I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
May I have roll call?
Present.
Here.
Present.
the agenda. Madam Chair, I move to approve the agenda as presented this evening. I'll
second it. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
I would like to introduce
the school board voted earlier in the year to have a student representative to the school
board. And we have two, but only one of them was able to make it tonight. So I would
like to introduce you all to our student school board representative. Please come
This is Autumn Patton from Shinkateg High School.
Well, your time on the school board should serve you well. Thank you.
Hey, next up is the STEM program.
Ma'am, you can lay it over here. Yes ma'am.
Good evening. I have the pleasure of
introducing Nando Middle School, some of Nando Middle School's STEM students.
And I just would like to say that it's typical that a principal stands up here
introduces all the great things. You know how they say you can be guilty by
association? I'm so proud to be the principal of Nando Amiddle Cook because I
get to be great by association. So I present to you three of our great
students and their great STEM teacher, Ms. Joy Phillips. I have Ms. Kaelin
Drummond, Ms. Karen Burrell, and Mr. I.J. Parker and they are going to take it
from here.
Good evening everyone. As you said, my name is I.J. Parker. I'm
eighth grader at Nando Amiddle School. Firstly, I want to talk to you
guys about a cool program called Scratch. It's up there. Scratch is an amazing creative
output for kids and adults everywhere. It basically allows you to animate your drawings
and even make movies. In this case, my friend has made kind of like a story game. And coding
in real life can be very valuable. It can be a way to get a job. And many software
engineers use it to make websites and web platforms and what not and a perfect
example is Google and even your phone you have to have code for it to run so I
think it's really important for that to you know happen and I want to kind of
showcase my friend Kalin's game so this is if you will turn your attention to
the screen I will it's
kind of have some dialogue and the game is about
about this fairy and whatnot. So all
of this is using drawings and code and these
code blocks that allow the animation to happen.
You are given a quest and you
know you have to go around and find stuff and we did this for our school
projects so I feel like it's pretty impressive.
It does you to put in your
name and you submit it and then it will call you that name for the rest of
the game using these little blocks.
Scratch can also be kind of like the
stepping stone for many popular game developers.
Like if you ever heard of Minecraft, Roblox,
this is possibly what they've started with
and what drive them to produce better video games.
At
the video game, Karen is gonna share
about how we took the coding
and kinda stepped it up to the three.
Yeah.
Okay.
You'll do fine, come on.
Hello?
Good evening.
My name is Corinne and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about a project we did
in class.
So we took the coding, we learned on scratch and we applied it to a 3D printing site called
Tinkercad.
And basically what we did there is we had like a grid and we would like place shapes
on it and then we would send it to the printer and it would print it.
And so part of our project was to design posters and fires to sell our products.
And this was one about you could connect the project onto the cup,
and then keep a snack in there as you're drinking your water.
And this was a really cool idea. This was a phone stand.
This is a phone stand and the first one, the person who did this, the first one she did
was too small.
You can only have your phone on the, you can only have a like hamburger,
like, and so then
she revised and she went back again.
We got three tries to make a product and if we didn't get it in three tries.
Yeah, so we found out.
So, our printer kept running out of filament.
So we found out that it prints in these grids, kind of like a beehive, and it's really cool.
I remember, sometimes I would just go and snap it with a screwdriver, and that was her
point.
Oh, and this was a bookend by Kaelin, yep, over there, and I'm sorry Kaelin, and it
was really cool.
She had one with, you could use letters and stuff on the code, but you had to
careful because if you put the letter too far into the, like too far into the
grid, you couldn't see it, but if you stuck it too far out it would like
disconnect from the project and like not work. Yeah, you have to be very like
precise with everything.
Yeah, and this one was like a bookmark. Yeah, it's a
bookmark. It's called the Perfect Page Holder. So it's basically like
it's just like the shape here. It's a bookmark and it's like it's got a cat
head. It's kind of cute.
So my design for this was stuff. It's a pencil holder and
basically you just like set it on your desk to take pencils of various sizes in
there. The first one I did it was too small and the holes were also too small.
So I had to revise and I had to um and I had to make the holes bigger and make it smaller.
And I printed it in the white filament so you could like color on it.
So like customize it because it's kind of boring if it's like one solid color.
and this was my flyer. It's kind of small because we couldn't figure out how to print it without it being...
Last thing about coding, I go on and on about coding, but last thing I want to say about coding, 3D printers,
what do they need to run? They need code. They need code from the recipient, like the person that's sending in the design
and that code that they sent then prints it. And coding can become just a program and now it's in physical form, so
Any things you could do with that?
Yeah, so these are the 8th graders that designed video games.
They designed the coding.
They took that coding and put it into our Spearbot robots,
which all of this stuff wouldn't work without the code.
And I brought two examples from our 6th graders that are not here.
In 6th grade, they worked to design keychains.
And this first one, I designed myself,
and it was the first thing we ever printed on our 3D printers.
And I show it to the kids, and I'm like, what do you think?
And they're like, just like that.
And I'm like, it's OK.
You can say what you really think,
as long as you say it in a constructive way.
And they're like, it's too big.
I wouldn't put that on my keychain.
I'm like, exactly.
So then we talk about how you go through the 3D printing,
and you have to look at the measurements,
and you have to look at the sizes.
And they come up with their own keychain to print.
So I have figured out that that
is the coolest thing in the world for sixth graders.
And I am so excited that I get to do it with them.
And they get to pick out their name and their colors and things they like and the ones that can code honey
They can code a baseball on there a baseball bat to go along with it
And I look at what the first one I coded and I'm like they're gonna teach me a whole lot more than I can teach them sometimes
While I'm here and talking to the microphone, I want to give a shout out we had
three different groups from Nandoa Middle School all place in the Cal
Ripken STEM Challenge. We had Eli Weiser who placed with his boat that he made,
reminds me if I went to Bush Gardens I could see it there, one of the boats
that swings back and forth. We had two ladies, Vinley and Leah, placed with
with their Peanuts Roller Coaster, and then we had Jordan Elizabeth and Jordan Elizabeth
and Layla, placed with their Pink Winter Wonderland Coaster.
So if you are into pink, you're into the Barbie movie, that's the coaster you want
to be on.
And so we are super proud of them.
We also had Lily Tran who was in the NASA video that they shot recently asking the governor a question about STEM and how we can continue all this awesome STEM stuff at the high school.
So I thought that was really cool that they've enjoyed themselves and they want to know how they can keep it going.
So thank you so much. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for the kids.
I
will let our Arcadia's take it away with their coding of the dreams.
Thank you all. Thank you.
Great job, guys. Good job.
Good evening, esteemed board members.
I am Ms. McCrae, principal of Arcadia Middle School.
Please know that we are very proud of the excellent progress
that our STEM program has achieved at Arcadia Middle School.
Mr. Dean Dedicatoria, our STEM elective teacher, continues to blaze the path of STEM education in our school,
especially with First Lego League Robotics and the Sea Perch Underwater Robotics.
The partnership with the Cal Ripken Foundation has played an instrumental role in establishing our STEM lab,
and we are using the spare robots for our AMS enrichment program.
We at AMS want to briefly, and I mean briefly, share two very special first-time events that
took place for our school community.
First, on February 15, we held our Title I STEM night at the NASA Visitor Center, Wallops
Island.
We had a huge turnout of parents and families actively engaged in STEM activities with
the NASA staff and our Arcadia Middle School student panthers. Second, on Saturday, March
2, we, AMS, we were the first school to host the Del Marver Aerial Drone Competition on
our premises. The competition was a huge success and we are thankful to Mr. Dettacatoria,
our student participants, Mrs. Amy Davis of NASA, Mrs. Kim Check of the Virginia
in your space flight academy, or can...
Arcadia High School student volunteers, Arcadia High School color guard, our very own Arcadia
Middle School Beta students and all who helped to make it a memorable, successful event. As
you can see, Mr. Dean Dedicatoria's passion and drive for STEM education continues to
shine bright at Arcadia Middle School. With that stated, it is a pleasure and honor to
to introduce to you Mr. Dean Dedicatoria,
along with two of our student members
of the AMS STEM program, Abigail Richardson and Gavin Glenn.
Good evening, Ms. Turner, Dr. Hall,
esteemed members of the school board.
Again, come back in front of y'all
to show you really an update to our STEM program.
