids really um get the full benefit of it and be able to speak it and be able to go to these different countries and be able to get hired um because it's it's huge huge and I want to learn Spanish so maybe I'll start start doing that too yeah maybe I'll do that okay thank Thank you. Miss Felton hasn't gone, Mr. Brown Steel and Mark. So, I'm going to go and then Yeah. Um, Mr. Bow and Steel, thank you for the presentation.
101Uh, some of my questions were kind of answered as far as a time period because I definitely think we need more time to look at this program. And so, you know, I'm not opposed to the parents and stakeholders opinions, but I think the board needs more time to uh to look at it. And uh I'm just going to throw it out there. I'm totally not in favor at all of option two. Um part of the reason is I when you start like phasing out then it can keep on going and you know we we might be here next year and they're talking about phasing it out in elementary school. So that's my objection to that. But I think we need more time and get more information so we can collectfully make a better decision. All
102right, Miss Felton, thank you for the presentation. I really love it. My grandson is taking Spanish and she's just overriding me, so he's trying to get me involved as well. Kim, let's see if we can do that or not. But um I I'm I'm I'm very proud to see my colleagues in this division to allow our children to be influenced by another language from another culture. I'm just blown away about about that. It's really great and know that it's going to benefit them uh throughout their lifetime. that within itself speak volumes of what we do and what and more what we should do. And my father, he's a one of those old evangelist. He said, "You don't have to eat a whole cow or you eat beef to understand what I'm saying." Um, I had
103the opportunity to visit Cook Elementary, Holl Holland Elementary, Primrook Meadows Elementary. I was blown away by those students and the emerging classes at the school at that time and I'll be going back to visit again and if I'm not mistaken I you're saying that some of your teachers they're not um because they're coming from they're not they can't teach us history is it did I hear you say that you explain the teachers that we have speeching teaching the classes the yeah So the teachers that we have teaching immersion social studies at the moment are certified to teach social studies in the state of Virginia and are teaching US history um in Spanish. Um it has been challenging to find those teachers. Okay. And and I must have misunderstood what you were saying. I thought that
104maybe some of the teachers that we did have they could not teach it and that was a problem. That's why we couldn't staff couldn't do both. And my question was if that what what you were saying uh have we looked into the uh cause or or the process or the challenges of teaching certifying those teachers to be able to teach their classes so we could keep them in uh keeping them doing the same dual classes. If I understood you right about teachers not being able to teach not being able to do both at one time. Did I understand to say that? I think she's talking about it. Um, immersion Spanish 3. Oh, yeah. For So, we do not have students taking immersion social studies in eighth grade because we weren't able to find to secure
105enough bilingual staff people um to staff that eighth grade position. But in sixth and seventh grade at both of the schools, we do have teachers teaching immersion social studies. So, I asked that because with me being involved in that community, there are individuals that are asking Can I come in and and do this? So, how do is there a criteria? Is there a class? Is there something uh that we could involve uh community or No. Yeah. So, they do they have to meet those state lensure requirements. Um and HR has partnered with the I teach program which has been huge for us in helping to get bilingual teachers um certified quickly. Um, and so that has been a pathway that's been really helpful for us. So, good. I understand what you're saying and I know
106how to proceed with uh my community people. Thank you with HR, Miss Donnie. Okay, Miss Trotman. All right. Thank you. Miss Dwire, I just have a quick question. Um, are you getting uh feedback from the parents? I mean, we heard one tonight. Um, she's requesting a third option. Are you getting anything at all that you could share with us on how the parents are reacting to this? Um, I know that parents uh have called principles and have gotten some questions from principles. Um, I don't know enough to make an informed statement about what the general gist is from parents, but I know that parents would have welcomed the opportunity to get feedback. So, I kind of am am on board with our parent here tonight. And I think there needs to be a third option
107cuz um the first one's too expensive right now and the second one, you know, it's not uh you know, I don't think it's very good. It's not as good as the first, of course. That's what I'm trying to say. So maybe we do need a third option if that's possible. Miss Melnik. So, I know there's no way to predict a drop off rate, but that's what I would want to know from our parents. Now, if if we proceeded with option one, are you going to send your ch your child to Virginia Beach Middle School? Will your child continue if there's one site at Virginia Beach Middle School? Um, I would also want to know, I mean, I don't I don't know how many parents are interested in the Spanish emer immersion program, but those that
108are thinking about it, I would want to know if there were a program, um, would you be more inclined to start your child in first grade in Spanish immersion if you knew what the follow-through middle school program was going to That's that's what I would want to know because I think all of that matters. So, back to my original statement at Christopher Farms, it's dropping off because they have to go to Lancetown Middle School. That's the cold hard fact. Um, and so I would just want to know that would this be a gamecher for you? Or how many parents say, "No, if if my child has to take a bus to Virginia Beach Middle School, which is underpop populated, lots of other opportunities for students." Sometimes when you go to an underpopulated school, all of
109a sudden you're the big fish, right? because now there are football teams and we've just staffed for the first time uh we've just we for the first time Virginia Beach Middle School has a football team. So there's lots of other opportunities going to a smaller a smaller school population wise. Um but and I just want to remind my colleagues and the public this is a very successful program that started in 2002. So it's 23 years old. So, we're not talking about something brand new and this is an idea. This is this has had great success. Um, and I personally would like to see I'm just going to go back to this that number 87 middle school students. I mean, we have the potential for hundreds to be certified bilingual at the end of 8th grade.
110And so, gosh, that's amazing. Okay. So, I have a couple of questions and I I don't want to um I want to make sure that I don't seem dismissive of of the 87 that have got the bilingual seal because I think that's an amazing accomplishment. Um however, I I do know that we still have that opportunity and I don't want to glaze over that. How many high schoolers this year graduated with the bilingual seal? uh 444. Okay. All right. So, a pretty a a pretty big portion uh of our students, but also a pretty big portion of our eighth graders uh comparatively speaking. And I I think that's an important um number. And it seems to me like you knew I was going to ask him or something. I just I know that number. You
111had it ready to go. Um I'm proud of that. I'm not really sure where I stand on this right now. Um, did I hear you correctly that the classroom size um for this program is 12 to 13 students? No, that was a hypothetical. At Landtown Middle School, we do have some classrooms that are that have a very small number of students. Okay. All right. Um, my other question is in option one. I just want to make sure that this $186,000 increase that we're talking about, this increase um, would make it so that the students that were in I want to make sure I have my schools correctly here. um Bayside Elementary. Uh the students that haven't had the opportunity to go to the middle school. It would be those students that it's being offered to.
112Correct. And the students in the Allenton, Christopher Farms, and Trentwood programs as well. Right. Okay. I I mean they have a middle school most of those now. So that's the reason I was I was asking because these ones are newer here. All right. Um and you know under option two because you know I want to make sure that I'm considering all the moving pieces. You know we have just recently started a new middle school master schedule with thrive time and I'm curious is there any role that thrive time can play um if option two was the one that the board decides to go with? So I you it's the Thrive expert. Uh we can certainly take a look at that. Um it would depend because sixth grade uh depending on the time of day which
113is it's a 45 minute block of time. We would need to expand that a little bit but it's certainly something we could look into. Right. I just I um I understand, you know, a lot of the messages and the emails that we've gotten and you know, a lot of the families and the hopes that they would be able to continue this offering and you know, I just whatever we go with, I want to make sure that we're still offering programs and opportunities that are as academically rigorous as the students um want. and I I understand some of the concerns of my colleagues here. Um, again, I don't know where I really stand um, exactly. And one of the other problems that I'm having, and this is probably not a question for you, but I am
114having trouble really quantifying the staffing piece. And I I think what I need here is um, how many classroom teachers are dedicated at Lanstown Middle for the DI program at this time? How many do you how many if we had them filled? So, we have one immersion social studies teacher at Lancetown that teaches one section of sixth grade social studies and one section of seventh grade social studies. Okay. And in the past, he has been part-time and has only taught those two sections, although he may teach some English this year. So, we have one teacher at Lancetown Middle School for social studies and then we have one Spanish teacher who teaches immersion Spanish 1, two, and three. Okay. At Lancetown. And if I could interrupt, I think Mr. Co Pepper's suggestion earlier, we can come
115back. I'm going to recommend workshop October 14th and run a scenario. Okay. and use this year's numbers and run it through the various options, the two we have here, plus a third option of offering some type of accelerated course at grade six with these these numbers. So, you can see the staffing question per school which would will help um because the challenge is it's very difficult to understand it if you haven't done a master schedule before. I completely understand what a class of 12 would do to every other teacher on that grade level as you spread the rest of those kids out because the allocation is the allocation and that's why you have classes of 37 and classes of 12 and that just is not conducive to best practice. So if if with the board's
116approval, we can come back and with a a better explanation of the budget, who is in that number in 2930 that's referenced in 186,000. Um what's the staffing look like? All those type of things. Okay. Um I I personally I think based on what I'm hearing um from my colleagues here on the board, you know, I think there's right now a lot of uncertainty and the desire uh to to kind of go out into the community and go to the schools visit and kind of um wait. So if my colleagues are fine with that, um I think we could do a head nod or you could do a motion. But um anyway um Vice Chair Williams. Yeah, I'm glad because I I I think Miss Rogers I when she was talking I was equating it
117to pre-alggebra algebra advance, you know, advance. So that's good. But my question is why do we only offer Spanish for sixth graders at such a limited number of middle schools? That's a great question. I don't I don't know. That's not how it's always how it's always been, you I mean, just with my five kids, one started in sixth grade and excelled and the other started in high school. So, why why can't we I mean, yeah. Why? So, it's me, huh? Yes. Um, so for the Spanish one that is at all donation school, it's a requirement. Same thing for my for all the other schools. It is in a uh six ninew week right course exploratory um why we don't go to number one Spanish one first I think a lot of what we do in
118sixth grade is we like the kids to explore what their interests are we get some students that'll take exploratory French and exploratory Spanish and decide hey which one do I want to go into and then that's when they go to foreign language or world language on in the seventh grade and so forth. Might be. Yeah, it might be something to look at too. Offering all sixth graders that chance to do it and maybe exploring fifth fifth grade or something. Thank you, Miss Rogers. Okay, so two things. Um, this really isn't for y'all, but this is for my colleagues. I I do have friends who whose children have been through the program and they are very connected to the other parents in the program. And when they saw this on the agenda, this is obviously, you
119know, just a anecdotal evidence, but a lot of them did say that part of the reason why their children did start the immersion program was so their children could go to Great Neck Middle versus a different middle school. They wanted that experience. And so then it makes me question if we move it to another middle school, will that actually impact um attendance? And so that is a huge question for the money that they we would need to put in then for it to not be successful because the children either don't want to go that far or their parents want them at a different middle school or whatever. Um that would be a huge impact. And I do think that having parental input is extremely important. I don't have kids in the program. I don't know
120if anybody on here has kids in the program, so we wouldn't have that experience. But having the voice of the parents, I think, is important. So, I would like to make a motion to have us bring this back for information. Right. Information or workshop? Workshop next uh meeting? October 14th. Yes, October 14th. Sorry, that's the one I meant. October 14th. Can you second? I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion by Miss Rogers to bring this back for more information on October 14th to the workshop. Seconded by Vice Chair Williams. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, I call for the vote. Oh. And for my Spanish teachers out there, I'm a master speller. I'm a master. [Laughter] Yeah. I really want to drive a bus though. We have two Mrs. Wood house. Two too big. Yeah.
