001I'll have to call our meeting to order. Is there a motion for the board to reconvene into open session? Danny Wallace. So moved. Second. Where's Mary? May second. Okay. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Okay. We're now in open session. Good evening to everyone. We always appreciate you taking time to join us, whether or not watching remotely or being here in person. During our meeting, I would like to ask each board member to state his or her name when making or seconding a motion or when speaking. At this time, I'm going to ask each board member to verbally indicate their presence when I call their name. Miss Rosemary May here. Mrs. Rebecca Miner, present. Mrs. Amy Richards, here. Dr. Daniel Wallace present and I am Ralph Fallon. So at this time
002uh I need a motion to verify that our close session was conducted in accordance with the code of Virginia section 2.2-3712 paragraph D and that only matters exempted from open meeting requirements and only matters identified in the motion to go into close session were discussed. Is there such a motion? So move Rebecca Miner. Is there a second? Second. Daniel Wallace. Okay. Miss Maym, how do you vote? I. Mrs. Richards. I. Mrs. Miner. I. Dr. Wallace. I. The chair votes I. And our close session has been verified. If there are no objections at this time, I would like to ask Superintendent Rice to lead us in prayer. Superintendent Rice. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this day. We thank you especially for your faithfulness and your sovereign sovereignty. When uh things come at us and
003things seem out of control, it is a comfort to know that you are there and that you are in charge of everything and nothing happens beyond your control. So we thank you for that. We thank you for your omniscience. And father, we ask that you provide guidance to the board this evening and to myself as superintendent. Guide us. Give us wisdom and help us to make all decisions with students at the forefront. Give us the wisdom to make the best decisions for our students and to act according to your will. And it's in Jesus name that I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Miss Rice. At this time, let's stand and honor our country by reciting the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
004republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do I have a volunteer to read our statement of vision and our statement of mission? I'll do that. Okay. Thank you. Our vision is to provide an exemplary learning environment that empowers all students to find their voices and make meaningful contributions to the world. Our mission is working together we provide all students authentic learning experiences, knowledge and skills to become successful global citizens. Thank you, Mrs. McMahon. Do we have any suggested changes or additions to our agenda? Okay, hearing none, our agenda is approved by unanimous consent. Uh, I'm very pleased that uh we have a new SRO officer here tonight and uh we didn't give you any warning, but I wonder if you could come up and introduce yourself
005so everyone knows who you are. We appreciate it. Thank you. We do this all the time. We surprise people. We used [Laughter] to school resource officer elementary school. on leaf belts been the sheriff's office ever since I got in the academy. I got previous experience 10 years. So hopefully I can fit right in well with West Mor County. So I'm going to stay there as long as they kick me out. Okay. Okay. Well, we we are very pleased to have you. Uh know you weren't able to be here last time, but uh you know it's been our dream, if you will, for a long time to have an SRO at each school. So, we appreciate you being we appreciate you being a part of that. Thank you so much. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, Miss Rice,
006I believe that next we have attendance recognition. Yes, sir. We will start with student attendance. The average student attendance for the month of March at Copel Elementary was 92.58%. Washington District Elementary 93.46% Montros Middle School 92.22% and West Morland High School 92.33%. So our winner is Washington District Elementary School. [Applause] No trophies. I was so busy serving the students. That sounds like a conspiracy. It does. [Laughter] Congratulations. [Laughter] Dr. Reass, can you still come up and do a handshake or something so we can get a photo? See, if I had my balloons, I'd make a balloon animal trophy, you know. Good job. And once we pry the trophy away from Mrs. Garland, we'll make sure you get it. [Laughter] This This has happened before, hasn't it? It has. Yeah. [Laughter] Anyway, congratulations to Washington District.