Well, last year and a half we've always piloted
at Arcadia Middle School, our STEM program,
which started off with about 29 students.
And starting this year, we've expanded to offer it
to our sixth and seventh graders,
along with our eighth graders from 29 students
to 210 students.
It's huge, and it's a big impact.
One of the things,
and I see a huge future
for our students here in Accomack County,
because just recently, our Salisbury University has just partnered with NASA to start an internship
program. Eastern Shore Community College has a partnership with Virginia Space. Our kids
have that opportunity to go above and beyond what we offer here in Accoma County.
But the
some wonderful works that's happening in Kegatank,
Matomkin, Shinkateague Elementary School,
and now we need to feed and continue on
in here at the middle school
and of course at the high school.
We're feeding, we're growing, we're producing,
and that's awesome.
And one of the things that my,
with support from Ms. McCray,
is we wanna start branching out beyond the walls
of our schools and start partnering
with NASA, with Navy, and hopefully the rest of the community.
So we have a really strong workforce.
So, and this is one of the things that we did is that we've incorporated,
before we had robotics, sea perch, now we have drones,
and hopefully next year we'll do rocketry.
Now, one of our big major event we have, as Ms. McCray has alluded to,
is that we hosted a regional competition.
When I say regional, I'm talking.
We had schools from Delaware.
We had school from Maryland participate in our event.
And with that partnership with NASA and Virginia
Space Flight Academy, that group of government agency,
school, and nonprofit organization,
We work together as a group to make this available to our students.
So before I continue on, I want to go ahead and I want to recognize Gavin Glenn.
He's one of our pilots and Abigail Richardson.
Gavin is an eighth grader and Abigail is a sixth grader.
And I would like for them to share their experience with at the competition.
Gavin?
My experience at the competition was pretty hard because when we were flying and doing test flights,
the drone broke through and the judges needed to interview us for the competition.
I was currently fixing the drone and also talking to them, and I feel like that's one of the main reasons why we won one of the trophies we won.
The
experience was actually really fun because I never flew a drone before, and it really was really fun because I got to learn something new.
And I think we won because we told them about our experience flying thrones.
How much we learn and what upcoming events that we will learn and stem.
Yes, and if y'all did not catch it, and this is for the big reason,
if you'll notice at the end of the tables, these are two awards that our students have earned.
One of them was the Think Award, which is to be able to express the thought processes
that you need to program drones and fly the drones.
And the other one is the Judges Award.
That one actually was very impressive because, as Gavin has said, during the competition,
during the practice run, their drones broke.
They basically couldn't fly.
Did they quit? Did you guys quit?
No, they did not.
They went, took it apart, fixed it, and came back and competed on the last element of the
drone competition.
And as a result, if Ms. Turner and Dr. Hall, would you please come up here?
I just got these today from Amy Davis over at NASA, and they already got the trophy,
but they didn't get the individual certificate of award.
So Abigail
Richardson.
Now we're not done yet.
As now, my students, Abigail and Gavin
is going to get an opportunity to demonstrate
the drones that they flew.
On the side over here in the room,
we have these are some of the challenges
that our drone flyers had to be able to fly through.
And we would also like to invite Ms. Turner and Dr. Hall
to get a mini lesson on drone flying.
As educators, the best way for a student to really learn
is to be able to teach.
And this is one of the things that I charge my students to do,
especially when we have a newcomer come on in.
I give them the idea, the academics, but when it comes down to the actual hands-on training,
this gentleman and this young lady does the work for me.
Dean,
I hope we have insurance on these when Dr. Hall and Ms. Turner fly these.
I hope we have our insurance paid up when Dr. Hall and Ms. Turner fly them.
Let us pray.
Again,
in continuing of the things that we want to do and really let our STEM program
flourish at Arcadia Middle School and hopefully continue on throughout Acomaq County Public
School, we've got one more thing that we've got in the works. Actually two, one is we
have a C-Perc team going back to Annapolis and hopefully come back with another win.
And next week we have the eclipse that's happening.
So in our partnership with NASA and Virginia Space Flight Academy,
our school was able to procure every single student an eclipse glasses.
So we'd be proud of that for you all.
Thank you.
And I would just like to say, I think that Mr. Dedicatoria is the special sauce at Arcadia
Middle that has grown this program.
And I don't know if it would be as successful if it wasn't for you.
So thank you.
Thank you.
You guys did awesome.
You did awesome.
And hopefully we're going to be able to expand the STEM program to the high school
So there's something really meaty for them to participate in when they get there.
Yes, ma'am.
And with these glasses, there's a program that we're going to try to have the students participate to collect data and submit something called global.
where students or people, our citizens, can submit their observation to a database that
real scientists and researchers can draw from. We're going to be having our students try to
download that onto their phones and we're going to try to do it at lunch since apparently
We're not allowed to use their cell phone in a classroom unless y'all are making to give us an exception
We shared these glasses not only for our students, but also to our sister school
Nandoa middle
Through there's to the connection with our science department
where I got these glasses from I also was able to procure some for our feeder school
elementary
Kegatank in the Tomkin
So I forgot to get the other key elementary features because so we'll see
what I can pull to get some more for us.
Thank you.
You'll be able to safely do this.
Thank you.
All right.
It's been a long time, but thank you very much.
Okay.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
The board will now adjourn to close session.
And the board is actually going to go over to the media center.
You all are welcome to stay here, but the board is going to adjourn to close
session to discuss legal and personnel matters.
The Board will adjourn to closed meeting as allowed by Section 2.2-3711, Code of Virginia,
Subsection A-1, Personnel, Subsection A-2, Student Matters, and Subsection A-7, Legal.
Is there a second?
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Whereas the Acomac County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant, an
affirmative record wrote in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information
Act and whereas section 2.1-3771-D of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by this
school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with the Virginia
law. Now therefore it be resolved that the Acomac County School Board hereby certifies
that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully
exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed, and two, only
such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting
was convened, were heard, discussed, or considered.
All in favor?
Aye.
Can I get a motion on the personnel list?
I move to approve the personnel list as presented.
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Abstain?
Okay.
Can I get a motion on the discipline cases?
I move to recommend.
I move to approve the case numbers 0402, 2401, 0204,
0405 as recommended.
All in favor? Aye. Opposed?
I move to approve the case numbers 0402, 2403,
and 06 as amended. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Next, we have the minutes
minutes from the March 19th meeting. Are there any questions or corrections? Is there
a motion? I move to approve the minutes as presented and as were dictated on the 03-19-2024.
All in favor? Aye.
Opposed? We
have some student staff comments. First up, Kristen Sterling. And we need
to read the public comment rolls right quick.
Roll for staff student comments.
One, identify yourself by name and 911 address.
Two, speakers are limited to three minutes.
Individuals may reserve otherwise transfer their time
to an individual who may reserve
or otherwise transfer their time to another speaker.
Four, specific personnel matters must not be initiated
at a public meeting.
Five, speakers cannot be abusive,
threatening, or use profanity.
Six, specify the nature of your remarks.
Seven, speakers who have previously spoken on a subject for the public comment
should not be allowed to readdress the board during the same public comment period.
Eight, specific questions should be resolved prior to the meeting
by contacting the superintendent or the appropriate staff member.
Nine, anyone who would like to present a PowerPoint presentation for public comment has
to present the presentation 24 hours in advance
for review by the staff for appropriateness.
In 10, all questions shall be directed to the chair
who will, at his or her discretion, solicit the response
from the appropriate staff member.
Okay, my name is Kristen Sterling.
My 911 address is 38046 Davy Jones Boulevard,
Greenbackville, Virginia, 23356.
I'm here to address for Acomac County Food Service.
I have worked for Acomac County Food Service for 14-plus years now.
I have never seen or heard someone that is a professional of a boss saying that a department sucks.
As a boss, there should have been a better way of saying such choice of words.
Our supervisor Brandon Brookholder has been the best that we have had in 14-plus years.
For you to say that the food is terrible, I have yet to see you walk into any of the schools and try the food.
I run multiple kitchens and I have been doing so for two years.
I am not saying that there is not room for improvement.
There is always room for the active improvement in food service department.
As we are underpaid and always understaffed, we follow the rules and guidelines for the state that we have to follow in order to be paid.
We are so unappreciated, therefore I think I speak for all the food service that we no longer are going to be doing special events anymore other than what our school asked us to do.
