001[snorts] Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order the December 15, 2025 work session of the York County School Board. Thank you for being here. And we have two meetings tonight. So, we're just going to go right into it and get started. And I'll turn that over to Dr. Carol since we have some presentations. >> All right. Thank you, Mrs. Goodwin. This evening we'll start with Danielle Nikoliasan, CPA from Brown Edwards and Company here to present the results of the fiscal year 2025 financial audit. Nicholson. >> Thank you, Mr. Carol. Um, yes. So, I if for those that were here last year, last year I've presented also the results of the audit. This is our third year working with the school board. Um, and I just want to first extend my thanks to Bill and
002his team. they they do a lot to get ready for the audit and throughout the year and maintaining the financials and the records in in good shape and so I just really want to commend them for that this year. So, thank you. Um things went very smoothly this year. Um at a really high level, I'm just going to go over the audit process and what we do as part of the audit and some things that we test and then I'll go over our audit reports. Um I I know that you have the financial statements in front of you. Um, [clears throat] my contact information is in here. So, if you have any questions as you have time to digest this document, um, please don't hesitate to reach out. Um, but again, just going to go
003over things at a really high level. Um, so we start the audit process in the spring. Uh, we do our audit planning and our risk assessments. Um, we look annually at re-evaluation of internal controls and financial reporting practices. Um, we also conduct interviews of staff and and key members of management. We perform a risk assessment annually considering changes in key personnel and um, processes and procedures. We also look at new or changing funding sources and that's also when we make our federal program audit determination. Um, in July is when we come out for the federal and state compliance testing. Um we also perform our required testing over the school's participation in the Virginia retirement system. Um we actually issue a separate report on that um that's already been filed and then the core audit starts
004in September and usually wraps up in mid-occtober. So it's quite a lengthy process and again just want to thank the the finance team um for their cooperation throughout the the whole thing. Um so the our audit is really broken down into sort of three sub audits. We perform a financial statement audit which is the the audit of the core numbers that are presented in this act for document. Um we also do a compliance audit that's largely tailored around state compliance requirements and then we also do a federal program audit. So the financial statement piece of the audit that looks at um your receivables and payables. We're looking at subsequent cash collections and subsequent cash payments to support those balances. We perform some predictive analytics. We vouch capital activity to make sure that that activity is
005reported properly in the document. Um we look at actuarial reports issued by the actuaries over your pension and OPED uh liabilities. OPED being uh other post-employment benefits other than pensions. There are some pretty significant numbers embedded in these financial statements and again some pretty significant disclosures around these numbers. It's all actuarily determined. Um part of the testing that the state requires of us is to make sure that the information that the schools provide to the actuaries is correct, but then otherwise we're totally reliant upon the actuaries for the development of these figures. And so the results of our testing is that everything has been done in compliance with the code requirements. Um the information submitted by the schools to VRS is complete and accurate. The contributions are made when they're supposed to be made and
006the amounts that they're supposed to be made in. Um so if you see liability figures related to pension and OPED, it's not because the schools aren't making contributions properly. It's just because it's an accumulation of liabilities for future benefits that's expected to be paid with the trust that have been set up through VRS. Um and then finally revenues and expenditures. We do a lot of current year to prior analytics. We do ratio analytics and we do budget to actual of course. So we look at whether or not um things are staying within the the confines of the budget that you all have set. The like I said the second piece of the audit is the state compliance audit. So the state auditor of public accounts issues um some specifications annually that um details some compliance
007testing that we are required to do. So we test the school's compliance with budget ordinances and budget amendments. Um as I mentioned the VRS compliance with VRS testing. We make sure that procurement policies are in accordance with the state code for procurement. And uh we also do some testing over the annual school report that's submitted um to the state to make sure that those figures are in alignment with what we are auditing in our statements. And then the third piece of the audit is the federal program audit. Um all federal programs received by the schools over a certain dollar threshold are required to be audited at least once every three [clears throat] years. Um so those are kind of audited on a rotational basis. We do look at them annually and and do a sort
008of a mini risk assessment to make sure that they don't need to be rotated in more quickly. Um and then all programs over another certain dollar threshold, a risk assessment is performed over them on an annual basis to make sure they don't need to be spontaneously rotated in. Um the federal program that was tested for FY25 was the impact aid. And so that's the funding from from the federal government related to the support of the real estate and the federal um yes military connected. Yes. Um yes. [clears throat] And then they also helped to support the some special education requirements. And so um unfortunately because of all the things that were happening with the federal government this year um again they put out annually a set of program requirements to which we audit. They did
009not issue that until shortly before Thanksgiving last this this past year. And so we are wrapping up our audit of that impact a program now. Um thus far we have found no um compliance non-compliance with the program testing that we've done. Um but we are still in the process of re-evaluating this new guidance that has come out. Um there weren't significant [clears throat] changes with regard to the impact aid program. So, we're in a good shape to be able to wrap up that audit and issue our audit report on that very soon. Um, but that will not be included in in the documents that are issued um in December. It'll probably end up being issued in January, but again, no findings thus far that we anticipate being issued in that report. So to go over
010our audit reports, um I just want to make reference to the the table of contents at the very beginning of the document. Um there are some sections to this report and I just want to point out that um not everything in this document is something that we are issuing our opinion on. Um the ACT for annual comprehensive financial report is broken out into several different sections. So you have your introductory, your financial, your um supplementary information and whatnot. And so the core of our audit report is on the section entitled basic financial statements. So our opinion um on the page one after the introductory section is the uh core audit opinion. So you'll see in the second paragraph of that report in our opinion the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects. So
011this is a clean unmodified opinion on the basic financial statements and the notes to the basic financial statements. is the highest level of assurance that we can provide outside of a public company um type of audit. The report then goes on to describe the standards under which we um conduct our audit. So we make reference to government auditing standards which are put out by the federal government, the specifications for audits of counties, cities and towns. Um that's put out by the auditor public accounts of the of the state and also generally accepted auditing standards. Um there is something new this year in our report at the bottom of that page change in accounting principle. There was a new um we're just going over the auding standard that was required to be adopted during FY25. It's
012called Gazsby 101 over compensated absences. And so this is the acrruel related to the time off that you owe your employees. And up until FY25, that acrruel figure was largely based on what would be be paid out to somebody upon their departure from employment. So, separation from the school system. Um, but the new standard now describes the acrruel for that liability to be what has been earned and is anticipated to be taken over the life of that employee. And so it has significantly increased nationwide this acrruel figure especially for school systems. Um and so there's a footnote that describes the impact of that restatement. So [clears throat] the way these accounting standards are implemented is the balances at the beginning of the year are restated so that the your current year results are not skewed.
013And so the impact of that beginning balance restatement on um your your net position was a $17 million impact. And so that's an increase to the liability and that's largely related to sick leave. So previously the leave for sick was not acred for because it's not something that generally gets paid out upon termination or separation of employment. And now the acrruel is based on what is estimated to be taken and not paid out. And so it's significantly increased your liability balance. I will say it's it's not due to any change in your policies. Um the the bigger the liability generally the just the more generous the school system is in regard to their leave policies. Um so again there's nothing that can be done. It's just a new accounting standard that was required to be
014implemented this year. So your balance at the beginning of the year was about 20 million and your balance at the end of the year was 24 million. And that's described in the in the footnotes to the financial statements there and the restatement. I'm sorry, it was in note 15's the very end of the footnotes to the statements. Um so going back to our audit report, um the rest of it is is pretty much the same as last year. Our report goes on to describe management's responsibilities for the financial statements. We do assist in the preparation of this document. um but they are management's financial statements and they are responsible for the content within um and then the our report goes on to describe our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements and then finally
015the last couple of pages of our report just describes the level of assurance that we are providing over everything else. So the introductory section, the required supplementary information, the other supple and the stat statistical section. So it just describes the the level of assurance that we are are not providing related to those. We do read everything and ensure that everything that's within that those pages is consistent with what we audited. And like I said, we do assist with the preparation of this document. So we feel pretty comfortable that it's it's fairly stated and correct. Um, so just wanted to point that out there. So at the end of our report, we we make reference to the um what we call the yellow book report, the government audited standards report. And so that is the second
016report that we issue related to our audit. And that is on page 101. So it's going to be towards the very back of the document. So any report that is um or any audit that's conducted in accordance with government auditing standards uh we are required to report on our testing of internal controls and on compliance. And so this report looks very similar um to last year. Um pleased to report there were no findings here related to internal controls or compliance. So just to describe what that means is that as part of our audit, we do not uh set out to form an opinion on internal controls, but we do test them for the purpose of designing our basic audit procedures. And so we look at internal controls, we look at processes and procedures, we do
017some testing and as a result of that, we um have not identified any deficiencies that are required to be reported here. And the same is the case with um our compliance piece. So that state compliance audit that I mentioned. There were no instances that we noted of non-compliance related to compliance with state code requirements. So again, two clean sort of unmodified um opinions here. Um there is a secondary document that was included with um your package and that's the report to the board and that just goes over at a high level everything that I've gone over here. It makes reference to footnote one which is your significant accounting policies. Um it includes the management representation letter that management signs attesting that they've been forthcoming with us um throughout the audit. Um, everything there is is
018pretty similar as as it has been in the past. So, there's nothing really to to point out there unusual. So, with that, are there any questions? >> I got one. Uh, I noticed that uh once again, uh, it says that certificate of excellence and financial reporting. What actually goes into that level and are there different levels? Why did we get this and what was looked at? So the there's I think there's two, right? There's the state and the the fed the GFOA. >> GFO and ASBO. >> ASBO. Yes. Thank you. Um so they they have some pretty um complex reporting standards um related to the content and the layout and the format of your financial statements. And [clears throat] it's also sort of like a second audit almost. Um they don't necessarily they obviously don't
019audit what goes into the development of the numbers but they look at how well you're you are reporting the activity of the entity and you are being compared to the that reporting nationwide. So these are both nationwide agencies and so there's a checklist with content and descriptors and relevant information that should be included. And so it's something that you have to apply for annually to make. >> So it's basically the construction of the report. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> And they come back with feedback annually for continuous improvement especially when there are new accounting standards that are adopted and we work with management to ensure that those um comments are incorporated every year. >> Thank you. >> Other questions? Thank you very much. Yes. >> Yes. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. [laughter] >>
020Okay. Well, thank you again everyone. I will pack up because I know my seat it's coveted. [laughter] But thank you all for for allowing us to to work with the schools. It's >> process. Oh, thank thank you. >> All right. At this time, we will u move on to capital projects. Dr. Carol, you introduce our speaker. >> Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Goodwin. I would like to introduce to the board and everybody else. Uh Mr. David Kilburn, who is now our new associate director of capital plans and projects. So, his job description is he'll be giving these reports from now on. So, we're pleased to have him on board. Uh, so you'll be presenting your first capital projects report. So, Mr. Pilber, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Carol, uh, first of all, thanks for
021having me, to be here. Uh, we have a few things that we're going to go over in the capital projects report today. Uh, the first of which being the secondary school auditorium upgrades. Those are nearing final completion with the the real focus being on the the sound booths that are right there in the middle of the auditorium. Uh, the major progress was on Tab High and Brutin. Here you can see Brutin's actual sound booth with the final table. The actual uh sight and [clears throat] sound equipment has already been commissioned and so now it's really just the final process of getting that equipment on that table. Uh and then Tab High will receive the same kind of table and again its equipment has already been commissioned and so it'll just be the the final placement
