[1:28] All right. Good evening. Like to call
the uh September 10th, 2026 meeting of
[1:33] the Bedford Council Board to order. Um
Miss Johnson, will you call?
[1:40] » Mr. Daniels,
>> here.
[1:41] » Dr. Heot
>> here.
[1:42] » Miss Doson here. Mr. Hill
>> here.
[1:44] » Mr. Hullbrook
>> here.
[1:46] » Mr. K
>> here.
[1:47] » MV
>> here. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum.
[1:50] » All right. Thank you. 1.03, approval of
the agenda. Do I have a motion to
[1:54] approve the agenda?
>> Purpose on the first second.
[1:59] » Second.
>> Second by Mr. Hill. Any discussion? All
[2:04] those in favor signify by saying I. I.
Any opposed?
[2:08] Agenda is approved. Please stand for the
pledge of allegiance.
[2:18] To the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it
[2:24] stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.
[2:34] And then we just will pause for a moment
of silence.
[2:49] » All right. Thank you. All right. 2.01
DAA presentation. Welcome back.
[2:55] » It's good to see you all again. Um
we are back. We have a little over 60
[3:03] slides. So, I'm sorry. And a couple
other things to show you. Um, I am going
[3:07] to cover I'm going to recover some
ground um because I think for some folks
[3:13] um you know uh in the public this might
be the first time they're seeing these
[3:16] things. Um so I just want to make sure
we're covering everything and that we're
[3:20] all on the same page when we talk
through it. We get to full screen there.
[3:24] Um and I know you know this is this is
the start of that uh you know tougher
[3:29] and frankly more emotional discussion
for the community. Um and and for all of
[3:33] you. So, uh you know, let's go through
this the the whole presentation. Feel
[3:38] free to jump in with questions. Um and
then we'll kind of talk about next steps
[3:42] towards the end. So, a little bit of
agenda today. Um I'll start out again
[3:46] kind of reminding everyone who we are at
DAA. Um we'll talk a little bit about
[3:51] why we're here. Um then we're going to
jump into really the two decisions that
[3:56] that we have to make. Um and what what
of those decisions we need to make
[4:01] tonight. [laughter] Um, number four,
then we talk about when, kind of the
[4:04] timeline. Number five, we're going to
talk about how we inform those decisions
[4:09] moving forward. And then we'll get to
that point of actually getting through
[4:12] what what we need uh tonight. So, who
are we again? Uh, demographic analytics
[4:18] advisors. Um, I know that's a mouthful,
so a lot of folks just call us DA. Um,
[4:23] we're a small firm of demographers and
data scientists headquartered in Vienna,
[4:26] Virginia, so just up north. Um, we work
mostly with public school districts on
[4:30] enrollment forecasting, capacity
studies, utilization analysis, and
[4:33] redistricting. Um, you know, we bring
the demographic method. Um, and then you
[4:39] all bring the local knowledge, and it's
been great to work with the board. Um,
[4:43] I've already received some emails from
the community, um, and with the
[4:46] administration to really bring that
local knowledge to the work that we're
[4:49] doing. Um, a little bit about how we
work. We use a lot of the key primary
[4:53] sources that you would expect of these
types of um, studies. We also use
[4:59] reproducible code. So any other person
could kind of rerun this from the
[5:03] source. And we measure and really you
decide. That's that's probably obvious.
[5:08] Um I am Chris Dick. I'm the president
and founder of Demographic Analytics
[5:13] Adviserss. Um I'm former Census Bureau.
I used to run the part of the Census
[5:17] Bureau um that does all the projections
and forecasts for the United States. Um
[5:21] I also have two other principles who are
not who've helped with this who are not
[5:25] here tonight. Beth Geros and uh Dr.
Ronald Pau. Um between the two of them,
[5:30] they have over 50 years of demography
experience at the public at the local
[5:35] and federal level. Okay. So, what did
you all ask us to do? Um Bedford County
[5:41] Public Schools asked us to help the
board make consolidation and
[5:45] redistricting decisions that will hold
up over the long term, not just over the
[5:48] next couple years. So, we're going to
forecast where the children will be,
[5:52] measure how the buildings are used, test
the options, and put the uh results in
[5:56] front of you. That's really, we had a
meeting in August uh that started that
[6:01] discussion. We are going to uh get a lot
further in that discussion today. So, we
[6:06] started out forecasting enrollment,
measuring capacity. We've really moved
[6:10] to testing the op options and we're also
going to talk about how we're going to
[6:13] support the community conversation um
today. And through all of this, we keep
[6:17] the board and the administration
informed. Okay. So, why are we here?
[6:23] This is the kind of reminder part. I'm
sorry we're going to go over it again. I
[6:26] just think it's important to underly
this discussion. Enrollment uh in
[6:30] Bedford County has really it has been
falling. Um and it continues to fall and
[6:35] we and we forecast it to continue to
fall. Uh K12 fall membership peaked in
[6:40] 2006 at just under 11,000 students.
We're down to under 8,500 um as of last
[6:47] year's data. Um that's about a fall of
22% which is roughly six average size
[6:54] elementary schools worth of children
just to give you an idea. This is K12
[6:59] obviously so it's not not comparable
there but um our forecast for 2035 with
[7:05] development included um gets us from a
range from 7,600 students to up to um
[7:11] about 8600 students with the central
forecast um which generally we think of
[7:15] as the most reasonable at uh about 80
8350 80 8366.
[7:22] So in the high case the most growth we
would really defend over the next 10
[7:26] years is about 1.5% growth in um in K12
enrollment. Uh none of the three
[7:34] scenarios returns the division um to
like the larger growth back to like
[7:38] 2006.
[7:42] So what does utilization look like? The
other problem is not just that
[7:46] enrollment is declining but that the
buildings are unevenly used. So if we
[7:51] look at utilization, which let me define
that really quickly. Utilization is uh
[7:56] enrollment over capacity. Um if we look
at utilization, we have some schools
[8:02] that are very close to being completely
full or even overutilized. Uh looking at
[8:07] you, Forest, Bedford, uh even New London
and uh Thomas Jefferson kind of creeping
[8:11] up that way. Um and we also have some
schools that are underutilized. So these
[8:16] are schools like Stewartsville, Big
Island, uh Otter River, and Huddlestone.
[8:24] So really the problem is then we have
empty suits and full ones at the same
[8:28] time. Um elementary utilization division
wide is about 71%.
[8:34] Um usually for a declining district, we
would want to target somewhere um
[8:38] between 80 and 90% is really really kind
of the target we're looking for for
[8:42] divisionwide utilization. And the spread
between the fullest and emptiest
[8:47] elementary school is 55 points. So if
you think about that, that would mean
[8:51] you have one school that's close to 100
and one school that's under 50.
[8:59] So one of the things that we needed to
make sure to do when we were building
[9:03] our forecasts was not to just assume
that our our forecasts could be built
[9:09] off of just what had happened in the
past. We also have to look at things
[9:13] like plan developments. So, this is just
a map of all the development that is
[9:17] planned throughout the district. Both
those that have been built already and
[9:21] are still being filled. Um, those that
are underway and those that are either
[9:24] proposed um or kind of unspecified what
uh stage they're they're actually in.
[9:31] Um, one of the things you'll you'll note
is kind of where a lot of this
[9:35] development is happening. We see a lot
of it in the northeast uh kind of the
[9:38] forest corridor um of the district. um a
little down by the lake as well. But as
[9:44] we'll talk about, these two different
kind of waves of development are
[9:49] bringing different differential student
yield to the district.
[9:54] So what does development impact look
like? Uh attendance zone by attendance
[9:59] zone at the elementary level. Um the
county's planning file holds about 30
[10:05] just over 3,500 units with about almost
1,700 of them not yet built. weighted by
[10:11] kind of how often each entitlement stage
is actually completed. We would expect
[10:15] about 991 of these to be built in our
projection period. Um so in general,
[10:22] Bedford builds about 284 homes per year.
uh the forecast own trend already
[10:28] carries uh 354
uh units per year expected just because
[10:34] it was fitted on the construction from
2021 [laughter and clears throat]
[10:37] to 2024 um which was a higher
construction level than if you go back a
[10:42] few years from there. So the net effect
on the division strangely if you look at
[10:46] the development pipeline is development
is actually kind of slowing down
[10:51] um and the net effect on the division is
actually to decrease the growth overall
[10:57] but that's not true everywhere. Um as we
can see on the chart to the on the right
[11:02] hand side of the slide here um
specifically in New London Forest and
[11:06] Thomas Jefferson we are actually seeing
gains that are above and beyond historic
[11:10] average. um in the other attendance
zones, elementary attendance zones
[11:13] throughout the district, we are seeing
it actually uh decrease uh historical
[11:19] trends.
Do feel free to stop me if you have any
[11:23] questions at any time. So once we have a
number of
[11:29] uh developments that we think could be
hitting, we also need to look at how
[11:35] many students are going to come from
each completed unit. And one of the
[11:39] things that is very very important,
especially in a place like Bedford, is
[11:43] to look at smaller levels of geography
other than just the district by itself
[11:48] when looking at student yield. Because
if we think about it, you know, a new
[11:52] home down by the lake is going to be
very different than a new home in, you
[11:56] know, the forest attendance zone, New
London or Thomas Jefferson. And we see
[12:00] that in the data. So what we actually
did is we um brought together your
[12:05] student attendance uh attendance data
from this year and years past, matched
[12:12] that together with your assessor
database at the county level and
[12:16] actually looked when those homes were
built because we have year built um did
[12:21] they bring children into the district or
not? And this is the outcome of that
[12:25] analysis. So we see uh for elementary
school ages um New London is bringing in
[12:31] 0.14 kids per new unit. Forest about the
same at.13 whereas Huddleston is
[12:37] bringing in about 05. Monita about the
same.
[12:44] Okay. So this goes back to that idea of
gross impacts of
[12:51] new development versus net impacts of
new development.
[12:55] So students in newly built homes, we
really want to start splitting them out
[13:00] in how we think they might enter school.
Are they in district relocations?
[13:05] Are they new to the district moveins?
Or are they new to the district moveins,
[13:10] but they enter in kindergarten just like
any other student who had lived here
[13:14] longer would have done. And so the
answer to that question is the majority
[13:20] or I would say uh the plurality are not
new to district moveins. Um
[13:27] the largest group is actually that
organic entry but coming in new. So
[13:32] folks move into Bedford County before
their kids start school and then they
[13:37] start school in kindergarten stay with
the group. Um the new to district
[13:41] moveins are those folks who are coming
maybe moving in when they have a third
[13:44] grader. Um So that's about 32% of those
new builds and 30% of uh the new builds
[13:51] are actually in district relocations. Um
so maybe from the same attendance zone
[13:56] or even from a different attendance
zone.
[14:00] So what does this mean? Overall Bedford
County is a growing county with fewer
[14:04] children than it had in the past. Um the
county population grew between 2010 and
[14:09] 2020 by 16%. Um at this point only 15.2%
2% of residents are school age which is
[14:17] uh which is ages 5 to 17 which is down
about 3 percentage points over the last
[14:22] 20 years. Um the county is really it it
is it's adding people and losing
[14:27] children at the same time which let me
tell you I do a lot of this work. You
[14:30] are not the only district where this
happening. This is happening a lot of
[14:33] places.
So the reason for this is really your
[14:38] age structure. And if we look at this I
know we looked at a bunch more of these
[14:41] today. I had to show one population
pyramid. Um, but if we look at it, you
[14:46] look at those older ages. Again, for
those who haven't looked at a population
[14:49] pyramid before, uh, the dark blue is
males, light blue females. Um, we start
[14:55] at ages 0 to four, go all the way up to
85 plus. And what we see is the, you
[15:01] know, the large bulge that you see in
population in Bedford County, um, starts
[15:06] at that 55, uh, year age group and kind
of goes up to the 65 to 69 age group.
[15:15] And just another note, um you know,
overall births are obviously still
[15:21] carrying the load for how you are
bringing students into your schools. Um
[15:25] but that number is kind of decreasing
over over time or just barely growing
[15:30] like slowly and your migration is really
uh is bringing in adults but not
[15:37] children.
So why does this not fix itself? births
[15:43] are kind of generally stagnant. They're
about flat. Um, in migration is less
[15:48] child-heavy than it once was. Overall,
the US has less children than it did uh
[15:53] in, you know, say 2008. So, in migration
is going to necessarily be lower in
[15:58] children. And new homes, uh, that mostly
hold students. Uh, the for the forecast
[16:04] is really already counting because you
are already growing.
[16:09] And the decline really is cohort size,
not students leaving. So you're having
[16:14] smaller entering cohorts. It's not like
you're having a rush of fourth graders
[16:18] leaving. It's it's really once you have
them, they're generally staying. It's
[16:22] really that smaller and smaller cohorts
of kindergarteners.
[16:27] So at the end of the day, um we have a
set of buildings that's sized for almost
[16:31] 11,000 students. We're now serving about
8,500.
[16:35] Um, and the forecast says that gap is
going to persist or potentially get
[16:39] worse. So, to me, in my professional
opinion, really the question is not
[16:43] whether to adjust, but how much and
where. And that's where we're going to
[16:47] move to next. So,
I know everyone probably hopes this was
[16:52] the last time you would ever see me. Um,
and that we would make all those
[16:56] decisions and uh then you you all would
go on your merry way. However, I think
[17:02] that we probably still have um some
decisions to make over time together.
[17:08] So, two decisions that really need to be
made. The first one is how many schools
[17:13] to consolidate? [snorts] Obviously,
Steuartsville has already been decided
[17:17] by the board for school year 2728. The
open question, which we started talking
[17:21] about in August, is is a second
consolidation warranted
[17:27] and if so, which building? The second
question then becomes how do we balance
[17:31] utilization and relieve some of the
pressure in the high utilization schools
[17:35] and use some of the extra building space
we have in [clears throat] low
[17:39] utilization schools. So
really not redrawing the maps even with
[17:45] just the Steuartsville closure is not a
tenable option and I'll talk through
[17:49] kind of all the different things we
looked at but um that's these are kind
[17:53] of the two key decisions that we need to
be looking at.
[17:58] So decision number one, Stewartsville
has been decided by the board. Is a
[18:03] second closure um warranted?
[clears throat] Stewartsville um is the
[18:08] least utilized elementary school in
every demand state at 44%. Um the
[18:13] capacity math really ranks at first in
every scenario to close. Um and the
[18:17] board so really the board's decision
matches the data in our study beyond
[18:21] Steuartsville. um at a 90% planning
ceiling. So that kind of optimal for a
[18:26] declining if we're just talking about
utilization, optimal for a declining
[18:30] school district. Um the math really
supports one further consolidation
[18:35] today. Um and two really most likely in
in the low case. Um capacity is really
[18:41] going to set the range for us. Um
capacity is where we're thinking about
[18:45] RA the the tough fiscal decisions we
need to make. But fiscal decisions
[18:48] aren't the only decision, the only ways
that we make these decisions. So just
[18:53] because the numbers say it doesn't
necessarily mean that that's the right
[18:56] thing for Bedford County. And that's
what you all will have to wrestle with.
[19:01] So decision number two, how do we
balance utilization and relieve
[19:05] pressure? Uh there really is no leave
the lines alone option obviously with
[19:09] Steuartsville 243 students. they have to
be assigned somewhere and
[19:15] we can get close to assigning them all
to one school but we can't quite assign
[19:19] them all just to one school. Um how many
students change schools scales with the
[19:24] decisions that you all make. Um so
depending if you close more schools
[19:29] obviously more students need to move.
Um
[19:34] and the lines really help us to
understand what the count doesn't show.
[19:39] And we're going to talk through a lot of
different things here. bus rides,
[19:42] subdivision, uh subdivision stain hole.
Um but really there's a lot of different
[19:47] data points that you all uh can and
should consider
[19:51] divisionwide. Um
the the the pressure is real in in the
[19:58] northeast of the district.
The question I think becomes, do we
[20:02] relieve that pressure by redrawing
boundaries
[20:07] or is it a potential that you all need
to look at something like building a new
[20:11] school in the Northeast? And really, I
mean, we can talk through the the math
[20:18] on this and and we have a slide on this
specific thing, I believe, uh, in a
[20:23] couple slides. Um but the math would be
really hard for building a new school
[20:28] and not um redrawing boundaries because
of the fact of where the high
[20:35] utilization schools are and how they're
already kind of next to some schools
[20:38] that could use additional students.
Let's put it that way. Okay. So those
[20:44] are the two decisions that really need
to be made here.
[20:49] The question is when.
Okay. So, where have we been with this
[20:54] project? Uh, we started in June. Um, we
kind of had a a kickoff with with the
[21:00] folks internally and then on the 18th of
August, I came down here and did a board
[21:05] briefing on enrollment, demographics,
building use and started talking about
[21:08] capacity only, utilization only. What
did the numbers say for consolidation?
[21:15] Today we are taking that discussion and
moving a step further. We're talking
[21:20] about options, maps, and data. Um, we're
going to talk about, you know, some of
[21:24] those town halls on boundary alignment.
I know that have been announced already.
[21:28] Um, or any additional consolidation
between the tomorrow, basically today
[21:34] even, um, and the 6th of October, it
sounds like you all are collecting
[21:38] feedback on the options and passing it
back to me to make sure that there isn't
[21:41] any changes I need to make to our
analysis.
[21:44] Um it sounds like on the 8th of October
um we're talking about a potential
[21:50] public hearing for the four options that
we're talking about here or the one
[21:54] option depending on where decisions go.
Um
[21:59] before the board uh before that vote um
that is in the next line here um for the
[22:06] special call meeting. I would update
options based on all the feedback that
[22:09] you heard both in public hearings as
well as in your town halls. Um, as well
[22:14] as another way that we'll talk about at
the end. Um, and
[22:19] then the the plan would be to have a
special called meeting where the board
[22:22] votes on one or the four options.
After the vote, we then would move to
[22:30] finalizing zones. So, one of the things
that you'll notice today is you have a
[22:35] kind of thick packet. Um,
it could have been, so it's like this
[22:41] thick. It could have been like that
thick. Um, but I kind of wanted to show
[22:46] you all all of the options that we were
looking at and how we were prioritizing
[22:52] those options. So, what you have here
are four different options that we're
[22:56] going to talk about with three different
map drawings for each of them. and
[23:00] they're all kind of scored on a bunch of
different metrics. And so we'll talk
[23:05] through [laughter] kind of how to read
this. There's also at the front of the
[23:08] page there's a how to read this packet.
This packet will be posted publicly
[23:12] tomorrow um along with the slides and um
it'll really help us to kind of go
[23:18] through and think about how we make
these decisions. So once we draw those
[23:24] once decisions are made on which
consolidations uh do or do not move
[23:29] forward, we will then draw a final set
of maps for only the option that you all
[23:34] vote on. That takes into account all of
the public comments, all of your
[23:39] feedback, all the district's feedback
that we've gotten kind of from now until
[23:43] then. Um the plan would then be to have
a public hearing on the 12th of November
[23:49] on the selected uh option and the
recommended maps. Uh again, we would
[23:54] make a final update to those maps before
the 8th of December where you all would
[23:59] then get to look at those final set of
maps and have a vote hopefully on the
[24:03] 10th of December. So this is this would
be a proposal to get us to a spot where
[24:08] we could make these decisions um for for
the future long before we would need to
[24:13] actually implement all of them for 2728.
[24:18] Okay, I'm going to take a breath for two
seconds because I've been talking a lot.
[24:22] Any questions thus far?
>> Any questions?
[24:26] » You have a public hearing on October 8th
and another one on November 12th.
[24:31] » Yep.
So the public hearing on the ETH would
[24:35] be to a public hearing about which so if
we remember we have two decisions. Um
[24:43] if we decided one or two schools closed
um the p the first public hearing would
[24:49] be about those consolidations.
The second public hearing would be about
[24:54] the drawing of the lines. So, one thing
I will say, not to like tip my hat on to
[25:00] where we're going in this discussion,
one of the things we need to talk about
[25:04] tonight is does the board want to
consider a second consolidation or not?
[25:08] [clears throat]
And so that is
[25:12] my suggestion then would be if you are
going to consider a second consolidation
[25:19] would be to have that
um public hearing about the
[25:24] consolidation first and then go through
the map drawing process a final time
[25:30] even though you already have a lot of
options to really get the best maps that
[25:34] you possibly can for Bedford County and
then have a public hearing about those
[25:39] final maps on the 12th of November.
[25:48] » Okay,
>> questions.
[25:52] » Okay, so how do we inform these
decisions? Um, we've talked about a lot
[25:57] of data. The first thing I want to talk
about is building the building option.
[26:02] Um before before we really get into the
boundaries, um we wanted to give a new
[26:08] school every potential advantage it
could have. Um I did not actually go and
[26:14] look at a realistic site. I looked at
the most optimal site. Um so this could
[26:21] literally be someone's house. Like this
is not this is not real. I want to be
[26:26] very clear. [laughter]
Um but this is drawing a new school in
[26:30] the most advantageous site to relieve
pressure at um at Forest specifically.
[26:38] Um it's a 500 seat elementary placed at
that geometric center. Um
[26:46] it fills to 386 students relatively
easily. Beyond that it's kind of hard to
[26:52] make transportation work.
um only 100 of them come from Forest.
[26:58] The rest actually come from Thomas
Jefferson and Boonboro, which doesn't
[27:03] really need relief. Um and it adds seats
to a division that already has 1500
[27:09] empty seats, and it would make you very
kind of topheavy in the Northeast, which
[27:14] population density of of elementary of
uh enrollment says is right. But then
[27:21] transportation becomes a really really
really hard thing. So to me this seems
[27:27] like a tough thing to be behind
and as we'll see it might be much easier
[27:33] to redraw boundaries but I did want to
have it as an option for you all because
[27:37] this is something that if you were
serious about it we could do much
[27:41] further research into and actually make
a real proposal with not a you know fake
[27:47] plot of land.
But that's so that's the first thing.
[27:52] When it came to drawing boundaries, we
tested every lever we could find. Um
[27:58] we had 15 structural options across six
different families. The families were
[28:04] just drawing boundaries,
consolidation,
[28:08] pairing campuses, which we'll talk about
that in a second.
[28:12] uh like it's basically consolidation,
but it's looking at the paired Bedford
[28:16] Primary, Bedford Elementary, grade
pairing, which would be creating new
[28:21] paired camp uh paired schools. And then
we also looked at uh the multi-track
[28:27] year uh as well as the calendar
multitrack year um combined with further
[28:32] closure. Every option for now is keeping
middle and high schools unchanged. I'll
[28:38] talk more about that at the end. Um,
there's a reason we're not talking about
[28:41] middle and high school right now. And
every option is measured really against
[28:45] the same do nothing reference. So, at
the end of the day, you all are looking
[28:50] at
four options here. Uh, we had 15 that
[28:56] you could be looking at right now.
>> Thank you for not letting [laughter]
[29:00] » I figured if I give you that much
information, you're just not going to
[29:02] look at it. But um this is th this
packet is enough that you'll be able to
[29:07] really get the idea of where where we
could go with each of these potential
[29:12] consolidations.
So the full menu before I talk about
[29:16] what we actually ended up giving you. We
tested most of the schools that could uh
[29:23] that that made sense to have a
consolidation. We actually not on this
[29:27] list tested every single elementary
school. We tested closing, we tested
[29:32] consolidating forest. Um, we tested
consolidating every single school. What
[29:36] we're reporting information on is this
full menu. Um, there's option numbers
[29:42] which we use and it just makes it easier
for people in uh slides if they print
[29:46] them out and they're looking at the two.
