001console their lord and heal their bodies and for those betters who have lost those who called the lord yes they continue to having to look toward their views which caused their help because we know our health come from you but when father this evil we ask that you just throw up on us we ask that you as you teach us what to say and how to see help us to say well then we say lord and temporary love and we'll give you all honor and glory that is to you and it's in your name we pray and say your name we count it all down amen verse 20 was there facility requests i know we usually do this way before we approve but i attended the regular meeting and would like to look for that
002but i want to stay in service finance and facility meeting because i didn't go to my recommendation would be in the future to separate those two votes okay the secretary will make note of that most of the second almost facility committee meeting i'm reading here about engagement and administrative recommendations for the city and the district to have a tourist draw or proper paperwork to perceive that these efforts are not an easement and piece of property and to be transparent in all fairness this property that we've supposedly submitted i understand my last finance facility meeting was because of the i believe it's 281 500 37.45 and we're drawing up a contract situation to swap this to this property to this price is that the what the contract is for under this um the regulations forward uh
003watertown come on that take the time to explain that to us yes sir i think since the board is here the city approached us about needing an easement down the edge of our property on the ironclaw by the spring athletic complex so they can get sewer uh back to their sewer plant and that's what i brought before you they also were looking at having to add a water tower and on the opposite front corner where uh bramblewood used to run the old bramblewood road bed was where they were looking to do that and i brought that before y'all uh with the uh understanding that we would take that back to the city if y'all gave it to the knock gave it on to it so they could talk about it and vote on it to
004whether they would actually do that also a part of that was back in june we got a letter from them saying that they have been under charging us for utilities at one of our schools to the amount of several thousand dollars i can't i don't know the exact number right now but it's 281 000 yeah it's 281 537.45 yes sir that's what i have here yes sir that's right they're going to charge that amount of money so that that's right uh but in discussion of it wasn't really a trade it was just we were discussing those three things together and it's not like if we didn't give them these things that they wouldn't work out with with us something on the uh on the power under children right but i'm just trying to explain that
005yes sir the reason for the land change from one hand to the other is and it's because this would be forgiven not not really no sir no so we'll still load this amount here because it says well right now we still have them in 2021 yes sir right now we still owe it nothing's been worked out for you i know that but i mean is that what we're doing to work things out so that would be right right i mean i don't want to put it you got to respond but we're not going to have this discussion yes sir and we didn't make the mistake i don't believe but that's right we didn't know so but we're being penalized for the mistake apparently or we're going to be giving away some somebody we're going to
006be swapping something now yes sir now just to give you an update since it's been brought up if it's okay with the chairman and dr roberts uh i have talked to the city folks if we didn't bring it back tonight we're gonna bring it back tonight and ask y'all to vote on it uh but the city decided not to put the water tower there and so they're gonna send us a letter just requesting the easement for the sewer line well what happens with the uh we're still negotiating see i didn't know that until we met tonight i know it's a finance facility meeting yeah so every board member has not had a financial children here would hear that and he would think that our discussion would have been in the uh about the money would
007have been in the um agenda it was just yes sir [Music] apparently that'll be another about yes my suggestion right about separating them so the people attend one meeting [Music] i don't think that that i don't think that that's really appropriate maybe at this time to discuss that but there should be some time that we can discuss how that number came up to be so high without either the city the cassette agenda we're proving what we discussed in the past we already know that we're going to address it again in the future so i think that's why this way before presenting yes sure okay okay so we're not going to discuss it thank you yes cronkite independent mrexcel that is always with us and that pulls us down to revelation celebration so our next item
008on our agenda is public forum and we have one signing up [Music] just to your right which allows those that speak five minutes okay yes sir and um i want to thank everyone here tonight dr robbins in 1929 my great-grandfather john stokes helped build and fund bethune high school years later my father as well as his two brothers would graduate from this school and go on to pursue higher education becoming teachers and principals within this county i don't believe that at any any time these men could have ever imagined the cultural diversity of the students that would now walk the halls of our 18 schools in kershaw county given that education was the family business my cousins and i were influenced by our parents dedication to learning and striving and reading was certainly strongly encouraged
009and as a white child growing up in kershaw county in the 1960s i didn't have hard a hard time finding books and mirrored my world as well as my heritage it saddens me to think that my peers with darker skin did not have this luxury this is the book that i learned to read with this is my third grade book that taught me history of south carolina now if we were to adjourn this meeting at this time and go work in the libraries and the schools throughout kershaw county we wouldn't find these folks they're no longer relevant nor do they mirror our society today it is the responsibility of this school district the librarians as well as teachers to provide their students with literature that will open the window to the world outside the borders
010of kershaw county the literature provided to our students should excite them and inspire them but most of all enable them to think neil gaiman author of the frequently challenged book nowhere stated that fiction builds empathy you get to feel things and visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know you learned that everyone else out there is a me you're not the only me here being someone else when you read and when you return to your own world you're going to be slightly changed empathy is a tool for building people into groups and for allowing us to function is more than self-obsessed individuals i know that later on tonight you're going to be discussing the book woven quote this is a book of poems that i have read it is by an african-american writer each