022for those two projects to come to a completion. Then we'll jump into Tab High School's additions and renovations which as we all know is a a huge project. Um we just recently received the 65% drawings from the architects uh to include both civil and electrical designs. We are reviewing those with uh uh many members of uh a CIP team and operations team and even the school uh to get the architect more comments back to get us to those 95% drawings which we're hoping to get sometime around the February. Um again we are optimizing the design and I know we're going to talk about that in another presentation tonight. Um, additional efforts have actually started on this project. So, hazmat testing, sampling has actually begun in the building. Uh, and that allows us to to pre-stage
023and pre-plan for any remediation that may have to take place during the actual project itself. >> [clears throat] >> backwards. There's one more can never just go completely smooth, right? Uh so D Elementary is our next big project, the parking lot and bus loop expansion. Uh there were several designs submitted for this and we did pick one uh with amongst a committee and with input from the school and SBO. Um with those two buildings being so closely located, any change to either one impacts the other. [snorts] Uh so this is the design for you to see. Um it's an expansion. Everything in dark gray is newly added spaces. Uh it's 87 parking places and it does tie into the lower rear SPBO parking lot. Uh and if you'll notice at the at the top section,
024the bus loop actually will become separated from the the normal vehicular parking places. That's going to help us with our parent pickup and drop off and also just increase safety by keeping the bus traffic away from um students or or staff members in the parking lot. So just quickly look, it's going to go all the way in the bottom around to that middle plan. Right. That's where I'm saying it. >> It's planned to come in the lower entrance. I don't know why this mouse is doing this. Uh come in the lower entrance and travel straight across all the way until you hit the T intersection at the end. And then it would turn left and go up and then back out the way that it does. Now you're just adding expansion to each side. the
025the lower rear SBO tie-in, uh, that's really a bottleneck for SBO staff. If they go down into there and then parent pickup and drop off starts, they're stuck. So, by giving us a rear exit to come out of there, if there's any emergencies or or just, you know, normal daily life, SBO staff will be able to leave and and just join in with the parent drop off line. In your estimation, do you think uh now with the parent dropout lines that are blocking schoolboard office, this length that we adding on would possibly resolve that? >> That is yes. >> Yeah. We we've done several actual uh daily site visits to count the number of cars that are getting backed up onto Dair Road itself and this expansion should accommodate that. >> Thank you. Uh in
026the background, we've been working on another project uh where we are replacing certain components of the fire alarms throughout all of our buildings that require it. There are life cycles to these. They're just like a [clears throat] computer in your house. Uh and so we've been focused on smoke detectors and heat detectors. We've been doing this in two phases. The first phase was six schools and four operations buildings, and that phase is 100% complete. Then we jumped into phase two and there are five schools included in that and there are only two remaining at this time and they are actively in process. >> Which school are those? >> Okay, so for phase one we had Coventry, Brutin, Bethl Manor, Grafton Bethl, York High and Queens Lake. Then the operations buildings were the York High School
027annex, actual operations itself, computer warehouse and transportation. Those are all 100%. Phase two was York Middle, Waller Mill, DARE, and the Grafton School Complex. So, high school and middle school. Okay. >> Those are the last two that we're doing is the Grafton Complex. They were updated most recently. >> All right. Thank you. >> Another project going on is the York High School intercom and lockdown alert system. Uh if in past meetings, you may have heard this referred to as the Valcom system. That is the brand that we have chosen to put in. Uh York High School is about 65 to 75% complete right now. Uh all the cables are run and 75% of the speakers are installed. We're getting down to the last nitty-gritty parts on the outside of the building. York High will be
028the last building to complete to complete the entire school division having this system. Uh but before we even completed York High, I just want to point out we did go back and we've actually expanded use cases of this. There's a lot of automated messages, especially for our emergency response protocols, and we've expanded those this year, not to just be the lockdown and secure, but also for medical holds or for severe weather alerts. And so, those are also automated buttons in the main office. Now, that we've gone back and done that at every building. Um, additionally, I want to point out that um we've expanded these systems for the people that are also in our buildings that [clears throat] may not necessarily be York County School Division. So groups like Head Start, the Boys and Girls
029Club, and Center for Autism, we've afforded them all of the same safety measures and capabilities with within the systems that we have to our normal schools. Uh and another very significant part of all of these Valcom systems is that we've been awarded the state security grant two years in fiscal year 24 and in fiscal year 25 to the total tune of $392,000. So, with our previously planned CIP budget, there were seven schools that we were hoping to accomplish. We've actually been able to accomplish nine schools under that original budget through use of the grant and through other just project management. And that concludes my capital reports project tonight. Is there any questions I can answer for you guys? >> I I have one about uh the sound boards. Uh, we were supposed to take one,
030I believe, from Brutin and put it in the SOA uh theater. >> Is that still the plan? >> Last I was told that was still the plan. >> Okay, good. [laughter] And are we doing anything with the lights in SOA? >> No, so is we're not doing anything with SOA. We ran out of money. >> Uh, >> so uh that >> but we will get the sound anyway. [laughter] >> Yeah, it's it's slightly used, but yeah. Yeah, that's all right. That's all right. It's newer than what they have. [laughter] >> Any other questions about capital improvements? >> Welcome. Congratulations. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Yeah. [clears throat] Thank you. Great report. >> Yes. Thank you very much. >> We needed to come up with some difficult questions for >> I know, right? >> How
031do I use a mouse? >> Mouse. >> All right. With that said, we'll move on to the CIP. >> All right. >> So, Mr. Bill Bowen, chief financial officer, will present the superintendent's proposed capital improvements program for fiscal years 2027 through 2032. >> Thank you, Dr. Carol. Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Carol, uh this evening, I'm pleased to present to you the superintendent's proposed capital improvements program for 2027 through 2032. [clears throat] Much of what you see this evening um you have seen before in the facilities master plan presentation. Um I will review all the projects tonight but um I will pay particular uh focus to some new projects that have been added and any changes that have occurred since that last presentation in November. Few things I want to point out
032before I start. Um first of all the projects reported in FY26E here um these projects have been approved and um funding has been allocated for these projects with the exception of one project which I will talk in detail about at the end of the presentation. [sighs and gasps] the uh six this is a six six-year plan and ultimately what the county is going to be approving in May 2026 is funding for FY27 only. However, we do present six years to give the county and to give the school board a clear picture of what our needs are across the division. And then third, you'll see some amounts here that are in green. Those amounts represent cash funding or now we've added federal funding and um and so those are not debt tied to debt service or
033borrowing from the county. Those are contributions either made by by the school through the federal government or through some cash contributions from the county. So let me begin with um the first project. The first project is actually a new project to the CIP. This is for Bethl Manor Elementary. Um this is includes a 4 to six classroom addition with a full-size gym. We uh propose to expand and renovate the existing cafeter cafeteria and auditorium and replace the HBAC system. Now FY27's indicated here that this is being paid with federal funds. So I would like to take a moment and thank Congressman Whitman and of his support of the uh this project and military families and helping YCSD secure this funding. I'd also like to thank Miss Fairman for coordinating the visit and meeting with Congress
034Whitman and staff. And I'd also like to thank staff who were instrumental in submitting the necessary grant information. Dr. Vik Vika Stevenson who's our grant writer and our capital projects team who coordinated and supplied all the information that was necessary to go into that grant application. Um the second year of um of funding in FY28 for Bethl Manor has yet to be identified although we've identified it as cash. We do believe that there may be another opportunity for federal funding um for this project. Um if not though, u we do have some opportunity with the revenue stabilization [clears throat] fund with some balances there. Um or um possibly some additional cash reserves on the county side. Regardless of of how this turns out, we will continue though to look at other opportunities, grant opportunities to
035secure for this project because we what we don't want to do here is we don't want to lose that 3.2 million in federal funding. So we'll we'll continue to identify strategies and to secure that second year. >> So this 3.2 It's for what you already listed 46 classroom expansion. >> Yes. But this is just just a small portion of what that project would be. Correct though. >> Okay. >> So, moving on to Dar Elementary. Um Mr. Kilbrurn spoke about that. Um that project we're ready to go out to bid and hopefully that that that project will commence in the summer and can be completed in the summer. Waller Mill. This is a 68 classroom expansion projected to cost about $30 million. that begins in FY30, the planning, and then will commence at the end of
036will complete be completed at the end of FY32. Now, this is um this is a staff rendering of the Bethl [clears throat] Manor project, and I'm going to have um Mr. Kilburn walk us through what the plan is here. >> Okay. Uh so, all the outlines that you see in the blue are the original building. Uh we basically just overlaid our our building map over top of a satellite rendering. Uh in the lower right hand corner, you'll see that we highlighted the existing gym where we're proposing to expand and add classrooms and a new full-size gym is already back over top of where there's an existing blacktop. So it's it's a significant reduction in land disturbance. Um it's already impervious surface. Uh what you'll see on the black top right now is two trailers that
037are owned by the school division, used by the school division, uh and one trailer that is Head Start. So by adding at least four classrooms, we're able to bring all of those classrooms inside the building because one of the our own trailers is not used for anything other than storage right now. If we were to go six, eight, however many classrooms we need, we could turn the gym, the new proposed gym, 90 degrees and back it up a little bit further onto the black top and still stay within that imperous surface. But we also wanted to show the size of the existing gym overlaid over top of the proposed full-size gym. Uh to put it in perspective, that fullsize gym is the size of Seafford's gym. So that's the measurements that we use to do
038the comparison. Then down where the existing gym is, directly to the left of that is that cafetum space. So we'd be able to remove the the collapsible walls that are currently separating the space and expand the cafeteria into that existing gym. >> One thing I'd like to point out too is you can see in the top right hand corner, you see the water there that this this school sits right near the Big Bethl reservoir. So there will be some environmental hurdles to jump over as we continue through this project, >> but it does help having it on that existing black top. >> It does >> because I remember that from the original meetings that we had with Congresswoman Webb. >> Okay, moving on to the middle and high school projects. Um, planning and design for
039Queens Lake Middle School has been moved up a year. Last year, this work was scheduled all to begin in FY28. However, when we look down to Brutin High School, that $3.7 million for the HBAC replacement and controls was sitting in FY27. So, the team looked at this project real closely and they agreed that we could start the planning for Brutin High HBAC in 27 and then we could do the replacement in FY28. And making that little change is enabling us to move $2 million up in FY27 for Queens Lake. And so, as you can see, we've gone through many different designs for TAB alone, and it's taken us uh almost a year to do so. Um, we wanted to get a head start on this project as soon as we could because we we envision
040some some changes there as well. Well, it's a critical school up in uh my district because it's the bottleneck, >> right? will be [clears throat] the um as far as the Waller Mill one goes starting in 2020 uh I mean 2030 ending in 2032. Does that give us enough time with growth with what we have to enable taking care of everyone since Waller Mill has to absorb all the growth in that end of the county? I I would have two answers for you. First of all, we don't know. [laughter] It >> depends quite frankly, but we continue to [clears throat] watch it as you know, we do annually. Uh the second thing is we did design uh the portable classrooms there where we could just add on to them. >> So, we do have that
041ability to do that as we see. I just don't want us to get blindsided with a bunch of people coming in and then >> but but that's why Wal [clears throat] gave us that ability where McGrder not landlocked >> and [clears throat] so this is an easy way and we also built the uh the BMP there larger as large as we needed it for an expanded building. Therefore, we shouldn't have to increase that at all for any nominal addition of of two or four classrooms. >> Thank you. Now for Grafton High, we see the addition of the learning commons um and FY32. For Tab High, um Mr. Kilbran spoke a little bit about that and um we as he mentioned a lot of work has gone into um to continue looking at cost savings. Um
042I've included some plans as he's going to he's going to walk us through on the next slide. And for the operations complex last year, um this was a project for the renovation of the YHS um annex. What staff is proposing now is that we demo the annex and we move some operations teams members that are working out of that building and we consolidate them to the other side of the campus. So it involves us expanding the current IT warehouse. We would um demo the annex and we would also demo the operations warehouses that are adjacent to the transportation garage and then create one larger building where all of the operations team that sits on that campus can can can work out of. So it's more of efficient it's kind of eliminating some of the footprint
