Nelson County School Board December
NELSON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEETING SUMMARY as of December 18, 2025
During the December 11, 2025 School Board meeting, the three retiring School Board members were honored and thanked for their service by every speaker. Margaret Claire is most recently finishing 6 years of service (10 years in total), Janet Turner-Giles has finished 12 years of service, and George Cheape has finished 7 years of service. The two continuing board members, Ceaser Perkins and Shannon Powell, read a resolution honoring them and gave them each a unique green and gold afghan designed and sewn by local seamstress and bus driver, Virginia Glover. The school division gave each of them a framed picture that showed the four schools sketched by local artist, Pat Echols Saunders, and an etched Jefferson Cup.
Superintendent Amanda Hester also gave One Nelson Awards to student Joshua Dunnivan for volunteering at the recent Little Feet Meet (for special education students), community member Florence Hernandez for preparing meals for a delayed out-of-town One Act Play competition, Tyre River ES cafeteria worker Kathy Callahan for managing the kitchen all-day for the recent Blue Grass Festival (as well as her annual job of preparing summer school meals), and HS SPED chair and multi-season coach Jack Dolan for being the MC for the Little Feet Meet. A five student HS ensemble entertained School Board members with several holiday songs, led by band director Robert Meeks.
Upcoming important dates were discussed including the fact that students will be out of school from December 20, 2025 through January 6, 2026.
Several Nelson County residents made public comments: incoming School Board member Joe Kennedy thanked the outgoing School Board members and brought up two topics to consider in the future - the new USDA nutrition guidelines coming out in January and whether the schools during regular day instruction could be mindful of students who do not celebrate Halloween, Christmas and Easter. County Supervisor Ernie Reed thanked the outgoing School Board members. [The other two incoming School Board members, Joe Richardson and Stacy Rush, were also present in the audience.]
Superintendent Hester discussed the activities in the last month in her Pathways to Success presentation. Turkeys were distributed to all staff members before Thanksgiving, made possible with a partnership with Food Lion. Select staff went to the VSBA Annual Conference, special education, artificial intelligence (AI) and instructional training sessions. All staff have been asked to show their intent to return for the next school year to help with budget planning for 2026-27. Many of the school holiday programs were streamed on YouTube for the community to view. County staff were updated on the school’s emergency plans and the Transportation department staff evaluated roads throughout the county for safe conditions during our recent winter weather events. Some schools hosted Thanksgiving related meals (feeding 294 families) and students in after-school remediation programs ate 640 suppers during November (on top of free breakfasts and lunches for all students). Each school participated in donation drives and community organizations donated to the schools.
Assistant Superintendent Shannon Irvin presented the recent release of information about the decrease in state funding for Nelson County Public Schools for the next two school years based on the state’s Local Composite Index (LCI) formulas. This was discussed in general during the November meeting’s Budget 101½ presentation. LCI is based on the local governments “ability to pay” using property values and household gross income compared to the rest of the state. The new LCI calculated for Nelson County is 0.7269 and is an increase from this year’s 0.6645 (and the value three years ago of 0.5885). This means that for all “Standard of Quality” (state minimum) expenses, the County will need to pay 72.69% and the state only 27.31%. Nelson County is now in the top 10 divisions in the state with this calculated “ability to pay” although both County and school staff constantly advocate for a variation because of the economic disadvantage of the majority of the student population, the county’s rural location, and the largest County employer as a seasonal resort. Ms. Irvin calculated that the loss of state funding for this year’s budget would be $900,00 based on this new LCI. School Board members talked about how this loss of funding will impact the budget discussions in the next few months and the need for the County to increase funding for the Schools.
Director of Instruction & Innovation, Scott Belako, gave a presentation on three options for school calendars for next year that will be further vetted by stakeholders with one selected for approval by the School Board in January. All calendars start the school year for all students on August 12 with the final school day either May 26 or May 27 and graduation tentatively on May 21.
Mr. Belako then gave a presentation on the school division's recently developed Guidance on AI created by 18 instructional staff members. This guidance was a state requirement and will be released for use by students and staff starting in January 2026. The overview of the guidance is as follows:
An example of specific guidance for students is seen below:
The guidance will evolve as teachers and students make use of the increasing amount of AI in textbooks and other instructional technology programs. A survey of instructional staff found that the majority of teachers (130) are already using AI as a time-saver for classroom preparation.
Maintenance Supervisor Les Campbell said the HS renovation continues on schedule. A third-party agency is starting commissioning on HVAC equipment (both the recently installed mechanical systems and the problematic Honeywell chiller). Moseley Architects are designing the recommended buffer tank for the chiller.
The School Board voted to adopt the slightly modified 2023-2029 Strategic Plan presented by Superintendent Hester last month as well as agreeing to surplus 80 obsolete student desks.