What would have happened if we all just walk out?
We would so much break our kids' hearts, we would break our own hearts.
We look forward to seeing their smiling faces every day.
As a matter of fact, I had a kid come up to me today and say,
this is the first breakfast that I've had in two days.
So at least we're appreciated somewhere by a kid in an elementary school.
At least we're appreciated.
And that's all I have to say.
I just have to say this board wants the food, the quality of the food to be better.
We're trying to improve things.
I'm sorry that things were said, but it is the quality of food that we believe could be better.
No one is attacking Brandon.
Brandon is doing a nice job, but
the quality of the food could improve,
and I would hope that we could all agree to that.
I don't know. The elementary school children, the teachers have told us they're getting chocolate donuts,
fruit loop cereal bars, and cinnamon buns for breakfast.
These are already jittery children and we're filling them with sugar and then they go to school
and then we're trying to tell them to sit still in their seat.
We're trying to make things better.
Next up, Jenny Lane.
My name is Jenny Lane, 24435 Adelaide Street, Parkesley, 9-1-1.
My name is Jenny Lane and I am the manager at Nantoo High School.
I've been with Acomac County for over 10 years, manager for this is my third year.
I get what Ms. Turner has said.
I do agree.
There is a lot of sugar.
High school level, we are very fortunate.
We have what they call offer versus serve.
And we offer hot foods, which one thing that I take pride in and my staff is we give them multiple choices.
Elementary level is a little different, but I can't vouch for elementary level.
But you know the old saying, I've got a ton of paperwork that I wanted to say,
but one thing that came to mind is it takes a village to raise a child.
It takes each and every component in a school to raise these children,
to love them, to nurture them.
Some of those kids may not have love at home,
but one thing I would take pride in, they get a loving smile,
they get a good morning, a how are you from each and every one of us every morning.
My entire staff is out there every morning.
It was a slap in the face to hear that our food is, it sucks.
That was a slap in our face because one thing that we take pride in,
we test every single thing that goes out of our kitchen.
I don't use pre-made taco meat. We make ours fresh.
We put salsa in it. We put taco seasoning in it.
Do we have issues with our food sometimes?
We have to throw things out? Absolutely.
We have not been able to work through everything.
But one thing that I can say, and I'm so proud of my staff,
we do take pride in what we do,
and we do love our kids at Nando High School.
Thank you.
Melissa Taylor.
My name is Melissa Taylor.
My 9-1-1 is 13127 Conquest Point Lane,
and that's in Hallwood, Virginia, 23359.
I'm the manager at Shinkiteg Elementary School.
I have been working with Accomat County since 2009,
and I've been cafeteria manager since 2014.
I am not a public speaker, and I do not like being in front of people,
but I feel like I have to do this.
Since the statement that was made by a board member
at the March 19 meeting that the food service sucked as a whole and the lunches were terrible.
I believe that was made without any fact or evidence offered.
I believe these statements are based on a personal opinion and not facts.
Because of this statement, and now all the negative comments circulating on social media,
I feel that it's directly affected me.
And I also feel like it is a personal attack on me and my staff and food service, all the food service.
Making a statement like this publicly based on a personal opinion about an entire department
when most of you have not even eaten in our cafeterias.
And it lacks merit.
It lacks merit.
At this time, to my knowledge, only one member of this board has eaten with us at CES.
Mr. Spidell ate with us for our fall parents' luncheon,
and after the meal, he personally made the effort to thank us for the meal
and tell us it was very good, and we very much appreciated that.
Through all my time here as a worker and now the manager,
I have never had a written or in-person complaint on the food service
or the food itself until now with all the negative comments on social media attacking
every school, including mine.
They are attacking us. And it's personal. The past few days, all
this negativity literally boiled over yesterday and it actually brought me tears. I felt like
I did not even want to return to work today. I feel like the meals that we prepare
in accordance with the menu provided by Akamac County Food Service, by Brandon, and the nutritional
requirements and regulations set forth by the state and federal government are made
with love for the students and staff.
We make this, we put our all into this.
We receive compliments on a daily basis from the students and staff on our meals.
I take such pride in my kitchen and the meals that we prepare, but all this negativity
has left me feeling completely defeated.
And that's all I have to say. Thank you for your time.
Next up are a set of policies in the first reading.
You all please review those if you have questions.
Oh, I'm sorry. There's an additional comment.
I'm
only one person.
So we allow public comment by email.
So these are people who have emailed their public comment to the clerk.
So all the public comment rules still apply and the clerk will read the comments into the record.
I'm reading this on behalf of Felina Godwin. She said, as an ACPS food service employee since 2008, I can't be solid.
I have never seen this department run better than I have these last few years since Brandenburg Holder has been our CNS.
The improvements have been amazing.
Brandon has been working very hard to make feed hundreds of students
a lot more efficient, fun, and healthier.
So not to waste time and energy on unnecessary words.
I will get straight to the good things about ACPS Food Service Department
and Mr. Brandon Burkholder.
In no particular order, fresh food offered and available.
As a manager AES, I have witnessed students who have never eaten fresh pears be able to experience it through our lunch program.
Fresh vegetables offered available.
Students now know what sugar snap peas are and fresh broccoli.
All free lunches provided, no feeling left out.
Free summer meals option, summer school meals, success academy meals,
variety menu to help include different cultures. After school snacks, more
relaxing work environment, great work in kitchen, updated equipment, supportive
supervisor Brandon. Appreciation shown from different classes in the
building example handmade cars treats.
Improvement, improve meal count numbers. I'm also certain that I forgot a few things, but
it's just, it just shows some of the great things that changes I have seen since 2008.
Sometimes looking at things from outside gives you an inaccurate view. Brandon and his employees
work very hard and on a daily basis feed the children of Ackermack County a free and
healthy breakfast and lunch. Maybe just a little more grace and understanding could
to improve the things even more.
Polina Guywin, Cafetail Manager, Ackerman Elementary.
Reading this on behalf of John Robinson,
he's a bus driver.
I don't think we need to change times
at elementary schools.
We need to high school kids home first
to get the elementary off bus when parents aren't home.
We are having enough problems not
because high school kids are getting home late,
but because we don't have enough drivers to cover absent drivers when they're out.
The number one problem is we don't have enough drivers.
That's where we need to be putting our efforts.
I'm a bus trainer. We have lost five plus people wanting to drive
because it's taken too long to print fingerprints and background checks.
With all the technology we have, it should take three to twelve weeks to get these back.
This is the problem we need to be working on.
We are not going to be able to get these kids home in days ahead if we don't solve this problem.
This is based, this is from Jasmine White, Arcadia Middle School cafeteria manager.
The food service sucks pretty much. School lunches are terrible.
This statement made by Jason Whipper on March 19, 2024,
made such a negative impact on all school kitchens in Akimat County.
How could someone who does not work in food service or even know our daily job make such
a derogatory statement?
If we as employees at ACMAG are required to follow guidelines set by the CEP program,
why are we being attacked for doing our job?
I will say that I know for a fact that the staff in my kitchen do an outstanding
job. I know this because I was there working outside of them when we were
a severely short staff for two months. I was there with them when they were doing
the work of two or three people each by receiving the pay of one. I was there when
we used to leave work so exhausted that sometimes it was hard to even stay
awake long enough to get home. My staff in the cafeteria at Arcadia
middle and I am sure after staff throughout the county go over and beyond in
their jobs. This statement that Mr. Whippert made is
decent and very unprofessional. Damage has been done.
This is on behalf of Elaine
Fletcher, Cape Tank Elementary.
I am a worker of Ackman County School Service
Department. I am dedicated to my job and take great pride in doing a
about going about and beyond the call of duty for my title.
It's very unprofessional to say food service sucks
coming from a board member.
All of us work very hard with many duties to do
which include lifting heavy boxes of food in the freezer
and at the same time multitasking over duties,
cooking, serving on the line,
after we're cleaning our kitchen and start preparing for the next day.
Also we take great pride in preparing a different food for algae students. That
may not be one of two is on the menu for that day. You do not have
a clue to what our days are like. By the way I have not seen you eat in the
But to slander the food service department, which is the director and all of the staff is not appreciated.
If you can do anything better, can you do it?
When people name our standards, you are degrading these people built to do their jobs.
