001e e like to call our meeting to order is there a motion for the board to reconvene into Open Session Danel is there second Amy Rich second okay all in favor please signify by saying I I okay we are now at Open Session uh good evening to everyone one we appreciate you taking time to be with us during our meeting I'd like to ask each board member to State his or her present her name when making a second of motion or when speaking and at this time I'm going to ask each board member to verbally indicate their presence when I call their name Miss Rebecca monor present Miss Amy Richards pres Dr Daniel Wallace pres and I am Ralph Fallen is is there a motion to verify that our Clos session was conducted in accordance
002with the code of Virginia Section 2.2 that's 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 okay say second Ang Rich second okay Miss monor how do you vote hi Dr I miss Richards I the chair votes I and our Clos session has been verified if there are no objection uh Dr Wallace I would like to ask you to lead us in prayer Dr Wallace there are no objections Our Father God we lift up um our request to you this this evening to ask for wisdom we ask that you will just guide our um our discussions guide our decisions and Lord we pray not only for for us as a board but just for our nation as a
003whole guide our leaders um give them the wisdom to govern justly and equitably we ask all of this in the name of Jesus amen amen thank you Dr Wallace at this time let's stand and honor our country by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alleg to the flag of the United States of America for it stands one nation indivisible liy andice all is there volunteer to read our statement of vision and our statement of mission I will the vision to provide an exemplary learning environment that empowers all students to V find their voices and make meaningful contributions to the world our mission statement working together we will provide all students authentic learning experiences Knowledge and Skills to become successful Global Citizens thank you Miss Richards do we have any suggested changes or additions to
004the agenda okay agenda is approved by unanimous consent next item that we have is student and staff attendance recognition Miss rice thank you I'm going to start with student attendance the flu has not been kind to us during the month of February so the numbers I'm going to share are lower than what you are accustomed to hearing uh but we still crossed over the 90% threshold so copal elementary students average daily attendance 91.4 five% Washington District Elementry 91.30% monoss Middle School 92.2 2% and West Morland high school 99.57% so our winner is montros Middle School all right chair congratulations all right and just as the flu has not been kind to the students it has not been kind to the staff either so these numbers are also lower than what we're accustomed to but still
005solid numbers at copal elementary school average staff attendance for February 93.0 n% Washington District elementary 91. 62% montros middle school 93.2% and West Morland High School 92.1 7% so montros middle makes a clean sweep all right congratulations so maybe next month maybe we'll have a little better numbers I so I hope so so let's hope everybody stays well yes okay thank you very much Miss rice okay next we have a character trait honores Mr mcconville and we'll call up our principales to share their students of the month based on respect good evening uh my name is Will hernanz principal at Washington District and I'm going first again just let you know seem to be going for us every time um so so our student of the month for February for respect is a first grader
006in Miss Sharp's class and Miss sharp said that her student stie has is such a sweetheart she is always willing and eager to help out however she can she shows respect to everyone by working quietly and without disrupting others in class in addition she is always quick to follow the teacher directions and tries to encourage her class fents in doing the same she is a friend to everyone and if anyone is ever in need of a friend to play with she is quick to volunteer to include them in whatever she is doing so our um February respect student honory is s jins our first grader come on [Applause] up and the parents anyone else yes got this yes who else we have anybody else yeah you all come on you're here come on you st
007right now everybody sibling support good job thank you [Applause] student of the month for February is Xander Conlin a fourth grader fourth grade would like to congratulate Xander conin and being our nominee for student of the month Xander exemplifies the character trait respect he is a reliable safety patrol and takes his job seriously he is always there to help out in the classroom whether it is to clean enough to help out another student if they are in need Xander is a very hard worker and pushes himself to do his Very Best in Class which is encourages others to do the same congratulations Xander [Applause] hi there I am Miss Smith the assistant principal at Mont middle because our principal could not be here tonight our um student for the character trait of respect is eighth
008grader Javin Branson Javin is a shining example of how to show respect in the classroom whenever he's asked a question he does he does so whenever he asks a question he does so in a respectful manner when speaking with classmates he shows respect by listening to their opinions and responding to their questions in a respectful manner he is a hard worker who always focuses on completing his work and all of his work that he has completed in class has been a shining example of amazing effort and responsibility congratulations Jain and good afternoon my name is Michael bath the prince W whs and our student of the month for February goes out to e Ethan Jones grade nine nominated by Mr pilot Ethan consistently shows great respect toward his peers teachers and other staff members he's
009articulate well organized and intelligent throughout his time here he's never been a disciplin concerned and is always open to through receiving assistance in class he remains focused well behaved contributing positively to the school environment Ethan is consistently kind and considerate to everyone our student of the month for February goes out to [Applause] one two [Applause] congratulations to all of their honores uh and we always have to remember uh our teachers and our administrators and especially our parents so congratulations to everyone U this is one of the highlights of our board meeting yes so we really enjoy that so next we have our the Virginia School Board Association Regional spring Network art contest yes sir is right so we have three students that we going to recognize uh this evening three artists whose artwork was selected
010uh at the elementary level the Middle School level and the high school level only one piece could be selected at each level for the entire School Division and those pieces of artwork were submitted to the vsba regional spring Network forum for competition so we did not place this year but we were extremely well repes presented by the three pieces of artwork so we want to ask these students to come up we have Damon Murphy from Washington District Elementary third [Applause] grade Damon I'm gonna let you hold your artwork up for everyone to see because it's beautiful and then we also have it on the screen giant behind you and then we also have Elliot 8ighth grade mantr middle [Applause] school stay stay here please yeah we want all three to stay up and I'll let
011you hold yours very nice and from the high school we have Armando Jose Mendes grade 10 West Morland High School [Applause] so we're showing your artwork on the screen but we wanted you all to show the real pieces of art absolutely beautiful and we congratulate all of you smile yes thank you to all of the artists for allowing us to submit your artwork into the competition it was exciting to be able to carry it in and say these are from West Morland County so congratulations one of the emphasis in our school systems is creativity and and I think art is such a great way of uh stimulating creativity and displaying creativity so are very very appreciative okay we have some more exciting news I think Miss rice uh school resource officers yes one of our
