School Board Work Session - November 10, 2025

001Good evening. I'd like to call to order the November 10th, 2025 work session of the York County School Board. I can't believe it's November already and that we're already into the second week. It's like, oh my gosh. Um yeah, it's truly flying by. Um, I want to take this opportunity um to thank everybody that participated in the um student student the superintendent search survey. Um, I really appreciate the time and the effort that everybody took. We had about plus um responses and um it's was helpful in in drafting the qualifications that we want our search firm to use to find our superintendent. I do want to address a couple comments that, you know, were made about the final u qualifications that maybe were on a little bit of lower list than the community uh would

002have liked, but to the community, I want to say that um as board chair and try to be inclusive and keep um all members uh you know uh wants in in mind when we're trying to construct these things. So, um, you know, we did I did what I thought was best in so far as making sure everybody felt included and having a say. Um, I have no doubt though that, um, with the qualifications that were put out there that, um, it's a very high bar and we are going to get, um, the best of the best, uh, I'm sure. Okay, with that said, um, we're going to go into our presentations and our first pre presentation is on capital projects. Dr. for Carol. >> All right. Thank you, Mrs. Goodwin. Uh, so tonight we have

003Bill Bowen, our chief financial officer, is going to share updates on uh, capital projects. Mr. Bowen. >> Thank you, Dr. Carol, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um, this evening, this is your capital projects report for November 10th, 2025. Um, we're going to focus on school uh, secondary school auditorium upgrades. So, as you know, we um spent most of the summer on our school high school um auditoriums and we're just about at the the point [clears throat] where completed those projects. Um there are two still that um remain open and those at uh Tab High School and at uh Brutin High School. The stage and lighting commission has been completed at both of those schools. So, that's that's a great thing. What we're left with is the audio [clears throat] booths at both schools. that

004work uh started today and it should be completed by the end of the week. >> No more buzzing and snapping lights, huh? >> Right. >> That's great. >> So, just again um this is a picture of the work that was done at York High School. The wonderful work that was done at York High School. Here we saw seating, we saw flooring, um we saw upgrades to the house lighting, stage lighting, and also to the stage curtains. And this is a picture of the new stage lighting as well. That is great. >> And then to [clears throat] Yorktown Middle School, we saw upgrades to the seating, to the flooring, to the auditorium curtains, and also to the stage curtains. >> What happened to those chairs? Because >> they were taken off by the contractor. >> Okay.

005So, it was not >> We sold them to the house. [laughter] >> It looks great. >> Quick question. Did we keep the same number of seats that we had originally with [clears throat] the new design seats? >> I don't know about Yorktown Middle. On the others, there was there was a slight loss because there's a variation in size, right? >> Uh which is common practice now, but nothing that is uh significant. >> And these are the auditorium curtains. and then on to Tab High School where we um upgraded the seating, the light lighting, sound, flooring, and also the stage curtains. And in this picture, at the lower part of that picture, you can see there's a table there. That's uh that's the existing sound booth that's getting replaced for a more permanent structure. That's what

006that's what started today. [clears throat and cough] >> [laughter] >> And then at Brutin High School, upgrades to the seating, the flooring, the lighting, and also the sound and stage curtains as well. >> Was anything done to the wood stage area? Were they refinished or anything, or they were okay? >> The wood stages have not been refinished. Okay. Well, except for one, Yorktown Middle. >> And I would just add though, Mr. bone. All of the uh light and sound is functional now, correct? We're just waiting for case work for those sound booths, but everything's working. >> That is correct. Uh the TA project was up and running far as the light and the sound as of the Monday uh of a week ago. So, so um just to give you a brief update on the

007Tab High School project, um the 65% design drawings have been received. The team continues in their efforts to value engineer the design to ensure that we are well within the project budget. Lastly, a purchase order has been issued for hazmat testing and sampling. And what we hope will happen here is that um the vendor is going to look at the drawings, design drawings, and look at the areas that are going to be disturbed. And they will do some testing to see if there are any issues with any chemicals that we need to be aware of or any um issues in those areas and if so and whether or not we need to rem u remediate. So that work will be uh starting here very shortly. And that's the capital projects report for tonight. Be happy

008to answer any questions that you have. Anybody >> have anything? No. >> Okay. Questions during your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Bowman. >> Thank you. >> I guess next we're going to be talking about the facilities master plan. >> Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Goodwin. After this one, you're going to get me. So, we are going to uh talk about the facilities master plan for 27 through 32. Uh this is an annual report that we make for the board that serves as a precursor to the capital improvements program which uh Mr. Bowen will bring to the board [laughter] of January. Correct. >> Correct. >> All right. So [clears throat] sorry. [snorts] Oh F5. Okay. There we go. All right. So the FMP is a synthesis of these five components. Uh provides background and history on our

009buildings and now they have an average age of 55 years. Uh it addresses all the facility needs uh that we feel we have after doing inspection uh which we do annually. Presents enrollment and capacity data, excuse me, to talk about how we're we're doing as far as the space that's available in the schools. We also review attendance zone data and recommend projects for the capital improvement program. As I just said, the FMP this year is structured in similar fashion to last year's resi revised format. New features include a section on page 17 listing previously awarded projects that await initiation. And the summary of CIP recommended projects has been restructured to list all projects planned at a single school to be listed on the same row. And the ages of the electrical systems have been added

010to a table list of major systems histories in appendix 3. So first we'll review our enrollment data and resulting instructional capacities. So first we'll look at a high school. At the high school level, the instructional capacity is the same as the building capacity because the utilization of classrooms is different than at the elementary level. The current student count is at 4,121. That's up 21 students from last year and equal to the year before. None of the high schools have enrollment greater than the building or instructional capacity. And the levelwide instructional capacity remains 900 students over our capacity or our yes 900 over. Let me make sure that's clear. 900 under. We have space for 900 more students. I'll make sure I said that the right way. All right. Now [clears throat] for >> that's across

011the board. >> Across the four schools. Yes. >> Right. Now also at the middle school level uh the instructional capacity is the same as the building capacity and enrollment at this year is 3,263 which is about 100 above last year. None of the middle schools has enrollment that is greater than the building or instructional capacity and at a level about 800 students below instructional capacity uh divisionwide. However, as mentioned last year, the potential for growth at Queens Lake cannot be discounted and is why it's included for expansion in the six-year plan. Furthermore, reported pressures in some secondary schools is prompting us to continue to look at how we compute the secondary instructional capacity. We have closed all the middle schools to non-resident uh enrollment. We've also had to add temporary spaces to bridge the gap

012for the Queens Lake campus due to enrollment as well as programmatic pressures for space that does not indicate that they have room for another 96 students without the aid of that of additional temporary space. I would also add when you look at the tab middle numbers there, 2013 is really starting to push it there and uh we may need to look at some temporary space there uh if we don't see a downward trend soon. question. If if students um with with the levels for the if students were already in the middle school who were outside of the resident area, are they allowed to continue or is that by a yearby-year cases? So they may be here for sixth grade and seventh grade, but then they'll be told no, they can't do it for eighth grade.

013>> That's always a possibility. They do have to reapply annually, and that is one of the levels that we will look at if we have to do that. >> Okay. [clears throat] But that would only be in an extreme case where we felt we had to. >> Have we had to do that yet? >> Not yet. >> But we're close. >> So if we're looking for increase on the top metal, what would be the capacity that would be increasing if we If we [clears throat] were to go with that route to increase capacity for those >> Oh, if we gave more, how much of a room are we talking about? >> If we were to use one or two uh portables or a four classroom unit, that would add uh that could be 25 to

01430 each unit. So, that could be anywhere from 100 to 120. >> Okay. >> So, would you add those over to the area where we used to have them? >> Most likely. I'm I'm not sure. We haven't I haven't been looking into that yet. Okay. For instructional uh capacity at the elementary level, you'll remember that basically it's defined as computing u by subtracting the special programming rooms from the total rooms and then multi multiplying times the average class target size which is 22 and a half. So I use this graph here or table here because it's you'll remember this from the resoning we use this. So for easy comparison when we look at the right column which is the left is the brick and mortar and in the right is the capacity factoring in portables.

015The color schemes indicate ranges and those are exactly the same as last year as far as the number of dark red, light red, uh orange, yellow and green. However, some of the schools have shifted uh which happens every year that some schools have a higher uh enrollment some years and and not in others. So, uh we still see a pretty good picture here. Now, Waller Mill is the big mover as it's had to absorb a lot of u development over the past year and at last year for comparison purposes it was at 110% brick and mortar and 82% temporary. The good news is there's not a lot of active developments there right now as I'll show you in a little bit. So pressure has lifted on the three schools that were remaining for the reszoning

016except for Tab Elementary. So we have continued with the DARE elementary parking lot project which is on the list of projects recommended for the CIP and we're in the design phase now. Just another note, uh 50% of the elementaryaries are above 100%. That's down 10% from last year. Uh however, 70% are above 95%. So that's up 10%. However, with no addition with additional capacity, no schools above uh the 13 the 134 number, right? Okay. So we will move along to projections. So we we end this section looking at the instructional capacities and what we think are going to happen across the next six years and we use a static projection on the instructional capacity but we take the enrollment and multiply it by uh using the threeyear average the trailing three-year average. So he here

017we see our projection table predicts only another uh 79 students over the instructional capacity over the next six years divisionwide. Now once again this is the model we've historically used and it has been useful for the macro just looking at the big picture number but as I said earlier it assumes a static instructional capacity which we know is unrealistic but it's also [clears throat] impossible to accurately project. So, um, just to to give you an example, in fact, this year, elementary has reduced across the division 140 students, but we only gained about half of that in instructional capacity because we've added three classrooms for special ed programming. So, that cuts that about in half. So, all the growth will be dependent on that type of programming growth as well as residential development and economic conditions.

