Coraggio Consulting
Hanover County School Board Meeting, Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Place: Hanover County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 3m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://hanovercova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1514/media

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-23. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:07] Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to enter closed session in accordance with Code of Virginia, Section 2.2-3711A1, personnel review recommendations of the superintendent for resignations, appointments, transfers, assignments, promotions, terminations, salary adjustments, and leaves of absence for teachers and other employees.

[00:00:27] Section 2.2-3711A2, consideration of request for religious exemption from compulsory school Attendance, thank you. Mr. Coleman. I have a motion on the table. Do you have a second second? Thank you. Dr. Shrove Is there any?

[00:00:45] Discussion okay seeing none all those in favor say aye

[00:00:49] All those opposed the motion passes it is 5:33 and we are now in closed session welcome to our

[01:27:56] May 12th school board meeting. It's so lovely to see everybody's smiling faces In a full packed room We it is seven o'clock now and we are gonna come in from closed session And so do I have a motion for open session?

[01:28:16] Madam chair, I move to return to open session. Thank you. Mr. Seifert. I have a motion to have a second second Thank you. Dr. Shroff. Is there any discussion? Seeing none all those in favor say I I all those opposed Okay, we are now in open session and I'm looking for a motion for the certification of closed meeting uh mr coleman yes thank you madam chair i move the board will certify the following whereas the hanover county school board has convened closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmation recorded voted and in accordance with the provisions of virginia freedom of

[01:28:52] information act and whereas section 2.2-3712d of the code of virginia requires a certification by the school board that such executive meeting was conducted in conformity with virginia law now therefore be it resolved that the hanover county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from opening meeting excuse me from open meeting requirements by virginia law were discussed in the executive meeting to which the certification applies and only such public business matters as were identified

[01:29:26] in the motion convening the executive meeting were heard discussed or considered thank you you mr. Coleman for your motion do I have a second thank you dr. strove I have a motion in a second is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed okay the motion passes now we are gonna have an invocation by dr. strove and then our pleasure of allegiance by a by Nathan Salata a Patrick Henry high school student and where is Nathan okay great so

[01:30:03] we'll just have you come up when um dr strofe is finished okay and please stand if you may let us pray heavenly father as this school year comes to an end we pause with grateful hearts for every lesson learned every challenge overcome and every moment of growth experienced by our students teachers staff and families we thank you for the dedication of educators who poured their hearts into teaching encouraging and guiding others each day bless them with rest renewal and the reminder and the reminder that their work has made a lasting difference.

[01:30:41] We pray for students as they finish exams, celebrate achievements, and reflect on the year behind them. Give them confidence in what they have accomplished and hope for what lies ahead. For those who struggled, bring encouragement and peace. For those moving on to new schools, new grades, or new journeys, grant courage and wisdom.

[01:31:00] Lord, protect our children, teachers, and families during the summer months. Fill their days with joy, safety, laughter, and meaningful time together. Help us all continue to grow in kindness, character, and compassion, even outside the classroom. May we never take for granted the gift of education, the strength of community, and the opportunity to shape the next generation.

[01:31:20] We ask these things with thankful hearts. Amen. United States of America, to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[01:31:47] Thank you, Nathan. We appreciate your support and service to us. Okay, so now I'm looking for an approval of the minutes. Madam Chair, I move to approve minutes for the recently held meetings. Thank you, Mr. Martin, for your motion. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Strove. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, the motion passes.

[01:32:20] We are going to have a five minute recess After the board makes their announcements So those of you that need to get home or or go to an extracurricular activity that that will be your chance So before we get started in recognition announcements, I see that we have lots of principals here So if you could stand up or put your hand up so we can recognize you that would be great

[01:32:49] Thank you all for joining us. You must be waiting for some kind of announcement, but anyway, thank you all for joining us. Okay, so teacher appreciation was last week, so I have a little statement to read y'all. So on behalf of the school board, I am proud to recognize the extraordinary work of our teachers who were rightfully celebrated last week for teacher appreciation week. Teachers, your commitment to your students and your belief in their potential

[01:33:25] will help shape a strong and vibrant future for all of Hanover County. Every day, you bring expertise, passion, and heart to your classrooms. We deeply appreciate all that you do to make our schools places of opportunity, learning, and growth. We hope you had a wonderful teacher appreciation week, and we wish you a great end to the school year and a lot of celebrations.

[01:33:52] So thank you. Okay, Mr. Whitley, it's your show. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. members of the school board, Dr. Penny Cuff. As you make your way down here, it is always a privilege to bring forth the great news and accomplishments of our students and staff. And as you can see behind me, as you've already noted, we have many, and that is a good thing. I'll give you just a

[01:34:21] moment. Okay. Our first recognitions of the night go to two highly skilled students who competed in the State Family and Consumer Sciences Leadership Conference and won first place in their respective competitions. First up from Chickahominy Middle School, Caroline Hunt in the Fashion Construction

[01:34:45] level competition won her teacher advisor was amanda lawrenson they won't bite you and finally

[01:35:23] from the hanover center for trades and technology lucy stevens in the culinary arts level three

[01:35:28] competition teacher advisor chef brian hubler congratulations our next recognitions i'd like

[01:36:18] to invite to the podium dr bob staley our director of secondary education madam chair school board members dr penny cuff and senior staff good evening and thank you for the opportunity to To recognize these outstanding students who are these students, they're Dr. Penny Cuff's Secondary Student Advisory Panel.

[01:36:42] We have one student from every grade at every middle school, every high school, also from the Hanover Center in Trades and Technology. What do they do? They advise Dr. Penny Cuff, they advise senior staff, and they also do important work at the school.

[01:36:58] We also have the TAC reps here today. When you bring together the student reps, the TAC reps, and the principal, wonderful things happen. A few examples that our kids are talking about. This will sound familiar to you guys. More opportunities for movement. They're looking at outdoor multi-use learning centers and opportunities. They're looking at for strengthening the transitions from middle to high school. They're also looking at mental wellness, all kinds of other things. And we're excited to see what you guys do with that and how we can support you. Now, we have some logistics.

[01:37:33] I'm turning around because parents need your help. We're going to wait till the end to make some noise for our kids. So we're going to start with middle school. We're going to call your name, TAC reps and principals, please come up, shake hands, stay up front. And when we have called all middle school students, we're going to take a picture. Okay. Let's, yes. So TAC is the teacher advisory council. So they're the teacher reps for each school. And a couple of years ago, we had the idea of bringing together our students because they represent students and bringing

[01:38:07] together our teachers, they represent teachers. And simply put, when kids talk, we listen. So let's start with Bell Creek Middle School, Andrew Davis, Taylor Friedel, Max Thrift, Sierra Collier, TAC rep, Chickahominy Middle School, Emma Hinshaw, Gavin Yance, Drew Patterson, and TAC rep,

[01:38:35] Alexis Tompkins, Liberty Middle School, Bahavia Doshi, Monroe Rollins, Ophelia Banus, and TAC rep, Kristen Hoban.

[01:38:52] You guys are doing great. And Okno Middle School, Corey Adams, Michael Fawowe, Caleb Blunt, and TAC rep, Anthony Skro. Principals, please join us.

[01:39:10] All right, parents, make some noise. And students, your certificates will be available outside.

[01:39:39] Parents, I'm going to get out of the way in case you want to take some pictures as well.

[01:40:18] Perfect. Miss Lysacky, there we go. All right, here we go. All right, big smiles right over here. Awesome. Congratulations, you guys. One more round of applause for our middle school students.

[01:40:52] For high school, we will start with Patrick Henry High School, Alana Sargent, Nate Salada, Allison Cruz Castillo, Kenneth Fallow III, and TAC rep, Erica Marchenko.

[01:41:20] Canicsville High School, Clarissa Shumet, Camilla Williams, Elsa Mae Zimmerman, Angel Boland, and TAC rep, Dak XL.

[01:41:47] Hanover High School, Ann Lysette, Jesse Dandridge, Marva Webster, Ann Stewart Mallory, Adam Basray, and TAC rep, Jeff Fogg. And the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology, Karis Ober, Christian Smalls, and Michael Geese, the TAC rep.

[01:42:18] Atlee High School, Melina Dupuis, Scott Tompkins, Darius Barfield, Caden Wright, Tegan Gihuly, and TAC rep, Eileen Holden.

[01:42:38] All right, parents, now we can make some noise.

[01:43:26] I can't quite see you. All right, perfect. Miles, right over here.

[01:44:10] Thank you again to our students, to our TAC reps, and to our principals. And thank you for the opportunity to recognize these amazing young people.

[01:44:31] Thank you, Dr. Staley. Our next recognition of the night goes to an outstanding student athlete who is a senior at Mechanicsville High School and who was selected to be a member of the Sportsbackers Active Living Leadership All-Stars.

[01:44:50] This program provides education, hands-on experiences, and mentorship to explore educational opportunities for active communities, existing inequities, and how to best impact the community. Congratulations goes to Keri's Khan.

[01:45:22] Thanks, Miles.

[01:45:52] Congratulations. Great job. Our next recognitions go to a group of talented students and music educators who are in the top state honors in the performing arts.

[01:46:09] First in all-state course, Hayden Garcia, Mechanicsville High School, Alexander Hansen, Atlee High School, James Lawson, Hanover High School. Travis Steele, Mechanicsville High School and Senior Honor Choir and High School Choir, or Chorus.

[01:46:29] And Matthew Worley, Hanover High School. Congratulations.

[01:47:17] Next, an all-state concert band. Madison Brooks, Atlee High School.

[01:48:20] There you go. Perfect. Congratulations. Next up, an all-state jazz band.

[01:48:36] Daniel Morales from Atlee High School. Stay down here, Dr. Wheeler.

[01:48:39] Next up, honoring our outstanding music educators and the Virginia Program's honor, Vincent Guzman, Hanover High School Band Director, Don Leonard, Mechanicsville High School Band Director, Grayson Parker, Hanover High School Chorus Director, Paul Rosecki, Attlee High School Band Director, and Lucretia White, Hanover High School Orchestra Director.

[01:49:41] Principals, this is your cue.

[01:50:17] Go, big smile.

[01:50:46] Congratulations. And speaking of the performing arts, for the 14th year in a row, the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation has named Hanover County Public Schools as a best community for music education.

[01:51:11] We are one of only 28 school divisions in Virginia to achieve this coveted status out of 131 school divisions. This designation is awarded to divisions in schools that demonstrate an exceptionally high commitment to offering comprehensive music education to all students.

[01:51:28] It also serves to recognize the outstanding efforts of teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community leaders who have made music education part of the curriculum. Congratulations to all of our talented music educators and their leader, Dr. Keith Matthews, Curriculum Specialist for the Performing Arts, on this well-deserved accomplishment.

