1 Dickenson County School

DICKENSON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD September 24, 2014--Regular School Board Meeting 5:00 p.m. – Dickenson County School Board PRESENT: John Skeen, Chairman; Rocky Barton, Vice-Chairman; Susan Mullins; Shanghai Nickles; Donald Raines; Reba McCowan, Clerk; and Haydee Robinson, Su- perintendent. ROLL CALL AND MEETING CALLED TO ORDER BY CHAIRMAN, JOHN SKEEN: Chairman, John Skeen—called the meeting to order and noted that all Board Members were present along with our Division Superintendent, Haydee Robinson and Clerk, Reba McCowan. At this time I would like to ask Mr. Rocky Barton if he will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then a Moment of Silence. Please be seated. You have the Agenda before you with no revisions, and I will need a motion to approve the Agenda. Mrs. Susan Mullins—Made the motion to approve the Agenda. Mr. Shanghai Nickles se- conded the motion. All votes aye. GOOD NEWS FROM OUR SCHOOLS: Chairman, John Skeen—We are now ready for Good News From our Schools. Mrs. Rob- inson: Superintendent Robinson—Good afternoon Board Members and Mr. Chair. Good News from Our Schools comes this month from Clintwood High School. We are recognizing Eliz- abeth Mullins who went to the South Carolina Governors School of Agriculture in Clemson. She was awarded a leadership award and was one of seven. So, congratulations to Elizabeth Mullins, her family and Mrs. Wilder who is our FFA Agriculture sponsor. I shared the pic- tures and article with you, and I wanted to recognize her. That concludes our Good News. Chairman, John Skeen—Is that all the Good News that we have? Superintendent Robinson—That is it for right now. PUBLIC COMMENTS: Chairman, John Skeen—That brings us to Public Comments. Mr. Nickles would you please read the Guidelines. (So Read) Is there anyone here this evening representing the DEA? 1 Ms. Pam Fields—Yes. I am a teacher at Sandlick Elementary School. I am the Interim DEA President. At the end of last school year our President, Mrs. Barton, resigned. We be- gan taking nominations at the end of last school year, and it did not pan out. So we are cur- rently taking nominations and trying to get reorganized to get things back on track. We have a couple of reps who stepped down, and we are trying to get everything back on track. We are also planning a Fall Rally sometime in late October. Thank you. Chairman, John Skeen—Thank you. Our next speaker is April Quesenberry. Ms. April Quesenberry—Thank you all for inviting me to be here, Chairman of the Board, Board Members and Mrs. Robinson. Upward Bound at Southwest Virginia Community Col- lege has served Haysi High School for over 17 years. I know that with the new school being built there are a lot of organizations who would like to serve the students of Dickenson Coun- ty. UVA Wise has an Upward Bound program as well, and they have always served the other schools in Dickenson County where this Upward Bound program has served Haysi High School. I do not foresee any reason why both Upward Bounds as well as Mountain Empire with their Talent Search Program could be in your school. So my proposal is to help clarify what may be confusing for the students could be an issue of what Upward Bound am I in and what do I want to do. So I thought that we could be the Upward Bound Robotics Program. The last time I stood before you was with Mr. Neece, Mr. Chris Owens and Mr. David Ow- ens before they went to the state competition. I think we have a very strong Robotics Pro- gram. That is just my thoughts. Anything that you all would have to share or any input to make a better choice for the students you would need to compare what UVA has and what we have. We all have the same ideas in mind and that is to serve the students at Clintwood and Haysi to help them get to college. That is the bottom line for our Federal Grant. The packets that I have given each of you have some facts about Haysi. We have invested about $4.5 million in the tri-county grant which Haysi is in. In the packets as well we‘ve got some newsletters that we put out. We put out one every week as well as our academic monthly newsletter. My handbook is in here; my business card is in here as well as all of the facts. Mr. Shanghai Nickles—This one has a credit card in it! Ms. April Quesenberry—Does it? We are all going out to eat! Thank you. Please let me know if you have any questions. I would be glad to come back and be put on the Agenda where we could have some dialogue about this, or please feel free to call or email me. We usually recruit for the upcoming year in February. I know you all have a lot on your plate, but if I could know something around that time, I would appreciate it. We have a six-week summer program. Mr. Neece drives the bus and picks up the students at Haysi and drives the students to the college and brings them back in the evenings. We serve them breakfast and lunch while they are there. The students do get a stipend for being with us weekly during the academic year and meeting with us during the summer program. We just really want to be in the new school and most of all to be loyal to the students that we have and would like to see them through their high school graduation and into college. We would like to be able to help them with all of that because Wise is limited on the number of students they can serve, and we are as well. 2 Superintendent Robinson—When do you have to start recruiting for the summer? I‘m sor- ry, you said that already! Thank you. Mr. Donald Raines—How many did you serve last year? Ms. April Quesenberry—We had 25, and I could serve a lot more. Mr. Donald Raines—Are you limited to 25? Ms. April Quesenberry—No. I could do less, and I could do more. The grant that Haysi is with also has Council High School and Honaker High School. This year we recruited the least amount of students at Haysi High School. We just wanted to bring this to you to see if this was an idea that you wanted to proceed with and have the Robotics Program continue to be involved with this program at Southwest Virginia Community College. Chairman, John Skeen—Thank you. Our next speaker is Mr. Don Hill. Mr. Don Hill—Mr. Chair and Board Members, my name is Don Hill from Clinchco. Last month the School Board voted unanimously to select the Upper Backbone Site on which to build the proposed elementary school. In my opinion that vote was unanimously wrong. It is important to understand that the engineers could only select from a population of very inade- quate sites. Each and every one was located in the Haysi area based on only one factor, the least cost of excavation. Why did the School Board not ask the engineers to consider factors other than excavation costs such as other sites, other costs and far and away the most important factor, the impact on students from both the education and future safety viewpoint? Due diligence is sorely missing in this decision. The decision to locate this school at the Up- per Backbone Site is the beginning of a colossal mistake on several levels. It is quite stun- ning that the vote was unanimous despite the existence of compelling evidence supporting its location at the Clinchco site now owned by the IDA. This decision can and must be reversed quickly before further damage is done. The most important decision factor to consider is the location‘s impact on the students. The data that I have previously provided still remains un- challenged and shows the significant number of students, around 150, that would likely be placed in harm‘s way by transporting those students further than necessary to the Haysi site. That well-grounded data was totally ignored by each and every member of the School Board. It was summarily dismissed as evidenced by the unanimous vote. I would like the School Board to explain its decision to the parents and children who are impacted by it. Make no mistake about it, regardless of the vote, the Upper Backbone Site is neither the best site nor is it the only site that is available for building the school. Again it was chosen by the inade- quate population of sites in only the Haysi area and furthermore, it was chosen to the exclu- sion of a far more superior site that would cost less and would much better serve a signifi- cantly greater number of students with regard to safety and education. Moreover, it was chosen without regard to the additional cost that will surely be born in the form of a large tax increase at some time in the future by the taxpayers of Dickenson County. In previous meet- ings I have spoken to you about the economies of scale and the economies of size as it per- tains to combining Ervinton and Sandlick Elementary School at the Clinchco site. When small rural schools are combined research exits that shows a cost savings of 49-51%.

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