012most important Partnerships is with the West Morland County Sheriff's Office uh we get a tremendous amount of support from the Sheriff's Office and uh this evening we invited first sergeant uh Antoine Smith uh to come and introduce the four school resource officers they couldn't all make it but he's going to introduce all of them and introduce uh the two who could be with us this evening first sergeant Smith good evening I'm uh first sergeant Smith with the sheriff's office um we really excited about the school year we actually have first our first time ever having four school resource officers um start off with our most veteran school resource officers is going to be Master Deputy mire she's uh SRO of the high school Master Deputy Pitts who's out ill uh he's the SRO at the
013middle school deie Campbell she's the new SRO at Washington District and Dey Phelps um he's out due to illness in the family he's assigned to cop Elementary [Applause] yeah yeah we we would like to get a picture if we could please if you could come up front and I'm not sure how many years we've been actually had a goal of getting a resource officer at each of our schools but uh we are absolutely delighted to have each of you and U keeping that children safe and U uh also being and their friend so thank you very much okay now your job is to smile nice good job thank [Applause] you it does feel good it does yes Miss rice do we have any written public comments that were submitted prior to our meeting no sir
014do we have any public comments from anyone present okay I don't believe we do so our public comment period is now closed uh next we have a consent agenda for personnel appointments and resignations you have copies of board minutes from the February 17 work session and also the February 24 work session and you have copies of School Division bills and also School nutrition bills is our a motion to approve the consent agenda Dan w m is there a second seconda Miner M Richards how do you vote I miss monor I Dr Wallace I the chair votes I and the consent agenda is approved okay next um donations and school gifts miss right yes sir we are very appreciative again this month we received donations at uh several of our schools at copal elementary school they
015received a donation from copal Episcopal Parish of hand sanitizer sanitizer wipes and Bo pants and that donation was valued at $50 at mtrust middle school they received donations from the Sherm family Miss Wilkins Victoria Clark the mark family and Alicia fontleroy and all of those were for Teacher incentives valued at $38 $55 1510 and $35 and then at West Morland high school they received a donation from Patricia edings and Nick Hall monetary donations for the general fund Miss eding donated $41.50 Nick Hall donated $40 the Prince William County schools Education Foundation also made a monetary donation for the Virginia star program at the high school in the amount of $1,500 and Julie Henson of St Peter's Thrift Shop made a monetary donation earmarked for school nurse supplies valued at $40 so we uh present all
016of these to the school board uh for your approval okay in accordance with policy KH is there a motion to approve the donations as presented by Miss rice Dan wall is there a second Amy Rich second any discussion all in favor please signify by saying I I I this R you've already said it but we are definitely very appreciative for these donations and it it shows which great support we have from members of our community and organizations in our community so thank you very much for presenting those okay next uh we have an overview of Enterprise Fleet Management I'll let you introduce yourself excellent I don't know if I want to follow all of that so this will be quite as exciting thank you than you um ladies G we appreciate you all having me
017out tonight my name is Matt Williamson I'm a representative for Enterprise Fleet Management which is a sister company of a company you probably all know Enterprise Renta car I've been with the company for 10 years I've served in the shville Harrisonburg and Churchland markets before coming to my current role where I work with local government entities such as yourself in our Fleet division uh on the screen here this is more of a brief overview of Enterprise uh we have 12 different business lines and we operate over 2 million Vehicles so the purpose of me sharing this with you tonight is just to say in the Fleet World Enterprise has a lot of data points and information and what we do with that is we help make Financial recommendations to some of our other government and
018school Partners some of which are here on the screen there's over 35 now in Virginia that we partner with uh some you may know like the Greensville County School Board Rono City Public Schools and Russell County schools in the school space uh as well as many others uh we're also a source well awarded contract member so we have negotiated pricing to ensure we're getting the most competitive bids for all of the vehical needs for the school board this is where that data piece I mentioned comes into play so again Enterprise takes all of the vehicles that we own and operate which I mentioned was over two million we also have over 800,000 that are under management to determine what is the optimal point to cycle the vieh so what this chart is delting here is
019that there are really three major costs when it comes to operating your Fleet there's your loss in your market value your maintenance expenses and your fuel and what do those costs look like over time what Enterprise says Hey a lot of our clients typically in the school space due to low funding stretch these vehicles out to that far right side of that chart where they're not worth a whole lot but you have a lot of Maintenance expenses and fuel expenses as well as safety concerns for both staff students as those Vehicles age what we do would come in and say there's actually a financial incentive to sell the vehicle while it's still last some valuee but before those maintenance and fuel costs start to rise so in a component of that uh of how we
020get to this point is through something called an equity lease uh we Del here is an open-ending leasing model uh normally when people think of the word lease you're thinking of mileage restrictions damage penalties that's not what this is this is a funding tool think of it have a creative Finance of way to maximize the funds we have to replace as many units as possible to again bring the average age of our Fleet down now there's going to be a little bit of numbers on the screen here so please stop me if there's questions but in this example this is an SUV it's $40,000 vehicle your year one budget if you were to purchase this vehicle cash would be $40,000 you could Finance the entire $40,000 amount but based on Enterprise data we know at
021term we could sell this vehicle for $24,500 so we come to our partners such as Russell County and Greensville County School boards to say hey can we from a capital standpoint be more efficient with our funds so we only finance the portion of the vehicle that are going to use so we write it to a residual value at the end of this term of $88,000 so now we're only funding 32,000 of that then when we sell it for for that 245 we satisfy eight and then the School Board gets a $116,000 return to pay down to the next vehicle the way the math shakes out you could purchase one you could Finance three or you could use the open-end El lease model to give five vehicles this allows us to get more vehicles on that
