10/14/2015 King George VA Journal

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Opinion Raise Virginia’s minimum wage Page 2

king George Fall Festival

Sports

See inside for recap of King George Fall Festival

Volleyball: Foxes top conference

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KG Education Foundation awards Innovation Grants The King George Education Foundation recently awarded its second round of Innovation Grants since its establishment in January 2014. This year’s announcement took place at the Sept. 28 school board meeting. Foundation President Tammy Indseth said the organization received six grant proposals. “The King George Education Foundation supports efforts to enhance the quality of education in our public schools through innovation and creativity,” Indseth said. “The Foundation sought proposals that presented innovative ideas for achieving the division’s curricular goals, enhancing students’ personal development, and/or encouraging links with the community.” “This is another reason to be excited in King George,” School Board Chairman John Davis said. The following projects were grant winners. Listening to Learn: Submitted by Laura Jo Darcy, division reading specialist. The project is designed to increase opportunities for students with below-grade level reading skills

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King George

Volume 39, Number 42

Phyllis Cook

Pages 5-8

to access grade level text through audio books through a home-andschool collaboration. The grant of $239.52 will purchase three mp3 players and 15 audio books. The books will be loaded with gradelevel chapter audio books for a target group of third grad students at King George Elementary. Students will take the players home daily and discuss their books at school in their groups. Audio books will increase their grade level oral language skills and pave the way to motivate reading the books themselves as skills increase. Physical Fitness Assessment: Submitted by Amy Carey and Thad Reviello, physical education and health teachers at King George High School. The state recently revamped health and physical education Standards of Learning. The goal is for teachers is to help students create personal fitness goals. To that end, teachers must properly assess students’ starting points and help them develop strategies to achieve or surpass their goals. This grant of $431.61 will purchase three pieces See KGEF, page 12

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 50 Cents

Fall Festival offers good time for all

Photo by Rob Hollis

The King George High School Marching Band fired up the crowd during the parade that kicked off the the King George Fall Festival. Area residents celebrated the arrival of the fall season with a day of games, fellowship, crafts and good food. The balmy weather was perfect for the occasion, and festival offered something fun for kids of all ages. For a festival recap, see pages 5-8.

Black, Jenkins compete for Dahlgren District supervisor seat Phyllis Cook Dahlgren voters will have a choice of two new candidates on the ballot for that district’s seat on the King George Board of Supervisors on Nov. 3. Robert J. Black Jr. and John E. Jenkins Jr. are each seeking the position. Both work in law enforcement and each is new to politics and campaigning. The Dahlgren seat is coming open because incumbent Ruby Brabo is running instead for the At-Large seat. The King George Board of Supervisors is a five-member board with staggered terms of four years for each member with three new terms beginning on Jan. 1, 2016. Brief profiles of the two Dahlgren District supervisor candidates follow:

Robert J. Black, Jr. Black, 39, moved to King George 10 years ago from Bowie, MD. He works as a lieutenant in the Prince George’s County (MD) Police Department and is currently assigned to the internal a f f a i r s division as the commander of the court liaison unit. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in professional Black studies, l e a d e rsh ip and management from University of Mary Washington in 2011, and prior to that earned an Associate’s degree in applied science-criminal justice technology from Prince George’s Community College in 1999.

He performs extensive community service in King George as the volunteer Deputy Chief of the King George County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services and is a firefighter/ EMT-B. He is a member of the Potomac Elementary PTA and a member of the South Potomac Civilian-Military Community Relations Council. “I believe the purpose of local government is to ensure that priorities set by the community are met. King George, like all communities, has true needs that have to be addressed. I believe these needs include improving public safety, strengthening our schools, and pursuing long-term economic development opportunities,” he said. “I have dedicated my entire adult life to public safety and believe that I can bring a valuable amount of experience to the Board of