011work of poetry is unique and it is brilliant as it enlists us to look at the world around us and embrace us i know that the woman that is bringing this before the board and having you review it again seems to believe that critical race theory is hiding in the paragraphs of this book i can certainly tell you that it is not this book is written for a fifth grade level of understanding crt is an examination used in law schools to determine if legal institutions are inherently racist there is nothing in this book to write the suggestion banning this book or any book would deprive students of essential cultural historical knowledge as well as differing points of view our county does not look like 1929 when my great-grandfather walked this earth the landscape has changed
012our knowledge has grown and our population here in kershaw county now represents almost every corner of the world the books within our schools as well as the libraries must resemble the children as well as their interests if our system if our school system wishes to educate our youth and prepare them for the 21st century we must not begin by denying our youth the opportunity to discover a world outside of kershaw county robbins and members of the school board tonight you have in front of you policy e-g-a-d that's the copyright compliance administrative rule this is coming to you for a vote tonight and the recommended changes there you see how i would allow pg materials for elementary and middle school and pg 13 indiana high schools this is coming to you as a recommendation from the
013administration input from the school librarians we are asking for approval tonight we'll be glad to answer any questions is right here thank you dr smith um for you tonight you have recommendations for the 2022-23 school year calendar as well as the 2023-24 your school calendar these are coming to you from a 25-member district-wide calendar committee made up of parents faculty staff employees the calendar is most like the calendar in which we are currently in is a modified year-round calendar it was the calendar that received the majority of the votes and we have the input community survey okay coming to you tonight for approval and be glad to answer any questions you might have did y'all get any more feedback one way or the other overwhelmingly since since we brought some of the last one we
014have not mentioned that we don't have anything additional um to provide to you i just didn't know if you had an outpouring of one over the other just that chart that you can see in front of me that shows this kind of majority but certainly there are other sentiment for other calendars and just to remind you that the committee is going to encourage administration administrations open to working with our community providers for after school day care that might help with some of those concerns um with breaks in the school year so that families will have a coverage for day here and child care trying to scam we're voting on both calendars right it's a two-year period thank you mr donald we're asking for that so that our families will have time to plan in the
015future and it would be our um thought that we would continue this having [Music] um anyway i wanted to see i believe his question was were there any additional votes that came in were there any additional votes that came in after this there were not because we had closed off the survey thank you one mr chairman board uh bring before you tonight as discussed in the finance facility committee meeting a quick claim deed uh that where we are recommending that the district approve this deed and signing of this deed over to the kirkland community development incorporated for the baron de cab property okay community development for family camp elementary school property just just to reiterate what was brought up with the attorney in here um that this deed goes to them and it has to
016remain in a non-profit status so that they can't get it and turn around for gains so we're conveying this um to them so they can use and enjoy for community interest but if they decide to still have to be something similar for that so so what are they going to do it's going to be community [Music] thank you [Music] let's by the school level as well as the district level and it was appealed to the board of trustees and at that time we've had a discussion with extra people to share their insights on reading and study and absolutely entertain the most in another discussion and those three individuals are coach black mr harry and this survey so let's have a few times that means i had the opportunity to to read the book several times
017and i came to one conclusion that material is worthy to be read also i thought about it and you look at the adage of a copy of half or half empty poetry lends itself to that same thing it has to do with interpretation you could either look at it from a pessimistic point of view or either you can look at it from an optimistic point of view but that's what poetry does it's supposed to invoke feelings in you as a person i also believe that as a parent you have the opportunity to decide what book your child wants to read along it's not a part of the curriculum it is not a sign of reading you can make that decision for your child but we have over 10 000 students here in kershaw county and
018when you start writing books that takes away a parent's right to let a child read what they want to especially when a parent has an option of my child i don't want my child to be there and since it's not a public curriculum it's not required reading they have the option of doing that and so therefore i support what was done by the school committee and also the district [Music] thank you coach would you rather go before me and let me finish up my wife and i both had the opportunity to read the book several times as we did with surely overall we agree with approximately eight by the nine percent of the book and there's some parts that we didn't agree with then of course i believe that is also the purpose of literature
019and the poetry to make you think and make you face well you don't necessarily agree with it makes you think and i think that's very important along with the fact that in my area pretty much the district and i think it is a good book and i've only heard one person speak against the book we've all received several letters from the community to our email addresses and none of them were opposing but they're all encouraging us to leave the book in the library and i'm personally agreeing with that even i don't agree with everything that's that's it about woke overall i think a lot of it is just my experiences that we've had with different agreements but mr this shirley's an educator i think she puts it very well about what it's supposed to do