121We're We're doing better every day. Yes. All right. And uh the voting board is open on that motion. Okay. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. The motion did pass. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And thank you very much. We are now on to 403b oversight committee membership and we welcome Crystal P, chief financial officer. So good evening, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chairwoman, schoolboard members, Dr. Robertson. So this evening, we respectfully request the consideration of appointing Mr. Scott Zelner, who's a Virginia Beach City Public Schools retiree to the 403b committee. On this slide, it shows you our current um committee members and at the bottom shows the recommendation of Mr. Zelner as listed. Mr. Zelner, I mean, as you may recall, in January, the board approved revisions to the 403b committee charter, which now permits
122retired school board employees to serve as members. Mr. Zelner previously served on this committee during his time as an active employee. Throughout his tenure, he demonstrated professionalism, dedication, and a strong understanding of the committee's responsibilities. These qualities make him especially well suited to serve in this capacity as a retiree. For these reasons, we respectfully ask the board to consider the appointment of Mr. Scott Zoner to the 403b committee. This topic will be brought back for his action at the next school board meeting. That concludes this presentation. I'll be glad to take any questions. Okay, I do not see any. Thank you. We are now on to budget calendar and staff engagement and welcome back again. Um, good evening again, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, school board members, and Dr. Robertson. So this evening I am
123presenting the budget calendar for fiscal year 202627 school operating budget and fiscal year 202627 through 203132 capital improvement program known as the CIP. This calendar outlines specific dates and time frames for the key steps in the budget development process. It serves as a roadmap for both administration and the school board guiding us through the sequence of activities that will culminate in the adoption of a proposed budget. The next three slides will show you the ent the full calendar. Um I would like to highlight several of the key dates and changes included in this year's calendar. This year's budget calendar includes new dates and adjustments from prior years, giving us additional opportunities to present before the school board during the entire budget development process. Based on the August 12th schoolboard meeting, a staff survey on compensation
124priorities is to be conducted October 15th through the 31st. Following the schoolboard retreat, it was determined that departmental presentations should be included. With 62 departments and 14 funds, time may not allow all to be presented. However, larger departments will be prioritized while small, less active departments and funds may not be scheduled. These departmental presentations are scheduled for December 9th, January 13th, January 20th, and January 27th. And you will see these dates are will be highlighted in yellow on the presentation. In addition to today's workshop, quarterly updates from Mercer are scheduled for November 10th, February 10th, and May 12th. These dates you will see highlighted in green on the presentation. Also in October, we will present the fiscal year 2025 reversion and revenue sharing formula trueup to the school board followed by the pres same presentation
125to city council in November. November 10th again is is highlighted in green is the quarterly Mercer update. On November 18th, the school board and city council will receive a joint briefing on the 5-year forecast. During November and December, the Office of Budget Development will review and summarize outside the base budget request. And December 9th will mark both the first departmental workshop and the first public hearing. The public hearing will gather stakeholder input on priorities for fiscal year 2026 27 and the six-year CIP. There will be no documents related to the budget um available at this stage as the intent is to hear community themes and ideas. As a reminder, state revenue estimates are typically released during the third week of December. Our budget process is carefully aligned with this release and the actions of the
126general assembly. During the month of January, the chief financial officer and superintendent will review outside the base budget request. And then this year's calendar includes nine workshops compared with three scheduled budget workshops on the calendar approved last year. And we did end up having two additional ones, but the way the calendar was approved, we had approved three last year and there are nine on the scheduled calendar. As mentioned, workshops began December 9th and conclude on March 17th with the February 10th session also including Mercer's quarterly update. On February 24th, we will present the superintendent's estimate of needs and the proposed capital improvement program. This date has been push pushed back a couple of weeks to allow the school board additional time to review materials and ask clarifying questions before formal presentation. In March, three additional
127workshops are scheduled, culminating in the board's vote to approve the operating budget and six-year CIP on March 24th. This approval or adoption date has also been shifted later to provide more time for review. In April, we will present to city council. That date is yet to be determined. On May 12th, you will receive a Mercer uh financial update followed by city council's required budget approval by May 15th per state code. So, that concludes the presentation of the budget calendar presentation and I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. Okay, I don't see any at this time. So, thank you very much. And we will move on to so pass rates based on 2425 performance. We welcome Martin Barrett, testing specialist, office of planning, innovation, and accountability. Good evening, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams,
128members of the board, and Dr. Robertson. I'm Martin Barrett, testing specialist with the Office of Planning, Innovation, and Accountability. This evening, I will share the 2024 2025 so pass rate data for the Virginia Beach City Public Schools along with state pass rate comparisons and comparisons with other Virginia divisions. At the beginning of each section, I will highlight headline news which are the key takeaways for each section. As you know, the Virginia Department of Education releases so pass rates each year. These results are published on their website and are included in the school quality profiles. The headline news for this year is that for our school division, pass rates improved on 64% of the so tests. We will now look at the pass rates for the individual math tests. The table on the screen shows math
129so pass rates. The left column lists each test followed by our 22 23 23 24 and our most recent 2425 results. For 2425 pass rates ranged from 47% in grade 7 math to 96% in algebra 2. The final columns show the change from the 2324 to 2425 year. Overall, four tests improved by 1 to 3 percentage points. Four tests declined by 1 to four percentage points and one test remain unchanged. In 2024 25, the reading pass rates range from 75% in grade three reading to 91% in grade 11. When comparing the last two years, two tests increased by one to four percentage points with the largest increase showing in grade eight reading and four tests decrease by 1 to 3 percentage points. In writing, the grade 11 pass rate was 83%, two percentage points higher
130than in 2324. In the 24-25 year, science pass rates ch range from 61% in chemistry to 93% in earth science. When comparing the last two years, pass rates improved on every science test with gains ranging from 1 to 10 percentage points with the largest increase occurring in chemistry. In 2425, history p pass rates ranged from 37% in world history 2 to 82% in grade 8 civics and economics. Students in eight high schools for some history courses are participating in a state approved alternative to the so test. These students are participating in a locally awarded verified credit option two or also known as LABC2 in lie of the so test. These students must produce a body of work as evidence or mastery of course standards by completing three out of four performance tasks successfully. Each student's
131work must be reviewed by a school-based personnel uh excuse me school-based panel and this process is contributing to fewer students participating in the end of course history so tests when comparing the last two years pass rates improved on every history test with gains ranging from 1 to eight percentage points with the largest increase showing in VA US history. In summary, VBCPS pass rates improved on 18 of 28 tests, stayed the same on two tests, and declined on eight tests. In addition, passing rates on all science and history so assessments showed improvements in 2024 2025 when compared to the prior year. So next we'll examine data by student reporting groups in math and reading. Notably reporting groups remained relatively stable in both math and reading. This chart displays math data for each student reporting group. The
132leftmost column lists the reporting groups while the subsequent columns show pass rates for the three most recent years along with change from the 2324 to 2425 school year. In 2425, math pass rates range from 46% for students with disability to 91% in the Asian reporting group. Overall, scores for the reporting groups remained relatively stable. None of the changes varied by more than one percentage point. This chart shows reading pass rates by students student reporting groups over the past three years, including the change from the 2324 to 2425 school year. In the 2425 school year, rates ranged from 44% for English learners to 91% for Asian students. When comparing the last two years of data, pass rates remain relatively stable for most reporting groups. Exceptions included a decrease of two percentage points for students with disabilities,
133a decrease of three percentage points for Hispanic students, and a decrease of six percentage points for English learners. Now, to provide perspective, we compared the annual pass rates of Virginia Beach to the pass rates for the state of Virginia. In headline news, VBCPS students as a group outperformed the state on 26 of 28 so tests. This graph shows the so test pass rates in grade three through high high school reading and writing in Virginia Beach and the state. The gray bar represents Virginia Beach pass rates and the blue bar represents the state pass rate. At the top of each set of bars, you will see a number representing the difference between Virginia Beach's pass rate and the state pass rate for that test. Positive numbers indicate that Virginia Beach outperformed the state with the value
134showing by how many percentage points. As you can see here, Virginia Beach pass rates exceeded pass rates on all reading and writing tests. The largest difference were observed in grade seven and grade eight reading. In this graph, you will see math pass rates. As you can see, Virginia Beach math Virginia Beach pass rates exceeded the state pass rates on all math tests except grade seven. The largest difference favoring VBCPS were in the areas of grade 8 math and geometry. Now, it's important to note that only 38% of the enrolled seventh graders took the grade 7 math test. This difference in grade 7 math pass rates here reflects differences in course enrollment. Most Virginia Beach grade seven students are encouraged to take advanced math which is which is assessed by the grade 8 so math tests
135and other seventh graders take the algebra 1 course which is assessed by the algebra 1 so test. This practice is not required statewide. In this graph, you see science pass rates. As you can see, Virginia Beach pass rates exceeded state pass rates on all science tests. Double-digit differences were observed in grade 8 science, chemistry, and earth science. And finally, here are the history pass rates comparisons. You can see that Virginia Beach pass rates exceeded state pass rates on all history tests except world history 2 where both P pass rates were the same. Again, doubledigit differences were observed uh for civics, economics, world geography, VA US history and world history. We also compared so pass rates of Virginia Beach to the so pass rates of our local school divisions and a few other comparable divisions. In