[01:51:47] Will Dr. Matthews and all music educators present please come forward to be recognized at this time?

[01:51:53] Here we go, big smiles.

[01:53:10] Congratulations, y'all. Y'all, great guy. Wonderful. Our next recognitions go to are schools that earned the 2026 Active RVA Certification and Award.

[01:53:32] This program honors outstanding schools and employers in the Richmond area that are creating innovative initiatives to encourage physical activity. Congratulations goes to the following schools. Battlefield Park Elementary, Beaver Dam Elementary, and if you're here, please come forward.

[01:53:53] Bell Creek Middle, Chickahominy Middle, Cold Harbor Elementary, Cool Spring Elementary, Hanover High, Kersey Creek Elementary, Laurel Meadow Elementary, Liberty Middle, Mechanicsville High, Oak Knoll Middle, Patrick Henry High, Pearson's Corner Elementary, Holgreen Elementary, Rural Point Elementary, South Anna Elementary, and Washington Henry Elementary.

[01:54:28] Congratulations.

[01:55:42] I had trouble following some direction.

[01:56:58] Aw, just kidding. All right, our next recognition goes to a creative ninth grade student at Atlee High school who was named as the state winner in the high school category of the Virginia Lottery's ninth annual Thank a Teacher Art Contest. Across Virginia, one elementary school student, one middle school student, and one high school student each had their artwork selected from among 500 entries that were featured on thank you notes distributed to thousands of teachers across Virginia during Teacher Appreciation Week. Congratulations goes to Smirah Raj,

[01:57:33] chatley high school your big smile dr shelf i just need you a little there we go all right

[01:58:07] congratulations our next recognition of the evening goes to a highly skilled dedicated and caring school nurse from ashland elementary school who competed completed excuse me the rigorous requirements for becoming a national board certified school nurse the credentialing process meets or exceeds industry standards for certification and reflects the knowledge expected of a highly proficient school nurse.

[01:58:41] This is a voluntary process and represents their dedication to their profession as well as providing the best possible health care services to our students and their staff. Congratulations goes to Nurse Jana Howell.

[01:59:02] Big smiles. Congratulations.

[01:59:46] Her next recognition is not the typical one, and quite honestly, we hope not to have to do this ever again, but it is certainly worth honoring this special member of the HCPS family.

[02:00:06] On Monday, March 2nd, Ashland Elementary School's head custodian, Michelle Green, sprang into action to save a student's life. A student was choking during lunch, and Ms. Green performed the Heimlich Maneuver, dislodging the food. In a moment that required courage and decisive action, Ms. Green stepped forward and made a life-saving difference.

[02:00:28] We are deeply grateful for Ms. Green's heroism and proud to recognize her as an outstanding member of our school community.

[02:02:02] Wonderful. Thank you again, Ms. Green. You're amazing.

[02:02:22] inspiring, innovative, kind, passionate, positive, talented, caring, committed, and enthusiastic are just a few words that have been used to describe the final group of individuals who will be recognized this evening. We will call up each person individually to be recognized for a photo before taking a group picture with all of our wonderful recipients. First up is their teacher of the year, a skilled and talented fifth grade teacher from Battlefield Park

[02:02:54] Elementary School, Amber DePass.

[02:03:41] All right, congratulations. Next up is our Support Employee of the Year, an Outstanding Library Assistant at Chickahominy Middle School and Atlee High School, Jessica Robertson.

[02:04:15] Smiles.

[02:04:52] Last but not least, our Beginning Teacher of the Year, a dedicated Spanish teacher from Liberty Middle School, Carina Destefano.

[02:05:24] Congratulations, Carina.

[02:05:50] Smiles, everybody.

[02:06:32] Congratulations, y'all. Great job. Madam Chair, that concludes my portion of the recognitions for this evening. Thank you.

[02:06:46] I have to say it's so wonderful to have so many people, special people to celebrate in our county.

[02:07:29] We are very blessed and very fortunate. So thank you all for everything that you do for our county and our schools and our students and families. Thank you.

[02:07:44] So I'm going to make y'all sit here for just a little bit longer because we're going to actually do our board announcements, board member announcements. And then we're going to do the consent agenda. And then I have a small announcement. And then I'm going to do the recess, okay? Sorry. Sorry. Okay, Ford, do we have any announcements? Ms. Lynn. I have two. The first one is, in April, Atlee High School students visited Ashland Elementary School to bring books to fourth grade students to choose from and take home. Students also had the opportunity to decorate their own book tote, as well as read and share stories with their new friends from Atlee. And I

[02:08:22] had the opportunity to go to Liberty to watch the LMS Players perform High School Musical, where I was transported to the halls of East High School. I would like to say ashante sharpay. Following the students from their flashy auditions to the basketball team's victory was an entertaining ride.

[02:08:41] To the cast and crew, I'm glad you messed with the flow and did not stick to the status quo. You put on an engaging, high-energy performance. Congratulations and good job. Thank you, Ms. Lynn.

[02:08:59] Do I have any other board announcements? Okay, Dr. Schropp. Yes, Madam Chair. On April 18th, we had the opportunity to go to the 49th Festival of Arts and Sciences at the Mechanicsville High School. The annual celebration featured more than 1,300 pieces of art, many musical and theater performances, and various showcase exhibits.

[02:09:20] The event included performances by the winners of the Hanover County 250 American Legion Patrick Henry Oratory Contest, And this year's festival also had a chess tournament at Bell Creek Middle School, and the art was unbelievable if you had a chance to go.

[02:09:40] I saw a couple of you over there, so congratulations to all of you. Thank you, Dr. Shrove. Mr. Martin? Yes, ma'am. First, to my colleagues, I'm sorry, after the extended absence, I missed March meeting due to an illness and a work conflict in April, and Mr. Beckett was kind enough to say, nice of you to show up tonight.

[02:10:04] thank you for that reminder and noticing that um a couple announcements i had the the pleasure of attending the annual big feet meet on april 23rd at atlee high school where more than 700 students from across the county showed their best skills on the track and field while having a blast it was a beautiful day for sportsmanship fun and friends some schools even hosted send-off parades for the athletes giving them the opportunity to soak up some additional positivity before the amazing event. I'd heard a lot about it first time I got to go. My son was fortunate enough to go as a first-grade helper from his school. Amazing, amazing event. One of the coolest things about it

[02:10:42] is that it's very much student-led and student-run. So a shout-out to the group at Atlee, Tegan Gajuli, Stacey, Edelblutt, Piper Carter, Mia Parise, and Emily Jonakin. Those were a big crew that ran that. Dr. Wheeler's nodding his head like he knows the effort that went in for them. So just wanted to give them a shout out and then my second announcement is um last month we recognized Zayden Adkins of bell creek middle school as a recipient of the virginia pta reflections award for outstanding interpretation zayden qualified for nationals for his work in photography

[02:11:17] we are proud to share that zayden finished in third place in nationals he might be here is he here he's already standing up great job congratulations thank you thank you mr. martin okay Mr. Coleman yes thank you madam chair I've got a couple I had the opportunity to visit Patrick Kearney high school on April 29th when delegate Buddy Fowler presented Patrick Kearney high school with a resolution approved by the general assembly honoring the school as one of the best in Virginia for students and families connected to our country's military Patrick Kearney was selected

[02:11:56] as a recipient of the 2526 purple star designation award which it has also received in 2019 and 2022 to. Well done, Mr. Martinez. Thank you. And lastly, the other evening, we had the opportunity to celebrate and honor all of our 2026 high school graduates that are going into the armed forces. Following a special dinner, students are recognized for their noble decision by their families, school board members, board of supervisors members, and other distinguished guests.

[02:12:36] It's the second time I've been to this event, and having grown up in the military and spent time in the military myself. It took me back to when I raised my right hand and decided to join in service to defend this country. And it was extremely humbling to be in the room with these young men and young women who have decided to service before self. So it was an awesome evening. And I just, are any of the graduating seniors here this evening that are going into

[02:13:05] the military? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Coleman. And I have to add, we had one person stand up for the space force which was really exciting i was so excited to see that i've been waiting for that so that was really fun okay mr seifert yes ma'am thank you i've got a couple second grade students at pearson's corner elementary school had an extremely special opportunity in april to connect with residents at the hermitage richmond assisted senior living community students became pen pals with the residents this school year and on that special

[02:13:43] day. They got to meet them in person. So I just think this is such a neat event, and to give the kids some more perspective. They sang songs, read books, did crafts, and enjoyed one another's in-person company. Mechanicsville Elementary fourth graders also did a similar trip to Covenant Woods to meet with their pen pals there. And we love the meaningful connection that is being fostered between students and our seniors in the community.

[02:14:10] So it's just such a good program, and I hope we do more of it. So thank you for that. I'd also like to say as the Hanover 250 representative from the school system, I wanted to let everybody know, and there's a big sign out front, about the History and Hops Festival that's this Saturday at the old courthouse from 2 to 6, and there's going to be numerous Hanover County students participating.

[02:14:33] Seven of our Patrick Henry Liberty or Death Speech winners will be giving their speeches at 2.15 and 3.15 and also the Hanover County actors which come from many high schools will be putting on the Parsons Cause trial at 2.30 and 3.30 and if you haven't seen that you should definitely go see that so and it'll just be a very educational event for everybody with a lot of other things going on there and then I wanted to thank the administration for the chess tournament second year in a row it's grown over 100 kids doing it this year so thanks to all the principals for promoting chess in your schools.

[02:15:10] I'll specifically mention Jen Stackpole, Jen Greif, and Jeremy Smith, the teacher who ran it. It was really neat, and a lot of appreciative students and parents, us putting that on. And I'd like to announce the winners for the elementary school.

[02:15:27] It was World Point, so Ms. Andrew Linus, great chess program there. There you are. And middle school was Oak Knoll, so Mr. Patterson. And Dr. Wheeler's Atlee team won that for the high school. So congrats to all of them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seifert So that concludes our board announcements, I believe. Yes And we are gonna go into our consent agenda. So I'm looking for a motion for our consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Dr. Schelp. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you

[02:16:06] dr strove is there any discussion okay seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed okay the motion passes um so before we move on and take our five minute recess um i have a couple things to say so the first is um miss jennifer greif has given us three decades of service in various fashions to hanover county public schools and we are so appreciative and whoever fills your

[02:16:39] shoes, I'm not going to spill the beans yet, has big shoes to fill. And thank you so much. And we're going to do something special for you. But I just wanted to tell you how thankful we are for all of your service and everything you've done. And we know you're going to have green and growing future

[02:16:55] ahead of you. So thank you. So moving on, which I think a lot of the principals, this is the second thing that they're here for. So I'll take a drum roll, please. So I'd like to say congratulations to Dr. Bob Staley.

