The Spotsylvania County School Board voted for new officers and approved changes to its code of ethics and policies and regulations surrounding harassment and how meetings are conducted during its first regular meeting of the year Monday evening.
The approved changes reduce the amount of time given to individuals for public comments from five to three minutes; ensure that only the board chair can add old or new business to the agenda before the meeting; and remove “School Board members” from the definition of “school personnel” who are subject to the division’s prohibition against harassment and retaliation.
The board agreed to remove one proposed change to the public comments policy that would limit the number of speakers who are able to address the board on any one topic.
There is now no restriction in division policy on the number of people who can speak on any given topic during public comments at board meetings.
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Lee Hill District representative Lisa Phelps will serve as chair this year, and Berkeley District representative April Gillespie will serve as vice chair for a second year.
Phelps was nominated by Gillespie and elected by a 4–3 vote, with previous chair Kirk Twigg and Abuismail joining Phelps and Gillespie.
Dawn Shelley nominated Lorita Daniels to serve as chair, but Twigg, Phelps, Gillespie and Abuismail did not support that nomination.
The meeting stretched into the early hours of Tuesday morning, with public comments lasting for almost two hours.
The board also had a lengthy discussion about donations scheduled for approval. At a special meeting in December, Abuismail asked that the list of donations be pulled from the consent agenda.
A “revised list” of December donations was presented to the board for approval on Monday with two items missing—an innovative teaching, or IDEA, grant for $1,996 for Salem Elementary’s “Diversity Book Project” and a $1,497 grant from the Spotsylvania Education Foundation for Thornburg Middle School’s “Social, Emotional Learning Project.”
Shelley asked Kenny Forrest, executive director of operations, why these two donations were missing from the list for approval Monday.
Forrest said he did not have an explanation and “would need to get a response.” Abuismail also did not offer an explanation.
The board approved a motion by Gillespie to have staff provide information about the two donations to board members prior to the next regular meeting.
Superintendent Mark Taylor in his comments said he will address the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to present the School Board’s request to spend carryover funds from the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The carryover amounts to $5.9 million, which Taylor said is 1.6% of last year’s budget. Division staff are proposing to spend $1 million on transportation for special education students, $1.8 million to address a rise in utility costs and $3.1 million on renovations to Spotsylvania Middle School.
Taylor said he is preparing to make his budget presentation later this month and announced that through a “small, internal” audit of full- and part-time positions, the finance and human resources team discovered 25.5 teaching positions that have been funded but “unadvertised and unfilled” since at least 2019.
He said the positions have a value of $1.9 million and that “we have very definite ideas of the highest and best use of those 25.5 positions to meet the needs of this division.”
Board member Nicole Cole asked how staff know these positions were unadvertised and unfilled and whether they are included in the current number of vacant positions or are in addition.
Taylor said he will provide that information as part of the budget process.