043we have but also improving the efficiency of operations because they'll all be located in one building. [cough and clears throat] >> This is in 31. Yes, sir. So this is um the existing footprint of TAB High School and I'll have Mr. Kil walk us through this. >> So to get you oriented the bottom of the screen is the front of the building. Uh so the main entrance that you're used to going into is is that little al cove in the front that leads right into the commons. Currently they have two separate offices. They have what we call the visitor office where there's two secretaries and the check-in systems. And then there's the main office where we have administrators and additional clerical staff. Um, I'm not sure how much they have seen so far of proposed
044renderings. So, if we have our orientation of the front of the building and on the right hand side, it would be the gym entrance that you're used to next to the big parking lot. So, when we took all of our notes and our wish list to the architects, this is what we've come back to at the 65%. Now, we rotated 90°. So, the front entrance is now on your right hand side. It's that orange shape. Um, and that is still looking uh in our current plans as a twostory entrance that would include both a ka and a learning commons as well as a new main office for all the admin staff to move into. Uh, new restrooms, new workspaces, additional offices, all the traditional things that you've seen in our learning commons that we've built
045so far. Uh, and then the blue below that is the by moving the current library to the learning commons, we're able to create four classrooms out of that space. And then by moving the current main office over into the new section, we're able to create three classrooms in that space. One of them being oversized for any kind of special needs that we want to do like a academy or something like that. Um the purple, which may be hard to see, this uh right in the dead center of the picture, that's a proposed uh staff break room. There's already staff restrooms right there. That's part of the existing main office. So, we thought that was a very convenient location to just give them a dedicated space to commune together, still have facilities for their use. the
046the real changes that we've imposed over the p on the architect over the past month, I'd say, is that we were trying to optimize the design and go for cost savings while not cutting anything from the original project. So, the biggest changes that you'll see are at the gym entrance, which is located at the top of the screen. What we've been able to do is instead of building out away from the building and adding square footage, we've been able to repurpose space inside the original building envelope. So the the light gray portion is the existing mechanical room. Well, with going to a newer system, that's going to be relocated. That's where we can put in those new restrooms um and some more storage space for custodial staff. Then we're also uh adding space for concessions
047and modifying the interior of the kitchen to [snorts and clears throat] make it meet their needs where they have space for cleaning supplies and the washer and dryer that they all have to have. Um, we're also even just repurposing an existing space and sprucing it up so that our officials for basketball games, for for wrestling, whatever athletics you have, would have a dedicated space with a restroom and a changing room so that in between the actual events they would have those as well. All of this was in the the original design that had it bumped out from the building. And we've been able to bring it all back in, not really sacrifice space, just re-engineer where it goes. Uh the by doing this we've been able to bring our estimated cost down and that's really
048what's allowed us to focus on optimizing the the mechanical system to make it affordable to go geothermal. We we basically negated all the offset costs that they were predicting before. Um, and that is actually located not quite dead center, but it's the small red rectangles um that are just below the athletic director's office. That that's a perfect place for it because all of the existing water piping that's inside the building goes right past that corner. So, not we're not having to go in and install thousands of feet of additional piping to create a pump room in some new location. We're optimizing and taking advantage of an intersection that already exists. I missed anything. One one other thing to note is that this building is a shelter and so that was had to be taken into
049account for um the design and also what was shared with the uh A&E part. [clears throat] I think one thing that uh you didn't add is that because we'd be moving the KA and the learning comments or the media center out then that leaves space for new classrooms. And so those ones that are identified as light blue, I believe, right, are all Yes. All new classrooms. So new space. >> So it's a seven classroom creation, but actually to fit all of the administrative staff up in the front, we have to take over one. So it's a net ad of six classrooms to this building. >> And so the KO is going up into the second floor. >> It would be on the first floor. Um and we actually added um here this is this is
050an easier way to look at it. So that second story would be the learning commons with workspaces, collaboration rooms, green screen rooms, um work rooms for staff to to do whatever they need to do as well as a conference room. Uh then the lower section would be the KA. And one of the reasons that we designed it that way is if it's get used by the public, if you end up having board meetings there in the future, we can actually cordon off this whole section and make it so that people can't go into the rest of the building. So you get all the features of that large KA meeting space, all the new restrooms, but still keep your security. >> So board members to help you with the orientation there. [clears throat] It's just an
051L-shaped piece that's going to slide right into the front entrance, right in that empty space where you walk up to the commons and then wrap [clears throat] around the front of the school. I will say I I like the addition of the classrooms and the addition of the space, the the front elevation look. It looks like all of the the new condo stacking boxes that they're putting up around everywhere. It's not not really thrilled with the look just because it looks like all of the condos that are out and about that all these other architectural firms are doing. >> Short lines. It's not distinctive as something different. It just looks like they've taken what they've done at all of these other [clears throat] new constructions for condos and apartments and just applied it here. Is
052that perhaps I don't know because I don't do building but does that have to do with cost because that type of look >> straight lines are cheaper to build >> cheaper than absolutely I do I would echo I understand what you're saying sharp lines is the modern look. >> Yes. >> Um so that that is what they were going for is is to make >> also the color block. It's >> I kind I kind of like it. [laughter] I will say when we showed this to the administrative staff this morning, they were in love. So >> the more that [laughter] >> I would they share the tab collars. [laughter] >> Glad [clears throat] they have the collars. >> I would add though that finishes and that type of thing, colors are still to be decided.
053you know, we're concentrating on the architectural work right now and uh if there's opportunity for cost savings without damaging the uh the aesthetic too much, that's something that that that's down the road still we're working on. >> No, I definitely like the addition of the the space, especially the classrooms. >> Okay. [clears throat] So looking at um other other CIP projects, um we we continue to fund our temporary modular classrooms out of our CIP. Um we have added major electrical system replacements. This was something we did add during the uh facilities master plan and this is replaces the switch gear and the interior wiring to all the panels at York High School. [clears throat] a new um project that's been added and this is the one that was added for FY26E and has a divisionwide
054facilities and space study. Board members, there's a resolution [clears throat] at the business meeting this evening um that have has the school board requesting from the board of supervisors that they approve the transfer of $350,000 from the revenue stabilization fund for a facility study. Uh that's also on the county's [clears throat] agenda for tomorrow night. But the importance of this is to uh to assess our current capacity and utilization considering long-term residential development plan for the county which then will support our strategic decision-m for capital and operational budgets. >> When was the last time we had to study that? >> It's been a long time. >> It's 1992 was our last divisionwide facilities and space study. >> And what what is it used for usually? So it's it's the basis of our facilities master plan.
055So when we look at um instructional capacity and and other space um that's this that's that's the the plan that we use to support that. >> So basically any new buildings that we might be developing it would go through that that information will be needed for us. >> We have to remember we have our average building is 55 years old. uh when we get to the end of these three big projects that are in the CIP right now, it'll be kind of a reset time of now. Now what? And so as we take a look at that longer horizon, I think it's a good time to bring some professionals in and give us, you know, some some recommendations or options >> over 30 years old time, >> right? Will they [clears throat] be giving us
056uh like a range of minimum they um they would recommend and then the the medium or the moderate of what they really are focused on and then the dream you know if we had that will they give us that so that we can see a progression and how much each cost so we can you know take a look at you know what's a definite need that we have to have um what's a want and what's a a future like that if we can cover it fine. fine with the cost, but it may be, you know, on a dream board. >> I don't think it'll come in that that type of format because what you have to look at when you're looking at capital planning is what are the things that have to be done >>
057right >> on a deferred maintenance schedule roofs, they expire. HVAC systems expire. >> So looking at all of that, laying it out and what are the things that are options for you? What is your enrollment projections? How do you think things are going to go? It's all the stuff that we do in the FMP right now, but we're only looking at a six-year window. So now, if you reach that out 15, 10, 15, 20 years, now you've got to start looking at what how do these things what are the order they come in and what kind of funding can you expect? And but [clears throat] then to that, what are the things you absolutely need, right? >> And that's [clears throat] I think where just options come in. I just don't know if they'll come
058in in the format you're talking about. >> They just did this for the county. Has has that report come out yet for the counties? >> Don't believe I think >> I think they get ready to present it. >> I think they get ready to present the counties. So, we'll be able to look at that and see. >> Right. >> But theirs is a little different because facilities they done more than facilities, right? They don't >> It's not for the schools. Theirs is for the courts. So, it's a little different. And one of the things that we're looking at to see if we can't piggyback [clears throat] off that contract because a lot of the work that the county has has had done would tie into this study because they they looked at uh development and
059and >> population growth which would ties into what we need for enrollment growth and to see where those pockets of enrollment growth are planned to you know kind of rise up in the next 15 20 years. >> Okay. >> But Mrs. experiment. To come back to your question, one of the things we'd want to do is look at different space studies that different school divisions have done, find one with a format we like, and then we shape the RFP to for the people that are bidding on those project to create it the way we want it created. We we dictate what what uh outcomes we want in the in the form, [clears throat and cough] but then they fill in the blanks of the how and what it looks like. >> Thank you. Okay. Next
060um is the schoolboard office HBAC replacement. This is something new that um has been added since the FMP. Um the the HBAC is almost at the end of its life cycle that needed to be added. And then um finally, we have preschool spaces. Um this is proposing to add 12 standalone prek classrooms. [clears throat] And so our total cost for the six-year CIP is approximately $116.8 million with $16.5 million from from cash either federal or local dollars and then $1.3 million from debt service. >> Bill, I have a question for you on the preschool space. I understand looking at we had talked about like a standalone looking at a building. >> When you talk about hubs, what do you mean by hubs? Like are you talking is that separate [clears throat] little areas? It would
061be it would be subarious. Actually, what we're looking at is that if we did a preschool in the lower county is that eventually we would need to do something in the upper county. So, we would have >> two, >> possibly two. And so, this only addresses the one, but there's other there's other potential options that are available for us to create one that [clears throat] may just be renovation of existing space that may cost us a lot less than having to secure a new building or a new facility. And these preschools are they they're basically the dream. They're not the ones that are required by federal law or anything. These are to add more. >> So our preschool right now, what we're doing is we're serving those that were required to serve, right? And those
062are primarily students with special needs. There's a there's a there's a a number of students that we're missing that fall below that poverty line in York County. Those that have have the funds to do so are sending their kids to preschool. those who don't have the means are are out of preschool and then they come to us in kindergarten generally with some different needs than those that had started school early. So, we're trying to capture those students early. The earlier we can get them, the better we can prepare them for kindergarten. >> Do we have studies that show the progression of those who haven't had it versus have had it and what they are say at um third grade, fifth grade and beyond >> to justify Dr. Skagure. So, we do look at how our
063students um compare um when they come into kindergarten on their assessments, and I'm excited to share that our students who come through our preschool program do well. Um and many of those are students with disabilities, but they are um achieving well. As far as a longitudinal study, I can't say that we have that data. Um it's not a bad idea, but again, for us, we have a very military transient um population as well. So, some of our students may be in a program prior to coming to us. You know, >> I believe there are some nationwide studies that have looked at this. I've seen them periodically. >> The state is um all on board with preschool. They feel like it's something that is super beneficial for our our children and encourage us to the greatest
064extent possible [clears throat] to to provide that. We just um right now we have three 13 preschools and um we have weight lists for families. Um of course, we We do provide the required required preschool services that we are, but um there are other families as Mr. Bowen shared that would certainly like to come and attend preschool in York County that we just can't provide that opportunity. >> I I think it's generally accepted that the more preschool you can offer, the better result you're going to get. That's why there are people that are proponents of universal preschool. The problem is how do you afford it both in space and in staffing? if you said it was available to everybody. So that's something that you have to take steps to move towards. >> Thank you. >>
