Minutes of the 2/28 GEPA Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7:15 PM.

Expansion of Board – this agenda item was deleted.

John Wright provided an update on the budget process.
• At the March 2nd BOS meeting, the BOS will decide on what tax rates to advertise.
• There will be a budgetary hearing on March 30th.
• The BOS will vote for a budget on April 6th.
• The BOS can only designate allocations by category for the SB budget.
• The BOS may decide to vote on category allocations different from those requested in the current SB approved budget. If they do, the Superintendent and SB must draft a budget that works with those numbers, but they will not be held to the same standard for public hearings.

Petition presentation to School Board discussion
• We currently have over 600 signatures on the petition (between online and hard copy versions). The signatures on the petition represent the families of over 1000 students in GCPS.
• There are currently 100 members on the GEPA Facebook group and 140 members in the GEPA Google group.

Paper Drive/Fundraising
• 8 cases of copy paper have been delivered to the schools to date, with additional paper ready to distribute
• We are scheduled to collect copy paper at the GES spaghetti dinner and auction on March 11th.
• PTA will collect paper at the RES Bouncy Day on March 13th
• It was brought to the attention of the group that simply presenting the paper to the school DOES NOT get it in the hands of the teachers. At least at GES, each teacher has an allocation of paper and then must buy their own, so paper given to the school is being used by administration. GEPA will modify their strategy to ensure that teachers receive the paper.
• Other future fund/supply-raising ideas were discussed including used instrument drives, school supply drives, and potentially supplementing the free breakfast program if state funding is eliminated.
• It was suggested that GEPA coordinate with the county PTAs to ensure we’re addressing the greatest needs in the schools and not creating duplicate efforts or working at cross-purposes.


RiF Notices

• We’ve heard about 27 RiF letters to teachers at GES, 14 at Byrd, all non-tenured teachers of Randolph, 20 at the high school, and unknown at the middle school. It is unknown if any non-instructional staff received RiF letters.
• Vice Chair Jane Christie reached out to Dr. Underwood to get an accurate accounting of what RiF letters were sent and to what positions. Dr. Underwood did not know how many letters were sent or to whom. She indicated that Diane Bennett was the only person with that information, and she was out of town, returning on Monday. Jane will continue the inquiry with Ms. Bennett on Monday.

Drug Dog Video

John Wright briefed us on the context of the Drug Dog Video, as conveyed via the Sheriff’s office. Approximately 18 months ago, Sheriff Agnew approached Dr. Underwood and Ms. Ball (principal) to discuss bringing in drug dogs to sweep the school, with the intent to ensure that the date did not interfere with exams, testing, etc. No one outside Sheriff Agnew, Dr. Underwood, and Ms. Ball knew of the impending search. Yet a student produced video ran on the morning broadcast at the high school for the next week or so essentially warning kids that the “dogs are coming” and any illegal substances in lockers, backpacks, cars, etc would be found and students busted would be prosecuted by the school and authorities. When the dogs did sweep the school, no drugs were found. It is notable that the video ONLY ran at the school for the week or so between the meeting with Dr. Underwood and Ms. Ball and when the dogs came to the school --- thus acting as a powerful warning to the students and staff. When Sheriff Agnew later discovered the existence of the warning video, he confronted Dr. Underwood and Ms. Ball about the leak of information. An admission was made that indeed students had been made aware of the impending search. Sheriff Agnew later also confronted the School Board regarding the incident. To our knowledge, no disciplinary or censure actions were taken relative to this incident.

The student video in question was viewed.

A discussion ensued regarding this incident as another instance of administrative choices in our schools that clearly were not made in the best interests of the children, families, or community members. We discussed what we as parents can do about this, including asking our School Board reps why no actions were taking about the poor administrative judgment shown. Several parents expressed that the video could have run at the beginning of the year as a general deterrent or even every single day as an ongoing deterrent, but felt that running it for a week as a specific “don’t get caught” type warning was reprehensible and bordering on obstruction of justice.

March 2 Board of Supervisors Meeting
• There is a BOS meeting at 3 PM, where the advertised tax rates will be decided upon.
• There is a BOS public hearing at 7 PM.
• It was decided that GEPA will comment during the 7 PM public comment period, and request to participate in Mr. Quarles committee(s) idea.

New Business
• None

Adjournment