020like she said it's it's like this library book and it's not it's not in the curriculum so no no child is forced to check it out and frankly i think 99 of the kids that did check out probably look at it get bored and put it back on shelf very quickly i think maybe one out of 100 would actually sit down and really focus on it because i just don't know that many kids that are in the country because i certainly wasn't but to digress i just i'm i'm i support the recommendation the administration appreciate and respect what everybody's saying uh do you respect mr haley's opinion and respect respect mark's opinion i don't expect to have my time to give my opinion i have researched re-researched read and re-read and tried to find as
021much positivity in the book that i possibly can and i went back and i've read the school report the school committee report and i believe read the district level report and i've tried to analyze the point of view to see what the point of view is but as i look at this i'll start with the school level consideration on the report my first report that i received which is here as you see highlighted it stated that it stated that the majority opinion is the theme of the book is to inspire young poets to write and to speak out and to be active then it goes down to the bottom at the last sentence it says the unanimous decision is for the book to remain in the library and for students to be able to check
022it out if they choose then this has changed this has been changed from in my board packet today it's been changed from there's so much stuff here that i've researched falling all over the place but i took it very very seriously this is a very serious situation or book that everybody's trying to say now it's changed to where the majority of opinion is the theme of the book is transpire young poets as i said in the first sentence but also it went down to the anonymous decision now one from the united states the majority of decision changed from the unanimous decision to the majority of this of the decision for the book to remain in the library so from the time i got the book or the first report [Music] here it was in highlight
023until tonight the majority of opinion to unanimous decision was changed from majority of opinion to majority of decisions so somebody has changed the mind and not everybody is unanimous on the book so this means not a whole lot here because this committee here was confused somewhere along the line from the majority to the decision then i went through page by page in the book and i'm going to stop at one particular page here a little bit i'm not talking about a parent or parent or whatever i'm talking about a book that's been used in our libraries promoted on a morning show to go check it out and to find out what's in it and this i know we're in a society today that's different than we were in 1929 or 1930 or 1945 or 1969
024when i was in the military and vietnam was going on but i'm going to show you this picture in just a little bit and it to me ends up the whole thing but on page four i've been giving this opportunity i'm going to take it i want nobody to cut me i'll put talkback talk back i'd even go so far as to say it's an obligation to talk back that's on page four and five so let's let's talk about that from then i'm on top i want you to get your books out and we're going to discuss history i don't want to today please get your books out and let's discuss history no i'm not doing history today i don't like the subject but we'd like for you to get your book out no ma'am
025i'm not doing no sir i'm not doing it that's talking back that's what it's teaching the kids learn to talk back and stand up enactors these forms serve both as an instructional manual that's what it says and things and the autism and stay woke and don't sleep stay low and don't sleep that's on page seven page eight cell phone picture appears of a police officer right here and nobody mentioned at the d.o level of a police officer on a person of color this is the society we want to live in do we have not enough police officers shot today do we not have enough violence today but let's teach our elementary children this let's show it to our elementary children and put it in there and let's let's put it on the morning show let's
026do that i'm not making up there it is so this is me but the district didn't mention that they didn't mention showing that picture and they were in their report of course they have a majority the district didn't have a majority or unanimous decision it was just written up as their thoughts we understand activism happens online and offline could activism endanger young children the district does not refer to this page this is on page nine ableism can elementary children explain ableism district didn't refer to that company in the district reply that's on page 10 page 19 we can make a secret club out of our sadness if we let everyone in who wants to join out of our sadness who lets everyone who wants to join now do we want our kids to be sad
027really do we want to join into a sadness don't we have uh guidance counselors and social workers and people like that for people supposed to be able to cope with these children 20 pages 20 and 21. the book has a different picture of the original 1966 uh 1960 sit-in on that picture it's gonna have somebody on a police officer with yellow hair not gray hair like me yellow hair and we want to put an emphasis on that i realize we've got to have history i'm in favor of history and everything that's going on as far as history is concerned but here this guy is how many police officers i got one said nobody police officer you know on the force now it's got yellow hair the sticks stands up taller than anybody else it's a
028picture book elementary children are seeing this i said hey that's a bad guy watch out for the police we got police people being in our country we talked about our company in the world changing we got police ben ambushed and i realized the sit-in was bad i'm not in favor of this what happened in 1960. i'm against what happened in 19 civil rights movement i'm glad it was successful applaud the people who fought for the civil rights movement i actually do and i actually feel that way phase 24 uh it's on page 24 page 24-25 teaching what to think not how to think this district does not refer to those page pages at all page 26 27 imagine a rainbow that's something that's amazing rainbow now mark said he talked to his wife and folks
029but i've talked to an uh elementary aged child i said what's the rainbow for you and i mean to you it means that god will never send flood again but that's not what it means in my school i said really the rainbow colors yeah that means god won't the bible says the goblins and we just want to do with a gracious prayer up here and gracious prayer here but we gotta we're gonna put this in the elementary school child's hand we're talking elementary somebody say fifth grade somebody say third grade somebody say first grade you can go on and on but i'm gonna finish this thing pages 28 29 teacher is they teaching illegal immigration it's about immigrants coming over immigration but they never say anything about legal immigration not in this book we're going