Um but we have just as a comparison
[29:53] point A Z is not A Z and A Z F do not
actually close Stewartsville. It's
[30:01] boundaries only and boundaries pushed to
the limits. And one of the things that
[30:06] you'll see is it doesn't really solve
our problems. Um so this kind of
[30:12] supports the Steuartsville decision.
A1 is Stewartsville plus boundaries.
[30:19] Um, B1 is Stewartsville, Big Island. B2,
Otter River added to that. B3, Monita.
[30:26] B4, Huddleston. B5, Montvail. Um, you'll
notice B9 and P2 are the only two that
[30:34] have three schools. Um, that's because
if you start going, we did actually
[30:39] test, you'll notice we jumped from B5 to
B9. We did actually test other three
[30:44] school closures and none of them we
couldn't get them to converge uh on an
[30:48] actual map that worked. So B9 is
Stewartsville, Otter River, and Thick
[30:53] Islands. P1 is Stewartsville and Bedford
Primary. P2 is Steuartsville, Bedford
[30:59] Primary, and Otter River. Now, the
reason that P1 is being treated
[31:03] differently than all the B classes is
because there's an additional discussion
[31:08] we'd have to have about preK here. um
and where prek would go. Would it go in
[31:13] Bedford Elementary or would it go
elsewhere?
[31:17] And then we also did a few other things.
We looked at grade pairing um which was
[31:23] basically taking the two rural schools
uh that um have the lowest utilization
[31:32] and pairing them making 1K2 135.
Um, I will say right now we ended up
[31:39] ruling that out because the
transportation just we couldn't make it
[31:42] work. Um, the other thing that we looked
at were year- round calendars. And the
[31:48] issue here is um from work we've done
kind of in in other districts, you
[31:54] actually unless you can do it in a lot
in a lot of your schools and frankly in
[31:59] less rural areas, you actually end up
adding teachers. Um, so you add up and
[32:05] you end up adding expense. Um, and it
doesn't necessarily uh solve all of your
[32:12] utilization problems. There's more on
that kind of in the report, but um, just
[32:17] wanted to to highlight that. So, how did
we score these things? We scored them on
[32:22] multiple different measures. Uh, we
looked at enrollment balance, which is
[32:26] the spread between the fullest and
emptiest school. We looked at capacity
[32:30] headroom. So just utilization at the
fullest school against that 90% planning
[32:35] sealant ceiling. We looked at
transportation which is there's a couple
[32:40] ways that we looked at transportation.
The first one is the bus ride time in
[32:45] the morning
for the 90th percentile rider. So this
[32:50] isn't like that long tail of folks who
have very long rides, but it's the folks
[32:55] who are at the kind of long ride, but
not not that long tail. So it's the the
[33:00] 90th percentile of that that group.
We did also look at the worst ride as
[33:05] well. Um we also looked at the typical
ride which is the median here uh bus
[33:11] ride across all riders simulated per
option. We looked at the number of
[33:16] children who would be over 60 minutes on
the bus in the morning. Um, currently
[33:22] that's about 30 in the mornings today.
Um,
[33:27] the number of buses to hold us to hold
every single student under 60 minutes.
[33:33] So, if we just added more buses, could
we solve the problem?
[33:37] and the number of rides that were
lengthened by 15 plus minutes and route
[33:43] minutes overall. So if we're looking at
all those elementary trips, one note I
[33:48] want to talk about, I just said a lot of
things about transportation, we have
[33:52] built a bus routing optimizer that is
very good for this planning type of
[33:58] work. They are not actual bus routes. It
is not the same as your bus routing
[34:02] software. So expect a an error of
somewhere between three to 5% on our
[34:08] measurement just so you have that in
your head.
[34:12] But it is very good for planning and
it's very directional. We also looked at
[34:16] subdivision integrity. So we looked at
recorded plats um and how many of them
[34:20] were divided between two schools. Fewer
is better. Um we looked at schools in
[34:25] the target band. So that 85 to 90%
utilization. How many of the schools
[34:29] could we get there? Um grade cohort
depth is looking at how spread out the
[34:36] children are between grades so that we
can have the right number of sections in
[34:41] schools. If we start looking at below 30
students for one grade in one school
[34:47] that can become a little more
problematic.
[34:51] We also looked at compactness which is a
mathematical measure. Um, you can think
[34:55] of it as does the thing we drew drew
look like a normal shape, a square or a
[35:02] circle, or does it look like this thing
that has like weird pieces coming out of
[35:07] it? Um, if any of you think about like
on the political side like
[35:10] gerrymandering, you think of some of
those maps that are like really long and
[35:14] they have these weird things drawn on
them. That compactness is a way to
[35:18] measure that. Is it compact or not? Um,
community disruption is another and this
[35:24] is the share of elementary schools,
elementary students who are changing
[35:27] school and then needs balance which is
the gap and economically disadvantaged
[35:32] share between highest and lowest share
schools. We also have operating savings.
[35:37] Um, we won't talk about it a lot
tonight. We we had an assumption through
[35:42] talking with the administration that the
operating savings are going to be
[35:45] relatively similar across schools. Um
and we'll talk about what that what that
[35:50] number is for each and every school in
the discussion. So basically that just
[35:54] scales with you close one school it's a
number. You close two schools it doesn't
[35:57] matter which one. It just it's that
number times two.
[36:02] Okay.
So hard constraints first and then we
[36:06] look at scores. Um first and foremost
every zone has to be a whole connected
[36:12] piece. We're not creating little islands
or anything like that. you have to
[36:16] actually be able to draw around the zone
everywhere. Number two, we want no
[36:20] school over capacity um either today or
in 2035.
[36:26] We want no school empty by accident.
That sounds silly, but you know, when
[36:29] you're optimizing these things, you
could do that. Um scores are also
[36:34] relative. So, as we're scoring these
things, we are looking at all the
[36:39] numbers, but then we have all of our
drawings of all of our maps, and we
[36:43] score them on a 0 to 100 scale um to to
really look at the 15 different options.
[36:49] The waiting is really yours. We've done
five different waitings and we'll talk
[36:52] about them. Um but if you
have a different waiting that you want
[36:58] to look at, that's a a decision that we
a discussion we can have. So after
[37:04] August 18th, I think most everyone said
we want to see all options and this is
[37:08] kind of showing you all options. Um some
things are not scored just to be clear.
[37:12] Things like facility condition, um
program placement and staffing are on
[37:16] the district's kind of side. These
things are really much more on the
[37:20] student and transportation side of
things.
[37:23] So what fell away and why? Um
Stewartsville and Monita um we were able
[37:30] to make it work. Um but on the numbers
it really doesn't stand out. Uh there's
[37:35] a 41 point spread. Um 58 children over
an hour on the bus and it's never better
[37:42] than 14th under any waiting. 14th out of
15 on any waiting. Um G1, which is the
[37:49] grade pairing of Big Island and Otter
River, um we split those two out and the
[37:55] transport on every single measure was
just not optimizable.
[38:00] I mean, it it was it was optimizable. It
was just not a good optimum. Um, if we
[38:05] looked at the multitrack year-round
calendar, um, a multitrack calendar is
[38:09] really probably not feasible for the
district to operate, um, on in an in an
[38:15] economic feasibility sense. Um, and the
options kind of that depend on it
[38:19] therefore fall out.
B1 and B5, um, we set aside on the
[38:26] numbers. Basically, they were best on no
criterion. Um, and they were never
[38:30] better than fourth under any any
waiting. Um, A Z and B4, uh, they were
[38:35] carried by the rules that I set. Um, I
said A Z had to be there, but we
[38:39] actually ended up with A ZF being, um,
kind of the floor, um, that that we
[38:45] wanted. And, um, B4, uh, leads only on
need balance, but, uh, children over an
[38:53] hour was very not good and it moved a
lot of students. So,
[38:59] Okay,
what you all have been waiting for. Four
[39:03] structures really stand out. So the
first one is Stewart'sville and boundary
[39:09] alignment. So this is the decision
you've already made plus doing boundary
[39:13] alignment on that decision. Um
B1, which is Stewartsville and Big
[39:19] Island. It consolidates the second least
utilized building, gives us a narrow
[39:24] spread. Um, however, I will say, as
we'll note when we're looking, it's one
[39:31] of the hardest ones to optimize on
transportation of the four options. Um,
[39:35] Stewartsville and Otter River uh is B2.
It consolidates the third least utilized
[39:40] building. Uh, it has the narrowest
spread of the four and the fewest
[39:43] children passed an hour on the bus bus,
but it also has the largest number of
[39:48] students that are moved to get to that
number. And then finally P1 uh
[39:53] Steuartsville and Bedford Primary folds
that uh prek to one building into
[39:58] Bedford Elementary. But then we also
need to talk about how do we how do we
[40:02] house prek? Would we have to move some
students out of Bedford Elementary into
[40:07] another attendance zone um to to move
prek in there or would we have to move
[40:12] prek prek elsewhere? So that would have
to be part of the discussion there.
[40:18] Okay. So, first and foremost, one of the
big questions we have, and we answered
[40:22] this a little bit before, but I wanted
to provide more data. Would
[40:26] Stewartsville have been first? Yes. Uh,
if the board had not acted,
[40:30] Steuartsville is the building that the
data would have pointed to first. Uh, it
[40:34] was 44% utilized. Um, 559 seats for 243
students. Um, we were also able to draw
[40:41] new maps that, uh, transportation wise
made sense, as we'll see. However, if we
[40:47] only redraw the maps in a way that kind
of optimizes for transportation and the
[40:53] balance that we can get. Um, we still
have a 32point spread throughout the
[40:59] district. Monteale would be at 89% today
and Big Island would be at 57%. So, one
[41:05] school stays under 60. Um, and 41
children ride over an hour versus 31
[41:10] today.
Um, so it fixes the fullest school, but
[41:14] not necessarily the emptiest ones. So, I
do want to talk a little bit because
[41:22] we're starting to get to the point where
we have the slides. We also have this
[41:26] packet. The same information and
actually more information is in this
[41:30] packet. Um, and again, this will be
available on the website tomorrow. Um,
[41:35] but what you will see on the right hand
side here is a map with all of your
[41:39] attendance zones, but then you see
different colored areas and each of them
[41:43] has a number and they're much easier to
read, not on the screen, but in your
[41:47] packets. Um, because those numbers then
tell you, uh, for instance, number one
[41:54] down in the southwest corner here is
Stewartsville to Good View, and that's
[41:58] 211 students.
So, you can go through and do that. Also
[42:02] in the packet you will notice that we
have some zoomins
[42:07] um which actually zoom in on wherever
those changes are happening. So for A1
[42:12] we have a zoom in um kind of down in the
south part of the district. We have one
[42:18] in the northeast and then we have one uh
and then we have one in the northeast.
[42:22] Those are the two spots. Um and you'll
see some of them have up to three
[42:26] zoomins on them.
On the next slide, we have what I like
[42:31] to call our attendance matrix. And this
looks at what school today students are
[42:38] attending. Um, and that's in the rows.
And then in the columns, we have schools
[42:43] under the um example that we're talking
about now or under the option we're
[42:48] talking about now. And so what you'll
notice most of these you want to see
[42:52] like the big numbers are on the
diagonal, right? because Bedford today
[42:58] 570 students 572
students if I could speak in the future
[43:04] 572 students um so that would be that
that's kind of how we read that but then
[43:09] if we go down that first column good
view then moves 51 students to Bedford
[43:15] and one of the big reasons there is
right good view is having to take a lot
[43:19] of students from Steuartsville so we
have to move some students to Bedford
[43:23] and then move all of those Stewartsville
students into um good view. So that's
[43:30] kind of how you read through this
process. Another thing that you'll have
[43:33] in the packet is you actually then also
have what we have at the bottom of the
[43:38] table but in chart form which is um
utilization for each of the schools in a
[43:43] bar chart.
And so at the bottom of the table here
[43:47] you have the utilization as the
attendance zones are drawn today.
[43:52] utilization
today using A1 and utilization in 2035
[43:58] using the A1 proposal. And so I'm not
going to spend a ton of time on each of
[44:05] these examples, but I think it's
important for them to be in the slide
[44:08] deck um for everyone to be able to look
at them. Um but I do want to go through
[44:12] a couple different ways that we measured
the these things.
[44:15] » Hang on one second.
>> Of course. So, we've got we got several
[44:18] we got like 18 minutes, 17 minutes, but
I just want to tell the board because
[44:22] they have to go back. We're going to
have to go back at some point, but if
[44:25] you have questions, I guess my
recommendation would be just maybe just
[44:29] start shouting them out because
otherwise it may be getting kind of
[44:32] confusing. So, Yep.
>> I just wanted to
[44:34] » absolutely
>> kind of run that way.
[44:37] » Yep. And so, I will say I'm gonna I'm
going to go through the high level of
[44:41] each of these right now. I'm not going
to go into a ton of detail, but one
[44:45] thing I want to I want to be clear with
you all and for how we are having
[44:50] community discussions on these and how
the community is engaging on these
[44:55] A1 isn't just one option. There are
different ways that we can optimize the
[44:58] drawing to do different things. So we
can also try to balance the data more
[45:04] and that's what A1 drawing number one
the balance priority um that's what that
[45:09] does. Um
and you can see kind of the outcome of
[45:14] that. Drawing two is really focused um
we call it the utilization. So it's the
[45:19] same consolidation uh with utilization
priority um weighted first. So against
[45:25] the first drawing it cuts the number of
children riding over an hour um by a
[45:28] lot. There's only 18 now instead of 41.
Um but it also is cutting it against
[45:33] where you are today which is uh
currently 31 students in the morning. uh
[45:38] with more students changing school
though. So larger impact to the
[45:42] community but better better outcomes for
utilization and transportation and it
[45:46] holds the fullest school at 90% today
instead of focusing on balancing
[45:51] utilization and make sure that we no one
goes over 90%.
[45:55] So there's that. Um we then have
Steuartsville plus Big Island. So Big
[46:01] Island is the smallest and second
emptiest building. um consolidate
[46:05] consolidating it and redrawing the
corridor gives a new 18-point spread. Um
[46:10] which is obviously much better. Um and
the deepest grade corsets we can have
[46:14] just because we're getting rid of the
smallest school. Um however, the full
[46:19] flest school is Good View at 92% today
and 94% in 2035. Uh the emptiest is is
[46:26] kind of Huddleston at 75%. Um and the
quarter seats sit close to today's line.
[46:32] The other thing I'll note is um in order
to have the drawing work,
[46:38] the compactness isn't quite as good um
as as we'd necessarily like it to be. So
[46:44] we're again we're going through where do
the students go? We can see that the big
[46:48] changes here are still Stewartsville um
to Good View 192, but now more of the
[46:54] Steuartsville students are going to
Montail um than they were in some of the
[46:58] prior drawings.
[47:01] So this this one is going to push some
of the other house or other schools over
[47:06] the 90% then.
>> Yeah. And so the thing that I want you
[47:11] all to be thinking about as you're
looking at this. I am not asking you
[47:15] today and no one here is asking you
today to say
[47:20] we want to close X we want to
consolidate X school. What the question
[47:25] we are asking today and why we want to
go through this just so you all have an
[47:28] idea of what's in your what materials
you have is do we want to look at
[47:34] further consolidation versus just
Stewartsville and boundary redraws and
[47:40] if we do these three are the ones that
we would suggest is are those the three
[47:44] that you all would want to continue
considering so just have that in your
[47:48] mind we don't we don't necessarily need
to get to like oh this line is good here
[47:52] this line's good there don't worry about
that today. That is a discussion we're
[47:56] going to have between now and December.
So B1, we can also do a drawing um with
[48:04] more balancing priority or focusing on
compactness. So shapes that make a
[48:09] little bit more sense. And again, we can
kind of go through that process.
[48:14] Um if we look at Stewartsville plus
Otter River, um again, Otter River sits
[48:18] between Bedford and the Forest Corridor.
so it students are absorbed by its
[48:21] neighbors um that have room. Uh B2 has a
17-point spread which is the narrowest
[48:26] of the four. Um and 37 children passed
an hour on the bus which is the fewest
[48:31] um of the four at this drawing. There
are other drawings that make it better.
[48:35] Um so kind of watch outs here. Uh the
fullest school here is Boonboro uh which
[48:41] would be at 90% in 2526 enrollment. Um
and Huddleston at 90% in 2035. Uh the
[48:49] MTS would still be Big Island at 74%.
Um it is the biggest move of the
[48:55] consolidation plans uh with 722 students
having to change schools.
[49:02] » How many under an hour
>> on this one? So So if we look at this,
[49:09] the children riding over 60 minutes um
would increase by six students.
[49:15] » Is that on here somewhere? Um,
>> it's right at the top.
[49:18] » Yeah, it's right
[49:22] » the top of this page.
>> Yeah, right here.
[49:26] » So, it's sorry on this page, but you're
also
[49:30] as a as another another piece of this.
We also are going to have um an
[49:35] interactive map that you can look at
that will have all of these metrics
[49:39] [clears throat] on it as well. Um, and
again, that's something that will not
[49:42] only be available to you all, but will
be publicly available as well.
[49:48] » When will we have that?
>> Tomorrow.
[49:50] » That'll be tomorrow as well.
>> Yep. And I'm going to show it to you
[49:52] tonight.
>> Um, we just need to get it up on the
[49:55] website.
>> Yeah.
[49:57] » Um, probably make a couple little tweaks
before then
[50:01] » and also any of your feedback if tweaks
need to be made before it goes out. Um,
[50:07] okay. we can also focus the optimization
more on transportation instead of um the
[50:16] compact priority and so that has a
different impact right so um sorry I'm
[50:23] going all over the place here um
everyone stop looking at the screen so
[50:29] you don't get motion sick um if we look
at the transport priority um we see the
[50:34] number of students again is at 37 um for
over 60 minutes, but the number of buses
[50:41] to hold to 60 minutes goes down. Um, and
the number of rides lengthened to 15
[50:45] plus minutes goes down as well.
And again, uh, we have the matrix here
[50:51] that we can kind of talk through.
Um,
[50:55] we also have ones where we focus on
waiting um, needs balance. So, this is
[51:00] kind of that um, making sure there's a
balance on um, uh, like income
[51:07] inequality. basically um throughout the
district. Um so this is the same
[51:11] consolidation with that weighted first
against the first drawing. It raises the
[51:15] number of children riding over an hour
um with fewer students changing school
[51:19] and holds the full flest school to 92%.
Um so you kind of see all of those
[51:26] statistics there.
And then the final piece is
[51:30] Steuartsville plus Bedford Primary.
Bedford primary um is a real building
[51:35] with the same model saving as the other
candidates. I want to be very clear with
[51:39] that. I think all of us are on the same
page there. But the open question is
[51:43] where prek would go. Um and we would
need to name a home for it. Uh the
[51:48] district and the board here uh is when I
say the district. Um so
[51:54] just the first drawing of this does
increase the number of children writing
[51:57] over 60 minutes. Um but we do have ones
that work a little bit better than that.
[52:02] But that's this is a one option for it.
And then need need balancing priority.
[52:08] Um we actually decreased the number of
students riding over 60 minutes by a lot
[52:11] as well. Um
and then a utilization priority also
[52:18] decreases but not as well from the first
drawing the children over 60 minutes.
[52:24] So if we [snorts] look at the four
structures side by side at their best
[52:29] drawing out of the drawings that we've
done so far out of the optimizations
[52:32] that I've done without any community
input
[52:36] um what we are looking at is today at
the very top a full school at 95% spread
[52:43] of 46 points zero students moved
obviously um typical rides 22 minutes
[52:49] the long ride uh 90th percentile is 41
minutes over 60 minutes, we have 31
[52:54] students, 31 elementary students. Um,
and rides that increase by 15 minutes um
[53:00] is zero because they can't increase uh
if they're now. Um, and then this
[53:05] measure of how many extra buses would we
need to send out in the mornings to hold
[53:09] everyone under 60 minutes is uh in this
optimization seven.
[53:14] So, if we look at A1, uh we can see the
fullest school is down to 89%. So, we
[53:21] solved some of that problem. The spread
is still very high at 34. Um, students
[53:26] moved is 516. Typical ride doesn't
change. Long ride doesn't change that
[53:31] much. Uh, changes by a minute. Um, over
60 minutes, we actually decrease. And
[53:36] 252 students actually increase their
rides by 15 minutes. Um, that's going to
[53:41] happen when you close a school and
redraw boundaries. Um, and buses to hold
[53:46] 60 minutes is um is again seven. But
here we get that savings of one closed
[53:51] building of just over a million dollars.
The next three, I won't read all the
[53:55] numbers. You all can uh read them as
well and you will have these slides. But
[53:59] the general idea here um is that uh each
of these drawings
[54:06] increases um some of the long rides and
some of the rides 15 plus minutes by
[54:11] necessity because you are closing
schools. um but they do it
[54:14] differentially and so that is one piece
on the transportation. The annual
[54:19] savings is obviously another piece. With
one school it's just over a million
[54:22] dollars for the district. With two
schools it's over 2 million. Um but with
[54:28] all of these options we can draw
a set of boundaries that works.
[54:36] That is really the takeaway I want you
all to have today. And we can even tweak
[54:40] these a little bit more and maybe
optimize them a even a little bit better
[54:45] between now and December. But just in
the work that we've done thus far making
[54:49] these first set of drawings, these are
all workable um workable attendance
[54:54] zones.
So drawn at its best B1 and B2 beat
[54:58] Steuartsville and boundary alignment on
spread. Um P1 does not. Uh the narrowest
[55:03] spread is B1. Few children over an hour
is A1. Fewest students moved. Also A1.
[55:10] Um, makes sense. You're only closing one
school there. Um, typical rides stay
[55:13] within one minute of today's 22 under
all four. And the long tale of rides is
[55:18] really where they differ and what you
all might want to be thinking about as
[55:21] well. P1 also just to reiterate leaves
open the prek question.
[55:28] Okay, so we talked about last time the
numbers do potentially support on
[55:33] utilization three consolidations. Um, so
I would still say that's the case. On
[55:39] seats, yes. I would say on buses for the
for a district like Bedford County, it
[55:45] might be kind of tough. Um, on
utilization three works, B9 and P2 have
[55:50] the narrowest spreads on the menu and
the largest saving largest
[55:53] [clears throat] savings. Um, on
transportation,
[55:58] uh, B9 somewhat holds today's line, but
that long tail is problematic on B9. And
[56:05] a reminder that B9 is Steuartsville,
Otter River, and Big Island.
[56:10] Um 806 students would have to change
schools. Um and two communities uh two
[56:15] additional communities lose a building
at once. So um really the low forecast
[56:21] is where a third consolidation
in my opinion on the fiscal side of
[56:26] things becomes more necessary than
optional. But I would also say that at
[56:30] this point the utilization numbers
support it but kind of barely support a
[56:36] third school. Um I think in in my
professional opinion your decision is
[56:41] probably more on one versus two, but
that that is my professional opinion. Um
[56:48] so this is just kind of looking at the
the six different ways that we've drawn
[56:51] the boundaries
um and what each of them trade in terms
[56:55] of ride burden. um estimated minutes
past 60 for all riders, compactness,
[57:00] number of students moved, subdivision
split, and the need spread.
[57:06] Um and then the same thing for the best
drawing for bus rides. Um again, all of
[57:12] this information is going to be totally
available to you all. The point that I'm
[57:16] trying to make here is these are these
are decision these are workable maps if
[57:21] it's a discussion that you all want to
have and have with the community.
[57:26] So,
what do we need from you all tonight?
