001like I make amendment to my motion for D legal advice regarding findings on regulation 43-170 challenge uh as seen in exhibit H. >> Second. >> All in favor? And the motion carries six to zero. We'll now adjourn to enter into executive session. >> Oh, I didn't I guess we needed to vote on the um on the original motion because there was an amendment. All those in favor? >> I second. There was a second. >> You did. Lord, it's going to be a long Monday. All right. All in favor? And the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. test. That one's not bad. No, that's fine. But when are you trying to Did you hear that? Maybe it was fine. But test one, two, three, four, five, six. Test test test. One, two, three, four. One,
002two, three, four. Good evening. It is 6 pm. I would like to call the May 4th board meeting to order and welcome our fellow board members, superintendent, district leadership, staff, students, families, and members of our community. Thank you for being here and for your continued interest in the work of our school district. As a board, our focus remains on supporting student success, strengthening our schools, and making decisions that reflect the needs and values of our community. We recognize the important role that our educators and staff play each day and we are grateful for their ongoing commitment to our students. We have a packed house tonight. So, we're going to jump right on into our agenda with the invocation and the pledge by Trusty Huddle and then if all the board members will join me up
003front for the school board spotlight. Thank you, dear Lord. Thank you for your love and guidance. As we approach graduations and the close of the school year, please be be with our students, parents, and staff. Please keep us all safe over the summer break and continuing to learn. Please be with our board as we make difficult decisions and help us to remember that all of us are striving to do what is best for our students. In your name, amen. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America to the stands one nation indivisible for all. All right, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Ross, good evening. As you can see, we have a lot of very special students to recognize tonight. So, we're excited to do that.
004So, for our first group, I'm going to introduce Miss Nikki Powell, the district's coordinator of science and health, to introduce our science fair winners for this year. And if we could right here, just do like a little path for that's where our folks are going to be coming in. So, if we can do just a little tunnel. Perfect. All right, you're up. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Good evening. Thank you, Chair Snipes, distinguished board, and Dr. Ross. Tonight, we recognize students who have excelled in science fair competitions at the district and or region levels during the 2526 school year. It is my absolute pleasure to be here to celebrate this group of students, parents, teachers, administrators, family, and friends. Thank you for being here with us tonight and for your continued support of this outstanding program.
005The success of these students would not be possible without each of you. While it is certainly impressive to note the vast number of awards received by our students at both the district and USC region fairs or even the titles of the projects, many of which defy pronunciation. I wanted to share with you tonight before recognizing specific awards the impact exploration in the world of science can have on a student's life. Before hosting the district science fairs in February, I was invited to both an elementary and middle school in our district to judge their school fairs. As I went from project to project, I learned so much more than just their science knowledge and engineering skills. I immediately realized that while the names and the experiments differed, the opportunity that we provide each student in our
006district who participate in science fair is the same. They have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers, problem solve, experiment, and discover the world around them and even produce products to solve real world pro problems. What's most rewarding to me is that they were all eager and excited to share their projects with the judges. They all use scientific knowledge to describe their process. They share joy in not only learning about science but exploring and experimenting in a rigorous way. This was further evidenced at the district science fair. We saw a continued increase in participation at this year's district science fair where 403 students presented 189 projects and the categories of math and engineering earth and environmental science life science physical science and human behavioral and social science from investigating the neuro regeneration of adult neural
007stem cells to aid Alzheimer's research to studying perceived safety related to doorbell camera ownership and how kudu can be used to remove pharmaceuticals from waters. Students shined and display the impact science can have as well as the importance of continuing to question and discover the natural world around us while creating products to posit positively impact society in the future. From fifth grade to 12th grade, from schools districtwide, students in district 5, with the assistance of their incredible teachers and supportive parents put their scientific knowhow on display and have shown how bright their future will be. Tonight we have the opportunity to recognize 108 students from our district who received awards at our district 5 science and engineering fair or received a project of highest distinction or grand finalist award at the USC region 2 fairs