So therefore, we depend on our income to support our families, just like you do.
We would like to make you aware when COVID was very bad, we worked very hard to support our director.
Use our third place of foods to the community personally, handling them out.
Had a lot of people to come and appreciate the food.
When we were out there putting our don't
understand in jeopardy our knowing not knowing it would
Where we're going to take code home to our families others were working from home
We when when we were
Returned to school. We also had to pack bags of
For food for students home on the bus because all students were not not in school every day
We also took food around the schools every breakfast time, lunch time, because of COVID restrictions.
Also had to make a bag for each algae student in which was kept separate from the others, getting on the bus.
But we made it happen.
When the summer came, our director made it possible through much hard work to get approval
of summer food delivered to the community families by UPS.
It really helped a lot of people.
We
have a group of policies that are first reading, and I would encourage each of you
to read those over, and if you have questions or concerns, to contact Dr. Hall.
The next group is our second reading of questions.
Are there any questions or?
Madam Chair?
Yes.
May we deal with all of the policies together except for 12.02?
Can we do that one separately?
Okay.
So we're 0-2.
We're going to pull out 0-2.
We're going to do that aside, separate.
Okay?
Okay.
So the second reading on the policy is 12.01 through 12.11 with the exception of 12.02.
Is there a motion to approve those?
I move to approve policies 12.01 and 12.03 through 12.11.
I'll second.
It's, okay.
Did you took out O2?
Yep.
Ellen Faber?
Aye.
Opposed?
Did
you, should we, did you want to talk about O2 now?
That is the advisory committees to the school board.
Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion that we approve the policy with three small amendments.
Okay.
Do I?
Yes.
Shall I read what?
But there was a sentence that was removed from the policy that I believe should be reinstated
and I also added a couple more sentences, but in the policy where it says, in addition
pursuant to Board of Education regulations, et cetera.
At the end of that sentence, it should say,
each council or committee member serves without compensation
for a one-year term that was the part that was omitted,
that was removed.
And then I would like it to say,
a council or committee member may serve multiple terms
if the terms are not consecutive and then at the very end it would also say
each school board member may nominate at least one member of each advisory
councilor committee. Madam Chair. Yes. I move that we adopt the changes to item
12.02 as suggested.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed? Motion passes with the amendments.
Okay.
Mr. Bennett, would you like to talk to us about facility updates?
Click away. Click away.
Good evening. My name is Bobby Bennett, Facilities Director.
Going to go through this pretty quick.
I know some of you have seen some of this stuff.
Some of you haven't.
Tangier Roof Project.
Got the before on one side, after on the other.
We finished that project on budget, in budget, and almost on schedule,
but we had a crate of 42-foot-long panels that was damaged,
and they still managed to get them over there
and finish within about a week of what we originally thought.
And then new high school bleachers are finished, except for concrete work around the steps.
The handicap ramp and things like that, these new bleachers will seat nearly 1,000 people.
They have spaces for up to eight wheelchairs, so they will be there compliant with today's
regulations for ADA accessibility and all.
We've got to work out some stuff on the sidewalks.
Same deal, Arcadia.
You can see we've got some concrete work done there already.
We've still got some work to do and around the press box is not finished yet
We had some items field verified by the engineering company that were not correct
So they're remaking his steps to go to the press box. She would have them this week and have that fully open
And then to a greenhouse. We're working on the inside now getting that off
classes in the fall. I believe when they start
We've worked with
Erin and some of her folks on what they needed there, still got a lot of work to do around
the outside as far as landscaping, weather has kind of hurt us on a lot of stuff, Arcadia,
track and field.
We've got everything ready there except for one of the long jump, triple jump lanes,
and if you look at the long jump, triple jump runway, the one that doesn't have
a red tarp on it beside it is not complete.
We don't have a sand trap there.
There's nowhere for them to jump.
Discus and shop put areas are all done.
We've got two shop put areas.
You can only see the one from that angle.
This was Shinkatinga Elementary.
This was a project that was pretty time sensitive.
You can see on the before slide,
a lot of what appears to be black mold,
mildew and stuff like that.
There was an air quality issue up there.
I had a company come in and do extensive cleaning
of all the duct work and reinstallated everything there.
Biggest problem there is the duct work
previously was not insulated.
and that created a big problem it's taken care of and will be addressed we
got two of the therapeutic playgrounds completed at Motomkin and Kegatank
caution tape in that picture is old but we've got those and we still plan to do
more at Pungentown and help me out. Akamak Elementary who we're working on
those we're going to try to figure something out of Shingatine but we
really don't have real estate up there for this so we're working with
kind of another plan.
Ackermack Primary School renovation.
We had our second meeting today where they brought some concept design.
I just wanted to show this so you all would see that there is forward progress
being made here.
They brought some really good layouts.
They brought two different versions of layouts for the space.
About a two and a half hour meeting today.
So they got a lot of information.
They'll go back, make some changes and kind of go from there.
and we'll try to get this thing.
They're working towards a schedule where we'll have construction documents
and be ready to put this project out to bid in late September this year.
I think that concludes everything.
I've got projects that we're working on, technology building renovation.
We've got a pre-construction meeting this week on that.
They're supposed to start next week.
They're talking about completion within 125 days,
So that should go well. High-climbing primary up here.
And then do a high auxiliary gym,
pungentheagolic auxiliary gym.
We're working on both of those
with a firm out of Virginia Beach right now.
They're going to do some survey work here
over the next couple of weeks
and try to figure out best placement on both of these
in conjunction with working around septics and all of that.
So that should be good.
And then we've got another big round of paving
coming up this summer
and trying to get more aggressive on our school painting.
That's probably all I've got.
But can I go with my other part now too?
I'm hoping this week jump pit as soon as the weather dries up enough or we can get back
here with equipment.
Right now it's a swamp.
Yeah, I mean right if they, I mean it's ready right now.
They can run track events now.
They just have one.
Long Jump, Triple Jump Lane, which is pretty standard throughout high schools in the state of Virginia.
The second one is kind of, you know, what we shot for, where they can run simultaneous.
But, I mean, we had it ready for a March 15th track and field event.
It was completely open, everything, except for that one runway.
There was an active runway in place that could be used.
We're working on that, yeah.
There's really, there was no good plan for that.
But we had to put bleachers in that were ADA compliant.
Now we're coming up with the plan to have access.
So not
really, I believe.
Is there a regional track meet there this year or in May?
All right. Any more questions?
Anybody have any questions? Questions?
All right. Recently I put out an RFP,
a request for proposals for grounds care,
particularly lawn mowing and weed eating at the two shingatink schools. We are
down to two full-time and one part-time grounds worker. We have been running an
ad for these positions, open positions, since August of last year. We're not
getting applicants. We don't have staff to do it. So I put this
out. We had two companies in the area, Advantage Lawn Care, and I'll
probably say it around, I think it's Browder Hype. We had those two both
come, pre-bid, they both presented proposals. What we looked at when I met
with these folks was a weekly starting April 1st through October 31st mowing,
the mowing and weeding of those two schools, these two shingling schools.
The bids came back on these proposals. The one was pretty high, I mean
$58,800 combined to do two schools and the other was $19,200.
Beth and myself have talked about this, and I guess I'll preface all this by saying tonight
what I'm seeking is approval of the board to move forward with this so we can keep the
Shintin schools mowed. I've, like I said, got a two-man crew, and we can't keep up
with what we got. We couldn't keep up with what we had last year with almost a full crew.
It works out, and Vantage Long Care's proposed it works out on a weekly cutting.
It's about $661 a week is what it ends up being.
It's $19,200 a year for both those two schools.
I don't know and we could run numbers.
I don't even know that we can do it that cheap with our people, with our equipment,
with our gas, our transportation, all that to get up there and mow
and keep it mowed on a weekly basis.
We haven't been mowing since I came here.
We've not been on a weekly basis on anything.
It's been 10 days when we can do it, and it 10 days doesn't work real good when you get weather and things like that.
Right now, and I'm just going to be up front, as soon as the sun comes out and it gets 70 degrees, our schools are going to play hay fields.
These two guys cannot get to all these schools, and I can only work them on so much overtime.
I mean, so I'm seeking approval to move forward with this
and potentially we'll come back to you in the future
wanting to expand this.
I have no desire to get rid of our ground script.