030to all be together if we don't do it just didn't say anything about legal immigration pages 30 to 31 instructionalism ecosystem blm black uh blm bracelet explain that almost it's almost as b l almost to m but it's not completely any so this seventh let's not get into this too much we're gonna put this in the kid's hand you're doing this in elementary children we're gonna do this with elementary kids when my babies well my babysitter walks through a store no one ever follows her it's like a cloud of white glides her through each eye she probably reminds them of the mother from the old black and white tv shows now what is this what are we teaching our children what's that in elementary i can't find them the fact that what we're telling these
031children because they're walking down an island grocery store i'm i'm lost as old saying i'm almost 41 40 41 when a person has privilege when a person has privilege what's in their toolbox privilege who has privilege i don't know i believe um what's the quarterback's name hey from patriots he got a 15 month he got 15 million dollars for not playing anymore what's his name john brady so privilege is it's about white privilege or who has privilege and who don't have fairness i don't have any privilege so i want some of your privilege that's exactly what you're talking about here all right listen closely our bodies bubbling up angrily at the lie we have been fed angrily at the line we have been feared i didn't feel i hadn't fed anybody in their lives and
032when and of our teachers feeding lives so it's in a book but i don't think our teachers are fitting their lives i'm not trying to feed anybody in life was there a movement years ago sure was there improvement in that movie sure we're all trying to better ourselves everybody should be kids should be 47 and 49 we make a fist the first piss was made it was common special but that's okay we could make a video we can think of this this is a revolutionary revolutionary for our elementary children this this teaches the kids to make symbols and and gestures and so forth in the elementary level that's what you want to do that's what you want out of the book really 51 50 and 51 we me a me shaped box kids of it
033listen to them it's not a white kid in the box it's a kid of color in the box so i'm gonna get the thing and look you're putting me in the box you see how you treat me nothing's changed it's still the same old way nothing is nothing that's improved in our lifestyle so let's just go back in history and let's just dig all this stuff up and be as bad as we can now let's just pedal and promote this stuff really truthfully some of them won't take stitch four stay woke don't sleep to me this is a common underlying slogan for indoctrination we're going to indoctrinate instruction is an instructional manual so i'm going to take this book and i'm going to put it on a morning show and i'm going to say if
034you read three of these top quality books that the library association of south carolina has recommended we're going to give you a free library book but take a look at this one now they haven't been checked out a whole lot but let's take a look at this one right here and listen and don't think i hadn't done all the data looking at it but i'm not going to support shaming any child regardless of the color gender race or ethnic background or where they're from i'm going to tell you that right now and i'm not going to that i think would do that i believed in affirmative action and anything else that needs to be done to help anybody get along and improve their life from this skill that's right last time i'm going to say
035this go to the playground all you folks in favor of this stuff everybody favor this stuff that is a playground elementary playground elementary now and see how many kids are divided on the playground none they're not these kids of color over here on this side of the playground and these kids have another color on this side of the playground and these kids in the middle of another part of the playground but let's stick one of these in our hand and i guarantee i'll learn something from it i'll learn to hate how long you've hurt me it's all about somebody else being hurt i don't believe we should be hurting children i don't like it so put it on the tv put it wherever you want to i'll give you my i didn't do more research
036on this stuff and looked up and tried to find positivity then anybody else probably on this committed so-called committee we have to put the wrong person on many probably because i was going to take i think everybody took it serious don't get me wrong i'm an overkill i really am i'm here but this book is inappropriate for elementary age students that we accept the committee administration's that a committee actually meet to discuss this or did people get assigned to read it and then they're actually a committee that met and discussed the book that they get together study the book study to work together yeah i mean i i was the one that suggested a commitment and volunteered to be on my understanding because that was changed to to assign you and surely because i even
037said i'll be glad to serve surely on the committee and to make wrong on that committee but my understanding is no committee ever met you all were given books like the rest of us and came and gave your opinion so i don't i kind of don't agree with the motion that comes your acceptance the motion was to confirm a whole administration which would be the school level as well as the district level okay the point of order my motion was to accept the two committees that reported right in that was the written recognition okay i just wanted to straighten that up right oh my name is uh dr don copeland and since we've kind of given our background i want to say that i came from a state that wasn't a southern state it was
038part of the union i grew up in orlando florida when it was a small town of 58 000 people i didn't my parents never lived in a community with with minorities so i don't carry that baggage with my thinking but uh if i'm asked to approve this book i don't want to approve any book that i think causes hate and what i see in this book are three things that can happen with this book a black kid can look at this book and start hating their white friends a white kid can look at this book and maybe be introspective and start hating themselves or they can hate their black friends because their black friends have started hating them i think based on my knowledge of history that uh things have changed and gone a long
039way not just in the south but the whole nation and if i were a marriage counselor and a couple came to me and they'd been married for 35 years and things were starting to get better the last thing i would do as a marriage counselor and say can we go back and discuss some things that you didn't like about your spouse 25 years ago i think it would be very stupid of the marriage counselor to cash over old stuff when you're making a lot of progress i think it would also be uh uh foolish to try to take kids on a playground and try to influence them by providing the material i know we're not teaching this in the curriculum but the book is called woke and i think that there's enough discussion nationwide about