[57:30] The decision we need tonight is do we
move forward to town halls on
[57:35] Steuartsville and B boundary alignment
only or also looking at an additional
[57:40] consolidation. So, the reason that I
need to know that is because I want to
[57:44] give you all materials to bring to those
meetings, big maps, um you know,
[57:49] additional things like this. um and I
need to know what to include in those
[57:55] materials. So, um Stuartsville and
boundary alignment only would be really
[58:00] much more focused on the maps that are
drawn and talking about those actual
[58:06] boundaries. If we're looking at an
additional consolidation, we would have
[58:10] that plus the discussion about should we
be consolidating that additional school.
[58:17] um our read of the data. Um the second
consolidation really does fix the
[58:21] imbalance that the study was
commissioned to address. The capacity
[58:25] map supports it in every demand state,
but those are numbers. That's not the
[58:31] community. That's that's not uh the only
thing that you all have to decide on. Um
[58:36] so that that discussion is different in
kind, not just in degree. So,
[58:43] I guess that's that's my biggest ask of
you all. Before we get there, middle and
[58:48] high school boundaries, I didn't forget
about you. We need to settle the
[58:51] elementary path first. Uh, every option
in this deck then leaves us needing to
[58:57] create reasonable pyramids for each of
the attendance zones.
[59:02] But we don't want to do that and then
make this, you know, again, I said I
[59:07] gave you guys this much. It could have
been this much. If we added middle
[59:10] schools, it could have been this much.
So, we want to take this down to this
[59:14] and then add middle schools and high
schools. Um, [clears throat]
[59:20] what we can do to help in terms of
materials. So, number one, these
[59:26] packets, you will have those. They will
be out there publicly. We can work on
[59:31] large format maps, ones that make sense
for any town hall meetings that you're
[59:35] having. We also, which I'll show you
just very briefly because I know we're
[59:39] short on time. Uh, and we have an
interactive app that not only allows
[59:44] folks to go in and look at each of these
options and kind of, you know, go back
[59:50] and look at each of the metrics for
them, but it also allows them to give
[59:54] feedback through the app. So, if they
have questions, concerns about things,
[59:58] they will be able to put feedback in
that app as another way to give feedback
[1:00:03] additionally to the town halls. Um all
of that information we will collate and
[1:00:08] we will give to the board. Um and then
also the summary sheet for drawing which
[1:00:13] is really this thing. I know it's more
than three pages now with the focus ends
[1:00:19] but those are all things we can provide
and if there are other things that you
[1:00:22] think might be helpful please feel free
to bring them up and we can see what we
[1:00:26] can do. So this is kind of the where
this goes from here. I'm just going to
[1:00:31] leave that up because that's just
rehashing the schedule. Um, any
[1:00:35] questions before we talk about
potentially the
[1:00:42] » what you want to move forward to town
hall meetings?
[1:00:45] » We got 30 seconds for uh public comment.
>> So, we can we hold the questions till
[1:00:51] after we do public comment and then we
can continue to go get some answers and
[1:00:55] we'll we'll we'll go right down. Yep.
>> All right.
[1:01:01] 20 seconds early. I think we'll we can
go for it. All right,
[1:01:06] » we're going to move on to 6.01 public
comments. I'm going to find my sheet
[1:01:11] here. That'll get us on time, I guess.
I don't know if I have a sheet
[1:01:17] somewhere.
It's on me. I'll find it. There's the
[1:01:21] one. I've got a lot of there's a lot of
paper trying
[1:01:27] » back of your blue.
>> I don't know somewhere. I might need
[1:01:30] some help.
>> I have to really read.
[1:01:34] » Should have memorized some.
>> You got another copy.
[1:01:41] » I am a man so I usually cannot find
anything.
[1:01:46] I know where my pen is. I get a lot of
help. All right, we got it. six o'clock.
[1:01:52] [laughter]
>> All right. The public comment portion of
[1:01:55] tonight's agenda is limited to 40
minutes. Speakers are asked to state
[1:01:58] their name and voting district. The
school board is here to listen to your
[1:02:01] comments um but will not engage or
respond to speakers during this
[1:02:04] 40-minute period. Please remember this
is a public meeting and that we expect
[1:02:08] all speakers to refrain from foul,
profane, abusive or hateful language um
[1:02:13] uh during their comments and or anytime
in attendance during this meeting. We
[1:02:17] also ask that speakers keep their
remarks objective and about the school
[1:02:20] in nature. Please keep all comments
limited to matters related to the public
[1:02:23] schools and any comments that are
harassing or amount to a personal attack
[1:02:27] against any identifiable individ
individual whether board member or staff
[1:02:31] or student or having the potential to
cause unnecessary delay or disruption to
[1:02:35] this meeting are prohibited. This is a
public meeting for public matters. If a
[1:02:39] speaker is not present when their name
is called will proceed to the next name
[1:02:42] on the list. An individual who has not
signed up to speak may not substitute
[1:02:46] for that time slot. Individuals will
have four minutes to address the board.
[1:02:50] An alarm will sound when an individual
has 30 seconds remaining and a second
[1:02:53] alarm will sound when the allotted four
minutes have expired. When this second
[1:02:57] alarm sounds, please discontinue
speaking and allow the next person in
[1:03:00] line to come up to the podium. Should
you be unable to finish your comments,
[1:03:04] please send or give them to Mrs. Johnson
and she will give them to board members.
[1:03:07] Please do not adjust the microphone at
the podium as it has been positioned
[1:03:11] with optimum audio quality. All right,
public comment tonight. First on the
[1:03:16] list, Amanda Bryan.
[1:03:21] » Good evening.
[1:03:26] So, uh I'm Amanda Bryan. I live in
district one. Um, since March, I
[1:03:32] personally and members of our community
have spent a great deal of time trying
[1:03:35] to rebuild something that has been
missing from this district's
[1:03:39] decision-making process, and that is
meaningful community participation.
[1:03:44] And that lack of participation is, in my
opinion, something that has happened
[1:03:48] from both sides. Parents don't
participate if they feel their voices
[1:03:52] aren't heard or valued. But if parents
don't show up, leadership doesn't think
[1:03:57] it's worth the enormous time and effort
that is required to solicit and
[1:04:01] incorporate feedback. It becomes a cycle
that repeats and grows into what we have
[1:04:05] now. A process that at least appears
essentially free of meaningful parental
[1:04:10] and community input.
Now, a problem like this that has
[1:04:14] developed over a period of time will
also take a period of time to correct.
[1:04:19] Complex problems require complex
solutions. For our part, I and other
[1:04:25] community members have encouraged
parents to attend meetings, follow along
[1:04:29] with the process, read documents, ask
questions, continue showing up even when
[1:04:35] we have believed decisions have already
been made.
[1:04:39] I have said publicly that our political
processes work best when the community
[1:04:44] remains involved, engaged, and unwilling
to back down simply because we may lose
[1:04:49] a vote. I said these things because I
genuinely believe them.
[1:04:55] I want to believe that parents in this
board can continue to come to the table
[1:05:00] in good faith and establish a productive
working relationship. But that becomes
[1:05:06] much harder when the board says it wants
collaboration while its actual choices
[1:05:10] communicate something different.
Tonight, we're hearing from DAA the
[1:05:14] redistricting proposals that could
affect families throughout the county.
[1:05:17] The district has also today, I believe,
announced a series of town halls
[1:05:21] intended to give those families an
opportunity to participate.
[1:05:26] But take a look at where those
opportunities have been placed. There
[1:05:30] are six announced town hall stops and
four out of the six of them are very
[1:05:36] centrally located in the forest
district.
[1:05:39] There's not a single town hall at
Stewartsville, Good View, Stanton River,
[1:05:45] or anywhere else in that part of the
eastern end of the county. I'm sorry,
[1:05:50] the western end of the county.
That is not geographically balanced
[1:05:56] public engagement. The families affected
by redistricting should not have to
[1:06:01] travel across a county this large to
reach a process that is supposedly
[1:06:05] designed to include them. Particularly
when four of those six opportunities are
[1:06:11] concentrated in one portion of the
county. This is not just about
[1:06:14] convenience. Parents are working.
They're arranging child care, managing
[1:06:19] homework, dinner, sports, and
transportation. And each one of you are
[1:06:23] as well. We recognize that
every additional mile and every
[1:06:29] additional minute minute minute of
travel narrows the group of people who
[1:06:32] can realistically participate in those
conversations. If this board wants
[1:06:36] representative access, it m it
representative input. It must create
[1:06:40] representative access. This concern also
cannot be separated from what was said
[1:06:45] during the August board meeting. While
chairing that meeting, the vice chair
[1:06:49] said he had been alerted to the fact
that public comment is not really a
[1:06:53] necessary part of our meetings. I
understand that that might have been
[1:06:57] intended as an observation about what is
legally required and maybe even
[1:07:01] frustration about lack of parental
involvement, but that's not how it lands
[1:07:05] with parents. Public comment may not be
legally required at every meeting, but
[1:07:10] public participation is not a favor that
this board bestows upon its
[1:07:15] constituents. This board is made up of
elected officials and listening to the
[1:07:20] people you represent is part of the
responsibility you accepted when you
[1:07:23] sought these seats. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
[1:07:28] Next up, [clears throat] Elizabeth
Manzel.
[1:07:34] » Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Manel,
District 6. I have close ties to the Big
[1:07:38] Island community and here to address the
need for a prek program at Big Island.
[1:07:43] Due to federal funding cuts, their Head
Start program was cut. In the Big Island
[1:07:48] community, there are no daycarees or
church preschool programs. Bedford
[1:07:52] County has six title one elementary
schools. Seven, if you count Buffford
[1:07:56] Primary and Befford Elementary
separately. Five of these schools have
[1:08:00] VPI programs. Big Island Elementary is
the only title one school that does not
[1:08:05] have a VPI program. What are the
qualifications for VPI's income
[1:08:10] eligibility? At or below 200% for the
2025 federal poverty guidelines, which
[1:08:16] is for a family of four, is an income of
$64,300.
[1:08:21] The Big Island community's median income
is 40,000. The median income in Forest
[1:08:27] is 82,000 and there are two VPI programs
in the forest communities, New London
[1:08:32] and Thomas Jefferson. I'm not saying
there's not a need for BPI in the forest
[1:08:36] communities. I'm emphasizing that the
need is as is as great in the Big Island
[1:08:41] community. Yes, the population and
school enrollment are different. Yes,
[1:08:46] BPI requires a certain number of
applicants. The Head Start class that
[1:08:50] was cancelled this year had seven four
year olds along with some on a wait
[1:08:54] list. In 2003 2004, Montville Elementary
started a prek class with just eight
[1:09:01] students. That year it was funded by
Title One funding. The class grew into a
[1:09:07] full VPI class that's still in existence
today. Big Island Elementary has 17
[1:09:13] kindergarters enroll this year. Future
kindergarteners in Big Island community
[1:09:18] deserve a quality preschool. It is time
for you, the school board, to recognize
[1:09:23] the importance of preschool availability
and for the Big Island community to know
[1:09:27] that you see them and no child feels
left behind. Despite lack of federal
[1:09:33] state funding, I believe if we work
together, we can gather the necessary
[1:09:36] resources to have half a prek class with
one teacher. In addition, in response to
[1:09:43] the DA representation
tonight, when you look to redraw
[1:09:47] boundaries for school districts, ple
please consider the soio economic status
[1:09:52] of the community as families with the
least financial resources should be put
[1:09:56] in situations to be furthest from their
school.
[1:10:01] Small rural schools serve as a community
center for its residents. For students
[1:10:06] sent school outside their community, I
would ask what is the data on parent
[1:10:10] involvement as compared to parent
involvement when students or attend the
[1:10:15] their community school? Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. [clears throat]
[1:10:22] Uh as of right now, that is everybody
who has signed up. So if there's anyone
[1:10:27] else who would like to speak, you can
you can speak at this time.
[1:10:33] All right. None. I will now close public
comment.
[1:10:39] All right. So, let's go back.
It's 2.01. Uh, you can take take back
[1:10:45] over where you're at.
[1:10:49] [clears throat]
All right. So, going back to kind of
[1:10:54] where where we were. Um,
switch [clears throat] back over to my
[1:10:59] slides.
Um maybe wait for it. There it is. Um
[1:11:06] we have where this goes from here. I can
also I will show in a few minutes um the
[1:11:10] app that we have as well. Um but I did
want to see if there were any questions
[1:11:16] first. Um or if there if you all wanted
to talk about the the consideration that
[1:11:21] I brought up.
Um,
[1:11:26] » so why don't we ask the questions first
and then we'll come back and the
[1:11:30] decision is one or two Stewardsville and
move the boundaries or would we consider
[1:11:34] two?
>> Yep.
[1:11:35] » Miss Johnson, when we get there, do we
need consensus or how do we do that?
[1:11:41] » Um,
[1:11:44] you could do consensus. Um,
or you could it could just be whatever
[1:11:50] the board as a majority decides. the
board could agree to just go with
[1:11:53] majority.
>> Okay.
[1:11:54] » Um being that it was not an actual, you
know, an official action item on the
[1:11:58] agenda.
>> So I can just go one or two and just
[1:12:00] have every board member say we count
them up. Okay. We we'll do it that way.
[1:12:05] All right. Well, we'll start with
questions if there's any questions.
[1:12:07] We'll start over here. Mr. K.
>> I don't have any real questions. I I do
[1:12:13] have an interesting observation, I
think, or I find it interesting, but I
[1:12:17] am quite boring. Um [laughter]
if we were looking at just the uh
[1:12:22] Storzville consolidation boundary
realignment, I noticed we currently are
[1:12:27] showing nine schools under 80%
utilization, one over 95, but just under
[1:12:33] that one measure, we then go to five
schools under 80%. So we drop four
[1:12:40] schools go over that 80% uh metric. Um
and our 95% school which is going to be
[1:12:47] your forest elementary school drops to
an 84%. So that gives us a little bit of
[1:12:55] balance there so that we can actually
you know continue to that growth area
[1:12:59] but into the 2035 projection we then go
to four. [clears throat]
[1:13:04] So it's still it's still going to that
growth area that we're seeing. Um my my
[1:13:11] big fear would be if we if we did go to
a closing a second school that's going
[1:13:17] to hamstring us a little bit and I'm
super not happy about the the bus rides.
[1:13:23] Um, so
to me, um,
[1:13:29] with all this data that we have, which
is I'm not going to lie, it's it's a lot
[1:13:33] of data to pour over. So, I almost need
to I almost need to digest it a little
[1:13:38] bit, but
in my mind, we're getting
[1:13:44] essentially what we need to do by
redrawing a district map and still
[1:13:48] allowing us an opportunity to grow
because at the end of the day, the
[1:13:52] projections for 2035, that's an optimum
projection. It might go lower, might go
[1:13:56] higher, but none of us saw COVID coming.
None of us saw anything like it. and we
[1:14:01] have no idea what the future holds. For
us to sit here and say we do is is a
[1:14:06] little bit flippant. So, I'm really
struggling to consider closing a second
[1:14:11] location at this time. Um,
how long do we have access to these
[1:14:18] maps? I remember you said in our
initial, but I can't was it like 35
[1:14:23] years or something like that
>> to to the to the interactive map.
[1:14:29] » Yes, sir.
>> Yeah. you you have you have 12 months of
[1:14:31] of access to the tool. Yeah.
>> Okay.
[1:14:34] » Um
>> so realistically
[1:14:38] in [clears throat] my opinion or in my
my mindset if we were to uh consider
[1:14:44] that option I guess it's A1.
>> Am I doing this right?
[1:14:49] » Okay. We consider option A1. It gets us
where we need to go and gets us there
[1:14:54] comfortably.
uh it's the least disruptive of
[1:14:57] everything
and it still saves the school division
[1:15:01] quite a bit of money. So I I'm I'm a
little tempted to that. If you go if you
[1:15:06] look at anything else,
I'm concerned
[1:15:11] we're going to be
hurting should should the tide change a
[1:15:16] little bit different.
[1:15:19] One one thing I will note on that
statement is there are different
[1:15:24] drawings for all of these. So some of
the two closure options actually do keep
[1:15:29] all of the schools under 90%. And
balance them more. So like for instance
[1:15:34] this one that's up here right now B2. Um
this one actually keeps a much cleaner
[1:15:41] Sorry, I'm just going to go I'll bring
this with me. Um
[1:15:46] but but yes I think actually having a
little more time to bring into the data
[1:15:51] because if you look at this one
utilization out at 2035 you're going a
[1:15:56] spread 87 here 78 85 86 88 90 is your
highest 88 84 89 89 um so we keep all of
[1:16:05] them under 90 it's just a qu we have to
optimize different things and that'll be
[1:16:10] part of the discussion if we go that
direction but I do I do just want you
[1:16:14] all to be making a decision based off of
off of that fact that it is possible to
[1:16:19] draw these so that they are more
balanced than the one than the one you
[1:16:23] were talking about.
>> Well, and and again I I understand that
[1:16:28] y
>> um the other thing that scares me about
[1:16:32] that though is when you're looking at
that same option
[1:16:36] » uh how many kids are displaced? How many
kids are moved total?
[1:16:40] 700.
>> Yeah, that one would be 722 students.
[1:16:45] » So, it's 9% of our entire student
population is displaced.
[1:16:50] » Yeah, it's 19% of elementary students.
>> That's a that hurts. [laughter]
[1:16:58] That's a lot.
>> It is it is it is a disruption and that
[1:17:02] is part of the decision for sure.
>> You know, we have tough decision to
[1:17:08] make. no matter what we do, it's going
to disrupt, right?
[1:17:11] » But if we can minimize that and still
achieve our goal, I think that's
[1:17:17] kind of
>> I'm going to save most of my comments
[1:17:19] till after everyone talks. But I I do
want to also say
[1:17:23] [clears throat and snorts]
it's also incumbent on us that if there
[1:17:27] if we look at another option and there
is a lot of savings, let's just say
[1:17:31] there is. We still remember we've got
reversion coming up. We have CIP that
[1:17:35] we're not going to have any real money
for. We just heard from somebody that
[1:17:38] says VPI is super important. We have
other savings that we could pour into
[1:17:43] our students, into our staff. There is
some disruption, but is there other
[1:17:47] things that we can do that are not only
mitigating, but helping us excel in
[1:17:51] other in other avenues? So, I want to be
cognizant of that. So, I I think that we
[1:17:56] got a one thing we say tonight is is
great, but we still have a lot to really
[1:18:01] chew on.
>> Yeah.
[1:18:03] My my fear is and this is a great amount
of data is you know it's hard for me to
[1:18:13] say I agree it's a lot of it's hard for
me to say we should take any options off
[1:18:16] the table with you know getting an hour
to look over 60s some pages worth of
[1:18:22] data it's hard for me to go all right
let's eliminate one of the options when
[1:18:27] » I haven't
>> looked at them all
[1:18:29] » I haven't had a chance to really dive
into these No, no offense to you.
[1:18:35] » You provided a ton of information, which
is which is great and exactly what we
[1:18:38] asked for. It's just
>> I agree with you. I don't think that
[1:18:42] that might still be the option we land
at, but man, it's hard for me to go, all
[1:18:46] right, we should take it off the board
and then
[1:18:48] » No, that's what I was going to ask was,
do we have to have this answer to you
[1:18:51] tonight or could it be
>> I think that directs us the town hall
[1:18:54] meetings we're going to be having.
>> Well, I mean, that's another
[1:18:57] » Yeah. Well, let's let's let's be honest.
I can I can be perfectly honest with
[1:19:00] you. I'm not I don't predict the future,
but if we say we're going to look at
[1:19:04] considering closing two schools, those
town halls are going to be like
[1:19:07] everyone's going to say do option one,
don't close a school, right? Or they're
[1:19:12] going to say, well, if you close two
schools, just don't close my school. And
[1:19:15] I get that. We know that that's what's
going to happen. I I think we need we
[1:19:19] certainly do need time to digest this
information so that we can you informed
[1:19:24] us a lot, but I'm I'm not I couldn't go
and talk to somebody on the street about
[1:19:27] it with any
>> depth of knowledge or confidence. I'm
[1:19:31] not just talking inside of my mouth.
>> And it you know, at the same time
[1:19:38] that I I guess that's where I'm coming
from. If if I have to choose tonight,
[1:19:42] » I got to go lobster. I I because I
because I can't I can't wrap my head
[1:19:47] around anything else at this point.
[clears throat] So I think I need more
[1:19:50] time. I just
>> I'm not smart enough to figure this out
[1:19:55] in 20 minutes, guys.
>> Yeah. To to to be clear, I'm not I'm not
[1:20:00] asking you guys to say one or two. I'm
just asking, do you want to take two off
[1:20:05] the table or keep it on the table? That
is the only question I'm asking.
[1:20:09] » I'm sorry. I need I'm maybe I I need to
be very clear about that. That is the
[1:20:13] question I'm asking. Do you want to have
those options when you have your town
[1:20:17] halls?
>> Okay, that makes it way
[1:20:20] » at this point. [laughter]
>> Someone just smack me for now.
[1:20:24] » I think we might. [snorts]
I think we might still come to that same
[1:20:29] conclusion. Um, all right. It's not
>> Man, it'd be nice to be able to take
[1:20:34] this evening and work through
everything.
[1:20:36] » To Chris's point, we have a fiduciary
responsibility.
[1:20:39] » Absolutely. you.
It's really uh Mr. Haggler said it
[1:20:43] before, it's really hard to run a school
under that 60%. Because the the math
[1:20:50] doesn't wipe math out. You have Otter
River with a a fourth grade that's got
[1:20:53] 34 kids in it and so you have to add a
second teacher. I get it. So, I don't I
[1:20:58] think we shouldn't take any option off
the table except for uh closing [snorts]
[1:21:04] three schools to me is nutty. So that's
that's an option I I
[1:21:10] » look like it did that one did come up.
>> Yeah, it's it's
[1:21:13] » you guys and I I want you guys all to
jump in too and this is a full-on
[1:21:17] discussion.
>> Well,
[1:21:20] I mean I I had mentioned before I didn't
want to just keep putting band-aids on
[1:21:25] everything. I wanted to just do it once
and let people settle where they're
[1:21:31] going to be.
Um, that being said, um,
[1:21:37] closing two schools, I'm I mean, I guess
I'm an optimist. I'm hoping there's more
[1:21:42] babies coming. [laughter] I'm I'm hoping
that the economy changes and we actually
[1:21:47] start seeing healthier people and more,
you know, stay home moms who can
[1:21:53] actually still have children and take
care of them. I um
[1:21:59] and that we don't have to have two
people working all the time so that we
[1:22:04] can have more children and healthier
families. Um but I know that's not what
[1:22:09] reality is right now. Um
so I'm a little more um I'm a little
[1:22:18] more careful to not close two schools.
That's that doesn't give us an option um
[1:22:25] to have to reopen something else, you
know. [clears throat]
[1:22:30] Yeah. I It's hard to sell schools, too.
So, it might still be there even if we
[1:22:35] don't actually have it running. So, I
don't know how that would work either.
[1:22:42] Um,
as everybody has said, it's a lot of
[1:22:45] information and it's something I want to
digest as well, but I also do want to
[1:22:48] hear from administration and the
different areas of the buildings and
[1:22:55] you know how much needs to go into a
building, all of the buildings that have
[1:22:59] been mentioned or transportation and how
difficult that would be to find seven
[1:23:04] additional bus drivers when we already
struggle. Um, so I think I want to hear
[1:23:09] from our administration as well before
we take anything off the table.
[1:23:16] I mean, that's where I'm at. I just I
need more information.
[1:23:22] » Um, I too am reticent to to close two
schools just because of the community
[1:23:29] backlash that would happen with that. I
think it would be very difficult to
[1:23:33] swallow. Um,
[1:23:39] but Steuartsville we know needed to
close and remember the the backlash that
[1:23:44] we got from that u because it it's an
emotional decision and I think if we did
[1:23:51] two or three schools we could all just
have to watch our backs.
