School Board Work Session - February 9, 2026

001So much money. >> Good evening. I would like to call the order to the February 9, 2006 work session at York County School Board. Thank you for being here and let's begin. Uh Dr. Keller, would you like to introduce our first presenter? >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Povich. Uh this evening we have Mr. David Kilburn, associate director of capital plans and projects to give us an update. >> Mr. chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, Dr. Carol, I'm happy to be here to give you your February presentation on capital projects. So, we'll start off with Tab High. I gave you a much more detailed presentation last time I was in front of you guys. Um, this one's a little bit quicker for you. Uh, we are expecting the 95% drawings on March 3rd. That'll

002allow us to get into a much deeper review of those plans and start working with the county towards setting bid dates. Uh, we're projecting on going out to bid in June. Now, I realize that everybody is going to think that that's going to delay things, but we have to review those 95% drawings. We have to catch everything that we possibly can upfront, avoid possible change orders. Um, and then by going out to bid during the summer, con construction workers, contractors are already engaged in projects and they're going to want to finish those before the end of the summer. So, then that pushes our timeline a little bit. So, we're looking at projected start dates of September, but that'll also hopefully result in possibly lower bids because then GCs are looking to get in work during

003the school year for us. Um, and we're thinking phasing wise that we're going to go after the geothermal field first. It actually has to be up and running for that new footfront section to even be operational. Okay. Then we're going to jump into Dare Elementary School. Um, and this is just a quick reminder of the proposed layout that the school division chose along with the the school representatives themselves. Um, the on-site survey is complete and that's being consolidated into the CAD design by MSA right now. Uh, they've given us a projected timeline, but that projected timeline includes several rounds of reviews between us and the county. We're hoping to avoid several rounds and streamline it down to one, maybe one, two rounds. Um, and so then we can push that timeline up because this project

004impacts DARE and the schoolboard office. This is something that we really have to lock the timeline in on. If we can't do it during the summer, then we might have to push off until next summer to accomplish this project. If we don't get the bids out until what they're projecting was in May, we not might not be able to secure a contractor to do it in the timeline that we want for this summer. But again, we're going to try and streamline that. We're working very closely with the county and with MSA to try and push those up. the divisionwide fire alarm uh life cycles. We are one sensor away from completing this project and so that will we are planning to actually do that on February 16th when students and staff are out of the

005buildings. It requires a scissor lift in a gym and graphing. So that project will be complete. Yorkai's intercom and lockdown system. We are at 95% and again on February 16th we are planning while the kids are out of the building to integrate those switches that we have in the main office with their new intercom system. So, we're going to make a bunch of noise, but we're going to test the system thoroughly. And a reminder that this system incorporates the surrounding buildings that are uh occupied by the school division. So, the operations complex, transportation, if anything were to ever happen on that campus, they need to know immediately as well. So, again, February 16th for that one. Um, and that will bring us to completing the entire school division having all of the new emergency response

006protocols in place with automated messages. Tab high field lighting. All of those materials have been received. Uh it is currently planned for the soccer field, tennis courts, and football field. The tennis courts of and soccer field are replacement fixtures. Those poles are already in place. The football field is a new set of poles with new lights. So, we are still working with the county very closely on that and as soon as we finalize the details, we'll be starting with that work. Crafting complex turf field. Uh we've mentioned before that this one has a little bit of a complication because of how close in proximity it is to Harwood Mills Reservoir. So Newport News Waterworks is requiring a research review and we are working with them and Astroturf to coordinate that. Currently we have received their

007proposal and that's under our attorney's review. Brutin High School Oxy Gym floor uh >> it it uh >> it was a woozy. Um, so >> and what caused that again? >> So it it was a trifecta of things that happened all at the same time. So the HVAC system condensate loop had a failure on a pressure valve. So that pressure valve was allowing the condensate loop to drain where it normally drains into a floor drain, but that floor drain was partially clogged. So by it over draining and not being able [clears throat] to actually drain out through the the clogged drain, water backed up and that's what caused this. So, um, the trifecta, the third part of it is that this was installed with a very specialized metal sleeper system. So, when they had to

008remove the wood flooring, you couldn't remove it without actually damaging that subsystem. So, um, this is how it looks now. It's a clean concrete floor, but that floor is not level. And that's part of the point of that sleeper system, provide the level surface, but also provide the required bounce for basketballs. Um, so we're going to go back and actually just level this concrete floor and put in one of the resilient floor systems. Uh, there >> this is state-of-the-art when it first came out. >> Yeah, >> it was. But the metal versus wood, I mean, every gym system I've ever been part of, they use wood as the sleeper systems. So, the metal actually sort of backfired on us because we had the issue. Um, but yeah, so, uh, Greg gave me an update on

009this today. And so, the floor leveler is expected sometime this month and the flooring itself with the colored lines and everything has been ordered. So, we're expecting to start this sometime later this month. That's just the details on that. Uh, and then the last major thing I have to report on is the divisionwide uh, facility study that we talked about last meeting. Uh, so we are going to move forward with a company called HBA. They're under a term contract. Uh, and we are currently defining the scope of that work. Our thought process behind that is the work is really going to be focused on enrollment. And when I say that, it's current enrollment, projected enrollment, and actually historical enrollment. So, we're collecting a lot of information while we work on defining that scope and locking

010in the the purchase order, purchase requisition to move forward with them. Um, the other two major factors are space. Are we using our space as efficiently as we could, and they're going to give us suggestions on that? And also tying into that, we are moving from our six-year CIP plan into more of a 15-year CIP plan. We've got to look farther out to see what are the best needs for the school division? >> And that is my report for tonight, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. >> I do reference to TAB. Uh so bids going to go out actually requested in June. That's when we're looking to start. Uh is this going to be one uh prime contractor that we seeking to do all the work or are we going to

011be having any separate bids for any of the work that's coming out like the the third field I mean not third field but uh geothermal. So right now we're we are looking for it to be one solid bid. It is one big project. Uh prior to this we had gone out to bid on just separate projects of geothermal trying to get the well field done and then come back and do the addition and renovation. We've lumped all that together. Um, there may be some very small pieces of this that we do in anticipation of the project since we're going to interrupt the the current front entrance. We need to set up another one in the meantime. So, we might shift around some security vestable walls. We might have to shift the main office personnel receiving

012visitors and students during the day. Those could be separate, smaller projects, different contractors. Um, but for the bulk of the project, we're looking for one. >> Okay. And after it's open, we're looking to start September like you're saying. Okay. Thank you, Mr. >> Y. And there will be phases that we can come back and and you know inform you of we want to do this phase first. Here's the timeline, second phase, third phase. It it can't all happen simultaneously. >> And board members, I'd like to point out on the brute and high project on [clears throat] that, Jim, that was covered by insurance. It also was part of the delay in getting going on that. So [clears throat] now I think we have a clear path. Correct. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr.

013Kilbury. Dr. Cheryl, CT strategic plan update. >> Yes. Uh, thank you, Mr. Private. Dr. Karen Kaggel here is here tonight, director of curriculum and instruction. She's going to provide an overview of the York County School Division's key performance indicators for career and technical education with a focus on the employment category of the VDO's 3E framework. Dr. Keel. >> Well, good evening, Chairman Pyitch, [clears throat] members of the board, and Dr. Carol, I'm really glad to be here tonight to share with you the key performance indicators of our strategic of our strategic plan focused on CTE enrollment and certifications. And before I start, I would like to remind the group that February is national CTE month. And so it's a month that we celebrate the work of our teachers, administrators, career coaches, and um our schoolboard

014office that put a lot of work into our CTE program. So I just want to say a big thank you to them tonight before I get started. So as you know CTE very much supports our strategic plan goal of future ready graduates and preparing them for post-secondary endeavors. Greg and tonight what I'd like to do is my overview of my presentation is pretty much I'm going to talk a little bit about what those key performance indicators are from the strategic plan. Um, I will give you a little bit of an overview of our CTE program and then go over the dashboard that we have on our York County School Division website. We'll look at some changes from the state in the area of CTE and how CT fits into the state accountability model [clears throat]

015and then um I'll show you some of the work we're doing here in York County School Division. I'm really excited to get to to that part. So, these are the key performance indicators in our strategic plan. We really wanted our career and technical education courses to give students the opportunity to really explore careers to participate in work-based learning experiences and we wanted to focus on industry credentials and students earning those as well. We also wanted to build sequential courses that uh align up with things that the students are interested in so they get a solid foundation as they go into their post secondary endeavors. And a part of that was our our dual enrollment program. And we'll share a little bit about that today. So, just really quickly, we do have 57 middle [clears throat]

016and high school courses and our program of studies that are are in our schools, our middle and high uh middle schools and high schools. And you see some of the program areas here. I did tack on the agricultural and natural resources at the bottom because you all approved the classes [clears throat] um in November for the program of studies next year. We have natural resources and ecology and we also have a [clears throat] geospatial course that's coming coming up next year. So, we're excited about that. We can't do this alone. We have a partnership with New Horizon's Regional Education Center. They offer 27 high school CTE courses and I put the areas of concentration here. You know, some a lot of these CTE courses require specialized equipment, heavy machinery, teachers with special endorsements. So, we

017really need them uh their partnership as well. So, I wanted to shout out to them and those are some of our students right there at the New Horizons Education [clears throat] Center. So, this is the dashboard that I shared with you last year. And I'm I'm [clears throat] not going to go through it as much in depth last year. I just want to point out some of the highlights and it'll probably refresh your memory. You can access this dashboard by going to the York County School Division website. And you can look at data from the last three years. You can look by school, as a division as a whole, or by even demographics. So sometimes with some of our CTE classes, we might want to see if more uh females are represented or males. We

018want to see if our military connected students um are participating, things like that. So we're able to do that with the dashboard. If you look at the first number on the top left, the 3,642 credentials earned, that was the number of industry credentials our students earned last year. That number is up from 2,224 the previous year. We think some of the intentional work we did to add industry credentials to some of our CTE courses made a huge difference especially in our marketing classes. We also some of the previous industry credentials that were optional for students we made them required and that helped with that number as well. the workplace readiness pass rate and the wise financial literacy pass rate. Those numbers come from two tests that we administer in our econ and personal finance class.