018of the five schools currently at or above brick and mortar capacity, they all have additional capacity available to them in the form of portable classrooms and that's that's noted at the bottom. So now we'll uh move to new residential development which has a large impact on where we're headed. So this is a graph you've seen every year. Um here we see a representation of the last 10 years of new home construction. Now, there's been a change from every year that I've done this previously. The current year-to- date line is the black one that's near the bottom of the graph. Here we do see high rates of construction each of the last five years, but this year to date is the second lowest one in the last decade. So, that is a significant change. And as

019I said, I'm going to share with you a little in a bit is the activives that are still left, the future units, there is really a very small number. So unless things start to pick up, um we're looking at a very low year, uh which is good for us because it gives us time to get to the you know the additions that we have on the current CIP. So as we work through this board members, I'll remind you that residential development is categorized three ways. active, pending, and planned. [clears throat] Active have already been built and have not issued all certificates of occupancy. Pending or going through county approval process, and planned are well in the offing. [clears throat] Maybe some initial plans have been shared with the county, but not any real work. So,

020here's a review of the active projects listed by their elementary zone, and the total units expected in the future is found to the right. And if you add the certificates of occupancy, the cos, and you add that to the future units, it gives you the total scope of the project and a sense of how far they've progressed. No additions in this list and the future units has reduced some here in the Coventry, Deer, and Grafton Bethl zones. As we move to McGrder, Mount Vernon, and Seafford, the McGrder and Seaffort zones uh are seeing almost no new future units, and Mount Vernon is very nominal. And then finally, some growth here. And Yorktown, Yorktown has the capacity to grow and absorb it. Important here is that Waler Mill has absorbed the existing active projects. The issue

021is the pending projects as they come online and we're going to see that in the next slide. So this graph is especially illustrative placing all active, pending and planned in one graph column by elementary zone. And while the current active development is not incredibly impactful, the other units in the pipeline, you see 95 of them uh in the pending zone and 155 planned in these affected areas. So the only thing that causes us any concern at all is the wall or mill column and you see 520 in that light blue category. So once again, not active, but they're working through the plan process with the county. Those won't all hit at the same time, but they will start to come online one at a time. But keep in mind, these are housing units, not students,

022and students would be spread across all three levels, but it's something we may need to adjust with additional temporary space until we complete expansion, especially [clears throat] at Waller Mill. And that is something that we um have the ability to do as we uh await the uh funding and the time for construction at the end of the sixth year. >> Yeah. Especially with the Waller Mill one. Um what's the timeline of that pending? >> Is open. There's no timeline. >> It's just open. >> It's when [clears throat] when they're finished, when they finish satisfying the county or when they're ready, uh they have the funding to move on to the next phase. >> Okay. Uh sometimes they can stay there for a long time. The as I'll show you in a little bit uh the

023planned uh the planned projects from last year are the same planned projects from last year. There's been literally no movement. >> So are this single family or multi? >> Oh, this is everything across the board. >> Like you know with majority of this for the water mill that are coming in. >> Oh, I'd have to dig into that. If you look >> if it's apartment that would attract more of the younger families that >> that would be that would be important info [clears throat] to know. >> You would have to look at those are found on pages 15 and 16. So the pending are on 16 >> and you can u some of that you can decipher from the titles and what they're >> okay. >> Yeah. And the full report. Got it. >> All

024right. So now we'll move on to the recommended capital improvements projects or CIP. Projects are placed in the capital improvement plan based on the need for capital funds supplied by the county. And the order in which they're placed is dependent on a variety of factors including instructional capacity, security concerns, age of the structure, building conditions, and cost. And the types of projects we do range from new construction to renovations and additions, HVAC replacement and energy conservation, roof repair and replacement, and then some other projects. This year has little change from what we proposed last year except trying to sharpen the cost of the tab high renovation project. Uh we did add a section for uh near the York York near York High the operations and maintenance area. We did add in a replacement for the

025electrical switch gear and wiring at York High and some safety system refresh. And we'll next get into the details and for that I'm going to ask Mr. Bowen to take over. >> Thank you Dr. Carol. [clears throat] Members of the board, um you're going to see a little different uh look of the CIP this year. Um in talking preliminary talks with the county, they have asked us to consolidate where we've had multiple projects um affecting one school and you'll see that um in in the elementary section here. Uh previously we had DARE um with a bus loop and parking uh lot expansion. Um and then separately we had the gym HBAC. And so now we've included those together um as as the county had asked us to do. The details now can be found on

026the project worksheets where in the back which are in the back of the FMP. You can see more detail back there. The other thing is um just to point out um you'll see some numbers here in green that represents cash contributions from the from the school division and in support of the CIP. So let me begin with um D Elementary. So the design and uh for the new bus loop and parking lot expansion at Dare Elementary is almost complete. This uh project is to support resoning efforts and to accommodate staff parking needs at DAR and the schoolboard office. The final design has been has to be submitted to the county for approval before we go out to bed. And that'll be our next step in FY27. Funding is available to begin planning for the replacement

027of the H at the gym HVAC unit and building wide automation systems. And finally, the proposed expansion wing of Waller Mill Elementary School, includes the second year of funding here added in FY32. It includes a six to eight classroom expansion, adjustments to the cafeteria and other uh other common areas. And this project is essential as Dr. uh Carol mentioned um to support the increasing enrollment in the northern part of the county. >> So during this uh parking loop, the design is not done yet. When do we anticipate having it done? the the the design uh will probably go to the county this week. >> This week? >> Yes. And then they'll it'll it'll be under their review to make sure everything looks good. Um we're adding about 96 spaces to um parking spaces to the

028to the parking lot which again will support largely work at SPO and and of course staff parking. >> Timeline for us to do this would be >> in the summer. >> There's been some um conversations with the bargain box. Uh the bargain box has has expressed interest in servicing the service access road between DAR and and their facility. Um they would like to see some improvements to that road. Um because they have a lot of folks that park on on their side on the grass. We also have some of our staff members that are parking on that side of the building. Um if there are uh funds that are available at the end of the project, we could direct those funds to be uh to support parking for additional parking for our staff on the

029back side of the building. However, to do anything to that road would most likely require the county's uh involvement in that process. We have reached out to the county just to let them know that there's an opportunity here since we're working on this if they would be willing to to commit to that project >> and we'll let you know. When will that be brought before the board or board of supervisors or the team over there? >> So once we get the design approve uh designs approved by the county that'll come back. We'll incorporate that in in our December CIP presentation at that point. So to uh the middle schools. [clears throat] So for Queens Lake Middle School, we've proposed an expansion that includes eight new classrooms, an enlarged front entrance and office area, a new

030gymnasium, a renovated cafeteria, a redesigned bus loop, and a new lows slope roof. This project is necessary to accommodate the enrollment growth, and to address the deteriorating condition of the existing roof. In last year's capital improvement plan, funding for this project was not scheduled um to start until FY28. However, we were able to look at all of our projects and the team felt comfortable with the Brutin High School project, which was expected to be fully funded in FY27. So, we shifted uh about $3 million uh to FY28, and we were able to move $2 million up on the planning and design of Queen Queens Lake Middle for FY27. So, if if the CIP plan is um is accepted as proposed, then we'll begin that uh design work in the summer. construction expecting to be in

03129, right? Start the start. >> Correct. Yes. >> On the high school, uh, as I mentioned, Brutin High School, um, the full $3.7 million was was scheduled in FY27 and we were able to shift $3.2 million to 28. And then we see the graft in learning commons. The second year of that has uh now is now reflected uh in in FY32. And then TAB high this is where we see the biggest change. U there were eight separate projects for TAB high school on last year's CIP and we've condensed them into just one line with the details on those project worksheets. And as I mentioned earlier um we have 65% of drawings um and staff continues to look at design modifications. And I'll just walk you through some of the things that we're doing to try

032and uh cut cost in our strategies uh to to see that. Um so first of all, we have combining the LED lighting conversion at the in the main building with the turf lighting um at at the field there. We went out to bid. We tried to we tried to do that as a joint project to see some economies of scale. We actually received no um bids on on that project. So now we're separating that project and bringing it to the the the larger project. We've adjusted the scope and the initial vision of the A&E. Um we've renegotiated the A&E design cost based on that adjusted scope and we've also revised the contingency related to that um reduced scope. >> I have a question about tab high on the previous slide actually on the high school

033projects. >> Yes ma'am. um looking at them going across horizontally. You're adding the numbers. >> Yes. Oh, >> but when you get to tab high, it goes 770, but then the total is only 175. >> Yes. So, um and I and I failed to point this out. Um FY26E, those projects and funding have been approved. So what we're showing and and what those totals are are for the six years of 27 through 32 and then what the board will actually be approving is funding 427. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> And one additional thing that the county had asked us to do is they asked us to work towards a CIP that was a 15-year plan instead of a six-year plan. much of what we see um decisions are being made only in those six years

034and the county wants to start taking a broader look um at the needs across the county not only for our buildings and facilities but also for the county's facilities. So we we'll be working on that process when we present the next CIP in December. >> So they want for clarification they want us to develop instead of a six-year uh facilities master plan a 15-year one. >> Yes ma'am. instead. Okay. >> Do we have a deadline for that kind of or they just want to see it the next six years to be developed for? >> Well, we're we're going to we're going to do our best to try and and place projects where we think they need to be. This is a short window in which to um to develop a 15-year plan. Um we think

035it'll be more accurate next year, but it does show where what we're thinking about um in the next uh 15 years as far as new schools uh and of course renovations. um and and roof replacements and HBAC's >> bathroom. So once we have the designs uh complete, we'll go out to competitive bid and the RFB bidding process followed by negotiations. We'll utilize the A&E work at the TAB high school um project and we'll use that um for the Brutin High School locker room and then we'll continue to apply for the state's school construction assistance program [clears throat] and I've talked to you individually about that but the state does have a program uh it's a grant program that we apply to since 2022 through through 2025 there's been $800 million available and York County has

036not received a dime. time. However, they have changed the general assembly has changed the evaluation criteria, which now will take into account for school divisions that have never received any funding [snorts] that we now have uh points awarded to us for not having received that funding. So, we believe that we're in the best position we've been at been in since uh since we've been applying for this to finally receive some money. >> Did anybody around us receive any of those grants? >> Yes. So, um, [clears throat] about two years ago, the fund was paying for complete projects. Uh, I know that Northampton, um, Northampton County on the Eastern Shore received money for, uh, it was either middle school or high school, paid for most of it. Um, the evaluation criteria has changed, but also the

037award has changed. Well, now they're not paying for full projects. They're giving you 10%, 20% or 30%. Based on your local composite index. So we would fall if we were awarded we would fall in that 20% range to the tune near to about $8 million which would significantly help us with the tab project but also allow us to redirect possibly redirect those funds that we would be saving in the debt and move it to Bethl Manor >> where there will be some opportunity there to do some work with uh the hope some federal funding that we will be receiving >> and this award when is it coming >> the federal funding so um we met with the congressman today And um he indicated that with the passage of the the the um budget this week

038that the funds for that uh project $3.2 million will be approved. So previously approved um TAP high funds. So the division continues to work to reduce the scope. Um below we we see here $9.2 $2 million and how it's been redistributed. $3.7 million for architectural and engineering fees with a $1.5 million in cash, $2.6 million for LED lighting, and then $2.8 million for a construction contingency. >> Right. So, for clarity, that was before the 26E, correct? >> Yeah. So, this 9.2 million was last year's 25e. It's no longer showing on the CIP, but it is showing on our books dedicated for the specific items. >> And this 2.6 LED for turf and inside or >> the turf is, you know, [clears throat] separate project. We tried to combine them just on our pricing. >> This

039like 2.6 >> that's for the whole building, right? Just the inside building. >> Inside building. [clears throat] And so the other projects and totals that we that we see here um temporary modular classrooms, these projections are based on current needs. The numbers may change if we experience significant shifts in enrollment. The divisionwide [clears throat] replacement uh communication system 800 megahertz radios that has been approved $250,000 in cash for that uh replacement schedule. Major electrical systems. Uh I will say that this is this is the first that's hit the CIP. We thought this number was much lower initially. However, [clears throat] this number comes from the most recent bid we received from TAB High School to replace the switch gear and replace the panels. So, uh, $1.2 million. There's still some work that needs to be