[1:23:59] » Can we we might have to take them at
savings to buy kevlar you know.
[1:24:03] » Absolutely.
But no, it's, you know, and we need to
[1:24:07] hear from our constituents before we
make any decisions, too. You know, so I
[1:24:11] think all the options should stay on the
table.
[1:24:14] » Um, you know, a million dollar savings
is not something to sneeze at when we've
[1:24:18] got
a big shortfall coming.
[1:24:23] So, yeah, we're all going to be
digesting this information and we need
[1:24:28] more.
>> I've got one question for administration
[1:24:32] here. Um,
GP is our I think our fifth largest
[1:24:37] employer in Bethford County or in
[clears throat] the top you know you
[1:24:40] talk to um do we have a responsibility
to keep Big Island there as part of any
[1:24:46] type of agreement with GP when it came
in I have heard that but I don't know of
[1:24:50] any exist I don't have a record of it
>> I don't have anything in my files with
[1:24:55] anything like that
>> I've always heard that
[1:24:57] » and I would say in essence really
>> you can't really buy in future school
[1:25:02] boards you know this is school board at
city right now. That's your
[1:25:05] responsibility to make decisions. You
[snorts] can't really buy a future
[1:25:08] school board.
[1:25:15] » I would say there's also a couple things
I know a lot of division or you know
[1:25:19] counties are considering a you know a
sales tax increase. I don't think we're
[1:25:23] one of them. Um as of as of right now I
don't think that we are. And that's so
[1:25:27] that's assuming that doesn't ever come
up and doesn't get done. We still have
[1:25:33] What are we going to do to help fix
these schools? So, yeah, we have a
[1:25:36] million or$2 million dollars of ongoing
savings. What are we gonna, you know,
[1:25:41] HVAC is going to go out, roofs are going
to go, parking, all the things that we
[1:25:45] have to deal with on a CIP level. So,
what's that ongoing savings? So, that's
[1:25:48] something else to consider. The other
thing is you don't want to also be like,
[1:25:52] hey, we're just taking this away. So I
would ask staff if you had which you're
[1:25:58] going to have a million. If you had two
million, what would we do with that to
[1:26:03] better our education for our kids to to
help our staff? What would we do? What
[1:26:09] would we put that money into? Now this
board will change and of course we need
[1:26:13] to approve that stuff. But your best
foot forward, what would make the
[1:26:17] biggest positive impact on the division
if we did that? And I understand, Mr.
[1:26:23] Kins, I understand your point. What if,
and you know, what if you and Dora,
[1:26:26] right, and people going to start having
more kids and we're going to fill these
[1:26:29] up? Obviously, it would depend where
they go. We still have a couple
[1:26:32] buildings that we could add on that we
could add on a wing tube or something.
[1:26:38] We already are ruling out because I
guarantee if you put the sit the
[1:26:42] situation in there for like if we had
the perfect spot and we could spend $50
[1:26:46] million that we don't have to build an
elementary school that we may need, you
[1:26:50] can move kids around a whole lot. You're
going to need more buses, but you would
[1:26:53] alleviate the the 90% problem
everywhere.
[1:26:57] » But where we if if we're considering 1
million or two million, we definitely
[1:27:00] it's going to take 25 years to get to 50
million. So
[1:27:06] there's a there's a couple different
things that we do certainly need to
[1:27:08] consider. My recommendation would be not
to take anything off the table. Let us
[1:27:13] have a chance. We have to do that. We're
going to have town halls pretty much
[1:27:16] know where they're going to be. But this
is going to be very important to hear
[1:27:19] because in each of these four there's
other different options like sub
[1:27:23] options. And I think once the public
sees that and looks at it, they go,
[1:27:26] "Hey, I get it. If you have to do this,
this one is the best ride or whatever."
[1:27:30] Um, but I think we shouldn't take
anything off the table. We should just
[1:27:34] approach the town halls head
[clears throat] on and we're going to
[1:27:37] try to make the best decision we can
make for the county. Not just for right
[1:27:41] now, but as we get into the future. So,
>> is there am I the only person concerned
[1:27:49] if we close too many schools that kids
are gonna parents are going to start
[1:27:53] pulling kids out of our division and put
them in somewhere else?
[1:27:58] I'm I I have a concern about that
personally. Um
[1:28:03] my my alone in that
>> I think anytime you you put a school
[1:28:07] system into a
>> state of flux.
[1:28:10] » Yeah. You're going to have it's going to
take a little bit to even back out. So I
[1:28:16] I would agree with you in the short term
absolutely but I don't I don't know. You
[1:28:22] might know this from your experience
with other other school systems. Once
[1:28:26] you put the And right now we're in a
state of flux. Um, you know, how long
[1:28:31] does that take to kind of even out? Do
you have a a metric on that?
[1:28:35] » So, let let me just say, and this is why
this is always so hard. There's no
[1:28:39] perfect decision. No one no one wants to
be making the decisions to consolidate
[1:28:43] schools, but you also want to think
about two different things. Um, is it
[1:28:48] possible that closing additional school
pushes some families out of the
[1:28:52] district? Yes.
Is it possible that not closing down
[1:28:56] another school over time pushes some
[laughter] folks out of the district if
[1:29:00] enrollment declines and class sizes get
really small and they decide they want
[1:29:04] to go elsewhere as well? Yes, I've also
seen that happen. I've seen school
[1:29:08] districts where they haven't made those
decisions and some of the school sizes
[1:29:12] get so small and you get to like one
classroom situations where let's just
[1:29:18] say your kid's having a hard time with
another kid. you don't have another
[1:29:22] classroom to move them into in that
school in that particular school. Like
[1:29:27] you start have you start running into
more of those situations when you have
[1:29:31] lower utilization. You also just have
less programming often times when
[1:29:36] utilization gets lower. So um I would
say
[1:29:41] neither of these neither of these are
decisions that I would want to be making
[1:29:44] either. These are very hard emotional
[clears throat] decisions, especially
[1:29:47] for folks like many of you who not only
are on the school board and obviously
[1:29:51] care a lot about your community, but
also probably grew up in the community
[1:29:54] as well. And so have those ties to each
of these buildings. So um I know that
[1:30:00] was a very long- winded way to say this
is a very very hard decision, but I
[1:30:04] think in both directions you can have
both negative and positive outcomes.
[1:30:10] And you know some of the positives of
the consolidation are the opposite of
[1:30:13] what I just said. you have larger, you
know, less schools doesn't always mean
[1:30:18] larger class sizes. It means more
sections and that can give flexibility
[1:30:23] to school districts as well. And um more
programming can be with with savings.
[1:30:29] You know, the question you asked like
that is a potential thing that that
[1:30:32] exists. And then on the on the side of
not not closing um a school down,
[1:30:38] obviously you have the like community
not being as frustrated. Um, but then
[1:30:43] are you just kicking the can down the
road for another 10 years and you get to
[1:30:46] the spot where you have to do this again
and maybe you have more decline because
[1:30:51] of some of those issues.
>> Yeah. I [clears throat]
[1:30:56] there's been a debate over Stewartsville
for several years and I'm sure parents
[1:31:00] when it was talked about two years ago
were like I'm I'm you know for that
[1:31:04] amount of time they've been thinking
about that. It's in the back of your
[1:31:07] mind. And if we don't do if we let's
just say we we like we really should do
[1:31:12] it, but we we're not gonna, we're going
to just cause a lot of instability, I
[1:31:17] think, too. So, I I think if we make the
if we make a move, we need to make a
[1:31:21] move. That's why we're sitting here
doing the entire looking at the entire
[1:31:24] county as a whole and not just trying to
go, well, what about this? What about
[1:31:27] that? Let's look at the entire county.
Let's try to make the best decision we
[1:31:31] can make now. Um, so
>> yeah,
[1:31:37] » I just wondered, you know, the Otter
River area, we're looking at forest the
[1:31:42] forest area continuing to grow out,
which that's what usually happens
[1:31:47] and we closed Otter River,
we'd have to be sending them to Big
[1:31:52] Island or, you know, I don't
>> you have [clears throat] to add on to a
[1:31:56] school in Forest or
>> Yeah. I mean,
[1:31:58] » there would have to be a line shift
again and then maybe they go into the
[1:32:02] Liberty zone somehow some way.
I don't know if that what I mean, we're
[1:32:07] we're we need time to dive into each one
and this is going to be out there. We're
[1:32:11] going to start hearing from people and
we're going to have a couple of town
[1:32:14] halls and we'll have chances to ask
other questions as as well. I don't
[1:32:18] know, you know,
I'm sure we'll start hearing from board
[1:32:23] of supervisors as well on these. Um, you
know, because they're going to get
[1:32:28] they're going to get calls and stuff,
but that that's absolutely going to
[1:32:31] happen. But if you did look at another
school, you know, we have to be
[1:32:35] practical here, too, and go what makes
the most sense, which what school would
[1:32:40] be, you know, you know, our river would
be something that's kind of like it's on
[1:32:44] 221, it's right there. Like, I don't
know. You have to look at the schools
[1:32:47] and go you don't want them sitting there
vacant. What could they be? Could they
[1:32:52] be anything? Is there anything to that?
I don't know. But this is all things
[1:32:55] that have to be considered. You have to
consider all of it. So,
[1:32:59] » well,
Big Island is definitely under utilized,
[1:33:04] but a community up there.
>> That's the other thing. Like the bus
[1:33:09] rides are probably pretty long.
>> Yes,
[1:33:11] » they're already long.
>> It's not a straight line. There's
[1:33:15] mountains in the way.
>> There's mountains,
[1:33:18] » you know, it's just
>> 122 or 501 head.
[1:33:20] » Yeah, you have to either go or
>> and I mean I I'll say speak speaking
[1:33:24] both for Hotter River and for um and for
Big Island, Big Island definitely
[1:33:29] increases the transport transportation
the most under the most if you look at
[1:33:35] the most optimal transportation option
for all of them. Uh
[1:33:40] is the worst on that. Um, if you look at
Otter River, to your point, I know it
[1:33:46] seems weird to be closing a school
that's like in that growth area, and
[1:33:50] that's the reason why you have to move
the most students. Um, but it actually
[1:33:54] balances relatively well. Um, so it's
it's also closer to other schools. So
[1:34:01] like the transportation burden is lower.
>> There's buses that you have to buy
[1:34:05] because we're buying we're buying buses.
And you know, we'd looked, oh, seven,
[1:34:09] that's not that many. We need seven bus
drivers and that seems to be not the
[1:34:13] easiest thing in the world. I guess
seven bus drivers is easier than 30.
[1:34:17] When you were putting that number, you
were saying that was the number of buses
[1:34:21] to make sure all kids are 60 minutes and
under.
[1:34:23] » Yeah. So this was like putting a new
constraint on everything
[1:34:26] » which we don't have now
>> which we don't that's that is not a
[1:34:29] constraint that we have. Um, so just to
explain that a little bit, one of the
[1:34:33] things that we want that I wanted to be
able to um, talk through is
[1:34:39] the way that we were optimizing
transportation
[1:34:43] assumed that you were running buses the
way that you were running them now. But
[1:34:47] one thing you could do if you had
schools that were further away is run
[1:34:50] more buses out those routes. Uh, Randy,
I know you you brought that up and so
[1:34:53] that was something we wanted to test. So
that's where that number comes from of
[1:34:56] like how can could we fix some of the
transportation problems with running
[1:35:00] more buses
>> and and look if you're saving some money
[1:35:02] and you put in there I think that you
know that alleviates a concern of
[1:35:06] parents for sure
>> and what time do you have to get up you
[1:35:09] got these kids at the bus stop it's
incredibly dark
[1:35:13] » and then at at you know what time did
they get home and pretty soon it's going
[1:35:16] to be dark at 5 and you know you see
buses and they're getting there it's
[1:35:20] like is that an afterchool program no
they're just getting home now it's a
[1:35:24] long day for kids and then they got to
do homework and they got, you know, if
[1:35:27] they want to do any sort of
extracurricular activity or go to
[1:35:31] church. It's it's a lot. That's a lot.
So, I would certainly be up for looking
[1:35:37] at keeping bus rides as short as we
[clears throat] could if we had to do
[1:35:41] something. That's a that's a, you know,
something that we would have to
[1:35:45] consider. You don't want to add a bur,
you know, do a burden, which could be,
[1:35:49] and maybe it works out good, which it it
could, but then Oh, oh, by the way, now
[1:35:53] you're on the bus another 25 minutes.
That's a long long thing it took. So,
[1:35:57] » can I just add I think with A1, let me
just in looking at A1 with Stewart with
[1:36:02] boundaries. It's boundaries for the
whole district, not just there, but A1
[1:36:06] was taking care of basically the
consolidation of mainly Stewartville and
[1:36:11] Good View, but moving kids so we
wouldn't have to add on a mobile or add
[1:36:15] on to Good View. Is that correct?
>> Correct.
[1:36:17] » So all the all the maps on there,
>> they don't all go to good they don't all
[1:36:20] go to good view. And then also we move
some students out.
[1:36:22] » So that would alleviate the the cost or
the need for mobiles at Good View.
[1:36:26] » Correct.
>> Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to add
[1:36:27] that.
[1:36:34] » So
looking at this
[1:36:42] [laughter]
um well can we not an accountant.
[1:36:48] » Is there is there a big difference,
Randy, between the CIP needs for Big
[1:36:52] Otter and for for Big Island and for
Otter River
[1:36:57] » over the next 10 years?
>> Let me take a look at that with the
[1:37:00] facility. We can look at that. Let me
get my maintenance and look at what our
[1:37:03] needs are and when things are coming on.
I don't have that in front of me, but I
[1:37:07] can bring that and get that out to the
board as soon as I can. as far as when
[1:37:11] are the you know we we track the big
things the roof the HVAC you know and
[1:37:15] things like that when are those coming
up and a lot of the HVAC have been taken
[1:37:19] care of over the last four years so you
know the needs on that hopefully the
[1:37:24] last 20 25 years on that we'll see with
this new um when you ask me my opinion
[1:37:30] um I've been guiding the board really on
what the future is on we've had
[1:37:35] declining employment I think this data
is putting a a lot of great data in
[1:37:40] front of you that we were able we we
were able to do at a top level but not
[1:37:44] in this level and so I appreciate what
DA has brought to brought to the table
[1:37:47] here. Um we do have reversion coming to
there's a gap in funding that's going to
[1:37:54] come we have set aside funds but not to
the level that it's going to go away
[1:37:57] from the state. So that has to be
addressed either with more revenue or
[1:38:01] some cuts. Uh we still want to continue
to be competitive and pay and give those
[1:38:07] raises when they're on the table for the
state that requires local match. Um I
[1:38:10] think somebody was saying that if you do
uh have some savings, maybe there's
[1:38:14] other programs want to add. Well, that's
added cost and then the money that was
[1:38:19] set aside has allowed us to do quite a
bit in the CIP uh capital improvements
[1:38:24] across the board. We'll be able to do a
lot more this year and next year, but
[1:38:28] after reversion, if all that money moves
over to the operating
[1:38:33] then you might have some lane years
where you can do CIP. There's not much,
[1:38:37] you know, you can do. You're gonna have
to build that fund back up with
[1:38:40] reoccurring funds over long term. I
don't think it's going to happen
[1:38:42] overnight. I don't think you can just
find five million to fund that every
[1:38:45] year. And I would peg that CIP probably
around five to six million a year to
[1:38:50] maintain all of our equipment, long-term
on our buildings. So, I didn't answer
[1:38:54] your question, but those are the three
things I see as concerns going
[1:38:58] [laughter] forward from the accounting
side. And I and I know we don't have
[1:39:02] everything laid out in the CIP plan
before you never know when emergencies
[1:39:06] are going to happen, things are going to
break, but if could we also get just a
[1:39:11] breakdown of like got the next five
years planned out scheduled maintenance,
[1:39:16] » could we get that broken out to okay, if
we eliminated X school,
[1:39:20] » it would it would also not only get the
million dollars in savings, but it would
[1:39:24] also eliminate these CP.
>> The maintenance department is actually
[1:39:27] looking we got a plan almost out 30
years. Yes.
[1:39:30] » So, we roll things on when we think it's
coming up to end of life. But then we
[1:39:33] evaluate, can we get another two or
three years out? Just because we say
[1:39:37] it's end of life doesn't mean we replace
it. We're looking at how the, you know,
[1:39:40] how's it operating?
>> If the roof has no leaks, we're not
[1:39:43] going to do it next year. You know,
we're going to we're going to kind of
[1:39:45] get more out of that. But we have that
out 30 years. Yes. That comes into play
[1:39:49] as far as if a school comes off, what is
that for you?
[1:39:52] » So, the million-dollar statement is just
an operation.
[1:39:55] » Yeah. Nice.
>> Doesn't have to be that sport decision.
[1:39:58] I'm saying it's the number one savings
only that's reoccurring savings and and
[1:40:05] I would say that's really on the
administration side in the building
[1:40:09] custodial nutrition principal clerical
teachers
[1:40:13] » on the counselor
>> well counselors probably but basically
[1:40:17] the teachers go with the kids
>> because you're going to have more kids
[1:40:20] in other schools the teachers will flow
on what's with them
[1:40:24] » so not really a big reduction on
teachers [clears throat] Anything
[1:40:29] else?
Questions, comments,
[1:40:38] but if we save this money, does that
mean we get less from the board of
[1:40:45] supervisors so that we basically don't
save anything? I mean, as far as the
[1:40:52] » is that a possibility?
>> Yes. I mean
[1:40:56] » I mean that that's working between the
boards. Um there is a gap with reversion
[1:41:01] and working with reassessment tax rates
additional funding to make up that gap.
[1:41:08] Um do we need you know is this board
required to do all the lifting to make
[1:41:12] that cut or is there additional revenue
that's negotiated supervisor? So
[1:41:16] anything's possible. But as we continue
this process of being or seeing
[1:41:22] uncapacity school under capacity
schools, we will get less money from the
[1:41:27] state to continue to fund those. So
where does that fall? It falls on the
[1:41:32] local government. And so there has to be
a discussion. I I I could probably X out
[1:41:38] half of my report here. Um what I would
urge you to do, and I think you've just
[1:41:43] said it, is don't take anything off the
table tonight.
[1:41:47] The town halls are going to be robust.
They need to be robust. [clears throat]
[1:41:50] She's right. We do need to get the
public involved. But at the end of the
[1:41:54] day, there still needs to be a
consideration. As many of you have
[1:41:58] mentioned tonight, reversion. It's
coming. Are we prepared for it? You're
[1:42:04] going to hear uh later tonight that
we're we're moving on an abbreviated
[1:42:09] budget because the county has asked us
to do that because they're considering
[1:42:15] um reassessment property tax, those
kinds of things. So, there's a lot of
[1:42:20] push right now. When you look and add
all those up, there's a lot of variables
[1:42:24] and and those discussions need to be had
not only here and our finance committee,
[1:42:30] but they need to be had down the street
because at the end of the day, that's
[1:42:34] their responsibility is to fund us. If
if we keep going down in capacities,
[1:42:39] correct me if I'm wrong, Randy, but if
we have 19 schools and they only fund us
[1:42:44] for 16 schools, who pays for those
extras?
[1:42:49] any positions or anything that's not
recognized by the state is on locality.
[1:42:52] » It's on the locality. So those are
discussions that need to [clears throat]
[1:42:55] be had
>> and and and Mr. Dupair, we are having
[1:42:59] those conversations with we we've we've
talked to our counterparts on the board
[1:43:03] of supervisors. We've had several
meetings. We plan on having more. I
[1:43:06] think they understand our position and
and Miss Pervvis, you're right that that
[1:43:11] could be the case, but we have to
operate. We're net receiver, right? We
[1:43:14] don't we don't make our own money. Um,
we have to make the best decision we can
[1:43:19] with the cards that we have in front of
us and do the best we can. And we do
[1:43:23] have to make the case to our our
constituents over there and say this is
[1:43:26] where we're at.
>> I know they you tell us we we need to
[1:43:30] make tough decisions and and we are. I
don't think we're shying away from our
[1:43:33] responsibility.
>> I think they'd appreciate the fact that
[1:43:35] we're trying to consolidate. So,
>> we're not taking any decisions lightly.
[1:43:41] you know, we he hau for a long time and
um we talked to our constituents and um
[1:43:48] we you know, if they have any thoughts,
we're going to bring them back to you
[1:43:51] and say, "Hey, what about this? Let's
try it." Or, "Does it work?" I think
[1:43:55] that's what we need to we need to do um
and have these discussions. But it's
[1:44:00] also our responsibility that if
something doesn't work and we come up
[1:44:03] and say this is the best decision we
think we have, it's our responsibility
[1:44:07] to be honest and truthful and say this
is where we're at.
[1:44:11] So, uh,
>> okay.
[1:44:13] » Uh, can we go back?
>> Could you put the calendar up there?
[1:44:17] » We were working with Chris on a
potential calendar. We knew about the
[1:44:21] town halls,
>> but we had a lot of debate on executive
[1:44:24] staff [clears throat] about doing public
hearings and we thought there should be
[1:44:29] like two two rounds of these. So, I'd
like the board to consider you're
[1:44:32] looking there's a to be determined up
there for the board to consider that on
[1:44:36] October 8th there be a public hearing
really on these four options. That's
[1:44:40] what you'd be hearing feedback. You'll
hear it at the town hall, but an
[1:44:43] official public hearing on the four
options and then coming back and the
[1:44:47] board making a decision
later in October to date to be decided
[1:44:54] for uh a special call meeting. That's
what we're recommending. Um
[1:44:59] but I, you know, we'll defer to the
board on that. That was just us giving
[1:45:03] an idea that after you've done the town
halls after the public hearing, you've
[1:45:07] looked at the data, come back later in
October sometime and make a decision not
[1:45:12] on the final maps, but are we
consolidating one or two and then we
[1:45:16] move into the final maps and get a
decision by December on the final
[1:45:20] boundaries?
>> So that the to be determined date in
[1:45:25] October would be selecting one of the
four. So that would not be one or two. I
[1:45:30] mean it would but it would be which of
the schools if you did that or
[1:45:36] » yes because whichever option there would
drive and it would take a while to get
[1:45:40] those detailed maps and as Chris said
once you have that you get your
[1:45:44] elementary doc down then you look at
your middle and high school. Then we
[1:45:47] would do to to be clear. Then we would
look at we pick this one. There's as of
[1:45:53] now there's three sub options.
>> There might be five
[1:45:56] » that would be there may be more based on
town halls. Then we would have to have a
[1:45:59] month to decide which of those three to
eight potential options now or three to
[1:46:05] five potential options. We
>> go too late in October. We're looking at
[1:46:08] November 12th for public hearing on
the maps.
[1:46:13] » Yeah. I I'm I'm not going to shy away
from having public hearings. I think we
[1:46:16] need to have both of them and I would be
okay with that schedule. We would have
[1:46:19] to I guess pick a date.
>> It's tight, but we're still looking at a
[1:46:21] December decision on that. Um because it
does impact the budget
[1:46:26] » and so we we need to build a budget and
we need to know what's happening on.
[1:46:31] » Did you folks have a date in October you
were kicking around?
[1:46:36] » October 8 is the um first hearing that
is the October board meeting. We would
[1:46:42] shift to a different venue obviously a
larger location.
[1:46:46] » Sorry.
>> Um
[1:46:47] » I hear St. Rivers's got a really nice
auditorium now.
[1:46:52] » Well, we would then shift the November
one probably as well.