007All right, next we have our staff attendance for the month of March. And this is also a close one. Copel Elementary School average staff attendance was 91.36%. Washington District Elementary 85.37%. Montros Middle, exactly the same as Copel, 91.36%. And West Morland High School, breaking the tie, 92.08%. Two schools. [Applause] Should I just pretend to hold a trophy? Yeah. I sorry. And again, she was busy serving the students. Congrats. [Laughter] See, only those who are worthy of their station can see that. Congratulations, Mr. Davgate. Okay. Uh, thank you, Miss Rice. So next we have character heritage trait honores for March and for this month it is perseverance and we'll start off with Miss Angel. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Miss Angel principal at Copel and tonight I would like to recognize fifth grader Marissa Ramirez. Marissa
008has shown remarkable resilience while facing an unimaginable loss. She has continued to enter the classroom each morning with a smile and puts forth her best effort to accomplish whatever tasks and assignments are needed for the day. Due to her continued perseverance, the fifth grade team is proud to nominate Marissa as our student of the month. [Applause] Mom, Mrs. Harris, One, two, three. Big smile. Good job. [Applause] Hi, I'm Michelle Ricass, the principal of Washington District, and our student of the month for March is Dixie Johnson. Dixie exhibits remarkable determination across all subjects with a particular emphasis on reading and math. Her commitment to excelling in these areas is reflected in her steadfast work ethic and her remarkable ability to maintain focus on her activities. In reading, she demonstrates a strong capacity to analyze and understand
009complex text, consistently making progress as she navigates each challenge. In math, Dixie effectively shows her work, indicating a thorough understanding of the steps required to come up with the solution. Her approach to learning is both systematic and persistent, highlighting her commendable work ethic and growth oriented mindset. Dixiey's ability to confront challenges with focus and resilience positions her well for success throughout her third grade journey. Dixie Johnson. [Applause] [Laughter] Okay. One, two, three. Good job. [Applause] Good evening. I'm Jana G, the principal at Montrust Middle School, and our student of the month is Noah Ball. I'm proud of you, Noah. Perseverance is defined as a determination to continue pursuing a goal despite facing challenges. Noah Ball exemplifies his quality remarkably. Although he has encountered difficulties in his academic pursuits, his desire to overcome his obstacles and
010achieve success remains strong. Noah has made it a priority to let anything hinder his progress. He has diligently sought assistance, attended tutoring sessions, and taken full advantage of available resources. As a team, we have witnessed Noah's unwavering resolve, and it is yielding positive results as evidenced by his improving scores and grades. Well done, Noah. We are all in perfect proud of your achievements. [Applause] [Music] How do you know this? Good job. [Applause] Good afternoon. My name is Michael By the principal at West Horn High. Our student of month goes out to Bid. Unfortunately, Bai's unable to make it today. He's grade 10 nominated by Mr. Cortez. Messiah speaks to his students for perseverance. Beginning this semester, Messiah struggled with class concepts and turning assignments in on time. But for the past four weeks, he began
011to show perseverance by completing all his work and has continued to them to succeed in my class. Currently this quarter, Messiah has turned in over 90% of his assignments on time, earning a perfect score and over 63% of those. WHS student month goes for March goes out to Sia. Way to go. [Applause] Congratulations. Thank you. Well, congratulations to all these exceptional students. This is always one of the highlights and probably the highlight of our agenda. So, we enjoy this. Okay. Um, next, Miss Rice, do we have any public comments that were submitted prior to our meeting? No, sir. Okay. Do we have any public comments from anyone present? I guess they're leaving. Okay. So at this time our public comment period is closed. Uh next we have our cons uh we have our consent agenda
012for appointments and resignations. You have a copy of the board minutes from the February 24 regular session. And you also have a copy of bills. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move back later. Is there a second? Daniel Wallace. All right, Miss Mayan, how do you vote? I, Mrs. Miner, I. Mrs. Richards, I. Dr. Wallace, I. The chair votes I. And the consent agenda is approved. Okay. Next, Miss Rice, we have donations and school gifts. Yes, sir. Had to find them. Okay. Uh we had several donations during uh this past month that we would like to bring to the board to accept. Uh at Copel Elementary School, Ebenezer United Methodist Church donated 120 boxes of crayons valued at $100. Ebenezer United Methodist Church also donated 167 backpacks full of supplies
013along with 147 highlighters and 147 threeprong folders and 288 glue sticks. And that donation was valued at $2,400. They also received a donation from the Food Lion Mantra branch of three sandwich trays, cookies, and sides for the teachers stream night dinner, and that was valued at $200. At Washington District Elementary, Ebenezer United Methodist Church donated backpacks for rising fourth and fifth graders uh filled with supplies, and that donation was valued at $2,115. Food Lion Colonial Beach branch donated a meat, vegetable, and fruit tray for teacher appreciation, and those trays were valued at $200. At Montros Middle School, Ebenezer United Methodist Church donated 116 backpacks full of supplies for rising sixth graders, and that donation was valued at $1,392. Faber Orthodontics donated sweet treats and umbrellas for the front office valued at $110. And finally, at