040done here, but we we needed to add York High because it does need to be addressed. We just don't know if it needs to be addressed to that extent. [clears throat] >> So, this is for York High. >> This is for Yorkie. Yes, sir. And then the York High um operations complex. Last year we saw on the high schools it was the York annex renovation. It was the planning for that. So staff has we we've had some discussions with staff and we've kind of uh come to a different conclusion about the York High School annex. We believe it should be um demolished. There were several of us, including me, that wanted to hold on to that building because there were was being used by several >> folks in operation. The problem is we have food

041service there with Sedexo. We have um the print shop there and um there's security team is there and the problem is there that the traffic the bus traffic in the morning and afternoon often conflicts with their schedules coming and going. So operationally it doesn't really work well. So the plan is to demolish that building and then add on to the existing IT warehouse which is on the other side of the campus and in doing so we consolidate food service we consolidate security we consolidate the print shop which all fall under operations as well as I it so you're consolidating IT I mean I'm sorry operations um staff under one building and then you're [clears throat] also demolishing the operations staff which is uh adjacent to the transport transportation garage. So, a lot of de uh

042demolishing but also creating more usable uh up-to-date space with that provides some significant storage which is needed. >> so the building will be the most would that be parking lot or we're going to be building >> it. It could provide additional parking for staff uh on that side of the building as well. Yes, sir. [clears throat] >> [cough] >> And then uh preschool spaces. We continue to see a growing need for a standalone preschool center or multiple centers. Maybe a center in the north and south county. Ongoing discussions with county staff will be necessary to determine the best path forward. So with the proposed list of projects, the six-year capital improvement plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2032 totals approximately $105.7 million. Of this amount, the school division will contribute $6.5 million in cash while

043the county will provide 90 99.2 million through debt service. Um, this is slightly higher than last year. Um, the debt for the county increases 11.7 million. Our cash contribution decreases by $3 million and the total CIP has increased by $ 8.8 million. So, we've had preliminary conversations with the county. We haven't shown them this uh this plan yet. So there could be changes by the time we make the formal presentation of the CIP in December. And that concludes the presentation this evening. Dr. Carol, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. >> Any further questions? >> Presentation. Thank you. >> Pretty detailed. >> All right. Looks like we're on to program of studies. >> Yes. Thank you. This is a good one. This evening, Dr. Karen Kaggel, director of curriculum and instruction, and Dr.

044Andrea Evans, coordinator of school counseling, will share proposed changes to the program of studies. Dr. Dagel. >> Well, good evening, Madame Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Carol. Tonight, Dr. Evans and I will share an overview of our proposed updates for the 20 26 2027 program of studies. This is going to include new course proposals, some of the budget implications for those um courses along with course deletions and revisions. We've also provided on board docs a copy of the redline document of the program of studies which includes more detailed information. So, as we present tonight, we hope that you'll see how the proposed changes align with our strategic plan priority to prepare students for their future. And you probably recall in previous um presentations on the program of studies, I've shared with you the

045process involved. So, this is just a like a reminder of all that we go through to get to this point tonight and what we're going to do moving forward. We do meet with a program of studies committee. We began last April and that's our secondary principles, our secondary school counseling directors, program and instructional department coordinators and central office staff. We get together and I'm going to share in just a moment about some of the things we consider um as new courses are brought to us and [clears throat] as well as revisions. And then to after tonight um at the next regular session, you'll um approve the program of studies and then um our schools are going to start presenting their course discovery nights um beginning this month for our students to see what's going to

046be available and they'll be able to start registering as early as January for next year because there's a lot of work that takes place between registration and the new school year that includes creating a master schedule, hiring staff ordering materials and all of that. So, we meet several times and we talk about the considerations you see here on this slide. We do want to make sure we're aligned with the strategic plan, but also with what the state um accountability is. We our families are very important to us in our student feedback. So, we take that in consideration as well as again our goal is to prepare our students to be college and career ready. So we want to do that. We talk about we analyze data. We look at um input that's come in from

047from various resources and that's where we're getting the information we're sharing with you tonight. So the stakeholder feedback is very important to us. So we use multiple means for getting stakeholder feedback. One is a program that we have a college and career readiness program called school links. And this online platform helps our students um identify areas of interest for them, courses they're interested in, what their career pathway they want to pursue or their um it also does college planning um with them. Our school counselors meet with our students um and they use this platform to provide academic counseling and um we we appreciate that platform. We also have several advisory committees within the school division and steering committees and those often have an opportunity for students and families to provide input. And I know um

048Mr. Privates, you're on the CTE advisory and we often hear from students in there about the things that they're interested in and th those always make their way back to our program of study. So we appreciate that. We also have course discovery nights where a display is put out for the students and families to share their interests or their feedback and during academic and career counseling [clears throat] sessions um students share as well. So we want to provide multiple measures and if you're interested in providing feedback we do have a link in the beginning of our program of studies where families can go on and provide input and feedback as well. So, I'm going to start with the middle school courses tonight. I'm really excited about this first one. It's information technology fundamentals. This will

049be for our eighth graders. It's a high school credit bearing course that they'll it's a CTE course that they'll be able to um take in eighth grade and they'll have the opportunity to learn some of the basics of digital technology applications, maintenance, upgrading, troubleshooting, networking. They'll learn ethical um about ethical issues related to computers and the um internet. We offer this beginning in ninth grade, but I'm really excited that we're going to open it up to eighth graders next year um per your appro approval. Uh this in this course students can earn an industry credential as well. So that's going to be great for them and it'll open up their schedule in high school to take other classes they may be interested in. The second one you see here is a course we already have

050in our program of studies. It's a year-long course. We did have a proposal that we offer it also as a semester course for students who are interested. So schools will be able to choose based on student interest if they want to offer a year-long course, a semester course, or both. So, we added visual arts six, seven, and eight at Queens Lake Middle School when we made that a whole school magnet. Our seventh and eighth graders in particular have been able to take advantage of this course. It's a semester course and they've been able to put it on their schedule. It's a little harder to get the visual arts six on a sixth grader schedule because of the requirements of their daily schedule. So, it's been proposed to change this into a quarterlong course that will

051be added to the exploratory will for those students who may be interested. So, we're going to move on to our high school courses. And you've heard me share about our $2 million grant we have with the Department of Defense to build an environmental science or marine studies pa um pathway career pathway in the York zone. Last year you you approved and this year we implemented two project lead the way courses for this pathway at Yorktown Middle School. Um one was on robotics and design. Another one um is energy architecture and the environment. The the courses are going very very well at Yorktown Middle School. In fact, I visited um the one of the design and robotics class last week and it was a lot of fun. But these courses will lead into building student interest

052in these in on this career pathway. So to continue that work, we're proposing geospatial technology 1 and introduction to natural resources and ecology systems. These are CTE courses that students will be able to um work if they're interested in this pathway. They'll be able to earn industry credential. They will it's really cool because the geospatial, if you're familiar with it, there are a lot of um opportunities to operate. is very hands-on, operate um geo geographic information systems and remote sensing and that it leads to careers in things like urban planning and emergency response. And then the envir um the natural resources course again gives them opportunities to go in the employment go into employment um and occupations in ecology, forestry, wildlife or natural resource management. So, we're really excited to be able to build this

053pathway. Next year, I'll come back and propose sequential courses to these for our students. I >> have a question for these two. Um, do [clears throat] they incorporate the English and the math side, so you have coordination across, you know, cross-cultural. >> So, the courses follow what the state provides to us for our CTE courses. We have a list of work-based learning skills that students are to incorporate within the classes, but I'm sure like with any other class, there will be a fair amount of reading and writing because it it is very hands-on, but there it's very scientific, too. So, they'll have opportunities for that as well, just as they would in the in the real career that they're in. >> Thank you. And just want to add to this geospatial technology once when I

054heard this term first it was just what is it and then we got more into it and how much of the field and opportunity gives to our students and I think we're going to have to do like better job of like explaining it to students what exactly it is because everything's right now is revolving about GPS like you know Tesla self-driving vehicles and everything they depend on those information. Yes, it it really this is Yes, it's exploding and we're right here on the cusp of it with our students. So, we're really excited about those courses. I I I think this is my second career after I education. I'm really fascinated with these um opportunities. [clears throat] >> Dr. But to Dr. or Mr. 's uh point there, making it marketing it to the kids. What

055are the changes that that you're planning so that it puts it in real speak for them so they understand what they're >> we definitely are working on branding it and we have created flyers for it and what it looks like and what it involves and that's a part of where we'll pull in our communications department to really be able to help us promote this these [clears throat] courses. And just to tag along, we had such a great group of uh students being on our advisory that brought so much good ideas with all of this. So, just want to >> Yeah, we have seven students on that um committee now as opposed to the four we had in previous years. So, it was exciting. >> Dr. Hill, will you also talk a little bit about like

056so after this year then we begin a cohort looking at a cohort to come through this pathway. Do you want to talk just a little bit about that? Well, there's a lot going on with that. There's a lot of plans and um I didn't want to take too much of your time, but because I can get started and get excited about this and and not stop. So, but we are looking at again making that pathway more robust with courses that particularly fall in this field for our students and really building those opportunities [clears throat] so they can leave high school and go directly into a career. They can go to a two-year school, they can go into the military, or they can go into um a four-year school. And we have we are doing the

057research on what's available to our students depending on what pathway they want to go to. Um it is a robust plan. I will be presenting it to you in the future and this is just the beginning of it. But um but it will involve the marketing piece and how we get our students involved in this um potential this group >> and the potential for an associates degree. >> Yes, definitely a potential for that. >> Can the students choose it or do they have to test into it? >> No, they can choose it. Okay. >> Yeah, these are these are CTE courses that we have um that any student has the opportunity to take. So, at our Governor's Health Science Academy at Brutin High School, we are making a slight change here. We are adding a

058medical administration course. Right now, our students can take intro to health and medical sciences. They can take sports medicine one and two, medical terminology. Then they can go through [clears throat] VPCC and take a dual enrollment course in emergency medical technician um EMT. They can also go to New Horizons and take some health and medical courses. We wanted to offer medical administration because that's a whole different side of the medical field that some of our students may be interested in hospital management, recordkeeping, things like that. So we are really excited about this course. Brutin High School did have a general leadership development course within the Governor's Health Science Academy, but it wasn't specialized in medical in the medical field. So now we'll have a course specialized in the medical field. The leadership development course is

059going to go away, not only because we've asked for the removal here, but also because the state is removing that course from their options. That is a CT course that they're removing. So we won't have the opportunity to um to provide that anymore. We really feel very strongly though [clears throat] that medical administration is really what the academy needs. Now this is not to be confused with our leadership seminar courses that we offer at all of our high schools if they um have the student enrollment to offer it. That's a general leadership course and is separate from from what we're offering here. Will that the medical administration course >> and you had the leadership development >> will that that'll include elements of leadership in medical administration? >> Yes. Because that >> you know office manager.