065So that concludes the C CIP for this evening. Any other questions? >> I did. [laughter] I'm looking back at Queens Lake Middle School and I see that uh in the description it has eight classroom expansion which is great. front office, front entrance, cafeteria, a new gym. Now, prior to [clears throat] now, whenever we renovated the gym, the locker rooms were never done. So, they're back from 57 whenever it was. >> There there is still money, I believe, in the uh FMP or or in previous CIPs that's been approved >> and that we're waiting to use in that project. >> Cool. I just wanted to make sure that was just that >> it's it's already moved to the left. It's already just sitting there bal [laughter] >> as there is sir at at Brutin High. >>
066Uh we still have to do some locker room work there and you'll remember that part of our costsaving measures is we're going to use the architectural work at TAB apply it there and that way we'll save money there. Any other questions? >> Thank you, Mr. Bowen. Appreciate that. >> Very detailed. >> All right. [clears throat] Uh the next, excuse me, the next one is our budget outlook. And >> Mr. [clears throat] Mr. Bowen's doing so well, we'll let him keep going. >> Keep going on that, huh? regarding the economic outlook and funding for FY27. Mr. Bowen, >> thank you, Dr. Carol, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um, this evening we're going to present a budget outlook of state and federal revenue and talk a little bit about county revenue. Um, let me begin by
067just showing you the budget calendar. Um, a big event is going to happen on Wednesday. The governor's budget's [clears throat] going to be released. So, we're anxious to see um what what comes in the form of K12 funding. General V general assembly is going to convene January 14th. Uh this is the long session. This is a two-year budget session. So um they will um uh meet for 60 days and that will come go through March 14th. February we have the general assembly crossover. Uh but before that you'll see almost hand in hand there the superintendent is going to present his budget and then crossover is going to be. You know what's making it challenging about the two-year budget this year is that fact you have a outgoing governor who's going to present the budget from
068a different party and then it's going to be presented to the Jones. [clears throat] They're obviously going to have some different priorities and so we won't be able to see our first real snapshot of those priorities until we get to the crossover in February which we will be ready to present a budget to you. It will be based on the governor's budget. However, there'll be a lot of work being done between February and March to capture those additional um priorities of the new administration to to make sure we incorporate everything that needs to be incorporated. It just means a longer budget cycle for financing the leadership team. And then in March, the general assembly finalizes their budget, but that's not a final budget because it goes to April where the governor and general assembly have
069a veto session and that can last pretty much the whole month or going even extend to May hopefully. uh it will stay within the month of April because uh it is a the same party controls all chambers and and the governor's mansion. Um and then in May we will present those budget those final budget changes to the board for a final budget. So looking at state revenue, this was something that comes from the House Appropriations Committee presentation in November. Um I'll just key you in on the items that are boxed in. um what we have through year to date through October 7 and a half% of is [clears throat] the revenue for individual this is above the the current forecast so this is really good news what's also saying in the next column so from
070November to June required to meet the revenue forecast for the for FY26 you could go negative 4.3% on the individual we would still have a balanced budget and then on the um on on all other revenue total revenue we could go 1.7% negative and still meet the budget. There is some indications that you know they feel the state feels strong about their financial position right now. Um reserves at our all-time high. That's great. Um however, they do expect some some slowdown or some some of the economy to flatten out here in the next year and and possibly two years. But uh for FY26, we should look good. Heading into 27, this is where we get the mixed bag of of information. So on a national level, private sector employment increased in October and this was
071after two months of of decreasing enrollment. So that was a good that was a good sign. Virginia's unemployment has increased slightly, but it's still below the national rate. And what they're saying that it's within Virginia's healthy range. So nothing significant, but it has seen they have seen a [clears throat] slight uptick. Job growth has slowed, but there have been gains and low to midwage jobs. Now, that's not good because it just it's telling you that the very highpaying jobs are not out there, but there is still some employment being created. But on the low side of things, Virginia sales tax revenues remain strong, but are expected to level out. That's been really helpful. That's been unexpected. U the sales tax revenues have far exceeded what the forecast has called for. And then na nationwide consumer
072consumption and sentiment um is declining. So that causes a little bit of concern. Um, one thing you have to understand about looking at state revenue and why we look at it, 61% of the state's general fund is tied to K12 and tied to um, Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid. And so, if there's going to be an impact in the state economy, it's going to affect K12. And so, that's why we share this information just to give everybody just an [clears throat] an outlook of kind of what the sentiment is out there in the economy. So, I would say for everybody, spend, spend, spend at this Christmas time. [laughter] >> It's good for the kids. >> So, for FY26, these are some state budget actions. We're going to see uh when the governor releases
073his budget, he's releasing two budgets. Updates for the current year and then the budget for the next two years. U leading up to the two-year budget, the banual budget is the rebenchmarking process. That process has been completed. We're going to see what the governor has accepted as part of the rebenchmarking process. And what that means is the state looks at the cost increasing cost of education and there's a formula that they have that um tells them that they should be increasing funding for school divisions based on increasing cost of teacher salaries inflation materials and supplies things that drive the cost of education. Now it may be that the formula tells them that they need to provide another half a billion over two years to K12. But what happens is they only fund what money is
074available to them. So the formula may say half a billion dollars, but they may only fund $300 million. It just depends on the economy. The Virginia [clears throat] retirement system rates are also updated during this time. Um I I shared with you that the Virginia board, the VRS board of trustees has recommended a 2% decrease in the VRS rates. that would be about a one and a half million dollars less of an impact to us that we would have to pay to VRS. So that would give us a million and a half dollars to move to other areas and other priorities in the budget. Now this still has to be approved by the governor and the general assembly. [clears throat] [snorts] The local composite index rates have also been um updated. These are the rates
075or indexes that are applied to each locality and it determines the cost of education that that locality can afford. And I'll show you in the next slide here. This is the history of local composite index for York County. So in 2010 2012 we had a really moderate uh an kind of average range for um for York County and then we saw the big spike in 201214 that was a result of the great recession. The great recession hit uh northern Virginia before it hit the rest of the state. And so because of that impact it shot up significantly our um local composite index that cost us millions of dollars. And then uh we started to see from that point on and we started to see a decrease. Now looking to the far right our rate is
076going down.36% for the next bianium to 35.18%. Um that.36% change had that rate been in effect for this budget would have meant that we would have shifted $480,000 of cost of education to the state. So the state would have paid us more $480,000 more for funding than what we would have been obligated to pay. That would in entail freeing up $480,000 that we're using other funds for that we could redirect to other priorities. So this is another good sign things are heading in the right way for York County. So also as part of the budget and outlook is also to understand how we ended the fiscal year and we haven't shared this information yet but here we have a comparison of our end of year balances from June 3025 and June 30 2024. You can
077see on the operating side this year we had $4.59 million as an end of year fund balance and if you look at the box below that breaks that down. We had impact aid reversions to the revenue stabilization fund of 2.46 million. We had some all-in Virginia 8 literacy funds carried over at 600,000. This was um these [clears throat] funds were provided to us two years ago. We're in the third year. $3 million to be spent over three years and we're in the last year of that of that of those funds. So we have $600,000 to spend this year. And then the unobligated fund balance is $ 1.51 million. and board members. We took this, we brought this to you last month, and we have obligated those funds for textbooks, for CIP, and for some uh
078vehicles for transportation. But you can see um in June 30, 2024, there was a significant increase, 6.37. We had a $4 million impact aid um reversion to the uh to the revenue stabilization fund. So, a little less in in 2025. So, if you look at technology reserve, we see a little lower little less of a balance. Uh we did have some significant expenditures last year, but we're still healthy with 2.6 million. School nutrition, we're on a mandated um spending plan um with Department of Education. And what happened with that? That all stems from CO. So when uh when we went through CO, the federal government paid for all of the meals for about two and a half years. And as a result, we saw our fund balance increase significantly. It was as high as $7
079billion. So, we've had to spend that those funds down based on a formula that VDOE holds contracted food service operations to. They want us to have no more than three months of operations and that's about $1.8 to $2 million. So, we still need to spend $3.3 million down by about $1.3 million and and we'll continue to do that. We've had an aggressive plan in place to replace kitchen equipment across the division. And so, we'll we'll still continue that. It's been very helpful to do that because we never had a budget really to pay for the replacement uh of all that equipment. [laughter] It's been very helpful, but we still have a little ways to go. On the CIP side, we have uh 922,000 in the negative. Now, this is a CIP fund is a shared
080fund with the county. Um we spend the money and then the county then borrows the debt service to pay for that. So, even though it's in the negative, it's covered by funds between the school division and the county. So, we're we're good there even though it's showing in the negative. Workers comp, we did uh increase our fund balance a little bit. Um, I will say though over the past year, we've had some significant [clears throat] workers comp claims that have not hit yet. So, we expect to have a much smaller balance when we get to June 30 of 2026. >> And workers comp is that um self-funds or insurance? It is or combination? Well, we fund it. So, it's a self-funded program, but um it's coordinated and managed by our insurance company. >> Okay. >>
081And so, it's kind of like they have a stop-loss. We pay we pay the basic uh claims. However, there's a real significant claim, then a reinsurance kicks in. >> And then on the health insurance side, we are um at the end of the fiscal year, we were $4.1 million. However, since the summer, we are trending at more of a monthly balance of about $2 million. So, we have seen our health insurance cost increase, and that will be the topic of additional conversations as we work through the budget process. And then our revenue stabilization, we're at $10.5 million. Um, what's not showing that 2.6 2.46 is not showing in that amount, but so what's going to happen is the 2.46 is going to be transferred to the stabilization, raising that to over $12 million. And then
082we're going to in the CIP we have $2 million in cash coming from the stabilization to fund part of the TAB high project. So it'll in the end it'll be a little over $11 million that'll be in the revenue stabilization fund. So very s uh significant and healthy fund balance there. When we look at the federal revenue outlook, I don't typically talk about federal because we don't see many changes. However, you'll [clears throat] recall this summer when the Department of Education was trying to cancel a bunch of title uh title grants and so we did a comprehensive review of our programs and we looked at and there were some programs that were going to be affected. What's making it into the federal budget is the proposal to at least uh eliminate two title grants that
083we currently receive funding for. That is the title 2A grant and the title 3 grant. The potential loss of funding for us is 278,000. I mention that only because it's been proposed. Um I don't believe it's something that's going to happen, come to fruition because there wasn't a lot of momentum in Congress to eliminate those programs. Um but there is a potential there. And then there's no change to the impact aid funding and as we know that impact aid um is the significant part of our federal budget, federal funding. And that concludes my presentation on the budget outlook. I'll be happy to entertain any questions. >> The issue is with the grants that's always you have the carrot saying, "Oh, we have this money for you and isn't this wonderful?" But it they always have
084an end time, right? >> And then you have to decide, are you going to somehow get extra funds to continue that? So, it's um it's kind of a two-edged sword that it's great while the money's there, but then if you want to continue it, it affects our local constituents and their tax dollars. >> Yeah. So, with the title grants, um those those tend to be more ongoing um grants, the competitive grants, the ones that are um for a specific period. We see that though [clears throat] in in what you're explaining is with the um state grants. Um, [snorts] we met with three of our general assembly members on Friday, Dr. Carol and I did. Uh, Senator Danny Diggs and delegate electron and dele delegate elect um, Mark Downy's legislative aid. And we were talking to
085them about what are they hearing from the state as far as economic outlook. Um, they were pretty much saying all the same thing that it looks like it's going to the the economy is going to kind of level out. One of the things we shared with them about some of the state funding is that the uh state ignores uh school construction and maintenance largely ignores it. We did receive one year and a one-year allocation of about $4.6 million. That was that allocation actually helped us complete the Seafford project, but since then and before then there was no allocations for for uh school construction. They do have the SCAP program, the school construction assistance program. What we've asked is for them to do something different than grant programs because there's so much competition for those grant
086programs. And the folks, the school divisions that continue to receive funding are those that fall in uh that are determined fiscally um stressed or have low economic disadvantaged populations or low local composite index. The other thing that falls into that is school security grants. Um Mr. Mr. Kilber mentioned we had received two security grants. Well, that's great to get the project going and have purchase cameras and security systems, but there's got to be a replacement of those systems and there's often no not enough money or no reoccurring money to replace those systems. So, that's something that we shared with them too. Safety and security should be a priority of the general assembly and they should look to more sustainable reoccurring funding when we talk about safety and security as well as school construction. Thank you.