040the word woke you don't have to read the poems to tell what the book is about i saw very little in here about encouraging kids to be points but i saw a lot of what ron blackman said saw over there and i think that what worries me about this book is that we're trying to bring kids together and this is liable to open up a sore that we're trying to heal and i don't think it's age appropriate for an elementary school student i think the historical points of the greensboro lunch count jim crow blacks not being able to ride in passenger cars on trains with whites separate water fountains separate bathrooms uh are all things we teach not just we shouldn't be distributing a black history month it's part of our history i don't believe
041in quote white washing history we tell we talk about in history mussolini and adolf hitler and stalin and they were all bad white people we're not trying to whitewash history but we're not trying to open up a womb with first graders second graders third graders and make them start off life disliking each other because of something they may see in this book there's plenty in this book the book is not historically inaccurate but there's plenty in this book to go backwards as the marriage counselor would and say let's discuss all those things that you hated about your husband 25 years ago we need to be over that and we need to be moving forward we don't need to open up or knock off the scab of the issues we have i think we need to
042teach history as it is we need to talk about jim crow and all of those things but the other thing i noticed in this book and ron didn't mention that is they have an appointment here called i think it's called shout out and they say shout out the names of these civil rights leaders it was a little strange that martin luther king wasn't one of those civil rights leagues rosa parks wasn't one of those civil rights leaders the civil rights leaders were people like malcolm x so it encouraged kids to shout out the names of militant uh civil rights activists some of them were what some civil rights accident actors back in the 60s and since i'm the oldest one here i remember that were people like angela davis the committee promises we're in a
043different time now and i can't support this book in the library of elementary kids because it's age inappropriate for that and if we say well we should provide every book so that parents can teach kids what they want to out of a wide variety of books we're excluding books right now when the library committee looks at say 100 books and only picks 20. what about the 80 they excluded so i can't accept the book for what it is because i don't i don't want to vote on anything that's going to cause little kids not to like other little kids i don't teach my kids that way i i think it's quote i said most of the book is probably historically accurate from what i read of it but if a parent wants to buy this
044book just like a little gold book they can't i just don't think we put this on the shelf on display i think this book was put on display in the library too on a tripod or something like this instead of just on the so i i can't support this book because i don't i think it's our job as a school board to to review a book that's controversial like this and if you don't think it costs resentment i want to tell a little story about when we built or decided to build more central elementary school because of legal reasons i had to miss the first vote it was four to four the only person by our bylaws or by robert's rules of order or whatever they could come back here and make a motion to
045re-look at the boat to build more central elementary with me because i had missed the meeting first vote was four to four so it failed i came back and i made the motion and i voted and i was then it was a five to four vote obviously there were four people that were very much against building northern think people from bethune particularly were against building it i think most of those people on the school board it would be my guess if you asked we're pretty glad we did now and a lot of people that are in the north central area but the point i'm trying to make is we're more divided on this little book that says woke than we were building north central elementary when four people were against it to begin with we
046still got along we were okay with it i i i see is is is more divided and let me ask you chairman mr chairman what are the criteria for executive session you say that every every part of the three criteria for executive session for making something executive off the top of my head um do you know the answer today there's one i might not be able to think of real quick but it's personal matters contractual matters and then i personally believe that we have that i can't put the review of this book under legal personnel or contractual matters yet we've discussed this book i think inappropriately in violation of executive session number one number two we're asked to take a a strong poll in executive session so voting on anything even a straw poll is
047against the rules of executive sessions at that time we had a five to four vote against the book and this this uh came up two meetings after that even though we agreed at that meeting because we had inappropriately not mentioned that we're going to discuss an executive session uh it took two months to get it on an agenda and i know who the five votes were and uh now we're down to four and four um i think that this appeal started last september october okay october so we haven't really done what i would call a reasonable weight to come up with the appeal but the thing is is that there's been a lot to me there seems to have been a lot of manipulation to not take this book out of that library and i
048i don't see this as we're not burning the book people we've given the book more attention than it deserved i mean to parents that can go by now but i just cannot vote and i've read the book twice and i wasn't honest committee even though something even though i'm the one that recommended it to begin with uh i can't vote for something that is divisive we're here not to rehash over what happened in kershaw county in 1927 or 1954 but we're not here to to avoid teaching history this is black history month right now and i'm not right it started yesterday today today it's the first day okay the bottom line is if you want to teach what's in this book teach it in an age-appropriate manner during this month or all months of the
049year so i can't i have to be like ron over there and vote against it maybe for different reasons but i don't like the fact that what i see is maybe a lack of transparency and uh not following the privileges of executive session because my feeling is that nothing in executive session is privileged unless it meets the three-time period of executive session we have never been discussed and um so this is the first for me i've been here for a long time but just uh agree with you know appreciate uh everybody's opinions and i respect them but you know the book woe just the title which uh todd's already alerted to that it's is to alert injustice and society especially racism and and that's exactly what crt is that's exactly what it is and there's