022rotation again reducing the age and increasing the safety of these vehicles so the next couple slides are just more of the holistic standpoint of where we come to for the vehicles this is our vehicle comparison tool I picked one of the vehicles that we're targeting in the pilot program of the midsize sedan and you can see some of the popular options that up here such as your Hyundai Sonata the Chevrolet Malibu Kia K5 Toyota Camry and Nissan Ultima We compare all costs associated with this vehicle such as purchase price expected lifetime maintenance fuel economy and estimated resale and we break this down into a cent per mile basis so that's that bold number there at the bottom and as you can see the Nissan Ultima is the lowest Cent per mile vehicle once we determine
023this is the most cost effective vehicle in this class we determine what's the right holding pattern and in this example here we're comparing different holding patterns of 12 up to 60 months we have additional data if you would like to see years 6 through 15 our our models can predict up to that but in this example the four-year term was the most cost effective at 46 Cent per line the next two slides are West Morland County Schools specific data so I know there's a lot of numbers on the next two slides I'm just going to highlight some of the key points and then I'll open the floor for some questions so the key points here are the average age of the vehicles in Fleet are 15 years old your average annual mileage up at the
024top left is 11,000 miles per year down at the bottom right you see a historical purchasing chart though that is not entirely accured as Schoolboard has traditionally purchased used in the past but the key thing to highlight here is that 33 vehicles are 10 years or old or older and we're trying to Target this program to reduce that cycle why that's so important and why I'm so passionate about that is any Vehicles 2013 or older does do not have traction control standard any Vehicles 2019 or older do not have backup camera standard which are key safety features to reduce accidents while in the vehle I certainly won't walk through this and we can delineate some time if you guys would like more an in-depth dive here but again the key factors are we're reducing our
025average maintenance by over 50% we're able to reduce the age of our Fleet on average from a 15year old Fleet to a 5-year-old Fleet all while saving the school board $164,000 over the next 10 year period so again thank you for your time wanted to see if there were any questions about the program myself or Enterprise as a whole questions and all there any additional comments thank you all for your time I really appreciate it thank you I I would like to point out um Conway pay our head mechanic uh who manages our Fleet it was Mr Payne who's um who took the initiative to explore this cost-saving uh means of replacing the cars in the fleet and connected us with Mr Williamson so um Mr Williamson has met with us several times um to
026make sure we fully understood uh the scope of the lease agreement and Mr Payne um has been very instrumental in pulling this entire project together um and providing data so I wanted to recognize Conway Payne head mechanic uh for his efforts in all of this yeah we does this you working at the high school dri cars that be part of that too absolutely yes sir yep almost all of our school systems that's usually way certainly take as yeah Mr Payne uh we really do appreciate the initiative on this and we're always looking for ways to save money uh especially if it's a good deal so uh and the board members have really just seen this for the first time so we may very well have some questions after we sit down and look at the
027F numbers and but we very much appreciate you taking time to come and and uh do the presentation to us this evening absolutely thank you for having me be happy happy to come back so thank you guys okay thank you so much Mr Williamson has been uh great to work with Okay and his willingness to come down and give a live presentation is a good example of that so thank you yeah okay next um I think we have some more exciting news too yes uh secondary mentoring program looking forward to that okay evening chairman Fallon school board members and superintendent rice thank you for allowing us the opportunity to present an initiative that has the potential to make a significant impact on the lives of our middle and high school students a mentoring program designed
028to Foster personal and academic growth as we know the transition through middle and high school can be a challenging period for many students research shows that mentorship can be a powerful cat for positive change providing students with guidance support and encouragement as they navigate their these formative years this program aims to connect students with caring adult mentors who can offer Insight share experiences and help them build essential life skills by fostering these meaningful relationships we can enhance our students confidence improve their academic performance and attendance and prepare them for future fut success whether that be in higher education vocational paths or uh personal development we look forward to working with the schools each School our middle and high school administration to help us identify students who can benefit from this program or even students who
029may hear about it and say Hey I want to be a part of that today Miss Calhoun will share potential ways community members can partner with our school division to empower our youth at the middle and high school and help them realize their full potential Miss edings will then share information about how our community can take a part in this and reach out to us and we will be sending out information as well and join us in partnering with our youth our goal is to build a mentoring program that is sustainable for the School Division and for our students our theme is simple possibilities exist opportunities are available be a mentor so at this point I will turn it over to miss Miss Calhoun who will share some information with you good evening and thank
030you so I have belong to a mentoring program that will celebrate 10 years of success in the coming fall but it started out just as We Are Tonight the brainstorming and the planning and just the possibilities when we started thinking about how do we produce a mentor program that would make everybody a winner because we had three areas that we needed to address one was chronic absenteeism the other one was aspirations for higher graduation rates and for Higher Achievement in academics the caring about your academics so we went to football games and we went to basketball games 10 years ago we didn't have QR codes in Lu but we went with clipboards in hand signups because we wanted alumni that was our our grand stand alumni not because we knew that that school graduated some
031great individuals and they already have buyin to come back but we had to divide our mentors into two categories those who would come and do one-time presentations every once in a while or those who would commit to coming and mentoring students on an ongoing basis once we establish that base of mentors especially those alumni the students became very interested to know that there was a VP sitting at TV1 who graduated from their high school they were very interested to know that someone at that High School played professional football they were very interested to know that someone who graduated from that high school was living in Thailand so you are going to find here at the high school and middle school but I'm at the elementary school you're going to find in those places that there
032are parents out there there are servicemen out there service women out there they're doctors there dentist there are people who live close by who grew up here in West mland County and I'll be glad to tell students how important it is to invest in your own education those are the relationships you want to build with your alumni that's just one area of possibility and if I have the chance I'll come back and talk about it a little more okay oh I can keep going okay I don't want to eat up my time but there are two ways that you can also right away bring folks into the building manhood mornings is an example because we found that through our data all database that the majority of the students we were talking about were male for