[02:17:35] Dr. Staley is our new Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, and we also have another exciting announcement, too.

[02:18:09] We have a Deputy Clerk of the Board and Executive Assistant to Instruction, and we're very proud to announce Ms. Muntean. So thank you so much. Y'all both bring so much to Hanover County Public Schools, and we're so thrilled of your promotion and your your new position so thank y'all so much we're

[02:18:44] very excited to have y'all on board and all that y'all give so thank you very much okay so moving

[02:18:52] oh five minute recess so we're now going to take our five minute recess so thank you okay welcome

[02:27:24] back um we are moving on to our instructional highlight and i think we have four fabulous counselors that are going to come up and talk to us about college admissions, the new college admissions landscape. And so welcome and come on up. I know y'all are probably ready to get the show on the road. All right. So good evening, members of the board, Dr. Pennycuff, assistant superintendents. We are really excited tonight to get to talk to you about what is going on right

[02:28:04] now in our world in college admissions. So as all good educators, we have our learning intentions tonight. We're going to examine the national trends in college admissions, understand the factors that influence college admissions decisions, understand how standardized testing requirements have evolved since before the pandemic, and compare HCPS college admission trends to national ones. Here is our fabulous team. My name is Allison Bolander. I am the Career Counselor at Mechanicsville High School. We have Jen Crowder, who is the Career Counselor at Patrick Henry High School, Amy Coolyard, who is our Career Counselor at Atlee High School,

[02:28:44] and Jennifer Melton, our Hanover High School Career Counselor. So thank you for having us tonight. This is how we're going to kind of start the evening. If you look, in front of you are the three-year post-secondary trends. So this is what our students are doing at each of the school.

[02:29:01] I love looking at this kind of data to just really kind of see where our students are deciding to spend their futures as career counselors that's something that we really invest our time and energy into so we know where to put resources and who we need to get to sit in front of our students you'll notice some different changes and some things you'll notice that different high schools have different four-year two-year military and employment routes our other is apprenticeship internships and the beloved gap year so students who aren't quite 100% sure what they're doing so that's what the other means so

[02:29:38] you can see different trends with four years and two years a lot of different things related to whether or not somebody is going to go to two to four year path maybe taking the rentals community college pathway or a bright point pathway and you can see some consistencies in that four-year pathway and some of our high schools have some fluctuation so to me it's just a really good way for you to just get a feel of where we are within our county so I'm going to turn this over to Amy Coolyard hi so we as it's really fun the four of

[02:30:14] us are very into learning and bettering ourselves in this career and so we work really hard to stay up to date with the trends and what's going on and so one of of the things that we do is we host college visits in our schools and so we have lots of universities that come to all of our institutions and then we also take the opportunity to go and get on campus as often as we can for counselor career days and counselor visits we also are part of national and regional conferences we present as well as go as you know participants to learn and that's always something that we you know we get to leave and come back with something new to share with the people that we work with as well as our students.

[02:30:53] One of us is a member of the admissions counselor advisory board and so that person gets to go and represent you know the counselor side of it so our side of the desk with the admissions folks at a university and so that's really fun and they get to come back and share all of that with us and then we attend state of the admissions webinars and those are usually free something that we can do from our desks during lunch or things like that and we get a lot of great information from those so we also love to find new ways to share the information that we have learned with our families and with our students and so we have

[02:31:31] high school family nights and how you spell family depends on where you work we also host a VACRO College Fair VACRO just stands for the Virginia Association of Collegiate Registrar and Admissions Officers but essentially it's a college fair that we host at Atlee High School every year there's between 70 and 80 colleges that come. It's open to all students in the county and we usually have really good attendance for that. We find that juniors and seniors are the ones that are most you know in attendance but everyone is welcome to come. Each of our schools hosts family nights and workshops for our families. We

[02:32:07] also have a college boot camp as well as a college jumpstart and those are things that we do countywide and that we share with all of our families again geared a little more towards juniors and seniors but is available to all of our families we meet individually with our families as well as students individually and then we are part of our counseling department meetings we share our knowledge when we go off to these conferences and when we work with our admissions representatives at colleges we get to learn and then we go back and share with our counseling departments our colleagues so that they know what's going on as well so what we would like for you guys to do is if you would you

[02:32:46] don't have to really jot but if you'd like to jot down the top five things that you think of when you think of college admissions. A couple seconds to do that. Yes and you don't have to share your results with anyone that's right so okay so NACAC is the National Association for College Admissions Counselors and they every few years do a survey of their members and ask what

[02:33:23] are the factors that are most important in admissions. The blue arrows on the side or showing you how those things have moved so have they gone up or have they gone down in priority you'll see there that there's that exclamation point that is a new characteristic that has been thrown in something that hasn't been there in the past it wasn't there in 2018 the last time that they did this survey and so that's a positive character attributes and I did a little research on that and it's essentially what what they're seeing in letters of recommendation what they're seeing in students essays and then just their curricular extracurricular kinds of things that they're using to determine

[02:34:00] hey is this person going to be a positive you know contributor to our community so you'll notice here that it doesn't say GPA you'll also notice it doesn't say class rank and it also doesn't say much anything about test scores so the test scores they're down really far so they used to be third so for people around my age it was very important for us to take SATs and ACTs it is not is the same anymore there are some schools that the more selective universities are getting a little back to the the testing but it's not as

[02:34:37] important as it used to be and then you'll see here so class rank is listed but that's much further down on the list than the grades in those core academic classes and then grades overall Miss Melton is up yes hi so there's a lot happening in college admissions and it changes if not monthly on a weekly basis basically because of so many different factors we don't have time to get into today so we kind of looked at four different categories the first one I'm

[02:35:14] going to talk about is application numbers common app every year kind of tracks information and in March releases information about applicants from that year but they also kind of show trends over time so one of the things you've probably heard in the news that application numbers have been increasing a distinction there is that it's really the first generation applicants that are increasing students whose families have attended college before those numbers are now kind of staying about the same

[02:35:49] additionally more colleges are beginning to add early action as amy mentioned way back when when we applied to college early decision and early action were not as common today they're very prevalent that's probably one of the questions that we often hear from students should we apply early should we not the other thing is this is the very first year that early action applications have surpassed regular decisions so just review early applications are due early they're due in November students tend to find out early early decision you can only apply

[02:36:26] to one college and that is binding if you're admitted early action is not binding so a lot of our students will apply to multiple schools regular decision is what was most common when we went to college those deadlines are usually in January you find out in April this is the very first year that early applications have actually surpassed regular applications if you're familiar with Virginia Tech a representative when he visits our students he says you really should apply early action so they actively encourage it not all colleges do, but that's one that's pretty popular with our students. The other thing is, I think, TikTok,

[02:37:06] social media. The thing that has been in conversation a lot lately is the increasing numbers to colleges in the South, particularly SEC. Probably in this last year, Southwest, that region has increased, one, because of a focus on first-generation students, but then two, part of this is obviously not all colleges belong to Common App. There are some large flagship colleges in the Southwest that have just joined Common App this year. Another thing that's new is direct admissions. So I'm going to talk in a minute. I mean, I'm sure you all are probably

[02:37:43] already rare kind of discussions about what's happening with population. Is our population growing? Is it declining? So colleges are very concerned about a decline. And so they're looking at reversing the admissions process and they've started something called direct admissions.

[02:37:59] Essentially what this means is they have very limited information about a student. They reach out to that student and say, "Hey, if you just fill out the application, you're guaranteed to be admitted." VCU has kind of a similar pathway. They call it guaranteed admission. If you have a certain GPA, you're guaranteed to be admitted.

[02:38:17] Also on the common application, which is what most of our students use to apply to colleges, They have a section that is basically all of these colleges that have seen just basic information about students in their profile. And they're saying, if you just complete this application, you will be admitted to our college.

[02:38:33] So it's kind of an interesting trend that's happening. Testing I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But we are seeing a post-COVID rebound, seeing more schools going back to requiring testing. Obviously, there are a few states that are pretty popular with our students.

[02:38:51] And if you apply to any public institution in that state, they now require testing. A lot of the Ivy Leagues have gone back to testing. One of the interesting conversations that we have found out talking to colleges is admissions offices usually don't want to go back to testing.

[02:39:08] It is usually boards and faculty who are making a big push to going back to requiring testing. And then finally, the other lots of different things happening, probably no surprise, colleges are decreasing their budgets for recruitment. If their application numbers aren't decreasing, they're going to cut back and try to be smart about the money that they save. Also yield. So yield is when a college sends out so many acceptances, it is the percentage of students who decide to deposit income. That has been steadily declining for the last 10 plus years. Another thing that's

[02:39:47] interesting and kind of one of the pieces of data that Ms. Bolander showed earlier specifically at Hanover we have seen a shift from four-year colleges to two-year colleges a primary reason for that has to do with finances that's a discussion that we hear a lot with our students they start there and transfer so some colleges are trying to come up with ways to support families that make under a certain amount of money guaranteeing that they will meet any aid that that family needs you'll see a decline in students going to four-year colleges and you might say well you just said application numbers are increasing

[02:40:23] those are application numbers declining going to four-year colleges that's actually enrollment in college and so if you look at some of our smaller schools around the state they are facing decreasing application numbers and then finally the last thing I want to point out is that one of the concerns it's incredibly natural that families have is, are we going to get into college? I thought this was a pretty interesting statistic that over the last 10 plus years, the percentage of students admitted to colleges, that acceptance rate has actually increased over time. I'm not going to read all

[02:41:02] of this, but again, if you follow the news, there is lots of discussion. This has been going on probably for about 10 years in college admissions about a college enrollment cliff. This is that decline in population. Colleges are busy. They need students in order to keep their institutions going. So there's been lots of concern about this. In 2024, there was a knocking at the college door report that actually said, let's take a breath. The cliff is not a cliff. Yes, there are some changes coming, but it's not as dramatic as we thought it was. And then now back to the testing

[02:41:36] part. We decided to kind of break this down into three categories, right? Before the pandemic, during the pandemic and then today. So before the pandemic, many schools required testing, although there was a small cohort of schools that were slowly moving in to test optional, which means a student doesn't need to submit test scores when they're applying to a college.

[02:41:59] Obviously the pandemic hit, schools were closed, students couldn't access test centers, so colleges changed their policies. We are now in an interesting point in time where many colleges are having discussions as to whether or not they go back to requiring testing.

[02:42:17] So one of the things that's very interesting is this year, ComNAP found that more students were reporting their scores than in previous years. We're actually kind of getting to a different threshold of students sending those scores.