[1:46:55] » Probably. Yeah. Oh, any Oh, yes. Anytime
it's a public hearing, absolutely. We
[1:46:59] would not be here, but we would do it at
a centralized [clears throat]
[1:47:04] » I'd like to do both of the new
auditoriums to be honest with you.
[1:47:08] » The October dates up to the board on how
how much time they want to put October
[1:47:12] 8th and that they make a decision.
>> Is that much of a challenge on your end?
[1:47:20] » Can I can I just bring one if you all
think that you would need any updates to
[1:47:24] materials between October 8th and your
vote which we put in there. Um I would
[1:47:29] probably like just give me a week I
think minimum for that. [clears throat]
[1:47:35] So as you're thinking about dates so not
October 9th please.
[1:47:39] » [laughter]
>> So,
[1:47:40] » I mean, I've I've pulled some
allnighters in my time for for work, but
[1:47:43] uh that would be probably not a very
good one.
[1:47:49] » So, I ask a question, and I I'm not
trying to change it, but your last town
[1:47:54] hall is on October 6th.
>> Do you foresee them needing anything for
[1:48:00] that October 8th meeting,
and could you turn that around? So I my
[1:48:06] hope and you know just I think it's a
good time to bring it up. My hope is
[1:48:10] that as you all are getting feedback you
can bring it to me as you're getting it
[1:48:14] instead of waiting until the end so that
I can be bringing it in. If that is the
[1:48:18] case I think I can have any changes in
those two days. No problem.
[1:48:25] » How should we do that?
>> We I was talking with the seeds over
[1:48:29] here previously. Um we were talking
about gathering public data. Obviously,
[1:48:33] I know you've got a comment section on
the website. We had talked about for our
[1:48:38] maps that are getting printed out doing
a QR code on those that link to this
[1:48:42] comment as well to where we can where we
can consolidate all the data and we get
[1:48:47] while we're out there if anyone, you
know, we can get their data, but also
[1:48:51] they're able to put anything down in
writing so we can aggregate it together.
[1:48:54] So, you know, if you and I are out there
for two hours listening to people and
[1:48:59] then sitting down at the computer after
I get home and we're going, "God, what
[1:49:04] did that person say?" This would give
everyone an opportunity to to have not
[1:49:08] only give feedback to us as board
[clears throat] members, but also give
[1:49:11] feedback to where we don't have to rely
on, you know, I turned 40 last week, so
[1:49:16] my memor is going off me,
>> right?
[1:49:22] Okay. Um, so are you asking Mr. Haggler
for us to say are we good with that
[1:49:28] schedule?
>> Yes. And then you have to decide now,
[1:49:32] but you have to coordinate a board
meeting where we can get, you know,
[1:49:35] everybody there and stuff like that.
>> So we can set it up venue and everything
[1:49:40] like that.
>> I think if we want to consider this a
[1:49:41] preliminary schedule, I I would be okay
with getting board consensus on that and
[1:49:45] then we would we would just pick a date
that makes sense. have consensus on the
[1:49:51] tot.
[1:49:54] » Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everyone kind of
said that. So, let's see. So, why don't
[1:49:57] we go around and say, do we have
consensus um that we should not take any
[1:50:01] of these four options off the table?
>> So, quick question. Uh do we need to get
[1:50:06] unanimous consent or just majority
consent?
[1:50:10] » That really is the chairman's decision
how he wants to run the meeting, whether
[1:50:15] it has to be unanimous or majority. Um
unanimous is always better. It carries
[1:50:20] more weight obviously. Um otherwise it
should to carry more weight than that.
[1:50:26] We need to be an official vote which we
can't have because it wasn't on the
[1:50:29] agenda and we can no longer add you know
>> um you can do consensus but I I I think
[1:50:34] majority was everybody wanted to keep
all options on the table.
[1:50:38] » That's what I'm going to ask for is
majority consensus. So
[1:50:42] » to not take any option of the four
options off the table.
[1:50:46] » Yes.
>> Yes. Yes.
[1:50:48] » Yes.
>> Yes.
[1:50:49] » Yes.
>> Yes.
[1:50:50] » Yes. That's unanimous. Okay. So, that's
the first thing. Second thing would be,
[1:50:56] do we want to get consent to approve
this preliminary agenda? Does that sound
[1:51:01] right, Miss Johnson? The calendar.
>> Okay.
[1:51:06] » Just FYI, I will not be here on the 8th.
I can try to get answers.
[1:51:12] » We can set that up just so you can hear
the public comment or or you can watch
[1:51:16] it after. That's fine.
>> And just to make sure kind of feed off
[1:51:19] that question, we're not necessarily
planning on a vote on the case. We're
[1:51:23] just gathering more information.
>> It's just a hearing. Yes.
[1:51:26] » So, it's not obviously important for you
to hear, but I I don't think we're going
[1:51:30] to be making a vote on on this on that.
>> Okay. So,
[1:51:34] » probably 15.
[clears throat]
[1:51:38] All right. So, um let's see if we have
consensus to approve this preliminary
[1:51:42] calendar.
>> Yes.
[1:51:46] » Yes.
>> Yes. Yes.
[1:51:48] » Yes.
>> Yes. There you go.
[1:51:51] » All right.
Is there anything else?
[1:51:55] » Um does the board want to while we're
now together consider that date for the
[1:52:01] special call after
um
[1:52:06] after October? after the October
meeting.
[1:52:13] » I know that you t you have some travel
at that time. So I I just want No,
[1:52:17] because
>> sometimes your everyone's opinion is
[1:52:21] important.
>> If we're looking at if we're looking at
[1:52:23] doing it on Thursdays, I can do the 22nd
is the best date for me.
[1:52:29] » It does not have to be Thursdays, but
>> just throwing that out there.
[1:52:33] » Let's not do it that day.
>> This is for the vote. Could we do it the
[1:52:39] following week? 15.
>> 152
[1:52:45] [cough and clears throat]
[1:52:49] sometime that week.
[1:52:52] » So you're there. You're here that week.
The week. Okay.
[1:52:58] [snorts]
>> I can
[1:53:01] » I can do the 15th.
>> You can do the 15th.
[1:53:03] » I can do the 15th. I can't I can't do
any other day that week.
[1:53:08] » That's exactly right.
>> We'll make it work.
[1:53:13] » You got a week, Mr.
>> We'll make it work.
[1:53:16] » I would have spoke up if it didn't work.
[laughter]
[1:53:20] » I need you a Starbucks gift card or
something if that helps.
[1:53:24] » We can do the 15th.
>> Okay. So, is that going to be at 5 again
[1:53:28] or what time?
>> Yeah, that that'll be in this building.
[1:53:32] » No. Well, This is not a public hearing
special call. This is action only. Then
[1:53:38] we'll probably be here
>> because that's the only thing we will be
[1:53:42] doing,
>> right?
[1:53:43] » So, it should be
>> You've heard everybody at that point up
[1:53:46] to what you're going to be voting on at
that point. So,
[1:53:52] » gotcha.
>> Okay. Well, we'll send that out. We'll
[1:53:56] make sure people know. And uh All right.
>> I would probably Chris, correct me if
[1:54:02] I'm wrong. Um you had so many for our
contract so many times that Chris would
[1:54:06] be here and stuff since that would be
you have all the data we'd be doing back
[1:54:09] and forth you probably wouldn't require
Chris to be here for that vote because
[1:54:13] hopefully you've got all the information
be doing the back and forth by the time
[1:54:16] we get there unless you want
just
[1:54:22] » I didn't know if you needed to be here
for that one or not
[1:54:25] » I would leave it up to to you all if you
need to be here
[1:54:28] » my question is
>> is there a difference between you know
[1:54:32] being available
via digitally or being in
[1:54:37] » I mean I think we need to think about
what questions you would have for me
[1:54:40] » I don't have many questions at that
point
[1:54:42] » um and I but I do think some of that's
going to come out in the comments and
[1:54:45] the questions that you're getting from
constituents and the questions that
[1:54:48] makes you have um I can make it work if
you need me here I can also be here
[1:54:54] virtually if you need me here
>> we set it up virtual if there's any
[1:54:56] questions that okay yeah I don't have a
problem with that
[1:54:59] » so so just so I'm understanding we're
having the public meeting on the or
[1:55:03] public comment on the 8th and then on
the 15th we're going to vote on which of
[1:55:08] these four we're going to take.
>> Yeah.
[1:55:10] » But then we can still work on boundaries
and changing
[1:55:14] » in November.
And then we have to do after that we
[1:55:19] have to go back and do we'll have Okay.
>> Okay.
[1:55:26] Have you left? Right. So, we'll be doing
another public comment on the boundaries
[1:55:30] in November and then we're gonna have to
vote after that.
[1:55:35] » Whatever we need to do, we'll do it.
>> Okay.
[1:55:37] » Okay. I think we're good.
>> Thank you so much.
[1:55:41] » A lot of information.
>> I And I'm going to give you one more
[1:55:44] piece before I go, which is this site.
>> This will be live tomorrow. Um, and this
[1:55:49] is where folks will be able to go look
at the scenarios. There there will also
[1:55:52] be tabs on just the background data on
enrollment capacity and development. Um
[1:55:57] but people will be able to select
different um of the drawings and it'll
[1:56:03] redraw them and then you can select if
you want to compare to today or if you
[1:56:08] want to compare to another one of the
drawings and it will give you a bunch of
[1:56:12] in all of the metrics we were talking
about will be down here side by side.
[1:56:17] » Um that's
>> so we have that.
[1:56:19] » Does that change live as you're
selecting?
[1:56:21] » Yep. Yep. And um the last thing is if
you want to comment, there is a little
[1:56:28] comment thing here. I honestly might
change it to make it even easier to find
[1:56:31] where to comment tonight before this
goes live. Um but you comment on this,
[1:56:35] it brings you to this page. Um and it
allows folks to put in, you do not have
[1:56:40] to put your name or email in. You may
just put the information in. Um but uh
[1:56:45] if you want to, the name and email is
there. Um, is it about a particular
[1:56:49] drawing or just in general? Um, and is
it about any any and all schools or is
[1:56:54] it or you want to talk about a specific
school and what comment would you like
[1:56:58] to make here?
>> What is the value in not requiring them?
[1:57:03] » Uh, and this is completely up to you
all. Um, but the the ability to have
[1:57:09] have folks say things without being
concerned about it being tied back to
[1:57:12] them can bring more comments, but it can
also, just to be completely honest, as a
[1:57:17] person who's done a lot of survey
research, it can also bring a lot of
[1:57:21] garbage um into into it because people
could just go put a bunch of
[1:57:26] » comments in there that are nonsense.
>> I don't necessarily need to see an
[1:57:28] email, but I you know, if you believe in
something, put your name behind it.
[1:57:33] » That's kind of how I look at it. So will
we have access to all of this?
[1:57:37] » So all of all of this information um
will be collated and sent to the board.
[1:57:42] I will also create some summaries of
information for you all.
[1:57:45] » Certain things that people like if
something hits a bunch.
[1:57:48] » Yeah. Kind of the sentiment of what
people are talking about, the topics
[1:57:52] people are talking about. [snorts]
>> Um how did you aggregate something like
[1:57:55] this?
>> There's I mean there's a lot of uh
[1:57:59] basically like language models. It's
it's not like the AI that like LLM SP
[1:58:05] style. Um, but basically natural
language models which were a lot of the
[1:58:09] precursors to a lot of the current large
language models allow you to categorize
[1:58:14] things. Um, as well as measure sentiment
of things. So if you've ever seen like
[1:58:19] word bubbles and stuff like that, it's
it's
[1:58:22] » um I have one final question and I think
we'll let you go. um when you were
[1:58:27] coming up with with all of these um
there was all a bunch of different
[1:58:30] metrics that you you were looking at.
You weighted all of those equally.
[1:58:34] » So there were five different ways that
we tried weighting them and that's how
[1:58:37] we optimized all the different that's
why you have so many different
[1:58:40] optimizations. So we did things where it
was like we just we uh weighted them all
[1:58:46] exactly the same
>> or we leaned heavily on creating balance
[1:58:50] or decreasing transportation time. So,
those are all the different levers that
[1:58:54] we can pull as you're getting comments
from constituents of like, hey, you
[1:58:59] know, I I love that we got to very close
balance, but I'd really like to see if
[1:59:03] we can get transportation down a little
bit more and still keep balance rel or
[1:59:08] utilization a little better. So, those
type of comments I can always work with.
[1:59:12] I've tried to squeeze as much of the
juice as I could easily in this
[1:59:17] optimization. Um, but that doesn't mean
that there isn't a better one out
[1:59:20] [clears throat] there. So, okay, cool.
>> All right. Thank you very much. Thank
[1:59:25] you all.
>> Excellent job.
[1:59:27] » Mr. Chair, can I make a motion to have a
quick recess?
[1:59:30] » I was just going to bring you reading in
my mind. Can we take I don't know 10 uh
[1:59:34] five minutes. We'll start with five.
>> All right.
[1:59:38] » We're in recess.
Yeah, we'll read.
[2:06:04] Just making sure everyone's back that we
need.
[2:06:10] » Just going to move on to 3.01 BCPS
governance transition under discussions.
[2:06:17] » This will be much sub. Good evening.
Tonight we bring before the board a
[2:06:22] governance item regarding the format for
our schoolboard policy manual.
[2:06:28] Staff has been working with SBMA on a
proposed model that would test every
[2:06:32] policy against one standard. Does the
code of Virginia actually require the
[2:06:37] school board to adopt the policy? Apply
to a current manual. This would take us
[2:06:42] from 253 schoolboard policies to fewer
than 70
[2:06:49] with the rest relocating to governance
manuals, administrative regulations or
[2:06:54] handbooks. This changes more than the
manual size. It affects who votes on
[2:07:00] what, how quickly changes can be made,
and how much oversight the board retains
[2:07:06] going forward.
Melissa Ston will now walk through
[2:07:11] specific suggestions for how
restructuring could be approached. Our
[2:07:16] goal tonight is to give the board the
full picture and receive your direction
[2:07:21] on how to proceed.
>> I should get points that when we went
[2:07:27] over this in IGA, it was double the size
of what you're getting since the last
[2:07:31] presentation. It's not fair that I have
to go after that. But
[2:07:35] » say there's is there a 60 page slide or
[laughter]
[2:07:38] » it's very concise. [snorts]
>> No, I will start to say that what you're
[2:07:45] getting information from so that you
don't you wouldn't have to be overloaded
[2:07:49] like me. I did make this notebook of
every email that I've received from SBMA
[2:07:53] regarding this. So, I did condense it
down for you so that we don't have to go
[2:07:58] through all that, but I brought it in
case there were questions.
[2:08:02] So, first of all, like I said, on August
25th, the IG committee met to review
[2:08:06] SBAMA's proposed governance transition.
This discussion included Dr. Hubach and
[2:08:12] Miss Dobson. Following that meeting, it
was determined that this information
[2:08:16] should be shared with the full school
board. I'm going to go over this in
[2:08:20] summary form. You have six pages worth
of stuff that I'll tell you what page
[2:08:25] that I'm on, but I'm not going to read
what's on those pages. I'm just going to
[2:08:29] summarize it.
And I'm going to go over one topic at a
[2:08:33] time. And if did you want to them to
have questions after or during?
[2:08:39] » It doesn't matter.
>> Doesn't matter. Whatever you after.
[2:08:41] » Okay. So, I'm going to repeat similarly
to what Dr. Cav just said just so you
[2:08:48] understand the scope of the changes. So
what ASBMA is proposing is the approach
[2:08:54] is to keep only what the code of
Virginia actually requires the
[2:08:57] schoolboard to adopt as a policy. So if
the code of Virginia does not
[2:09:02] specifically say a policy needs to be
created for this, it will no longer be
[2:09:07] in our policies if we follow through
with the guidance we've been given.
[2:09:12] By that measure, SBAMA predicts our
current manual, which we have 253,
[2:09:17] and we add more. I mean, we may need
more than that would drop to fewer than
[2:09:22] 70. None of that content would be lost.
As she said, it would simply move into
[2:09:27] other documents such as administrative
regulations or handbooks. And um this is
[2:09:33] following along on page two of the
documents that you have.
[2:09:37] Page three and four I'll summarize as
SBMA frames this as establishing a
[2:09:42] clearer distinction between the
schoolboard's governance role and the
[2:09:46] superintendent's administrative role.
Under this framework, the school board
[2:09:50] retains authority over self-governance,
role clarity, school division direction,
[2:09:56] and required guardrails through bylaws,
governance manuals, schoolboard
[2:10:00] policies, and schoolboard regulations.
while the superintendent and staff
[2:10:04] manage operational execution daily
handbooks and legal tracking through
[2:10:09] superintendent procedures handbooks and
compliance books.
[2:10:13] Again, wherever law requires something
to come before the school board, that
[2:10:17] requirement would apply regardless of
which approach is chosen.
[2:10:24] So now on page five, the benefits and
tradeoffs. The appeal [clears throat] of
[2:10:29] this transition is operational
flexibility. Right now, because so much
[2:10:34] procedural detail sits in policy, almost
any change, even a minor one, requires a
[2:10:40] full public vote and a multi-reading
process. SPMA's model would move some of
[2:10:45] that detail into handbooks that staff
could update directly.
[2:10:49] There's also a compliance concern.
Reducing 253 policies to fewer than 70
[2:10:55] would create a real gap if BCPS ever
left SBMA service or if SBAMA itself
[2:11:02] stopped offering policy services
altogether.
[2:11:05] Other Virginia school divisions tend to
use similar policy naming and language
[2:11:10] largely largely because many rely on the
same or similar policy services. As a
[2:11:17] result, it would be hard for us to match
what most other school divisions are
[2:11:20] doing if we were now at 70 policies and
had to reestablish the remaining 183 or
[2:11:26] more because more could be created after
we got rid of that that we removed and
[2:11:32] placed elsewhere to follow suit with how
everyone else handles them.
[2:11:38] You don't have a page on cost and
obligations, but I'm just I'm going to
[2:11:42] talk a little about that. Regarding the
cost, SBMA has paused billing while it
[2:11:47] completes its planning, so we do not yet
have a fee schedule. BCPS Legal Council
[2:11:53] will also need to review the model
language before adoption and again on
[2:11:57] every future update cycle since SBMA has
made it clear and multiple occasions
[2:12:03] over emails with me that his guidance is
for educational purposes only and not
[2:12:08] legal advice. So, we still need our BCPS
legal counsel to review everything
[2:12:13] before using or adopting any SBMA
provided resources, whether that be
[2:12:18] policies or relocated content. That is
real ongoing staff and legal time on top
[2:12:24] of whatever the subscription for SBMA
itself costs.
[2:12:29] What this means for staff, so I'm on
page five. Current policy content does
[2:12:34] not disappear under this model. It moves
into other documents such as handbooks,
[2:12:39] regulations, and manuals, including the
program of studies, employee handbook,
[2:12:43] and code of student conduct. SBMA has
not specified whether it will draft this
[2:12:48] content for us or whether that work
would fall to BCPS staff. Until SBAMA
[2:12:55] clarifies its role here, we should
assume the work could fall to BCPS staff
[2:12:59] and plan accordingly for the increased
staff time and training required to
[2:13:03] implement and maintain this plan.
Lastly, we have attached a handout of
[2:13:10] policy examples to show a set of our
existing policies and how they would be
[2:13:15] categorized under the proposed SBMA
model. So that is my summary
[2:13:25] if anybody has questions. So, I guess to
reiterate before your questions, um,
[2:13:32] having this information, staff is simply
seeking board's direction on how to move
[2:13:37] forward with the schoolboard policy
manual, whether we want to go with the
[2:13:42] SBAMA approach, whether we want to keep
our manual as it is today. Um, we need
[2:13:47] some guidance in that direction. So, if
you have any questions,
[2:13:51] » so I know I'm next on my report, but I'm
going to forego it because I had two
[2:13:56] parts tonight. And the first part was
asking [snorts] you to make sure that
[2:14:02] you at least listening to Mr. Dick's uh
presentation that you leave everything
[2:14:09] on the table because I think you're
going to hear feedback in town halls.
[2:14:13] It's going to be important. Um it will
help you coming back in here to actually
[2:14:19] make a good decision whether it be just
Steuartsville and redistricting or some
[2:14:24] other combination. Um, but I think the
the community needs to see that this man
[2:14:31] has put a a large investment into how we
save money. And one of the issues that
[2:14:37] is probably the biggest for me is as we
approach um reversion and CIP and the
[2:14:45] different things that are coming down
the down the pike in 2028
[2:14:49] is that we be prepared in how we
structure our schools moving forward. I
[2:14:56] think we're at a crossroad right now of
both the uh issue of redistricting and
[2:15:03] consolidation and policy. So, um kudos
to you guys for keeping the the the four
[2:15:11] options out there so that you can go to
town halls, have this conversation so
[2:15:15] that the public can see and at the same
time I think it gives us a conversation
[2:15:20] piece when we start having conversations
with board of supervisors. So, um, I've
[2:15:25] already had several communications with
Mr. H once this meeting is over tonight,
[2:15:28] knowing not knowing fully where it would
go. Um, we're going to start setting up
[2:15:32] meetings for finance committees, chair,
vice chairs, like you did last year, so
[2:15:36] we can start this dialogue before you
even have to make a decision. I think
[2:15:40] it's important for them to hear why you
have come to this conclusion that
[2:15:43] something has to be done. The the second
part of of my report tonight was really
[2:15:49] about um this governance model. Um, if
you recall back in January,
[2:15:56] I asked you for dual dual membership.
And I asked you for dual membership for
[2:16:01] one reason. I felt membership and just
and I don't have a problem with SPMA.
[2:16:06] Trust me, I understand the practical pr
principles behind it and everything, but
[2:16:12] it it's not serving
as a as a
[2:16:19] I'm going to use your word. you told me
not to in one of our conversations, but
[2:16:23] it it's an ideology at this point. It is
not a structured system of how to get
[2:16:28] through the legislation. And so when I
between Dr. Calbert, myself, and Miss
[2:16:36] Sex, we've been mulling over this for
six months at at least. And and in that
[2:16:41] process, that book is legit. That is how
many emails. and and in that process
[2:16:47] things would change as to what your
responsibilities were and all of a
[2:16:51] sudden now [clears throat] what our
responsibilities were and all of a
[2:16:54] sudden it changed. So to me there's a
process out there right now that exists
[2:17:02] that we have moved away from for
ideology reasons but it has put us in
[2:17:07] isolation and let me give you an
example. I can go to a region five
[2:17:12] meeting and hear a topic and not know
what they're talking about because we
[2:17:17] don't have information from an
organization. Um, thank goodness when
[2:17:22] I'm involved in region five, it is vast
bringing information to us. It's how I
[2:17:27] get my information. So, there are times
when I have to ask somebody in a
[2:17:31] neighboring county, what is this? What
is this about? Well, or what leg what
[2:17:36] what are you doing with this
legislation? And so, if if we're not
[2:17:40] going to have a organization that's
going to be our legal counsel, then
[2:17:45] we're going to pay more money. there's
going to be a suggestion. We're going to
[2:17:48] take [clears throat] money for it
because we're gonna have to go out and
[2:17:50] get our own legal counsel. So, it is
going to raise the cost. But one of the
[2:17:54] things I wanted to say is
Bedford County has a history, this board
[2:18:02] has a history of making really good
moral decisions for the students and the
[2:18:08] faculty and staff of Bedford. And you
can go back and look at certain policies
[2:18:12] which I have done over the last couple
weeks and and kept them informed as to
[2:18:16] what I was looking at. But I was looking
at at at some of the policies we have
[2:18:22] and then going to surrounding counties
and looking at that same policy and ours
[2:18:27] is 10 times better as far as giving us
coverage. Ours is in depth. Ours
[2:18:33] protects where theirs is. Some of them
are more vague and they give wiggle
[2:18:38] room. So, you know, you can take JBB for
instance, um, and it's about the
[2:18:44] protection of students and parents. Ours
is so much more intricate than some of
[2:18:48] the surrounding counties. Why? Because
you guys took the initiative
[2:18:53] to make a good decision. So, one of my
fears is that while we are in isolation,
[2:19:01] we're not getting good advice that we
don't have to pay twice for, if that
[2:19:06] makes sense. So, I'm not I'm not
disparaging them. I think they serve a
[2:19:11] purpose, but they're not giving us the
legal uh back backing that we need. And,
[2:19:17] you know, you you heard uh Miss Saxon
mention if we were to go through and
[2:19:22] convert all these, the manpower hours
would be unbelievable. And then if they
[2:19:27] didn't exist 10 years from now, what
would we do? Would we go back? Would we
[2:19:30] revert? Would we have to put it all in
in some type of um library holding those
[2:19:37] policies? I I just don't think at this
point we can continue to be in
[2:19:42] isolation. So, I'm going to forego my
board report because that was it. It's
[2:19:48] just that I'm I'm trying to paraphrase
this county has [clears throat] made
[2:19:51] decisions where it needed to be strong,
it was strong. Where it needed [snorts]
[2:19:56] to contest something, it contested
something. So kudos to you guys and the
[2:20:00] people before you who are stepping up
and being accountable. So to me as we
[2:20:06] get to this process tonight, consider
putting us in a position where we're not
[2:20:11] in isolation because I don't know how
many other counties are in a position to
[2:20:17] actually be going through this process
with us. I I don't think it's very many.