033whatever reason that was our captive audience that some of our females would find their way to college or to service or to the workforce but our males made up our population of students with referrals who had chronic abs them more than females and that may not be the data here but the data should drive what we do when we're trying to produce a program so manhood mornings brought in the clergy brought in community leaders politicians to come in the morning for 30 minutes retirees and have breakfast with our young men breakfast was on the house they stopped by meet gentlemen talk with them and those those were the mentoring relationships that were developed so if we have a community of people who are interested in a 30 minute breakfast in the morning our kids are
034there every morning and this is a start to the day seeing a man who's positive and encouraging you to step into your manhood while you're at school have manners today don't get any referrals this week I'm coming back to check on you a handshake encouragement manto man breakfast we love that and it changed the lives of many of our students and developed into long-term mentoring Partnerships the other girls rock and Boys to Men which you see on the screen after school program just for two hours but the catch is you had to feed them if you're going to keep them and pair them with folks to talk um bringing in those who could do workshops and because we have such technology we even lasted through covid in this program because so many of the alumni
035they couldn't come to town but they're willing to do a virtual talk and keep going and our students love that they love being able to tap into something virtually so we have to go where they want to be and sometimes that means we go to YouTube and we produce our own so that they'll tap in we even produce playlists so that they would have positive music instead of always tapping into something that's not positive we created playlist for them the opportunity ities are endless when working with adults and because at the high school there's such great technology you can produce so many things that they can almost work with anybody in the community Through technology and producing commercials and movies and things about character development and things about if you keep them busy and keep
036them encouraged you will see things go up like your graduation break your testing scores because they will start to inv inv in their own education and that's primarily what you want and you also want to make your mentoring program a part of a great invitation that the administrators can use again go back to your data if you're seeing the same students over and over for chronic absenteeism if you seen the same students over and over that are getting referrals these are the folks that you highly invite almost push into these these programs and develop relationships with your alumni and with clergy and with leadership in your community our community holds all of these folks that we need and our alumni hold all of the keys that we need to produce great mentor relationships with our
037students that's it okay thank you okay so this is where we are at the moment um we've already began making contact with our community partner um and these are some of the um faith-based communities Civic organ organization businesses um people can actually just volunteer um as current Partners first friends families and neighbors and even with that sometimes we don't think that people we know are willing to Mentor our students but you be surprised that the number of people are just waiting for you to ask them to be a part of how to help our students so um that's kind of where we are we're reaching out by phone we're calling these organization with alling people we're sending emails um we have a flyer that's on the screen now that we've created that we're going to
038send out and it has a QR code where people can actually just scan fill out a form and volunteer to be a mentor um we're also using people in our building already so we're using our staff as mentors first um building the relationship between our staff and students to help them want to be at school to want to be successful so we're using various um Community organizations various entities to get them involved in helping with us with our students um so our next steps if you're interested um scan the QR code on the flyer that was just shown on the previous screen um complete the necessary volunteer paperwork and and once all requirements are satisfied um come and join us at in West mland County and be a mentor for our students any questions questions
039I love the enthusiasm very excited to see that you're excited about this program and I know it will bring people into us that is awesome yeah I I would like to uh ask a question because uh mentoring different ages is not necessarily the same uh uh I know factually that mentoring programs work so very pleased to see this but when you get to the middle school and high school level could you talk a little bit about the training uh to actually be an effective Mentor because you might get volunteers of people that want to do do it but don't necessarily have the you know experience or the background there are two ways there are um trainings that you can find on the internet to train mentors but what we found that would work is that
040we provided activities for students and uh community members to be together for example we provided chess club because many of our students don't know how to play chess and some of our mentors didn't but we provided activities such as that excuse me we also provided um excuse me auto mechanics changing attire how do you change the oil thank you thank you very much different activities for the men and boys to interact and be able to talk to one another is important because we found through those relationships is how they got to know each other what most of the students wanted to know that kind of help her out because we worked on a lot of this together sure we found that it was easier it's sort of like just like in the education field sometimes
041you need that opportunity to collaborate together to we could take you through a a training but what about just working together to see how you mangle together how you collaborate collaborate together how you can become creative together and we found that work because they had questions the kids had questions so now we were building something together and not something separate we were giving the students a voice and that way they felt like this was their program as well so that helped them learn how to be leaders because the stats show that most more children who are part of mnship become leaders so now they're becoming leaders so that's how we decided to go about doing it was make it more like hands on than more of sitting there we're going to do this we were
042hands on I mean the girls were learning how to change tires as well so it was just we just got creative with it and we we learned some of that from the students was like how would you want someone to come in and be your Mentor what are you looking for so for middle schools it definitely helped because you know they kind of at that age they think they the boss already anyhow so it gave them that opportunity to feel like they were helping these adults learn something and that's how they built the relationships and hers is been nine years I started one 11 years ago in the same district and another one 15 years ago and that's why we talked about sustainability those programs are still going and that's what we want to bring
043here we're excited about bringing it here and we have this expert back here miss edings who who knows this community as well and she's been lending support so that's how we did it that's how the training kind of came about was just coming together and sitting down at the table and saying what can we do yeah well you got to build that relationship you have to build relationship and we just found that activities like Dr timble said brought people together but that meant that we created some other Partnerships in the community to help us Lowe's for example Lowe's has these wonderful little kits of if you've seen them they wooden toys that you put together doing things together like that because many of the boys that we had in this program did not have a