[02:42:32] Now, out of this pandemic era, one of the things colleges have done is they've become a little more test flexible as language that they use. So sometimes if a student has a certain GPA, don't need to submit scores or if maybe they take an alternative assessment maybe they take there's a new one that's coming out that military academies are soon going to be offering or allowing students to submit it's called the classical learning test so again lots of kind of changes happening here

[02:43:04] and then the last slide ms colyard showed you earlier that survey from 2023 about what are the factors in admission that colleges are considering we were really curious about the rank part and so we just surveyed some of our colleges that the majority of our students applied to and just said is this something that you consider so one is something they don't consider at all and then the highest that you see that they selected was three a lot of those schools that chose three said we don't require it we might look at it if a student sends it but we pay more

[02:43:42] attention to their transcript? Are they taking those college courses? Are they performing well in it? All right, I'll pass that on to Ms. Crowder. Okay, good evening. So as Ms. Melton shared with you the national trends, I'm going to share with you some Hanover-specific data. So in the 24-25 school year, we implemented a platform called School Links, and this has allowed us to track where our students are applying to college, and we're using that data. So as you can see, JMU has ranked at the top where most of our Hanover students are applying. And you'll note that

[02:44:20] these are the top five schools that our students are applying to and they're all in Virginia. So our students are looking to stay in state. Now trends tend to vary between schools. So for example at Atlee and Mechanicsville, JMU is the top application. Whereas at Hanover and Patrick Henry, JMU, and Virginia Tech are kind of tied.

[02:44:43] This one? Nope, wrong one. Sorry. Technologically challenged, sorry. Some other interesting data information to share with you is that while we do have some students that are applying out of state, the larger percentage of our students are deciding to stay within Virginia.

[02:45:04] And of the schools that they are applying to that are out of state, they tend to be close to Virginia. So think the Carolinas, D.C., West Virginia, kind of that area that our students are applying to. We talked about early action and early decision before, and a large percentage of our students are applying early action.

[02:45:22] And you can see that we have, Hanover has the highest admit rate in 2025 for early action. But our early decision is also a close acceptance rate as well, which means that we're having more students apply and then we're also having them be admitted as well.

[02:45:41] So just a couple of key takeaways that we want you to have with our presentation is that we want you to be aware that what is happening in college admissions is changing. It changes from year to year. We share this with our families all the time. If you had an older child that went through the college application process in the past, it may not be the same for your younger child because things are changing based on institutional priorities, national and international trends.

[02:46:07] So we really encourage our families to research each school that they are applying to to make sure that they have the most up-to-date Information as well and while colleges are changing each class of student is also different So what holds true for one class does not necessarily hold true for the Class coming up. So we thank you for listening us this evening. And if there are any questions, we can answer for you Thank y'all so much Do we have any questions? Yes, Mr. Martin. Well, he's going to be broke because college is going to be really expensive.

[02:46:41] It's funny. I was going to ask you about money. That's funny. She took it. This is really good information. I appreciate the time that you guys put into this. I am curious, as you mentioned, that colleges are concerned in general about decline in admissions and applications. Do you see an impact yet in terms of cost?

[02:46:59] like you would think it would be reflected in the tuition would decline. If I want more kids, I would lower the cost of the experience. You may not know that data, but I'm just curious if you have any feedback on that. I can't quote the data, but there have been concerns about state and federal investment in higher education, and so that can influence numbers, cost going up.

[02:47:24] Also, colleges had a lot of students from abroad previously that are no longer coming. They were full pay students as opposed to in-state or decreased tuition. So that has also impacted things as well So we are not seeing Costs go down. They're going up. I think BCU just increased for I can't remember the umpth year in a row usually when Supply good demand goes down Anyway, thank you. Yeah, great presentation. It's only in the private sector Okay, any other questions? Yes, dr. Shulk. Oh, sorry

[02:48:01] This is an area that has fascinated me really my whole life, but I'm curious about one thing. Do we track in any way or have any data on the ultimate graduation rates of all these folks? Getting in is good. Graduating is better. Do we know anything about that?

[02:48:20] The universities definitely track that, but we don't have a way to track. Once they leave us, I guess we could reach out, try to, I don't know, but that's something that we track. But universities absolutely track that, and that is something that they publish. You know, that's one of their kind of selling points is like, you know, graduation in four years.

[02:48:40] That kind of a percentage of students who are graduating in four years. But I don't think we have data on our specific Hanover County students. No, with the implementation of school just last year, we're just now building our data. We're tracking applications and admissions as well.

[02:48:56] I think I think it would be helpful at least to know how many finish the first year successfully So that we can know we're getting them in but are we are they prepared to be successful once they get there?

[02:49:20] Thank you, Dr. Shelp. Yes, Mr. Coleman. The slide that had the four-year two-year military the the other column I noticed in the most recent year a 12% versus the other previous two years is there any more detail color around that great dig deep on that a little bit more what's the other so that is largely school links so previously we did not include gap as an option when we surveyed students and we would survey students through just annual surveys school links has before

[02:49:59] student graduates they have to complete a survey about where they're going so we know where to send final transcripts etc but we also have to capture information for all students no matter their pathway school links has added a section called gap year which we do not love and we have asked to have removed because a lot of students that are selecting gap year they're not taking the traditional gap year that we might be familiar with they might think oh I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet I have this plan I don't know if I'm

[02:50:28] going to stay committed to it and thus select GAP. I hope not. I hope not. It's not an option in my household. So we follow the three E's. I do have, I'm sorry, did anybody else have any questions?

[02:50:50] None? Okay. So I do, it's interesting that we had a three percent military commitment at Hanover High School and I know we've, I think I've talked to Dr. Staley about this a little bit and maybe Ms. Greif about JROTC options that kind of struck me as oh my other question was employment and what would be helpful for me and probably the rest of the team on the board is

[02:51:24] employment is that a trade school employment or a something that they earned at school and went into like they were set up for success to have that employment from so it could be a combination so some of our trade students are learning on the job so they're going straight to work so they're not going to a straight trade school specific program their program is within their working environment so that they would consider themselves employment employment also means to work a lot of

[02:52:02] students in kinksville high school they are going straight to work whether it's a job that they've had through high school or whether it's a job that they are applying for or learning a skill to do outside of traditional education is a combination factor and we have a lot of you know multi-generation family businesses in the county and so it would just be interested to see the breakdown on the employment piece to see a little bit more about that because you know I think

[02:52:35] they're probably go i mean you know we we i think all think that our kids are uber successful when they leave here um with a uh when they graduate from here and so you know i think most of these people are going into some you know very successful career and they are and we're trying to encourage that more as celebrations within our school um because a lot of our kids have very solid jobs and opportunities that fall under the employment but sometimes I think they wonder why we're not celebrating quite as much as somebody who's going a traditional school path

[02:53:11] so that is definitely something that we're looking at and we're trying to encourage more because some of the people that are going straight into employment are going to be making more money some of us who have done that four-year degree that's right We celebrated for that accomplishment as well.

[02:53:27] Okay, thank you very much. Do we have any other questions? Oh, Dr. Pennecott. I just wanted to share that what we might have at least could be that some of the students are going to ROTC at four-year colleges, so they may have checked four-year college instead of military because we do have 20 students that we celebrated the other night who are going on to either ROTC or straight to the military.

[02:53:50] The other point that I wanted to share is we are currently building out our dual enrollment so that all of our students will have the opportunity to do at least one year of college credit before they leave us. Some can choose to do two years and that will transfer class for class to colleges in Virginia. So I think what we're seeing is the two-year, two-four-year paths becoming a more normal path than it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I think people had in their mind that a two-year path was somehow less than a four-year path, and it is not that way today.

[02:54:28] It is considered a smart economic decision. So if students come and get one year of their dual enrollment with us, they go to JSARGE for a year and then go on to a two-year program, they have a great opportunity to have a whole lot less debt when they come out of school.

[02:54:46] So we are seeing more thoughtful decision-makers because it's been made to be not only an acceptable path, but a well-thought-of path. And that dual enrollment is currently free to the student, correct?

[02:55:05] Okay. I mean, I say currently because I'm not so sure how long that lasts. Well, Jennifer, oh, Andrea will speak to that maybe when she comes up for the IB update. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'll hold that question. All right. Well, if we have no more questions, thank you so much to the Fab Four. You truly are a fabulous four. And I think probably all of us, when we were doing our, you know, jot five, jot, jot five things, I think probably all of us said money. I know I've got to one graduate coming up and one who's just finished her first year and

[02:55:42] money is the only thing that can come to my mind because it is very expensive to send your kids to school so thank y'all so much appreciate it okay so we are on to our information discussion and um first up is miss leah Hahn thank you thank you madam chair um as you can see in your packet

[02:56:12] this is on for first read this is a total rewrite of our fmla policy the the main change is essentially that it is a lot larger and more comprehensive than it was previously. This was not due to any particular current change in the law. This was primarily to make this more user friendly for staff and for everyone to kind of understand what's going on. So this was really more of a cleanup than anything else. And it's on for first read. There's no action needed this

[02:56:50] evening we will bring this back to you um at the next meeting and ask you to approve it okay thank you miss hahn do we have any questions on this policy okay thank you we will see you in a little bit okay dr maltby we are moving on um to review uh proposed revisions to policy 7-3.1 code of student conduct yeah good evening thank you for having me back again chair members of the board senior staff, Dr. Pennycuff. So we spoke a little bit earlier this evening about the dress code,

[02:57:24] which is directly embedded in the code. Again, you should have a copy, both electronic and a physical copy that's been printed out for you. You will notice throughout the physical copy, the red or the strikethroughs. So that will be how we've updated and changed language or what we've added. That being said, what I've highlighted here are where you can find all the changes within that book. I do want to take a few minutes just to highlight a couple of these things that are either brand new sections or updated language and then allow, of course, time for you all to ask any questions that you have about anything that you've seen or anything that you would like us to consider. That being said, as again that you heard earlier, there's an opportunity

[02:58:02] during the course of the year that I reach out to all the admin asking questions. Do they have any thoughts about any additions or any changes, any edits? Dress code was addressed directly in that, but there was a number of other things where we've changed levels because of certain behaviors that we're seeing. We've added language to clarify questions that were coming from either the students or from parents or just administrators want to be able to point clearly to something in the code of conduct and say this is where it says that. And so as we walk through this together again the dress code rewrite is the first big section section in red that you will see in the full printout. Following that coming from Dr. Pennycuff and meetings that she

[02:58:39] had suggested that we start adding some some direct language about the positive support so it's not just punitive there's a lot of work we're doing on the front end to be preventative to be positive to put supports and systems in place that that really do create that opportunity for us to to reach kids before they escalate or when they do that we put some supports in place so that we're hopefully lowering that recidivism and seeing less issues we also have things in place that are not only for whole school but also to work with our teachers right and so the three things you'll see highlighted here if you were to turn to page five and six

[02:59:14] are one just sort of an outline of building a positive school community of the positive behavior supports vtss which is in all of our schools now as of last year every one of our schools has a team they're looking at data they're finding trends and then they're reacting to those trends to put supports in place so you'll see a write-up about vtss you'll also see one about the house system which you've heard about in many of our schools and how that's bringing community throughout that school a sense of not only camaraderie and compassion but also competition and what that looks like for those kids and then you'll see some language about the behavior coaches and we are blessed just to have an incredible team of folks that are working within our schools

[02:59:52] to not only work with those students that are struggling but those teachers so they can learn what strategies they can use to help handle those behaviors to hopefully keep kids in instruction longer so that they're missing less because of disciplinary issues that's a whole new section uh just added again thanks to dr penning kuff's uh directive for guidance there we were able to put a team together collect this language at it this year so it is brand new wanted to show you that if you were to turn to the following page I've had a number of questions over the course of this year about mobile devices and what that means I'll tell you previously we kind of hesitated to put language in there because it's an ever-expanding list

[03:00:31] but just this year we had a number of kids who came to school wearing google glasses and the family reached out to me saying my son or daughter has a prescription and this is their only pair of glasses they're wearing them we'll turn them off I promise and I'm like Unfortunately, if you look on Google's website, they list it as a wearable mobile device.