136headline news, VBCPS students as a group outperformed the other Hampton Road cities. The division also compared favorably to some similar divisions across the state. When comparing the seven Hampton Road cities, Virginia Beach City Public School students outperformed all others in every subject except math, where Chesapeake scored one percentage point higher. This slide shows how the division's performance compares to other similar divisions across the state. Overall, Virginia Beach City Public School students outperformed those in all seven comparison divisions across every subject area with the exception of Lowden County, which scored higher in all subjects, and Heriko, which along with Louden recorded a higher pass rate in writing. There were many bright spots when examining the so pass rates and accountability for our schools as well as areas requiring continued focus. With respect to accomplishments, 18 out
137of 28 tests increase from the 23 24 school year. When reviewing all students as a group in comparison to the state uh AC students across the state, VBCPS continues to outperform the state on 26 out of 28 tests. Virginia Beach students also outperform local school divisions in reading, writing, science, and history. VBCPS students as a group outperformed most other comparable school divisions. While continuous improvement is important in all subjects, certain areas do require additional attention. In mathematics, the department of teaching and learning is updating course sequences at both the middle and high school levels to align with new legislation and ensure all students are future ready. In literacy, we will continue to focus on early literacy and expand the implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act while addressing the depth and rigor on the updated standards
138of learning. In history, curriculum updates will reflect newly adopted standards across all areas. As a division, we are using detailed assessment data to provide targeted school support and to prioritize student groups where performance gaps remain, particularly students with disabilities, English learners, and black students. Tonight's presentation provided you just one dimension of student achievement. You will be receiving an additional update on October 14th that goes beyond pass rates. The office of planning, innovation, accountability will share details about the students about the state's new school performance and support framework which provides a more comprehensive view of school performance. On the same day, the department of teaching and learning will present a core content and secondary math sequence update highlighting Virginia Beach's rigorous approach to mathematics pathways. Taken together, these updates will give you a fuller picture of
139both our division's performance and the supports we are putting in place for our school. This concludes my presentation, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Miss Melnik. So, as stated, only 38% of the seventh graders take the seventh grade math so that's always been a tough one for us. always um and it does always need explanation just like the the US history needs an explanation too and people really in the community not knowing that it's not all of our students that take the US history you've always had to explain that and I hope people now really understand that um the seventh grade math so there were changes there was something this year All in reading and mathematics we have new standards this year. Standards. Okay. Yes. Which typically nationally you
140see an implementation dip when you implement a brand new curriculum and standards. 100%. Um and the math team has done a full analysis over the summer and already have a plan of um adjustments to curriculum and professional learning and coaching to target specific skills and standards and the depth of the new standards. I'm really pleased to see the science so scores just so high. And I know we've worked really hard as a division to get children to really speak the science lingo, if you will. And that's really evident when you visit a school um at Rosemont Forest Elementary. Was it Rosemont Forest? Dr. Robertson where they were doing the um they they were doing a friction experiment and you could just really hear them talking and um oh you we have to change the height
141of this slope because this is not it's not creating enough friction and you just it's just really awesome to hear the kids like really understanding science and I remember when those standards first came out you gave us a sample um esso and I failed it and so um these kids aren't. And so kudos to our teachers for the work that's being done in these classrooms because it is highly impressive. And my last question on 19, the overall standards of learning pass rates by subject um comparable to other school divisions. Why is Fairfax County's writing score 16? Do they have some exemptions like we do with with um with seventh grade math? Because that's we are assuming they're doing something differently, but I would have to ask. Okay. Same thing with their history because that's only
142uh well holding my glasses. I'm not 42. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Ken. This is going to be a strange way to begin my question. I apologize in advance because I'm going to assume this is going to appear to be really hairsplitting. But nothing in all honesty on my journey on the board here has taught me that there is a more significant subject matter than so tests. and the role that they play and will continue to play as the Virginia Department of Education unfolds its new standards and its process. But I get pretty analytical here when it comes to these columns of information and making sure that I'm following the math. And if I see something that doesn't add up, then it's going to seem like I'm hairsplitting. I get it. But it's
143important to me to make sure that I'm understanding the information as it's presented correctly. If I'm in error, my apologies in advance. If I'm not in error, then it just gives me an opportunity to say we want to watch this stuff very closely. So with that is my apologetic introduction. Slide four. You get to the bottom of the page and the overall math numbers are shown, but I come up with different numbers on the average. One point off. Hair splitting. No big deal. I go to page five. Same thing. One point off on some of the columns. I'm not going to go through those columns. But page six, I get to the 2425 pass rate and I see that the overall science score is 81. When I add that column up and divide it by
144the number of entries, I come up with 78. H a little bit less hairsplitting, but to the same point. But when we get to slide seven, now you got my attention. The 2425 pass rate is averaging an overall history score of 77. I add that column up and divide it by the number of entries and I'm at 67. So I say we ought to really talk about that because again this is not an insignificant subject matter. Mhm. So, I'm apologizing in advance for splitting hairs, but and maybe there's always room for this. Maybe I've done the math incorrectly. And if that's the case, then I again apologize for that. I'm full of apologies tonight. But nonetheless, I'm just trying to make sure that I'm following the process. Yeah, it's a good question, Mr. Ken. So,
145this is how it's calculated. So if you look at slide four, um, in grade three the pass rate was 79. You multiply that by all the number of kids that took the assessment in grade three. That gives you a total. Then grade four, 77. You multiply that times all the kids in grade four who took 77. Then you do the same process. So then you're not adding grade three plus grade four. You're not adding 79, 77, 79, 68. But is that not how the column has been arranged that it is an addition of all the items and divided by the total? So no I because there are times when the numbers come up. Exactly. Correct. Yeah. So uh no we we mentioned with grade seven that only 37% of the kids take the grade seven
146assessment which is going to make that number of 47 have a much lower weight. when you're averaging all the thousands of kids who took the assessment. So your response tells me that the answer for the overall number is not a summation of the column divided by the total entries. That's correct. Okay. I put my dun cap on and get to the back of the class. That's a great question because how would you know if if you didn't ask the question? There in lies my point, right? But once again, I'm full of apology so I apologize again. No, it's a good question because other people may have had the same one. Miss Rogers, I'm gonna not be facitious, but I'm going to already know the answer to this, but I kind of doing it for the
147public's benefit. Um, when we say our grade three pass rates are at 75%. Does that mean 25% of our third graders can't read? No, it means that 25% of the third graders did not meet the score on the English so reading assessment. So that's exactly what I wanted to highlight because I do know that many people look at our so scores and make a determination that because our students didn't make the cut score that therefore they are 100% failing and that is not the case. Our third grade students who are taking SOS for the very first time may not have understood the questions being asked, may not have understood how to take the test. There is a lot of nuances here. And so to make the assumption that if a student doesn't pass an English,
148a math, a social studies, a science, so therefore they don't they're failing the entire class. Not that some don't, but that is not the overall assumption to be made about our students. And I just wanted to point that out simply because I have heard repeatedly that if we have 75% of our third graders passing that therefore that means 25% uh can't read or can't do math and that's just not the case. And I just wanted to point that out. So thank you Mr. Bowensteale. Um, thank you for your presentation. My question comes or comment or something on slide 11. It's like you go through the columns and pretty much nothing has changed for any of the levels except for that one year for the English learners. Uh, so my question is on the black students,
149it's like 67, but it's like straight across. is are we doing anything to try and improve that at least by a number or two each year? I mean, there's a big difference there and they're all the other ones are I mean, they're all staying the same. So, it seems to me that they've all pretty much got it kind of covered. Is there some way we could, you know, come up with something to try and boost that up? Yeah, we are not satisfied and we will continue to target needs individually for every student in our school division. So we to share our approach, we partner very closely with DOS and of course PIA helps with the data analysis side of it. But when we're not seeing progress, um, we allocate resources. We provide targeted support to
150schools. Um, and we drill down to the individual level at the school site for the student. And so we're going to continue to do that. Um, and like I mentioned earlier, uh, we had a lot to implement that was new last year. That's not an excuse. Um, but we anticipate that we will make better progress. We've got a lot behind us, a lot of professional learning um on the horizon as well and we'll continue to differentiate our support for our schools. Vice Chair Williams. Um yes, to kind of piggyback on the comment about the the 75%, Dr. Robertson. Um, since I've been on the board, I've continuously heard if you're not reading on grade level by grade three, you are going to struggle. So, I've heard it differently. I've I've heard it and I know
151um I know Chair Brown has requested this and talked about this several times about actually grade level reading. So is it accurate to say if we've got 75 people 75 third graders 75% of third graders passing the SOS 25% are not performing at grade level. Is that a accurate statement? I think you could say not at grade level based upon the standards the total standards in grade three uh ELA. Yes. Okay. And some of those standards are tied to reading. Right. Right. Specifically, right? So, I would love to to kind of reiterate what Miss Brown has asked for in the past if we could somehow um get it on some future agenda that we actually talk about grade level, reading level, and all that stuff and and be able to really look at it. We
152will be doing that. Actually, we've just started the planning for a November literacy update to share data and to share an approach with the evidence-based literacy instruction to give some of that background research on best practices and how we've shifted over the last several years to really um implement structured literacy and move into more impactful strategies in the school system. And um and just I'm seeing 79% not that we're ever satisfied, but I just do want to point out that it's 79% of our third graders. Okay, great. Great. Well, I look forward to that because I think that would be very helpful for us, especially when we're, you know, answering questions about grade level and reading and all that to the community. Thanks. I look forward to One of the things that the board asked