019All students that take economics and personal finance, which are all of our high school students, it's required. They take those tests because all of our students are expected to earn an industry credential for graduation [snorts] and that those two tests will meet that requirement. However, I do have to tell you with the changes I'm going to talk about tonight from the state wise financial literacy exam after this year will no longer meet the graduation requirement. Just the u workplace readiness and the industry credential exams I'll talk about later in the presentation. So, wise will no longer meet that requirement. >> Question about the credentials earn. Do you know about how many you know what's the average of one student? how many credentials they earn or is there a wide range from one to >> There's

020probably a wide range because when I start to talk about enrollment and then CTE completers, you'll see that um some of our level one classes may have credentials that are optional for them to take and then they'll go take another one in the level two class or may a lot of them just take one, but some of them have the opportunity to take more than one depending on what their interest is. They take them at New Horizons as well. So per specific student, I don't have this dashboard does not break that down. >> Okay. I was just curious if this was, you know, number of students. >> No, this is number of credentials. >> Number of credentials. That's why I was wondering if we had an idea of the number [snorts] of students. >> Um

021I can see how it's broken down. I can't guarantee I can find the exact number of students, but I can try. >> That'd be great. Thank you. >> Okay. [snorts] And so if you move over to the right, the first box you see the there is CT course enrollment by career cluster. If you remember that Virginia's had 17 career clusters over the past several years and we spelled those out. We broke we our classes are sorted by the career cluster. So we kind of know um what clusters are um engaging more students. However, you have to keep in mind we don't have the same number of courses in each cluster. We only have a few classes maybe under um hospitality and tourism. We don't have very many classes under that. So, and then we have

022a lot of marketing classes. So, so you have to keep that in mind. You also have to keep in mind that this is middle and high school. So when you see human services has [clears throat] an enrollment last year of 96 students, I started thinking, well, which classes are those? Cosmetology's one, nutrition and life planning. Well, nutrition and life planning aren't very well attended and cosmetology. So I'm like, where did 96 children come from? Well, that's middle school. That's the family and consumer science classes, one, two, three, and four. And wow, that's a popular class at middle school. So, you have to keep in mind there's middle school in there as well. Also, all of our middle schoolers take um career investigations. That's lo that is captured in the education and training numbers and all

023of our high schoolers take econ and personal finance and that's in the finance numbers for enrollment. So, you have to keep that in mind. >> And are those two classes are they required by law that every student take those? So, it's it's just like the financial. So, career investigations, it it school divisions had the autonomy to set them up in certain ways as long as you cover the standards and some school divisions integrated in other class um classes or did a variety of other things. York County School Division at that time when that was requirement, we got a committee together to [clears throat] make that decision and it is a class for our students. Six sixth graders can take it on the wheel or seventh and eighth graders can take it as a semester course.

024[snorts] >> Thank you. >> So the um CT completer by career cluster a [clears throat] CT completer is that student who has done a CTE sequential courses. So marketing one and marketing two um gaming and programming that kind of thing. They take sequential courses and our program of studies has a list of those sequentials in the back of the program of studies if anyone's interested and they have to meet graduation requirements. So the number of students you're seeing under CT completer are the students seniors who've met the graduation requirements. So that number is going to look a little bit different. Notice health science 94 students are completers. Last year that number was 57. So we've gone up quite a bit with that one. We also went up in STEM and marketing and what other one

025I want to say it was computer um information technology and so those are showing us what some of our students are interested in. So we're we're glad to have that data. And then if you look down at the bottom the CT credentials earned this one can be sorted by the credentials earned in our high schools or at New Horizons. It can be sorted by the credential itself or by the pass and fail rate and so and the number of students and the number of students is important because when you see a less than 10 those are classes like plumbing, welding, cosmetology, teachers for tomorrow where you don't have more uh you have less than [clears throat] 10 students uh working on that credential. So, um, so a lot of them don't have a lot of

026numbers, but I do want to point out retail industry fundamentals with 76 students taking that. That was a new one last year that we added to give students more opportunity to earn credentials. And so, it was brand new last year and I think our kids did pretty well and we're going to work even harder for them to even even do better this year. And that was just the students that took it last year and it was optional in our marketing one classes, sports marketing, fashion marketing, those classes. Well, if they didn't pass it last year and they're in the marketing two classes this year, they'll have the opportunity to take it again. So, that's what we're hoping that they will do. >> Do we have a way to um I guess track future? How many

027when they've completed something here and that's their kind of career track, how many of them are actually doing that in real life when they leave? >> So there is a there is a survey that we do um CTE is required to do and you're going to have to forgive me. I want to say it's two years after the students leave and we don't get a huge return rate on it but we try to see where the students are at after they leave us. >> Yeah. To see if if they actually stay on that track or if it spurs them to go somewhere else. >> Well, if they're like my children, they go down 10 different paths until they land until they've spent my money in college and they've they've moved back home a couple of

028times. [laughter] >> So, and that's at the back of my mind. >> Yes. And then and so that's why I'm so passionate about the work I do to save people money and time. So um so all all of my kids are fine now. They're all in careers. [laughter] So >> Dr. K, I have a question. >> At what point is it in the middle school and the wheel because I can't remember where when they're exploring careers and they're shown like you know what's the demand in the market for that career as well as the return on their investment as far as pay goes. is that where they're kind of shown that so they know where to maybe they want to focus. >> So the career investigation class is really about giving that them that exposure

029to different careers. And I'm I'm really excited to tell you about something at the is the very last slide before I get to questions in this presentation about something we're adding at the middle school to give our students even more exposure. And um so that's what we've tried to do that in career investigations. And they take um they take surveys on what they're interested in, their um their passions, their talents or things like that to kind of find a pathway too. Um those career interest inventories during that career investigations class. And our school counselors come in and work on their academic and career plans during that class. So now let's talk about the changes from the state because when we created the strategic plan we were under CCCRI do you guys remember that college career

030and civic readiness and we spent a lot of time on that. Well that's gone away and now we have the 3E framework and most of CT falls under employment and so tonight I'm going to focus on employment and you've heard Dr. Skinner, Lisa Beasley. Several people talk about the 3E framework, but I'm hoping I'm going to give you a little more information tonight. So, this is the point value system. Remember when I told you CT completer was that student who completed a CT sequence and then um met the graduation requirements. So, for a student to um be recognized on this through this criteria, they have to be a CT completer. So they have to do a sequence and meet their graduation requirements. So then um point values are assigned to those [clears throat] students depending

031on if they participate in a high quality work-based learning experience or if they earn an industry credential that's approved by the state and recogni again recognized by industries. And there's a difference between a industry recognized credential that state approved in a high demand field and one that's not in a high demand field. And the Virginia Office of Education and Economics is the one who tells us if it's in a high demand field. They have a website. It's a live dashboard that kind of tells you where those high demand fields are. So you have to consider all of that when you're computing these numbers for each student. And as you can see, it gets more rigorous as you go along. So the state made some changes to high quality work-based learning. It used to be were

032service learning, job shadowing, our credit for work experience course, all of those fell under work-based learning experiences. Our internship, mentorship, co-op classes, all of that with CCCRI. Well, with the high quality work-based learning, the state has set up criteria that um is a is more rigorous. And so the some of the workbased learning experiences we were counting for CCCRI no longer count. So these are the criteria that a work-based learning experience has to meet in order to be considered high quality. We have to have a partnership with a a business, an organization or a post-secondary uh content specific expert. It has to be connected to a CTE course. That's very different. A lot of ours weren't connected to CTE courses. Um, and so they it has to be connected to really what career they want

033to go into. The five C's are important. You have to have evidence of critical thinking, collaboration, citizenship, communication, all of those five Cs. The creative thinking piece too. And then it has to have some kind of industry credential, national certification or an attainment of a post-secary credit to be considered a high quality work-based learning experience. And finally, they have to work with a business partner or someone at the post-secary level to get feedback and it has to be a 90 um 90 hours minimum of participation in it. So those are the criteria we are looking for and we have to apply for that for each experience to make sure it meets these criteria and all of the workbased learning experiences we counted before a lot of those have gone away. These are the six that

034are recognized as high quality. Our clinical experiences are those that are done in our medical classes at Brutin Governor's Health Science Academy or at New Horizon's medical classes. the entrepreneurship. We have an entrepreneurship program here in York County that I'm very proud of and that that is like like one of my children because I love it. I love the entrepreneurship. But there are certain criteria and one of them is working with business partners and we do that in our program. We invite our business partners in to work with our students. So our entrepreneurship courses is pretty um is a pretty good course to count. Internships, that's where we have some work to do. our co-op, our internship and mentorship courses before that weren't tied to CTE. We have to work on connecting them to CTE

035courses and we are in the we are in the process of doing that now. We are doing some heavy duty work and so you're going to have to see me again probably before the end of the year because I'm going to come back and share some of that that we're doing. Registered apprenticeships and supervised agricultural experiences we don't have in York County yet. And those are other areas we're investigating and looking to into getting and school-based enterprise. I'm going to share a little bit later our plans for that in the presentation. So now we'll talk about state approved industry recognized credentials. Uh the state used to have a extremely long list of state approved industry credentials and now they have gone back and they've worked with business partners and they've worked with [clears throat] college

036um community college representatives and they have come up with criteria for industry credentials as well. And you see I'm not going to read through all of these. You see them on the slide. You have them in your handouts. But they're very specific with what they'll approve. And right now they have provided a list to the Virginia Board of Education for approval. It is up for approval in March. It has been bounced back and forth a couple times. So I have no guarantee it will be approved in March, but we have a working list at the moment to work with as we start purchasing our industry credentials. What we do know is wise is not included on it for sure. Um and the other ones are kind of iffy. So, so these are the criteria. There

037are a couple I think that are very important because I do think this is really good work for our students. They do want this the credentials to be recognized by multiple industries to be portable across industries, states, regions, things like that. That's going to better serve our kids who are earning these credentials. They want them to have quality to have a third-party validation. So really intentional for our students when they go and apply for these jobs that credential means something to a larger audience. >> Could you explain you said purchasing the credentials? >> We we explain that. >> We do. We we purchase the test for um our students for a lot of these credentials through our Perkins grant. And so um we have set aside funds for that from the from the Perkins grant