[2:20:21] So that's my concluding thoughts on
that. Hannah's summary of my report
[2:20:27] itself.
>> That's it on 3.01. So you're done. So
[2:20:29] now we could just do questions and then
we'll go to 3.02 or do you want to do
[2:20:32] 3.02 and then we'll do questions?
>> I think 3.02 is just an example. It's
[2:20:36] just an
>> some examples. All right. Okay. Cool.
[2:20:39] » It was the examples of if you had to
take it out, this is where it is. This
[2:20:42] is where it would go.
>> Okay.
[2:20:45] » In the process.
>> Okay. Um
[2:20:47] » just discussion.
>> Yeah, this is just discussion. So we're
[2:20:50] going to start over here for questions.
>> Yeah. Any any questions, Mr. KS or
[2:20:55] anybody? I'd like to go. [clears throat]
>> I do have a question.
[2:21:04] » Why are why do we even have to have any
of this information from any third party
[2:21:09] for that matter? I is it just because
this is how it's been done and that's
[2:21:14] how all the other places do it?
>> That's how you get to your policies.
[2:21:17] Somebody has to give a legal perspective
of the of the law that or the
[2:21:20] legislation that they make in Richmond.
And sometimes big divisions have
[2:21:24] in-house attorneys.
>> Yes. Yes. We don't.
[2:21:27] » So they'll give you a law, but making
that into a step into a procedure that
[2:21:32] everybody can understand, everybody can
follow step by step. You need an
[2:21:36] attorney to be able to do that. Um
because sometimes the laws are very
[2:21:42] long, very convoluted. They have very
they have all these tabs and ties and
[2:21:47] and that's what we rely on them for.
>> Well, it's a moving target, right?
[2:21:51] Because because the legislative body in
Richmond is always changing laws and uh
[2:21:57] » every time there's a new election, you
get a [clears throat]
[2:21:59] a switch from left to right. You get a
new administration.
[2:22:02] » That's what I was wondering. Why
wouldn't we just have legal counsel? I
[2:22:05] mean, we already have it,
>> right?
[2:22:08] » I mean, I know understand they're
offering this part of their package,
[2:22:12] right?
>> I think I can explain that. So right now
[2:22:15] we had Sans Anderson
review policies in the summer for us
[2:22:21] because we were having we were behind in
our policies. So we had them review it
[2:22:26] in the summer. So they do that with
whatever divisions want that done and
[2:22:30] they do it at one time. So they divide
the cost by all the divisions that do it
[2:22:36] and it's in a lump and they do it all at
once. But there's policies that come in
[2:22:41] that may be due like they may come
through now and they may be due in
[2:22:45] December.
>> So you would have to in a sense contract
[2:22:50] Sansa Anderson to do all that work
singularly because no one else is really
[2:22:55] having that work done. They're getting
their policies from another
[2:22:57] organization. Do you see what I mean?
Um, so you're going, if you wanted if
[2:23:02] you wanted to do it that way,
>> it's going to cost you a lot more
[2:23:08] [snorts]
>> and we would only get it the one time a
[2:23:10] year because
>> it Yeah, like she said, I mean, if if we
[2:23:14] specifically want them to help us with
policies,
[2:23:17] » we're paying a lot.
>> Not Not to say, do you have an idea what
[2:23:21] that would cost?
>> No. Well, we don't know because we don't
[2:23:25] know what laws go into effect, how many
policies would be created, how many
[2:23:29] would be edited, what changed in them,
and then no matter who you pick, it's
[2:23:34] always an interpretation of the law,
which is why we had IGA.
[2:23:37] » That's what we're kind of getting at
was,
[2:23:40] » you know,
>> well, I'm just
[2:23:41] » neither organization is swayed one way
or the other.
[2:23:44] » That's why
>> people have agendas. Yeah,
[2:23:47] » everybody does.
>> I mean, I try I try to interpret law.
[2:23:49] I'm not a lawyer. I mean, I question
what people give me, no matter what who
[2:23:54] we're going with, but at least if we had
an I guess if you have an organization,
[2:23:58] then you have a policy and then it's
quicker to say, "We don't like this
[2:24:02] part. Can we change it?" And then we can
get Sans Anderson to review that
[2:24:07] quickly. Do you see what I mean? It's
you're not starting from
[2:24:11] » that's and that's why we have work
sessions and IGA because we didn't take
[2:24:14] [clears throat]
[2:24:16] » what another place told us in their
interpretation of the law and be like
[2:24:20] we're automatically using that. That's
why we met and we would say well we
[2:24:23] don't really like what that says. Yeah,
>> we're going to follow the law but we
[2:24:26] want to word it like this. And that's
how what Mr. Jupair said how our
[2:24:30] policies have sometimes improved way
more than what the law says or what an
[2:24:35] agency gave us. But you had to have a
groundwork.
[2:24:38] » We need a draft. We need something
>> and you have [clears throat] the right
[2:24:41] to adopt it the way it comes.
>> You have the right to reject it. You
[2:24:45] have the right to which used to happen.
>> What I don't like about the deal is
[2:24:50] there's been several laws that the BSBA
had spoke out about how to vote
[2:24:57] for parental rights things like this.
This was several years ago and I mean it
[2:25:02] was complete contradiction what I would
believe in you know and I hate to give
[2:25:08] these
somebody that money you know it's not
[2:25:12] all about the money but I I don't like
to support them in any way shape or form
[2:25:15] you know but I get what you're saying
>> now my biggest concern with what they're
[2:25:20] saying to do with policy what SBAMA is
saying to do with policy and I'll just
[2:25:25] use my department as an example all the
employee polic policies pretty much go
[2:25:31] into handbooks.
So that leaves the control of all those
[2:25:37] policies to me and Randy.
And some of those policies have money
[2:25:42] tied to them.
Some of those policies are about sick
[2:25:46] leave donation, sick leave bank, how
much we pay unused leave. That should
[2:25:52] not be our decision. That should be a
board decision. Those
[2:25:57] things worry me with going with this new
format.
[2:26:00] » I wouldn't go with the new format
either.
[2:26:02] » I don't think we should do that
>> as a board. We would be losing a lot of
[2:26:07] » just so I can
>> the oversight of us knowing
[2:26:10] » where something goes if it actually gets
put there if we're actually abiding by
[2:26:13] the law if anybody's say the public
wants to find something. I mean right
[2:26:17] now and I'm going to do whatever you
know I just go with the flow and give
[2:26:21] you a job and I'm going to do it. But
right [clears throat] now the public I
[2:26:25] mean yes we have these other documents
but right now the public goes to the
[2:26:29] policy manual. You can search a word or
whatever it brings up anything about
[2:26:33] that. Now the public is not even going
to know where to look for stuff and
[2:26:38] you're going to go search through look
how long the employee handbook is
[2:26:41] student code conduct all these things
and you're going to add more to it.
[2:26:44] People aren't even going to be able to
find stuff. It's not going to get
[2:26:46] updated properly. That's my
>> creat
[2:26:50] issue. I disagree with this. I disagree
with this.
[2:26:55] » That's what they're doing.
>> So, when they change their policy
[2:26:58] services and there are only 70 policies,
then that's the ones they're going to
[2:27:03] give you updates on. They're not going
to give you updates on the rest of them.
[2:27:06] » No, we don't know that for sure.
>> Well, we don't interpretation because
[2:27:10] they haven't said otherwise.
>> They haven't said otherwise, but
[2:27:13] » but they're still going to require local
review. They still every policy you
[2:27:18] have, they have to have legal review
from our council. Policies do, but if
[2:27:22] we're putting stuff in handbooks, we
don't have to have lawyers look at that.
[2:27:26] » How much is it? How much?
>> That's not entirely true.
[2:27:30] » Doesn't the whole gave us a policy file,
do we then have the policy
[2:27:34] » in order to get and then you have to pay
extra for their policy
[2:27:37] » because we're trying to tweak it,
>> right?
[2:27:40] Sans
>> Sans Anderson is a reviewer of legal
[2:27:45] process. VSBA has a legal team and so
what they
[2:27:48] » what the law
>> are passed in Richmond then goes through
[2:27:53] VSBA and their legal team. They hand
down policy changes suggestions to us
[2:27:59] which when then we decide upon and if we
have questions then we go to Sans
[2:28:05] Anderson about it.
>> Yes.
[2:28:06] » SBMA.
>> We can also ask them. That's kind of
[2:28:09] what I was trying to say. Well put it.
You don't have to follow what comes out
[2:28:15] of
uh VSBA. It is a it is a base and and
[2:28:21] and the point was made before you know
governors change left right issues
[2:28:26] change importance of this is no longer
there and all of a sudden it is again
[2:28:30] and so you know it really does pay who
we put in office and how we vote and and
[2:28:36] so
you have the ultimate decision as to
[2:28:40] whether to take what they say and
actually put it into your policy. I
[2:28:46] think the point that Melissa's making
too is as we change this whole thing to
[2:28:51] where it goes to handbooks and things
like that, it will become less
[2:28:55] transparent because you I I sat down
literally with Word docs. I know it's
[2:28:59] not there for much longer, but just
literally going through policies and
[2:29:02] then going to another county going
through theirs policies and making
[2:29:06] comparisons and our I'm telling you, you
guys have done a good job. I mean, kudos
[2:29:11] to you guys for for staying up with the
changes that had to happen. Um, if you
[2:29:18] were careless with that, you would have
problems, but you haven't been careless
[2:29:22] with that. So,
>> Mr. Duper, I I'll be honest with you.
[2:29:24] Any I'm not for any kind of uh change
that offers Dr. Calvert any more power.
[2:29:31] [laughter]
>> I say there's some I get rid of.
[2:29:36] » YOU want to give me that? I think I'd be
the first one out. BUT [laughter] LET'S
[2:29:40] GET AROUND THIS DISTRICT ONE PERSON, you
know. Um, but but I I tell you what's
[2:29:47] got me a little bit. I actually kind of
agree with Mr. Hobbrook. Don't don't
[2:29:51] freak out on me here. Uh, I don't really
want to give my money to anybody to be
[2:29:55] honest with you. But we also have to
cover our Heiney
[2:29:59] » and
uh I don't know how much legal fees
[2:30:03] would cost for us to look at every DGO
policy,
[2:30:06] » but I got a feeling it's more than we
can afford. That's I and I don't know. I
[2:30:11] honestly don't. If I did, I' I'll
probably be a lawyer. But um
[2:30:15] » do we have enough a number
>> when they did
[2:30:19] » when they did the general review last
year of select policies that they were
[2:30:22] doing for others? Um this would be more
but last year when they did a very
[2:30:27] limited thing just on granting it was
like $4,500. But if they had to look at
[2:30:31] everything that we were doing it it
would be a lot more.
[2:30:39] » So I I'll just give you my best guess on
what would happen. We get a discount
[2:30:43] with boards. There's different monies
moving. If we stayed only with SBAMA,
[2:30:47] it's about $22,000 a year. If we were
only with BSBA, it would be $25,000 a
[2:30:52] year. If you had dual, it'd be about 27
$28,000 a year because there's some
[2:30:58] discounts and you're foregoing cost.
[cough and laughter] And if with VSBA,
[2:31:03] you wouldn't have as much legal review.
It's only on those select policies.
[2:31:06] You're going, we don't like this. Can we
do something with it different? That
[2:31:09] [clears throat] would go to legal
review, but it be it would be minimal.
[2:31:12] So, I'm just giving you the idea of what
the costs are on there.
[2:31:16] » Um, so I have and I think in my mind I'm
conflating conflating
[2:31:21] um these three dots and the eight dots.
So, I'm trying to figure out which one
[2:31:25] we're we're really talking about. Um, so
with the government governance
[2:31:31] transition,
really what we're saying is the SVMA is
[2:31:36] going, hey, we're going to suggest that
you pair it down from 243 to 70 policies
[2:31:43] and then a lot of those remaining would
go into a handbook. And just so I'm
[2:31:49] clear on that,
as the board, we have control over
[2:31:53] policy.
Executive staff has control over
[2:31:57] handbook. Is that I just want to make
sure I'm understanding this. There's a
[2:32:02] lot of words being thrown out that I
didn't
[2:32:03] » There's very little understanding to be
had because SBMA keeps changing the
[2:32:09] dialogue. They're they're I keep looking
at it and saying what are they trying to
[2:32:14] accomplish by restructuring the
governance model and the best I can
[2:32:20] figure is that they're changing it so
that they're not VSBA
[2:32:25] and in doing so they're changing the
nomenclature so that looking at an old
[2:32:30] policy there is no correlating new
policy. It just revamps everything.
[2:32:37] every one of those 253 policies that
exist now to change them over to
[2:32:42] regulations, the board has to review
them and vote on them and change it.
[2:32:46] It's so it's a tremendous amount of work
for everybody involved
[2:32:49] » individually
>> individually.
[2:32:50] » And to make things more confusing for
everybody.
[2:32:54] So it it really makes no sense.
>> That sounds like it's really worth about
[2:32:58] $300 a month.
Well, and also when you turn it into
[2:33:02] regulations
>> for 200 [laughter]
[2:33:04] » you're still having to bring it to the
board and stuff, we're just having to do
[2:33:08] the work and the company is not doing it
for us. [clears throat] We're not
[2:33:11] getting the draft. Like I'm not a
proponent of any of the things. It
[2:33:14] doesn't matter to me which one. We just
need one that functions for what we
[2:33:18] need,
>> right?
[2:33:19] » Helps us, gives us a draft, costs the
least amount of money because we, you
[2:33:22] know, we have to be cognizant of the
amount of money of all of it. And if
[2:33:27] we're if we're using SBAMA and we got a
new thing to do, okay, but then we're
[2:33:32] also paying our legal counsel to pay to
look at it again. That's a big issue.
[2:33:39] And we we just need somebody to give us
what we need so that we can have drafts
[2:33:44] from a lawyer based on the law so we can
bring it in front of the board so you
[2:33:50] can figure out how you want to word it.
And I mean, that's the easiest thing in
[2:33:54] my own opinion because I do the job. But
again, I'll do whatever job whatever.
[2:33:59] » My other concern, Stephen, is that we're
you're somewhat of a guinea pig for for
[2:34:06] this because there's no other division
that we know of that we're aware of that
[2:34:11] would be adopting this governance model.
And so it kind of puts us out on an
[2:34:15] island of of all the Virginia divisions.
And
[2:34:20] » a lot of it doesn't work. You're saying
it's not proven.
[2:34:22] » It's not proven. That's right.
>> If there are others, we don't know. we
[2:34:25] don't know about.
>> And if it doesn't work, we're going to
[2:34:29] have to go back to the other model or
create a third one that doesn't exist
[2:34:34] yet.
>> I did talk to the school court attorney
[2:34:38] just briefly. Um, every one of those
policies moved would have to have action
[2:34:44] and they would have to review where it
went and all of that. There would have
[2:34:48] to be legal review on all of that. She
also said there would be increased cost
[2:34:53] and time because like for example our
employment contracts would have to be
[2:34:59] rewritten because they're based on the
existing policy that's out there. So
[2:35:03] we'd have to rewrite the format of the
contracts. We would have to um defending
[2:35:10] any case personnel whatever it you would
have to do it differently since the
[2:35:15] documents were in different locations
because different weights of different
[2:35:19] documents. a handbook is not the same as
policy. So all of that would change
[2:35:24] which would add time onto all those
processes if you understand what I'm
[2:35:30] » Dr. Calbert, if you if we stick with
SBMA
[2:35:36] and we stick with the way we're doing
our policies,
[2:35:40] » would we just not even know that there's
a policy change from the government or
[2:35:44] or would the
I don't really know what they're doing
[2:35:49] last year is we don't get updates. So,
one one of one of my biggest issues with
[2:35:55] not being a part of VSBA, and I don't
want to give money to that ideology
[2:36:00] either, but
they're supposed to be, and as much as
[2:36:05] they can be, I think they try to stay
neutral, but
[2:36:09] my biggest grievance is that it it
hamstrings all of our administration,
[2:36:14] right? Mr. Deair is in the dark uh in
the superintendent meetings and these
[2:36:20] guys are missing out on educational
opportunities as well. Um that I I think
[2:36:26] it it
makes it more difficult for them to do
[2:36:30] their jobs that we ask them to do.
[snorts]
[2:36:33] » Dr. Hub, I have a question for you all
on the IG
[2:36:38] and this is going all the way down to
eight. Um,
[2:36:43] so what I'm hearing is we're not getting
supported from SVMA.
[2:36:48] » That's the
>> from the J. That's what you guys have
[2:36:51] have gone with. Why maintain a
membership with them as a as a board?
[2:36:56] Like why do duel? Why not just do if we
if we have one that's not working and we
[2:37:01] believe this other one's working,
why have them both? That that doesn't
[2:37:06] make a whole lot of sense to me. Um, I
think that the sense in in the duel
[2:37:12] is that the VSBA gives us the the
awareness of the law changes and the way
[2:37:19] that it should affect our policies and
what we need to look at and review. Um,
[2:37:24] that's number one. Provides the tools
for the executive team to do their jobs
[2:37:28] the best they can do. Um, and it doesn't
absolve the IGA committee of the of
[2:37:35] needing to do the due diligence to look
at those policies and to say, "No, that
[2:37:40] is not right for Bedford County. Uh,
that is not what our constituents want
[2:37:44] and we need it to be this way." And to
tweak them with Sans Anderson's stamp of
[2:37:50] approval that yes, that's legal to do.
So, that's the plus side of the SBA.
[2:37:56] SBMA,
they offer a perspective
[2:38:01] that of the law changes that is very
different from VSBA and more in keeping
[2:38:07] with what I think our constituents and
our board as a whole um feel. Uh so it's
[2:38:13] more in alignment with with our values
and and u our current policy. I mean, I
[2:38:21] know
>> that they have a a closer alignment um
[2:38:25] with the way Bedford County just looks.
>> Yes.
[2:38:27] » Ideology. But if they're not providing
any service, why continue? I there are
[2:38:33] plenty of people that I agree with that
have subscription services to podcasts
[2:38:39] and I don't
>> I don't have a use for all of them, so I
[2:38:43] don't subscribe to their services. Why
would we go ahead and continue to
[2:38:47] subscribe to the service if we're not
going to use that service?
[2:38:50] » Right. And there's there's no mandate
that we would have to that that's
[2:38:55] certainly an option before the board to
go back to VSBA and and and to abandon
[2:39:00] SBMA. A lot of
>> Can I add one thing, Dr. Peubach? I'm
[2:39:04] sorry to interrupt, but um VSBA is of
course a divisionwide
[2:39:09] um
partnership or membership. SBMA is
[2:39:14] individual board members. Correct. If
Dr. Hubach and Miss Doson want it to
[2:39:18] remain with SBMA as members, fine. If
Mr. Collins, Mr. Hullberg said, "No, I
[2:39:23] don't want to continue my membership."
Fine. It's individualized. So, it
[2:39:27] doesn't have to be.
>> And that's how SBAMA is with most of the
[2:39:31] Virginia. Correct. Individual
schoolboard member alliance. It is an
[2:39:36] individual school board members.
>> Yes. Which Virginia School Board
[2:39:41] Association, BSBA, says it in their name
that they're for school boards. However,
[2:39:46] they provide any information to all
everybody that's around this table.
[2:39:51] » So, is it really for school boards or is
it for everything? I've had the argument
[2:39:55] with SBAMA, hey, you should consider
working with staff, which they've done
[2:39:58] more work with this staff than any other
division. They're like, we're not really
[2:40:02] doing that because we're supposed to be
for school board members only. I go, I
[2:40:06] get it, but you're you're David and VSBA
is Goliath and if you want to get more
[2:40:11] people on, you're going to have to offer
more services. That's something that
[2:40:14] I've just told them. So, I'm gonna let
everybody else talk before I before I
[2:40:17] get into my questions. But I I think
that here's what I would say about the
[2:40:22] IG. We used to have VSBA and we had Sans
Anderson that represented us. And on the
[2:40:28] IGA, we worked really really hard to
make sure the policies that we didn't
[2:40:32] just take it verbatim before IGA was
there. That's what happened. They came
[2:40:36] in, you know, it's on this sheet.
There's eight of them. They vote go
[2:40:39] through. Um very rarely did anything get
called out. Um, we made a lot of changes
[2:40:44] and work to make sure that this fit with
what Bedford County wants to do. Do I
[2:40:48] have any doubt? I don't care if AOC was
given the the policies. We go, wait,
[2:40:54] this doesn't make sense for us right
here, right now. This is the way we'd
[2:40:56] want to do it. And they would make those
changes. They would go to Sans Anderson
[2:41:00] or whoever, and they would say, don't
tell us why we can't do this. Tell us
[2:41:04] how we can do it. And then Sans Anderson
would would help us. There were some
[2:41:08] controversial policies that we passed.
Um, I don't know why patriotism one was
[2:41:13] controversial, but it was. Um, but they
worked with us on it. So, they did they
[2:41:17] did help us. Did it cost more money?
Yeah. But at the end of the day, do I
[2:41:21] think we got the policy right? Yeah, we
did. I think at the end of the day,
[2:41:24] getting the policy right is the most
important thing.
[2:41:26] » I disagree with a lot of what VSBA does.
I know I said I was going to let other
[2:41:30] people talk, but I'll I'll keep going.
Um,
[2:41:33] » you're doing great.
>> Thanks. Sam Anderson works very closely
[2:41:37] with VSBA as well. They talk at their
conferences. They give them legal advice
[2:41:41] as well. Is there supposed to be a
separation? I'm sure that there's
[2:41:45] supposed to be. Is there I don't know if
they're if they're aligned. They go,
[2:41:48] "Well, this is what we've been doing, so
we're Why would we not tell school
[2:41:51] boards we wrote the policy, why would we
tell them anything different?" Um, but
[2:41:56] it would be up to IGA and I I have no
doubt in my mind that this committee
[2:42:01] working with because I was on that
committee working with staff staff
[2:42:05] always advises, gives advice and gives
consent and and when we say this is what
[2:42:10] we want to do, they do it. They go this
is what we're going to do. We're going
[2:42:13] to help get to the right answer, making
sure that we're protected and everything
[2:42:16] else. So, I am on the fence on this
knowing like I know where it's probably
[2:42:22] going to go and I get it ideologically.