153at the retreat, so we're planning for is more data presentations. So we've aligned our c our calendar around when those state assessments are being given and when the data is going to be available so then we can come and share and so that's why November that number was chosen because the state assessments are occurring in October. So thank you and I know that there's a lot of other assessments available and that was what um Dr. Robertson was talking about and I said it would be nice if the board had those David Mr. Cole pepper. Thank you. Um I think chemistry is a challenging sub I direct this to you. I think chemistry is a challenging subject. I think 10point jump is pretty significant. You agree with that? I'm just curious if you attribute that to
154anything specific. Yes, absolutely. So going back to the docsel and department of teaching and learning targeted support and the curriculum shifts um that the department of teaching and learning has made partnering with teachers. our teachers have done an amazing job implementing. Um, and obviously 61% I think is what was in my mind. Is that what it was? Yeah. um it doesn't stand out as a great pass rate, but keep in mind not all students that are in chemistry have to take the so because they've already taken and passed biology which is the required science um so some student a lot of students don't take that chemistry so that number is skewed because um when I was a principal all of my kids who were in chemistry took the so and the scores in the city
155were in the 80s and we were in the 90s. But that's not the case now. You the only kids that are sitting for that so are the ones who have not met the verified credit for science. It's like history. It's like history. Yeah. I was I was I was I was picking that up with some other stuff and I don't think I realized that you get penalized for people who just don't take it. When you don't get penalized if you if you've if you've earned your verified credit already, you cannot sit for it. But that counts against the score. It doesn't count against the score. You just can't you can't take it. I understand that. That's that's fine. But I'm just The 61% here is that a 61% of people who actually took the test
156passed it. Okay. That's a useful number, right? Well, I don't know. However you slice it, 10 10 points in a year, I think, is a is is an awesome step. I'd certainly love to see that be more than two out of three people, but that's awesome. Let's ask progress, Miss Milik. So, two things. First, um to to Mrs. Williams's point, um the data, and I encourage my colleagues, the next time you go visit a school, um have Dr. Robertson take you into what some of the schools they don't call it the war room but I kind of call it the war room really where they where they have names and sticky notes and um data all over walls in these rooms where you can see exactly um what who who is being targeted what are
157they targeting. It's actually the most amazing display of teachers hard work. um to re to really really see how much time and effort is spent in um targeting students and doing everything that they possibly can to make sure that they are um that they are learning and that they're going to to test better or whatever it is that they do. That'd be the first thing I would ask. If you have never seen a war room, ask to see it because it is it is truly remarkable. And my my other question is, can you give us a little more information on the performancebased um history that that you explained in lie of the so uh Mr. Lovejoy, our secondary social studies coordinator, will do a fantastic job. and who qualifies and yeah I'm so excited. Absolutely
158great question. So we talk about LABC2 there are three major components. Component one is to pass the course with a 64 or above. Component two is when you talk about the performance tasks students are required to do four but need to pass three. Okay. Within that as well, we also have a mastery connect component where they are assessed on the majority of standards where they have to hit a point of 50% mastery of the majority of standards and that body of work is incredibly rigorous. Okay. What happens if they don't hit three of the four? If they don't hit three of four, there are multiple categories where if you, for example, you don't pass category one, okay, you can go back and retake. It's just a different assessment with a different compelling question that they
159have to answer, a different set of resources, so on and so forth. So, they have an opportunity to retake, but a different question with a different set of resources. If by chance there is not an alternative option for that category, they move on to the next one and hopefully they get three out of four. But if they don't, that's one of the things that would hold them back from a verified credit. Okay, so we're hearing all of this, somebody's listening, they've missed part of it. Who qualifies for this? uh any student in the program who does not have a verified credit. Okay. Okay. And how many took how many took it last year? So last year off the top of my head 1,980. Oh wow. And I know there's some real movement towards performance-based because
160that really is takes the guesswork out of anything, right? It's going to hold a student responsible for their own knowledge. And so uh and you have to prove it. And so I know there's a real push towards performance. And if if I could add to that, we had a 91% success rate. Let's go. I love it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Rogers. I'm be super fast. Dr. Kuchi, when you do your evidence-based research practice, literacy presentation, could you please do me the favor of showing us data that follows a third like the same class of students, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, so you can see the growth and and how the changes are made from one class or like you know, I mean, they they move kids around, but you
161know, one specific grade level from whatever year that that we just follow them. so we can see that kind of growth. Thank you. So great. Well, I want to thank you. Um and you know, our staff and our students have done an amazing job this year. Um we see a lot of improvement and I know that we've had a lot of uh you know questions and I think it's an important topic for questions. I just wanted to be sure that we really thank you guys for your work and everyone for their work. Um, you know, because the truth is, while we're excited about what we've accomplished, um, you know, we still have more work to do and we probably always will and we're still going to try to continue to grow and that's what we
162do here. So, thank you so much. Okay, we are now on to the consent agenda. We have quite a few, so I'm going to read these. We have policy 257, policy 312, policy 314, policy 316, policy 317, policy 318, policy 457, policy 491, policy 518, policy 543, policy 544, policy 566, policy 576, policy 639, policy 641. We have the program evaluation schedule for 2526, the pre kindergarten program evaluation readiness report, scratch cooking initiative, evaluation readiness report, and religious exemptions. Are there any objections to the school board voting on the consent agenda items as presented? Seeing none, I call for the motion to approve the consent agenda. Moved by Mr. Cummings, seconded by Vice Chair Williams. Um, I call for the votes to approve the consent agenda. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. The motion
163did pass for the approval of the consent agenda. Thank you. I call for a motion to approve the September 9th, 2025 personnel report and administrative appointments as presented. Moved by Miss Rogers, seconded by Vice Chair Williams. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to approve the personnel and administrative appointments for September 9th, 2025. And Miss Williams, how do you vote? Thank you, Madam Chair. We have 11 eyes. The motion to pass for the approval of the personnel report for September 9th, 2025. Thank you. We are now on to policy 6-10. I call for a motion to approve policy 610 as presented. Moved by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Miss Rogers. Any discussion? Miss Melnik. So for the public, can you please explain why this is on action and not on consent? Yeah, I'm
164voting now. Huh? Because I'm not going to vote for it, which I explained in the last meeting. Mr. Co Pepper. Yeah, I'm uh I'm not going to vote in favor of it either. Uh in short, there are two reasons. One, because I think the policy that previously existed uh was sufficient and I don't see a requirement to change it. Uh the changes that I see uh make it more vague uh or as a previous policy was specific in several instances that I think were appropriate. uh those two instances are it specifically lays out who is the approving authority uh for guests both for teachers in the classroom and for assemblies and the new policy removes uh stating who the approval authority is uh and the second one I'll read it so I don't say it
165wrong hang on the second it says specifically outside speakers not authorized for uh for use in family life education classes and I think that's also appropriate Sorry, I spoke fast. The uh the old policy says outside speakers are not authorized for use in family life education classes. And I think that's appropriate. Miss Dwer, do you want me to take this, Mrs. Williams, or do you want to handle this? Okay, we're voting Okay. Yeah. Okay. We're voting on policy 744, which 610. I mean 6 I'm sorry, 610. I got the wrong one. Yeah, we're voting on 610, which was the um the the guest speaker policy. So, the policy um the PRC reviewed it and we recommended that you take an abbreviated um version of it and Miss Lenetti, do you have it in front of
166you? There is a more extensive regulation. We moved a lot more into the regulation. So, even what you see what you saw what you below where it struck out, that is all we had before. We did not have a regulation to support this. We'd now have a more extensive regulation to support. So the so the policy is the overall concept a more vague concept. The regulation goes into more specific details as to when we're we're going to have speakers how we're going to approve and what they're approved for. And because you don't generally approve regulations, it's not included in this package. Yeah. And usually Yeah. Like Miss Len said, we don't vote or approve regulations, but we the committee was able to see them and felt very comfortable with the regulations. Therefore, we feel comfortable
167with this policy. And um so there it is and it's very short and it's right there. Miss Melnight, who was at that policy review committee meeting? The three of us. And well, Miss Miss Felton, Mr. Bowensteel, Miss Lenetti. I can't remember who else. I'd have to look at the minutes. Yeah, I know that I was extensively involved in writing it. Mrs. Woodhouse was working with that. Laura Beth Matson was also working with us because we had done that and then we'd went through several departments to look at, but we were the primary drafters of it. So, we were the presenters on this particular policy and the regulation. So, staff staff is fine with the way this is written here. You all worked on that? Yeah. Because what we were what we thought we were we
168need a more extensive explanation for was actually procedures that a school would use particular principal and we put those into the regulation. So we felt that was more appropriate place for it. Okay. So there was yeah this is not the only thing that will guide this because we realized that there were a whole lot of other areas we probably had not addressed in the past. So we built that out into the regulation. Okay. And so the way it's presented now for us to vote on it, that's what you worked on and staff is is more than you you like this policy the way it's written right here. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm going to explain uh my vote, and it's, you know, no disrespect to the work of the PRC, but um I have
169consistently during my time since I've been on the school board advocated for making policies strengthened, not more um vague. And that's what this one is. And so, that's the reason I'm voting no. Um, while I understand the the regulation piece, um, I also know that this was not, um, in routine for the five-year, um, update. I also believe that the superintendent and staff had the full authority, as the policy already existed, to put every single item that was needed to be in the regulation in the regulation. So that's um that's my reasoning. Miss Melnik, I was just curious about the vagueness, but again, you are that's okay. You know, when I when when I can read something in a packet, things can be in a packet, but what the public doesn't have is the packet.