038from the um federal government. And then we have some state grant money as well that um we use to purchase industry credential tests like the FAA pilot license and things like that. >> So we pay for the test for the student to take. >> Thank you. >> And now they're changing the career clusters. So [laughter] [clears throat] So where we had the 17 career clusters before, right you see here are 12 that they've changed the name. There's not a whole lot of difference in them. they just changed the names to make them more compatible with the current market. And so um agriculture, food and natural resources is now agriculture. Um information technology is now digital technology. So those types of things. Okay. So it's 12 of them had a name change. These were changed a

039[clears throat] little bit more. Government public administration is now combined with law, public safety, corrections and security. [snorts] and it has become public service and safety. Okay. [clears throat] Public science and human services is now one cluster healthcare and human services. And then the STEM cluster that has been so popular over the years they have removed the engineering piece and put it into advanced manufacturing and the other part has gone away. Those more like core contents. >> It's not called STEM anymore. >> Okay. >> No, I mean we still have STEM but it's not a cluster. the cluster, >> right? >> So, if I'm doing my math right, I think we have 14 now. So, um with the changes that they made and Dr. Butler, if you if that's not right, just don't call me

040out. Okay. >> Was there a reason why they dropped um the engineering term? >> So, the engineering has been placed into advanced manufacturing. When you go into each of these updated clusters, you'll see subclusters within them. And engineering is a subcluster within advanced manufacturing. And this work was put together by advanced CTE. And that's a group of state leaders, business leaders, just they all came together and they made some changes. And if you if you go to the website and you look at the new career cluster framework, it is very intricate and it has a lot of pieces. Um I didn't want to overwhelm you with that tonight, but the visual is um it's really broken down to specific subclusters. Okay. So now the most exciting part of the presentation is what we're doing here

041in York County. So first I want to start with our dual enrollment CTE courses. Right [clears throat] now we have three. We have our unmanned aircraft systems that is a sequential to our aerospace technology course. [laughter] Aerospace [clears throat] technology is not dual enroll but unmanned aircraft systems is and the students can get uh um a college they can get through VPCC they can get college credit. They can also get their FAA pilots license through this. And it started out with 12 kids at TAB High School that it began with a grant we applied for a few years ago and it has now we're at two schools and we're up to 39 students this year with and I [clears throat] think it will continue to grow and so it's a very popular course. Um New

042Horizons offers the course dually enrolled as well. [clears throat] We also have Virginia teachers for tomorrow one and two. Our students who finish this course take the pair pro exam and then they can be a pair educator in our schools and continue on with their education. [clears throat] And that's those stackable qu uh credits that uh credentials that that were on a previous slide about industry credentials. That's building up those um credentials and c certifications and degrees towards a career to get more and more um experience and opportunity. And then we also have the EMT or emergency medical technician course through VPCC that our students can take as well. >> How many uh do we have enrolled in the Virginia teachers? >> So that number is I believe we have eight this year. It started

043with four and um I think right now we're teaching it virtually because we have a small number but we we're going to continue to promote it. It's an important class. It's a great opportunity for our young people and so we're gonna we're going to keep working on that one. But this year, I believe we have eight and um we had one of [clears throat] the students make 100% on their pair of protests. So yeah, so that was good. Um so I'm excited about this one as well. [clears throat] This is our um environmental science and maritime studies pathway we're building in the York zone. Now, you know, Yorktown Elementary was our math, science, and technology magnet since 2006. And so, it's our magnet school at the elementary level that focuses on those um those content

044areas. And in 2019, it became a project lead. We actually used grant funds from a former DODIA grant uh STEM grant that we had that put maker spaces into elementary and middle schools. We also made um York Elementary a project lead the way school. And then with our current uh DODIA grant that we received a couple of years ago and grants that the school itself has applied for, we have offered more select environmental science and maritime experiences with some of our business partners like Mariners's Museum, James River Association, um definitely VEMS um for our students there at Yorktown Elementary and really we we offer some across the division elementary schools, but We have a stronger focus at Yorktown Elementary and we work with those partners and they have provided specialized teacher training with um singing

045and identifying sea creatures and it's just a lot of fun. They actually go on field experiences and things like that. So we had that going at Yorktown Elementary. So when we got our grant 2023 to create this pathway in the York zone, we had a solid foundation at Yorktown Elementary to build on. Then we then we started looking at that bridge, Yorktown Middle School. And um last year we had our first project lead the way classes at Yorktown Middle School. We had a design and robotics class and an agriculture and natural resources class. I believe is the name of it is something very close if I got that wrong. And so that's been at Yorktown Middle School last year and this year and we'll continue to build that program. And again, we were able to

046use grant funds for some of those specialized experiences. And so now we're working on York High and you've already started that work when you approved in November two new classes for York High School for a future maritime academy we would like to build there. and it will it will complete that full pathway in the York zone that and students from other zones can come as well just like the governor's health science at Brutin or the school of the arts at Brutin. Um we will have that maritime academy at York High School and we're really really excited about that. And here's the school-based enterprise one. I'm I'm really don't want to say it again, but I'm excited about this one, too. So, um, this one we got a $50,000 K12 innovation grant from the state and

047we knew that we needed to work on high quality work-based learning experiences. And so, we chose school-based enterprises. And what we've what we're going to do with that money, and we've already started shopping, you can see the trailer down in the corner. We're going to purchase a mobile [clears throat] school-based enterprise that high schools will be able to use in their marketing classes, entrepreneur classes, econ and f personal finance can even contribute where students will design, create, plan um a business for their school. So, let's take um TAB High School. They'll be able to design, create, and sell TAB spiritware to the whole zone. They can go down to the elementary family nights. They can go to the middle school events. They can go to Bailey Field events. And they can get the whole community

048involved. And it's a it's a school-based enterprise that will make money for the school. And each high school will have the opportunity to use this trailer and the resources we're purchasing for the creation of the materials. And so, we're really excited about it. We've been shopping for the trailer. We're looking at wrapping it. We will start curriculum writing um in between April and July and we've we're lining up some teachers to help us to add to our current curriculum and those marketing and business courses so that we can add this piece into it. And then in August we'll train teachers on the school-based enterprise model. [laughter] And then this is the opportunity I talked about earlier at the middle school to give our middle schoolers more exposure. We have um we Hampton Roads Workforce Council

049reached out to us and they offered us a part of their grant for us to put a goatee lab in one of our middle schools. And the goatee lab is is a highly equipped lab from the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research. They they manage these labs. They design them. They give you the curriculum, they train your teachers, and we partnered with Hampton Roads Council to be able to they're paying for the equipment. And so we we the um Goate Tech people gave us a list of the equipment we needed. We worked on getting that. Hampton Roads is is is working with us on that. And our middle school students will be able to have exposure to the skills you see covered on this slide. There are modules for each of these areas. So, precision

050machining, electrical engineering, there are supplies for all of that. And then um all of this is very important. Welding, how how exciting is that for our middle school students? Um we all of these careers require students to be very pre precise in their measurement. So metrology is taught in it where that's the study of measurement because it's very important when you're engineering or you're working on precision machining that you measure correctly. I reminded my husband of that when I saw the front porch you put on our house. But um [laughter] but the measurement is critical. We don't want our kids building bridges that are going to collapse. So, so that is really exciting that our kids will have that exposure because it connects well to math, right? And what they're learning in math. So, those

051are just some of the projects we're working on and we're [clears throat] staying pretty busy with CTE and I am open to take any questions. >> Do we know where Go is going to be? >> Oh, yes. It will be at Grafton Middle School. and we are open to future [clears throat] partnerships with other businesses because I would like to put um more Goate Tech Labs out there. We'll see how this one goes and um it's a great opportunity for us in the future. [snorts] >> Any other questions? >> Great presentation. >> Awesome stuff. >> Great stuff. I just want to say that I commend you and your team because I've been working with you for the last two years >> developing these curriculums and uh seeing this programs actually bearing fruit. >> Yes. >>

052Because we were sitting and wrecking our brains sometimes like how do we do this and we've done it. >> Definitely. Definitely. >> You guys have done really great jobs. >> I appreciate that. It's a great team. They're hard workers. We're missing Jennifer um but we have a new coordinator coming on um this week. Wonderful. Thank you. Looking forward to >> Yes. I'll be introducing her to you. Yes. >> Very well. Any other questions? >> No. >> Okay. So, we're going to move to the updates of FY27 programs of study. Dr. Carol. [snorts] >> Yes, sir. So, board members, as you recall, uh the FY27 program of studies was approved by you in November. Since that time, VDOE has issued updates to the science standards requiring revisions to the program of studies to ensure alignment with

053these changes. [clears throat] Dr. Karen Kaggel is going to continue presenting to us and give us more information on that subject. Dr. Kaggel, >> like a long presentation. >> Well, thank you Dr. Carol and hello again everybody. And you know, I could not leave tonight without sharing the program of studies. And um as you know, occasionally I have to come back to you and give you updates from the state or from some of our programs and we have to make some changes for the following year. Whereas we try to get it done early, sometimes that doesn't always work out. So let me just give you a little background of information of why I'm coming to you tonight. So right after you approved the FY27 program estates in November, the Virginia Board of Education approved some

054expa expanded high school science SOS that need to be implemented next year. So what happened with with that was there were 11 high school science courses that did not have um high quality standards. A couple of them had curriculum guides or or some guid a little bit of guidance to them, but they did not have high quality standards. And those standards are very important for us to have consistency across the state with what's being taught for us to be able to purchase highquality um materials for our students. and our the science uh group up at VDOE also worked with the CTE group and with business partners and got feedback from a lot of stakeholders because they know how important science is to the world of work. And so you'll see a lot of this embedded

055in these new science standards. So um it was 11 high school science courses, environmental science was one which we have and then there were 10 second level science courses that were impacted. And what you see on the right hand of the screen are our courses and our program of studies that were impacted. Now with the guides they had previously given us our environmental science, ecology and biology too. We call it anatomy. We have some changes to do in curriculum writing but the rigor, the expectations, the alignment was there. So [clears throat] we're very fortunate with those three classes. the other two classes we need to revisit based on the changes from the state because with these high quality um standards of learning they are tied to graduation requirements. So the 11 courses that they have