050and i've had credit more than once also and there's certainly some points that stood out one was a the gift of grace which was beautiful you know very moving and then i also see you know law enforcement being depicted as in the negative and i certainly don't think we need to be have anything to do with that right now uh and to get back on the right time so that same nine things they're saying same thing i've written down like martin luther king jr and rosa parks those weren't those names weren't uh you know weren't in there but colin kaepernick was encouraged to him he said nothing but to the songs of america with national anthem so i'm against it like i said i've met this this is agreeing with you too as far as
051you know dividing our board and i certainly was not complaining about elementary schools but this has probably been um i read the committee report i read every point in the book i just got some notes here i took a close look at the title of the book without going to the internet looking at dictionaries because the author just defines what woke is in the book and their definition and i took it in context and it's so important when you read something that you read it in context it'd be like um it'd be like me saying the bible says an eye for not well then you left out what jesus said about compassion and love and forgiveness when you look at the definition of logan there she's talking about an obligation to to speak up and
052speak out against prejudice or injustice in any form she talks about clearly about being alert and looking around things we talk to our kids all the time hey look look around what's going on right um this to me is a compilation of poems where you look at them each in in context and it's it's defined to inspire folks to speak out loudly against mistreatment of people to have uncomfortable conversations with those who are different than you it paints a beautiful picture of what life might be like in the point the next where hatred and discrimination no longer exist and it relays a simple message if you read it that they're that you are who you are and it's okay to be who you are be the best version of you two points that stuck out
053for me that i've taken just a moment uh instructions on listening to the trees and what's in a name the first one the powerful words in instruction on listening to the tree says like any true community we must nourish and care for one another we are part of someone else's journey that's the way communities are built so listen to the trees and the wind and your neighbor that's an inspiration for young and old whatsoever and i've always said that you get a lot further with conversation and condemnation but how can you have conversation and not willing to look at somebody else's differences hear somebody else's differences understand what somebody else's struggles are you don't know if you don't have that conversation to say well we've moved on we haven't moved on we still have to
054have discussions and conversations when i was younger my mom used to say to me to remind me of all those who went before me to give me the opportunities that i had growing up and she would say i was standing on somebody else's shoulders and the point what's the name the poet describes there are people who have gone before and have endured hardships and brutality to ensure that all humanity is respected it paints a picture of that any form of discrimination is just wrong height age skin gender race religion it doesn't matter it's wrong there have been people who have gone it is wrong and there have been people who have gone before and endured to try to end this to be beacons of light to those who come behind and it reminds me of
055what my mom said think of those who've gone before me it reminds me of the great point of the bridge building where it says an old man crossed it even wide when he got to the other side he built a bridge and he said to a fellow standing by i'm building this for all those who come behind me those points are talking about remember those the the picture of those at the counter top is saying think about those who've gone before those who have done peaceful demonstrations and there's nothing wrong with saying hey it's okay to look around and have your head up and see if there's any injustice any discrimination anything speak up loudly for it find your voice for those of you who know me i know that i've been involved in the
056american legion boys state program for the past 35 years and this is probably the greatest patriotic organization in the country and i want to read uh just a little bit from the graduation speech to 700 high school seniors that are diverse backgrounds this was our caller then do write simply because it's right remember to be gentle kind and compassionate with others remember to care for those around you look past your differences the dreams of others are no less than yours your choices in life no more made easily made to your homes be a better son and brother to your school to be a better student accept the challenge of leading your peers to your community get involved do something great or better yet do something that needs to be done nobody is stepping up to
057do it leave here any fears of ideas you disagree with leave here judgment of others you haven't walked the mild aside leave here narrow mindedness and prejudice that blind you to seeing others precious children others as precious children of god stand up for what you know to be right even when those around you won't don't simply do your best but succeed in doing whatever is necessary those closing remarks to me would line up well for the poems in this book look around if you see injustice speak up it's nowhere does it say acting violence it just says speak up and stand up for what's right i don't agree with everything that's in the book but i don't agree with everything i read anyways and i'm not sure what we're supposed to but i think treading
058down the path of censorship by removing this book would be dangerous in this case i like todd i do not agree with everything in the book i think there's good i think there's bad but to me it's just like the world we live in we see it every day we see a lot of good good and we see a lot of bad and i don't think we can hide from it i like the fact if it were required reading i would have a different opinion if it was if it was being taught in the schools i would be adamantly opposed and i would be more in favor of banning it with it just being optional reading in the library you know i feel like banning it is is not the right thing at this point