170And so I'm trying to make sure that people understand that we have board members who using the word vague while we're voting on a policy that was created by staff members specifically like recreating certain things. Um that's it. I'm this is strictly not for me. It's for the ambiguity that exists for the public who's listening. That's all. It's more a philosophy as to do you want everything in a policy? Do you want them in a regulation? Traditionally, we've had more things in regulation. It can be either way. It's just a matter of where you prefer it to be. In this case, our recommendation was to put it into the regulation. We do feel like we have strengthened the regulation, put a lot more things that need to be clarified in the regulation. There's no reason
171it couldn't be in a policy. It's just simply our practice. Virginia Beach generally is a policy. It's a more overall philosophy unless it's required to be very detailed and then the regulations split out the details. Yeah. Okay. I like it the way it's written by the staff. Thank you, Mr. Co Pepper. I just I'll just say one last thing. Uh I wasn't aware of the regulations. I haven't seen those, so I don't know what's in them. I I could certainly believe wholly that what's in them is is just fine. So the only question to me is whether removing these things were in the the specific items that I referred to that were in the previous policy need to be removed in order to in order to feed that. And I don't think they do. So
172I'm going to stick with my vote against it. Okay. I call for the vote to approve policy 610 as presented. So, Madam Chair, we have eight eyes and three naysay. So, the motion did pass for the approval of policy 6-10. Okay. Thank you. Um, we are now on to uh the committee assignments that we added. Um, and I will take a motion. Um, it's right in front of us. You can read it. 15. It's 15 C that we added it. Um, or I can read it and then somebody can Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um, motion to modify schoolboard committee assignments to sign Mr. Cummings at the school board's as the school board's only liazison to Sister Cities Association of Virginia Beach. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second that. Seconded by Miss Melnik. Any discussion? Well,
173I was going to just go ahead and state that um Sister Cities met this week. They decided that they only needed one of us and so they asked for Mr. Cummings to be their one liaison, which was fine. So, this was kind of their decision. And we're just going through this so um the public knows that I'm not absent. I'm just not needed. Mr. Cummings. Yeah, I mean I think it's just the sister cities is just asking for one school board member and I think all organizations look at operational efficiency. So I don't think there's more to add. They're just wanting to operate as efficient as possible. So it was me and I'm honored to serve and increase global awareness, you know, obviously within Sister Cities and the great work they do with our scholarship
174program to cherry blossom festival. Um so thank you and I was already assigned this committee too. Yeah. And I'm happy to step aside. It's not a big deal. Um Miss Dwire, so I'm sorry. I'm new. I'm the newbie. Um, what does sister I don't I don't understand what this is all about so forgive me. So enlighten me. We did our committee assignments in June and at that time I recommended Miss Rogers and Mr. [ __ ] for sister cities. That's a liaison role. So it's an outside board where we have a school board member liaison at their request. Um they have requested that we go down to one school board member. Um and Mr. Cummings is the school board member and um Miss Rogers and Mr. Cummings are good with that. And so that's what we're voting
175on just that modification. I I think that's a different discussion completely than the committee assignment itself. So, if we could maybe follow up offline on that one. Okay. All right. I call for the vote to approve the motion to modify school board committee assignments to assign Matt Cummings as the board's only liaison to the Sister Cities Association of Virginia Beach. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. the motion to pass. Thank you. Okay, so we are going to follow through the agenda here. We still have workshop to return to just as a reminder and we also have a closed session. Um we are now on to committee organizations in board reports. Do we have anything to report? And Dr. Green, thank you. On Friday, September the 12th, um the legislative committee will meet at 9:30
176um here at the school administration building. One of our agenda items will be to discuss our legislative agenda. Miss Melnik. So last week I attended uh Governor School for the Arts back to school event at the Wells Theater in Norfol. Um it was fabulous. Um it it it was quite something. And so I'm telling you all now um if there is anything you would like to see from any of the the disciplines um they do have um on their website a list of all of their performances um or any any time that the public is welcome. Please let me know if you'd like to attend and I will make sure that you have tickets. Um go on and look at all of their disciplines. um there'll be something there that you love and I would
177love if Virginia Beach school board members would um would come. Thank you. Okay. Um I have one here. I got an email um from the Congresswoman's office about the congressional app challenge official community computer science competition of the US House of Representatives. Um those students of all coding skill levels are invited to participate with submissions due by October 30th. Um you can find out more at www. congressionalappchallenge. us. Um also um Dr. Green did mention the legislative committee meeting and discussing that legislative um package that we will eventually vote on. And so if any of the board members have any input on potential things that they should consider for that packet, please make sure that you email Dr. Green so that she has that available at the meeting. I've emailed her a few things already.
178Um, and the more that we can get colleagues to weigh in, the better. All right, we are going to move on to our CIP committee updates. Then Dr. Robertson. And we welcome Jack Freeman, Chief Operations Officer. We haven't been at this podium in a little while. Yeah. So, uh, so good evening, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, members of the board. Uh, tonight, Mr. Freeman, our chief operations officer, and myself will give you our second update on this work of the CIP committee, um, which will close out the work of this committee at this particular juncture. So, tonight we're going to cover a few things. Committee purpose, we're going to give you a brief summary because you were there of the July 9th schoolboard retreat presentation. We're going to update you on what happened with the
179three meetings after the schoolboard retreat. um presentation we did and update some findings that uh we shared with you at that point. So just to recall the purpose of the committee and I'm not going to read the bullets on the slide but uh I'll just use an example of I know we've got several of you with military experience. I would uh consider this team to be more like a operating like a red team in the military. A red team is a group of u learned individuals about a particular topic that go in and do work in advance to ensure that the plans that get implemented are going to provide the results that we're looking for. So we put together this group to do work pre-work on the development of the CIP to include taking a
180new look at Princeand High School. We did it in a manner that allowed us to have those conversation in a nonpressure setting. But we created the conditions during those meetings so such that we could make some really good decisions and and think outside the box. So that's what we accomplished um in the committee. So in the retreat what we did was we provided the board a summary of the first three meetings. We also introduced you all the committee members. Uh we went over the purpose. We uh shared some initial findings which I'm going to go back over with you. And then we talked about next steps. So let's talk about some of the initial findings that that remained true throughout the work of the rest of the committee. When we met with the city staff
181and that's Patrick Duhaney, Kevin Chantelier and other members of the staff on July 15th, uh we quickly discovered that our initial findings and and assumptions were correct and that is Virginia Beach City Public Schools and the city of Virginia Beach have very similar challenges. They have an aging infrastructure that they want to replace. They have needs in their community they want to address. and they also recognize the challenge of rising costs. They also have limited flexibility within their own CIP given debt service. Um, we investigated in in in our discussions. Can we classify some of our major maintenance projects as capital projects that would be eligible for debt service? And then conversely, if we did that, could we fund some of our minor and routine maintenance projects from operating or reserve funds? We thought about
182seeking opportunities to reduce costs and using the savings by work of the building utilization committee. So I am asking in this presentation that the building utilization committee con convene a meeting as soon as possible. So yeah, so that we can look at our our 85 buildings. We know we're going to be moving to 84 buildings with consolidation of Williams Elementary School soon, but can we look at all of our other buildings and and from a building utilization standpoint to determine whether or not the 84 assets is still the right number of assets? And so we're we're going to need the building utilizations committee's assistance. And so we're hoping that they can put a meeting together soon. Also, we we talked about whether or not the public private partnerships that could possibly yield some shared assets.