008held this spring. Please note the region 2 award ceremony for middle school was not held until yesterday evening. So some of those awards are not noted in this evening's recognition. At this time, I will proudly announce our fifth grade elementary award winners. I would ask that you please hold your applause until all students have been recognized. Students, please come forward as your name is called. Caroline Cash, Harper Harrison, Ezra Livemore, Kaden Shaw, Chapen Intermediate School, First Place Math and Engineering District Science Fair. Lexi Brunson, Zuri Garrett, Olivia Stokovich, Mackenzie Suffrage, Dutch Fork Elementary School, first place Earth and Environmental Science District Science Fair. James Grogan, Ethan Maxon, Lee Park Elementary School, honorable mention, Life Science District Science Fair. Winter Still, Manning Truong, Nursery Road Elementary School. Honorable mention, Life Science District Science Fair. Macy Finel,
009Jordan Garrett, Gant, Faith Mccclurker, Glenn Johnson, Dutch Fork Elementary School, Third Place, Life Science District Science Fair. Leah Boozer, Kylie Lions, Mila Miles, Samantha Moody, Chapen Intermediate School, Second Place Life Science District Science Fair, Henry James Kaine, Gus Holden, Lucas Powell, Grayson Roger, Chapen Intermediate School, First Place Life Science District Science Fair, Earth and Environmental Science Project of Highest Distinction at the Region 2 Science Fair. Savannah Meisner, Alani Reese Riley, Christa Talon from Dutchwork Elementary School. Honorable mention, physical science at the district science fair. Life science project of highest distinction at the region 2 science fair. Savannah Bell, Blakeley Knight, Danny Medlin, Irmo Elementary School. Honorable mention, physical science at the district science fair. Iris Drain, Mackenzie Rodriguez, Jocelyn Williams, Harvest West Elementary School. Third place, physical science at the district science fair. Kayn Hedrickk,
010Vier Robinson, Chapen Intermediate School, second place, physical science of the district science fair. and Carter Mixon and Tesla Petroski. Harbison West Elementary School first place physical science district science fair. Congratulations students. At this time, fifth grade award recipients and principles, please come forward for a quick group photo. Everybody, two, three. One more. One, two, three. Thank you, guys. >> Thank you. Congratulations. You're dismissed, students. >> Yes. At this time, I will announce our sixth through 8th grade award winners. Again, I ask that you please hold your applause until all students have been recognized. Students, please come forward as your name is called. Syria Gerapati and Scarlett Gore, Irma Middle School, first place math and engineering district science fair. Ellison Hill, Ally Lee Niger, Declan Wilson, Bahar Eusfian, Crossroads Intermediate School, third place, Earth and Environmental
011Science District Science Fair. Santiago Colorado, Laya Rudek, Dutchport Middle School, second place, Earth and Environmental Science District Science Fair. Harper Arvidson, Denver Henderson and Molina Kellenburgger, Dante Mora, Crossroads Intermediate School, first place Earth and Environmental Science District Science Fair. Aurora Palmer, Caroline Presley, Sophie Sheper, Sarah Simson, Chapen Intermediate School. Honorable mention, Life Science District Science Fair, Aubrey Kimell, Chapen Middle School, third place, Life Science District Science Fair. Miles Barino, Evelyn Hickman, Rayley Kovac, Dutch Middle School, second place Life Science District Science Fair, Caroline Chore, CC Newberry, Irma Middle School, first place life science district science fair. Fan Bick, Justinda Harper, Genesis Gimenez, NeAs, Parker Saunders, Crossroads Intermediate School, honorable mention, physical science district science fair. Ava Petri, Arabella Rush, Rushford, Isabella Torres, Lindseay Waters, Irma Middle School, honorable mention, physical science district science fair. Elizabeth
012Egan, Sean Eisenbr, Braun, Siri Who Chapen Middle School, third place physical science district science fair. Lance Amphenson, Coleman Craft, Anthony Harris, Bayenne Eusefian, Dutchport Middle School, second place physical science district science fair. Dane Berlesen, Ryan Wartz, Chapen Middle School, first place physical science district science fair. Congratulations students, sixth through 8th grade award recipients and principles, please come to the front for a quick group photo. On three. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you. Tonight we will conclude with a recognition of our high school award winners. This year marks the pinnacle of what for many of them started with science fair projects in the fifth grade. These students are following their dreams of becoming scientists and engineers by doing meaningful research and design and have gained hours of lab experience in our schools. Each has
013excelled and will continue to do so in the future. These are the scientists and engineers of tomorrow who will without a doubt make our world a better place. At this time, I welcome our high school award winners. Please come forward as your name is called. Again, I would ask that you please hold your applause until all students have been recognized. We will start with students who participated only at the region 2 science fair, then move to our district and region two fair award recipients. Jillian Galloway, Chapen High School, placed with a project of highest distinction in the category of behavioral and social sciences at the region 2 science fair. Delaney McGrath, Chapen High School placed with two region two awards to include biochemistry and chemistry with a project of highest distinction and a grand finalist