056written these for, they approve for students to get their standard or advanced studies diploma and if they're not within what's off what's approved by the state now, they don't count for graduation requirements. So we had we had to get our team together. So for marine science, it previous what we had in York County, I don't know when marine science came about in York County. I don't have the history of that but [clears throat] it fell under biology and um so now with the state it falls under earth science oceanography is aligned to the marine science but it's oceanography it's not the marine science it's oceanography that is the closest alignment we can find with the new standards is the is earth science to oceanography so we are we are proposing to change that name will

057change um the curriculum will align it with what the state has given us so that it meets the graduation requirements for those students taking it. Um the marine the marine science we previously had was a weighted course. This one will [clears throat] not be weighted. It we have five different um weighted courses that our students can take when they get to this level. We have less unweighted courses for our students who are not looking to take weighted courses. So this will not be a weighted course but and and the oceanography is offered in the schools in the regions around around us and [clears throat] it's not weighted in the any other school division. So it's not it's not a weighted course in any other school division. So we'll um we'll change the name. We'll align

058it with oceanography. Our textbook does align. We'll have to do some curriculum writing. I have a budget for curriculum writing which will take care of the curriculum writing um for that and that way it will really align with what the VDOE has put out there. Okay. The second course is atmospheric science. There were no previous guides [snorts] for academic [clears throat] uh for atmospheric science. There are no new standards for at um atmospheric science. If we keep this in our program of states, it will not count towards graduation requirements, meeting the graduation requirements. So, [clears throat] we are proposing to remove that. But we have already talked with our science leads about proposing some other courses in science that the state has written standards for things like um gene genealog [clears throat] genetics, genetics, a

059um astronomy, not astrology, astronomy. um there were a few other ones that they have um have have out there that we don't have that we think our kids may be interested in. So we would like to maybe come to you and propose once we talk to students and teachers you know what some other science alternatives could be for our students. Um so we are proposing to remove that one. So, this information will come before you at the regular session this month for you to um approve. Okay. Any questions on that? >> Thank you, Dr. [clears throat] >> All right. Student student attendance update here. Do we have >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Povich. So, tonight we're going to hear from Dr. Aaron Butler, director of student services. He's going to give his strategic plan update

060on supportive culture focusing on student attendance and uh you've asked for us to bring this to you quarterly. So this is for the uh the data that he has for the first semester. So Dr. Butler, >> Mr. Chairman, members of the board and Dr. Carol, thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on our strategic plan for supportive culture specifically for student attendance. The board will remember back in November, our department presented to give you the strategic plan update for FY25 for both um student attendance and for student behavior. Some of the things that we have focused on for FY26 include making sure that we were identifying those schools which needed additional support when it came to attendance interventions. We've been in the process of providing professional development for schools [clears throat] that need

061additional uh resources. And then finally, we've been trying to focus on target interventions for those specific students who struggle when it come to came to attendance. And there's a variety of reasons for that, but we tried to make sure that whatever interventions we were using um correlated with the needs of those students and the capacity of each school. And just for frame of reference, the Virginia Department of Education requires that we do report data back in several ways. So for chronic absenteeism again that's missing 10% or more of instructional days and that includes both excused and unexcused absences from school. Truency is when we acrew five or more unexcused absences from school. And then one of the things that Virginia Department of Education has been providing for the last couple of years has been flexible

062instructional time recovery. So that is where if a student um can miss miss some days from school and it can be excused. It could be they went on a college visit. It could be they had some type of illness. It could be that there was a bereavement in the family. [clears throat] They're allowed to recover up to 15 days when it comes to chronic absenteeism if they stay at least 3 hours uh for targeted instruction. That does have to be with a licensed teacher and it has to be in person and it could be after school or before school. And so that's been some of the things that we have to report now as a metric for recovering absences for students. So we look at the first semester for attendance data and this dashboard is

063also available um for it's [snorts] also available if we go to the strategic plan website on the school division site for the general public to see as well but I will show you some of the highlights from our first semester. One of the things I do want to tell the board is chronic absenteeism it is a target that changes. So as we acrew more days in the instructional year, it also it can reduce the number of days someone might be chronically absent. So while they might be chronically absent today, as we get closer to the 100th day of school, which is this week, once they hit 10, then if I was chronically absent because I have missed nine days after the 100th day of school, if I don't miss any more days, I am no

064longer chronically absent. So we look at that, but we still need to make sure we're providing correct interventions for our students. Do we track um the students who are identified as chronically absent or nearing that? Do we [clears throat] also track their uh academic success, their grades to see I mean the ones that are consistently absent or have an issue with absences, are we finding that the majority [clears throat] of them are struggling academically or do we have some who are doing just fine in addition to being absent? you know that they're maintaining or succeeding quite well. >> So one of the things that we we start using the check and connect program is because we wanted to see was there a nexus between students who because of attendance also had academic issues. So now

065our student connection coaches in our buildings. So when they pull students in for attendance issues they look at everything. They look at are they on time for graduation? They look at academics. Are they struggling or failing certain classes? And if they are having struggles, they'll make sure they're providing interventions for both the academic, they'll provide interventions for the attendance, but even if there's some behavioral [clears throat] issues, too, because sometimes there's a nexus between all three of those. So, we are trying to make sure we're tracking that, but not every student who has absences necessarily has an academic or behavior issue. That's why it's so important that we focus on those individual students in a case by case. I was just curious to get an overview of that if there's any way to present that

066as you know these these are the ones that we're identifying are having the absent issues or absence I should say issues and then you know this number this percentage is doing well maintaining and then not succeeding you know if we can see if there's a you know particular trend I think it's great that you're looking at individual >> [snorts] >> students who [clears throat] are struggling, but I'm curious of what that number is for your county. >> Mrs. Fairman, we'll look and see if we can get that readily readily available. >> I took that down so I can follow back up. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> So, when we look at the snapshot and like I was sharing before, you know, this this number changes. So, this is a live dashboard that we refresh

067every month. But if you look at unexcused absences, I'm going to go to the trend module. It'll show you that at the end of the first semester, [clears throat] um 23.13% of students um had unexcused absences this year, which was a decrease from where we were at the end of the year last school year was at 28.13%. So we have been seeing gains and improvement in this category. When we look at monthly attendance, we also see that monthly attendance has been higher than it was. So when we compare it to the end of last school year which was at 92.9% we can see it's at 94.35%. So we have been seeing an increase in both um overall daily attendance and an in a decrease when it comes to unexcused absences from school. When we look

068at our absences by day you can see there's a few peaks that did take place. We'll see that right before Thanksgiving break we did have a higher number of absences about 933 [clears throat] for that particular day. uh winter break we saw the highest at 13 uh 1,391. Uh and then we also had another little peak uh that was here on the 1219 2025 or 1410. So I'm trying I'm sorry this was this was the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm sorry. This was the Thanksgiving holiday at 1391 and then [clears throat and snorts] winter break was 1410 that and then we had a small um year right for the three-day weekend when the semester was preparing to change. and I will move to the So when we go get ready to look down at our particular schools.

069So I've made sure that this includes [clears throat] I'm so sorry this happened. We look at [clears throat] our elementary schools for the first semester and this is including um recovery hours for people that did choose to stay after school or before school for the three hours for instructional support. Um all of our elementary schools are right at the benchmark this year. The benchmark had reduced from 11% last year to 10%. We have one school that just slightly above that and then we have one that's right on the 10% benchmark. And I'll provide some information about the different strategies and approaches we are using. But our schools have been utilizing the tools that we've given them. They have been very active in trying to make sure they are addressing the concerns when it comes to

070attendance. Uh for our secondary schools, we have a few schools that are slightly above as well. And some of the reasons why we look at this for high school and for middle school nationally. That is one of the the struggles. We have elementary school students on a national trend. they tend to attend school on a more regular basis unless there's some barriers. Our high school students while they do like to attend school and as Dr. Kgo showed we have a variety of academic programs to make sure there's engagement there are some struggles that do happen at our high schools and so we have to be more a little bit more specific and targeted when it comes to interventions and I'll share some of those. One of the things I do want to point out is

071for York River Academy because their number of students is so low, sometimes their numbers tend to be higher than the benchmark, but it could only be it might be nine students out of their population which is causing it to be higher than the benchmark. So some of the things that we are doing to make sure that we're doing continuous improvement and action steps. So on a monthly basis, the two associate directors for student services which is Dr. Butler who's here this evening and Mr. Freeze. They partner up with the two associate directors in instruction which is Dr. Bolum and Dr. Sherlock. And they go out to each school and they review data. They look at attendance. They look at academics. They also look at student behavior and they try to see are there any trends

072or patterns that they can support the schools with. And by keeping that focus on that, they really have substantive conversations about interventions about any supports that they might need. And they do that for accountability as well. One of the things that I shared earlier is with the check and connect program that is a target intervention that's federally um been recognized because you focus not just on attendance but the whole child. So you're taking that whole holistic approach of looking at behavior, looking at grades and looking at attendance. We have several pilot schools that are working with that. We actually now have implemented a different layer for our school. So now we have four coaches in our division that work with our student connection coaches just as an extra layer for professional development but also make

073sure they understand how to look at the data, how to analyze the dashboard. So we are identifying the right students for check and connect at our pilot schools for allin funds. We were using that to fund some of our after school support for students. So we had to add some local funds and some additional grant funding for that. So all of our schools do have the capacity to provide that support for our students who need to recover time after they board school. [clears throat] We've been focusing on self-p profofessional development sessions that focus very target on how do we close gaps with our students who in certain populations due to barriers. It could be some of our students who f who um experience homelessness for McKenno. So what are some strategies that are appropriate and

074evidence-based to support those students? We also look at our high schools to see what are some of their issues. Is it disengagement? Is it not having a connection with postgraduation goals? What are some career type items that we can focus on to make sure they are receiving the supports they need to be successful? And then we continue to get support from the Virginia Department of Education. We have two coaches that work with us. One is stationed over at women Mary at the TTAC, the technical training assistance center, and one is at VCU. And when they come in, they meet with our team, and not only do they have conversations, but they provide us resources. They'll talk about there's certain conferences coming up that really focus on evidence-based practices. If there's speakers that are coming in,