087>> Thanks, Bill. [clears throat] >> Right. Now, we're going to go into accreditation and accountability. >> All right. Thank you. Uh board members, you'll remember uh earlier that Dr. Skinner and her team have given you uh the data on our performance on last year's SOS. Now, we're going to get into the state's new accountability accreditation and accountability framework. >> [clears throat] >> I want to prepare you. This is going to look different than anything you've seen before. So, this is a this is a fresh go at this. So, tonight staff will now present an overview of the 2425 division accreditation and accountability framework results including our ratings [clears throat] and performance data for each York County school. So, Dr. Skinner. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Carol. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board.
088Tonight, we will be sharing information as Dr. Carol said on our 2025 division accreditation and accountability results. Uh Virginia recently adopted a new accreditation and accountability model with implementation actually beginning beginning in the 2425 school year. This system separates accreditation and accountability which we'll take we'll talk about throughout the presentation. Um I will say that while the implementation began last year, just last week we [clears throat] finally got our data. So that's what we're sharing this evening with you and we're going to um Miss Beasley and I are going to walk you through that now. So as I always like to start our presentations, this information does support future ready graduates and that um it's our strategic plan priority that our students will acquire the knowledge, skills, habits, and traits necessary for success and future
089educational experiences, the workforce, and life. Our [snorts] presentation tonight is broken into four parts. First, we'll provide you an overview of the new um VDOE bifurcation model, which separates accountability and accreditation. Then, we're going to look at the school's accreditation rating for the 2425 school year. We'll then highlight our school performance and support framework, which breaks um performance into three areas: [clears throat] mastery, growth, and graduation, and readiness. And then we're going to end the presentation tonight by looking at each of our schools performance. um and discuss some next steps. All right. So, um this kind of references what Dr. Carol said. Um before we start tonight, I want to go back and remind you that back in September, we did a presentation for you on the standards and learning assessments and how we did
090last year. So, [snorts] this presentation tonight is different than that. Um tonight's presentation, well, let me let me actually talk to you a little bit about what we did talk about LA in in September. So it'll kind of dust off some cobwebs and some of this will start to make sense. So in September we talked about reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. If you recall, we looked at current year data. We looked at threeear pass rates. We looked at comparison data as we compared across the state. We looked at reporting group performance. And then we also looked at performance levels like advanced um and on and um students who passed and students who did not pass. At that time, we also talked about these uh five focus areas that you see on the right.
091I will tell you we're continuing to work on those focus areas. That has been um some of the work that we've been doing this year. And so I want to share that with you before we get into actually describing the model. All right. So um the bifurcation model basically what that means is that VDOE has broken ACA accreditation into two parts. one part remains accreditation, the other part is accountability. And so if you look on the the right hand side there, that's the accreditation system. And um on the left hand side, you'll see that's the new Virginia school performance and support framework. And that's how you'll hear us refer to it, but it's accountability. So those are the two areas. We're going to explain both of these in greater detail. And I'm going to start
092with accreditation. Okay. So, school divisions or in the past when I would come and talk to you about this, we would talk about how our students performed and that would tell us what our accreditation was. So, now accreditation is a little bit different. It's based on how we submit um evidence of how we're meeting the standards of quality and the standards of accreditation in our school division. And it's really based around 10 areas. And then once we answer those those sets of questions, um each of our schools is identified as one of those three designations, fully accredited, conditionally accredited, and accreditation denied. So [clears throat] I can share with you tonight, I'm very pleased to share that all 19 of our schools are fully accredited uh for last school year. So that's that's exciting. And
093now we're going to actually get into the new stuff, which is really our accountability system. and uh Miss Beasley is going to share more about that. >> Okay. [clears throat] So, jumping into our new accountability system, as Dr. Skinner said, uh this is called the Virginia School Performance and Support uh Framework. So, this graphic outlines the Virginia Department of Education school performance and support framework. What I'm going to do is on the next four slides, I'm actually going to break this chart out into the four pieces so that we can talk about each of them in more detail. So this first part shows how Virginia measures school performance by level and we'll see how this applies um in the upcoming slides. Then the second area outlines the four performance categories that are assigned to each
094school. Then this section shows how schools could be federally identified for support based on school and student reporting group performance. And then finally, this section of the slide uh shows how the state could allocate resources and support based off of those performance categories. So on this slide you're can you can see how the framework score is going to be calculated. Um at all three levels uh we include mastery which is different waitings based on the school level. Elementary and middle school include growth while high school includes graduation. And then finally all three levels include a readiness measure uh with different weights based on um each school level. >> And let me just just take a moment. You can see as you shared the weights change as you go across. That's really important to notice where
095the state puts mastery at the highest level at elementary. Um, you see mastery counts a little bit less at high school where more emphasis is placed on readiness at high school than it is at the elementary level. And she's going to break out what each of those mean. But it's important to know that those percentages change. So again, I mentioned four performance categories for the school performance and support framework. These will be used for the purposes of comm community communicating school performance to the public. There's four categories distinguished [clears throat] on track off track and needs intensive support. VDE is going to use a point system to determine which schools are assigned to each of the categories. And so notice the points below each of the performance categories. That will be important as we we
096reach the end of our presentation. >> [clears throat and cough] >> So this slide uh demonstrates how the data is reported for each of our schools in each of the three categories. So this is a sample school. Um each of our schools receives um a point system for mastery, a point value for growth, a point value for readiness, and then a final framework score and then a final performance category. Just a note here, these are not percentages, which is a shift um in our thinking from our old system. These are actually point values um based off of those percentages of the whole that we shared previously. >> Obviously, the 64 is 65 is the highest you can have in those points or because the other ones is percentage. Um, so they're not percentages. And yes,
097I would love to say 65 is the highest that you can get and I would love to say hundreds the highest you can get, but you're going to actually see in our data later in the presentation that we have um two schools that actually exceed 100. >> It is it's it's a >> it's a little cumbersome um when you get into the nitty-gritty of it. Um if I show you the next chart, this might help. >> So this is the model as a whole. Um so if we use elementary for example on the left hand side you can see that reading mastery, math mastery, science mastery and then what is known as ELP progress or English learner progress comes to together as that 65%. So that's what makes up the 65% of mastery >> at
098the elementary school level. Right? And then notice similar to middle school but because we have a difference in the in the percentage of the whole. And then high school also looks similar. Um but you notice again the percentage of the whole is different. >> Does the term mastery equal grade level? >> Um mastery um equals the point value that a student earns based off their so score. >> Someone's [snorts] saying they've they've mastered this. say they're I'll just pull it out. They're fourth grade. Um so on their reading mastery, does that mean they're at fourth grade or better >> or I'm I'm trying to figure out what because mastery is kind of >> So she's going to explain master a little bit more detail for you. I think it'll be clear what they're really trying
099you to for us to understand really is where those weights change. they at elementary the mastery of content most important and then when you get to high school they really want that focus on readiness readiness for life and so as she describes each of these areas you'll see what comes into mastery versus readiness at the high school level. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to focus on mastery first. Um and again [clears throat] as we mentioned uh reading, math, science consistent across all three levels. And then we have um English learner progress. And I'll talk a little bit more about how that's measured. So for mastery, what we're looking at is we're looking at so and uh VAP assessments or Virginia alternative assessment program assessments. So we're looking at English, math, or science in each of
100those assessments for students in grades 3 through 12. So let me give you an example. Um so Lisa takes her so test and she scores in that pass advanced range. And so I'm gonna get the highest point value, 1.25 points. If I score in the past proficient range, I'm going to get one point. And then I can score, depending on the test, either fail or fail below ba basic. And I'm going to get either 75 points or half a point. Um, depending on if we're talking about English and math or if we're talking about science. So they give each student a point value based off their so. Did I did I just turn the light bulb on? [laughter] It is it is a a very cumbersome system um in regards to you have to take
101that math and then you have to equate it over to those percentages. Um and so again, it's a mastery index. It's not simply like our so pass rates, right? So we're not just going to say this is how many students passed as compared to this how [clears throat] many this is how many students took the test. We're looking at how many students got a pass advanced score versus how many students got a pass proficient score versus how many students failed the assessment. So the goal here, the state's goal with this is that we work to increase the number of students who are scoring the past advanced scores so that you're increasing your mastery index. >> So if you have like York River Academy, how does that affect them? >> Um, so that's an interesting question.