044father figure or didn't have a male figure that they had built anything with they hadn't spent time that's why it was so important for us to have our old cars in the county county cars out there taking that dipstick out there they didn't know that there were tires in the trunk of the car back then no none of those things because they hadn't been taught but we formed Partnerships with rotary kianis and what's the other one um that we Moose Lodge so we form lots of Partnerships to be able to have activities for us to do and places for us to go our field trips started out being to the fire station to learn how it operates how come men spend the night here what happens when the bell goes off where do you go
045what what do you do um we went to the rescue squad as a field trip General Assembly we did all of that ball Lumber Company and ball Lumber Company alumni owns that so we'll find when we started looking for mentors out here we'll find what's available to us in West Morland who owns what where can we go to do do a field trip where can someone who um runs a business here tell us about what they were like that's what the students wanted to know before I had the coughing attack that's I was going to say know yeah uh yeah my my question this is focused on middle school high school and we also have had the heroes program which was very effective um kind of lost some traction during Co but um you know
046is there any anticipation that if and when that is is up and and running that there will be a a a transition where we will encourage people to stay with your kid you know through middle and high school I will tell you that that's a great idea I like that I will tell you that even though the fifth grade here is at the elementary school level um Miss Calhoun and some of the teachers have already started working on a program there just because it's kind of a little fifth grade is kind of middle and you know in certain areas so that's I love what you just said and we have had some of you know we we've worked on building that relationship and I love the idea of having it transition from school to school
047and those mentors stand so that's a great idea I like that thank you other questions or comments from anyone uh it's already been said but love the excitement thank you yeah thank you very much [Applause] you do the policies in 13 minutes I or I can skip over if you need okay okay next uh we have VBA policy updates there rice yes sir the the February uh policy updates as the board is aware um these tend to be just things like updating cross references and uh changing a few words in order to add Clarity to the policies all of the policies as you know go through a review cycle um and in February we're not dealing with changes in the law that came out of the general assembly we'll be dealing with that with the
048May policy updates so February this is a lot of uh cleanup um adding some words for clarity and updating cross references so we did have a few policies that were highlighted for us and I'll highlight those same on for you all uh policy gbn staff hiring procedures um we already had in policy that falsification of information or credentials on an application could be grounds for not hiring somebody or dismissing them and the policy now includes um omission of pertinent information in in addition to falsifying information so that was a substantive change um policy gdq which is school bus drivers um I am pointing this one out to you all because the board previously at the bottom of the first page the board has the opportunity to require uh bus drivers to have certification or training
049in emergency first aid CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator um that's optional that's not required by law but our board previously did say we want our bus drivers to have that training or certification so I've included that optional language in the policy still but wanted you all to know it's in there and you have a decision whether to keep it in there or not with this adoption and then on policy ikg which is remediation recovery program that policy has actually been deleted and it's because all of the content from that particular policy has been absorbed by other policies so we have policy AG which talks about literacy plans policy igb which talks about programs for students with reading difficulties and policy igbe which talks about remedial and summer instruction programs so there
050is no content in ikg that needs to stand alone in its own policy so that one was deleted policy JCB which is transfers by students in persistently dangerous schools um we have not had any schools designated as persistently Dangerous by Virginia and hopefully we never will um but this policy exists in case that situation occurs and the policy was Rewritten to make it more open-ended there aren't any um specific options that a school division must follow uh if they have a school identified as persistently dangerous it's wide open um so the policy was Rewritten to Make It Wide Open um and not make it look limited to options a School Division has and the last one I will highlight is policy JCB and this is admission of non-public students for part-time enrollment I'm highlighting this
051one because there are two options a School Division a school board has the option to say no we do not accept students uh at on a part-time basis if you're homeschooled you're homeschooled if you're private school you're private school and we won't accept you as a a part-time student the other option and the option our school board has U voted to adopt in the past is that we will accept homeschool students or private school students on a part-time basis and so I have included that option uh for your consideration but wanted you to know both options are out there so the board can again make a decision on which way you want to go and the other uh changes to policy were um the kinds of things I mentioned updating cross references updating legal code
052and changing a few words here and there for clarity so that's all I have for this evening any questions uh from Miss rice anyone okay thank you Miss rice okay we have an agenda item the N Technical Center report uh which is typically given by Mrs Mayan and she was unable to be with us this evening so we won't have that report uh Dr Wallace do you uh have any report from the chest Bay Governor School uh yeah just very briefly we did have our uh science Symposium uh last weekend um it was very well attended and um it was just kind of an exciting thing to see the quality of the presentations that are made and I got to be a judge this year I've I've been a a a backup for for many
053years and this time someone wasn't able to make it and I I got to be called up from the miners so awesome that was fun but yeah it's it's a it's a great program and I I guess everyone here proba already is familiar with Governor school but it's um it's pretty exciting and the kids are producing some really high quality research as part of their senior projects okay well I think it is exciting to be a George so glad you got to do that okay thank you Dr Wallace uh Miss rice upcoming events yes sir there are three upcoming events uh on for the school board on March 25th the vsba is doing the vsba superintendent evaluation workshop and you can participate either virtually or in person in Charlottesville at the vsba office on April
05417th this one is inperson only at the vs ba office in Charlottesville uh they will be having the vsba Hot Topic conference and the topic is the trustedge experience and then on May 30th um this is a save the date they will have the vsba school law conference okay any questions M rice okay we uh will have our public hearing on the budget uh at 700 p.m. as advertised so we are going to have about a 5 minute recess so we can begin the public hearing on the uh budget at 7 p.m. so don't go anywhere e e e all right Chris I'm getting ready to start okay call our meeting back to order and at this time Miss rice is going to give a presentation on the 2025 2026 budget thank you I'm going