014West Morland High School, Ebenezer United Methodist Church donated 120 backpacks full of supplies, and that donation was valued at $1,260. Mary Banks donated gift cards for the senior prom valued at $150. Miss Laura's flowers and gifts made a donation to the senior class of $100. And an anonymous donor also made a donation to the senior class valued at $10. Any questions for Miss Rice from anyone? Okay. In accordance with our policy KH, is there a motion to approve the donations and sponsorship as presented by Miss Rice? Rosemary Mayan. So move. All righty. Is there second? Would you second? Okay. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Okay. Miss Rice, we are always very very appreciative of these wonderful donations that we seem to get every month. So, thank you very much for
015presenting those. Thank you. Okay. Next, uh, we have VSBA policy updates. Miss Rice. Yes, sir. The VSBA policy updates were presented for, uh, first read at the last board meeting. So, I am presenting them again this evening uh, for approval. Okay. I will give uh, board members first of all an opportunity to ask any questions they have on any of the policies. Okay. I don't hear any. Is our motion to approve the VSBA policy updates as previously presented by Miss Rice? Amy Rich. So move. Is that a second? Second miner. Any discussion? Miss Maym, how do you vote? I miss Miner I. Mrs. Richards I. Dr. Wallace I. Chair votes I. And the policies that you presented previously, Mrs. Rice, are approved. Thank you. So thank you very much. Okay. Next we have uh special
01625 2025 2026 special education annual plan for approval. So director of special education um I am presenting to you all what you have seen it's the annual special education annual plan for part B flow group fund. So this is the money that we get from the bedroom and what we do with that. So we provide it for salaries and um it does not cover all salaries. So um so for the for that um that doesn't cover salaries. We have to use our local monies for any supplies or materials or salaries outside of that. Um so it's kind of simple. I mean we I won't say simple but it's um all of our monies go towards salaries. Did you all have any specific questions? Any board members have any questions on that? I know this is
017very similar I think to for the application that's submitted every year. Yes, it's exactly the same. So, it's just saying you know how many teachers um we have at the um grade level um school age and then our preschool 619. Okay. Well, I don't hear any questions. So, is there a motion to approve the 2025 2026 special education annual plan? Where's Mary Mayan? So move. All right. Second. Danny Wallace. Second. Any discussion? Miss Bayan, how do you vote? I. Miss Bonner, how do you vote? I Miss Richards, I. Dr. Wallace, I. Chair votes I. And the 2025 2026 special education plan is approved. Thank you so much. You got off easy. Thank you. Okay. Okay, next we have the uh 2025 2026 career technical education Perkins application. Mr. Evans. All right, Julie, you got all
018these. Come be mine for me. Good evening everybody. Um I'm also going to give you a little brief update on some of the changes that have been going on this year as my first year as director. So earlier this year, I shared this quote with you and I talked about how we were going to take a step back and do a little bit of crawling before we could take off running. And we talked about some of my goals for the year, how we were going to simplify and recalibrate by our course offerings, our credential and testing, uh, submitting budgets and reports on time and continuing to grow. And I'm pleased to show some of the highlights so far this year. We have created a very clear core sequence for our students. Um there's no longer
019just a willy-nilly take classes as they come. There's a very specific uh sequence of courses that we have started working with our current uh freshmen. So within the next four years, every student at the high school will be going through that same sequence. And we've also this semester added three dual enrollment courses. Um all of Mr. Lightoot's courses are hybrid courses. So that would be his design multimedia class, digital applications and computer computer information systems courses. About half of his students um are taking the course um in the same room as the regular students, but they're doing the course through RCC and getting dual enrollment credit towards that. We've had a huge increase in credentiing testing, which I'll talk more about here in a second. Um and along with that the federal program monitoring that
020was one of the highlights of our federal program monitoring that I've received so far was accolades for the amount of uh testing that we've done compared to previous years. Um tonight as part of the supports the reports that are being submitted on time and we are going to continue to grow. So last year to give you a little comparison uh for workplace readiness testing we had about 42 tests that we completed for the entire year. So so far and we this only accounts for the fall semester and a little bit of the retesting we did before Christmas. Uh we actually have our workplace readiness testing for this semester on Thursday. this week starting this Thursday. We already have completed 218 tests with a 78% pass rate. Um so far and beyond what we've been doing
021in previous years. Wise testing numbers are pretty similar compared to previous years. Uh we do have a different teacher this year teaching the course. So for being a brand new to the course teacher, a 75% pass rate for the fall I was very happy with. And then the Microsoft Office testing, it looks a little deceiving in terms of the pass rate. Um, we did offer 30 tests so far this year. The problem here comes in with the course sequence. So, we have a lot of students that are taking this test because they're in this course that might not necessarily uh should be in the course, so to speak. So, you'll see that pass rate continue to climb as we go throughout the next few semesters. uh federal program monitoring that occurred in early March. Um