060Yes. You have to have certain skills for that. >> And this course actually has several sequentials to it. Um computer information systems is one. Um business management is another sequential if they wanted to take that. So there is uh a lot of possibility for leadership with that one. So in our international balaria um program that we have, we do have um a couple of changes here. The state has recently updated language to include IB economics as a course that can fulfill the graduation requirement for economics and personal finance. So it will be offered to our IB students who are interested in taking IB economics through the IB program. So we're proposing that course and then um we are we made a slight change to IB mathematics application and interpretation. Uh IB course is either a

061standard level or a higher level course and we had omitted the standard level uh designation in the program of studies. We want our families to know that it is a standard level course. So, we're adding that. And we're also we removed math analysis from our program of studies and replaced it with um more college math credit with dual enrollment pre-calculus and [clears throat] AP pre-calculus. So, we just replace math and analysis as prerequisites for um for that IBM math course. So what you see here is we currently offer academic lab for several of our students with disabilities so that they can um access additional support to work on their individualized educational plans um and support their general instruction. So, we had a proposal and and we really felt good about it, the committee that we

062make it an academic lab one and an academic lab two. The students will still work on those things, but they'll also work on transition skills, a a specific curriculum for that that prepares them for post high school endeavors. So what you see here is where we're kind of adding the academic lab two. Academic lab will become academic lab one. So I wanted to give you an introduction slide before I go into the next few courses. You've heard me talk about dual enrollment. You've heard other people in the school division share about dual enrollment. Well, here are some of our student options for post-secary credits. they can do the passport pathway where they earn 16 college credits. We've often talked about the uniform certificate of general studies where students earn uh 33 college credits and both

063of those involve taking advanced placement courses and dual enrollment courses and we have a whole plan for that for our students who are interested. But we are also pursuing the opportunity for our students to earn an associates of social science degree while m while pursuing their high school diploma and that involves 60 to 63 college credits. So that's pretty aggressive. So the next few slides you'll see why I introduced [laughter] this slide first. Um but this is a combination of courses um offered through advanced placement dual enrollment in our schools but also Virginia Peninsula Community College. SVPCC courses. So, we're going to start with these dual enrollment courses. So, any student who's interested in um going to the Virginia Peninsula Community College or VPCC um they need to become familiar with the campus and the

064different resources available for our students taking DE courses. So, this is a course that BPCC asks us to provide to our students. um it is a requirement by them for any student seeking an associates degree while they're working on that high school diploma. And this course will not be on their transcript. They don't get any credit for it. It's taught by our staff though. It's a 8week [clears throat] course just again an introductory course into that college life. So that's one of the courses we're proposing. We are also proposing dual enrollment Spanish. Now, this course provides students the opportunity to earn six college credits for Spanish to fulfill either the UCGs or the associates degree that we spoke about. And um this course does not require a textbook this year. So that's what VPC has

065shared with us. So they use open educational resources or OEER. So the cost for both of those classes will just be for curriculum design with our staff and the VPCC staff. >> How much does it cost for a student to do dual enrollment? >> Nothing. Then I have the question I know I think I've asked in the past. What is the possibility of offering dual enrollment to those students who are homeschooled in York County because their parents are still paying taxes for they're just choosing to do homeschooling. It doesn't cost our students that are enrolled with us, but homeschool students aren't enrolled with us. So, there's no pathway there. >> There's no way to create a pathway. >> That's our policy is that we don't that we don't uh have students that are not ours.

066The only the only exception for for homeschooled students participating in our programs is ROC and that's mandated by the state. So it would it would need a change in policy in order to open that up to school students. I'm just concerned, you know, this is it's a wonderful program. Now, who actually pays for this dual enrollment? Does the do do the community colleges just swallow that cost of those students coming over or does that cost actually come from YCSD? >> I know we have to pay for the textbooks. >> We pay for the textbooks. We have our [clears throat] staff as well. We have some of our teachers teaching the dual enrollment courses. They're um we work very closely with BPCC [clears throat] to get them um licensed to do that. Not every teacher. >>

067So they actually take the classes on our campus >> on our campuses. And so all of these courses we we have to have the enrollment and we have to have the staffing to be able to offer them. So, we have put in extensive work partnering with BPCC to make sure that we have licensed staff. Um, we don't we may not have one at every school, but like this year for our dual enrollment pre-calculus that we are offering this year that was approved last year, we have one DE pre-cal teacher who goes to all four schools and and provides a class and that's one of our teachers. So we make it work as much as we possibly can um based on staffing the textbooks. So you'll hear me mention textbooks because we work we do provide

068the textbooks. Um so it's there's a lot of work involved in offering it within our buildings but we offer it in our classrooms. >> We have to get our our teachers certified. >> We do we go through an extensive >> homeschooling process. I mean they would have to get certified. The parents or whoever's homeschooling them would have to be certified through the I'm actually saying dual enrollment since they're already paying York County taxes here. >> The idea that for those dual enrollment classes, those students would come >> like they were a full-time student in York County. >> We just enroll. Yeah. >> Yeah. We currently offer them like during their their normal schedule during the day >> during their normal school day like any class that we offer. >> Just enroll. they can choose to

069take AP English or DE English or regular English course, right? And so it's it's within their schedule during the day, >> right? That's that's the students who are already here full-time. >> Um I just would really like to see the opportunity for the homeschool students in York County. Their parents are paying the taxes here. >> They can just enroll. >> It's just um No, it's as well. They're paying the taxes. we're not having to pay the expense of them taking the classes, you know, and actually physically being here all day long, >> right? >> So, >> I don't know if the state provides like through virtual Virginia any opportunities for homeschool. We could certainly check into that. I don't know the answer to that. >> I don't either. The question being if there's a homeschool

070pathway to do enrollment, >> right? Yeah. [clears throat] >> I don't know the answer. >> They could take the class at the Thomas Nelson online, but then they got to pay. So, >> right. Right. It's going to cost. >> See, that's what I was looking at. And, you know, since they're we're getting their tax money for them and we're not having to pay anything out because we're not having those students all the time. >> That's the choice I made, too. >> True. >> So, we meet regularly with um VPCC VPCC staff. We meet regularly with them and we provide a list of questions that guide our discussions with them. things that come up like this that we could definitely add to our agenda when we meet with them about what opportunities are out there that

071they provide um because they're mandated by certain legislation as well. So, you know, I don't know how that works out, but we can definitely add it to the agenda. >> I appreciate it. Thank you. >> So, we added dual enrollment pre-calculus last uh for this school year. you approved it last year and we are proposing two more math classes for um the upcoming school year. So these are for those students that want some other additional math other than um pre-calculus additional or an alternative one depending on what they're pursuing. These are both semesterl long courses. Quantitative reasoning is a prerequisite to the statistics class. So it'll take them a whole year to complete both. And this is for um this is transferable credit to most of our Virginia universities um through the passport program or

072um for students trying to get their UCGs or their associates degree. Um and then we are waiting for um guidance from BPCC on the textbooks. That's why you see a cost for them here. I asked them for their current um textbook that they're using this year and the cost of that. And then I did projected enrollment to come out up with the numbers that you see on this slide because they do have a textbook for that C for those courses. And these will be our first lab sciences. So in addition to earning three credits per semester for the lecture, students will also earn a college credit for the lab. So we have biology and we have physics um duallyy enrolled and these are both great classes for future STEM careers those students who are interested

073um in those um types of things. Again for the textbook cost that's really based on the book the current tech textbook that they use along with my projected enrollment based on AP courses and um the enrollment we have in those courses. So these textbooks for how how many years are they good? Because [clears throat] >> so they don't have a cycle like we do. It's a little bit different and we're in ongoing conversations with them. Can we select our own textbook which we were able to do with DE English and the world history course and the pre-cal course? We se we selected our own. So, we're in conversations with them about the textbook process and what they you know what are they're they're learning this as we are with all the dual enrollment courses that

074we're offering. So, our cycle is a little bit longer. I don't know what their um >> and they cycle >> what they've shared with us is that according to our contract with BPCC they um they have the right to select the textbook >> um and but they do say that they understand budget issues they understand um the our process for you know going through our budget and and planning and they will try to work with us to the greatest extent possible. >> How about Newport News and Hampton? Are they using the the same are they offering the same courses? >> No, they're not offering the same courses. We are >> I'd say that we're we're pretty advanced. >> We are. >> Once we got permission, we had the review. I forgot what it was called

075where VPC >> respect us. Four of our high schools are alternate VPC sites so that we can offer more courses. >> When we wanted to offer more, they said, "You've got to be approved." So they sent a visiting committee out almost [clears throat] like a sachs committee and we did that in August I think it was and we were approved. So now we can offer more than how many hours was it Karen? Do you >> It was 30 30 I believe it >> I can't recall but for us to add any more DE we had to get this approved. They had to come see our labs. They had to be able to see that we met the requirements of like a college campus. >> We passed. We were very excited about that. So that's why

076we're able now to offer more. Hampton is the only other school division that I'm aware of currently that had that because they have themies. So we're we're scaling up. We're trying to scale up. >> So we're going to make a transition to our DE um English 12 class. So right now English 111 and 112 are offered in our dual enrollment English 12 class. We're finding that that curriculum aligns better with English 11. So what we would like to do next year will be a transition year [clears throat] where we will offer it at 11th grade and 12th grade because that's a prerequisite to what I'm going to share with you on the next slide. But for next year be a transition year and then it will move to just D English 11 for our students.