I want to keep our ground script because we need them
because there's a lot of other work that gets done
and they'll still be responsible, a big part of mowing.
But when we start factoring in equipment and lawn mowers,
I mean the lawn mowers we're purchasing,
they're not like we purchase for our homes.
You know, these lawn mowers $20,000.
dollars. We're getting ready to enter another cycle to buy new motors. So we
can eliminate some equipment, keep good equipment for the schools we got to mow
and maybe outsource some of these other schools where we get those done and we
know they're going to be done. So I guess I hand the clicker off and you
all vote and tell me if yay or nay. We would like to keep grass cut at
Somebody would like to make a motion.
I move to advantage long care bed.
Long care to take care of the chicken feet schools.
All in.
Quick question. When would this start then?
The way it was written up was April 1st.
So once we get a contract in place,
and I feel certain we get a PO and everything in place this week,
and I'll give them the green light to go ahead and get it cut this week
when the weather breaks.
But the terms were April 1st through October 31st,
kind of on the same moment schedule we've been on.
Last two years, we started some moment in March.
We started last week on some moment
just because we had to get a hold of it.
But with them, it's April 1st through October 31st.
Time period.
We're going to keep the two grounds jobs open.
So there's a motion in second to accept the Advantage
Long Care Bed.
All in favor?
Opposed?
Mary?
Thank you.
Department of Health.
Hi, I'm J.J. Justice.
I'm the Emergency Supervisor with Eastern Shore Health District.
And I'm just here to talk about everybody has a packet, I think, Tanya.
Passes out to everyone.
Regarding some MOUs with our agency and Accomat County Public Schools,
the first would be a closed pod, which is a point of dispensing MOU,
which would allow us in a public health emergency,
where an emergency is declared, to be able to basically get medication to your organization
and then you could handle it yourself to give out to your employees and or their family members
if you so choose. You could choose in the, if you look at the MOU, you could choose whether
just, you just your staff or if you want employees and their family members. So they
would be able to pick up for their family members as well. So you basically put how
any staff you have and then we do like a 2.5 times the number of staff if you're including
family members as well to get a good average.
So this would allow basically anyone with health services to set up a dispensing station
to give out to all your staff so you wouldn't have to stand in line and wait at a public
dispensing station.
You could get back to your own jobs.
you could take care of your family and not have to worry about that. This is for something like
antibiotics or pills that would be needed in an event of an emergency public health emergency.
The second MOU is for vaccination. So basically that would allow us to come in similar to what we
did during the COVID vaccination where we went in and do a high school and had we're able to
to vaccinate people as well.
So the second one is more for mass vaccination,
so it allows us to come into the facility.
And also there's a little bit of a language in there
about transportation.
If transportation is needed during a public health
emergency where buses may have to be used
if we had to get people to the schools for vaccination.
I've included the letter of support
from Akamak County Emergency Management, C. Ray Pruitt.
For these MOUs, we have several clothes pod MOUs already in place
with Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital, Eastern Shore Rural Health,
Akamak County Department of Public Safety, Akamak Sheriff's Office.
Northampton County Public Schools just signed on.
All of the nursing homes, Purdue farms, Community College,
Eastern Shore Regional, J.O., Northampton County, E.M.S.,
Wildlife Flight Facility, and Community Services Board.
So we have several organizations on the shore that have these in place.
Basically, this helps you all because it allows you to take
care of your staff and their families. It also helps
us at the Public Health Department because it'll be less people standing in those
lines at public dispensing sites.
I've also included on the back just some information about the Public Readiness and Emergency
Preparedness Act, which is a federal act, and then also the Code of Virginia, the immunity
of liability during a public health emergency.
So we are just coming to you to let you know what this is about.
So if you have any questions right now for me.
Thank you for preparing all this.
Sure.
If you all have further questions after you read over it or anything,
and need to contact me, Dr. Hall and Tanya both have my e-mail and phone numbers.
Thank you.
I'll get these to you, Julie.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So next, 13.03 is school day start times.
And you
all were emailed earlier in the week some research about the benefits of high school
children starting school later.
And I wanted to have kind of a public discussion about this.
I know before COVID, all the schools started at 8 o'clock.
And then some kind of way it was decided that high school would start at 7.30 and
elementary would start at 8.30.
I'm not sure who made that decision or how that happened, but it happened.
And then when our calendar got into trouble and we had to extend the school day, we didn't
add time to the end of the day, but we instead started the high school even earlier.
So last year, the second semester, instruction started at 7.15.
I think there was a lot of tardy people every day.
with the additional burden of the staff having to get everybody
through the metal detectors and the backpacks checked. It was a long line.
So none of the research is
attached here for the public to see, but there is
significant research from the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics,
the National Health Organization,
that high school children are indeed not lazy, but they do need
more sleep and they need more rest and they do better, and I'm sorry I don't have all the
research in front of me, but they do better with a later start time.
There are even school divisions, as a way to get their test scores up, move their high
school start times to later in the day.
So
I have been informed that for you to comment that is a deviation of Robert's rules of order and we would need six votes to allow to abandon the rules and let you speak on a thing that we're going to vote on.
Madam Chair this
to your point this agenda item shows for information it
doesn't show for a vote am I am I reading it wrong it got placed on the agenda in
the wrong this is the agenda we adopted it it is but okay there's no reason we
did that at the last meeting we voted on something that was on the
discussion items we do that regularly and we're trying to clean up the
agenda, but sometimes those things happen.
I'd like to move that Dr. Hall be able to comment, please.
OK.
Are there, we need six of us for Dr. Hall to comment.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
I was just, when you mentioned this to me,
I started doing some of the research.
And what I found out is that this
was started because of lack of drivers. And that's what started all of this.
Everybody would like to start at eight o'clock and get out at a certain time. But
before COVID, we had 114 full time and part time drivers. Now we have 86 schools
across the country went to tiered runs. And we were one of the last ones in
Virginia who was doing this, who was having this problem. We won the last
to go to a tiered one, but we went to a tiered one so that we could be able to get all of
our kids to school because of the decrease in drivers.
I talked to Paul and he did send me some information just for informational purposes
for everyone.
So with that, we have 45 drivers out of those 86.
We have 45 of them that do the tiered runs.
14 of those drivers work in schools also.
In his comments, he says, if the drivers aren't doing tiered runs, they are covering badger runs all ed at all levels.
McKinney-Vento students, teachers for tomorrow, secondary after-school programs,
and they are substituting for any absent tiered run driver.
plus athletic trips. He said we do about 48 mid-day runs and that with only a handful
of drivers that aren't doing extra runs, that's all they have is not a handful that's
not doing extra run. Changing bell times would have a major impact on our current operations
but there are other things to consider also. Elementary students would be getting picked
up as early as 6.15 in the morning.
The reason for this would be in order
to get the secondary students to school by 8.15
because.
They'd have to be at the first stop to pick up or they'd have to start picking up the high
school kids by 7.15. Elementary special education students requiring wheelchair lift service would
be loading in the dark. Parents would have to make arrangements for someone to be at home
to receive their elementary school students. Many secondary students currently do that
for their parents. Elementary school after school programs would not have drivers because
they would be taking secondary students home. Athletic programs would run later in the day
and student athletes would leave seat time because they would need to leave early in
the instructional day. And so this is the information that he sent me to go along
with this item on the agenda.
I think we will always have tiered runs, I mean there's no way we'll ever be able to
everybody start at the same time again.
So the one thing that I would ask if we decide to pursue this and go forward, I know you
said that you've had parents, some students, some teachers that are asking to change this,
but is it possible for transparency and to get our school input, everybody's input,
parents, students and staff to do a survey and then come back to this.
And if they, because if we let them do a survey and the survey says yes, that they want to change the time,
then we can let them know that when you say you want the time to change,
that means that your six-year-old is going to be at the bus stop in the wintertime in the dark.
And it gives more input, and it gives more of the school division an opportunity to be transparent about the change.
Like for you to take a look at the whole thing, like I know we've gotten, we feel like we're married to 7th, 8th, 30th, but could we not be married to 8th and 9th?
You know what I'm saying? It doesn't, you can do whatever is going to work.
But we can look at that. It just pushes everything back.
I will say I had some high school people say to me, and everybody knows the high school, they got a lot going on after school.
There's clubs, there's sports, there's practice.
Some of our high school administrators are putting in 16-hour days.