102Um, and we'll actually show you everybody's data at the end. Um, but a smaller school obviously is going to be impacted slightly different than some of our larger schools, but in the end, because they're rating it out of their total number of students and then turning it into a percentage, it works itself out. >> They use a percentage then. >> They use a percentage to figure out the mastery. Yes. Right. Because your mastery, your reading mastery, for example, [clears throat] at elementary school is 22 and a half%. >> Okay. >> Yes. So, our English learner progress is an assessment that our [clears throat] English learners take each February. It's called the access assessment. The goal of the access assessment is it actually has four domains and it [clears throat] measures students reading, writing, speaking, and
103listening performance. And so, uh the goal of the English learner progress assessment is to look at how [clears throat] a student did last year, so in 2024, versus how a student did in 2025. One thing to note about all of this data is you have to have at least 15 students in the data in order for the data to report. Um, and so again, you're going to see how that impacts some of our data moving forward. Okay, so let's talk about growth. So again, this is your model as a whole. I always like to bring us back to center as to how the model looks as a whole. And then this is growth. Again, we only have growth at elementary school and middle school. And you can see for elementary it's 25% um and for
104um middle school it's 20%. So growth is based off of how individual students are progressing from the start to the end of the school year. Again they're [clears throat] using past performance on either reading and math as well test or those um Virginia alternate assessment program or VAP assessments uh that a small group of our students take on an annual basis. Um again in order to be included in this data you have to have an so score from 2024 and an so score from 2025 because that's the way we would see students growth over these assessments >> and they are also given a point value based on how much birth they make >> not it still doesn't address um I guess the the traditional view of grade level on reading. >> So, um the so
105tests do that's why like that September presentation, we went into great detail about every grade level and we showed three-year TR averages. We showed our reporting group averages because we knew from what we knew at that point in time, this really doesn't get into grade level. This is really accountability of a school, the accountability rating of a school in general. It takes the so and it goes into the mastery piece of this and then the growth from student score from one to the other. But from now on we'll be doing two presentations. We're going to be doing that presentation because we felt like that is a very important data. And we need to know grade level by grade level, school by school, reporting group by reporting group how our students performed. And that's what that's
106why I went back over that September because it seems so long ago, right? Um, and so this is new and and a matter of fact, literally we got this this data last week and so we've been waiting for it. We keep thinking we're going to get it and the state keeps voting on it and and so we're excited but we're still learning quite a bit of this ourselves. Um, thank you. Mhm. >> Okay. So again, our model as a whole and then specifically for high school instead of growth we're looking at graduation >> and usually by now we would have shared graduation data with you, but we haven't been able to do that because that was just released last week as well. >> So we're excited to share this is our four-year graduation data. Um
107and so a few changes in the reporting of our graduation data. Previously, we would share what was called ontime graduation data or OGR data. And so, the way that data was calculated is we were looking at a four-year cohort, but we were also looking at um students who were what we refer to as sliders. That's what the state refers to as so a student who needed a fifth year or student who needed a sixth year. Um in this particular calculation, we're looking at students who complete high school in four years. Um so there is less flexibility in regards to uh those students who need five years or six years. We will see that added to the model here um in the next component. So you'll see this is a 4-year graduation um data point. We're
108looking just at advanced studies and standard diplomas which does include our IB diplomas. And again this doesn't include students who need those additional years or a student who might be earning an applied studies diploma. Um, so you can see we have some nice consistency here and York River Academy has a 100% graduation rate. I have a question on on this based on personal experience um several years ago. [clears throat] Do we have an issue with students who are they're not quite to graduation and so admin comes in and says okay we're going to eliminate and works with the teacher said what grades can we eliminate to get that average to graduation >> are we doing that anymore >> not to my knowledge I think all of our students who graduate meet their criteria for graduation
109and I think you've been to the summer graduation where we have some students who need to join join us for a little bit. We have staff that work very very hard to make sure our students are meeting all of those requirements for those courses. Um, and so I can't speak to what your experience was, but um, I will say that our students who graduate from York County meet the criteria for graduation. That's very important for us because we want them to be prepared, but sometimes it takes an extra year that she'll talk about the six-year students. >> Yeah, that that was different from this particular incident that was here. Okay. Okay. So, the last section of the framework is what's called readiness. Again, our model as a whole. So, readiness does vary depending on level.
110So, all three consistently are looking at chronic absenteeism. Just a reminder, chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. At middle school, we're also looking at the addition of advanced coursework. And then at high school, we're looking at the addition of 3E readiness and a six-year graduation rate that does include include applied studies diplomas. So, just as a reminder, this is our chronic absenteeism [clears throat] data that Dr. Butler shared earlier this fall. Um, this data does include our attendance recovery. Um, Dr. Dr. Butler talked about attendance recovery in a previous presentation, but just as a reminder, um this is the state provides us the opportunity to have students do um recovery work of instructional materials for days that they're absent. Um and for each threehour increment, students are able
111to recover um a day of school. Uh the data that's reported [clears throat] in our um framework does include the attendance recovery and is reflected in this data tonight. Um I'm excited to share that we did have at least uh that we had six schools who recovered attendance for at least five students preventing them from being included in this data. >> One of the other things that we do with chronic absenteeism data and graduation data, we have teams um and Dr. Kaggel and um Miss Huffedler and several people around the room, Dr. Butler back there, they meet with the school teams monthly and then as we get closer to graduation, we actually meet and more frequently where they are talking about the graduation requirements. They talk about students who might be at risk of not
112graduating. We talk about what can we do to support them, their family. We bring in our school social workers. We have our school counselors involved in that process. And we talk about chronic absenteeism because we tend to find that chronic absenteeism is associated sometimes with this. And so it's a full team approach to surround the student and the family to try to make sure that um every student graduates on time. >> The advantage now with this attendance recovery program is as [clears throat] we're sitting in those meetings, we have conversations about, you know, is are are students taking advantage of this and and have opportunities to stay after school? what might be the barriers to them staying after school and and how might we support them? >> How many days are we talking about being
11310%. >> So 10% of the school year um is typically 18 days if you have a 180day calendar, but [clears throat] last year we didn't have a 180day calendar and this year we won't have a 180day calendar. So we're typically looking at 17 days. Um and we had in in those six schools uh we had some schools that recovered five students and we had uh one high school who recovered over 50 students. >> This is excused and unexcused absence. >> Chronic absenteeism is excused and unexcused suspensions. Um there's there's no variability to it. Truency, which is another side of the work that Dr. Butler does, is specifically related to our unexcused absences. But remember, it's 10% of your absences. So if you're only in if you're only with us 150 days, then it would be
11415. >> So that's why sometimes when we report out the data, it can improve as the year goes on if you had an early illness that skewed your number. And so we can they can make it up, but it's 10% of your your absences of your total enrollment. Yeah. And that's is that a state requirement that we have to have the excused absences included in that? >> It's that is the definition. It is everything. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Do we track for the ones who are labeled chronic absences? Do we track what their um their overall grades are and success in the classroom? So that >> I know there's a trend, you miss more days, you don't do as well. But but what happens when you have that student who has chronic absenteeism? They're
115listed on here, but they're still an A student or, you know, BA student. [clears throat] >> Correct. Each school um has a team that surrounds and I think Dr. Butler might have shared some of this um but um each school has a team that works around absenteeism with our students and they factor in all of those things because just as Dr. Carol said you may have an illness at the beginning of the year that you know you may have only had what 30 days of school and you've missed let's say six days because you were sick right so technically you might be in that window but as time goes on your attendance will stay will stay consistent and you will come out of that area but they are as we would any student who misses
116school we're going to be communicating the will be communicating with the families making sure that those students are getting their m their makeup work [snorts] providing additional opport opportunities after school, sometimes even giving um the student an eye on a report card and so they can make that work up. >> How how do we track, you know, those students who are, you know, homebound or homebased [clears throat] for that alternate site? They're still getting their education, but they're not in class. I know homebound is usually for medical reasons. >> Um, how does that tie into the chronic absenteeism? Is that counted as they're still in school when they work with the homebound tutor or what? >> So, a student who's homebound, whether they're homebound for a day because they're on intermittent homebound or they're homebound
117for a quarter, uh they're actually removed from from our chronic absenteeism um data because we are supporting them with educational services. We still work with our school-based teams. So, if I was a student who was homebound for a quarter, um I have and I come back to school, I still have the opportunities to do attendance recovery, maybe not to meet the needs of reducing my chronic absenteeism, but to meet my needs of supporting me instructionally. Um, and so Dr. Butler and I work with our teams in each of our schools to identify who the students are that would benefit from that additional instructional support. and our school-based teams meet daily if not weekly and review an active list of students that we have in PowerBI that tell us these students have this kind of attendance
118what do their grades look like and one of the other pieces that Dr. Butler has shared previously is we also look at connectedness to school um because we know if they're connected to school that their rate of absenteeism is likely lower. All right. Thank you. >> All right. Okay. So, uh readiness for middle school in addition to chronic absenteeism, we're also looking at advanced coursework. Uh currently advanced coursework is looking at middle school students who are enrolled in and pass the end of course so tests either in algebra 1 or geometry. And then high school 3E uh looks at chronic absenteeism and what we refer to as the 3E readiness which is employment, enrollment, and enlistment which I'm going to get into here in the next couple of slides. And then additionally a six-year graduation
119rate. So, it's taking that four-year graduation rate and then we're looking at um some additional opportunities for those students. So, the first of the E is employment. Um employment is looking at um student performance in CTE coursework to include highquality work-based learning experiences and credentials in high demand fields. As you can see from the slide, as students increase the level of rigor in their experiences, they earn a higher point value. So, Miss Beasley, I think this is important for board members to understand that when you're looking at each student, you're you've got different opportunities to earn points. And you can see how the state's trying to incentivize school systems, right? So if we give if they give us this type of menu then we can say well we uh we do well on uh approved
120industry credentials but maybe we need to be moving more towards uh internships and and mentorships and that type of thing. So it uh they're they're trying to move the needle that way. And so the same thing with when you're looking at all these uh ways to earn points, the past advanced on the on the test performance, the more students you get there, the more points you get. The more advanced coursework is of course going to help in that and is going to compound. And then when we look, this is an example of the 3E readiness type thing. So if you're getting kids better uh prepared for employment or enlistment as opposed to only just enrollment in college, you have that opportunity to earn more points. So you so you can see where they're incentivizing. >>
121So this is employment. And as Dr. Carol mentioned, the next E is enrollment. So here what we're looking at is student experiences in those dual enrollment courses as well as completion of AP and IB exams. So, one of the things that uh Dr. Kegel brings to our program of studies presentations is she's always talking about the addition of AP courses or the addition of dual enrollment courses. This is one of the reasons why we're looking to grow those opportunities for our students as well as explore pathways to an associates degree. And then finally, our third E is enlistment. Here, what we're looking at is we're looking at the points that are awarded to a student based off their performance on the ASVAB assessment, which is the armed service vocational aptitude uh battery assessment. Um, and