I know where I'm at on it, but I'm I'm
[2:42:26] just going to walk through some other
questions I have at at the end, and I
[2:42:29] think it'll help everyone get to a
decision.
[2:42:31] » So, I just want to lay it all out. If we
go with SBMA, you won't even know about
[2:42:38] policy changes.
>> I don't we don't know that yet. I guess
[2:42:42] that's accurate, right, Melissa?
>> They won't be policy changes like the 70
[2:42:47] the 70 or so that they're going to keep
in policy. They would give us draft
[2:42:51] language just like the SBA did, which
they've done with me since we started
[2:42:58] working with them. But then I've been
told, "Hold off on all the stuff that
[2:43:01] we've given you because we're changing
what we're doing." So that's why we
[2:43:05] haven't been bringing policies because
that's just a waste of time for you guys
[2:43:07] if we were to get rid of it. what the
the parts that we're not sure about
[2:43:13] because they haven't specified in all
the emails that I've received. They're
[2:43:17] saying that the content that's in our
current policies that's no longer going
[2:43:20] to be policies all will be moved
somewhere into some handbook regulation.
[2:43:25] But I mean, we can choose not to do
that, right?
[2:43:28] » Yeah, that's what we're
>> But it can but they're not going to
[2:43:30] update the policy.
>> It would be hard to stay with SBAMA
[2:43:33] policy services and not go with their
format. I think that would be difficult.
[2:43:38] Yeah, because I would I would I would
not know what policy they were
[2:43:42] referencing because the it's not
letters. It's not even the same.
[2:43:46] » They're in six sections. And
>> one of the reasons that they want to
[2:43:50] downgrade to 70 policies is so that
there's not 253 of them for them to
[2:43:56] review,
right? So that saves them a lot of work,
[2:44:00] but at our expense.
>> You only have to re I'm sorry. You only
[2:44:04] have to review a policy if there's a
change in the law.
[2:44:08] Right.
But they're not even going to look at
[2:44:11] what's in our handbook. They're only
going to look at what's in the 70
[2:44:15] policies. If there's a change in the
law, does it affect any of those 70
[2:44:18] policies? No. Good.
>> That doesn't matter if it doesn't affect
[2:44:21] your handbook.
>> You would not be notified about it.
[2:44:25] » I'm trying to be unbiased here. So
that's why I'm here because I don't take
[2:44:28] it personally. It's not my department.
This is my job. We don't know what
[2:44:33] they're going to do.
>> They haven't said it. They haven't said
[2:44:35] they're starting over.
>> That's right. That's why there's no
[2:44:38] answers.
>> Six sections of stuff that
[2:44:41] » So you can't even make a decision. You
you're saying what you guys are saying
[2:44:44] is even if we wanted to do this because
there's so much unknown at this time.
[2:44:50] » Yeah.
>> We don't think we can do it.
[2:44:52] » Correct.
>> And just because we would might
[2:44:54] recommend to change to something just so
that we're protected doesn't mean in the
[2:44:58] future we would stay with that. They got
themselves up to stuff. Did you guys
[2:45:02] have a conversation with these guys on
the phone? Have you talked to them and
[2:45:06] said, "This is our concerns. This is our
concerns that the attorney has."
[2:45:09] » I will speak for me. They won't speak to
me unless you're on the phone.
[2:45:13] » The only conversation I had with Shel
was because I had a question about what
[2:45:18] policies that I have that we've paid for
say I wasn't going to bring this up
[2:45:23] because that wasn't in the summary. It's
too much information. But we paid Sans
[2:45:26] Anderson last summer. We have policy
sitting. I was at my last two policies
[2:45:32] from VSBA because we do eight policies
at a time. We're behind all the time,
[2:45:36] but we always have to follow the law.
Well, with SBAMA, I have had policies.
[2:45:43] They've given me policies like in
different months over the years the time
[2:45:48] we've had them. But I called her to talk
to her about what am I what am I
[2:45:54] supposed to be working on? Am I supposed
to be doing any of these policies? Am I
[2:45:57] supposed to be doing anything SBAM? I
mean not interviewing Sans Anderson gave
[2:46:00] us or anything else that we have and she
said to me on the phone I mean of course
[2:46:06] like you said earlier you turn 40 can't
remember stuff. Well, I'm 46, so I I
[2:46:10] can't remember every single detail in a
conversation either, but she pretty much
[2:46:15] told me, "Don't use anything that you've
had from us that you she didn't say that
[2:46:20] you paid for, but to me, I'm like, we
wasted money because we paid for this.
[2:46:23] We paid for SBMA and Sans Anderson, and
she said, "Don't do anything until we
[2:46:29] decide which policies are going to be
still policies."
[2:46:32] » So, none of that stuff moves forward.
Even even that doesn't necessarily make
[2:46:36] sense because we could enact it and then
if we decide it's not going to be a
[2:46:39] policy it's going to move we would just
move it
[2:46:40] » right. I just asked though because I'm
just like I don't want to
[2:46:43] » and they should get on the phone with
the IG.
[2:46:47] » You go through the process of
information and action then we don't
[2:46:50] even have
>> they should have got on the phone with
[2:46:52] the with the IG and said hey guys these
are our concerns and they either go okay
[2:46:58] because at the end of the day they don't
just want Bedford County to do this.
[2:47:01] They would want every division to do it.
Well unless they if the attorneys are
[2:47:06] advising that you shouldn't do it. How
could a division decide to do it? Well,
[2:47:10] they're just saying it would be costly
to move it.
[2:47:14] » I will say I've reached out to Shel a
few times, not a bunch. Um, she has
[2:47:19] answered me. It's not always the answer
I want. Sometimes it goes around and
[2:47:23] you're not really answering what I'm
saying, but she always takes my call.
[2:47:26] She calls me back. She she does work
with me because I am the policy person.
[2:47:31] So, she will do that. I'm not I'm not
saying they're all bad. They have good
[2:47:34] things they send. It's just our policy,
our policy services is not working for
[2:47:40] us.
>> And if we want to follow with what
[2:47:43] they're doing, you all need to be aware
>> that
[2:47:47] » you're not going to have the
authoritative part to approve
[2:47:50] everything. It can get lost. It's going
to be in 50 places. We We still have
[2:47:56] accountability. We still have I do
foyer, which I hate by the way, but I do
[2:48:01] foyer. Well, that still applies. any any
fura stuff applies any all the laws
[2:48:07] still apply no matter where we have this
>> and it makes it harder for us to be
[2:48:13] compliant if it's in all these places
and all this is changing
[2:48:17] » it's taking control of
>> you said
[2:48:20] they sent the policy yesterday the state
said that policy about three or four
[2:48:24] days prior to
>> so we took it basically and started
[2:48:28] having that conversation
>> so
[2:48:31] » but they didn't write the polic write
the policy. It was just they didn't give
[2:48:35] us a law. They just said you need to
create policy for this because it's one
[2:48:39] that doesn't exist.
>> So, we would be in charge of doing that
[2:48:43] outside with our own
>> lawyer,
[2:48:45] » which we did. I mean, the rate the uh
there's another one on here that we
[2:48:51] created out of all cloth and we did it
and we had to go to Sans Anderson with
[2:48:54] it. That would be the case if you make
your own policy. I mean, obviously, you
[2:48:58] can Google which laws changed in
Virginia in 2026, and it'll tell you,
[2:49:03] » but that doesn't it's like, okay, where
do we put
[2:49:06] » you want to base your where do we put
it? Internet search.
[2:49:10] » That's No, no. What I'm saying is
[laughter] even if
[2:49:13] » even if it's accurate,
>> right?
[2:49:15] » Like, okay, well, how do we search to
figure out which policy it's supposed to
[2:49:19] go in and what does it replace?
>> Does it fall in line?
[2:49:22] » And this is exactly what happened when
we very first went with SBAMA. And I'm
[2:49:26] like, "Okay, I feel like an idiot here.
I've been and I mean I'm not an expert
[2:49:32] and stuff, but like I took their stuff
and I'm like I spent hours and hours
[2:49:36] just reading it." I'm like, "What policy
is independent is this?"
[2:49:39] » And I'm defending you here on that.
That's what I'm saying. Like, "Oh, well
[2:49:42] people you can find." Well, yeah, you
can see what laws change, but it doesn't
[2:49:45] help you
>> with the policy. And by the way, even,
[2:49:48] oh, you can search boards. That ain't
the easiest thing to do. [laughter]
[2:49:52] » I can give you an example of the
Friday off before Labor Day, which we
[2:49:59] were certain we fell into that category
because we met all these parameters.
[2:50:05] So, one day, just because I wanted to be
prepared for this meeting, I opened that
[2:50:11] law up
and
[2:50:14] not not right here. So, I went down and
and at the bottom of the law, there's
[2:50:19] these little blue links. I linked on
one,
[2:50:23] read that, went to the next one, linked
on another one, and holy cow, we're
[2:50:28] exempt from 2012.
And so that's the kind of tech, that's
[2:50:34] the kind of digging that has to be done
because just because the law gets
[2:50:39] rewritten this July 1st doesn't mean
that it hasn't been around for 20 years.
[2:50:44] They just changed something. So now you
got to go back and you got to touch it.
[2:50:47] So it's buried. Some of these laws are
buried three or four deep in transition.
[2:50:53] » Do you have any questions? I want to go
through. Anyone else have any questions?
[2:50:57] » I asked a couple.
>> The question the only other only
[2:51:03] question I had is, you know, if you're
not getting the policies,
[2:51:07] you're trying to dig, trying to find
them is what I'm hearing. and you want
[2:51:11] somebody to be able to just go ahead and
write them and we can adjust those and
[2:51:14] then go to Sans Anderson so that we can
>> take those instead of looking at this
[2:51:19] document of the new law which could be
couple pages law and trying to create
[2:51:23] your own policy.
>> I think we're afraid of going with the
[2:51:27] new format because it's so different and
it isolates us from everybody else in
[2:51:32] Virginia.
>> Okay. Um, I think we're lerary of going
[2:51:36] to the new format.
>> And I think something Mr. James brought
[2:51:40] up before, and this is kind of why I
made this suggestion in January is
[2:51:45] because an organization like VSBA
is sanctioned by the legislators.
[2:51:52] You know how that changes, but that's
the other side of the story. But but in
[2:51:56] so doing that they have programs for
superintendents, for executives, for
[2:52:04] board clerks, for every group that sits
in this room, board members and all. So
[2:52:11] you you're in dialogue constantly with
the changes, whereas and I made that
[2:52:16] suggestion to Shirley over a year ago
that that's where you needed to go if
[2:52:20] you were going to be uh in in the hunt,
so to speak, and and become a
[2:52:25] competitive group. So, you know, that's
that's my conversation to that.
[2:52:33] » I think one one point that hasn't been
made and that is that when SBMA makes a
[2:52:39] suggestion for their policy review,
their disclaimer is that we have no
[2:52:44] legal team. There's no legal oversight
of this. So, you're going to have to get
[2:52:50] your own lawyers to review this
material. So
[2:52:53] » SBAMA says that
>> SBAMA says that
[2:52:56] » um
>> um I think to sum it up my concerns
[2:53:03] would start with being opened up to
liability. Um and then my concern really
[2:53:10] as well is time and money which I don't
feel we have with in county and it's not
[2:53:15] something that we just don't have that
luxury right now.
[2:53:19] My only comment because I don't think
anybody answered Mr. Hell's question
[2:53:23] about why we would keep the two. Um, and
I think that that is what we are doing
[2:53:29] as a board is deciding whether or not a
dual membership is something that we
[2:53:34] want to pay for individually. We can be
a member of SBMA. Um, but is that
[2:53:42] something that we want to budget for
the board as well? Um, And I think I am
[2:53:50] on the team of the more information that
we have the better um from every side.
[2:53:56] Um so I think it's worth it, but I know
that not everybody sees it sees it that
[2:54:01] way. So I don't think that really
answered the question, but I think
[2:54:05] that's something that we're trying to
decide.
[2:54:07] » Gotcha. I appreciate that. Anything
else?
[2:54:11] » I think I think that because VSBA is a
divisionwide membership
[2:54:17] that for necessity that that's something
that we should rejoin
[2:54:24] and that as far as SBMA goes they they
offer valuable insights that
[2:54:30] [clears throat]
uh I think are a yin-yang for looking at
[2:54:34] the laws and I think that at least the
IG members should continue to be SBMA
[2:54:42] memberships the cost difference $2,000
Yeah.
[2:54:48] » Uh about membership
>> $2,500.
[2:54:52] » I think it's 300 bucks for an individual
membership, something like that.
[2:54:58] » Um but that keeps you getting their
emails and their insights on the new
[2:55:01] laws and their coffee house meetings and
whatever else they offer, you know, as a
[2:55:08] member.
>> Yeah, they're a very young organization.
[2:55:11] They don't have a lot of budget. They're
they're asking individual board members
[2:55:14] to sign up.
>> Some boards don't pay for their board
[2:55:17] members to do it. Every board pays for a
VSBA. So, they have a lot of money. They
[2:55:22] do policy. There's a lot. They're big
organizations. So, they have attorneys.
[2:55:26] They have resources to be able to get
information out.
[2:55:29] » It's just is the information good? We,
you know, and we've used them and we've
[2:55:34] most of the policies fly right through.
They're a little controversial.
[2:55:38] » You got to look and make sure it makes
sense for the county. Um,
[2:55:41] » Dr. Ubach I I'm I'm of the opinion I'm
going to say I'm going to preface this I
[2:55:48] was actually I was of the opinion we
should not be members of both
[2:55:51] organizations. I truly I truly feel that
it's a we need to save as much money as
[2:55:58] we can essentially. But you actually
make a very interesting point and
[2:56:02] actually Miss Dobson and I spoke about
this last week and I've chewed on it.
[2:56:06] There's something to be said about
having multiple points of view. There
[2:56:10] really is. And seeing seeing something
from a different lens a lot of times can
[2:56:15] open you up to something you didn't see.
I think I'm almost
[2:56:22] there's something to be said about that.
>> One of the things that SPMA stands
[2:56:25] [clears throat] out it it
it points out that the board is the one
[2:56:31] that is in charge and most boards just
are rubber stampers to the
[2:56:36] superintendent. offense, but it shows us
that we have more authority than
[2:56:42] » what the SBA kind of promotes, and that
is just rougher standard. Um, and that's
[2:56:50] my opinion. But, um, that's the one of
the emphasis that SBMA shows you what
[2:56:57] kind of authority you have as a school
board member, what you can or cannot do,
[2:57:01] um, based on law. Um but that's not
really emphasized in as as much through
[2:57:07] the BSBA. Um and it also allows us to
see things on a more um yeah on a
[2:57:16] different level on a different
perspective on what's going on locally,
[2:57:20] what's going on nationally, so on.
>> So let me reply to her comment um and
[2:57:26] apology. I am not of the person that
asks you for to rubber stamp anything.
[2:57:31] » You know, you never have. Yeah.
>> And so to me, I've said it before,
[2:57:38] this board in the past three or four
years that I have looked at it, um has
[2:57:44] been very careful [snorts] to make good
decisions. So, you didn't hire a guy
[2:57:50] that's going to say, you know what, let
me see if I can sneak this through. It's
[2:57:53] not my personality.
So,
[2:57:56] » yeah,
>> for what it's worth,
[2:57:58] » and and that that is that is that is
true. But I will say I've been in a ton
[2:58:02] of IG meetings and we've had policies
and there were uh things that came from,
[2:58:06] you know, VSBA that say, "Hey, these are
the policies because the law changed.
[2:58:10] This is what we want to do." And other
members of the staff that have been in
[2:58:14] those meetings have said, "We don't want
to do this this way." We have our
[2:58:18] thoughts on it, too. So, it's not just
you that's not a rubber [laughter]
[2:58:22] stamp.
Everybody that's that's been at those IG
[2:58:26] meetings has also said that. And I think
in the one of the things when we were
[2:58:29] both on there is we would come to staff
when it comes to a policy and we would
[2:58:34] talk to staff go does this policy give
you all the tools that you need to get
[2:58:38] your job done and if it and they would
say yes or they would say no we need
[2:58:42] this and we would we would look and and
try to do that try to make again the
[2:58:46] best policy. Um all right I'll I'll
finish this up.
[2:58:50] SPMA does say, "Hey, look, the board has
a lot of power and we want them to
[2:58:56] understand that they do." So to go down
the 70 policies, I think there's a
[2:58:59] reason why they're saying to do it. I
just don't think that it's very clear on
[2:59:03] on why that is and that's what I'm
hearing from the IG and from staff, but
[2:59:07] I had a couple of questions. So,
and I guess we probably don't know, but
[2:59:13] eventually maybe there is a hybrid model
that's in there where there's the 70
[2:59:17] policies that they'll review.
But if a policy if they're saying that a
[2:59:22] policy does not is not required, does
that and that's true. Does that mean
[2:59:27] that if you had that policy, if you
decide that you're still going to make a
[2:59:31] policy that it has to be reviewed?
Yes,
[2:59:35] » it's still if you make your own policy.
No matter what, you still have to review
[2:59:38] it.
>> We always have. Okay.
[2:59:41] » But if it's not a required policy, even
if we reviewed it, we would be reviewing
[2:59:45] it to say, do we want to change the
policy? There's no law that says we need
[2:59:49] to have it.
>> Okay.
[2:59:50] » There are laws that the stuff within our
policies are in law. The law itself does
[2:59:55] not say you must have a policy. That's
where SVMA is saying. I mean, I don't
[3:00:01] know if it's actually 70 policies, but
>> yeah,
[3:00:04] » 70 policies. The Virginia law says that
the the school division must make a
[3:00:09] policy about this law.
>> We still have to do stuff with all the
[3:00:13] other laws.
>> And if we have policies for it, it has
[3:00:16] to abide by the law. Even though the law
doesn't say you have to have a policy,
[3:00:20] » we can create, we can have the 70 and
then we can have 20 more if we wanted.
[3:00:24] We would just need to review them on a
regular schedule.
[3:00:26] » Well, we have policies now that we
>> That's what I'm saying. So that would
[3:00:30] not if we went to do that that would not
change. We could then decide we wanted
[3:00:34] to have a policy for
>> whatever.
[3:00:36] » We would just have to talk about it in
>> but if the law changed
[3:00:41] » and you had it as a regulation, you'd
have to go in.
[3:00:45] » Am I correct?
>> You'd have to go in and make a change to
[3:00:48] that regulation to like
>> like we do now. But you would have to go
[3:00:52] ahead and check like if we're making
this change to the regulation, this
[3:00:54] regulation
stay
[3:00:57] » but the staff writes those regulations.
>> Even if it was a policy, we you know,
[3:01:01] » their new government's model SBAS
redefineses those words so that they
[3:01:06] mean different things.
>> They they've changed throughout the
[3:01:10] emails. If you look through Melissa's
binder,
[3:01:13] they're building the ship while they're
in it. [laughter]
[3:01:16] » Yes. Um, they're changing the rules as
they go and they're also recommending
[3:01:22] just so you don't lose that in all this
stuff we're talking about. We're getting
[3:01:26] rid of policies and put them in other
places, but they want to change that
[3:01:31] regulations all go through the board and
be voted on. So, you're really not
[3:01:35] having less.
>> That's right.
[3:01:36] » They're just not having what?
>> You're not having less to go through the
[3:01:39] board.
>> Yeah.
[3:01:40] » It's going to be in a regulation where
currently we don't bring that to the
[3:01:43] board. It goes in Wednesday memo. If you
have an issue with it, you can tell us.
[3:01:48] » IGA will talk through its staff on on
regulations. Sometimes say, "Hey, we're
[3:01:52] gonna come back with it."
>> The regulations will now be approved by
[3:01:55] the board.
>> So, you're taking you're having
[3:01:59] information in action just like you
would with policies. That's what I'm
[3:02:02] saying,
>> but they're not giving you the language
[3:02:04] for it.
>> So, it's not a policy. It's a
[3:02:06] regulation, but the regulation now the
board needs to vote on.
[3:02:08] » It's still a policy, but it's called a
regulation.
[3:02:11] » All right. So, there's a lot of It's,
you know, I don't speak Chinese and
[3:02:15] Sounds like it's a different language. I
don't understand.
[3:02:18] » So,
>> exactly.
[3:02:19] » Okay.
>> So, that's the point.
[3:02:20] » I don't think we need to do anything on
on that right now. That was just
[3:02:24] discussion.
>> Do we want to go through right at it?
[3:02:27] You want to jump?
>> No, we'll go right down. We'll go right
[3:02:30] back to it.
>> I think we can skip the example.
[3:02:33] » Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. [laughter] All right. We
[3:02:35] skip. We did 3.02. We discussed And
listen, by the way, I I just want to be
[3:02:39] really really clear. We all
[clears throat] know how hard you work
[3:02:43] on this stuff and how much you really
care and you want to make sure that it's
[3:02:46] right. None of this debate was was
calling any of that into question. You
[3:02:51] do the work.
>> We came to talk because
[3:02:55] I I don't I'm not biased any situation.
Like I don't go look and see like, oh,
[3:03:00] the SBA leans my way or this leans this
way. I am black and white. What the law
[3:03:04] says is happening. And and anybody like
I'm a meek person by nature, but anybody
[3:03:10] this table will tell you. I will argue
with you. If you tell me something and
[3:03:14] that's not what I think it says, I will
keep on keeping on with you.
[3:03:18] » I know. [laughter]
>> ABSOLUTELY.
[3:03:21] » THAT'S very good.
>> We we appreciate you. I want to make
[3:03:25] sure that and nobody's [clears throat]
going to debate that. We definitely we
[3:03:28] appreciate you and all the hard work
that you do. They always try to keep us
[3:03:31] straight. And that's
>> one of the reasons I asked for this to
[3:03:34] go to a work session was because I
wanted them to be able to kind of repeat
[3:03:40] what she her frustration was. And so
when only four of you were able to come,
[3:03:48] I kind of felt like this was too big of
an important discussion to only have
[3:03:53] four of you present. So that's why I
cancelled the meeting. So yes, this may
[3:03:57] have taken longer, but I think all seven
of you have to have an input on this. I
[3:04:02] think that's I think that's fine.
>> And Dr. Cow said I could leave after
[3:04:05] this. So do you have any more questions?
[laughter]
[3:04:07] » You can. You're good. Thank you.
>> Is that a regulation OR
[3:04:12] » she goes we give her a LITTLE BIT OF
POWER [laughter]
[3:04:16] THE way she just told us it's the law.
[3:04:21] » We're going to go to someformational
items hopefully quickly.
[3:04:25] » 5.0 01 Dr. Woodford, school calendar for
2728.
[3:04:29] » So tonight I'm presenting a draft
calendar for the 2728 school year for
[3:04:34] your review. Um I created four calendar
drafts and shared them with staff. Um
[3:04:40] and then um asked the staff to vote on
which of the four drafts they like the
[3:04:47] most. I did make you a comparison
document because I think that's easier
[3:04:52] to look at than four different drafts.
There's not a lot of wiggle room within
[3:04:57] a school calendar. It's really like
start day, our ending day is always
[3:05:02] before Memorial Day for graduation. So,
you're really playing with work days,
[3:05:05] professional development days. Um, so I
sent the four drafts out, asked staff if
[3:05:11] they would vote um on their calendar of
choice. We had 335 staff members
[3:05:17] complete the survey. 50% of the staff
chose calendar draft 1. 11 and a half%
[3:05:24] chose draft two, 17.5% chose d um draft
three, and 21% chose draft number four.