183So, we talked about and we've had conversations with Virginia Wesley University, now Baton University, um to determine whether or not it made any sense for them to want to be a part of the new Prince High School, so to speak, by having a space in the building. I've had conversations with uh the city manager to determine is there a business in the in the um town center area that is in lacking a space that is um of such that it would not be a conflict or present a danger to students. Could we do something in building Princ there to solve a need in the community? These are the things we looked at with the CIP. Moving to Princeton High School, we really took a fresh look in our educational specifications to see what efficiencies we
184could find instructional program. We talked about there is now sea time flexibility language that allows uh us to have our students participate in internship and work experiences during the school day. We wondered if the school is to seat 1,800, do we really need to build a high school that's going to last 100 years for 1,800 because there's 1,800 seats right now? Seatown flexibility certainly would indicate that possibly you never would need 1,800 seats in that school on any given day. You might only need 1500 seats. And if you build it for 1500 seats, that's a savings because you've just made it a little smaller. We talked about our athletic complex. Is there a possibility of creating an athletic complex that might also serve greater the needs of the community? And if so, what does that
185mean back for us in terms of investment? We looked at considerations of space specifications, size of the gym, cafeteria hallways, all things very similar to what this board did in activities, some members of this board did in activities a year ago. We know that time is not on our side. The longer we decide to do something about Prince High School, the more expensive it's going to get. So, we could do great work at at reducing the size and pay the same price if we wait too long two years longer. So, it's really time for us to get something on on paper that we think we can we can do for this community. We again I just talked about the seat time flexibility and then we also again opened up as I mentioned a moment ago
186about partnerships with higher education. So the retreat was the the 8th and 9th. The following week we had a committee meeting and in that committee meeting we explored we broke into smaller work groups and explored everything from funding to uh special programming. That very same day, we met with the city as I just told you about in that meeting. And then we came back August 7th and met for the final time. And here's where I want to spend a little bit of time. So, I'm going to ask my my uh gatekeeper over here, Miss Tony, if she could call pull up the minutes for that meeting on the 5th. And so, what you can see is on the fourth we broke into teams. There was one team led by Crystal Pete to increase funding to
187the CIP and you could see in the red, I'll give you a chance to read that, a summary of what we talked about in that meeting in the area of increasing funding to the CIP. We next heard from Melissa Ingram's group. Her group was reducing costs through efficiencies. and they actually did some tours to determine whether or not the west wing, which is the special needs wing at Prince San could be relocated to another site, which would free up space because we have other high school sites that are under capacity. So, we took a look at that and took a look at the program for those children because we certainly don't want to create any plan that's going to provide less programming. So, that was an investigation. And then finally, Mr. Freeman um and he's
188talked to you about this the long range facility plan. That's why it's going to be really important for us to engage with the building utilization committee to talk about the long range facility plan because there are some schools in the next group of schools on our long range facility plan that very possibly could present other opportunities for us. And so every 10 years we do that, it's coming up on the time where we um go back and and recalculate and create a new long range facility plan. The new business, you know, we closed the committee work out. So when I say we closed the committee work out, the purpose of this committee was to do exactly what we're able to do over this six months. There will be members of this committee that will re-engage
189as part of the CIP, but the formation of this committee served its purpose and we closed it out and we're actually closing it out officially with this presentation. And so at this point, I want to turn it over to Mr. uh Freeman who's going to uh talk to you about some updating updated findings in the CIP, updated findings on Princeton High School, and some possible next steps. Thank you, Dr. Robertson. And here are the updated findings. And we'll start with the capital program. Uh they include all the initial findings as noted at uh in slide seven from the schoolboard retreat that uh Dr. Robertson just covered. One of the more significant items is determining how to fund the debt service needed to cover the cost of Prince High School. And that's going to be a
190pretty challenging one. We'll need to work with city staff to evaluate impact on the city's debt metrics. Our debt and the city's debt both contribute to the overall debt metrics and only the city staff can calculate that data. The evaluation of debt service goes handinand with what appropriations can be made available. Then we'll need to determine appropriations available to do major maintenance projects like roofs, HVAC, foundation, fire alarm, exterior windows and doors and other major maintenance projects funded through the capital program. And we continue to acknowledge that the city has similar challenges as we do uh related to capital projects and capital needs. The updated findings related to Princeand High School include all the initial findings as noted in slide eight from the schoolboard retreat. This project is of high interest among key stakeholders and
191we received questions related to procurement options. So here's a list of all the legally available options. There's construction management at risk design bid build which is the method we've historically used. Not to say that that's the one that we should use moving forward. design build multi-prime and public private partnerships. And there's two routes for any to public private partnerships. Solicited means Virginia Beach City Public Schools would seek out potential partners. And unsolicited proposals, as the title suggests, occur when contractors submit proposals for consideration without prior engagement with Virginia Beach City Public Schools. All right. We obviously kept this at a very high level and can provide more uh questions. We we didn't know where the questions were going to go, so we kept it at a high level for hey, here are the options that
192are legally a available. As Dr. Robertson stated, the committee's work has concluded and we look forward to taking the next steps to settling on a solid executable plan that balances the maintenance needs of our roughly 90 sites while finding a reasonable path forward for the replacement of our aging facilities. With that, we can take your questions. Mr. Kalen, M. Freeman, I'm struck with the impression that the fact that the city is in a similar situation relative to their circumstances. It seems as though the manner in which you were presenting it was as though that was new information to you. Or is that something you two have known for quite some time? We've known that for a while. Okay. Thank you. Miss Melnik. Well, to Mr. Kalen's point, I mean, that's I mean, that's clear if
193you've been here long enough. You know, the explosion of population at certain periods um you know, since Virginia Beach became a city, you know, we had exponential growth in the late 70s. um um thousands of homes built at a single time. At one point in the 70s, even up until the late '7s, Indian River Road was a two-lane road. There still wasn't plumbing, you know, uh there there were still plumbing issues and and all kinds of things all over. And so, do the math. And now we're looking at aging buildings. And so, I think it's actually refreshing to know that we're all kind of in the same boat. Um, but my question for you is about a solicited bid. And so I know for an unsolicited bid, um, if you, it's basically like you get
194it on your doorstep and you open it and you look at it, um, then you have to put out an RFP. If Virginia Beach solicits and you find somebody who would like to enter into that, do you then have to put out an RFP for others because to put into that um you know you might not be able to answer that now since that might be a legal question. Just wasn't sure how that process might work. We do have a policy for it if I'm correct. You can choose to go out with an RFP or you can choose just to do what we sometimes call a request for information to see what they come back. If you got a request for information, and that's not the right term when you're talking about a PPA, but
195the equivalent of that, then I think you do have to give the community an opportunity. I'd have to pull out a policy and look at it. Another choice is that you go out with an RFP that you pre-drafted with um just a an opportunity for somebody to put together a bid on something not knowing a price that you may have been talking about with another contractor. So that type of process would still be in play, right? Like a sealed bid type thing, even if it's solicited or unsolicited. you don't ever reveal the number of somebody else's number. So any of those processes you can put out an RFP. Uh the public private partnership as uh Musli just mentioned is the PPA process. We started that process with an unsolicited bid. However, we were then required
196by law and our policy to to ask for a solicited bid. We can certainly not wait for an unsolicited bid and put out a solicited RFP for PPA. see how many um um we did receive uh Northwork went through that route, right? Uh CM at Risk is another one that was mentioned. Chesapeake's going through that route right now as well. Okay. So, design bid build has also served as well, but um just good to know what other options we have and and again, Miss Lenetti has helped us to look into what policies and um procurement laws we might need if we were to try to use any of those other ones. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Miss Rogers. I have a question for you, Mr. Freriedman. Um, it's kind of about the whole CIP in total.
197Um, say we were to look at our building utilization, we were to figure out, you know, we were going to sell something or whatever. I, you know, we were to get a big chunk of money out of something like that. We, our CIP in total also is for maintenance and and those kind of things. How do we determine or how would you determine I'm assuming and present to us what goes to because for me building Princess Anne High School is as you said a challenge but it's also has to be a somewhat of a priority but we can't let our other buildings fall apart. So I'm kind of wondering like how we decide the split up of maintaining what we have and still being able to build. Yeah. So, and that's that's a discussion that
198we've been going through for a number of years of uh of where we are. Um, so the way that that process would be envisioned is we need to know what our debt metric targets are that we need to hit with the city. Once we know that, we can start doing calculations with that. We'll also need to understand what appropriations can be made available. um which means that essentially we've been level funded for a decade and a half and would we have any ability to be able to expand that um and when we know those things then we can run all the math and be able to share um what the consequences are. Excellent. And then one other thought is it did the governor this year approve some CIP funding? Was I did that happen? Because
199I remember hearing something about it. There was and I'm I'm not going to know the exact number, but I think it equated to building one high school in the state of Virginia. The whole state. Yeah. Not okay. Thanks. You're welcome. Can I be here? Vice Chair Williams. Great question. Okay. So, when we send out an RFP with parameters of what we want, we can't afford it because we've had this huge wish list of great things for a new high school. So, can we send out can we put out a RFI and a RFP and to with with an open-ended like this is we want a new school. this is what we have appropriated because it's public knowledge so that we can actually have it something come back to us that we can actually maybe afford
200because what what we do is we send stuff out and then it comes back and it's like we can't afford it. Well, one of the advantages of the PPA uh that we went through was we do have 30% drawings. We do have educational specifications that we've gone through. Um, and so we can certainly start with that RFP. Um, start with that information and then detail what it as you're mentioning what it is that we want. Well, that's I mean that's so that's the problem. If we start with those specifications, we can't afford it. I we we've already been there done that. So that's that's the confusion that I have because we're I don't care how the process we do it, we can't afford what we have in specifications. So, so we struggle to answer because
201the question that comes out we try and answer the exact question. Yeah, I'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach rather than trying to answer the exact question. So, one of the things that we explored is part of the committee that Dr. Robertson put together is so really what came out of the PPA is we have educational specifications. All the work has been done to do the educational specifications, but the concern is the educational specifications drive a building that's bigger than what right is wanted. So when we go through this goes back to the conversation that Dr. Robertson was sharing about uh seat time flexibility and are there things that you can do. So one of the concepts that came up is can we have a master scheduleuler go take a look and
202one option is just start with what we have as a 30% design and what those educational specifications say. Can we have a master scheduler go in there and look at it and do the detailed work to be able to say if you change the way that you do things, you change seat time flexibility, you do these things, you can eliminate this much space. That's a possibility. And we could do it in uh conjunction, what was discussed as the potential doing with a principal who has that skill set in Virginia Beach combined with an external entity that does this stuff for a living. And could you get to something that's smaller and works for our needs? Um and oh, by the way, remember we have the long-term range uh long range facility master plan coming up.