122so our students in our four high schools take this assessment uh likely if they're exploring interests in military. um but also all of our students who are enrolled in our upper level um junior ROC classes uh take this assessment and so now Dr. Skinner is going to um complete the presentation by sharing our school-based data. All right, thank you. Okay, so now as just a quick review we share we started with this slide earlier and [laughter] these are the percentages, right? So all the points. So what they do is they take the points that a school receives for mastery, the points they receive for growth and the points they receive for for readiness and they add those together. Okay. Once we have that then we look at the point value and that decides what area
123on the framework the performance category they would give to that that particular school. So going back to that sample we started with earlier. So when you when you look across this, this is how it's going to work because I'm a minute. I'm going to show you how our students, our schools did. So they'll take the point value for all three of those, they add it up to give you a framework score. And then that framework would then decide if that's a what the level is. And the particular this school had 91.7. 90 and above is considered distinguished. And so this would be a distinguished school. Okay. All right. So now I'm going to share with you how our how all of our schools did and at the elementary level I'm excited to share that six
124of our schools were identified as on track and four of our schools Bethl Manor DARE Grafton Bethl and TAB were identified as distinguished schools. I do want you to um just take a special note that one thing and I I should have mentioned this earlier is that the state does not round. So, I'd like you to look at um Mount Vernon and Seafford where you see their score of 89.9. They are still considered on track even though they didn't hit the 90 point uh value. So, um it is important to know that those two schools were within one point of being considered distinguished. All right. So, now we're going to look at our middle schools. And you can see here that three of our schools are identified as on track and TAB middle school is
125considered um to be a distinguished school. And then high school, I'm very excited to share that all of our high schools have been identified as distinguished by the Virginia Department of Education. And earlier u Lisa shared with you that some of our schools can actually reach over a 100 points. It all depends on where they fall in those point values. And you can see that two of our schools tab in York River Academy are actually over the 100 point. All right. So as a recap, all 19 schools are fully accredited. Our division 4-year graduation rate is 96%. All 19 schools are identified as ontrack or distinguished and over 52% of our schools are considered um distinguished. And then the last two more points I want to make. We know that um many of our families
126and our viewing audience just as you have there's probably a lot of questions you might have about this because it is a lot of information to take in. We do have two resources here that I want to point people to. The first is the school quality profiles on the Virginia Department of Education. When you uh go to that website, you can click on the school pro uh quality profile and it goes into much greater detail than we did tonight. It also explains this in um in different ways that might be helpful. And then it also provides specific information on all of those areas that are listed there on the left by school and division. Also in our um board docs tonight, we posted two additional resources that were provided to us by the Virginia Department
127of Education. The um support framework family guide and the FAQ. Um, those will also be available on our website for families who want to learn just a little bit more. I think both of those resources are very helpful. And then the last thing that I want to talk about tonight is what our next steps are. Um, we, like I said, we received this data last week, official officially last week. We've had some opportunities to kind of look at it, but the state's made changes over the last two months. And so, our next steps are um, first of all, the work that we talked about, and Mrs. Spearman, you mentioned grade levels. In September, we shared some very specific things that we are doing around the our so performance. We're continuing that work. That work will
128not stop. It will not change. We're committed to all of those things that we shared with you in September. We'll continue that work. We're also now taking this framework data and we're meeting with schools and we're breaking it apart. As Dr. Carol shared, for example, when you look at our 3E performance, we're already seeing some areas where we could improve, [clears throat] and that'll be our next work is really breaking out that data. For example, under um the um um employment area, there are some areas that we're and you already saw in our program of study some changes that we're making to help us with this framework. So, that's the second thing. And then just as I shared a minute ago, the um our experiences for our students in employment, enrollment, and enlistment, we're going
129to continue to do board presentations. The first one was last month when we did our program of studies. We've added additional opportunities for [clears throat] advanced coursework. We're working on that middle school advanced coursework. Your um next month, I'll come and share the PSAT results with the board and then we'll also do our CT credentials. So those KPIs that we've been sharing, we'll continue to share those with you. Okay. So that concludes our presentation. Are there questions that you might have? [laughter] >> No, no percentage questions. >> It's a lot of information. I understand. >> I will tell you this has been two years in the making and it has taken me all of 2 years to understand all the parts and pieces. And as soon as I think I have it, like some some
130little tweak is made and I'm like, "Oh, now I'm back to the drawing board." So it's okay like not to understand this or still have a lot of questions. It is most certainly a significant shift in the work that we do. Um so many of those documents that Dr. Skinner mentioned as well as the school quality profile really provide some great resources for our family and community. >> So I do have a question. So once we collect all this data, we have this course, how does that help us to our students to focus on where do we have to go? >> Is that individually or just kind of >> so um when we begin our you were talking about how it helps our students >> like once we get all these points >> I think
131it shows us opportunities that we need to provide to our students that we may not be providing yet. And when I think about like the mentorships and when you saw um the externships, things of that nature, there are some areas there that we okay, it should we've already known that we need to maybe grow in that area. This solidifies it, which is going to benefit our students because they're going to be able to have more opportunities for those experiences before they graduate. By doing advanced coursework at the middle school level, it's going to open up their schedules in high school where they can do some of those things. So you're going to see some of this in the next I'd say three years really begin to benefit our students. This is just the first step,
132you know, and the so scores is I mean that's where it really when we talk about our students performance there and looking at um helping our students perform even better on those standards assessments so that as they get into high school, they have different opportunities. That that's kind of where the work goes from here. I I think that um we're poised and we're ready. We've been working through many different vehicles over the last year because we knew this was coming. A lot of the presentations that we've done for this board have already been kind of preparing us for this. >> Sorry, when we talk about tracking the progress, is that individual student or just division wise? >> Well, every student um has u provided to them by the Virginia Department of Education their performance over
133time. We also do something called a map assessment with our kids which is really nice because you can see your student's performance over I think three years now three years and you can see how your child is doing across you know compared [clears throat] to other students across the United States really um so I would say that the performance here is really looking at division and school but the outcomes of how our students do on these types of assessments we're we're prov providing that to parents answer that question and the advantage here is we also have growth in this model and so like seeing a student's growth on their so test like you're seeing that in the model obviously it's being all pulled together for a single school or a single reporting group at that
134school um but we are looking at the data when I work with the schools uh when when our instructional coordinators work with the schools we're looking at individual data right so we're looking at how students performed individually >> okay did you have >> yeah I just wanted to thank you Dr. Skinner for explaining that piece about like the work the workbased [snorts and clears throat] learning. Uh I think you sell yourself short and saying well the framework's there and so we're going to go chase those points is essentially what you're saying. You all have been talking about that in the instruction department for years now. I think it's really and and trying to expand uh advanced coursework to students as work that you've been doing for years. I I see this model as aligning with
135a lot of the things that we believe in and the work we've been the groundwork we've been doing. I think it's going to pay off for us in this framework. And so that's that's >> I think you already see why so many of our schools are labeled as distinguished because we have been doing that work. >> That's why we would like [clears throat] to thank the the teachers and administrators who support from the school side as well as the parents who were supporting supporting their students and the students doing the work. Um, I'd like to say I really appreciate their work and making this possible that we're not having to, you know, dig out of a hole that we're looking at improving. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. I think our last
136presentation is our policy discussion. >> I know we have one more. [laughter] [clears throat] >> Did I miss Oh, I'm so sorry. >> Yes. I knew I knew Dr. Bolan was here for [laughter] >> so we have more data to yes our early literacy. >> Well thank you Mrs. Goodwin. Speaking of things where we've laid the groundwork over the last few years is in literacy, I think we've been working on that more than just uh since the uh V all in Virginia and the Virginia literacy act. uh we've been working on literacy for years and doing things like providing our teachers letters training and uh uh opportunities such as that so that we were very poised and ready when all of that uh came down and now we're going to see some of the results
137from that. Uh so we have Dr. Kristen Bolm, associate director of elementary instruction and academic programs. She's now going to provide a summary [clears throat] of the student performance on the fall 2025 Virginia language and literacy screener system that you know as vows. Dr. B. >> Thank you so much and good evening Dr. Carol, Madame Chair, members of the board. Um I know you've had a long evening, but I am really excited to be here with you tonight to share something with you that looks at least a little bit familiar to you. Um that is the information about our Virginia language and literacy screening system which we commonly know as vowels and you've heard referred to as vowels. I'll talk you through um some things that you remember about the assessment as well as some
138new things about the assessment this year and share some of the data on how our students here in YCSD performed. So I will remind you again that VELS stands for the Virginia Language and Literacy Screeners System and the purpose of this assessment is really twofold. First it's to identify our atrisisk readers particular particularly at our primary grade levels but also to analyze um the reasons that a student may be having reading deficits particularly for our older students. This assessment does that by measuring critical literacy skills and gives our teachers really actionable information that they can use to guide the instruction that they're providing in our classrooms each and every day and to progress monitor the performance of their students. So I did caution you that the Val assessment has changed a little bit this year
139and I'm going to walk you through what that change looks like. So, you might remember that last year, BALS was an assessment that was administered to students in grades K through three. Beginning this school year, this assessment is being implemented [clears throat] across K through 8 with that guiding principle in mind of informing reading instruction and intervention for students across the Commonwealth of Virginia. However, the approach to the assessment varies a little bit based on the grade level. So that you'll see for our K through2 students, the valves is administered as a universal screening assessment. That means it's given to all of our students and we do that three times a year. At fall, at midyear, and then again in the spring. At third grade, we see a little bit of a departure from this.
140It still is a screening assessment but at third grade it's given only to select students students for whom um we are more concerned about risk factors. So maybe they were high risk in second grade um and in need of reading intervention. Maybe they're students who are new to the school division at that point in time. Again those students are screened three times per year at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year and the end of the year. The departure comes for four through eight students. Again, this is a selective process where the assessment is given only to certain student groups and it is a diagnostic assessment. So, instead of screening for reading difficulties, we're looking at students who already have demonstrated that they have some reading deficits and we're using the assessment
141as a tool to determine what factors are contributing to the reading deficit that they possess. Now, this assessment is only given twice a year. It's given at fall and in midyear with the supposition that student reading performance is assessed at the so in the spring and that's really the culminating assessment of their reading capability at that point in time. So, we're going to start by talking a little bit about that assessment at K through two. And this should look really familiar to you because you saw this um slide last year. Um what you see here is the list of codebase subtests that our students in grades K through two participate in. Again, these assessments are given to all of our students in K through two. And following the completion of those assessments, a composite score
142is obtained. So we're looking at the performance on all of these subtests in totality. And that gives us a riskband designation. And that wristband designation is either low risk, moderate risk, or high risk. And you'll see here a little bit about what that means. So for for our students who are performing at a low risk band level, those students are demonstrating that they have foundational literacy skills that are really quite strong. And so they're going to continue to receive highquality grade level instruction in the classrooms that we have here across YCSD. For students who have been identified as being a part of the moderate risk band, they're going to receive some targeted and explicit instruction. Now, that might take place right in the context of their classroom with intervention that's provided by the classroom teacher.