[03:00:52] And so I had to tell the families, no, unfortunately you can't. I will share the schools were pretty gracious in saying, if this is a monetary issue at all, we will help buy a new set of glasses for the kid, but we just can't allow them to bring it. As I've shared with the schools, we're not going to monitor whether a device is on or off.

[03:01:08] They just, they can't have it. So what you'll see is I've written out the new red language, Though not a comprehensive list, because this will change this year, mobile devices would include smartphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, Google, or similar cases of competitor, glasses, gaming consoles, e-readers, or any device that could potentially access the internet.

[03:01:28] And that's sort of the key here. If you have a device of any kind, whether you're wearing it or it's in your pocket, that's able to access the internet, which gives you the possibility for accessing something that you shouldn't during school, then we've just said no. It's off in a way. And so, again, I've added a little bit of language because I've had direct questions from not only admin, but from parents and students.

[03:01:47] What do you mean I can't have this? It's not written anywhere. So, again, this is an attempt to clarify a little bit of that language. Another thing I want to point out, if you're looking down the list, is the clarifications about school closings. And so I will share with you the language that was added this year. Again, it's on page 25. It's listed.

[03:02:05] The beginning of that paragraph we added last year. So there was questions that we were getting about school closings. because of snow, and whether ISS or OSS would count, specifically more OSS, if attendance is not taken.

[03:02:21] That's been our practice, however, it wasn't in writing. We added it in writing. It's also always been our practice that if we're not in school and attendance isn't taken, then it does not count, which is true for spring break or winter break or weekends. We're not in school.

[03:02:37] We're not taking attendance. It doesn't count. That being said, even though it was our practice, it was also not in writing anywhere, so I could not point to that. So something like we added a day this year for the election day, that's also not part of our calendar, which we've been able to point to in the past and say, you can see this was a non-instructional day, therefore OSS would not be counted if it was assigned over that day.

[03:02:57] So we had questions specifically about that. So added language this year to help, again, admin potentially clarify that should it be a continual question. So if I could just read through that again, school closings due to inclement weather will not count towards suspension days. Additional days equal to the number of days missed for weather will be added to the end of the suspension.

[03:03:14] was just clarified last year added to that this is true for any school days for any reason where students are not in school and attendance is not taken which again just clarifies the existing practice as it is now again the difference is when we change calendar dates during the course of the year that are not pre-printed so there's nobody that's been able to plan for those ahead of time so there was a new date this year that being said there are a few other clarifications or changes there you see we added a level to be so one which was assaults unfortunately found that there was students that were having second third fourth assaults and so the admin wanted to have that ability

[03:03:50] to consider that a level four offense which it wasn't last year and then BSO three there was some additional clarification that they asked for admin because we are using that now if it's a second or third offense for the same behavior but there is not a change in that behavior right and so if it's a similar behavior that's it will often now have a secondary code of BSO3 and so they want the admin one of language that said your student may have an additional code that's related to not changing behavior but repeating that same behavior whatever that is so that's been added as well and then there was a

[03:04:28] question about appeals as they're coming to admin and so what's happened in the past is the language just said they have two days to reply and there was just a request that we add school days so folks know if we're closed or it's the weekend you're not gonna hear from me on Sunday you'll hear from me on Monday or Tuesday whenever that is so again the great majority of these changes are coming directly from our admin or from parents that had questions so that was clarified within the book wanted to give you sort of a quick list of where you could find any of that information and then give you the opportunity now if you guys had any questions all right thank you dr. Maltby do we have any questions

[03:05:04] Okay, I had a reputable source tell me that you know recent law there's you know been quite a few of them from the Virginia General Assembly that when they say no smart devices you know bell-to-bell that they actually mean can't have it in the school have you heard anything like that or no I okay from what I understand to this point it's been left up to the localities to enforce. The rules have said you can't use them bell to bell. I don't think there's anything we can do to tell a kid like they can't have it at all at this point. That would be a difficult thing to police. That being said, I think what

[03:05:43] we're doing right now is in line with what I've seen across the board from folks. Okay, is there a law that says no, like can't use them bell to bell? Is that statewide now? So pause for a second. I see Leah jumping in. I did also just want to point out that while the students aren't allowed to use them during the school day, we do have kids that have after-school programs or things like that where they need access to a cell phone to be able to contact parents or a ride or something along those lines. And so I am not aware of anything that requires them to be completely left away. Yeah, Hanover County was ahead of the curve

[03:06:22] on this, putting our policy in place. And from everything I have seen, we are in direct alignment with what the expectations are i've never seen anything that said it should be greater than what we already have okay yeah i hadn't heard anything uh else either but uh yeah supposedly the thinking was that some school systems aren't enforcing it and so that's why the state you know did that but yeah it sounds like that's not true i think to miss haunt's point it would be it would be very difficult to tell families that your kids can't have a cell phone post school day as long as it's not doubt during the instructional day which for us again is bell to bell when you step into the building until that end of the day bell rings they should be out of sight and i think our folks

[03:06:58] have been great about enforcing that to this point okay thank you sure i i do think that that was discussed though mr seifert i i also heard that that the device was not even allowed on school property from bell to bell so i if we can clarify but i think that it's probably been removed from that but that bill doesn't start until next school year correct I haven't even seen that specific language we can certainly look into that conversation okay all right thank you I can add just a little bit to that it is bail to bail

[03:07:36] and for us we're already in compliance with it some school divisions when they did when they made bail to bail a recommendation we had already moved to bell to bell so some school divisions left different parts of the day as a time when students could still use their devices for example lunchtime and then they made red green yellow signs that said this is a time when you can't use it this is a time when it's green when you can and the clarification now is bell to bell there will be no cell phone use and that was our practice

[03:08:14] already we changed it a year ago to the bell to bell now so yeah okay thank you you very much mr. Martin yeah thank you on page 17 that the added language is additionally schools can discipline students for off-campus behavior or social media posts if they cause a substantial disruption to the school environment involved bullying or threatened safety I guess I concerns me a little bit we have kids that are picking on one another in their neighborhood or the little league or things like that that are matters of the home um and should be settled at

[03:08:52] home i worry that the school's a bit of a one a bit of an overreach from the school's role and two you know eventually could put more burden on our staff and administrators who already probably feel like they co-parent more than they should um and i that that language concerns me a little bit so i just want to hear kind of the thought process behind that so this is also our practice is also legally permissible. I will share there's language in there that says if it causes a substantial disruption to the school environment. So what happens is there's kids that are posting online, when I see you Monday, I will do X. That direct threat to a kid that happened outside of

[03:09:30] school, after school hours, but it's going to directly impact that student in school. So that threatening behavior, that dangerous behavior, when we're seeing that on social media, when we're seeing those threats in the neighborhood, we don't touch them until they make their way into our our building but if they do make their way into our building then the school system has that ability to discipline that kid because of the disruption it's causing to learning environment and or the threat that it poses directly to one of our students so it's not just the general like something happened in a playground thank you it makes total sense and i think i get the intention behind it i just if you just really were being picky about the language when it says we can discipline for bullying it kind of leaves the interpretation very open for what that could mean

[03:10:09] sure so potentially the language could be tightened around i was just gonna say and if you think there's something should be clarified we are certainly happy to do that just just food for thought yeah that's all i'm just i don't i think some people could misconstrue potentially what what exactly the jurisdiction of the school is in that regard yeah fair enough and with all of this once you guys have decided on the approved language i will be working with the schools to clarify what that will look like great there and again if there's any concern from the community that there's this should be changed i'm certainly happy to do so just understand this is what we already do, but admin was looking for some language to clarify it to point to. Got it. Thank you.

[03:10:46] Appreciate it. If I may, to Dr. Maltby's point, this is not something where there's a dispute outside of school and we're going on kids' social media to figure out what's happening. This is, as Dr. Maltby said, when they show up for school on Monday and a fight breaks out because of what's been happening outside of school. And I will also say that this is in line With some of the responsibilities that we have under certain federal regulations such as title 9 That we may be required to look into things that may not have necessarily

[03:11:19] Started in the building if they're impacting what's happening in the building. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you miss Hahn Do we have any other? Comments questions. Okay. I am just gonna say please take this home and review it very very good because we will come back and send any um dr pennycuff do you want them to send to you or i think if you send it to dr maltby and me that that would be great and if

[03:11:55] you send it to me and forget to send it to him i'll send it to him and that way we'll be sure that he gets it i do i would like to ask that you give the example of what happened with our special election because we want to be sure that we're doing the will of the board on this policy and you don't have to answer today but this may be something some of you want to follow up with chairman welsh on and if you do then i want to be sure that everyone understands this piece so could you give the example of what happened and then the route we took because it was our practice was not recorded in um in the policy yeah so there was a question again about a

[03:12:33] suspension that overlapped and whether we would count those days or not. Initially, my response was, yes, this is what we would, sorry, no, we wouldn't count it. We would have to extend that suspension. That being said, we kind of went back and forth about the language that was there versus what's practiced the way we've always done it. And absent the language being in the book, we allowed the kid to come back early. And so we counted that day, whereas the normal practice would have been to not have counted that day. And so in that particular case, again, because the language didn't exist we we sided with the family and said no problem we're gonna count that day it was unplanned we're gonna let you come back early and so in that