075uh last year they were able to bring in for us one of the specialists from the state that really focuses on trauma-informed care to talk about these are ways that you can support our students who have experienced trauma and these are some things that we can do at the school-based level and they also talk about how we should make appropriate referrals to our partner agencies in the community for mental wellness and different things. So they provide a lot of training. They also provide leadership training to say that you know it's good that we have resources but if our leaders who guide our schools and who guide the division aren't aware of things and don't ask certain questions then our students don't access that wealth of knowledge that we have. So they really focus and ask

076very pointed questions on how are we supporting students, how are we training staff and how are we providing leaders what they need to be successful and so we benefit from their expertise. Um so that's your strategic plan update. Um, and I'm available for any questions that you might have. >> Yes, Dr. Butler, I actually have a question regarding the attendance [clears throat] data. I know that we have four schools. I mean, fifth would be that we're over the benchmark. Uh, how how can that get us in trouble in any ways like having that many? So what it goes into is the information for chronic absenteeism feeds into the overall school performance uh framework that the state um adopted last year. And as you know all of our high schools, the four high schools and I

077believe YA as well received distinguished ratings from the state when it came to the school performance and so it does feed into that. Um it was because they focused on attendance as well as academics and readiness that those schools received that rating. It could cause them to fall back to on track. So that's why it's important that we focus on it, but not just because of the rating. We want to focus on too because we want those students to graduate and have access to a quality pathway when it comes to career enrollment or education. So that's one of the things that we are keeping a focus on that. I want to thank uh Dr. Shannon Butler, Mr. Freeze because they have been very active in going out and trying to provide support for schools. Not

078telling them what to do, but just saying these are resources and are you looking at the right individuals when it comes to interventions? Are you providing the right type of support for those particular students? >> And those absences affect the funds that we get also. Correct. >> Now, that I would have to look into. I don't I think we that we get our funds. No, ma'am. Could we get our funds just through our ADM for our enrollment count after the first 10 days of school and with enrollment and Mr. Bolan can probably get more information. >> So, it's just it's just the beginning. It's not throughout the the year. The daily attendance >> the ADM enrollment is primarily provided by ADM. Now there's some specific enrollment I mean specific funding that's provided through remediation efforts

079um or at risk efforts um but our our primarily state funding is provided through ADO. >> Okay. >> And board members I'd remind you that [clears throat] as as Dr. Butler mentioned earlier in the presentation it's it's based on 10% of your [snorts] enrollment. So as you stay and if you if you hit a good streak then you can drop off that roll. So uh for for the most part it's every 10 days we see a a a dip and so day 100 I think is tomorrow or Wednesday. So those those numbers are going to change and may change dramatically in a couple of days. So it's one of those few statistics where you can actually gain ground as the year goes on. Uh, so that's a that's just an individual and interesting piece to

080that. >> I figured at this time >> I figured it out on 180 days, uh, a child could miss uh, 32 days through the school year if they're sick or whatever else and m use that 15 days of making up and they'd still be under the 10%. So, I think I think it's pretty generous and that we can work around a lot of issues that kids might have, >> right? And we hope that our students enjoy coming to our schools because of the quality instruction we have in chronic illnesses or something like that, you know? >> Right. Yeah. For 100, you're correct. It'll be 18 [clears throat] days and then if they were to miss more and then recover, you're correct. Why isn't there a reporting that we're required to do um through truency to

081the state like to the to the courts once they miss so many days too? It goes before the judge. >> So only for unexcused absences, right? >> So so if they have one because like I said we have some students that might get an illness and they might be out for 5 days and then they might have death in the family and then we >> circumstances right >> and then of course our military connected families they get if mom or dad are coming back from deployment they're also able to get that. So even though those are all excuses and those are all valid reasons to miss school, you could easily rack up more than you know 10 days by doing that. >> So you cannot be truent but you can be chronically >> everything counts

082for >> everything caps in there. >> Now I have a question um with the students who have chronic illnesses I know from being a past homebound tutor for that. How do those numbers tie into that? because obviously they're not meeting with a homebound tutor every single day. We're only contracted for the number of hours that are considered required or allowed. How does that [clears throat] work with the absence issue? >> So, the state excuses those students from the chronic absenteeism requirement because either a doctor has approved so many days of homebased instruction and they know that's going to look very different than a student who's healthy is going to school under an everyday basis. So it we have to still count that but they get coded differently so that does not impact chronic absutism. >>

083Thank you Dr. Butler. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate your update on this uh quadrrenial review process. >> Yes. Uh so now we have uh Dr. Wendy Nichols, associate director of human resources to provide an update on the annual compensation review and the quadenial quadrrenial review process. >> It's a mouthful, isn't it? >> It really [clears throat] is. that one. >> So, this is my second time presenting on quadrrenial review to you. So, good evening, Chairman Pyovich, Dr. Carol, and members of the board. Um, tonight I'll be presenting an update on our non-licensed staff compensation as reviewed annually through our quadrrenial review process. The information relates to highly effective talent, which emphasizes our commitment to attracting and retaining highly skilled, compassionate, diverse, and committed team members by providing personalized, differentiated pathways [clears throat] for professional growth,

084improvement, and advancement. The four focus areas for highly effective talent are compensation, recruitment, retention, and professional growth. um and they you know very often are related to one another. Um 80% of our um of compensation and benefits makes up 80% of our budget. Um which is important to always reiterate. 60% of that is for our licensed staff and 40% of that is for our non-licensed staff. So here are the two ways in which we review um compensation. So all YCSD staff salaries are reviewed annually. Annual cost of living increases um and step compensation is reviewed annually [clears throat] by the finance department and it's determined by the state and local funding through the budget process. That's for all YCSD staff every year. An additional salary review, the quadrrenial review is done every year but in

085groups four years. So this year we have [clears throat] reviewed group three. So I'm going to go into more detail on that process but then Dr. Carol and Mr. Bowen will share you know some of the findings from that. So non-licensed staff compensation is adjusted through this quadranial review process. They're reviewed with all staff annually, but they are their job descriptions, additional compensation is reviewed through the quadranual review. And I also want to note that every year we include in this particular review bus drivers, dispatchers, [clears throat] um bus assistants, custodians, and paras. So why is it important for us to do this process? So quadrronial compensation, it's important because it strikes that practical balance between stability and responsiveness. It's important because it keeps pay competitive in a changing market. Labor markets don't shift overnight,

086but in 3 to four years, they do. So the the quadranial review allows us to compare salaries to current market benchmarks, um to adjust for inflation, regional labor shifts, and hard to fill roles. Um, it helps us to prevent compensation from quietly falling below market value, which then impacts our retention and overall staff morale. Um, without scheduled review cycles, pay structures will start to lag um until there's some sort of crisis or we start to see a lot of positions become vacant. Um, another reason it's important is it promotes internal equity and pay fairness over time in inequities creep in due to market adjustments for new hires, promotions, reclassifications, compression between new and then experienced employees. The 4-year review process provides the structured opportunity to identify pay compression and inversion. Um, it ensures similar work

087is compensated for equitably. um and it corrects inequities before they become a problem. Um it supports budget planning and fiscal stewardship. Um from a governance standpoint, quadrrenial reviews allow compensation to be planned and phased in. You know, we can look to see where we might be a little bit low and sort of think ahead to how we might want to address that. Um, it avoids reactive one-off fixes that then disrupt the whole process again and then we're we're not balanced. Um, it aligns with multi-year financial forecasting and strategic plans. Um, also it strengthens transparency and trust because every year, you know, we come in, we share the process, um, we share which group we're working on and then when changes are made, we communicate with them as well. So what do we do in a

088quadrrenial review process? Um and it starts early in the fall and it begins with a position analysis. Um our ultimate goal is to maintain competitive salaries for all YCSD staff members. Um for positions in the quadrrenial process, this will ensure that our salaries are within 5% of the median average as compared to other um education um organizations and business. Um the quadranial re review process has three main components. Um first is that position analysis. That's where we audit job descriptions for alignment to industry standards, actual work performed and salary ranges. One of the things that we did this year um was the compensation um Amber D. Roger, she sent out job descriptions to all of the individuals who were in the quadranial review group three to have them look at that job description to see

089is it accurate? Is there anything that um maybe hasn't been included? You know, encourage them to meet with supervisors, look at that job description as well. and even allowed them to send in um similar job descriptions in other organizations so we could start to see, you know, do we have someone um doing the same job as someone else and not compensating them or do we have this a job title that might be the same but the work looks very different. So really getting into um a deeper level of analysis. Um once all of that is done, there's a data review. Do our job descriptions align with the work being done um and the industry standard? How does our currently how does our current salary compare? Do we have internal and external equity and what adjustments

090need to be made? Finally, recommendations are developed and taken to our superintendent and his cabinet for review um to determine budget um implications. Then the adjustments come to you. So, I believe Dr. Carol's going to be talking to you a little bit more, like I said, about what we found [clears throat] and and how we may need to address that this year. And so, as I've mentioned a few times, we are doing group three this year, and those are positions assigned to grades 22 through 28. And next year, we'll do group four, and that completes the quad, and then we'll start over. So, as to not just read off to you all of the jobs, this is a quick look at group three. Um, [clears throat] this represents about 60 positions, or should I say

09160 or so job titles. There may be more individuals who fill these jobs um than just the 60, but 60 job titles, job descriptions have been reviewed using that process to determine um where we are. And this doesn't include the ones we do every year, bus drivers, bus assistants, dispatchers, and paras. So, what's next? Um for budget driven um you're going to hear you know from Dr. Carol and Mr. Bowen um what they recommend um budget will be adjusted as needed and then whatever is determined we'll communicate with those employees and make the changes needed on our end for human resources. What our next steps are is we are constantly reviewing jobs. Um we are looking at teaching positions [clears throat] and non-eing positions to look to see are we having um good retention, strong

092retention, are we having a lot of turnover and then digging in to determine is compensation a reason or what what are the factors? Um and then we continuously provide opportunities for staff input to see you know what is impacting retention and morale in the school division. So, that was much quicker than last year because you've had this before. Um, but do you have any questions about this year's quadrrenial review before you get the actual what came from it? >> Sounds good. Thank you, >> Dr. Thank you so much. Now, we are moving to a fun [clears throat] part of the evening. >> Everybody goes budget. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Povich. [clears throat] board members and staff, it's my privilege to present along with Mr. Bowen uh the FY27 superintendent's proposed budget. I first