They get the school at 6. There's Mr. 17-hour right there.
They get the school at 6. The kids start getting there at 7.
Then they're there, they have to watch the kids, the kids stay for practice or until practice starts.
And then there's a game, and next thing you know, they've got a 12, 14 hour day.
It's not, and I don't mean to diminish elementary school in any way, but they don't have basketball games at 8 o'clock at night in an elementary school.
So the elementary, they have a more finite period of time that the teachers and the administrators are in the building.
But high school, they have to stay until the basketball game is over.
And it is a very long day for some of those people.
So we could help them in any way and start their day a little later.
I think that might be, that would be appreciated.
Yes, sir.
I have a question.
I understand that Tia runs.
How long do we need between when they drop secondary school off where they have to start picking primary school kids?
usually do about an hour. It takes him an hour to do okay between it. But if you
make secondary school time start later, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to
flip-flop that with primary school does it can't we push that back later as
well because I don't I mean I don't want any I'm getting home in the dark but you
know it's bad I get on the road in the winter time before the sun comes up
start my job and there's kids standing at bus stop. I mean obviously it's
better for the older kids but it's not good for any kids. It's really not.
I mean, I mean we can look at the times but either way somebody is gonna get home
and in the dark if we push it back to as a Janice at eight and nine o'clock
starting with the nine o'clock with the elementary and eight o'clock with the
high school then the elementary are gonna be getting home at you know what
what time would that get them out of school for it well right now they
primary at 830 and they get out about 345 345 but we can look at that I'm gonna
look at pushing the time you're right in the middle of the winter time it will
put them at the last one in hours what you said would be 515 in the middle
winter it is getting dark at 5 o'clock if I remember correct I'm not a
meteorologist by far but I
generally I can understand and generally support the
benefits of a later start time. That said, I did send 12 questions with an overarching
question I sent to everyone on the board. The overarching question is when can we schedule
a public comment meeting? I would summarize the 12 questions in this way. One is around
the demographics of the parents who are requesting the shift. I'm asking for percentages.
is, as an example, single-parent homes.
What is the percentage of parents who are requesting the change?
The second question is around child care implications for working single-parents before and after
school.
The third is around impacts to clubs, sport times, if we adopt later times.
The fourth is implications for after-school care to stay open later in the day for the
youngest students.
The fifth is around bus transportation, six, quality of life effects on teachers and their
loved ones.
What about teachers who are parents, the seventh, impact on tutoring clubs, meetings
such as PTA and with this meeting, the school board meeting need to shift to later.
The eighth is to ask what is the position of the staff coordinators and the superintendent.
The ninth, what would a gradual transition look like, when would we affect the change?
Would it be September the 10th?
Is around the young mainland students who psychologically would have to be to shift
to arriving at home, dust to dart during the winter months.
and I ask about the mental health implications.
The 11th is around the impacts of a later day
on the cafeteria employees, on the custodial employees,
believing that some of these staff
probably have second jobs.
And then the 12th is what did the pre-KK
and first grade teachers have to say
around shorter morning instruction time
when there are some indications
that the youngest students sometimes check out
after lunch.
Madam Chair, are we going to push this off to another meeting?
We could
push it off to the next to next time and allow for public comment but I will
just say so many things that we have to consider have an assortment of research
and we talk about making data driven decisions all the time and here we have
an opportunity to make a data driven decision that the research is really
very supportive of this it's one might say overwhelming and I would hate to
miss this opportunity because you know some big for some arbitrary reason so
But I would like to have public comment, always like public comment.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you that maybe moving later would be better,
but I think a public comment would be good to get some input.
And I think possibly the transparency of, you know, to see,
because we had some parents that said,
you're an administrator, say that this would be better,
and so we might have some that think that some others are better.
We can take all inputs.
Can we please get a survey of all employees and parents of send out a survey to all of them?
That's that or that. We can search through through.
Because that would be more of a termination.
Yes.
Madam Chair, the only question I have about the survey is I understand it.
I don't mind doing it, but should we, you know, what times are you going to move these to?
Are you pushing everything back half hour? Are you pushing everything back an hour?
So the data, the research says 8.30 and after is best.
Yes, ma'am. I read that.
8.30 and after, according to the research. Yes.
I'm just wondering if we could do that just for the summer.
Well, excuse me, not the summer, but it's spring and fall.
I mean, fall, we don't want the kids in the dark. I'm sorry.
They're already in the dark.
The buses are on the highway, stopped on the highway in the dark already.
Days are too short.
That's something for the safety committee to take up.
Buses stopping on the highway in the dark.
Madam Chair, the only other comment, one of the findings,
I can't remember exactly which part of Maryland,
but Maryland before changing the school start times,
at least in one region, I'd have to pull it back up.
But they took six months to gather data, such as we're talking about together through a survey,
through public comments and such, you know, took a multidisciplinary approach.
I'm just sharing in case it's helpful, but I was intrigued.
I am intrigued with the fact that they took six months to study before they put the
changes into effect.
I'm
sure the question, how long would it take to complete the survey?
Imagine that you would just email everyone the survey, the stats, parents, and the teachers
and the high school students, we could just email that elementary students would probably
need more of a hard copy to go home and that's even better for them.
I will say and I appreciate the fact that there was an effort in the last
year that
we presented the calendars. And we have a lot of employees. We have almost 4,800 students.
We should have 4,800 parents. The participation rate for the survey was not very good. It
was like 1,200. And, you know, so.
But the survey didn't cost a lot or take a lot of time.
No, but you wonder if with such a small sample, how accurate is that?
I agree.
You know, anyway, I think we should move on.
Ms. Only, would you like to, or no, I'm sorry, Mr. Bowden,
finally, finally, it's your turn.
Absolutely,
we're working out of boxes currently.
Jack Bowden, technology coordinator.
So I'm here to update the board on how we're going to give access to the local law enforcement agencies or entities.
Basically, we establish a relationship with the entity.
We obtain a list of names and HID card information for each person.
We program the card access system with those credentials,
and then we implement a change log process with the entities.
The only limiting factor I see for the smaller agencies of law enforcement
is that they don't have assigned chip-enabled cards.
If they don't, how are they going to get access to the schools?
One possible option is issuing physical keys,
but I think that we would probably have an issue with
tracking and maintaining those more than we would with these.
So, but that's the process I'm working on or I'm using right now
to get the local law enforcement's access to the schools.
Currently, for the Sheriff's Office, I'm waiting on updates from the Sheriff's Department
and the County Public Works Department for an updated list of these names and credentials.
With the Memphis State Police, Sergeant Ranez has provided me the name of the troopers,
and he's working with the County Magistrates Office in getting me their credentials.
The local law enforcement, I'm working on establishing a contact with each one of those,
and then I will work and gather those names and the HID card credentials.
And finally, all your AUS badges are uploaded
and working Monday through Friday, 6 in the morning,
6 at night, except on Tuesdays when it sends to 1845
or 645 for access.
Questions?
Appreciate being included with the emails, but the auto local law enforcement will have the same
card that the state police used to get in and out of the magistrate area. Everybody
the body has those same cards.
If that helps, that'll help.
For the state police, yes.
Yes, but I'm saying all the local law enforcement will have these same cards.
Okay. All of them have access to them. I will. I will check.
If that helps. Yes, it does.
And secondly, if you need help with getting contact information for all the chiefs for the local towns in Accomack County,
send me an email or call me tomorrow and I'll help you out with that too.
Got you. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. No problem.
You have like a timeline for this rollout?
As soon as I get the information, the biggest one is the deputies, 33 of them.
I mean, but we've got over 1,000 HID cards in our system, so as I get the information,
I upload it in and let my point of contact know at each entity that their access is ready.
And we will be granting all law enforcement 24-7 access, all doors.
So their badge will look like your badge?
I have no idea.
There's so many flavors of these badges, sometimes they're the little dots.
sometimes are just like this one. It just varies.
Madam Chair, when I was doing it 15, 16 months ago now,
it was just a plain white card, same size, plain white card, but it was chip enabled.
This is the most common one, is this one, but there are other...
There you go. Deputy Campbell has one back there.
So, and as long as there are HID 26 key enabled cards,
and you support the standard, they'll work just fine.
Would you, when everyone is done, could you just shoot us all an e-mail and let us know that they're all...
I'll shoot you all.