077But they will get the English 111 and the English 112 from VPCC. they'll get those credits and then after next year English 12 will become English 245 from PCC. So the kids will have a more more opportunity for more English coursework. In 11th grade they'll get English 111 and 112 and then in 12th grade they'll get English 245. Um, and one, this one fulfills an arts and humanities requirement for the UCGs and the associates degree where English 111 and English 112 fulfills English requirements. >> How many credits for the 111 and 112? >> They get six total. >> Okay. And then three for the next >> I have a question about the pathways because I know um at BPCC you can you know go there's several different pathways business so forth. So, the dual aroma

078courses they're taking, are those for all the pathways or are they are they having to specify, hey, I think I'm interested in this. >> These are your foundational college courses. >> Okay. They're all going to have to take this. >> They're foundational. >> Okay. That's wondering. >> So, do you want to add anything about the Dr. Evans? [laughter] No, we've just been very intentional on the courses that we've been adding to ensure that students can have a pathway towards either the UCGS or the associates of social science degree. Um, [clears throat] we wanted to make sure that it would be attainable for them to achieve either of those pathways if they wanted to while they're accomplishing their high school diploma. >> So, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Evans cuz she's going to

079kind of round us up [laughter] with some course revisions and deletions. >> Yes. So, um we're going to start with some course changes. And the first change is going to be to our programming class. [clears throat] We added this class um we proposed this last year and added it to this academic school year. And we're proposing to change the grade level requirements um from 10 to 12th grade to 9th through 12th grade as well as adding the prerequisite of algebra 1. And that was feedback from our our buildings and our and our program of studies committee. We're also proposing to change our creative writing elective courses to open up more opportunities for our students and provide a sequential pathway with our literary magazine courses. And with AP comparative government, we looked at the recommendation from

080College Board and we are um seeking to just basically align the prerequisites with what College Board is recommending. And that's basically just focusing on the skills and knowledge that students need to be successful in that course and not particularly a specific history class in order to take that class. On the next slide, you will notice that we are proposing um to remove grade level requirements for all of our AP science courses. Um and again, this is just in alignment with what College Board has recommended. We're also proposing to add algebra 2 as a prerequisite to AP chemistry. Again, that's what College Board recommends. Um and then the other little change is that with AP physics the co-requisite was math analysis. We removed math analysis. So we just need to ensure that we add the DE

081pre-calculus which is in our current program of studies. Next we are proposing a few course removals. Um, these removals are based upon low student enrollment, um, or the courses no longer being offered. As you can see, the languages um, that were offered through Virtual Virginia are no longer accessible. Lastly, we have just a few edits. So, on page 10 in our program of studies, there's a note about the pre-missions program for the Governor's School of Science and Technology. Um, that program no longer exists. So, we want to remove [clears throat] that note um and just include that all students can access their newsletter and that is the way that students can get information about how to apply to that program. We also would like to add verbiage to the section of fine arts um just

082to make it um clear to our families and students about participation in afterchool rehearsals and any events that may take place outside of the school day. And to continue with our transparency and our course offerings guide, um we wanted to add some language to our health and PE courses regarding appropriate attire and the statemandated student and parent orientation for the driver's ed course. So that information will be in there for for our families. And then for our placement into advanced middle school mathematics courses will be determined using state assessment data and teacher recommendations. And so our students who take an [snorts] advanced math course in middle school will have more opportunities to take to continue in their advanced math courses in high school. So we've added some language to that. And then lastly, in our

083current program of studies, um each New Horizon's course will list that students can earn an industry credential. And so oftent times what that credential is could change. And so what we've opted to do is to just add a general um general language at the beginning of that section that states that students who participate in New Horizon's courses can earn an industry credential. And lastly, we have some updates from New Horizon. So, typically we come in January with updates from New Horizon. So, we are excited um that they have shared some updates with us at this point in the school year. Um and so, they're proposing to add small engine 1 and two. That will be a new course and that will also serve as a sequential elective to their marine service technology course. um they

084have not sent us the course description to that course yet. As soon as we receive that, we will share that with you. So, that's not included in the red line as we don't have that. Um they're also removing nurse aid 2 and replacing it with our patient care technician course and so that will merge with our nursing nursing assistant course at New [snorts] Horizons. And then they've also changed several names to a few of their courses. So unmanned aircraft systems will now be drones and aviation. Plumbing and pipe fitting will be commercial and residential plumbing. Cisco networking one and two will become cyber security network engineering. And computer programming and gaming applications new name will be computer programming and AI fundamentals. That was a mouthful. And so, um, we are still waiting for any new

085and updated, um, information that New Horizons may share with us. So, if they do share any new, um, courses or changes, we will be sure to bring that back to you. And now we welcome any questions. >> Comment about the small engines. Uh, New Horizon became a [clears throat] certified center that our students can get certification in working on Yamaha. >> Yeah. >> Our engines. So there is a lab provided with equipment that that's part of this course. >> Thank you Dr. Kagel and Dr. Evans. That was very thorough and detailed and welcome back. I understand [laughter] >> that's why I gave her fewer slides tonight. She just >> welcome. All right. So, we're up next is our strategic plan student attendance. >> Thank you. Uh, Dr. Aaron Butler, director of student services. Dr. Shannon

086Butler, associate director of student services secondary, and Mr. Brian Fes, associate director of student services elementary. We'll review student attendance data for the 2425 school year and the first quarter of this school year. And Dr. Butler, when you're ready, [clears throat] you have to select it first. Okay, there we go. Now I Okay, Dr. Butler. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Carol. Thank you for this opportunity to provide a strategic plan update for uh student attendance. I am joined this evening by the student services department leadership team, Dr. Shannon Butler, and Mr. Brian Fes, who will be sharing in the presentation tonight. The presentation broke into four sections. We'll first look at federal and state accountability standards. Then we'll look at the FY25 strategic plan objectives [clears throat] as well

087as the FY25 student attendance final data. And then my colleagues would go over quarter 1 updates and next steps. Under the Every Student Succeed Act or ESSA requirements, the target for the 2425 school year was to have 11% chronic absenteeism benchmark accountability for all students. The one exception was students with disabilities which was at 12%. Dr. Skinner had provided an update to the board earlier in the school year, but Virginia transitioned in 2024 to a new framework. So instead of having stu school credit accreditation it switched to school accountability and under that framework there were certain weights that were placed in certain categories. So for the category of chronic absenteeism it falls under readiness. [clears throat] So for our elementary schools that's 10% of that framework framework calculation for middle school 10% and then for

088high school 5%. on our strategic plan goal. Our strategy or approach for the support of culture was to provide direct support to schools on student attendance, behavior, and mental wellness structures. Our tactics that we used for 2425 included continuing our program for our student connection coaches. As I've shared with the board before, that is a grant-f funded stipen position and it is connected to making sure we are doing early intervention with students when it comes to attendance as well as making sure students are connected to school in a positive way. One of the things that the Virginia Department of Education allowed us last school year was that students could recover academic um time that was lost due to an absence from school. And so those programs had to be after school or before school and

089had to be clustered into either two hours for elementary or three hours for secondary. One of the other things that Virginia code requires that there every school have a multid-disciplinary attendance team. And so several of our schools have our ACC's or assessment and compliance coordinators along with our student connection coaches and administrator who look at students [clears throat] who are struggling when it comes to attendance to make interventions and to place students on contracts if needed. They are supported by our school social workers and our McKini Vento lays on who works with our schools. And then finally at our division level we monitor all this data on a regular basis. This year Dr. Butler has taken the lead in monitoring our schools to make sure that they are accountable when it comes to attendance. So,

090looking at our data from last school year, um at the end of the year, we had a 94.84% overall attendance rating. Um we did have of our absences, 28.14% was unexcused absence. However, when you start going into the data though from last school year, you can see that there was a significant decline when it comes to unexcused absences where it fell from 27.41% last year to 18.70%. And when we go further into looking at the chronic absenteeism rate, you can see that we were able to reduce the chronic absenteeism rate for the division from 14.87% 87% back in the FY23 school year down to 9.94% for the FY25 school year. When we look at our elementary schools for crime capsuism, we can see that the average was at 7% which was far below the 11%

091accountability goal. We did we still have continue to have some work for our economic disadvantage students which was slightly above the 11% and also for our students with disabilities which was at 12%. Um, however, that was the benchmark for that year. >> Students with disabilities, is that higher because a lot of them have that the health issues that cause them to be out? >> So, it could be it's variety of factors. It was set by the US Department of Education that goal and so there was some allowances they placed so that we could put some interventions in place to support students in certain populations. However, for this upcoming school year, all students are required to be at that 10% benchmark. [snorts] For our middle school students, we can see that of the average, they also

092were at 10% which was below the 11% benchmark. Uh there were certain populations that we are looking at and working with, which is our economic disadvantaged and our students with disabilities. Oops, sorry. At our high school level, uh you see that the average was at 14% which was above the accountability measure. However, we are taking specific targeted interventions for our students when we fall into those categories, particularly looking at different interventions and Dr. Butler will be providing those interventions with you doing the update for first quarter. At this time, I'm going to turn the presentation over to Mr. Freeze who will provide an update for the first quarter. >> Good evening. So, as Dr. Butler shared, the chronic absenteeism target for this school year, FY26, you'll notice, is 10% for all reporting categories. So, Mr.

093Fman, that gets to your question about special education being at 12% last year. Every reporting category, the target is 10% for this school year. >> No, I I basically was just asking, you know, is more, I guess, grace given because health issues cause that. >> Okay. And so as we compare chronic absenteeism data from quarter 1 of last school year to quarter 1 of this school year, I'll remind you that chronic absenteeism is really a function of how many days we're enrolled in school. So it's based on students not missing more than 10% of the days. We had 46 school days in quarter 1 this school year. So any student who missed five or more days would be in this chronic absenteeism calculation. Um, unlike many of the statistics we look at over the course

094of the school year, chronic absenteeism really does have the potential to improve as the number of days in school increases. Those students who might be chronically absent now with five days of absences, if they don't miss anymore, they would not be considered chronically absent at the end of the school year. So, you can see that overall um comparison from quarter one of this year to quarter 1 of last year, divisionwide, our chronic absentee is our percentage of students who are chronically absent is lower. And that also remains true at all three levels. elementary, middle, and high. This is our attendance dashboard from our strategic plan public facing dashboard, which I'll remind everyone if you go into the actual public dashboard, [clears throat] you can hover over and click into each of the bars and see

095the actual numbers and percentages. You'll notice that about 28% of our absences um remain unexcused. So, we continue to encourage our families to send in those absence notes. So those absences do get converted to excused absences. And at the end of quarter 1, we had almost 96% overall attendance >> for for the unexcused. The definition of unexcused, they're just absent and the parent doesn't give you any information on it or are there any other categories that have to be identified as unexcused? >> So typically the the majority of these are most likely not receiving notes. Um the state and code of Virginia does outline specific reasons that students can have excused absences or that school principles can excuse can excuse some absences under extenduating circumstances. >> Okay. >> You may have noticed on the previous

096slide um five of our reporting categories that we track. Um two of these are not ones that we report to the state. So we do not um have to report out on our housing insecure students or our military connected students. However, these [clears throat] are still two reporting categories that we keep a very close eye on, especially our military connected students being such a large percentage of our population and our Purple Star School Division. So, you may notice that the housing insecure percentage of students with 10% or more absences is much higher than the other reporting categories. It's sitting [snorts and clears throat] right below 40% right now. These are our students who may be homeless or experiencing some other housing challenges. Um, as Dr. Butler shared with some of the interventions that we we

097put in place. We have a team that works closely with these students and families. Um, and I will share that this number is consistent with where we were at this point last year. Um, and actually a reduction from two school years ago. So even though it's higher than our other reporting categories, we're moving um in the right direction. Then I'll share quarter one attendance data for our elementary schools. um just a little bit over 96 almost 97% of our students um present slightly lower unexcused absence rate than the division division average at elementary. And then I'd like to draw your attention to the absences by day chart at the bottom. Again, this is updated at the end of every month. You'll notice some peaks and valleys there for specific days. These can be impacted by