Supervisors. I have an elementaryage son in our school system, and have a vested interest in ensuring that our schools provide a quality education.” John E. Jenkinks, Jr. Jenkins, 34, first moved to King George in 1995 with his parents and graduated from King George High School in 1999. He lived here until 2006, earning a Bachelor’s degree in 2003 from Old Dominion University. He also served in the Virginia Army National Guard from1999-06. His National Guard service included two activations, at Fort Eustis in 2004, and in Iraq in 2005. He was awarded a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with V-Device for Valor. Upon his return from Iraq, he lived in Colonial Beach, then moved back to King George in 2012. He has since earned a post-graduate certificate

in public relations from Clarion University in 2015. Jenkins has worked as a U.S. Capitol Police Officer since 2004, and was named officer of the year in 2007. His duties also include crisis negot iator and crisis intervention officer, and he also trains and instructs new officers. H i s community Jenkins service in King George includes as a volunteer wrestling coach since 2012 at King George High School as well as assisting youth and middle school programs. He served as KGHS Athletic Boosters vice president from 2014-

15, and as a board member of his homeowners association since 2013. He recently joined the King George County Historical Society and Dahlgren Heritage Museum. “Our community faces many challenges, and the time for solutions is now. I possess the knowledge, passion and proven leadership qualities to serve the citizens of King George,” he said. “I believe in representative government and will therefore, always put people first. My priorities include communicating with the public, improving emergency services and developing a long-term economic plan,” Jenkins said. “King George is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It is inhabited by caring, intelligent and talented people. If elected, I believe that together we can make it an even better place to call home, now and well into the future.”

Yezierski oulines employee recruitment plans for King George school board Phyllis Cook The King George School Board recently heard plans for recruiting new employees for next school year from Beth Yezierski, who took over the position of coordinator of human resources on July . “I’m excited about this. I feel human resources is on the right track,” Chairman John Davis said. “I’m excited and I thank you for that. I think we are moving in the right direction.” Here’s just some of what Yezierski said: “I want to thank you for allowing me to come here tonight to share

some things that we might be doing a little bit differently,” Yezierski said. In addition to outlining her recruitment process, Yezierski also reported 92 new employees were hired for the current year out of the division’s 582 positions. The new employees added up to 64 professional staff, including: 56 teachers, four administrators, a psychology intern, a registered nurse, an interpreter and a therapist. It also included 13 paraprofessional/ instructional aides, nine cafeteria workers, three transportation personnel, two support staff and one custodian. Davis said the hiring number was

higher than usual this year because the board offered an early retirement incentive program last spring. Yezierski started in July to build up the applicant pool for the 2016-17 school year. Her focus is now on identifying and building relationships with potential candidates, along with plans to attend university job fairs through March. “I started taking a tablet with me so people could enter their information and that would be on our shared drive in real time, for principals to access,” Yezierski said. “This past year we had 419 people sign up at career fairs through that avenue.”

She wants each principal to supply a one-page flyer to help her market their schools. “Instead of handing out generic information about the division at job fairs, we can send these out to people after job fairs to sell our individual schools,” Yezierski said. She talked about her recruitment plan. “To be effective, we’ve got to establish a multi-faceted process. It’s going to have to several different ways that we recruit folks,” she said. Yezierski said she will employ digital methods to find candidates, including the numerous free websites, as well as the use of the

county’s website and other means to get the word out about job openings. She expects to use the division’s revamped website to post 15- second video snippets from some current employees, so job seekers can hear about working in the division. There has also been talk by school board members of the division hosting a Facebook page. “That is a really good idea,” Yezierski said. “It would be one of our best resources for pushing out information about jobs and job recruiting.” She said print ads, radio ads and school marquees should also be employed. Yezierski will begin to review

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resumes and conduct initial phone interviews from November through January, with February through June partly devoted to confirming upcoming school vacancies expected at the end of the school, along with working on the selection process for new hires. “My goal of is to have 75 See RECRUITMENT page 12


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