[3:05:33] So therefore, I'm presenting just
calendar one draft for information
[3:05:37] tonight and approval in October. And
it's the actually the calendar that's
[3:05:42] most similar to the calendar we've
actually had for the last two years that
[3:05:46] um staff actually worked on a committee
to create with their input. So
[3:05:50] » did have a question about
I'm sorry
[3:05:52] » about the footnote.
>> Uh it said it was based on 180 days. I
[3:05:56] know in the this past school year we did
it off hours. So why that change?
[3:06:01] » So I was able just the way the dates
fall for Memorial Day and the beginning
[3:06:06] of the school year. I was able to give
work days and PD days the same number
[3:06:12] and do 180 instructional days, which for
me is really important if we can because
[3:06:17] I think the more days we have with kids,
the better. trying to balance that also
[3:06:23] with giving teachers time to have some
work time and also their own
[3:06:27] professional development. So this it's
just the way the dates fall within the
[3:06:31] 12-month calendar that gave me that
leniency. The law says 990 hours. Um but
[3:06:38] we all know even if you bank time or you
you go two hours late, things just
[3:06:43] aren't the same. So, I went for 180 days
because it's it's really kind of the
[3:06:49] common structure for schools across
Virginia, even though you have the
[3:06:54] luxury of just going 990 hours.
>> It's kind of long for me to understand
[3:06:58] your hours last year. Not going to
change it up again. [laughter]
[3:07:02] » Well, she's promised no ice and snow in
January. Oh, gotcha.
[3:07:05] » Yeah. So, it's 180 days actually. How
many hours is that?
[3:07:09] » Oh my. That that is a it's a lot. So
that's how we got
[3:07:13] » more than what we would need.
>> Yeah.
[3:07:16] » Because um [cough]
[clears throat]
[3:07:19] » you really need 990 is the minimum
amount of hours.
[3:07:24] » So
you want to always do more than that.
[3:07:27] And even though the calendar last year
was based on 990 hours, it was still we
[3:07:32] still surpassed that by a very adequate
amount. But it did last year give us an
[3:07:38] opportunity when we had all of those
snow days. we were able to make up with
[3:07:43] our bank time and so it gives us some
flexibility.
[3:07:46] » Let's say something happens like that
again this year. We we lose a lot or how
[3:07:51] many days we lost last year.
>> I think it was of us that we didn't have
[3:07:58] to do virtual days. I
>> right
[3:08:00] » I was a big big supporter of the way
y'all did that last year. Let's say mid
[3:08:06] year we run into that again. Could we
switch back to the hours?
[3:08:11] » Oh yes.
>> It's the minimum anyway, right?
[3:08:13] » It's the minimum. So at the at the end
of the year, what I have to report to
[3:08:17] the Department of Education is how many
actual hours students were in school at
[3:08:23] each school individually. So uh remember
the year with Big Island, we had the big
[3:08:28] wildfires and so they were out some days
that other elementary schools weren't.
[3:08:32] So their hours were different. As long
as we meet 990, we're fine. Any
[3:08:38] other questions on that?
>> All right.
[3:08:42] » Is this
just information?
[3:08:46] » So, I'm bringing you um 5.02 is regular
meetings for the school board in 2027
[3:08:53] starting on January 14th running through
December 9th. Those are all at this
[3:08:59] point in time scheduled 5:00 pm at the
school administration office. uh with a
[3:09:05] special call budget work session on
March 18th.
[3:09:10] Questions?
[3:09:15] » Any questions? Question.
>> Getting a copy of this sentence.
[3:09:20] » Want me to approve it? Yeah. But you can
just screenshot it. It's so funny
[3:09:24] looking at this. It's like when they you
go to like go to a doctor's appointment,
[3:09:28] they're like, "All right, you come back
in a year. Are you good morning or
[3:09:31] night?" Like, "I don't care what I got
going on."
[3:09:33] All right. Yeah, it sound looks good.
These are the You put these in first and
[3:09:37] you schedule around it.
>> 5003. That is Mr. Jaggler.
[3:09:43] » I was just verifying something. Um
>> March 18th for special call budget.
[3:09:50] » Didn't we move that up?
[3:09:54] Um I need to look at that. I thought
we'd move that up to February 18th.
[3:09:58] » February 18th. That is true.
>> Yes. Is that not what's on the calendar?
[3:10:06] » Well, he's getting he's getting ready to
give you an abbreviated.
[3:10:09] » Um the budget calendar, we might need to
make a change to that board counter
[3:10:12] meeting. Um so
>> the projection is um it is a bianual
[3:10:19] budget that's already approved by the
general assembly. So there's already a
[3:10:22] budget for the 27 28 year. Typically the
governor will make adjustments off of
[3:10:27] revenues and stuff. So I I'd expect some
adjustments to come in December
[3:10:31] sometime.
My goal would to build be to build off
[3:10:34] the governor's. The general assembly
could change that like they did this
[3:10:38] year, but we build off of that. And um
our goal would be to have a um a
[3:10:44] superintendent's proposed budget to the
board on February 11th, regular school
[3:10:49] board meeting. then come back the
following week on February 18th to
[3:10:53] review and approve that so we can
transmit that over to the county and get
[3:10:57] into the dialogue because they're going
to be going through a lot of different
[3:11:01] stuff and if the later we wait to get a
budget over there in our ask then it's
[3:11:06] like well they're not over here in time
to really be part of the conversation.
[3:11:10] Uh they have reassessment tax rates set
next year. So the earlier we can get
[3:11:13] them our need and request I think the
better. we're going to be dealing with
[3:11:17] going into last year reversion. So,
we'll have all those documents, be
[3:11:21] working through January to have
something to you guys on February 11th
[3:11:24] and February 18th. That's accelerated
than what we've done in the past, but if
[3:11:28] we wait till well into March, they're
well long in their budget process, and I
[3:11:32] think we're late to the game. It
[snorts] also allows for more dialogue
[3:11:35] for Mr. Deair and Robert His and also
for our committee members on the
[3:11:39] finance, dialogue with the board of
supervisors and all of you once you pass
[3:11:42] that budget to start dialoguing on that
gives you more time. So,
[3:11:47] » so we had that set for February 18th, I
believe. Is that right?
[3:11:50] » I am correcting it now on
[3:11:56] » this correct.
>> Our decision regarding closing schools
[3:12:00] and redistricting should be done before
you put together this budget. the
[3:12:06] calendar you guys were kind of looking
at. Now, that could slide depending on
[3:12:09] what happens and feedback, but a
December the December vote on that. That
[3:12:14] way over the break and stuff and I'll be
working on preparing all the budget
[3:12:17] documents, there'll be moving moving
moving figures on that what we have to
[3:12:22] » so I can come back with the savings and
then we can decide what to do with that
[3:12:25] and bring all that.
>> All right. Any questions?
[3:12:31] » Okay.
>> All right.
[3:12:33] » Additional action items 8.01. 1 dual
membership B SBA and SP1A.
[3:12:40] I think we discussed that.
[laughter]
[3:12:43] » I don't think we need anyone else to say
anything. So I guess I will do we have a
[3:12:49] motion to dual do membership in both
both organizations.
[3:12:57] » Mr. Chair, I'd like to make motion that
we rejoin BSBA as a division and that we
[3:13:06] make it optional for SBMA memberships
individually.
[3:13:10] I have a motion by Dr. Hubach. Do I have
a second?
[3:13:14] » Second.
I have it right. Give it to Miss Dobson.
[3:13:20] Uh any discussion?
Um all those in favor signify by saying
[3:13:24] I.
>> I. Any opposed?
[3:13:28] All right. Motion carries.
[3:13:34] Just a reminder, if that anything
changes um and we get additional
[3:13:39] information, anyone that voted in the
majority can bring it up for a revote.
[3:13:44] All right. 9.01. Close session.
[3:13:50] [clears throat]
Come on.
[3:13:53] Don't ask me.
>> [snorts]
[3:13:55] » I'm looking for papers first.
>> New rule. We each get both sets of
[3:14:01] papers. [laughter]
I don't even know where
[3:14:06] » on the back two sided. We're saving
paper. That's good.
[3:14:10] [laughter]
>> All right. Pursuant
[3:14:13] to code the Virginia 2.2-3711A1 2-3711A1
for the discussion consideration and
[3:14:20] interviews prospective candidates for
employment assignment appointment
[3:14:25] promotion performance to motion salaries
disciplining or resignation of specific
[3:14:29] employees of Sanford County Public
Schools and pursuant to code Virginia
[3:14:35] 2.2-3711A2 2-3711A2
for discussion or consideration of
[3:14:40] admission or disciplinary matters or
other matters that would involve the
[3:14:44] disclosure of information contained in a
scholastic record concerning any student
[3:14:48] of any public institution of higher
education in the commonwealth or the
[3:14:52] state school system being student
091026A.
[3:14:58] I move that we move into close session.
I have a motion by Dr. Hub. Do I have a
[3:15:03] second? Second by Mr. Hill. Any
discussion? All those in favor signify
[3:15:08] by saying I. I. Any oppose? We are in
close session.
[4:05:31] Bever County School Board has convened a
closed meeting on this date pursuant to
[4:05:35] an affirmative recorded vote in in
accordance with the provisions of the
[4:05:38] Virginia Freedom of Information Act and
where section 2.2-3712D 2-3712D of the
[4:05:43] code of Virginia requires a
certification by this school board that
[4:05:47] such closed meeting was conducted in
conformity with Virginia law. Now
[4:05:51] therefore be it result that the Befford
County School Board hereby certifies
[4:05:54] that to the best of each member's
knowledge only public business matters
[4:05:58] lawfully exempted from open meeting
requirements by Virginia law were
[4:06:01] discussed in the closed meeting to which
this certification applies and only such
[4:06:05] public business matters as were
identified in the motion convening the
[4:06:09] closed meeting were discussed or
considered.
[4:06:11] » Yes. Yes.
>> Yes.
[4:06:13] » Yes. Yes.
>> Yes. Yes.
[4:06:17] » Thank you very much. Um 9.03 No free
action on closed meeting items.
[4:06:25] Uh Mr. Chair, I move that we follow the
recommendation of the executive
[4:06:32] committee regarding student 091026A.
[4:06:38] All right, we have a motion by Dr. Cubac
to have a second.
[4:06:42] » Second. Second by Mr. KS. Any
discussion?
[4:06:46] All those in favor signify by saying I.
>> I. Any opposed.
[4:06:51] That is approved.
Consent agenda. Do I have a motion to
[4:06:57] approve uh the consent agenda?
[clears throat]
[4:07:01] » So moved. All right. Mr. Hill on the
motion. Do I have a second?
[4:07:07] » Second. Mr. Hold Brook. Any discussion?
All those in favor signify by saying I.
[4:07:12] I. Any opposed? Motion consent agenda is
approved. matters from the board. Miss
[4:07:17] Pervvis,
>> um I had a STEM academy meeting and
[4:07:22] everything this um was good.
Everything's moving forward. Um we'll be
[4:07:28] we were signing up for mock interviews.
So um that's coming up in in November.
[4:07:40] » All right, Miss Dobson.
>> Um next Wednesday we have a SEAK
[4:07:44] meeting. uh the special education
advisory committee and um they are still
[4:07:49] looking for a parent member for the
Stanton River zone. Um so if there's
[4:07:55] anybody interested um reach out
um and also a teacher representative as
[4:08:01] well. I think there are people
interested but but if a teacher is
[4:08:05] interested joining as well
>> and that teacher can be from any of the
[4:08:09] zones or
>> any zone. Okay.
[4:08:14] All right. Anything else?
Dr. Huba
[4:08:17] » Laurel board met uh welcomed the new
superintendent uh from Amherst there and
[4:08:24] a few other directors and we pay the
bills
[4:08:29] important to do.
>> Yep. Mr. Haggler's agreeing with that.
[4:08:35] » All right. Uh Mr. cars.
I had notes.
[4:08:41] There were a lot I'm too tired to go
over, but uh the only thing I'm I'm
[4:08:47] pretty excited to see the start of the
school year. Um I think we we have a
[4:08:53] long road ahead of us. We've got a
financial responsibility that's that's
[4:08:56] looming and think we're going to make
some headways here in the next few
[4:08:59] months. The only real thing that I'm
slightly concerned about and I have
[4:09:04] spoken with Dr. Woodford about it is uh
this new attendance uh regulation I'm
[4:09:10] I'm not super happy with and uh we had
discussed previously about adopting a
[4:09:16] regulation similar to uh bodats which
had 16 days for high school and um
[4:09:24] we've adopted one that has 10 days which
is 5% of the school year a little over
[4:09:30] five and a half percent um
I think that that's um very rigid coming
[4:09:37] from a policy of non-existence to a
policy of 5%. So, uh I would ask the
[4:09:46] chair to consider uh taking a harder
look at that regulation and how we got
[4:09:52] to it
[4:09:57] » and that policy that uh regulation came
from um [clears throat] staff and IGA or
[4:10:02] it was just
>> it's a regulation
[4:10:05] » based on the policy that we had to
>> um it was part of it well the attendance
[4:10:11] polic policy is totally different. We
met with principles multiple times. We
[4:10:16] talked through um when should you
consider retention for large numbers of
[4:10:22] absences. [clears throat] We were
dealing with chronic absenteeism,
[4:10:25] dealing a lot with high schoolers who
leave early, missing one class, but it
[4:10:31] doesn't get caught in the daily
attendance, things like that. So we work
[4:10:35] several months with principles to come
up with uh you know looking at other
[4:10:39] policies and talking about what's the
appropriate time. I think some of the
[4:10:44] miscommunication which I've reached out
to all the secondary principles to to
[4:10:49] say that we needed to talk about I think
the miscommunication is saying to
[4:10:53] parents that 10 no matter 10 days you're
going to fail my class. That's not what
[4:10:57] the regulation says. It says that you
could be you may
[4:11:03] not get the credit. You have to be
notified. The parent has to be notified
[4:11:09] if there's any danger that you would not
get credit. And there's also a waiver if
[4:11:13] there are special circumstances
>> that we would need to consider. So, that
[4:11:18] was all developed using other policies,
a multitude of other policies.
[4:11:23] » Um, but if you want staff to relook at
it with principles, we can.
[4:11:26] » I I think that um Mr. Kins brings up a
good point, but we just put this in
[4:11:30] place. Correct. Okay.
We have the ability once we've now put
[4:11:35] it into practice between principles and
staff and everyone to say hey you know
[4:11:39] what we didn't anticipate some of these
things these are coming up and we can we
[4:11:42] can then change correct
>> you have the ability to be flexible when
[4:11:46] it comes to [snorts] that. So maybe um
it would we maybe should we would you
[4:11:51] like to we just started maybe we get
some
[4:11:53] » a little massaging is all I think
ultimately what we've done as well I
[4:11:58] think some of the verbiage especially
based off the letter that we saw some of
[4:12:02] the some of the language in that needs a
little bit softening.
[4:12:06] » Okay.
>> I think it's probably better
[4:12:09] communication with the teachers. You
know I think we were communicating with
[4:12:12] the principles. I'm not sure how that
was relayed. You guys meet with the
[4:12:15] principles every
>> every month
[4:12:17] » every month and then [clears throat] so
maybe we could put something out maybe
[4:12:20] some guidelines or some examples
>> and maybe that would be something that
[4:12:24] we could do.
>> I I know in meeting with the principles
[4:12:27] there was never the intention to try to
fail. Nobody wants kids to fail. They
[4:12:32] don't want to deny credits. I think what
they were trying to do was give we were
[4:12:36] trying to give them the support to say
to parents
[4:12:41] you this is a possibility. So you need
to be aware of that when you're letting
[4:12:45] your kids just
>> not come to school. And I know you met
[4:12:49] with the principles and that I was
working more with elementary but I feel
[4:12:52] like that's what
>> I don't think they want to retain a
[4:12:55] bunch of kids and do three credits and
all of that for sure. But um we can talk
[4:13:00] to them about communicating and we can
put out something to teachers about
[4:13:03] better communication to families. We can
also put something out to families about
[4:13:09] like [clears throat] clarifying some of
that so there's not that misconception.
[4:13:13] So I'm happy to do that and then we can
see how it goes and if we need to change
[4:13:16] the rag we will.
>> Okay. Sounds good. Sounds great.
[4:13:20] » Thank you. Anything else? Uh we haven't
had any facility meetings. I think the
[4:13:25] national's October 20th 22nd something
like that.
[4:13:28] um
no updates. I think everything's done
[4:13:33] except for [cough]
the HVAC
[4:13:38] um on both projects.
That's it. But I did have a question in
[4:13:44] regards to what Mr. K said.
Can attendance be the sole reason for
[4:13:48] failure? Like even if they say they have
great grades, someone missed more than
[4:13:55] » it depends on like you're required to
have so many seat hours to get credit
[4:13:58] for [clears throat] courses.
Um
[4:14:02] I think what you would have more of a
problem with if you just have unlimited
[4:14:06] absences, you're going to end up in
truency. Like that's
[4:14:10] » a reason to ask because that's
I remember
[4:14:15] very well. I was charged with truency.
It was the very first year they had ever
[4:14:20] had and the news was at the courthouse
with all the schools there
[4:14:24] » and they were gonna fail me. I'd missed
78 days of English class.
[4:14:29] » Well, there you go. [laughter]
>> Well, that's not
[4:14:33] » I can PUT THAT IN REGULATION. [laughter]
>> 7 was the limit.
[4:14:38] » But that's a great example. But I had
missed over the 10 days or whatever it
[4:14:42] was back then, the eight days in some
other classes, but I had passing grades,
[4:14:46] like really good grades.
>> And and I remember finding in the
[4:14:51] school's policy, it might have been the
handbook, I don't remember what it was,
[4:14:54] that a student's attendance shall not be
the sole reason for failure, what they
[4:14:58] were trying to fail me, of course,
>> and and reason I asked, I didn't know if
[4:15:02] that was still in effect. state law has
gotten very very specific about what we
[4:15:08] as administrators have to do with
truency and students who are not
[4:15:12] attending school.
>> Um and I think again with high school
[4:15:16] courses, a child can attend school part
of the day and then leave one class and
[4:15:22] miss 78 class periods, [laughter]
>> but then attend the mornings because
[4:15:27] maybe they like those classes better.
>> That's what I come to.
[4:15:31] » Yeah. So you might not get caught in
truency because you're attending
[4:15:35] majority of the day but not that one
class. So I think again it just gives
[4:15:40] » I think our teachers are are very
flexible about makeup work and trying to
[4:15:43] work with kids and
>> these are this regulation is for the the
[4:15:48] the group of kids who are just not
coming to school and their parents
[4:15:52] aren't supporting us. And part of that
having to reach out to parents is to
[4:15:57] also have that lever to parents to say
your child can't miss 78 days and still
[4:16:03] pass this class even if they're getting
everything right. I mean, I just think
[4:16:07] it's, you know, schools are held
accountable for chronic absenteeism. We
[4:16:12] are held accountable with the with the
law for truency. Y
[4:16:16] » um and so I think it is a a
communication to parents that we need
[4:16:21] your help. And I'll just add above all
of that, we say that our mission is to
[4:16:26] build citizens. And so we see this most
in the grade levels where our students
[4:16:30] can drive and they're missing 78 days of
English 12 or government. And so we're
[4:16:35] trying to reinforce the point. You don't
get to miss 78 days of work and get a
[4:16:38] paycheck. This is your job. You have to
show up to an attorney.
[4:16:41] » Yeah.
>> And we hear
[4:16:44] five days work, too. [laughter]
I mean, now we hear a lot from
[4:16:51] when you're self-employed. [laughter]
>> I mean, we hear a lot from our community
[4:16:55] about how kids don't have the same work
ethic. We need to be So, part of that is
[4:17:00] us trying to build like this is your job
right now.
[4:17:03] » And I'm going to add there there's a
multi-step as Dr. Wicker mentioned
[4:17:07] process of warning the parent,
notifying, walk through a waiver,
[4:17:11] building an action plan. Like,
>> we don't want to do this. This is
[4:17:14] paperwork and extra work for everybody.
if it happens. It's for a kid who
[4:17:18] » really
>> we've bent over numerous different ways
[4:17:20] to try to make sure this kid's
>> got a fair shot in them.
[4:17:24] » And I do agree what the what Mr. Kins
was hearing and has been hearing is
[4:17:29] teachers saying no matter what you miss
10, I'm failing you. That's not at all.
[4:17:33] First of all, it's not our regulation
and it's not what we communicated.
[4:17:36] [snorts] So, we need to clean that up.
Make sure that kids don't think that and
[4:17:41] parents don't think that. Okay,
>> that would be good cuz I just got a text
[4:17:44] from a certain wife that said that ain't
the way we heard it. And I Yeah.
[4:17:49] » Yeah.
>> Well, I couldn't be at every class
[4:17:53] making sure they were doing it right,
but I will make sure they get it right.
[4:17:57] » Our AI, we could clone you here.
[laughter]
[4:18:04] » That's all right.
>> Um, no, I I um very excited for the town
[4:18:09] halls coming up. Uh, I just want to
thank the rest of the board members. You
[4:18:12] know, we got 100% participation in those
thing the scenes for getting it all put
[4:18:16] together. I think now the, you know,
getting to hear as much feedback as we
[4:18:21] can. I'm excited for how that's going to
uh help shape this map, the interactive
[4:18:27] tools. I was uh I was very nervous when
we hired this consultant. Y'all know me,
[4:18:32] I don't like to spend money. Uh, but I I
would I've thus far been very impressed
[4:18:37] with the product he's produced. So
hopefully we can keep on working this.
[4:18:42] You know, 13 years in the making.
Hopefully we can go ahead and uh make
[4:18:46] some headway there.
>> That's all I got.
[4:18:50] » Well, I think that you were you've
proved your point. You're able to pass
[4:18:53] because you read that policy and
regulation. Well, he can he can read. He
[4:18:57] can do English. We'll pass it.
[laughter]
[4:19:00] Um I had some stuff, but I think that
honestly a lot of it I could just talk
[4:19:05] individually about. nothing really
dialed in that I could present or or ask
[4:19:09] here, but I want to thank um I want to
thank uh all that hard work that went
[4:19:14] into that presentation tonight. We have
a lot to chew on and a lot to lot to
[4:19:18] really think about. Um this board again,
since we've all been here, we have not
[4:19:22] shied away from making decisions, not
necessarily decisions we want to make,
[4:19:26] but ones that we we need to. Again, for
the longstanding success of Bedford
[4:19:31] County Public Schools, that's our job.
That's what we were elected uh to do.
[4:19:35] So, uh, it was a lot. This was a long
meeting tonight. There was a lot of
[4:19:39] information that we had to go through. I
thank all the board members for asking
[4:19:43] good questions, uh, debating and, uh,
yeah, and I thought that your review of
[4:19:50] of policy discussion, I think you did a
very very great job on that. I think you
[4:19:56] really dialed in. I think made people
understand what we were talking about.
[4:20:00] So, I want to thank you uh, for that.
But, thanks to everyone for here uh, for
[4:20:04] being here. schools, schools, we're in
the thick of it now. I know kids are
[4:20:07] probably looking forward to
Thanksgiving, but you got stick with it.
[4:20:10] Show up all day and um and uh keep
getting after it. So, with that, that's
[4:20:16] all I really have. So, uh do a motion to
adjurnn.
[4:20:20] » So, moved.
>> Mr. Hullbrook, do I have a second?
[4:20:22] Second,
>> Mr. Barnes. Any discussion? Nope. All
[4:20:25] those in favor signify by saying I. I.
Any opposed? We're journ.