093want to thank Mr. Bowen and his finance team uh for the many hours they spent assisting to prepare this budget. They sifted through 295 different uh requests from staff and board members and community members and those requests totaled $11.3 million for the ones where a value was attached to those. So I want to thank them for doing that work and their assistance in analyzing. Um, I also want to thank the cabinet and executive leadership team for their assistance in analyzing their budgets as well as assisting in the budget development process. Additionally, our principles and staff and community for their input and suggestions. So, board members, as I begin tonight, I want to remind everyone of the core values uh we have in YCSD. They should be very familiar to you now. These serve as our

094fundamental commitment to serve our community with excellence. These values, integrity, engagement, growth, innovation, and safety support the planning, decision making, and work m decision- making and work responsibilities for our organization. Additionally, I'd like to talk about my values and beliefs about and the importance of a wellexecuted Public education is vital to the American experience. It's integral to and undergirds the two major systems we live within democracy and capitalism. A well-educated populace is necessary to create create the continuum of civic involvement starting with just being a member of a well-informed electorate all the way to being an elected statesman. Also, well educated and prepared students contribute to the economic production of a community and the nation as a whole, as well as positioning themselves for personal financial success and independence. So, public schools are economic engines

095for their communities, producing students that will enlist in the military, enroll in higher ed, or go directly into employment. Therefore, every dollar spent on public education is an investment in both our civic and economic systems to keep them healthy. And it is our job to be good stewards of taxpayer funds that make that investment possible. So, a little context here. Given that the majority of York County households do not have school-aged children in the home, there needs to be an understanding that the schoolhouse no longer resembles what many of our residents remember from their days as students. And this is a real York County picture here. [clears throat] In the 50s and 60s, public education centered almost entirely on the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic. The materials were almost all paperbased. The curriculum was

096narrow. Instruction was oneizefits-all. and the expectations placed on schools were narrow and academic. Now, tonight you got examples from uh Dr. Butler and Dr. Kagel that reflect today's educational landscape. It is far more complex, demanding, and we're held accountable to a higher level than we used to be. Schools operate in an entirely different world. So while there are those who might say we should only teach the basics, employers and our parents expect more. [clears throat and cough] We expect and need graduates who have developed critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and civic responsibility. All elements outlined Virginia's profile of a graduate. Modern curriculum spans STEM, world languages, CTE, fine arts, digital literacy, financial literacy, and specialized pathways that prepare students for a global technology-driven economy. And critically, today's schools must also meet state requirements that didn't

097exist in prior generations. One of the most significant is MA statemandated online testing. Unlike the paper and pencil experience many adults remember, even for assessments like the SAT, Virginia now requires students to complete standards of learning or the so test online. This begins as early as fifth grade where 11year-olds must be able to type full paragraphs for the online writing so keyboarding proficiency, digital navigation, and comfort with computer-based [clears throat] tools are no longer optional skills. They are required for state accountability. This means that access to devices isn't a luxury. It's a prerequisite for students to successfully participate in statemandated assessments and to develop the digital fluency expected of all Virginia graduates. And while there are concerns about excessive screen time, they are valid and shared by educators, including me. The issue is not whether

098students use devices, but how. At the same time, the responsibilities placed on public schools have expanded dramatically, starting with infrastructure and staffing to address safety and security. But schools also now support mental health and well-being, growing English learner and special education populations, students experiencing housing instability, behavioral and traumainformed supports, and a wide array of family services that simply didn't exist or were ignored in earlier decades. This expanded mandate, along with the staff and tools and technology required to meet it, must be reflected in our investment decisions. And in that environment of increased expectation and accountability, YCSD has thrived. All York County School Division schools remain fully accredited and also earned ratings of distinguished or on track, making YCSD the only school division in region 2 to have all schools meeting or exceeding expectations. We also

099enjoy thirdparty recognition of excellence in our niche and US news uh ratings as well as receiving our third blue ribbon in as many years and we are now four years having the standing of purple star division. So board members, at our November regular meeting, I shared during my superintendent report some graphs that illustrated our academic performance as a school system and how we exceeded third party organizations expectations based on both our socioeconomic levels and based on our funding. I'd like to share again this scatter plot on our performance based on funding. This example was only uh fourth grade reading, but as you know from Dr. Skinner's recent presentations on accreditation and accountability. This is indicative of our performance across the board. The red dot is the only thing I've added. It marks the intersection of

100the state average school uh so scores and state average funding. All of our schools are considerably to the left and up from the red dot indicating significantly better performance at a lower cost. It is undeniable given our placement on this graph that we are doing it better and for far less than the rest of the state. I also stated in that report that we would only be forwarding new budget items that were mandated or invest in our staff through compensation and training and our students through enhanced programming or staff positions that could advance us in improving their educational experience. And for those who would say that we waste tax dollars, I would remind them that we exist permanently under constrained funding that causes a constant economic efficiency that prompts us to continuously eval evaluate whether

101we are getting the most out of our resources. You'll see a few examples of that tonight. And I'll be the first to say our state funding is not adequate. And I'll provide specific examples later in the presentation. and an unfair share is placed on localities. However, at the same time, part of that state funding formula sets expectations and relies on localities to contribute. Part [clears throat] of tonight's presentation addresses practices of the past where we've had to solely or overly rely on end-of-ear funding to purchase necessities such as textbooks, buses, technology, and building maintenance. I think we all agree that these components are so important to our performance. The [clears throat] funding for these things needs to be provided for in a stable and predictable manner. Questions we ask during this process include, will additional

102positions or funds improve the chances for better reading, math, or attendance outcomes? You'll see new points of focus here tonight. And we asked the question, is there a better way to utilize positions or repurpose those already approved funds? You'll see some of that here tonight. And during the process, we also plan workforce reorganization to avoid uh having to create new positions. Those positions or duties are budget neutral, so you won't see those tonight, but they'll be highlighted in the pay plan that will be presented for approval in May. And one last thing before we get into the numbers, I want to remind the board why we are here tonight. It's my duty to kick off the process for creating a needs-based budget aimed at providing the conditions for continuous improvement. So, let's start with the

103revenue picture. And at this point, I'll bring in Mr. Bowen to preview. >> Thank you, Dr. Carol, members of the board. [clears throat] So, board members, this slide provides an overview of the projected revenue changes for FY27. We're anticipating state re state revenue increases of approximately 6.28 million or 5.5% increase based on the governor's proposed budget. This figure reflects funding for enrollment of 13,000 students which is 51 students fewer than we budgeted uh for FY26. Despite the enrollment decrease, the state's formula results in a modest increase driven largely by the rebenchmarking of education costs, the reduction in local composite index, and the statewide economic performance. On the local side, the county administrator has provided a working estimate of $1.2 million, representing a 1.8% increase in local support. We appreciate this continued commitment from our local

104government, as these dollars are essential for maintaining our core operations. Local miscellaneous revenue will decrease by 115,000 largely due to adjustments in expected receipts. These are things such as uh rental of our buildings and facilities, um uh self cell phone tire lease revenue, student tuition and fees, and indirect costs. Additionally, f federal revenue is projected to decrease by approximately 834,000, reflecting a winding down of grant funded programs and reductions in federal allocations. Altogether, these changes result in a project total projected revenue increase of 6.53 million or 3.3% increase. This this slide places this year's projected state revenue increase uh just over 6.28 million into context by showing year-to-year changes over the past seven fiscal cycles. State revenue increases have fluctuated significantly over the years. Some years such as FY 24 and 25 have brought substantial

105increases tied to rebenchmarking and statewide revenue growth. Other years such as FY23, we saw uh sharp decreases resulting in changes um in ch and changes uh over the over the years. We saw I'm sorry, sharp decreases resulting in challenges that required careful fiscal navigation. The difference between FY26 and FY27 is approximately 1.93 million, which is meaningful, but still far below the the growth seen in the two most recent rebenchmarking cycles. And what that means is typically what we see in in the odd years, fiscal years 21, 23 and 27, I'm sorry, 25 and 27. This is where we see a more significant um uh revenue increase from the state because this is the first year of the new bienium. And what has occurred during that process is the rebenchmarking of education costs where the state

106looks at the previous four years of cost. So increases in salaries, increases in materials and supplies and also there's an inflation factor. So typically we see those increases in the first year. However, um what can offset those increases is a change in the local composite index. Fortunately for York County, we've seen that local composite index decrease in each of those bian bianial cycles. So that's been good uh for us. Also, um as part of the rebenchmarking process, it's it's also important to understand that while the state has a funding formula to increase cost, they don't necessarily have to fund it. They only fund it with the money that they have available. And again, fortunately for the Commonwealth, we've seen um a strong economic um uh forecast. We've seen a strong economic um result over the

107past seven fiscal years. So board members, despite Virginia's strong economic position, the current state funding proposals include minimal new investments in K12 education. This slide highlights several structural issues within the state fund funding formula that continue to affect school divisions across the Commonwealth. Although the state has continued to see record revenues, only 285 million is allocated to K12 education in the governor's proposed budget, which is relatively small com a small commitment compared to the overall capacity of the state's revenue environment. And this is probably primarily a result in the state's uh conservative fiscal practice. Um just in from 25 to 26, we saw a half a billion dollars um in general fund surplus. Um and then as a result of the state's uh policy, a portion of that is required to be deposited into the

108rainy day fund. Um just moving into from 26 to 27, it's expected that $2.1 billion in cash will be carried forward due to projected surplus revenues and un unappropriated balances. So the state is still in a very much strong financial position. The standards of quality, which is the mechanism the state uses to determine staffing and funding levels, do not reflect the true cost of operating a modern public school system. Essential roles such as assistant principles, kindergarten pareducators, and many special education support positions are funded at unrealistically low levels. In many cases, the SOQ's only fund only a fraction of these positions required to safely and effectively run our schools. This leaves localities including York County responsible for covering the majority of the costs for these positions and are that are essential for instruction safety compliance

109and student support. So given the strong economy and the current revenue surpluses at the state level, we do remain hopeful that the legislative action during the session may result in adjustments that better support our schools. And as always, we will continue to monitor these developments and update the board [clears throat] as additional information becomes available. And this is uh what I was referring to. Um when we look at our elementary assistant principles, we're currently funded at 2.62 for FY26. That's expected to change to 2.58 positions. However, we currently employ 12 assistant principles. And similarly with the kindergarten pair educators, we're funded at 6.28 this year. Next year, it's supposed to decrease to 4.13 and we fund 40 kindergarten pairs. And this is a seven-year um picture of our county revenue. And um you can see