098a variety of factors. So, community events and illness that may strike a particular school on a particular day or week. Um and then school calendar items. So that peak on the very far right at the end of October um was on October 31st which was as a reminder an early dismissal day heading into a weekend heading into a Monday and Tuesday that were a student holiday. So we see these peaks and valleys as as the year goes on. >> So this is the number of students 200 400 right on. >> So that's absences by day. So slightly over 400 for elementary on October 31st. Are we still penalized by the state for [clears throat] excused absences in obviously the unexcused absences but any absence even the excused ones? >> Yes ma'am. So chronically absent is

099any reason that a student is absent. So whether it's excused or unexcused that does count towards their total for >> and they don't take into account say a student has straight A's hasn't missed anything. They're right there but they're out for you know some family thing. >> No ma'am they do not. And we'll Dr. Butler will talk a little bit about >> that >> a way to recover some of that time. I >> was going to say I have an issue with that but [laughter and clears throat] >> the distinction there would be what what's considered truency and that's the unexcused number. >> Right. >> So truency is different than being chronically absent. The whole point of tracking chronic absenteeism is because research says if you're chronically absent you're going to have a harder time

100succeeding in school. even though there are some exceptions, but as a rule, it can damage their student achievement. >> I will now hand it over to Dr. Shannon Butler for an update on middle high school. >> All right. Um so for our middle schools, you will see much like elementary, middle school students for first quarter had over 96% um attendance regularly. And again, just to keep in comparison that bottom line with the attendance by day, you'll see that the scale, it might look like something's peaked more, but the scale has has shifted. You'll see that again on high school as well. For high school, um 95% of our students attended regularly, which is very good for high school, especially here in the first quarter. However, we did have 36.2% of absence currently as unexcused. Um

101this speaks to what we were kind of just talking about the difference between chronic absenteeism and truency. Truency is when you have those unexcused absences and that's when we um work really closely with our coordinator of attendance enrollment. Um even as far as in the court system and we hopefully doesn't get to that point. Um but those are when attendance plans come in play and things like that. Those are for again the unexcused absences once they reach a certain level. I will tell you from personal experience as a uh high school principal, a lot of these times these notes exist and they're shoved in book bags or in the bottom of notebooks. So, we just encourage our families to make sure that um they check their students attendance and get those notes in as necessary.

102>> So, what are the ways that parents can notify the school >> because I know like if you don't mind sharing that. >> Yes. So, absolutely. So, uh each school's attendance office has an email. It's directly to GHS attendance, YHS attendance. Many of our schools have developed also QR codes that have gone home on certain things that you can just scan and go. You can send in handwritten notes, which is the way we got them when we were in school. You come with the note in the book bag. Um doctor's notes, a lot of doctor's offices will email directly to um our attendance offices as well. So many ways um we do have I will say our student connection coaches are really doing a lot of work with this right now. I've been in two

103high schools just in the last week where they are actually um calling in students with unexcused absences and writing down the dates that they have and on for example a half sheet of paper and calling home and saying I'm going to send your kid home with a piece of paper please write in the reason and return it back to us just to kind of help that process along as well because we do know that. Now, I will say once you get excessively chronic absent um and you've reached over 10 absences by parent notes, you then do have to have a doctor's note or something of that nature for an absence to be excused. So, once you get past that 10 mark, there's exceptions and of course there's a little bit of um principal discretion for

104certain events. But are we are we seeing any issue with this push of we must attend, we must attend, we must attend, of kids coming to school and spreading whatever health bug they may have to everyone else. I know that was always the the issue with teachers. You would be in the front of the classroom and some of the kids are coughing and hacking and the next thing three days later you come down with it. >> No, quite honestly, no. We're not getting any of that feedback. And I think with the overall chronic absentee, you know, number [clears throat] by the end of the year, I think that um we do really well with working with families to make sure that if [clears throat] kids are really sick, they should stay home, but if they're

105not, they should come to school. [laughter] >> That's that's one of those health issues that >> All right. No, >> I will add with that both. So, Mrs. Golf Department, they when they redesigned the school division websites, all the websites you can click on there, there's a button where you can actually submit your notes directly to the school as well. when students are absent and if they have the app, they can also use the YCSD app on their phone. It also allows them to submit those notes. So, we try to help facilitate that process because as Dr. Ber said, we know sometime kids lose notes when they're handwritten. So, we try to eliminate that process. >> I remember in the middle school we used to do they still give agendas and the parent would just

106write it in the agenda. >> Not not as not as not so much anymore, but the doctor's office still do give the paper notice. Um just going to review a little bit about the action steps our attendance team has taken um beginning this summer. So we looked at this summer at individual students from the 2425 school year and put plans in place to connect with those who were chronically absent and their families at the start of the school year. Really building those relationships and plans from day one. uh our team met with the schools that didn't meet that 11% benchmark and really talked through processes, plans, met with student connection coaches, assessment compliance coordinators, and a whole team to really hit the ground running before the school year started. Um, we also had a two-day

107uh MTSS summer training at the Great Wolf Lodge where every school had a team and we had a special attendance session led by our team but as well as the York High School team who saw great success last year in chronic absenteeism under 9% for high school which was pretty amazing. >> Um, what was their trick? >> A lot of hard work [laughter] a lot of communication and reaching out. our line is we we chase relationships and not contracts. So that's that's a big piece. Okay. Definitely. Um so we also have partnered with the University of Minnesota with a check and connect pilot program. This program itself is the only tier 2 intervention recognized by the US Department of Education as effective at reducing high school dropout rates and increasing student engagement. We have, I

108believe, five schools that are involved in that pilot program and have been trained throughout the fall and are getting ready to really launch that into fruition here in the next couple weeks. >> So, what is it about if you mind me asking? >> So, it's a way to involve a student and a mentor to pretty much check and connect and as the whole student. So looking at academics, looking at attendance, looking at behavior, looking at any um facet of what could be causing one or the other or all of the above and really putting a process in place to have a mentor. And >> so it's a mentor kind. >> It is. It is a mentor. It's a it's literally checking and connecting. So it it really is what it what it says and it's

109a great program. A lot of us were speaking of when you asked that some of that was informally being done previously. So this is a program that just really helps support those efforts. Dr. B, would you like to add to that? >> Yeah, and it's more of a scientific approach. So rather than because sometimes you interact with students in the hallway and you try to check in on them. The check and connect program is actually a structure program where you enter the data into the computer system and it tries to increase communication with the home. So you try to make sure that after you've talked to a student to check on grades or check on attendance or behavior, you also follow a phone call home to mom and dad to kind of tell, hey, I

110checked in with Aaron today. this is where he is in the process. Please ensure that you encourage him or if there's concerns that are coming from the home that mentor knows about them so they can share that information with staff in the building. So it is a comprehensive approach to make sure that students are doing well academically but also that they have someone they can go to in the building just to check in to make sure that they're on track with their work. >> And that's a staff member at the school that's checkin person. So with our pilot program, we're doing staff, but there's other programs in the country where they've used retired um individuals in the community. They may partnered with uh military bases and have military people that check and connect students. >>

111College students. >> Yeah. Are those paid positions or volunteer in these other areas? >> So through grant funding in our division, we're able to provide stipens to those positions, but in other programs, they're volunteers that come in and they work. So, uh, we're doing the Morse chartered program because we are receiving grant funding from the Department of Education and we also want to control it a little bit more to make sure that the people we are using are vetted and our people that are connected to our school division. So, >> I think that's especially important as you're getting the program off the ground that you have some reliability and u you know sometimes with volunteers it can get inconsistent and so you want to make sure that you lay that solid foundation for a new

112program. >> Absolutely. Okay. Uh so some other things we put in place uh Dr. Bullum, Dr. Sherlock, Mr. Freeze and myself have been going monthly to visit uh all of our schools looking at school improvement plan really focusing on that domain for goal with um attendance and behavior and really having great conversations. And as part of those um I'm also following up and I know Mr. freezes as well with monthly data review and progress monitoring really looking at chronic absenteeism what we're doing there but also the truency piece and those are really like a two-headed monster that sometimes overlap but oftentimes don't so making sure we look at both and putting plans in place and finally as Dr. Butler mentioned earlier, the flexible in-person instructional loss recovery is still moving forward this year. It is

113moving forward um very well and we've gotten um programs in place at all of our schools. I think the thing that's really important about what we're doing from day one here is incorporating the ability for students who have gotten learning loss due to either a long suspension, could be due to a broken ankle and surgery, it could be due to just periodic absences. But that flexible time really not only um just after school, it's not a study hall. It's actually with instruction with a teacher. And we're lucky that our grants funds have supported um paying teachers in order to do that at those times. >> In the past, wasn't that your um your homebound and homebased tutors handled that? >> No, these students are fully in school. [clears throat] So, this is just making up

114time. So, for example, for POE sets for three hours for a high school student and two for Oh, now it's three, right? Yeah, it was I think three and two, but now it's three for everybody. So, for example, if I was absent, you know, had a 10day suspension, I'm technically chronically absent twice over right now. So, what I could do is um come on a Saturday school for three hours or stay after for three hours, make up some instructional time, and earn back a day. ABS. >> The reason I asked that is that back when I was doing the homebound and homebased, and homebased was for suspended students, >> long term, right? that they were assigned to me for however length of time, more than a week, you know, and sometimes it was several months

115that I got the work from the teacher, had them do it while they were suspended, right, >> or for whatever reason, so that when they came back in, there was no learning. [clears throat] >> So, that was for your long-term suspension or your exposions for 45 days or more, typically at least a quarter. Um, this is this isn't for just suspended students. want to be clear. This is for anybody who's been absent. You know, if we we've often we're working with our families now that if for example there's a family emergency and someone has to go out of town for like a five days, what we try to work in ahead of time is when they return, can you come for these two days for some flexional instruction to make sure the kid doesn't feel

116or the student doesn't feel really behind and we can make up those days and make sure that it doesn't impact their chronic absenteeism, but more important, it doesn't impact their learning. >> Okay. Do we still have home based and homebound tutors? >> Yes, ma'am. But that's and that's separate and like you just shared that's [laughter and clears throat] for long-term medical or there's some type of long-term removal from school, right? >> But this again, but this specific program is just for short short-term um absence from school. And as we said, we have a large military connected population. So they are allowed when um a family member is coming back from deployment or going to deployment, they're allowed so many days with that family member. But let's say that they do that which is it's excused

117absence but then they do get sick or something else and then they miss more time. So this is a way to try to help lower that chronic capitism rate while also providing them academic support. >> Okay. Are there any additional questions we're available at this time? Great presentation. Thank you. >> Very good. >> I believe that is all the >> got one more. We're half done. I'm sorry. [laughter] I'm rushing right ahead of you. >> Continue. >> All right. And so now for the last item for the night, last report. Dr. Butler and Dr. Butler and Mr. Freeze uh will now share a review of student behavior and the administrative response data from the 2425 school year end as well as an update on student behavior for the first quarter of this year. >> Thank