That would be good.
Okay, thank you.
I like the e-mail.
Do I not?
Dr. Hall?
Any other questions?
Comments?
Okay.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
This only.
Good evening.
I've kind of put the title of this cares as her ARP funds because they've been called a conglomerate of that
over the extended period. So I'm just going to give an overview. The first one
that we applied for was our SR-1 allocation. We applied for that in
August of 2020. We made amendments in August of 21 and October of 21. It was
1.689 million. It expired in September of 21 and we expended it timely. So
that closed in September of 21.
These were the items, and this is on board docs and it's on public.
So I know it's a whole lot of items, and I'm not going to go over them, but these are the
items that the SR1 funding covered and paid for.
You'll see some consistency in this, because in SR1, just take the very first one, part-time
assistive personnel.
The first year we did this, they were part-time.
and then in a future S or allocation, they became full-time.
So it's not like they're redundant, it's time period.
So if you do see duplicity here, it's because of that,
because we were continuing on with what we saw
as a valuable service.
So you see, especially with the first one,
there's a lot of disinfectant face masks,
all that kind of stuff, because this was us going,
you know, as it was applied for in August of 2020,
This is as we were going back to school with the hybrid AB plan and so we were doing lots of that type of thing.
Then basically the same time we wrote a number of competitive grants, whereas the first one, SR1, was an allocation.
That is what we were given.
We didn't have to try to get more or less.
That 1.6 was what Acomac County Schools was allotted.
So these were all competitive grants.
We applied for them in August of 20.
They expired in September of 21.
They were all expended timely.
Just to let you know, the biggest one on that on vision was a technology-driven grant.
So the other one's vision, we got a lot more than we thought we were going to get,
but some of them, like, say, facilities upgrade or cleaning supplies,
You looked at a rubric and saw what a division or side was allowed to apply for, but it was still competitive and you had to apply to receive the grants.
Then came the S or 2 allocation. That application was March of 21. We amended it in September and November of 23.
You might notice it expired in September of 23.
Why is there an amendment after the fact?
Because somebody at the state level classified something in object code 3000 that we had
a count of foreign object code 8000 or something like that.
It was just a change of object code.
That was just 5.956 million and we expended that timely and completely as well.
And this is what that funded.
And once again, you'll see the common thread of the part-time custodian and the part-time
assistive personnel.
You'll see some big items that we talked a lot about in here, the touch-free bathroom
fixtures, the slope metal roof at Shinkateg High School, the fresh air HVAC system at
Shinkateg High School, the bus purification units.
These are things that I think have all come up in these meetings.
Then we had the CSL FRF HVAC.
We applied for that in November of 21. We did an amendment in January of 23.
This was $955,514. This was competitive as well.
If we had not had the local match requirement that we had replaced the chillers at Shinkateg Elementary,
Nandua High, Shinkateg High, and Tangier combined, we would not have received any of these funds.
It was only because we were able to grab that local match that we had just replaced these chillers.
And there are the four items which this grant funded and expires in December of this year.
We've been dragging along with these Pankatig VAVs for some time because they must be installed when there's no kids in school.
So we had ten of those left, five of them were installed over Christmas break, and the other five were scheduled to have been installed last week over spring break.
So that will complete that.
Variable, VAV, variable.
I knew it was something that wasn't AV.
I'm trying to hear variable what?
Drive units.
Okay.
We've done them in a number of CARES and ESR grants.
So whatever they are, they must drive your HVAC system.
The S3 allocation, we applied for that in August of 21.
We made an amendment in February of 22
because our allocation actually increased slightly,
so we had to do an amendment for that.
We also did an amendment in January of 23,
which that's when the actual amendment was filed.
We met here and had public hearings in December of 22,
and actually passed it, because that was required statewide by VDOE.
And one of the things that they asked you to look at, if you recall, they wanted you
to look at pretty much as much of your unexpended funds or projects that you don't know that
you're going to be able to complete, and there'll be money left.
They wanted it to address learning loss.
They have a minimum percentage that they want to address learning loss, and we
are over that percentage.
As I've been saying, we are in the process of looking at what funds we think we will have left with this because it expires in September of this year.
We're planning on having a presentation of this board, either this 2nd April meeting or the 1st May meeting, and then we also will need a public hearing.
We've met with stakeholder groups, admin, instructional coordinators.
We're working on trying to, some things didn't work mostly because of not being able to fill staff positions.
So we had a number of instructional assistant positions that we were not able to fill,
and we're working on now forecasting what we think we have left that we can reallocate.
That expires in September of this year.
And this is what was and has been and is being funded by SR Allocation 3.
Once again, this is an allocation. They tell us what we get.
We don't get to get more or less. They give us that allocation.
So these are the things that we're spending $13 million on.
So look at, just take one, four system principles.
We weren't able to hire four system principles, but we've used retired principles to come back.
So there's some money there we have to project to see if there's money left over.
But this is what is in the SR3 application, amended application.
So you'll recognize some things that are getting ready to happen, the elementary outdoor learning pavilions.
You'll recognize some things that have been completed.
Is this the one? Yeah, the elementary playgrounds.
Did we buy the band instruments? Seems to me that came up.
We have bought some and we have some POs to buy some more.
And the tennis courts, we've been talking about those.
Right. Mr. Bennett has looked into that somewhat.
Yeah, that's one of the things that hasn't happened yet,
But it's because look at how many of these things have happened. But yeah, the tennis court is in
The S or three application. I think I think we're also looking into possibly pickleball
Since that's a thing
That's what we're working on to present our adjusted plan that'll be at our public hearing
First, we'll present to you, to this board, and then the presentation will be on board
docs, and then that will give two weeks for people to read it and come back and make comments.
And we're still going forward with the outdoor learning pavilions.
Yes, ma'am.
I think Mr. Bennett's met with all five elementary principals about what they want.
I think they're all excited about it.
I think I have some more.
Oh, I'm sorry.
That's okay.
I left my thing.
There was a law, I thought.
I left it at the...
Well, that's because this is the big one that we're coming back with.
Okay.
These are other miscellaneous CARES, ARP, SR grants that we have received.
One of the very first ones was CRF, Coronavirus Relief Fund.
We got $867,000.
If you remember, they were trying to decide how to do it, whether to do it by composite index or whether to do it by number of students, and they ended up doing a mixture of it.
We wanted composite index for obvious reasons.
But anyway, that was expended by December of 2020.
Both of the SPED flow through and preschools got ARP money.
Those were both expended by September of 2023.
The ARP homeless grant.
We have about $19,000 left in that that will be expended by September of this year.
The School Health Workforce Development Grant, $80,000.
Tanya's almost finished with that. It's very close.
CARES Act Assessment, 17.8.
That's been timely expended.
Emergency Connectivity Fund, that's the hot spots.
and computing devices for instructional aids.
That has been timely, expended.
The S or three learning lab application.
This is the one that I've been saying
almost every time I come here.
That's a before and after school and summer school.
We will not be able to expend at all.
It is only restricted for elementary schools.
We have called the state.
We've asked them if we could open it up
for middle and high.
The answer is no.
We've asked them if we can do a number of other things, the answer is no.
So we will not be able to expend all of that.
Then the last three are some kind of small ones.
The TEAL grant was $30,000.
This is where Clara Chandler handled this.
When she was here, Beth came in actually after it had expired.
You send everything out to teachers and you give them,
There's criteria that we will pay for classes for them.
All you can do is send it out.
We spent all but $9,900 of that.
That expired in August of 23.
The RARS grant is like the second tier of that.
That expires in June of this year.
We won't expend all of that because you could only do the RARS
if you did the teal already.
So the data's out there and we don't have that much participation.
No, we don't, we had, you have to be, to go into the Raj Grant the second year, you
have to have already been in the first of iteration.
And the caveat was that, is that everyone that was submitting through the grant had
to go to Grand Canyon University.
So we only have about six teachers,
so they're the only ones that are eligible.
And then the last one, that mentor teacher, that will be expended timely in September
when it expires.
So I believe that is it.
Is there any questions? Yes.
On the SR3 Learning Lab, those two that you were saying, we won't be able to expend in time.
How much of those two, the before and after school and the summer school, how much do we stand to lose?
I don't have the most current data on the.
We have spent them as of June 30th down to before and after school.
This is on the monthly report that, okay, they're on the second page.