014award at the region 2 science fair. Jason Cuadra, Jacob Fulture, Evan Price from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed with an honorable mention, Math and Engineering District Science Fair. Aiden Knight, Erica Nava Gonzalez, and Baga Patel from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed third place for math and engineering at the District Science Fair. Jenna Matthysse, Maline Rutherford, Olivia Somerville from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed second place for math and engineering at the District Science Fair. Jaquz Clifton, Christopher Nanjo, Miranda, and Anthony Spears from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed first place in math and engineering at the District Science Fair. Robert Hood Chapen High School placed honorable mention earth and environmental science at the district science fair. Leona Rut from Chapen High School placed third place in Earth and Environmental
015Science at the District Science Fair. Amamira Rivers from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed second place in Earth and Environmental Science of the District Science Fair and won two region two awards to include Earth Science, environmental science, and environmental engineering project of highest distinction and grand award finalist at the region 2 science fair. Kaden Rogers from Chapen High School placed first in Earth and Environmental Science of the District Science Fair. Taylor Brophie, Allora Kelly, and Ashley Rogers from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies placed third place in life science at the District Science Fair. Annie Zoo from Dutch Fork High School placed second in life science of the district science fair. She had three region two awards to include biology and biomedical sciences project of highest distinction grand award finalist and was the high
016school grand award winner at the region 2 science fair. Shan Jao, the center for advanced technical studies, placed first in life science of the district science fair. Olivia Fuller and Isabella How from Irmo High School placed third in physical science of the district science fair. Sarah Wilt from Chapen High School placed second in physical science of the district science fair. Earth science, environmental science, and environmental engineering project of highest distinction at the region 2 science fair. Isabella Bonavilla from Chapen High School placed first in physical science at the district science fair. Caroline Sin, Chapen High School, honorable mention, human behavioral and social science at the district science fair. Maggie Handelan, Chapen High School, honorable mention, human behavioral and social science at the district science fair. Juliano Rubio from Chapen High School placed honorable mention, human
017behavioral and social science at the district science fair. And at the region 2 science fair had a project of highest distinction in behavioral and social sciences. Ava Castignetti from Chapen High School had an honorable mention in human behavioral and social sciences at the district science fair. Brenley Pygate from Chapen High School was third place in human behavioral and social science at the district science fair and had two region two awards to include behavioral and social sciences project of highest distinction and was also a grand award finalist. Susanna Pihar Magar from Spring Hill High School placed second in human behavioral and social science of the district science fair. And finally, Davis Gepper from Spring Hill High School placed first in human behavioral and social science at the district science fair and had a project of high
018distinction for behavioral and social sciences at the region 2 science fair. Congratulations students, high school award recipients, and principles, please come forward um for a quick group photo. This concludes our awards presentations. Not yet. We're not doing science, obviously. One, two, three. Thank you very much. All right, trustees. We have one more group tonight to recognize and these are the students who achieved a perfect score on last year's administration of the SE Ready test. So, Miss McCascal is going to introduce those students to us. What a fun night to just celebrate children, right? That's what we're all about. So, I just love that. So, I am excited to say that earning a perfect score on SE Ready represents an extraordinary academic accomplishment. This distinction reflects not only a student's exceptional mastery of grade level standards,
019but also their sustained effort, intellectual discipline, and commitment to excellence. Such performance places these students among a very small cohort statewide and speaks volumes about the quality instruction, meaningful learning experiences, and strong academic support provided in our schools. So, I'm going to ask each principal, they'll come up with their school and each principal will be um presenting their certificates. Okay. So, Miss Bright from Valentine Elementary will come out first. Ariana Bolino, Sydney Lauric, Vivian Pelum, and if you all will just go over to the side, we'll get a picture of all of our elementary and intermediate at one time. Miss Gerano, if you'll come up from Chapen Elementary School, we have Juliana Hooks, Maline Robins, Jackson Skinner, and William Wilks. Mr. Davis from Chapen Intermediate School. If you'll come forward. We have Bennett Burl, Henry
020James Kaine, Harper Cooper, Blake Luther, Samantha Moody, Taylor O'Neal, John Carlo Mele, Noah Keen, Edward Stalworth, Conrad Tanner, Sophie Shepker, Paisley Barker, Yeaw Sun, Lulu Zoo, Andrew Richardson, Camden Bowling, Kenan Haggler, James Powell, Graham Antley, Veronica Gamir, Luke P. Emorita Whipple. If Dr. Dodie would come forward for Crossroads Intermediate, we have Carter Guerrera. Miss Dilly, if you'll come forward for Dutch Fork Elementary. We have William Kamal Gilliard. Blessing 2. Miss Harris, if you'll come forward for H Corley. We have Stella Pearl Carter. Andre Ramirez Reyes. Dr. Turner, if you'll come forward for Harbison West Elementary School. We have Perry Dawson, Jeremiah Simpson, Miss Venan, if you'll come forward for Irmo Elementary School. Cordia Smith, Skylar Walker, and Luke Wheeler. Miss Sims, if you'll come forward for Leeart Elementary, we have Levi Cole, Mave Deeski, Victoria