203that is a potential item that could be put in there to say this is one an element we want to include in the long range facility master plan is evaluating this building in that way. So trying to answer your question of you're I think what you're presenting is we have these educational spec specific too big how do we make it smaller what I was trying to propose is there maybe options that we can use using some concepts of seat time flexibility and other things to be able to reduce that to be able to get to a manageable solution based on how we view educational needs in the future. So, I was trying to answer your question. I'm looking I'm trying to read you. I don't know that I did. Yeah. I I'm just very educational
204specifications that we know we can't afford. I think what you're saying is you want to be able to say, "I have a $100 million and I want a school that fits on this property with that." I'm not sure I've ever seen it done that way. Um it would be a risk. Um, possibly with a PPA solicited bid. That's a possibility, but I don't think I've ever seen it done that way. I mean, that's kind of like when you buy a house, you tell the realtor. You don't say, "I want six bedrooms and 14 bathrooms and 13 walk-in closets and a pool." And then they do all that and you're like, "Oh, but my budget's only Oh, I can't afford it." You know, you say, "I've got $500,000. I've got three kids. Can you find me
205something?" you know. So, we've got $200 million. We've got a school for 1500 kids. Show me what you got. I Yeah. I mean, because I just fear that we're going to be in the same place that we are right now. But, okay. I Let me [Music] It's that's really the balance because there's there's two extremes that's being talked about. There's one extreme is hey, just we don't want to tell them what we need from an educational standpoint. just can somebody just tell us what to build when we also value that we're going to need to put kids in those classrooms and we're going to need to teach them the way that we can reasonably project that they will need to be taught over the next right and I would think the people that bid though
206are people that build schools I mean there there certain there's architects and they build schools Mr. Bowensteel. Yes. Um, what is the difference between the AFI and the AFP? What' I say? So, RFP. So, an RFI and um, so and you know to piggyback on uh, what Mr. Freeman was saying, we can give them again what we've started with and where we want to go and RFI. Um, that's really more and we talked about that with Jericho Road where we don't know if we need a school on here. We might, you know, want it to be something else. And that's more appropriate, I think, in that situation. An RFP is more we know we need a school. We know it's going to have this program and this program and we know we have this much
207money. And so with either way, um, RFP might be more suited to since we know we need a school building. But either way, um, again, we have a lot of information that we've already put together. We have a lot of experts who know the way we want to go and what additional information we can give. And then we would ask the development community. So contractors would partner up with A&E teams and um, or we can hire separately as well. and they would you basically are casting a wide net to see what guaranteed maximum price might come back and who has interest in doing it. So, so an RFP is probably more what we would need to do since we know we need a school building. And again, you would need to be specific and Miss
208Williams mentioned some of the terms, Mr. Freeman mentioned some of the terms, but you need to be specific in what you're looking for. Mr. Co Pepper. Well, I was going to ask you how how do we how do we proceed from here, but we're already in that circle. So, see if I can clarify some things. How much money have we already allocated towards the Princess Ham project? Um, we had allocated about 176 million so far in the CIP program as we are. That is what there's no kid in correct and we spent some of that on the um the PPE. We spent about um 9 million on the PPA. Okay. And uh Miss Williams threw out 200 million a minute ago. Is that kind of the number we think we can afford with based on
209the money we set aside and the debt we can take on? Yeah. So um one of the challenges we have is in the city manager has committed to working closely with us on the debt service piece because that really dictates how much we can afford to spend. So, we think we can afford to spend $200 million, but if the city and and and what their calculations are and adding that $200 million to their debt service creates uh payments that is not good for either one of us, then it won't matter if it's $200 million. We we're going to need that number. So, I know we're having a conversation September 9th, but really the CIP work is going to get rolling pretty quickly in November, December. So, we we're going to have another meeting with the
210city team. Um, and the goal would be to create a CIP with Princeton High School in it. Yeah. As a as a project we're actually going to do. It's kind of been a placeholder here for last year. No, as a project that we can do. Yeah. But we're going to do that, we're going to need that information from the city so we can comfortably say to the board, we can spend x amount of money because the city has said this is what the debt service would be and Crystal has said and we can make that work. uh remembering how we started the evening with Mercer because any additional funds that you commit to the CIP have to come from the revenue that comes in that then comes away from revenue you'd want to spend somewhere
211else. So, it's a it's a it's a wicked circle that you're going to face. Um Miss Rogers asked a question related to state support. There is a bill that's gone to the governor's desk twice and been passed in the general assembly where localities can do a referendum to decide whether or not the community wanted to uh do a 1- cent sales tax that could go to build a school. And that went to Yncan's desk twice. He vetoed it. Um it will probably make its way through the legislature again. and then we'll see what happens with a new governor. But again, you know, that's still a decision that someone has to make about is the community willing to do a one cents sales tax uh and use that money to help build a school. I I
212don't know. Well, generally speaking, I'm not in favor of seeking more taxes from Yeah. from Virginia Beach. Um so, I'm not even consider that as an option. We We have We have a We have a billion dollar budget. I think there's a path to make this happen. And it really honest to God, it sounds to me like we're we're right there. And I just kind of feel like, you know, we're a dog chasing his tail a little bit, but it sounds like we have a path to get off that that wagon wheel. We are we are right there. So, what is the thing that gets us moving here? Um, you were talking about RFI versus RFP, and you uh I'm not sure that I fully understand RFI because you were saying RFP. We know we
213want to build a school, so RFP is the path forward. Um, RFI is is a it's a type of procurement thing and it's really as Ming it's not necessarily suited when you know you have to meet certain specifications and RFI is hey what's your best idea what to do here that's not that actually sounds like what we're after though I know and that's why we'd have to do you but because you have to meet certain requirements for a building that have to be met it's a little bit harder with an RFI um so it's Again, I've not seen it done in these circumstances. I know what you're saying, but one I think you need to figure out what your money is and then talk about whether you can design an RFP is sort of better
214suited for this. Well, I feel like I feel like the discussion is that we've got several things that we're in kind of a give and take position with. And the thing we don't know is who can walk in here and say, I can build that for X or I can build it for Y. And I think that's what we need to do is we need to pitch this thing and go, this is what we know. We got some gaps in what we know, but we need to know what you know, the builder, the guy who's actually going to do it. and and start to close close the loop on this a little bit. Sure. And um so the method we've been using design bid build we get a surprise on bid day. We go for
215lowest bid. Uh there are two other methods that I mentioned some other localities are using. One is CM at risk where um the design team and the contractor work closely together to get a guaranteed maximum price but it's a different um so basically you get a guaranteed maximum price before you go ahead and sign the contract. And the PPA does the same thing just in a different procurement method in Avenue and we could put that out at with for solicited PPA for. So either of those methods we would get before we sign an agreement what their guaranteed maximum price is and there's a little bit more risk on the contractor. So that's why we were talking about those with procurement. Okay. So if you put like a if we put out an RFI, I mean
216are all these things open to us? CMR signed bid build PP EA are those all open to us we put it on our we're in the process of bringing you back a policy on um the CMR you have other methods policies in there but you're going to have to devel you have a PPA develop policy you have design build policy we would need to bring you the other one as an option for you to do we're working on that we expect to have that to PRC in October I guess where I'm I'm stuck right now is like do you need us to tell you uh something specific specific to get us off top dead center and what is that? Um, so the the notion that we're this close um I I don't know that that's
217where we are because we have some substantial challenges that we're going to need to work through. We have work that the committee did where we have a lot of opportunities, some options to be able to look at. we're working well with the city uh on uh how to move forward. I'll go back to the debt service is going to be a daunting challenge. Um we we will do the math and we'll share it for you. You can go look in the capital program book and see what was budget in there. It's going to be even with a a lesser cost for the high school, it's going to be a substantial ramp up over a number of years that it's going to take. We'll do the math for you. We'll figure out what that's going to
218be. But I don't I don't want to leave you with an impression that we're this close just because we're talking about procurement methods. We've got some substantial work that we're going to have to do to and some decisions that'll be need to be made. That goes back to the question that was asked earlier. All right. What what's going to be left to be able to do maintenance on our buildings? Uh how much is available for appropriations for everything? Those are all going to be things we're going to need to bring back to you that the so that the board can wrestle with those. And we're our assignment will to be to clearly and transparently share with you here's the gives and takes. Okay. And I agree with that. Is your goal uh so we're going
219into budget cycle here. Is your is your goal to have the answers to this when we when we close the new CIP budget? Um yes by by spring this year. He well he's debating in his mind whether we're talking before that or not. Uh, so what we would like to be able to do and and Jack and I have gone through this. What we'd like to be able to do is provide this board with a CIP that includes Prince High School to be built within the next six years, but there are still a lot of unknowns about what that will look like. And the biggest unknown is debt service because debt service will impact everything else because it'll come off the top of what we put into the CIP which will then require the board
220to have a trade-off. Okay, we're we're going to limit our maintenance projects for a while because we want to get Prince High School built unless some miracle happens where prices come down, which is not going to happen. Yeah. But that's the goal. But we have we still have work to do. Now, if we happen to have a number from a contractor that said, "Hey, I can build it for $200 million." That gives us a jump start to say, okay, is the board happy with the design of $200 million? And if so, then we can start looking at that. But we don't have enough information quite yet. We have a will. We don't have the way yet. All right. And and I'm glad Dr. Robertson came about the hard conversation. So to clarify, the hard yes
221is there because you I thought what you were saying was basically a springtime, but we're going to need to preload you with information before we ever come to you and present a capital program. So, we're going to come to you in advance and say, "Hey, here's what we're looking at so that you guys can make a decision to guide us rather than the the timeline and you talked about, but as Dr. Robertson came in with a hard yes of yes, this capital program, that's what we want to have in the end, but it's going to start way earlier than that." Right. All right. You guys are saying the same thing. Yeah. Okay. Miss Dwire. So, I think what I'm hearing from my colleagues is that they're entertaining other options and um or at least for
222you to entertain other options besides just the city of Virginia Beach um since they're in the similar predicament. Um, and also, you know, being uh mindful that it's not our money, it's the taxpayers. And maybe um we could put something out to uh the constituents and uh the local taxpayers and see what they think, get their input. After all, they'll be paying for it. Okay. Um, Miss Melnik, you did have a chance to speak already, correct? I don't want to skip over you. Okay, Miss Felton. Thank you, Chair Brown. You mentioned earlier about pardoning with a um higher education and making this happen. Is that reality? And if so, can the two be combined? Is it something that a conversation? So, it could be a reality. Um, so through the work of Virginia Beach Community
223Roundtable, I have I'm not going to name the location, but I've had conversations with uh a location that would like to expand their services and don't have the ability to expand in their current site and their company um is a need that we have. So, so in and so in in reality in that could be something that we could maybe do with that's correct. It could be part of the design of the building that there's a space that becomes potentially multi-use for them and for us. And because they're in our building, there would be an a cost incurred to support. Now, Miss Feld, in all all honesty, I don't think that's gonna be a gamecher on whether or not we can do it or not, right? Because people aren't gonna pay a million dollars, millions
224of dollars for rent. But certainly, it c it can help. Yeah. That's why I use the word reality. Yeah. So, um, we're back to where we can cycle through again. And I just wanted to make sure that everybody that hadn't spoken had a chance to speak. Um, and I also I also have quite a few comments about it. I always do. Um, I've been quiet and I I appreciate your work on this over the last six months. So, I just want to make sure that I say that because I'm about to be a little bit tough because I'm finding myself extremely frustrated because I'm feeling like as I'm sitting here, what I'm hearing is a desire to find a way to continue forward with the building that we could not afford already. and what feels
225like to me a really really big lack of desire to consider other options that are not the building that we already had in the PPE or to move forward with the PPE. Um, and I I appreciate that we need to bring experts in. I think that's important. I appreciate that the specifications have to be to code for classrooms. Um I think that if those were to come in that those would be evaluated. Of course, we're going to make sure that we follow the laws and of course we would make sure that it's a building. That's what it needs to be. And so I I feel like that objection is very difficult for me to get past at this point. Um, I like the idea of an RFI. Um, of course I I recognize the challenges.