055to start with the school board's budget priorities for 2526 there were four priorities uh the first is to recruit the best Personnel to our school division at a time when there is a critical shortage of qualified person the second priority is to retain the best Personnel in our division at a time when there are opportunities everywhere and anyone who wanted to leave could certainly get a job somewhere else uh we want to maintain smaller class sizes and provide more course offerings and maintain the mental health and behavioral supports that we provide to our students the projected state revenue uh this Revenue Vue that we've built the budget on is based on the governor's Proposal with a projected average daily membership of 1,480 although we built the budget on the governor's proposed Revenue I am sharing
056the general assembly's proposed Revenue as well and the difference uh we are hopeful that uh the general assembly proposed Revenue will become a reality for our division uh because it would bring additional state revenue and additional local Revenue into the school division um because we don't know what the outcome of the general assembly uh proposed budget will be we have budgeted based on Governor's proposed Revenue because that is the lower figure and it is easier to add things into the budget later than it is to cut things out but you can see uh with the uh basic Aid the general assembly proposed Revenue gives West Morland County an additional $184,700 n in special education add-on funds and an additional 5,997 in funding for at risk programs continuing on with the governor's proposed budget and the
057general assembly's proposed budget we also see an increase from the general assembly of 11,741 for compensation supplement and an increase in the other side of the atrisk funding of $ 52,6 166 with the Virginia preschool initiative we also see a little bit of an increase from the general assembly in the amount of $3,888 so we've built our budget based on the governor's project state revenue of6 m571 233 if we are fortunate to get the funding proposed by the general assembly we would pick up an additional the required local effort and the required local match we are asking for only that and nothing additional and the required local effort and required local match are what is required by code in order to draw down the state revenue our local revenue is based on the local Composite
058Index and our Composite Index which is our uh local ability to pay is determined by the state to be 506 65 so again looking at required local effort we have built the budget on the governor's proposal and the required local effort and match that will be required based on his proposal the general assembly again more favorable with state revenue also means our local Revenue would be more favorable in order to meet local effort and match so we would receive additional funds of 189 622 in basic aid from the locality we would receive local effort in the amount of $867 for special education add-on looking at required local match we would receive an additional $6,185 in required local match from West Morland and an additional $125 for compensation supplement looking at the other part of at
059risk funding we would receive an additional $54,500 and then under Virginia preschool initiative we would receive uh a decrease of $3,886 so all total uh we have built our budget based on the required local effort and match which aligns to the governor's proposal of 13,800 $3,137 if the general assembly budget is adopted we would receive additional local funds to meet efforted match in the amount of accordingly but typically the required local effort and required local match is the higher of the two figures so that's the one we work with and this is just a summation of the projected state and local Revenue together uh because it certainly makes a difference in our budget uh our total state and local Revenue under the governor's proposal is 30 m374 370 under the general assembly proposal our state
060and local revenue is 31,000 I'm sorry 31 m612 38 so there is a substantial difference overall of $686,000 186,50 68 because as of yet it's an unknown and so we took the safer route and used the governor's proposal our projected total revenue includes some miscellaneous Revenue which is uh things like uh the cell phone tower generates a little bit of Revenue things like that we have the state revenue for the current year and the state revenue based on Governor's proposal for 2526 we will see an increase in state revenue even with the governor's proposal an overall difference of 271,000 258 other state aid includes our Medicaid reimbursement and our e- rate reimbursement and we budget 220,000 annually for that federal revenue is essentially uh level funded at this moment we don't know what's going to
061happen uh with federal revenue that's a big unknown uh but at this moment we are looking at essentially the same amount in federal revenue that we receed for the current year and then with required local effort and match for the current year the locality provided 13, 783 513 and based on Governor's proposal it would be 13, 83137 which is an overall increase from West Morland County of $1 19,6 over our current Year's budget and an overall increase in our budget total revenue of 28,2 um sorry $857 so not a lot of additional uh funding to work with uh when you're funding uh salary increases and the cost of everything services and goods is going up this gives you a picture of the overall projected Revenue uh our largest piece of the pie uh is 52%
062and that's our state funds e rate in Medicaid makes up about 1% of our Revenue local funds make up about 43% and our federal dollars make up about 5% of our budget employee compensation we've had a lot of conversation about what can we do this year uh with regard to employee compensation so here in the public hearing I'm pleased to be able to share that the school board is supporting a 4 and a half% salary increase for all West Marland County Public School Employees regardless of the role that each person fills this is a 3% increase plus one step for experience and that's a 1 and a half% increase so overall 4 and a half% increase for those who have been here and are getting the 3% increase plus the step for the school board
063and we don't need to click on it right now but for the school board all all of the proposed salary scales are linked right there where you see those words so you can U check out each of the proposed salary scales employee compensation for those who are not on a scale we still went with the 4 and a half% increase so we do have some part-time employees who are daily wage employees and that's pretty much everybody in transportation other than mechanics and the supervisor so our bus drivers are transport ation AIDS and our car drivers are paid by the day and their daily rate for a bus driver will go from $130 a day to 136 for a car driver or Transportation Aid the daily rate will go from $99 to14 and that's really a
064a good daily wage when you factor in that bus drivers Transportation AIDS and car drivers work on average 4 hours a day 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon part-time hourly wage employees include part-time PA professionals part-time secretaries part-time custodians and part-time Behavior coaches and personal care assistants our current hourly wage is $16.76 an hour we will be moving to $17.51 an hour for 2526 and the same is true for part-time Food Service workers uh they have the same hourly wage currently and they will move to 1751 health insurance this is the the good news of the budget um the best news of the budget we did not receive any increase uh in our health insurance premiums when we received our renewal so we will not have any increase in premiums for the