[03:13:12] particular case there was there was two days one that was inclement weather and one that was because of the election because we had the language of the inclement weather in here that day had to be made up because we didn't have the language but had the practice of not counting days that were you know there was no attendance taken again we cited for the kid and allowed them to come back early. Following that, missing the language that sort of codified the practice, the language was added. Thank you for the clarification. Sure. So if you do have any discussions that you'd like, or if you do have something that you want to discuss, you all know my number. But also if you

[03:13:50] have suggestions for changes, please email those in because we need to be able to have discussion on that next? Ideally we would like to get approval in June so that we can get the the the documents copied and printed and ready to go when the students come. Yeah and so forgive me for saying but the short turnaround here I want to say Ann Huckstep told me she needed any changes by like

[03:14:22] the 19th uh so whatever that looks like I'm happy to add any changes for y'all. That would be next and that's because the school board meeting in june has been moved up to june 2nd so no rush so i know y'all don't have anything on your plates so go to it um so thank you so much we'll get any changes or recommendations that we have to you asap by the 19th and thank you thank you

[03:14:54] Dr. Molby. Okay. Up next, we have Dr. Herndon, update on the IB program. Yes. Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Pennyhoff, members of senior staff. I'm here to give an update. I spoke to you last month in the work session about the work that we're doing related to IB. Before we transition into that, there were two things I wanted to highlight. Firstly, today, Hanover County probably graduated nearly 50 graduates from Reynolds Community College to the Advanced

[03:15:29] College Academy. So it's a big deal. They got their associate's degree before they get their high school degree. So they had a real live practice graduation today at the Segal Center at BCU. I also wanted to address the question about dual enrollment. I recently met with our colleagues at Reynolds Community College the feeling is that the expectation that access the uniform certificate remain free and open to families is continuing it is in place for sure next academic year and from the communication from the

[03:16:07] community college system and through the work that we're doing as a region I have no indication that that is going to change so that the program is successful and there is talks of how do we increase access Hanover is in a great place we offer a lot more dual enrollment courses than some of our neighbors in the region so we're a little ahead of the game and so now the focus is on how do we bring this opportunity to other schools within the Commonwealth but I do foresee from the information that I've received that we

[03:16:43] will continue to have that free access to dual enrollment so yes could I ask a question yeah so the piece so that's the free year for dual enrollment that that is the all courses in the uniform certificate which is in total 30 credits which is two years and then the passport is 15 credits we do have the unique situation as many of our k-12 divisions in the region that sometimes students will take for example political science is a great example students take

[03:17:21] political science 135 and 136 135 is in the in the pathway but 136 isn't we have I feel like a way to make that work for kids right now but when we talk about about the general overview of the pathway, the legislation supports access to uniform certificate, which is those 30 credits. And the 30 credits is two semesters. 30 credits is two semesters, correct. So that's one year. And then what we're going to work to do is build out the other side of that. For example, if they take one course and it ends, then usually it's paired with another

[03:18:00] course. So over the next couple of years, we will try to build into the budget the ability to pay that second half for the students so that we don't have an empty hole there for them while we're building that path, which will help our students have more than 30 credits. Yes. Thank you, Dr.

[03:18:19] Pinnickup. So dual enrollment, if you just take like dual enrollment English, that's free to the student. That's right. Okay. Okay. That's college composition. No, you didn't pay. You're like, Wait a minute. No, you didn't pay. You're in the right spot. She did pay last year, but this year, the rules have changed.

[03:18:38] The rules have changed. The Uniform Certificate of General Studies has a series of, I think it's about six categories of courses that align with general education requirements at most four-year institutions. And through Reynolds, they worked with us to build our pathway so that it mirrors our advanced college academy to give us the best bang for our buck for students who are in the academy as well.

[03:19:03] So students have to have, for example, the English 111 and 112 is fully covered in UCGS. There's a literature option. In Hanover, we offer English 245 and 246, which is a study of British and American literature. So all of those courses that fall within our pathway through state legislation, we do not receive a charge from Reynolds for those courses.

[03:19:30] To Dr. Penningup's point, some of those classes, like the complement to 245, English 246, could potentially have a charge, depending on what the funding we have as a locality for that. Okay, thank you for the clarification. We are working very hard to make the whole pathway as accessible as possible for students.

[03:19:48] We're fortunate that we had kind of a rollout that has allowed us to both grow our dual enrollment faculty and provide the opportunity for kids to access both of those courses. We weren't sure what enrollment was going to look like, and we kind of hit a really sweet spot that gives us a chance to really refine our practice as we move forward and continue to grow the program.

[03:20:13] Wonderful. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. So my update on IB is familiar to what I shared with you at the work session last month. Our goal for International Baccalaureate is really to right-size the program to maximize the student learning experience.

[03:20:32] So when I saw you last time, I let you know some of the things that we were working on. We had met with high school principals and IB coordinators. We also had meetings at individual high schools with IB teachers and principals and coordinators. We also had our first of many listening sessions with teachers who were interested in coming and giving us input and sharing their ideas.

[03:20:55] And I'm going to talk a little bit about what we've learned from those listening sessions and kind of what our path forward is going to look like. Last we were together, I really shared the reason we're here is that we have a decreased division-wide enrollment in the IB Diploma Program.

[03:21:12] We do have lots of students who access IB as core students, but it is important to remember that the IB program is a diploma program. So that's where our focus first starts, and so you can see that in our current academic year across all four of our sites, we have 75 diploma candidates. That includes juniors and seniors.

[03:21:35] Our goal is to have a robust and engaging learning cohort. When we were last together, I shared with you about the experience of as a cohort learner students, juniors and seniors, spending time with their cohort within the diploma program. In some of our schools that is a cohort of 16 or 17 students. It feels very different if you're in a cohort of six or eight students. Mr. Seifert shared about how his son was one one young man in a group of young women in his cohort. We hear routinely from

[03:22:13] students that IB feels the best when we have a have a group of folks that we're engaging with and talking talking talking about the the things that we're learning and we have an engaging opportunity for that. I also shared that recently we did not have enough students to have a junior cohort at Hanover High School. So we know that IB is a very important part of our history and our instructional story in Hanover County. So we've come together to say we want IB, we want to keep

[03:22:49] IB, we love IB, but how do we make this the experience we know that it can be and that it once was for our students. So one of the things that is very important is an intentionality behind this change. I think that as educators, we want to know all the steps, one through 2000.

[03:23:14] And right now we're at step one, which is making this decision to right size the program. The hard work comes after that, which is thinking about how do we maintain access to advanced coursework opportunities at every high school, whether there is an IB program there or not.

[03:23:32] To think about how does shifting the location of an IB program shift or change the instructional climate of a school? How do we support courses and programs that are connected to IB very uniquely? IB Film is a great example.

[03:23:49] IB Visual Arts, IB Philosophy, IB Economics. How do we find another complement to that so that students still have access to that? I was very excited to see IB field teachers come to our listening session. They're the folks we want to talk to and engage about.

[03:24:06] Tell us about what you do, what makes it so awesome, and how do we keep it moving forward, even if it's outside of the IB realm. Part of the feedback that we have received consistently from the meetings that we've had up to this point is the importance of introducing the IB program early to students in 9th and 10th grade at all schools.

[03:24:29] This recommendation also pairs well with a recommendation that we've consistently received in the gifted advisory committee, which is for a seminar for advanced learning for students in high school. So this is an opportunity to take what we're hearing from our IB faculty and administrators and teachers and pair it with some of the things that we know that our families are asking for in gifted advisory.

[03:24:54] It's a way for us to build up those skills for students and introduce them to the IB program earlier so that they can make decisions about what's best for them academically as juniors and seniors. So here's the timeline. I'm going to show you the picture.

[03:25:11] All right. Every time I do this, it helps to think about the class of. If you get confused and start mixing in sophomores and juniors, it gets a little confusing. This has changed from when I last spoke to you. So Dr. Penikoff and I and senior staff, when we met with teachers, what we frequently heard in the listening session that we had and also through email correspondence from teachers was we don't feel really comfortable yet with the ninth graders, the class of 2029.

[03:25:43] So we've made a shift to accommodate that. So if you look, the class of 2029, who are our current freshmen, this is the change. Our hope is to keep them at their zone school and graduate from their zone school in 2029, where the IB center would then be that opportunity for the class of 2030.

[03:26:08] This aligns with the change that we made to ACA with the class of 2030. The ACA is moving to just the 11th and 12th grade as a cohort model, and that begins with the class of 2030 as well. This is our plan, but there are a couple of things to know about this plan.

[03:26:28] We're all an optimistic group. We want to have the time to provide a transition, provide for all of our students who are currently enrolled in high school to graduate from their zone school.

[03:26:46] This, however, may change or an adjustment may have to be made if financially or instructionally we can't sustain. So that's kind of my asterisk, right? This is what we want to happen. But remember how I shared that we didn't have enough students at Hanover High for the junior cohort.

[03:27:05] So if something like that were to happen or our numbers continued to decrease, we would have to kind of make some changes. We would come back. I would come here again. We would talk about it and decide, like, is our timeline still feasible? I am hopeful for this timeline. I think that it makes sense.

[03:27:21] It aligns to our other advanced programs. And what I really like about the timeline is it's giving us the opportunity to continue to engage with the members of our IB community. The last time that we considered a change in the culture of IB, we did not have the time or the space to really engage and talk to everyone about what's really important in IB.

[03:27:45] How can we keep that moving forward? What are the things that are non-negotiable? And so we're hoping that through the summer and into the fall that we will continue our conversations and begin to add families and IB students and former IB students as part of those conversations as we look forward to how we plan our change.

[03:28:07] Right now, our enrollment numbers and our projected enrollment numbers really reflects that our strongest model for moving forward with an IB center would be at one school. I think that the two-school model feels a little bit better, like change is hard, and I think going from four to two feels comfortable, but I think from the aspect of what does that cohort experience look like for students, what does that enrollment look like for students, that the one-site model is really the direction that I think this will go.

[03:28:41] But again, we're at step one, and we're going to use the next year and a half to really talk about how do we do this right, who do we need to keep continuing to have the conversation with, and how do we go about making IB the robust program that it once was, and still keeping the things that we love about it at all of the schools, even if the center is not at that school.

[03:29:09] What questions can I answer? Does anybody have questions? No? Okay. You did such a fabulous job. I know. I feel like I was ready this time. Last time you guys had lots of questions, I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready. Thank you so much, Dr. Rendon. You're welcome. That was great. And we can definitely see your passion shine through for our students. So thank you so much for all you're doing. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:29:35] All right, so next up we have Mr. Rohrink and he is coming to talk to us about the expansion of the Trade Center, which is another fabulous thing we're doing for our students. We're excited. Yes, we are. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Penikoff, senior staff and new member of senior staff back there in the Gowd. I'm excited to join you today to talk about expansion and today with me I have Dan Wiegand. He is principal architect of RMM Architects and then also behind if we have any additional questions, we also have with us Kevin Sahls, our Director of Facilities.