059i don't feel like we can take it away from the opportunity for for those that want to read it to read i feel like we as board members and educators must teach history and what's right from wrong and they're going to see good they're going to see bad all day long every day of their lives um we followed board policy with this he went before a committee he went before a second committee so i feel like we've done our due diligence you know i personally don't want to get in the position of of micromanaging and reviewing every book in the libraries i don't feel like i'm qualified i know i'm not qualified to do that that's why we are superintendent and that's why the superintendent hires staff and teachers and everyone else that works for
060the district so [Music] i'm going to vote to uphold the committee's recommendation to leave the book in the library [Music] i want to share with the sport one um it's an honor privilege of having grown up in kershaw county and to come back and serve and it's honored with everyone around this board that are that are here tonight uh to work with you and to serve with you and we haven't always agreed on everything but we have continued to work together and i don't foresee the decision that whether we take a vote that we make tonight it's going to tear us apart because we are uh better connected than that uh because we want to do what's best for all the students of curtis county that has been our stance in our position in the
061midst of coping and it's good just having this discussion i mean it's it's good to know that it's all right to agree to disagree but that i do not believe with him to us from working together because we've been working together too long with that said and everyone's had an opportunity uh in the midst of the discussion that moves us to the question is there a motion what the motion has already been presented uh to confirm and uphold the level one to number two administration that's what it's called mr mcdonald motion english probably said so all those in favor do it raise your right hand please that's right and don't set a post thank you dr smith members of the board um i know i told you a couple months ago that i wasn't going
062to get more code updates but we did go through a surge which we fully expected after christmas um and like we had forecasted you know that surge has come down just as quickly i know early on we were a little bit concerned about coverage of classrooms across the district and i've shared with you the spreadsheets that we utilize we even broke it down to the number of uncovered classrooms per grade level per building we did mobilize for about a week and a half to two weeks all of our reading coaches our interventionists our technology integration specialists those individuals that are classroom teachers that aren't assigned to a classroom to go in and try to help us out in the midst of a lot of absences due to quarantine or isolation but also this major sub
063shortage we have across the country but again you can see in the graph there we compete we've spiked and we have come down really rapidly again just like the medical experts somewhat forecasted so we feel very good about that i'm still very pleased and proud of the protocols and the layered mitigating strategies that we are using again i ran numbers out of requests from the governor's office on the number of our comprehensive quarantine cases this year that have turned into actual positive cases elizabeth and i ran those numbers and it was 2.2 percent so of 7 000 students that have been forced into quarantine due to close contact whether that was at school or at home only 2.2 of those have actually turned into positive cases so i think that's you know a great number
064for us and all the more reason for the quarantine periods to keep kids in a face-to-face environment as much as possible so i just want to share that with you the other thing i did send out to you in one of your soup updates um elizabeth and i had a conversation with a testing company yesterday we've been working on this unfortunately for a couple weeks and just to get the logistics in place we have tried this early on in the pandemic but this is a little bit different approach we will again have three regional locations that we'll utilize for testing of staff students honestly we'll open it up to community members as well to come and get tested it will be at the library high school annex the we rested on instead of the camden
065high school two-story building actual auditorium because they can use if we get people that come at those busy times before school after school we can use the auditorium to separate people out and they can use the lobby to actually conduct the testing and then north central elementary school we've got a nice space out there as well we'll just track our data and we'll move probably locations based on what we're seeing in terms of trends and you know again just another thing that we're trying to offer our community as we keep our arms wrapped around you know this whole pandemic ensuring we keep our buildings open and i think we have been a very good partner in the community so is there anything on the testing you'd like to add okay so um you can always
066go to the dashboard and see per school student staff and just remember when you see staff members that is all staff that's not just teachers and again that has dropped significantly this week so pending your questions so that's all i have tonight for my report okay yeah yeah elizabeth's gonna come up and present on that fitness grant healthy schools update [Music] thank you so much i just want to give you a little bit of history on our healthy schools program and update on that and fitnessgram you've probably heard about fitnessgram it is a program that our pe teachers have been using for a while it gives us great data on our students fitness levels cardio respiratory status and it drives decisions so it gives us data so that we can decide do we need to
067um provide more services to this area do we need to provide more services at the elementary level at the middle or high school level so we're very fortunate that we have this rich data to pull from so fitnessgram is a great program we have been chosen as one of three fitnessgram influencer districts because of all the data that we have so we are starting a two-year initiative with fitnessgram and dhak and a lot of partners blue cross and blue shield of south carolina the foundation dhak department of education and university of south carolina so we are partnering with them to improve the use of our fitness friend data so that we can make good decisions and um serve our children next slide please do you have studs carrie i did put these in your packets
068so you have some of the data from 2018-2019 just to give you an idea of what they pull um and again this is done by our pe teachers so georgetown and cherokee county are also fitness grand influencer districts we are one of three we are identifying wellness champions in each of our schools and starting healthy schools programs and building on some of the programs that are already in place we've been meeting with our healthy schools team alliance for a healthier generation courtney hinch is our partner with that and she's been wonderful to provide resources our schools are doing healthy school indexes and forming action plans and we're meeting again in march with that our healthy schools program also offers grant opportunities for us and three of our schools actually applied for and were awarded grants