118you, Dr. Carol. Um, similar to our previous presentation for student behavior and conduct, we'll provide just an overview of the reporting requirements that we are um, under from federal and from state entities as well as the strategic plan objectives. We'll share with you the FY25 student conduct data as well as action steps. And then finally, my colleagues will go over quarter one updates and action steps. Um, so the US Department of Education requires under the Every Student Succeed Act and also the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1995 and Individual Disabilities Act [clears throat] that local school divisions must report information with concerns suspensions out of school. Uh, and rather students with disabilities that has to be reported. But in general, if there's any situation that involves firearms or weapons or guns that require removal from school,

119that information must also be reported to the Department of Education. In Virginia, the method that they use to collect that data is called the student behavior and administrative response or ESBAR collection tool. And that is required for all of us to use across the Commonwealth. As part of our strategic plan, when when families look at the dashboard or even the board looks for our data dashboard when it comes to this reporting category, we have three C there's three areas we look at. One is students who have not received any office managed discipline referral. That doesn't mean that they didn't receive correction from a classroom teacher, but they did not have to go to a school administrator to be handled. Then we do have our students who have received an office managed referral, but based on

120a school-based intervention, they were able to return back to the classroom. It could have been that they had a short-term removal. It could they could have been put in in school suspension. They could have had after school detention or lunch detention or some other intervention. And then finally, we do have some students due to their conduct and behavior, they do receive an out of school suspension and that information is also tracked. Sorry. No problem. We use the model that's been supported by Virginia Department of Education so that when we have structures in place, rules and expectations that are universal for all students and is used consistently across the board, then 80 to 85% of our [clears throat] students should not have to go to the office to be um have an intervention with an administrator.

121Um however, even when you put those structures in place, we will still have between 10 to 15% of students who will require some type of small group intervention uh to assist them with managing their behavior. And then finally, less than 5% of students would need a more intensified service. Some of those students [clears throat] are served through a child study process or through an individualized education plan or sometimes a behavior plan or contract must be put in place for those students. So when we look at our FY25 discipline data, we had 5,423 office match referrals that were processed by our school administrators. Of that number, 2,175 students were involved in those discipline incidents. We had 647 students that received at least one out of school suspension. But then we had 5,14 school-based discipline interventions to

122address behavior. And as I shared, it could be everything from a parent teacher conference to after school [clears throat] detention or in school suspension. Overall, when we look at our school division, 86.5% of our students never had to go to the office to see an administrator. They were able to self-manage their behavior and work with their classroom teacher and stay within the classroom. uh this is higher than the model that they have set from the Virginia Department of Education. We did have 8.8% of students who did have to receive an office discipline referral, but there was some type of school-based intervention and then 4.6% less than 5% of our students did receive an out of school suspension to an FY25 school year. [clears throat] >> How does this compare with previous years? >> Okay. So,

123so that's a good question. [laughter] It's a good question. So, when we look at Yes. No, good question. So we look when we compare this to data our number of students who have not had any disciplinary infraction is very consistent. U we've stayed around 86 87% of our students. Uh the same thing for tier 2. What we have seen a reduction is in our out of school suspicion students. It has declined from 5.52% last school year to 4.69% during the FY25 school year. [clears throat] And again, if we saw this um diagram here, you can see there was a slight increase in students with office managed discipline who had a school-based intervention. But that's the reason why you see a decrease in the out of school suspensions. Um when we look at our elementary school

124students, we can see that almost 90% of our students um did not receive an office match referral during FY25 school year. About 6.85% eight or 5% they received some type of intervention and then less than 4% received out of school suspension. So of that number though um of that 10% of students you can see of the instance that occurred um the top five or high both high frequent offenses would be uh striking pushing striking biting another student there are 382 incidents of that also interfering learning in the classroom non-written threats reckless behaviors and then striking staff can I interrupt you there u you know sometimes when you see all those numbers it sounds like a top, but let's take the top one there. So, 382 referrals. You divide that across the 10 elementary schools, now

125you're talking about 38 of them per school for 180 days of school. >> So, you can see that when you give that kind of kind of scope to it, you can see the school may [clears throat] be seeing one or two students a day. Now, it never works out that way. You're seeing five or six that all happen at the same time. But uh but I I think when you just look at totals, sometimes we lose sight of what we're really talking about on a per day basis and a per school basis. So just wanted you to think about that as we go through the the rest of these. >> Thank you, Dr. Carol. And as he shared as well, these are incidents. These are not actual students. So there wasn't 382 students, it was

126incidents. [clears throat] Um and so they could have, you know, and as we showed on the other slide, uh the number of students is lower than the number of incidents that occurred. When we look at our middle school data, we had 84% of our students who did not receive offices referral. About 8.6% that did receive some type of intervention and then we did have 7.6% [clears throat] I mean 7.06% that did receive an out of school suspension. Uh that was slightly higher than the division average and also higher than the elementary and high school average. When it comes to out of school suspension, there were several interventions that staff did put in place to address the behaviors. Um and >> just for a question on this on a chart on the previous slide uh the

127pie chart on it those categories behaviors that present like an out of school side [snorts] 47.56 and 27.44 do you know what they are? >> Yes sir and I'm on the dashboard if you hover over it it gives you the whole description but the category your for out of school suspension is um behaviors that present a safety risk to students. So this could be things such as um again everything in that category go from making verbal comments to other students. It could go to making inappropriate decisions um as far as like striking another student or things of that nature. So but if you but when you hover over it on the dashboard it does kind of clarify and give the full description. Okay. And at [clears throat] the middle school, you can see very similar

128to elementary, interfering with learning in the classroom was one of the highest ones. Also, shoving, pushing, striking other student in an un unwanted or inappropriate physical contact. You know, middle school students tend to um touch other students um not necessarily inappropriate way, but there's a lot of of their immaturity and their growing as um adolescence. So those are things that our schools do have to address from time to time as well as when they make comments that are inappropriate to their peers. >> Now all of these and each of the different slides that address this at the different levels, these are the ones that progressed because I know we have a chart that flows down that teachers do this and this and this and this before it gets to a referral >> section. Do we

129is there a tracking system of we've had an issue you know over here by the time it gets to a referral there's been 20 incidences for >> that and what we do our teachers what they do if it's something that they manage in the classroom in our Aspen system there's a way that they journal that information and they collect that that data so that it can be shared with administrators. So there's certain offenses though that are required regardless of if it's the first time or if the fifth time it occurs you have to report it and fill out a office discipline referral. So all these were offenses that had to be reported to um school office administrators. Um but again certain things that happen in the classroom there's certain things that teachers can do. They

130can move a seat like if students are just having a small conflict not use profanity but just not getting along. They can change seats. They can call parents. They can provide a teacher based attention. These are things to try to correct behavior. But when it goes into a [clears throat] point where students physically hit another student, make inappropriate threats or comments, then that must be reported to the school administrators and that would be collected in the data that I'm showing tonight. >> Or if they become repetitive enough on those smaller >> That's correct. >> Your frequent flyers. [clears throat] >> Yes, ma'am. >> And if our high school, it was at 83.70% of students. Now you can see that they did have a higher number of students who had some type of um offices referral

131that was [snorts] handled by the school. Many of these cases though go back to attendance. So either truency or tardies to school or to class. Those are things that constantly or usually constitute that area. And I'll show you on the next slide. And then about 4.4% of students did receive an out of school suspension. When you look at and see what some of the items were, um unexcused targets to class was the highest one. So they made it to school. they just didn't make it to class on time. And then with intercourse with learning in the classroom or student that's not going to class as a sign. Unfortunately, we do have some students that like to eat all three lunches even though they're only signed to one. And so those are things that our school

132administrators have to address. And then with the new policy that we did adopt from the governor, when it came to portable technology devices, we have been enforcing that. And so with that, you can see there was a number of students who chose to not follow those policies and they did receive a write up for that. When we look at our grade levels that last school year that we saw the number of referrals, we can see that at our elementary school it was first grade last year that had the highest number of office managed referrals. We can see at our middle school it was sixth graders and then at our high school it was nth graders. And typically we see this when it comes to transitional years. So when students go from elementary to middle school,

133there's some adjustment issues going on. They're still trying to figure out who they are as students and figure out the procedures at the school. So we do typically tend to see higher rates there. And same thing with our freshman students where they go from middle school to high school. [clears throat] And then very similar when we look at our number of out of school suspensions, uh you see a similar trend, you'll see that our sixth graders had the most offices referral, I mean suspensions out of school last school year. And when we go to the high school, you can see that our ninth graders did. At elementary, first grade and third grade um were almost at the top when it came to our school suspensions. Okay. So, some of the action steps we took last

134year to address our data, but also to make sure that we can respond to student behaviors. All of our schools have a tier one or PIS team, and what they do is they look at the data every month. So, whenever there's a situation when it comes to discipline schoolwide, they look at the rules and expectations. Many of them have their charts. So if you're in the York zone, the students sore because they're safe, they're respectful, and then we try to make sure that if that's in the hallway, the classroom, they look at the data to see are we having issues in the playground or students not acting civil on the playground, how can we make some modifications with staff? And so that's what the PBS team works on is how do we make changes to

135how we respond to student behaviors so we don't see a continuation of those behaviors. One of the things that we make sure that all of our schools have though is professional development. So, we receive grant funding from the Virginia Department of Education and we're allowed to do several trainings with our staff to make sure that they are receiving um correct instruction, how to use our systems, as well as during the summertime, we provide a training where we bring in experts from the Department of Education, also from the Department of Criminal Justice Services. This year, we brought in people that focus more on mental health for students and trauma um trauma-informed approaches, but as well as structures and discipline for effective classroom management to help our staff. We monitor this data on a monthly basis than

136we did last year. And then we also have community of practice meetings so that staffs can collaborate. It might be that in the York zone they're all seeing some similar behaviors at both the middle school, elementary and high school. So we give those teams time to get together as a zone and actually talk about those. Other times it could just be we really have some struggles with our sixth graders. What are you doing at York? What are you doing at Queens Lake? What are you doing at Grafton and TAB? So giving them them opportunities to collaborate and share ideas and best practices to address those behaviors. >> Well, biting stops for a high school apparently. >> I think [laughter] they just don't like going to class on time. >> And so I'm going to turn

137it over to Mr. Freeze. He'll provide an update though for this first quarter for FY26. >> So as Dr. Carol shared earlier, enrollment is slightly up um from the same time period last year. But if you look um at the comparison of quarter 1 data from FY25 to this current school year, um the overall number of office discipline referrals that were submitted by all staff, so teachers or administrators, um is down almost 400 um referrals across the division and we are also um have a lower number this year than we did last year at all three of our school levels. >> Yeah, to that point, Mr. increase. I mean, when you look at that, the division's down almost 30%. As far as referrals when the population is only up uh it's it's down 2 and