[03:30:13] And so we're going to talk about our project goals with this expansion, the current project schedule, information about our existing facility, as well as the design update. As we look up here, our main goals are to, number one, certainly expand the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology in order to offer more programs.

[03:30:33] That's going to entail three new lab spaces. One of them would be cosmetology, it would be a double lab. We're also looking at welding and diesel equipment technology. There would be classrooms in each of these lab areas, with cosmetology having two classrooms.

[03:30:50] And then we'd also look to potentially add two additional classrooms on top of that for culinary arts and even hopefully a flex classroom space. Add some staff toilets as well as individual student toilets in each lab and material storage in each of the lab areas.

[03:31:06] In terms of our current schedule, the construction document drawings are taking place from now through summer, this summer, and then in addition, the site plan approval process is happening this spring through the fall. Good news, conditional use permit process has been completed, and we are on to the site plan process.

[03:31:25] The first one that actually was submitted on March 27th, and we're receiving comments, and then the next one will be May 15th, another one July 6th, and if needed, there will be another submission on August 14th. We're anticipating the site plan approval mid-September with the bidding hopefully in September this fall. And then our hope is that the start of construction would take place this October or beginning of November. Key there is if we can get that happening and there aren't any construction delays, the goal is that the start of the 27-28 school year would be able to welcome our first group of students into the new expansion. So

[03:32:04] That's our schedule as it lists. In terms of our existing facility, this building actually opened in 2008. That means this is the 18th year that the facility's been open. I've been there for 16 of those 18 years. And if you look at my badge, you'll be able to realize that is the case.

[03:32:20] The current facility space is a little over 38,000 square feet. We currently welcome about 310 to 320 total students to our building over the course of two days with around 160 each day. And we have approximately 25 staff members.

[03:32:37] Our current space, we do have currently culinary arts, HVAC, electricity, carpentry. And we have two different lab spaces. We have automotive one and two in one of our classroom labs and auto three in the other. And we do have an administrative suite. And this, as you're looking here, north of the building would be Kersey Creek Elementary.

[03:32:59] If you're turning off a whippoorwill, you're coming down Learning Lane, which is on the east of this photo. And south, that building to the south is the Georgetown School. Currently what you see there is our entry comes on the east side of the building for most of our guests and then on the south side near the bus loop is where our students currently walk up down the hallway to enter either the building for cosmetology and culinary or go down the hallway for the remaining programs.

[03:33:23] This gives a similar view, it just shows it more with the actual spaces laid out for our current programming. It kind of lays the groundwork for what you're going to see here shortly. In terms of our space, these are pictures taken when the building opened, and I will give a big shout out to our custodial team and all of our staff and students, because I will tell you, when you come, you'll notice it doesn't look that different now, 18 years later, and that just, again, is a testament to our staff and faculty and the hard work they do and how much passion and care that they have for the facility.

[03:33:55] In addition, the expansion, as I told about earlier, it's going to be 12,100 square feet for the base bid with approximately 17,700 square feet if you include the additive alternates, which we will discuss in a moment.

[03:34:12] This will result in an additional capacity of around 160 total students, which is about 80 more students each day that would have the chance to be able to come take courses at the Hanover Center. And there would be four additional staff members with the potential for more, depending on that flex space.

[03:34:27] terms of what that expansion will look like as we talked about earlier we're looking to add a double lab for cosmetology with two additional classrooms that area would include two student toilets storage and lockers we'd also have a welding classroom and lab with again a toilet material storage and lockers and a diesel equipment tech class lab and with additional toilet material storage and lockers two additional staff individual toilets electrical mechanic room your IDF closet and air compressor closet as we'll need additional air compressor capacity for these new programs the additive

[03:35:06] alternates would include two additional classrooms this would be culinary arts we currently have a learning cottage so if there is room in the budget then would add classroom space dedicated in the facility as well as a flex classroom that would enable us to be able to explore additional potential programming also enclosing the existing exterior covered corridor and create a new main entry vestibule security vestibule that enters and you'd be inside the entire time down the main hallway also solar tubes some lighting down that main hallway and then finally the possibility of covered exterior project

[03:35:42] area over the outdoor lab bay doors of our welding and diesel equipment lab areas so now we'll go through some image so you can see what this would look like with the updated drawings this gives you the same area to show you the area we're looking at for the expansion and project yard with this next one giving you a better layout of this is for the full cup what's inclusive of all the additive alternates as well in this you'll see the under the red area is actual building space whereas the black top you see there is our outdoor workspace and then a driveway out to the bus loop this gives you a nice little layout where you can see what those

[03:36:21] specific areas would look like. You see our cosmetology is at the east there. The purple is the double lab with the two blue areas being the classrooms. As you go down the hallway you get to our welding classroom and lab area, then to our diesel equipment classroom and lab area, finally to the culinary and flex classroom additives. And they even have a couple new windows. Auto 1/2 actually they didn't have windows before so now they'll have some fresh light coming in.

[03:36:47] This tells you, as you can see here, what the space currently looks like. And then next, this gives you an idea of what it would look like with the expansion. One thing I'll point out, too, that I didn't earlier, is that the base bid also includes, with additional funding, area for parking.

[03:37:05] That additional area in the northeast of this photo does not currently exist, but the county did inform us that we needed to add this additional parking to meet their regulations. And so that's where that area is going to be, in that kind of wooded area between the Hanover Center and Kersey Creek.

[03:37:24] But here on the south portion, southwest, you'll see the new expansion with a new vegetable entrance there as well. And as you can see from the bus loop, there would be a path for folks to be able to enter, to be able to bring equipment, vehicles, materials to the lab areas on the southwestern portion of the building.

[03:37:42] Again, here's a picture image, more ground level from what it currently looks like. and then we will move forward as you can see nice little entrance and they even as that vestibule looks like that has a new signage really nice entry point with the name actually out there and we'd really want that to be the new main entrance for the building especially if we have that security vestibule in place another space just from a different angle more near the rear of the building looking from the georgetown basketball courts and then as you can see a little upper level view as you can see there we still would have our greenhouse and those classrooms are what's to

[03:38:22] the west of the new expansion with the covered area and then it looks like glassed in on that interior hallway and then a little bit lower level similar viewpoint you can see that same expansion area that matches as you can see the current look of the current building so it looks very seamless in there and then another picture again just more ground level a little closer of our the entryway And that would be cosmetology to the left of those folks standing in the area.

[03:38:50] That would be the new lab area. As you go further down, you do get to the welding and diesel equipment technology. And then this final photo that shows you up above, just like with our current lab areas, there are windows there that allow for lighting to come into the lab areas.

[03:39:06] As you see there in the middle of the building, also solar tubes are on the top. And you can kind of see where that space is that's being utilized. it's currently grass area in between the Hanover Center and the Georgetown School currently and so that is our presentation and certainly we want to open up for any questions and I have Dan and Kevin here as well if there is a more specific question I might not be able to answer thank you do we have any questions yes mr. Seifert I haven't heard it for a long time but you know numbers of kids that you know we're having to turn away because we don't have enough room for them and then how

[03:39:42] this will affect that. Sure. I don't have the exact numbers I'm going to hand you, but certainly we are still having to turn away a number of students in cosmetology, in automotive, and in other programs. And so what this would do, so for instance, diesel equipment technology, it turns out that there are a number of students that are currently applying for automotive that when we surveyed them, had diesel been an option, they would have actually selected diesel equipment technology.

[03:40:12] So by adding that program, we're adding a new opportunity for students that doesn't currently exist. It's also a need in the industry, even within our own county. They talk to us in our facilities and our fleet service, the need for diesel equipment techs. And then in addition, similar students that are going currently for automotive, now they have a new area that can fill, so that should allow us to help more of that gap that currently is getting turned away and be able to meet that need.

[03:40:38] Cosmetology, this is going to be adding with this plan an additional 40 slots. you know, four students to be accepted, which increases instead of just 40 students for cosmetology can accept in level one, it'd be up to 80. So that would be much closer to our applications can be anywhere from 80 to 100, you know, on average. So that would get us much closer to meeting that number. And then with welding, that's an area that currently at the high schools, we have ag fabrication courses in our ag programs, which get into welding, but those students could take in their introduction to ag power systems and then ag fabrication, they could potentially be done in their sophomore year. And so what that's going to do is allow additional pathway for them

[03:41:16] into this industry, hopefully then moving on to work-based learning. It's a one-year program during the senior year, but it should help with the concern that you're addressing us to be able to help support more students getting these opportunities and then being turned away. Thank you. And I just wanted to remind everybody about the Go Tech. That is like a middle school program that really helps foster uh the children to go to want to go into these um trade schools like the diesel the welding um so i think that's that's really kind of amazing that engineering

[03:41:54] kind of mindset that we're offering to our middle schoolers so um yes dr show i just want to say uh thank you for spending 16 years over there i i think that um you know what a marvelous opportunity for those students to have so much depth and history. I think about the future, all the, you know, everybody's talking about AI, AI, and you have an AI-proof school over there.

[03:42:16] And so I'm glad that we're expanding it. So good work. Thanks. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Well, I think the design is fabulous. You know, kudos to the architecture and the design. I think it actually looks better with the addition than it does now.

[03:42:36] So I love it. I do have a question about, and this might be a question we can table for later. So we have our culinary space, and then we have this flex space that's kind of a, if we need to expand culinary.

[03:42:56] Is there a need to expand, and we're just hoping we have that within the budget? So the culinary classroom wouldn't be, that one classroom would be an expansion. be we're currently having to do a monthly rent on the learning cottage right now and so that would that's where our culinary one classroom currently sits so if this in the building now it's part of the main structure if there's you know additional funding to be able to put it in there the flex classroom is really a space for us as we are exploring possible new programming that we could potentially we need a classroom space from B but it might be that there's a program we're exploring

[03:43:31] that we could use our current labs and share with different programs that don't necessitate adding an additional lab space from a cost perspective, but we do need a classroom space to fit those students from the instructional standpoint. So that gives us flexibility to look at new programming that we currently don't offer, potentially new innovative ideas that we don't have currently.