065upcoming year meaning the salary increase that our employees receive will actually be a salary increase and not go directly to um offsetting the increase in health insurance um we will continue to offer the key Advantage expanded program and the key Advantage 500 program in the upcoming year but at the request of our employees through the communication Forum they asked us to explore a less costly plan um and to look into offering a third option so we will be offering a third option and that is the high deductible plan and with the high deductible plan we will be offering a health savings account so our employees will have three choices in the coming year rather than two we do have some additional positions that are necessary for the upcoming year uh first our goal is to
066maintain all of the existing positions because those are all necessary um but we also do need to add one special education teacher at copal elementary school in order to split the multiple disabilities classroom uh which has a lot of students in it and needs to be split in the upcoming year because we will have more students moving up from the early childhood special ed class and then we also are looking to add one math teacher at West Morland High School uh preferably a math teacher who can provide dual enrollment math courses other significant changes to the budget and I called any increase or decrease significant um so some of these are Big increases or decreases and some of them are rather small um but in instruction uh we decreased the allocation for our extended day
067programs and for summer school programs we increased our allocation for the alternative education program and the Northern Neck Technical Center under Administration attendance and health we increased the allocation for legal fees and for the audit under Pupil Transportation we have increased the allocation for motor vehicle insurance and for uh vehicle maintenance purchased Services uh we do a lot of Contracting out for vehicle maintenance in addition to what our own mechanics do so we needed to increase that particular line we have a new allocation for the Highland uh contract for our electric buses and a new allocation that you heard about earlier today for Enterprise we've increased the allocation for bus replacement because one new bus cost more than one new bus used to by about $15,000 and we decrease the allocation for car replacement because
068of the savings we expect through the Enterprise lease other significant changes under operation and maintenance we've increased the allocation for contracted building labor um we have quite a few maintenance projects that need to take place um these are not facilities additions or Renovations these are maintenance on existing buildings um existing repairs so we increase the allocation for contracted building labor we also increase the allocation for contracted cleaning services and that's for the high school we increase the allocation for electricity and that's based on our usage and that is a significant increase we increase $75,000 for electricity and we increased the allocation for property and liability insurance fortunately we were able to decrease the allocation for heating fuel we're not using as much of that as we used to and we were able to decrease the
069allocation for phone services by a little bit in the area of Technology we substantially decreased the allocation for technology non- capitalized Hardware but that's because for 2425 we had had budgeted to buy all new laptops for all employees because it was time and we don't have that same need for the upcoming year so we were able to decrease that line for 2526 we did however need to increase the allocation for telecommunications that's our internet and our cell phone usage and those costs are increasing and the final significant changes uh we did increase our allocation for our school resource officers uh we are very fortunate that the West Morland County Sheriff's Office submits Grant applications for all of our SRO positions and those Grant applications pay a portion of the salary and benefits for several years
070but one of those Grant applications is expiring at the end of September so rather than us paying half of half um so the grant the grant has paid for half the cost of salary and benefits and then we've paid a quarter and the county has paid a quarter but that Grant is going away for one SRO so we'll be paying a full half of the salary and benefits for one SRO moving forward and then we'll continue to pay a quarter for each of the other three and then the contingency fund has been decreased um because we needed to in order to make all of those other increases in the other categories so expenditures as we look at 26 our current expenditures are on the left and in the center column we have uh the proposed
071expenditures for the 2526 school year and you can see the difference so in instruction in Pupil Transportation in operation maintenance and in transfers for SRO we are seeing an increase and then we do have a decrease in technology for the reason explained and in the contingency fund so that's $275,100 to so that brings us back to you saw the earlier Revenue increase of 857 now you see that same difference in the expenditures so we'll have an overall budget of 32,1 58595 and then if you look at the budget uh by category you can see how that breaks down the largest piece of the pie is of course instruction um and then with 66% we have uh 6% of the budget earmarked for administration attendance and health 10% of our budget goes to Transportation this year
0729% to operation maintenance 4% to technology um a negligible amount for transfers so it reads as zero 1% for our contingency fund and 4% for greens and I will point out that not only is in instruction the biggest piece of the pie but most of the technology budget and most of the grants budget also goes to support instruction and that's all I have for the Schoolboard budget okay any questions from the board yeah okay I'm going to be a little bit gloom and doom here and that is we've got we're counting on about a million dollars from the feds which I I realize you know this we can hope all we want but you know the chances of that falling through are definitely higher than zero um I I realize we're supposed to be voting
073on this tonight is there any way that we [Music] can put some sort of a statement in there that in it in the event of you know we don't get the federal funding that we will need to go to the um to the County Supervisor I mean basically just to you know give them a heads up that if we don't get that we either need them to fill the gap or you know we will suffer some very serious you know impact to instruction what what are your thoughts on that I I'm I'm just trying to be for forearmed here in the event that Things fall through well you well anyway a couple of comments you've had some discussions at Miss rice I believe with the County Administrator about budget about our budget and and I
074would certainly think anyone that deals with budgets would be aware of discussions going on about uh at the federal level and in the past we've uh voted on revised budgets which fortunately was an increase but I would assume that we would do the same if we had a decrease that we would simply vote again on a revised budget yes so I would be inclined to think tonight we would vote we would vote on your proposed budget that has an assumptions in it and then at a later date we would vote on a revised budget which hopefully might show an increase that's optim that's optimistic and I'm all for optimism I just want make sure well we got Plan B right well it's some serious stuff going on it's planned to present this to the Board
075of Supervisors next Monday yes and so that can be voiced that I right I think that would be I think that would be the appropriate way to do it Miss rice I agree okay okay okay and I and I do think it's consistent with what we've done pass as I agree yes yeah usually we when we vote on a revision like you said usually it's good news we've gotten some additional Revenue when the state budget is finalized that's usually how it goes this year could be different if we get increased state revenue we still may lose federal revenue but but it may it still may require because even in that good news scenario the county has to pay a little bit more for the required match but here it may be because we're going to