138a half% in elementary, up 3% in mid in middle and about the same in high school. Yet, the elementary discipline's down almost 18%, middle schools almost a third and high school's just over a third. So it the the drop in behavior is actually outpacing the increase in population. >> And so through quarter 1 so far this year um almost 96% of our students have [clears throat] no office managed discipline. We have just under 3% of our students who have received some level of school-based office um managed discipline. And then one and a half% of our students who have received an out of school suspension um at the end of quarter 1 that was less than 200 students. Um, and again to Mr. Pyovich's question from earlier in that out of school suspension box in the

139bottom right, you can see that the vast majority of those out of school suspensions were for behaviors that presented a safety concern or that endangered itself for others, which um isn't is in alignment with our code of conduct as to why those students would be receiving that consequence. These are our high frequency behaviors so far um through quarter one in the division. Um I'll draw your attention to the note at the bottom, Dr. Carol and Dr. Dr. Butler touched on it earlier, but just to get to the scope, the number of referrals represents the number of incidents, not the number of students. So, if you look at that top behavior, the primary offense of interfering with learning in the classroom, there have been 146 referrals. That does not mean 146 students. There could be students

140double, triple, or counting even more than that. Um, in that number, you know, if one student received five or six or seven infractions, that would be reflected in that total. I have a question regarding that um with interfering with the learning in the classroom of how it's handled if you have a student going off. Um I know back when I was subbing there was an incident with a student who went off and the policy was that that student stayed there. three adults came in and talked with that student and we had to evacuate the rest of the class over 20 students to just sit in the library waiting for a time to come back um which overall that's a disruption of their learning. Are we still doing that? >> So I'd say that every situation

141is individualized. We're prioritizing safety first, both for the student who um is escalated for the other students in the class and for any adults that are in the room also. And then right below that safety piece is making sure that instructional time is maximized and then instruction can still continue. Um so it's not a one-sizefits-all answer. There there are situations where yes, but again we're we're trying to prioritize the safety and the instruction um of all and making sure that the the student who is escalated is the one who is being removed to a different location and receiving the consequence. >> Okay. >> And then the percent of total um is the number of referrals for that specific events divided by the overall number. So 14% 14 and a.5% of the infractions that we've received

142this year have been for interfering um with learning in the classroom. Our elementary schools through quarter 1 um very similar to the data. So [clears throat] 96 and a half% almost 97% of our students no office managed discipline um and then just under 2% with some level of office managed discipline and a level of out of school suspension as well. And then our high frequency um behaviors for elementary school. you can see those there. Um, we'll talk a little bit more about specific grade levels um, later on. But for our elementary schoolers, for our youngest learners, sometimes this can be disregulated behavior. Sometimes it can be a function of communication. Um, and we're really tracking the supports and interventions that we are putting in place um, for these specific students. So now Dr. Butler is

143going to share about middle and high school. >> Yes, ma'am. Um would that include and I assume it would so your students would you know to the disabilities like your autism and >> Yes ma'am. So this is all students with disabilities and all of our special programs. So behavior support and communication support. >> That's a tricky balance there with them understanding what's acceptable >> and we really look to get it function of the behavior. So is the striking another student or staff is that a function of a communication deficit where they can't communicate their wants or needs or is it with an intent to to injure harm. making the distinction >> with that our students doing well. >> No, I mean they're doing great. Yeah. >> So with our middle school currently over 95% of

144our middle school students uh currently have no office managed discipline uh with uh just under 2% having out of school suspensions. Again, that is down from last year. the most high frequency behaviors we're seeing from the middle school is currently up there. Um interfer with the learning again like the other levels and overall is the number one. Um and the others are all in the teens just across uh the division. And our high school, I'm super proud of our high school being that uh only 1% of students have received an out of school suspension. um almost 95% have received no office managed discipline. 4.3% are with the office managed discipline. And as we kind of talked about before, a lot of the high school behaviors we see is of course they're now new drivers and

145sometimes um there are coffee shops on the way to school that cause them to be a little late. Um and that goes handinhand typically with the failure to attend a sign disciplinary setting. Those are our tardy detentions that then we don't show up for. So, just to kind of give you an idea about what the high school behaviors right now are mostly have to do with actual attendance um across the board. [clears throat] >> And so now on the screen we have the number of office discipline referrals by grade level so far through quarter 1 this school year. I'd like to focus in a little bit on kindergarten. You'll notice that that bar is almost the highest in elementary school. Um there are 111 office discipline referrals um from kindergarten so far, but that's only

146from 31 students. So it's a very small number of students, less than 4% of our kindergarten population. Um we have put together a kindergarten task force. So our student services team, our colleagues in elementary instruction, our colleagues in special education. Um so we are really individualizing the student supports we're putting in place. um looking at child studies and potential special education eligibilities and evaluations for these students. Um we are tracking preschool experience on every single one of them. Some were enrolled in our preschool programs either as three-year-olds or four-year-olds or both. Um some come to us with no preschool experience. So this is their first time in a school setting at five. Um and then we have some that come from either private preschool or Head Start. So we're tracking back preschool experience to see

147if we can see a a correlation and a trend there. Um and then really looking at our programs on how we transition students from whatever their preschool setting may be to our kindergarten classrooms. Um we obviously have a great opportunity with our students who go to our preschool programs in the spring to have them transition a little bit slowly by slowly little by little to um get into that that kindergarten setting so that when they start kindergarten in the fall um we're we're not seeing some of these same behaviors that we're seeing now. I do want to highlight a success story um with sixth graders have the lowest having the lowest number of infractions in the division quarter 1 um that was not the same on the data that Dr. Butler showed you from last

148year. So really want to compliment both our fifth grade teacher teams across all 10 elementary schools but also the um sixth grade teams and the building administrators at all four of our middle schools really putting again intentional structured supports in around what that fifth to sixth grade transition looks like. Um, we start our fifth grade students spending some time in their middle schools in the winter and spring so that they can get to know the building and get to know the staff. We do a sixth grade focused orientation for students um right before school starts. And I think all of those efforts are are showing um in the data with sixth again having the lowest number of infractions which has not been the case in in previous years. >> Good idea. >> Yeah. >> Some

149other supports and action steps that we're taking this year. So, we have our tier one community of practice trainings that all 19 of our building MTSS teams participate in. Um, we [snorts] have tier 2 trainings this year quarterly which are focused on that check and connect pilot that Dr. Butler described with attendance, but those same strategies of mentorship and and checking and connecting work with behavior as well. We are providing um as a student services team individualized coaching for schools with high numbers of office discipline referrals. Dr. Butler and I have been involved in some some scans at at one school in particular really looking around this the tier one supports the classroom teachers are providing and then the tier two and tier three supports that um our resource and support staff are providing. We

150have participated in professional development with the department of criminal justice services and the Virginia Department of Education specifically looking at tier 2 interventions. So not the students who are receiving zero office discipline referrals but not the students who are getting suspended either. really trying to target that tier 2 group of students to prevent them from, you know, continuing in behaviors that would result in out of school suspension. As a division, we have direct support from two coaches, one from William and Mary training and technical assistance center and then one from VCU's research implementation center. They work closely with our division leadership team for um our multi-tered systems of supports providing coaching to us so that we're able to better support schools. And then we are working on some divisionwide development this year for again those

151tier 2 interventions providing some uniformity across our schools um with both interventions and also kind of decision rules and criteria. So students who may start to escalate in their behavior what what would result in them having tier 2 interventions again with the goal that they don't end up in out of school suspensions for discipline. So that concludes our presentation. We're happy to take any questions >> at this time. Good job. Thank you. >> It looks really good for one. >> I don't have a I have a question, but I still have a concern. I remember from a previous presentation that if you have a student who threatens to kill another student in the classroom and then you investigate it and find, well, the student who threatened had no means of following through. you know, according

152to the investigators that it's moved from a high level down to a lower level threat level, if I remember. >> Let me speak to that, Mrs. Fairman, because we've talked about that a few times, >> right? >> That is only when you're trying to assess the risk of what's happening and that has a response to it. If you have a high risk, then you may have to hospitalize somebody, right? So, this is how you respond to the risk. But it doesn't [clears throat] matter what you do. If you if it's if it's low, you still have to pay the consequence. >> Okay? >> Because that's not acceptable in school, >> right? >> It's about a separate response, not about the consequence. That's about another response about the threat level. >> Okay. Thank you. So that

153student is still going to be disciplined. >> Yes. because the the victim student is still dealing with the trauma of that kind of a threat whether the other student could follow through on it or not. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Great. >> Thank you. >> And we and by Virginia Code, we also have to take steps if a student is threatened by another person. There supportive measures we have to put in place also for that person who was the target of that threat. Um but you are required by code to make sure there is a consequence. As Dr. Carol said the intervention is just to make sure do we have to have a school psychologist or social worker to do some check-in checkouts with that student? Do they need to have a referral to one of

154our community partners? That is what they're doing with the risk assessment. Uh how we always have to do some type of intervention when it comes to discipline for inappropriate conduct in the building. So >> the the concern was I know the the incident that happened uh a few years ago. Um the the two students rode the same bus and the parents had requested for someone to be on the bus to protect their child and that was denied and they were basically told um if you're that concerned then you should drive your child and pick your child up every day. So the victim's parents were having to deal with that particular issue and I just want to make sure that you know if that ever happens again in the future that >> rehashing something we make

155sure that we don't Yeah I don't want to rehash but just saying that it has happened to make sure that we have you know methods in place or procedures in place that that won't happen. >> We have support we have as Dr. Miller said supportive practices in place that you know once the discipline is done once the risk assessment is done. There's also a number of things that we do to prevent just like you said whether that's changing schedules changing bus routes whatever we need to do supportive measures we put in place. >> Okay. >> I'll also add that you know any threat to kill or harm we are also collaborating with York Sheriff's Office um during that investigation on our end. So there's the threat assessment piece, the school discipline, and then potentially, you

156know, community involvement with with YPSO as well. >> We have a very involved community who is very local. So if there was something like that that wasn't, you know, up to par or happening, I rest assured that we would know about it because they are not nobody shy about emailing the school board about something that's not happening. So, and and also too, um making sure our teachers and staff are protected, you know, as someone [clears throat] who was attacked by students years ago in a classroom in Newport News. Um I know what it's like on that side to make sure that our teachers are protected, staff is protected, and that they don't find themselves constantly in that situation. >> I haven't heard of any teachers so far saying that. So, that's a good thing. I

157think everybody I think I say everybody feels supported and safe at the moment. Nobody has spoken up that they haven't. So I think we're on the right track. Thank you. [snorts] Anybody have anything else to add? >> No, it's a good meeting. [clears throat and cough] >> Well, this concludes all our presentations. Thank you all for wonderful presentations. Our next uh meeting is at York Hall on November 27th at 700 p.m. Our meeting is now adjourned.