[03:43:52] Awesome. Okay, thank you very much. That definitely answered my question. Does anybody else have any questions? Okay. Thank you all so much. okay so next um we are moving on to uh public comment so mr coleman do you have a statement for us yes thank you madam chair procedures for public comment the school board conducts the public comment segment of its meetings to receive information from the general public on matters

[03:44:30] related to hanover county public schools per board policy the total time allotted for public comment will not exceed 60 minutes speakers who wish to address the school board are requested to follow these guidelines. As each speaker is recognized by the chairperson, the speaker is asked to clearly state the speaker's name, magisterial district, and the subject of the speaker's remarks. Speakers are asked to address their comments to the board and not to the audience. The board requests that the audience refrain from responding to speaker's comments with applause or other audible expressions of approval or disapproval. Speakers are allotted three minutes to address the board. Each speaker's

[03:45:06] elapsed time will appear on the screen. Speakers will also receive notification from the chairperson when time has expired although the board does not permit the use of slideshows or other projected materials during this segment speakers are invited to provide printed copies of such materials to the board the board requests any person with a complaint about a school division employee to first address the concern to the division superintendent in accordance with board policy comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during this segment and speakers should refrain from using personal personally identifiable information in

[03:45:41] connection with an individual student speakers should be aware that while the board allows speakers to address any matter within the board's purview speakers may be held legally responsible if they make statements that violate the legal rights of others including the threatening or defamatory statements made against staff members students or parents the board expresses its appreciation for the public's input and cooperation during this segment of the meeting um thank you mr. Coleman open mic night we have we have no public comment so we will be

[03:46:19] moving on to our action agenda thank you thank you great or mr. Coleman so we have miss Han for yes if you don't mind since it's just the one I'm gonna stay right here thank you this is the one that we discussed last month at the meeting, this is a clarification of the requirements and the exceptions to required

[03:46:51] immunizations when children are being registered for school. So nothing super substantive here, except that it just makes it a little bit more clear for our families who may be wanting to explore options that do not involve immunizations. Thank you, Ms. Hahn. Do I have a motion to Approve the proposed policy madam chair. I do I move to approve the proposed new policy seven dash 2.6 student immunizations as presented. Thank you. Mr. Seifert FM motion on the table. Do you have a second?

[03:47:29] Thank you, dr. Shroff. Is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say I all those opposed motion passes Next we have our consideration of the textbook adoption for environmental science Hello. You don't have your Avengers costume on.

[03:47:48] I don't have my tea. You can still be one. It's one of the solo origin stories. Welcome. I didn't start this. Thank you for staying.

[03:48:04] Members of the board, Dr. Panikoff, senior staff. Tonight I'm going to be sharing our recommendation for the High School Environmental Science textbook. I want to thank Ms. Lynn for being our school board representative. on our curriculum adoption teams this spring.

[03:48:24] And I do want to acknowledge that our original plan was to bring you both a K-5 and the environmental science, but we had an issue with one of our publishers, and we are currently working through our finalization of that selection.

[03:48:41] So I will return yet again next month to give you our final recommendation for elementary science. for the board. Our environmental science resource adoption team met multiple times with multiple publishers to consider textbooks before coming to a consensus about our newly adopted high school environmental science course resources. Since that course will be a foundational

[03:49:15] course to prepare students who are in 9th grade for the upcoming 10th grade sophomore biology course. We wanted to be very intentional to make sure that the resource available for this would fully prepare these students and align with the content and the rigor of that course to prepare them for biology.

[03:49:38] The selected resource that we were proposing was appealing to our team based on the fact that it included relevant and engaging case studies throughout that would require students to applying knowledge and build their critical thinking skills.

[03:49:55] So with that, in addition, our community also spoke to review the books as they were in our public libraries. The written feedback indicated that the subject support for the product met the new state standards, the new adopted SOLs for environmental science, and we currently have funds in the existing textbook budget to cover this adoption. So I would like to thank you for considering this

[03:50:29] resource and the recommendation from our adoption committee. And if you do have any questions at this time, I would be glad to answer those. Thank you, Mr. Gilchrist. We'll expect your uniform next time. Do we have any questions? Yes, Mr. Seifert. Great briefing. Thank you. I wanted to ask how many textbooks does that include? Like every desk has a classroom, every student? We are anticipating a class set, two class sets in each building because we do not anticipate, as we looked at master schedule, that there would not be two concurrent, more than two concurrent sections

[03:51:07] running at a time. So there would be enough for every student in a room at any given time. Okay. And is that the standard for all our classes? I know that's off. Maybe you don't have the answer to that I know for for most courses we have class sets of physical copies and this one also has full digital access so the students can access that on their Chromebook in addition there are you can see that there's video resources and and some simulation resources that are built in that you

[03:51:43] can't get from from the hard task so the students would be using both okay in the process. All right, thank you. That is the current practice in most of our secondary school adoptions at this point because of the digital resources that are available but rest assured if a student or parent wants to request a copy of the book to be at home for further reinforcement we do provide that. It was the case in one of the schools where the student was in a shared custody situation and we sent one to each home so they had exactly what they needed wherever they were okay super thank you thank you very much thank

[03:52:21] you miss Lynn for being a part of that I would recommend anybody on the board to be a part of the it the next textbook adoption committee it is a fabulous process and very it's very eye-opening to the rigor in the process and the thought process behind this teachers and the committee members it's great great experience so that being said I think you're looking for an approval and an adoption so do we have an emotion I move to approve the recommended

[03:52:57] environmental science textbook adoption thank you miss Lynn do I have a second second thank you I have a motion in a second on the table is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed motion passes thank you very much you too next up we have the miss Melton and you have patiently waited for this moment thank you so much for sticking around because

[03:53:34] this is very important you can't buy textbooks without this that's right well Good evening, school board members, Dr. Penny Cuff, senior staff. I'm Angela Melton, director of finance, and I am presenting the FY27 budget for your consideration for adoption.

[03:53:51] Get this going. So I'm going to start off with a recap of the budget process to date. On February 10th, the school board approved the superintendent's FY2027 proposed budget. On April 8th, the Hanover County Board of Supervisors adopted the FY2027 operating budgets and the FY 2027 Capital Improvement Plan.

[03:54:16] This approval provides spending authority to Hanover County Public Schools in the following categories. The School Operating Fund in the amount of $272,403,720. The School Nutrition Fund in the amount of $10,598,189.

[03:54:37] the school capital improvements fund for FY 2027 for $15,827,750. The five-year capital improvement plan for FY 2027 to FY 2031 was also approved and the five-year plan totals $157,920,750 for Hanover County Public Schools. So at this time, and you may have seen this, the state budget process is ongoing. The House

[03:55:14] and Senate proposed budgets vary significantly and we do not have a final budget from the state. They vary in the amounts and the categories, which also includes one-time funding and recurring funding, so we do not have a clear picture. Due to the delay in the state budget, it is recommended that Hanover county public schools approved budget be adopted at this time and the budget be amended when there is a final state budget and we do anticipate that to be in june but we shall see on the screen

[03:55:53] you see the motions so at this time i can take any questions thank you miss melton appreciate it do we have any questions on um the fiscal year 2027 budget okay um seeing no questions we um are looking for the first motion so do i have a motion for madam chair i'm sorry madam chair i moved to adopt the fy 2027 school board's operating budget in the amount of 272 to 272

[03:56:30] million four hundred and three thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars okay thank you have a motion um dr shrove do i have a second second uh thank you mr coleman i have a motion and a second is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed okay our operating budget motion is passed um do we have a motion for our five-year capital madam chair i move to adopt the FY 2027 through FY 2031 capital improvement plan in the amount of $157,920,750

[03:57:08] for all five years, including $15,827,750 for FY 2027. Thank you, Dr. Shrove. I have a motion on the table uh do i have a second second thank you mr mark um sorry thank you mr coleman um we have a motion and a second is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed okay we have approved um an approved five-year capital improvement uh budget

[03:57:40] next um the nutrition madam chair i moved to approve the fy 2027 school nutrition services budget in the amount of ten million five hundred ninety eight thousand one hundred and eighty nine dollars thank you dr show if I have a motion on the table do you have a second second thank you mr. Coleman of motion in a second do it is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed we have an approved budget thank you very much miss Melton that

[03:58:14] concludes our action agenda so now moving on to materials for board review we have you have your fiscal status report and your facilities users report in your packets and then calendar of board related events is Miss Brown put this in purple for you to take home with you and always be able to find it it has all your upcoming events it does have events through um next november obviously we'll be

[03:58:48] adding a whole lot more to those purple pages um but know that you know your your next month um or may and june are are in here so um big ones are graduation um on may 30th and dr pennycoff i'll turn it over to you for anything else for calendar related thank you i think that you have covered the calendar related events and we thank you in advance because we know you have many nights out for the remainder of May and we appreciate you and your families coming to be with us at these many events to mostly celebrate

[03:59:25] our seniors thank you yes lots of nights out right right guys so schedule for topics schedule of topics for the next board meeting thank you we have three action items that will be the FMLA policy, we will see for action, the code of student conduct, and the elementary science textbooks. So what Mr. Gilchrist mentioned about our elementary textbook adoption, the original selection would not have the actual textbooks for two years.

[04:00:03] So because of that, we switched to the second option that the committee had considered, and that's out in the libraries now. And from what I understand, the curriculum specialists actually love that one too and are happy that things worked out that way too.

[04:00:23] So that will be our third item. Also, there has been a lot of discussion around screen time and the use of technology for instruction and how we use that in our schools and what the percentage of time is, what devices our children have access to, and who takes things home so we wanted to share the the thoughtful way that that has been implemented here in Hanover and just to give you a picture because we want to be sure we don't ever throw the baby out with the bath water and that we keep the great things that are happening but they're

[04:00:56] always but we're always cognizant that we are watching the instruction to be sure that we always have more, we always have less use of technology for instruction than the other methods of instruction that we provide. And so our team is going to share the great things that come from that as well as the pieces such as, sometimes you see a lot around social media and gaming, and those are the types of things that you don't want to see in schools, but you certainly don't want to throw out the great instructional things that are available to staff today that, you know,

[04:01:34] have really helped students be able to get instruction that's appropriate for them faster. For example, the devices for teachers and staff actually analyze when a student takes a test.

[04:01:49] And so the teachers, instead of having to go home and do all that analysis at night and then differentiate the instruction for the students based on what they learned or didn't learn, they can actually get the results printed out and then move right into how do they help with the next steps for each child. So that's just an example, but we want to be sure that we keep the good and that we always stay cognizant so that our children are developing appropriately, and if we need to make any adjustments, that we continue to watch and make those as we go.

[04:02:22] So we look forward to having those discussions with you in June. Thank you, Dr. Pennycuff. So, Mr. Martin, do you, Dr. Schroff has really enjoyed doing this last motion.

[04:02:38] Well, my motion says to adjourn on March the 10th, so I think that's just a troll because y'all haven't been here in so long. I caught it. I moved to adjourn our May 12th, 2026 meeting. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

[04:02:55] We have a motion on the table. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Shove. I have a motion and a second. There's never any discussion, but I'll ask. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, thank you.

[04:03:10] We are adjourned.

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