226My my concern is with the RFP is that I did read the last RFP and you know, we got exactly what we asked for in that RFP and it was something that we can't accomplish until at least 2047, I believe, in our CIP. Um and and then back to the experts, I think that's important, but you know, so far all of the experts that I've seen come forward have an a fundamental interest in the project going exactly the way they want it to instead of also protecting the taxpayers and making sure that we're able to accomplish the building in a time frame that's feasible and acceptable to the community. we have 80, we're going to have 84 buildings. Waiting until 2047 or even in the next six years is not feasible in in my view.
227Um and I do think it's a balance. I do think that we needs to make sure that we're still, you know, doing our maintenance. Um so anyway, uh there's 176 million um currently appropriated and I was just curious if during this committee um there was any discussion with the city about whether or not or when we might be able to use it for this project. So, we did discuss in the one meeting we had um the money that we have sitting in there right now and um what it what what would the number be where we where they would be interested in uh issuing bonds and it we didn't get an answer because it that's still to be determined because debt service I think they're still trying to figure out exactly what they can get
228done with their county while we're trying to figure out what we can get done. So, yeah, we don't have that information. Okay. So, I'll I'll reach out to my my uh my peers that are on the other um body there and see if they can maybe get some more information. Um how much money do we currently have in PIGO? I know we had appropriated some additional funds to PIGO. Um, how much is available in PGO? She's gonna look because I don't have it on top. Thank you. Not Taylor Love Joy 1980. This is coaching back. He was great. He was a coach. So he So again, what I'm doing is I'm looking in the CIP at what was appropriated for PIGO on a year-to-year basis. um which is what I think you were asking and
229we were um allocated this fiscal year um almost $9 million 8.9 and then next year looking at uh 5 million for the upcoming um budget season but didn't we allocate an additional 4 million um after the governor's budget also so roughly do you remember what that total was Dr. Robertson. So, and that's why the 8.9 is higher than what it was um initially. That includes it. That includes yesterday. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I I appreciate that. Um and anyway, I um I I urge that we try to find and a way to move forward with options, different options. And um anyway, um I think everyone's spoken so far. So, Miss Melnik, so I see things through a completely different lens. So, I just want to say if you just think back to two years
230ago where we were, we had an unsolicited bid for three schools, only one of which now we have to build. We've completely changed. So, we we pivoted from that initial that was our initial starting point. So now we don't need Betty F Williams anymore. That's excess property. We've solved our Bayside sixth grade campus. So now we're only looking at one school. And since then, this this administration here is thinking completely different. So you're not you guys are now so out of the box in your thoughts because now you've had the opportunity to do that. And the things that I'm hearing, the little chatter I'm hearing about these innovative outofthe- box ideas for a new high school that includes the community that includes um CTE opportunities to be able to walk out the door at Princess
231Anne High School and the world is your oyster right in Town Center. like the things that I'm hearing and the fact that you put together a CIP committee that put together our our best and brightest to really come up with more opportunities or different opportunities, including um the opportunity for solicited um opportunities is is really probably the most refreshing thing I've ever heard in our CIP conversations. like we I mean you it's really actually quite impressive what I heard from that CIP group. Um just tonight um do we do we have a site plan that came with that's part of the price for Princess Anne High School? Um yes we have um a site plan. We have all the really the important things we have a lot of the um survey work and site analysis
232work that would be part of whatever we would solicit out. So that's part of what we already know and that's what I was really you know talking about and I think what's important is that we don't have architectural plans. So, it's not like we have a set of plans and we're trying to fit this m like we're trying to work with a set of plans that exist and oh my goodness we've already we do have 30% but again what we would specify in the RFP as we're looking and thinking outside the box is what we would need and again there are some of those procurement methods that Dr. Robertson and Mr. agreement spoke about that we can get a guaranteed maximum price um earlier rather than waiting for bid day redesigning it and having that
233occur while we're designing what it is that we're saying we want now since it's changed okay thank you Mr. count. I'm going to offer something that's not very appealing, but I believe it's a card that we need to turn over or a door that we need to at least open and poke our nose into. and that is the ability to find the revenue that's required to service the debt and take care of the building requirements. To use Mr. Co Pepper's comment, we're kind of acting like a dog chasing his tail. We keep going round and round in circles. But what we haven't done is to put on the table the fact that we need to consider seriously and painfully programs that exist that we're very proud of because it's a reflection of who we are
234as a school system and how robust an offering we make available. We have to start considering getting rid of programs that we hold highly and dearly because to grossly simplify this process, it's either solved by the finding of significant dollars of revenue or it's the reduction of our expenses that currently exist. But we can't get where we need to get without lowering the expenses because the revenue that's needed is not available. And we keep hoping and praying that we'll find it, but we keep being disappointed by the fact that it's not there. And the number keeps getting bigger and bigger. So, I'll end there, but it's just something we haven't put on the table before. And I think we seriously need to consider the removal of programs that we may love dearly and take a
235great deal of pride in, but we can't do it all and we have to start at least considering other avenues besides more revenue. Yes. So, Mr. Colin, I appreciate that that reality check. I mean, we're going to be able to predict the revenues that this board is going to have to operate with in the next cycle, and it's not going to provide all that you want to do. It's just not. So imagine how frustrating it is for us to try to bring you a product that even if we said we bring you a product of $180 million, that's not going to build you something that the community is going to like. And we we spent 45 minutes talking about Spanish immersion for 148 kids tonight. And then the way you generate new revenue is you
236cut programs or you cut people. That's it. And so if the board wants us to push in a direction, we can certainly put an RFP together. And right now we can be comfortable with maybe 176 million, but I don't think that's going to bring you back anything that you're going to be proud of to put your name on to build. That's the challenge we're in. We need a little more time before we can get back to this conversation. We need to have another meeting with the city to see where they are. Um, and to Mr. Freeman's point, you know, Miss Pate put in six more workshops because we wanted to give you guys plenty of time to separate out all the very difficult decisions you you're going to have to make. So, um, we will
237come back to this group soon um, after we've had a meeting with the city to say, okay, this is what we think. You also are going to have reversion funds conversation coming up that uh, also is a consideration. So yeah, but that's a reality, Mr. Callen. I appreciate you calling it out. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys for your work and sorry if I was a little tough on you. No, listen, we understand. All right. Um, Vice Chair Williams is going to read into closed now. I move that the school board recess into close session in accordance with exceptions to open meetings law set forth in code of Virginia 2.2. 2-3711 part A paragraphs 1 27 and 8 as amended to deliberate on the following matters. One, discussion, consideration or interviews of prospective candidates
238for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining or resignation of specific public officers, appointees or employees of any public body and evaluation of performance of departments or schools of public institutions of higher education where such evaluation will necessarily involve discussion of the performance of specific individuals. Any teacher shall be permitted to be present during a closed meeting in which there is a discussion or consideration of a disciplinary matter that involves the teacher and some student and the student involved in the matter is present provided that the teacher makes a written request to be present in the to the presiding officer of the appropriate board. Nothing in this subdivision however shall be construed to authorize a closed meeting by a local governing body or an elected school board to discuss compensation matters that affect the
239membership of such body or board collectively. Number two, discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters or any other matters that would involve the disclosure of information contained in a scholastic record concerning any student of any public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth or any state school system. However, any such student legal counsel and if the student is a minor, the student's parents or legal guardian shall be permitted to be present during the taking of testimony or presentation of evidence at a closed meeting if such student, parents or guardian said request in writing and such request is submitted to the presiding officer of the appropriate board. Seven, consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing and open meetings would adversely
240affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body. For the purpose of this subdivision, probable litigation means litigation that has been specifically threatened or on which the public body or its legal council has a reasonable basis to believe will be commenced by or against a known party. Nothing in this subdivision should be construed to permit the closure of a meeting merely because an attorney representing the public body is in attendance or is consulted on a matter. Number eight, consultation with legal counsel employee or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. Nothing in this subdivision shall be construed to permit the closure of meeting merely because an attorney representing the public body body is in attendance or is consulted on a matter namely to
241discuss a status of pending litigation or administrative cases. B. Status of student cases, complaints, and student related matters. C, personnel matters, superintendent's annual goals and appointments to gifted advisory committee. D, states of federal cases and directives with legal consequences for school division. And E, consultation with legal counsel regarding probable litigation and pending litigation matters. Motion made by Vice Chair Re, seconded by Mr. Co Pepper. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to go into close session. You can't vote for him. You can't vote for her. It's okay. We have a Monday. Yeah. Monday I get out of school at 3:30. So, Madam Chair, we have nine eyes. The motion to pass to go into closed. Thank you. [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] behind you. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Happy.
242[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Nooby. [Music] [Music] I can't wait. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Why are you [Music] [Music] Hey, Bobby. [Music] [Music] The school board of the city of Virginia Beach has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas section 22 2.2-3712 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of the city of Virginia Beach hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge. Only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were
243discussed in the closed meetings to which the certification applies. And only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closing meeting was convened were heard, discussed, or considered. Okay. Is there a motion moved by Dr. Green, seconded by Miss Rogers? Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the vote to certify close session. Mr. Co Pepper, how do you vote? So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. The motion to pass for certification of close session. Okay. Thank you. Miss Williams has a motion. I move that the school board amend the following appointments to the gifted citizen advisory committee to be effective September 10th, 2025 as follows. That Haral Patel, currently appointed to represent the Bayside zone, now be reappointed to an atlarge position through June 30th, 2028. that Ross Kramer's, currently
244appointed to represent the Cox zone, now be appointed as an atlarge member through June 30th, 2028. That Kathy Smith, currently appointed as an atlarge member, now be appointed to represent the Kellum zone through June 30, 2027. And that Amanda Ash, currently appointed as an atlarge member, to now be appointed to represent Princess Anne zone through June 30th, 2027. Okay. Moved by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Miss Dwire. Any discussion? Seeing none, I call for the votes to approve the motion for the gifted appointments. So, Madam Chair, we have 11 eyes. The motion did pass. Thank you. It is 11:20 p.m. and this meeting is adjourned. [Music]