069to build raised gardens in there on the school site and this is three points in extension so this is one of the wonderful programs that we are afforded by being part of the healthy schools initiative i'm going to go back to fitnessgram um because i do also want to talk about the data and um i have posters in the back of the room you can see them on the wall we've had an opportunity to go to the fitnessgram conference in november and we did a data walk and they had these posters specifically for kershaw county for us to see and discuss and it talks a lot about lifespan in the different areas of our county and how everything is correlated our food deserts um parks and recreation just a lot of great information from our
070fitness brand data so i would encourage you if you have a chance to go back and look at those because it is really good data and as we progress we'll get that up more up-to-date data because all of that is free pandemic so it will be interesting to see how things have have changed since the pandemic livewell kershaw coalition is also one of our partners with our healthy schools campaign and they are wonderful in our community if you're not familiar with them i encourage you to um read about them they are providing transportation for our families they are providing food for our families for our food insecurities and our areas that are food deserts that just have difficulty accessing healthy foods so libwa has worked a lot to help us with that we are using
071them for transportation our social workers have used them for our families for transportation so this is a really big deal for our county and that will grow continue to grow they also help us by encouraging healthy lifestyles and we do meet monthly with them one of the things that they're going to be doing specifically in our schools is called 5210 we did it before you may remember the the logo it's five or more fruits or veggies daily two or less hours of recreational screen time daily one or more hours of physical activity daily and then zero sugar sweetened beverages and this campaign will kick off march first and we'll run for the month of march and they are they have come up with great incentives for the winning teams so this is a great initiative
072for our students our staff and our families it helps encourage parent parents to get on board too so that is a great thing that livewell's helping us with one of the other things that we have talked about with our fitnessgram data that could help our community would be open community use and i think that you've discussed this before it's just allowing free community use for our outdoor recreational facilities at our sites before and after school hours and billy and i did talk about this i know that we have opened some of our schools for this and there has been a concern about damage to some of the things at the school site so this is something that i know would increase physical activity for our whole community it would provide safe access for our families
073and it would provide an affordable opportunity for our families who may not be able to afford a gym membership or may not have transportation to go to a park to walk so it is a great thing for our entire community and our school families and i understand some of the reservations as far as um damage we did have a pe teacher that was with us at the fitness frame conference and she had a very she's an elementary pe teacher and she had a very um a very good comment about open community use and she said that her soccer equipment at her elementary school was damaged over a weekend and so they learned just to put that away over the weekend and after school hours and that way our community still has access but she can
074control her equipment and make sure that it's not damaged so i just wanted to bring that up too we do have good support from dhec for that um robin cooper is our liaison she works with us and she is here tonight and i just want to leave you with this thought healthy schools lead to healthy students healthy students are more likely to reach their full potential so i'm happy to answer any questions i have a question please yes sir 2008 we had a referendum and we built um buildings tracks uh auditoriums with gymnasiums many gyms and so forth and build weight rooms i did the specs for all the weight rooms in crosstalk county and at that time [Music] it was told to the public to sell the idea of the bond um that they
075were the public would have access to the wellness centers they were called wellness centers as a matter of fact i was still coaching and teaching at the time and you come down the hallway the recreation department with um billy you want to talk about it and they say i said this is going to be my strength coach's office right here by the wellness center i said no you're not the recreation department's going to take you and so i said well that's kind of weird i'm saying they taking luke awesome camdens no just north central because you're right in the community so i asked questions i said well you know who's gonna monitor this thing they didn't have any answer for that and then the recreation part of the moment so my question is to you
076why don't we incorporate the wellness centers as promised people in 2008 in richmond [Music] they sold the idea because i'm in this conversation as well um it's called that it was access so the conversations we've had for open community use obviously it wasn't here in 2008 but it's in our outdoor areas where we wouldn't necessarily from a liability perspective have to worry about people coming inside our buildings it's not saying that it couldn't incorporate that but this is for ease of access of folks to use facilities that are right there that they can walk to versus coming inside the perimeter of a building and then you obviously own a gym so you know the liability of people using equipment um and having somebody supervise when they're inside why you never did that in 2008 i
077can't answer that question all i know is this is what we're looking at to try to offer something right now yeah i know why i was done thank you are we responsible for someone you wanna yeah there are and i think this is in your packet too there there are um protections for liability the same as during the school day i think it's a great idea thank you any other questions thank you thank you thanks melissa [Music] executive session i want to thank the teacher forum for such a great evening um i was really blessed by it i also want to give a shout out to uh laney elementary school that also provided us his ninth it's nice i'm gonna go home forget about the business [Laughter] um thank you father for buying with us
078this evening we need your love but never from your divine presence we ask that you lead us safely back home and find all as well and we'll give you all all that and glory that is to you and it's in your name we pray amen