076need some help to to backfill um and I would this might be optimistic too but I would hope at a state level that there would be some discussions about what do we do yeah because we're not the only school system that's going to be infected and and I was certain hope and expect that there would be some I don't discussions I don't know what the outcome would be but uh it would become I believe a state issue if all those federal funds go away I don't know what the outcome would be though but but they have to be aware of the possibility yes so okay okay are there any other from board members any other discussion questions comments okay I'm um and I know you still have the school nutrition um budget but you've presented
077a lot of information and in order to have no make sure it's no confusion I would like at this time to see if anyone from the public would like to make any comments on the proposed School Board budget presented by Miss rice okay hearing none then the public hearing on the school board budget is now closed so at this time now if you would present the school nutrition budget okay this one is much shorter um the school nutrition budget is uh significantly smaller um but significantly important also for uh feeding our children so the revenue we're looking at um we are looking at a decrease in Revenue uh projected revenue for our school nutrition program and as I shared at an earlier work session um most of the funding for the school nutrition program is
078a projection whereas with uh the school division budget we receive numbers from the state that tell us you can expect this much um we get very little uh in terms of information for the school nutrition budget we do receive um figures for the school breakfast program program um and for school lunch but those are the state figures that you see there so we are expecting from the state $1,336 for school lunch and $2,954 for school breakfast so that's an increase in lunch and a decrease in breakfast everything else that you see there is a projection based on our current uh Revenue stream coming in our history for this year so we are seeing uh fewer dollars come in for uh meals so we are budgeting um to absorb that decrease in Revenue should that come
079and so you see our expenditures uh we have decreased by 234 699 since we have decreased our projected Revenue by that amount we are still still looking at uh School nutrition salaries of 559 573 and while that shows a little bit of decrease that's because we have a full-time person uh who we expect will be working part-time next year and the food service workers are still looking at a 4 and a half% overall increase in salary benefits will decrease again because we're looking at someone who's uh full-time working part-time purchase Services travel miscellaneous refunds uh we left all those the same we did make a decrease in materials and supplies and we were uh forced basically to cut out Capital replacement and capital outlay addition uh we have not spent any funds out of those
080two lines for the current year so we felt like that was the best place to cut for the up coming year should we need Capital replacement or Capital outlay addition uh we would treat that like other Capital Improvement uh needs for the School Division and we would seek to go to our fund balance to address those needs and that that is all I have for school nutrition okay any comments questions from board members okay and of course Dr Wallace we have the same uh ponderings over what will happen with federal dollars uh because our school nutrition program is funded almost entirely by federal dollars as you saw so we we shall see y we shall see okay do we have anyone from the public that would like to provide any comments on the school nutrition
081budget okay the public hearing on the school nutrition budget is closed at this time I would like to ask the board if they would like to take any action on the school board budget as presented by Miss rice yes yes we would I'd like to move that we approve the proposed budget as presented for the 2026 um School Board budget okay is there a second and Rich second okay any more discussion M moner how do you vote hi Dr Wallace i m Richards I the chair votes I and the 2025 2026 proposed School Board budget is approved thank you okay next would the board like to take any action on the school nutrition budget I move that we approve the school nutrition budget for 2025 2026 as presented is that second second any discussion M
082Richards how do you vote I Dr Wallace i m monor i chair votes I and the 2025 2026 School nutrition budget is also approved thank you okay thank you Mr rice okay next we have school board member comments Miss Richards any comments you'd like to make um no comments um just waiting to see what's going to happen with federal funds yeah okay all right Miss mono um just a couple things um the middle school band and high school band were able to partly some got to go down for judging um for the area um and the storms that came through um affected the high school and seventh grade band but luckily um some individuals were able to come on that Friday and judge them and um they scored really well so I just wanted to
083share that and then also um the musical at the high school was was a lot of fun yes so yeah Dr W yeah I was only only thing I was going to comment was also on the musical it's exciting to see a real stage with real curtains and real lights you know it was it was good and um and it it's you know clear that you know this is the start of of a theater program I mean it's it's you know those things take time to build and and it's neat to see the um the starting of of a culture there that's good well I have to say too because it was very exciting to be there uh and and to see the facility that we have the theater uh that has a bright sound
084system lighting uh and a great performance uh it's just more to come for the county it was very very exciting uh Miss rice I I'll say the same thing um I saw the performance on Saturday evening and it was it was thrilling to see how many students were involved in that production and kudos to the director and choreographer Mr uh Ben Swanson and his assistant director alici isig and Dave Smith did the lights it was it was incredible the students did an amazing job it was a true musical performance and they they remembered all their lines and all the songs and did the dancing the choreography I thought they were fantastic for the first ever musical at West Morland High School I almost went back the second night I mean it was that good I
085believe it yeah it was that good it was that good yeah so uh do you um you may have something else but do you want to say anything about next Monday the presentation to the board uh of Supervisors because it would be nice to have good Tate from the community and it would be nice to have a good torate from the school board okay if you would like to sure um the Board of Supervisors uh County Administrator and Board of Supervisors have invited us to come and present um the Schoolboard budget present ation at the Board of Supervisors meeting next Monday so we will be um taking them up on that invitation and at that same meeting uh Dr Perry will be sharing uh the Washington District vestibule renovation plans um so it'll be a
086twofer so if you can make it um we would appreciate the support yep six or seven I'm soorry say again website says six but no that's a work session not the regular meeting correct okay correct yeah 6 o' on Monday yeah okay thank you very much uh our next our next did you have something else thought okay our next uh board meeting we have a work session on Tuesday April the 8th uh beginning at 5:00 pm and we have our next our regular session on Monday April the 14th we closed session beginning at 5:00 p.m. and Open Session beginning at 6:00 p.m. do I hear a motion to adjourn Dan Wallace second second minor all in favor signify by saying I I I we are Jour thank you very much