022it was a process, it was a one-day process in terms of the visit. Uh the collecting of data and artifacts started way back in November when I first found out that they were coming. Um they wanted everything from the course syllabus for each of our courses to uh previous data on how students had done on different testing. um just a wide variety of of information that they wanted. They came out on the third the 20th of March. They visited the high school first. They interviewed simultaneously. You had four different rooms going on at the same time. One group was with the building admin and myself, the teachers, the guidance counselor, and the students, a group of students. Um they then did some walkthroughs of the building and saw the different CT courses. And then we
023went down to the middle school and did the same process. Um, I've gotten some preliminary findings, but not the official findings yet. I'll be hopefully receiving those this week. And then following that, we will go through the draft findings. We'll anything that we've corrected since their visit, we can go ahead and show them proof of that we've already completed that and then we send it back. Um, and then 30 days after that, we will receive our corrective action plan, which I then have to go through and assign who's going to do what and by when and how we're going to show evidence of completion. So that'll be coming in the next few months. As far as the 2526 Perkins plan that you all hopefully will approve for me tonight, we're going to split it up
024into three categories. 3,000, 5,000, 8,000. Uh purchase services is 3,000. We use this money for our site licenses for any extra above and beyond uh credentiing testing that the state doesn't pay for. I get a very small pot of money that they provide us each year for credentiing testing. We've well met out of the water this year. So, I'm adding some more funds for this coming year to uh 3,000 to pay for the credentiing testing. And then all the fees that we send to the Northern Ech Center for our students that go there are part of category 3000. So, that'll be $7,940.50. 5,000 is kind of one of those miscellaneous categories. Uh we use it for travel reimbursement for teachers when they go to conferences for their hotel um and their travel reimbursements and then
025any conference registration that they might have. So we're going to put $2,500 in that category. And then for capital outlay, which is obviously the biggest uh piece there, $37,62041, this is we we will use this for all the CT equipment that we purchase. Um, I anticipate there being some findings in the federal program monitoring where they will have suggestions of what we need to buy for the classrooms. We've already had a few conversations about things while they were here. Um, so we'll use that money towards those upgrades for a total allocation of $48,60.91. Um, this is actually the same budget allocation as last year because we don't have those accurate numbers yet. We will get those numbers at the end of June. I'll then do a amendment to the application once those figures come out.
026But to get this thing rolling, we're going to use last year's figures. And if you have any questions, I will take those now. Okay, questions from board members. I don't have any questions, but I would like to make a comment. It is so good to see a real structure to our CTE program. So, thank you for bringing that about. It's also uh exciting to have confidence that we're going to grow this program. Yes, sir. So, thank you so much for that. Uh do I hear a motion from any board members concerning the uh CTE Perkins application? Rosemary Mayan. So, move. All right. Is there a second? Daniel second. Okay. Any discussion? Miss Maym, how do you vote? I. Miss Miner. I. Miss Richards I, Dr. Wallace, I. The chair votes I. And the 2025 2026
027CTE Perkins application is approved. And and thank you for all the preliminary information as well. Not a problem. Nice to hear. Okay. Next, uh, Mrs. Mayan, do you have any update from the Novan Technical Center? Um, the only thing I have right now is, um, graduation date. It's that time of year. So, graduation or completion ceremony is what they call it at the tech center will be May 12th from 6:00 to 8. Um, so I've asked I will not be in town. I'll be out of the country, but I've asked um Miss Miner to Reiner to cover that for me. But everyone is welcome. So, anyone who would like to go, I strongly suggest you get to go and and celebrate the the ceremony with the students that that will be the seniors that will
028be graduating. Um, but other than that, that's all I have for right now. All righty. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Wallace, do you have any report from the Chesapeake Bay Governor? No, there's nothing new to report right now. We're going strong. Okay. All righty. Thank you. Uh, Miss Rice, upcoming events. Yes, sir. We have three upcoming events with VSBA. Uh, one is the VSBA hot topic conference happening this week at the VSBA office in Charlottesville. Uh, that will be followed on May 30th by the VSBA school law conference. And uh members can still register for that and attend either in person in Richmond or this one does have a virtual option if you want to uh stay put and participate online. And then the third is the VSBA conference on education on July 25th and that
029will be held in person in Richmond. Okay. Any questions for Miss Rice? Okay. Miss Maym, do you have any additional comments you'd like to share this evening? No, sir. Okay. Mrs. Richards, no comment. Mrs. Mana, I think this is the quickest school board meeting. I'm usually like, "Thank you for hanging in with us." But it was um happy Easter to you all. Yeah. Yeah. And you are correct. I think this is the quickest one we've ever had. Maybe folks will come back. Okay. Dr. Wallace, nothing to add. All right. Uh, Miss Beth, do you have anything you'd like to share this evening? Nope. Okay. Uh, thank you for joining us. I know you uh I know you stay very busy and probably have difficulty getting everything done like some of us, but we're glad you're
030here. So, thank you, Miss Rice. Anything to additional comments? No, sir. Thank you. All righty. Okay. Our next board meeting uh will be a work section will be Tuesday, May the 13th, beginning at 5:00 pm. And on Monday, May the 19th, uh we'll have a close session beginning at 5:00 p.m. and open session beginning at 6:00 p.m. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So move for. Is there a second? Second, Rosemary may. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. We are journ Okay.