110that the county has been very consistent in their in their funding. Uh on average, we've seen about 1.67 million. And um we know that the county has been struggling on their side of the house. So we saw a reduction last year to a million dollars. However, we did receive that commitment of 1.2 for 27. So board members, you've seen this slide. Um, this is our history of average daily membership and [clears throat] I'll just bring you back to FY26 where our budget was built on 13,051 students. However, with the revised forecast that came out in in the governor's budget, we're expecting that number to be 13,18 students uh down 33 students. And furthermore, looking into FY27, Department of Education is projecting uh a student ADM of 13,000. So, as part of the budget process, we

111look internally to see where areas we can save. U one of those areas that we look at every year is of course staff attrition. This is um the the people who have provided employees, current employees that have provided their intent to either retire or they've indicated they will not be with us next year. So we look at those positions and we see where they are on the current salary scale and what step they are. So this is our projection of those um employees who are leaving us um that are high on the on the salary scale and we expect to hire somebody to replace them at a much lower level. So we we expect that to be $350,000 in conservative savings. IT department has looked internally to their systems to the number of systems that

112we have and this is the uh net savings in uh purchasing a a new system but cons but eliminating five or six different systems in in that process. So they have um as the as the net savings for that $315,000. And then with the VRS, this is the Virginia retirement system, we pay a percentage for each one of our employees as part of their pension. Uh and so the the the the rates for that um for the pension have gone down by about 2%. And as a result, we're projecting savings of $1.9 million. So the total decreases of expenditures $2.5 million. when you add that to the new revenue that that provides net net additional resources that are available for allocation and it's these net additional uh available resources that the basis of the superintendent's

113proposed FY27 operating budget is based and so we expect the net net additional resources to be nine almost 9.1 million >> Mr. Just a quick uh addition to it, but and I appreciate you sharing these numbers. Uh I've been addressed by the community before, how do we adjust our cost? Do we actually go and review our expenditures what we have? And I think just seeing here with the IT cost saving that you had the department actually search and find those savings for us and it's just tremendous that you guys done that. >> Thank you, Mr. Pitch. That's something that we go through every year. Uh we'll we'll look at um areas in the budget that um that may not be spent and so we look to reallocate those line items. If a particular area is

114not spending say a furniture budget and they haven't done so in quite some time, then we will reallocate those to others area areas of the budget. We ask that to be part of the budget manager's responsibility too to monitor those those line items that they're responsible for and what we give them an opportunity to reallocate those uh resources internally for themselves before it even gets to us. So um we do go through an annual evaluation of all all of our line items. >> Thank you. >> Right. So board members every year our [clears throat] schools and departments as I mentioned earlier submit funding requests. Unfortunately, we're not able to fund the overwhelming majority of the requests as my budget recommendation focuses primarily on our must haves, legal requirements, state mandates, compensation, and health insurance. Almost

115every expense should be able to be to support our strategic plan priorities as you see here. I just want [clears throat] to remind you of the priorities and their related icons because you're going to see them later in the in the presentation. So, collective commitment, supportive culture, highly effective talent, and future ready graduates. And some of them are actually combined because they overlap. As always, we align our budget items to these four strategic priorities, and I'll walk you through those needs by each priority. One caveat here. These are net investments in the operating budget. As you will see in the next slide, we have moved money or made new allocations that do not sit in the operating budget. Uh for example, uh you see collective commitment, you see zero there, but that's because uh we

116didn't put anything in the operating budget, but these first two items we are placing in the school nutrition fund. So I mentioned earlier uh that we try to maximize recurring dollars or repurpose funds. So here we're creating a position to supervise our school nutrition program to be in compliance with new state requirements. In addition adding an FTE for HVAC and plumbing work dedicated solely to our cafeteria kitchens which has a healthy balance. Uh I'm sorry. Both of these positions will be paid out of that nutrition fund which has a healthy balance and they should be easily supported annually by that fund. We also list here some hardware replacements. Uh we have typically funded these types of expenses through the state safety grant or endofear funds. Uh these capital funds will now move to our maintenance

117reserve fund to finance a regular replacement cycle. Uh the uh Valcom I think those pieces are seven years correct? >> It has varying components but master piece is seven years >> and then the fire detection >> Five years. Thank you. And here under the strategic priorities of both collective commitment and supportive culture those things that uh either directly or indirectly affect the learning environment. So, we have u an increase in our video services, grounds, maintenance, and deputies, our SRO deputies from the county of 251,000. Also, you'll remember that I've uh discussed with you about the new unfunded mandate from last year's legislation on indoor air quality. So, we're going to uh we need uh automation and repair. I'm sorry. Wait, I'm Yes. Yeah. So, we're going to need another HVAC technician who's certified, Ashray certified

118to be able to conduct that work for us. So, we're putting aside $100,000 for that. Also, we're going to need materials and supplies for the repairs uh [clears throat] that come from that. So, we're projecting $100,000. And actually connected to that also is the bottom line here, the utilities increase. there are new uh expectations on humidity in the building and that includes in the summertime. So, we expect our utilities to increase. So, all three of those $100,000 each and that is an unfunded mandate. Uh we also see clinic and athletic training supplies. uh we have uh you know over the last few years been another unfunded mandate is to have a certain amount of AEDs a certain amount of u epiens and some other related supplies uh the AEDs need battery replacements and uh and

119then the others are perishable and we have to replace them. So when you look at that type of thing, including AEDs now that have to be within three minutes round trip from an athlete, no matter what sport they're playing, we have to do a good faith effort to do that. So uh those are the types of things uh requirements that we have to answer. We also want to increase the high school athlet athletic directors to 12-month positions. Uh we have in recent years seen VHSL allow practice all all times of the year. They've opened that right up and so um those are they're necessary now to have those athletic directors in touch with what's happening with each of those teams. All right. And I missed the security platform. Thank you Mr. Bowen. So the security

120platform [clears throat] uh as an additional layer to our security, we are investigating a a uh security platform that allow us to take it to where employees uh can have instantaneous uh activation of our lockdown procedures if they see something uh that shouldn't be there. Also so that all of them can be notified uh quickly on top of the other systems that we have. And it goes all the way through uh actions to be taken, uh communications to be sent and through throughout the reunification process which we've built manually uh but the but it's been difficult in some respects and this would have a seamless u process through all that. So we're anticipating about 100,000 we're evaluating those vendors now. Uh and then in to finish this slide increase to the IT hardware budget. You'll

121remember the slide where I talked about things that are typically funded out of our endofear funding. Uh we have always and I mean always funded our technology through endofear funding and some state uh tech grants. And it's given the amount of hardware that we have that has uh should have a normal replacement cycle. We have not been able to predict on a regular basis when we can refresh things. I'll give you an example. The uh teacher workstations, we ran those out nine years to the point where they weren't they weren't going to work this fall uh because of deprecation of their Windows 10. And uh so we push as much as we can, but we also need a predictable uh process and refreshment cycle for things like IT hardware. And that includes servers, switches, projectors,

122desktop computers, wireless access units, UPS battery backups, and um those are some of the items and on top of our onetoone devices. >> Dr. Yes sir. Uh this hardware budget is going to be ongoing every year or this is one time. >> We've been building it up over the last three years. I think we've gotten 700,000. This would take us to one two 1.2 1.3 million. There will get to a point. I don't have that number off hand and Miss Pedigrew is not here. We do have to get to a point where then we have an annualized cost on our on our IT hardware. So >> and Dr. Carol, is there any hope that most of these unfund unfunded mandates could go away at all? Because I'm looking at if we have a downturn in

123the economy, >> we could be hurt. >> Your guess is as good as mine, sir. [clears throat] >> For years. >> Yeah. Um but we got hit especially hard this last summer. >> And this [clears throat] increase uh that's in particular because we would have to run units in the summer in the vacant buildings, >> right? because and we would have to certify to you and the public that we're doing so. >> Yes. >> All right. >> For mobile mitigation, >> right? >> All right. So, let's move to highly effective talent. So, for highly effective talent, I'm proposing [clears throat] we continue to invest in our people. U this year, uh we propose a licensed staff and non-licensed uh pay increase of 3.25% 25% across the board. Now the steps are different for the licensed

124and non-licensed. Licensed is about 1.5 and and the non-licensed 1.75. But then under the market adjustment, we uh we adjust the difference so that it average adds up to 3.25%. Dr. Nichols talked to you about the quadrronial review. I don't remember how many positions that involves, but it's going to take $141,000 to fund. Uh on top of that the annual comprehens uh compre uh compensation review for PAR educators, bus assistants and custodians. You heard Dr. Nichols mention that also. And so that would be an additional 2% for PAR educators, 2.5% for bus assistants and custodians, a grade increase of 5% to get them in line with our comparators. And the last thing is we are going to convert or we propose converting 41 special education para educators uh in self-contained classrooms and re uh relabel

125them as student support techs they technicians they will have their own job description and the reason for this is right now they're [clears throat] a specialed para educator uh they have the same u salary as any other fair educator [clears throat] and then we pay some supplements, but that's not readily noticeable when somebody's applying for a job. [clears throat] So, we're taking those supplements that they need to have for this job, wrapping them into the salary, and therefore it should be a more attractive position to apply for. So, um and to do and then there's also some related, uh [snorts] increase there. So, for the 41, it's going to cost $246,000 to do that. And then lastly, we do want to uh increase the self-contained teacher salary $1,000 and we have 25 teachers. So that's

12625,000. And then there's the health insurance premium. Um we have not been given our [clears throat] premium increase yet. We will uh or recommendation. We are self-funded. We do what we want to do, but we do listen to the consultants on how much we should increase that. And so the employer share and and also the employee share would be an a additional 10%. So the employer share would cost us 2.35 million to do that. I will tell you that in talking to some of our uh colleagues across the state, Mr. Bo and I are hearing everything from 16% to 27% increases that people are getting from their from their consultants or their insurance companies for for premiums. And I'm going to address this later in the uh in the presentation for future ready graduates. Uh