143It's our students who score in the high-risisk bands for whom we're most concerned. And these students do receive a student reading plan that monitors their intervention and their progress throughout the school year. These students are required to receive an additional 2 and a half hours of literacy instruction each week by a trained staff member. So now we're going to take a look at the data from the fall balance administration and we're going to start that um look at our data with our kindergarten students. Now, as [clears throat] you know, kindergarten students come to us in the fall with a variety of preschool learning experiences, and they may lack such experiences altogether. This variety of experiences is really reflected in their performance because it's not yet a product of anything that we've poured into them. It's
144an initial baseline assessment for them. So, what I'm going to do first is just introduce you to our new key performance indicator dashboard for Val. This is new for you as well because this is the first year that we're able to see longitudinal data on the valves assessment because it was given for the first time last fall. So what you're looking at here in the left-h hand column is comparison data for student riskban distribution from the fall of 2024. That's in your top left corner of the screen with the comparison to the fall data from 2025. That's in the bottom lefthand corner of your screen. In the middle column, you're going to see wristband data by school and wristband demographic data from last school year. And in the far right column, you're going to see
145that same information, your riskband by school and your demographic um risk band data for this school year for comparison's sake. So, let's take a closer look at this. So, the first thing you're going to see is that this fall we had 796 kindergarten students participate in the Val's assessment across the school division in comparison with 787 students last year. you'll know that 45% of those students are placed in the lowrisk band this year, which is an increase um over last year, indicating that our incoming class of kindergarten students have some relatively strong foundational literacy skills as they come to us this year with 18% of them being high risk and needing some intensive intervention in individualized reading support. So now we'll take a look at that school specific data again comparing last school year on
146the left to this school year on the right. And what you'll notice is that risk bands vary by schools. And when we look at this data, the intention is really that we're able to highlight some areas where schools may need some additional support. And we use that information to make decisions about how to best allocate resources to our schools, how to support them in intervention planning, and how our schools are going to engage in the school improvement planning process. And then you'll see our demographic data, which includes breakdowns by gender, race and ethnicity, economic disadvantage, English learner status, and disability status. The insights that we receive when we take a look at this data help us to ensure that we're having positive outcomes for all learners across the school division related to literacy instruction. And
147we're able to um help support our teachers and school leaders to identify groups that may need additional support and intervention within our schools. Now, let's take a look at the first grade fall student performance data. So again, here's a quick glance at our dashboard, but we're [clears throat] going to break it down for you. Um, so you'll see this year that 852 students participated in the first grade vows assessment in comparison with 886 students last fall. You'll also notice an increase in the number of students identified in the low risk band to 57%. And a decrease in the high-risk students. um that is down to 14% at this point. And we feel that this is um really the product of the hard work of our teachers and students across the school division and the support
148of their families as we've fully implemented the tenants of the Virginia Literacy Act. So again, we'll look at the risk bands by school. And again, you'll see that there is some variability from school to school, but you'll also see much greater consistency as we start looking at the first grade data. Again, the students who were with us in their kindergarten year experienced highquality instruction using the new curriculum materials that we implemented last year, which are aligned with the science of reading. And we believe that we're seeing the benefits of that across all schools. As you look at the consistency that's pretty evident in our data, we'll take a look at our demographic data. Again, in keeping in mind with this demographic data that our goal is to ensure that we have positive student outcomes for
149all learners across the school division. [snorts] So, we know that we have some areas um where we need to continue to provide support to particular student groups um and we take that into account as we engage in school improvement planning. And finally, I'd like to take a look [clears throat] at our um second grade fall balance data with you. And here's that quick look at the dashboard. And what you'll notice here is that our second grade students continue to represent the largest cohort of students that are assessed in our primary grade levels. You'll see that same increase here. This is a more significant increase in the number of students who are in the low risk band in comparison to last year's second grade group and a decrease in the high-risisk performance. Um again, we credit
150this to the work of our teachers, students, and families. um the things that they do each day to commit to learning and that full implementation of the tenants of the Virginia Literacy Act. Again, here you'll see greater consistency in the performance from one school to the next with most of our schools showing the majority of their students in the low risk. And where we do have those pockets of high-risk um students, we're able to provide some targeted school supports and again use that information to drive school improvement planning efforts to promote positive outcomes for students in all of our schools. And as we look at our demographic data, um you will see again um that we still have some areas of growth identified here related to literacy instruction and we're able to use that data
151to promote positive and successful outcomes for all of our students. So because universal screening concludes at the end of second grade and because composite riskb scores are not provided for our upper elementary and middle school students, we're now going to turn our attention away from a look at the data and move into the student reading plan and intervention requirements for our students. So I'm first going to share some information with you related to student reading plan and intervention requirements for students in grades K through three. So you'll see that students in the high-risk score band are required to receive intervention and that intervention is documented in the context of a student reading plan. Now for our youngest learners, we do require that two and a half the state requires that two and a half hours
152of intervention are provided weekly and that intervention is provided by trained staff members for them. This requirement is in alignment with the early intervention reading initiative. Making sure again that we're meeting all of those state requirements. >> Just one question. >> Uh the intervention provided by trained staff, can that be either the reading specialist or a PAR? >> Yeah, so in most cases it's a reading specialist that's providing that intervention. It could be a special educator or a trained PAR educator. [clears throat] And we do offer training supports for PAR educators across the division in um some of our intervention programs that are more standardized like the SIPS program, >> but they're all approved by the state as an intervention. >> Cool. >> Okay. So, now that we've reviewed Val's information for K through three,
153we're going to turn to something new. I promise it's easier than the new thing that Dr. Skinner and Miss Peasley shared with you. Um so, we're going to take a look at the vows four through eight assessment. And remember that this version of the valves assessment is only given to select students. So it's given to students who failed their previous reading so assessment. It's given to students who receive a read aloud or audio accommodation on the reading so assessment because there's some indication there that there's some reading difficulty. So we want to figure out why that is and make sure we're providing appropriate supports and it's given to students who are new to the school division. [clears throat] These students are going to take subtests in the areas of spelling, oral reading fluency, morphology, and
154sentence comprehension. And then we have two conditional assessments, word reading and nonsense word reading that we give to students who struggle a little bit with oral reading fluency. Now, this is a little different than the K3 assessment where we get a composite score. There's no composite score given for this assessment, and there is a very good reason for that. Each and every subtest is given a score um for each student and that score being corresponds with either an adequate approaching or well below. And this is because we want to really take that diagnostic approach to determine why a student is having difficulty reading. So I'm going to walk you through an example of what that might look like. So, if a student is struggling in the area of reading fluency, for example, um, and they
155receive a score in the well below range, what that's telling us is that oral reading fluency is probably a factor that's making it difficult for that student to read and comprehend. And so, when we are looking at our approach to providing support for that student and in instructional way, we're going to target oral reading fluency [clears throat] as part of their reading plan. and then the intervention that supports the reading plan. [snorts] In contrast, students who receive a score of adequate on a subtest, we're learning information that that's probably not the reason that a child is struggling to read. Um, for scores of approaching, that's sort of the gray area. It may or may not be contributing to a student's overall reading comprehension um difficulty. So, it's something that we likely will address, but it
156may be something that the teacher can address through some [clears throat] intervention and supports in the classroom. So, we thought we would like to share with you and we thought you would want to know how many of our students are participating in the [laughter] valve assessment at grades four through eight because it is that new assessment and it's only given to select students. So what you'll see here is that across the board um it's a rate of between 11 and 15% [cough] of students [clears throat] at each grade level for grades four through eight who are participating in this assessment. And that approach really identifies and helps us to target students who are most in need of support while minimizing instructional disruption for other learners. >> [snorts] >> Now, we'll talk a little bit about
157the student reading plan and intervention requirements in for students in grades four through eight because these are a little bit different than they are for our primary learners. So, in this case, students who failed the spring so must receive a student reading plan. That's a state requirement. They are required to have intervention time, but unlike with our primary learners, there's not a designated amount of time that they have to receive that intervention. It can be very targeted and specific depending on the number of indicators [clears throat] that a student has and and where those indicators lie. The only caveat is that the intervention has to be provided outside of the designated so instructional time. Um but we do get a little bit more flexibility in terms of the intervention delivery method that we can provide.
158Um one thing that we have done at the middle school level to help support this is we've added a reading pair educator to each of our middle schools this year that's partially funded right now through all in VA funds and and then two positions are funded through local funds. >> We already have a reading specialist at every middle school. So this is >> so this is somebody who's supporting that reading specialist and ensuring that the intervention can be effectively provided to our students. >> We're going to look to feed those positions after the >> we would very much like to do that. [laughter] >> Okay. So um our K through eight student reading plans. We want you to take a [clears throat] a quick look now at what this looks like across the division for
159our elementary and middle school students. So you'll see here um information regarding the percentage of students in each grade level who possess a reading plan. As you might expect, most of those take place for our youngest learners because they're still learning how to read. Um and they may be at different points in the continuum on that. And then as our students are progressing, we hope to see fewer students who are in need of that more significant re reading intervention. Um, and again, each student who um has demonstrated that deficit in the area of reading has been given a student reading plan. Some things that we want you to understand about those plans. First and foremost is we don't create those in isolation. They're created in collaboration with the teachers who work with the student. If
160it's a student with a disability, we include the special educator and the general educator as part of that team. And we include and involve our family members in that process. They're able to come in, meet with the teachers, and help understand why their student may be struggling in reading. We include within that plan goals and objectives for the instructional areas that are identified by Val. So, if you think about our earlier example, a student with oral reading fluency will have goals and objectives related to oral fluency. We do have a progress monitoring component that's required. So for each plan there's typically a monthly update although some more frequent updates are provided for some students um so that we can track their progress in between those three assessments or two assessments that are given each year.
161And then each plan includes some resources for families to use outside of school because we know here in York County we have families who are very involved and want to support the great work that we're doing in our schools. Um, so with that, I would like to just take a moment to again thank all of our general and special educators, our reading specialists, um, our school administrators, and others who are engaging in tireless work to support the literacy development and progress of our students across all of our STO schools. We very much appreciate their commitment and I'd like to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share this data this evening and give you an opportunity to ask any questions that you may have for me at this time. >> Director of student
162services will present staff recommendations for the quadrrenial review of book J students book J named students in the York County school board policy manual including restated policies proposed revisions and new policies for compliance and alignment. Dr. Butler. Thank you madam chair members of the board and Dr. Carol posted on board docs you will find the revisions that have been submitted for for the quadeneral review for policy J which is students as Dr. Carol had shared there is a total of 47 policies in Jay. However, 33 policies when we reviewed will be restatements. Uh they mirror the VSBA or practices that we currently do in the division. There are 14 proposed revisions. Most of those proposals comply with some changes that happen in Virginia code specifically when it deals with students that experience homelessness during the
163course of the year. There are some things that deal with procedures when it comes to some federal um employees that work in our school division and different things when it comes to attendance. There are two new proposed policies which we did not have in policy J and that is policy JHCA physical examination of students that complies with Virginia code and there's also a model policy in VSBA and then JHCB which is student immunizations which also complies with Virginia code and there's model policies in VSBA. Uh the other policies as I shared were just revisions primarily due to the code of Virginia that had been amended or BSP policy. There was a few things that staff when they reviewed it some wording that we needed to change to make sure it was in alignment with our
164current practices. >> And so Dr. Beth, the motion is to bring it back to the next uh >> yes for the first reading. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Butler. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, we have another meeting following at 7 o'clock upstairs. We're going to take a short break and then have our next meeting up.