So there it was 384 and before and after school and then 343 in summer school.
That was left.
We did do one amendment on those.
Those were written when Ms. Rippin was here.
And I won't have the, I might not have it the right way, but she originally wrote it for say three to five, grades three to five.
And then when we could see we weren't spending the money, they did allow her to make the amendment to go K2 and 35 to do all of elementary school.
But they won't expand on it beyond that.
We offer extensive summer programs and after school programs as you know.
I just wanted to say thank you for putting all that together.
And
it's on board docks if anybody wants to see some reason I cannot it wasn't it appeared late
Oh, yes, because I came in yesterday to do this
Can everybody else see theirs? Yes
Mine doesn't open at all either one. Okay, I just put it on I can't say you're the one who doesn't get it
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss only
Okay,
I am 14.02
Insurance consultant RFP?
Initially because Mr. Taylor had a question, and I think that we have that resolved.
We're putting the health insurance, the medical, dental, and vision, but not the consultant.
You don't want to do the consultant too?
If we do the consultant, you're going to be shaving your timeline.
I thought I'd put this in an email.
If you do the consultant, you're going to be shaving your timeline
that you might not be able to get your medical dental and vision back.
We are able to go out and procure a consultant and stay in compliance with the Virginia Public Procurement Act.
It falls under the threshold. We do not have to issue an RFP for the consultant.
And we were going to use the one that we used before and that the county is still currently using and very happy with.
I think we were just a little concerned because you had said we hadn't heard anything from him.
You had reached out to him and there was no response.
No, I had reached out, actually Carlton West had reached out to the County Procurement Specialist
to say, were the schools included in your RFP request and that's who we did not hear
back from, not the consultant.
The consultant is, I've reached out to them and they're trying to get in touch with
us and Beth's going to be working on this too.
Do you contract with them already?
No, we do not.
We will. But I wanted to wait until tonight. I mean, he wanted to talk yesterday, and I said we'll talk tomorrow.
But this is Gallagher. They're out of Charlotte, North Carolina. They're a national firm.
We did deal with them before, but Dan Brandon, who we dealt with, has retired.
And then Michael Colaccio has moved to the Boston office.
But somebody last name of Costa in the e-mails, Beth, I think is right.
And I talked to Mike Mason about him, and he's very, very happy.
He feels like they have guided them through the self-funding process,
which is more than what we're going to need,
but we would like to maybe begin self-funding for dental.
I think we should, too.
I think you're going to be shaving your time.
I mean, last time when we did this, it cost us $23,000 to have a consultant.
The threshold is $80,000,
meaning that we can go procure professional services for $80,000 without an RFP.
Madam Chair.
Yes.
I seek to understand what we feel that the consultant should be, what is our basis for
thinking that?
Just competition, fair competition, trying to be the big good stewards of our money and make sure that we're getting the best deal that we can get.
The county has put theirs out for RFP, which we used to be included on until they did this with the self-funding.
And Gallagher has had the county contract since before 2020 and they have printed out several times and each time they've chosen Gallagher.
So that's what I was basing choosing Gallagher on.
Go ahead and do an RFP for a consultant.
You do understand we're going out on RFP for the health insurance?
Yes.
I think we're wrong going for dental.
No, we're going to go out for medical dental and vision.
We will do an RFP for medical dental and vision, which is very, very complicated,
and the consultant will help write that RFP and manage that process.
Okay.
Yeah.
We don't go out for medical insurance without an RFP.
We never have.
Now, we would renew it three times or whatever, but no.
The consultant will be the one responsible for helping to write that RFP,
printing out all the data that we need, managing that with the actual insurance companies
and coming back and presenting to this board.
I was waiting until after tonight to talk to them.
And they charged us $23,000 in 2020.
And it's the same thing.
They can charge whatever he wants because we're not going to put this out to RFP.
They haven't established relationship with the county and with us before.
I don't think that they're going to gouge us, but I'm always, you know, I'm always
up for negotiation, but no, we're definitely going out on RFP.
That's what this firm will do.
Well,
you made a motion to have an RFP for the consultant.
Is there a second?
For the consultant.
Yes.
I'll second that.
Is there any further discussion about fair competition for a consultant?
I've got a question.
Yes.
Just explain it a little bit more in depth for me so I can understand what's...
the consultant that we're going to hire gets paid and they will write the RFP to put out the bids
so we can get different bids from different health insurances.
And it's complicated because they go by how many single plans we have, how many family plans we have,
the claims.
They want to know, we have to prepare a whole lot of information for the consultant.
We have to send out the date, the birth date, the sex, the zip code for every single employee we have.
We have to give them large claims report.
We have to give them histories.
We have to compile this ourselves to give to them.
They don't have access to it.
The insurance company will give us large claim numbers,
but we already have them because we get them every year.
They will give us what we have had since last,
we renewed last in July.
But yet we have to do all the census data work ourselves
because nobody has access to that.
What does RFP stand for?
Request for proposals.
Okay, thank you.
So under the Virginia Public Procurement Act, if you have a bid which is for goods or services,
goods, it's IFB, invitation for bid.
And if you're asking for professional services, it's RFP for services.
Thank you.
I got a question for best.
So what's the detriment of timeline or anything for going out?
So if we are to write an RFP for a consultant, we have never done this before, so short of
trying to get the counties and cloning theirs from not this time with the self-insurance
part of it, but the time before, we do not have a procurement office.
We do not.
We do it all ourselves between buildings and finance, and I'm dragging Beth in it.
So we don't have a procurement office.
And so we would have to go and find, you know, we had to do this on the classification and compensation study, too.
And that's why it took us so long.
Claire and I pulled from six different divisions across the Commonwealth, and we tried to look at what it was we wanted.
We're actually writing it ourselves.
And all of us have full-time jobs, so it's not, you know, it's difficult.
Now, if I can clone or if we are able to clone the counties from when they went out on RFP last time, we will do that.
But that is a concern is that we will have to write an RFP, which, you know, probably 50 pages.
Some of the ones we've written have been 50 pages, Bobby.
You know, so we wrote that classification and comp one from scratch, and it just takes a lot of time.
And I didn't want to push, we need to go out on RFP for our medical insurance.
That is what is of paramount importance, I believe, to the division.
And I was just worried that would shake.
I wasn't counting on an extra.
You put an RFP out, you write it, you leave it out, two to four weeks.
I wasn't counting on that in the timeline to push back that.
Could we look at existing co-op contracts?
I don't possibly, Beth, do you know of any of those exist for that?
Co-operative
procurements?
I mean, we could look, but...
There is a motion and a second to put
the on RFP out for the consultant.
Yes. So it seems the concern is that this
isn't right in this RFP, is it something that we're skilled at doing? Is
that should we look into getting someone to write out? Apparently they
I guess sometimes they copy other peoples or they find similar ones or in the last case they have to write it themselves.
So the county has done it already and they picked this one particular.
Can we talk with the county to see why they picked that particular and why they didn't pick the others and what the other ones were?
Or do you think it's a totally different ball game?
I don't know. They might have had different needs. I don't know.
You know, do we want to pick our own consultant?
Well, we would have to do an RFP to pick the consultant.
Yes.
And the county already did that.
Yes.
And they picked the same one that we were going to go with.
They did that five years ago in 2020.
I have a chair call for the question.
RFP for the insurance consultant.
All in favor.
Aye.
Let me count.
1, 2, 3, 4. I'll do it too. 5. Opposed? 4. Motion fails. Or motion carries.
I'm abstaining.
5 in favor, 3 opposed and 1 abstention. Thank you.
Next up. School board
items. Mr. Spindel, do you have any items? Nothing. You do not. Dr. Johnson?
Yes, I apologize. It's late, but I had something prepared, so I would like to address a complaint
that has been repeated several times about this board, that we are focused more on adult
issues than the students. This is untrue and creates a false impression to the public
that we are not doing our job. And this is offensive to me. I ran for election to put
kids first because I am passionate about this position and I believe that above all else
God put every single one of us on this earth to care for and protect children whether
or not we have children of our own. I happen to have two school-aged children and they
especially inspire and motivate me every day. Although I do love all children and I
work hard for all of these kids every day and it's wrong for anyone to imply
otherwise, especially multiple times. A school staff member recently wrote an
angry letter to the editor in the local newspaper because my school board
member in my opinion