127we do have the end of all funding and we do want to convert some of these positions or adopt them into the operating budget. So we have two reading period two reading pairs at 66,000 a half a literacy coach at 50 and one assessment and compliance coordinator uh that would serve the um whole division at 87,300. Now, um I want to make sure that people understand that sometimes there's a thought that when we have a grant, we have some funding that comes from the outside that that then technically just always gets absorbed 100%. This is this adds up to $24,000. We were given $3 million over three years for all-in funding. So that annualizes at a million. So, it's really more of about a 20% grant absorption. And that's one of the um the u

128advantages to having grant funding is you get to try some things out. Um as long as you don't commit to it uh you know, sight unseen, then you get to decide which positions you don't want to add. And so that's something that we uh we've had requests and and we feel like it's a valid u item to fund. So, moving on to other future ready graduate requests. We've a there's been an ask for an ACC or an AP for Waller Mill Elementary. Waller Mill has grown from uh like 365 I think to over 500 students. There's also been a change in the level of socioeconomic level there. They are now a title one school and they're having an increase in special education students and for that reason there needs to be some more administrative support

129at Waller Mills. So we are proposing a position to either be an ACC or an assistant principal depending on our uh formula that we already have. We'll see how that works out. We'll sharpen that up before May. what we're looking at there. Also, special education teacher specialists. Um, right now we'd be uh placing them at TAB Elementary. Just to give you an example of the increased need there, uh, TAB had 43 special education [clears throat] child studies just this fall. That takes an awful lot of work. This is a [clears throat] position that wouldn't be tied to that particular school, but we uh we want to be able to have it to move around uh to other uh locations also as needed. We're also talking about a supplement for a special education uh lead coordinator.

130This is so that uh you know not every special education department works on compliance and instruction. This would be a lead to work with instruction and to also coordinate with our the larger instructional department. And as we get to college and career readiness, uh we've been fortunate with New Horizons. The tuition uh raise from them uh for our students is only $12,000 this year. Uh that's not written in stone, but we hope that it sticks around that level. Uh but that is something uh that could change in the future. Also, just some maintenance things. Uh we want to put $10,000 in for band instrument replacement uh for VHSL support. Uh the cost of officials at schools uh increases and we want to be able to help especially the high schools out on that. And then

131administrative mileage. We we've asked for more administrators and athletic directors to go to away games and we and we need to up that uh that [clears throat] mileage account and some miscellaneous items just to close out the expenses. uh we found out that our phone system myel uh is now out of business and so we we need to be able to replace that because uh they are at end of life and I uh we are we don't have support right for that so we need to get a new system so we're looking at 100,000 for that uh white fleet replacement that's another one of those things that we've uh you know depended on end ofear funds which that's fine to supplement but so that we can have a predictable refresh rate. We literally have some

132cars that are uh qualify as antiques. They are in the late 90s. Uh third, we have a premium increase from our Versa General Liability Insurance. And uh and uh we have you heard earlier from our uh new associate [clears throat] director for capital plans and projects. Apparently his his predecessor never had a budget for office supplies and and uh different items, so mileage and that type of thing. So, want to put a little bit there. And then we want to be looking at some legal support for Mrs. Barry. We continue to have an increase in contract work and other pieces. So, uh we're looking to [clears throat] spread some of that work around. So, that brings us to our total outlook uh for the 27 budget. So, to recap, you can see the total funds

133available along with the expenses for each of the priorities that I just listed. And uh so here's a restatement of our proposal based on the governor's budget. >> So So all in all, so all in all, the superintendent's FY27 proposed operating budget is just under 206 million, and that's an increase of of uh about six $6.5 million, which constitutes a 3.3% increase. So now let me share some other things with you as we look ahead. Number one, as stated before, we do anticipate additional funding from the state after at crossover. We may have a few additional requests or adjustments, but uh we'll be wanting to focus primarily on adding to the compensation percentage for all of our employees and increasing our reserves for sustainability. Secondly, we've got to dig into the health care and options

134for savings. We have struggled here for quite some time, mitigating any increased cost. The future of health care costs are only ra rising and we need to take some decisive action to reduce these costs and the burden on the division which inhibits us from improving our overall spending that includes compensation. Therefore, I've directed Mr. Bowen and Dr. rights to have our healthcare consultants create strategic options aimed at [clears throat] reducing our costs for both the division and our employees by at least $2 million. Whatever options that are created, we will evaluate for the final budget. Now, to realize that amount of savings will mean change. We enjoy great plan at peninsula leading prices and that change may require some hard choices in order to be able to afford it. Third, given the legislative activity we're

135seeing in Richmond right now, we will probably [snorts] be recommending some placeholder amounts to offset administrative costs if uh we anticipate if collective bargaining is mandated. We will definitely have increased HR and legal expense if that becomes the case. I've also directed Dr. Writes and Mr. bone to start dialogue with divisions who voluntarily started collective bargaining recently to ascertain what exactly what we could expect. We will bring uh that amount as a placeholder in May that could be moved to a reserve fund if the mandate is [snorts] not realized. Also still under consideration is a reorganization in our gifted services area that should be mostly revenue neutral but could improve our service de delivery. And also we also plan to provide a placeholder for lacrosse in case other factors are resolved leading to adoption as

136a VHSL sport. We've costed it out for a varsity boys girls uh varsity NJB boys and girls teams at all four schools. Startup costs are around $275,000 with about 50,000 recurring. This placeholder also could be moved to reserve funds if the other criteria are met. But I do want to be clear that is not a promise. That is not a that is not a guarantee. That is not a commitment. That is a placeholder if all the other factors that we've talked about in the past [clears throat] come true. >> So I'd like to review the calendar with you. Uh so uh February 23rd will be our school board public hearing. On the March 9th we'll have another school board work session. And on the 23rd, uh that's when the school board adopts the proposed budget.

137And then on the 18th of May, we work to adopt the operating budget for the division. So, um I also plan I want to make sure you're aware that I plan to send out a short uh one question survey to our staff this week [clears throat] asking for efficiency ideas that are not tied to a specific savings, but an undetermined amount. These types of efficiencies cannot be delayed until harder budget times as they may take time to evaluate or enact. This concludes my presentation. We welcome any questions you may have or invite any areas of interest that you'd like for consideration before the final board budget in May. >> This is due to uh times when revenues are good for the state. [clears throat] >> Yes. The strongest position the state has ever been. And

138I'm looking at this that uh 82% I think it is of our budget is people >> 80% >> and that we are proposing a 3.25% increase which is kind of modest. Okay. And yet our total budget is only 3% 3.3% more than before. So and we know that utilities are going to go up. We know that other costs are going to go up. [clears throat] So, I'd say that's pretty conservative budget. >> Yeah. I think it's good considering too what people don't actually understand is that, >> you know, um you have more and more students coming in with higher needs, more requirements, which means more services. >> So, where does that come from? Meet those resources. Um it's driven by that need. Also, like you said, the healthcare the [clears throat] cost of those premiums.

139I mean, nobody wants their premiums going up, but let's let's be real, you know, all of the needs of the people. [clears throat] Um, you know, people aren't as healthy, people are getting sick, there's more diseases, there's, you know, how do you keep pace with that? So, um, that's a big driver. I think those two factors right there are a big driver. And then of course trying to keep your teachers, [clears throat] you know, you want to your your your workforce, your staff, giving them the increases they need um just to keep track pace with cost of living. >> It's all a balancing act and every budget is a zero sum game. >> It is. And I want to personally thank you though for actually, you know, just at least putting in there the couple

140of those placeholders too. >> Yeah. You know, >> good job on the budget. >> And I think that's that's a real accurate picture. [snorts] >> So, in the past we we had some buses in a budget to replace. This year I just been tired. We I didn't see any. >> We [laughter] we we do have I think in the regular budget we have two buses a year. The problem is buses are getting more [clears throat] expensive. And then as we were getting right to the end of this and we shared with some board members that we had a little bit of a balance left that we thought we could like finance one of those buses and then then we got another uh cost from the county that where the SRO deputies came in and so

141that that bus went away but we still have two in the in the regular budget but and that's also something we can you know go back to the end of year if if or if we can uh if we uh have that additional funding come from the state will balance all of that out the needs between the things that I mentioned. >> And as far as the the director for the health insurance savings, when when can we expect that? You said by May you will present it. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> I don't know. I just directed the the when did they start that [laughter] work? Uh we will know our percentage of what the recommendation is later this week. >> Okay. Um, and so, uh, you know, this directive to then go and and

142look is hopefully to reduce that because I can't imagine that it's going to be 10% or lower. It's I from everything we're hearing from everybody else, it's higher. So, I just hope it's on the lower end of higher. >> Okay. >> And all this is based on the prior governor's budget, correct? >> Correct. And so we've met all the state mandates for all that budget, but with the new general assembly and new governor, that could totally change. It could and and there's a lot of legislation being considered um that we still have to dive down and and and look at very closely. Um but we will see that picture more clearly once crossovers occurs. >> And crossover is when? >> I believe it's the 18th. Do we have any idea when the new governor is

143going to have their numbers? >> Well, so so what happens with the budget and this is this has often been a complaint of incoming governors. It's the outgoing governor's budget. The general assembly takes that budget, they adopt it, and then all the adjustments then are made to the current governor's budget. So, she's working with leaders, the governor's working with leaders in the House and the Senate to make some of those amendments um to get some of those prior her priorities in in the budget, but she won't have a budget until next year. >> Okay. She's just tweaking [clears throat] >> they're tweaking the current of previous governor's budget. >> Okay. >> Can they tweak the uh revenue? [laughter] >> Well, I they can. Um, but there's a revenue uh council that the state relies heavily

144on. I think even Dr. Skinner's husband serve served on that or may still serve on that. Um, but they they really rely on that group. Uh, that group meets in the fall um and provide those revenue estimates to the governor as he's preparing his budget. One thing to point out though that the revenue in December, state revenue in December was a record level. So the the economy is still showing signs of strong growth. So they can certainly take that into account as it adjusts or as it as they look at making changes for the current year and then they'll [clears throat] have to decide whether or not it's worth making changes for next year. >> Dr. Carol, thank you so much for your presentation. >> Yes, that was a lot of work. So this would

145conclude all our presentation and thank you all for being here this evening. Our next regular meeting will be February 23rd at 7:00 here at your call. Just wish everybody to drive safe. This meeting is concluded.