021Jones, Miss Fischer, if you'll come forward for Nursery Road Elementary School. Nia Ricky, Zion Thompson, Mr. English, if you'll come forward for Oakpoint Elementary School. Cooper Garrett leads Laam. Mr. Gams if you'll come forward for River Springs Elementary School. Vivian Alert Grace Gary Maren Hess Beatatric Linder Dr. Slatten if you'll come forward for Seven Oaks Elementary. Jana Abdul Hassan and Xander Rice. Let's give our elementary and intermediate a round of applause. If y'all will all come back around, we'll have a picture of everybody together. Everybody fell in. All right. So, I'm gonna take two photos, but then I want you to pause and let your parents take a photo before we dismiss you. Okay. All right. So, look at me on three. One, two, three. One more. One, two, three. All right. For parents for
022parents. I think we can give them another round of applause while they wait. Congratulations students. A perfect score is pretty incredible. So congratulations Tina, >> thank you. >> All right, let's start with our next group once we get settled with this one. All right, Dr. Huckabe, if you will join us from Chapen Middle School. It's like changing of the guards. Abigail Deaggio, Elijah Haron, Catherine Jew, Avery Laney, Cedric Lawrence, Eli Richardson, Dean Saunders, William Saunders, Ava Smalls, and Cameron Wall. Mr. Sava, if you would join us for Dutch Fork Middle School. Evelyn Hickman, Hannah Oaks, Vzini Satish, Robert Horton, Mr. Joseph, if you'll join us for Irma Middle School. McKenzie Miller, Sahazra Renjie, Gavin Sha, Sububaki Shim, Shimamura, Christopher Steenov, Katherine Wheeler, and Dr. Loftton, if you'll join us because you have some rising n
023some ninth graders that have perfect scores from their eighth grade year. Ashani Bagerie, Rosalie Price, Miles Coutani, and Riley Huffedler. Let's give them a round of applause. So students, if you'll join us back at the front for a picture. Can tell the middle school's not nearly as excited. Two, three. One more. One, two, three. Let's give them one more round of applause. Thank you students and congratulations. Y'all are good. >> Yes. Okay. So, as y'all are taking your seats and getting settled back, um I do want to share with you a just a couple other quick celebrations from around the district. Um, we have named our finalists for district teacher of the year and district support employee of the year. So, um, we have great candidates this year as we always do. But our teacher
024of the year finalists this year are Anna Maria Henson, an English teacher at Spring Hill High School, Patrick Smallwood, a biomedical technology teacher here at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies, and Katherine Mets, a reading interventionist at H Corley Elementary. And our support employee of the year finalist are Janette Farre the literacy lab assistant at Crossroads Intermediate, Dena Labarka, the school secretary and bookkeeper at Valentine Elementary, and Jess Catalano, a special education assistant at H Corley Elementary. So, we we are so proud of all of these folks and um look forward to naming our teacher and support employee of the year. And then we had a little bit of breaking news this afternoon. Um, our Dr. Ross has been named a finalist for SCASA Superintendent of the Year this year. So, we knew it, but
025they've made it official. So, congratulations. Thank you'all. >> Thank you, Amanda. What a great way to start the meeting. All right, Dr. Ross, I will turn it over to you for the superintendent's report. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, and our community. It is an honor to start uh with the amazing work of our students and teachers. To see that many uh high achievements in science and research and perfect scores on our SE ready test, it's a it's a great way to start the meeting. Also want to recognize that as we enter May, May is we pause to recognize mental health awareness in our community and I want to thank our office of student services and planning for all that they do and trying to providing resources for families, students uh as
026they we deal with items of mental health and to human resources who supports our staff uh through our benefits and outreach also for for mental health. So we have resources available and we want to thank those for making the whole child important during the month of May. Also we paused uh to say thank you to our nurses May 6. Uh save that date. That is our school nurse day. We're going to pause to recognize the amazing work of our school nurses. Dr. Harris, how many students I think we we talk about how many visited the nurses station there? Thank you so much Dr. Ross. Appreciate the opportunity to uh just piggyback on that statement in reference to highlighting our school nurses. Um one data point that I would share in response to that question is
027at the period in which these this data was collected there were 67,185 contacts encounters with students in our health rooms in our uh school district 5. Those encounters and contacts include whether that be illness or injury or some type of medication that was uh dispensed or shared with our students. Interesting data point though, of the 67,185 different encounters, 62,592 of those went back to class. So, I think that's a very important data point that they're not just hanging out in our health rooms uh throughout the course of the day, but they are getting what they need. They've been cared for and they are returning to class. That's a whopping 93% of our students who return back to class after having visited the health home in school district 5. So for that, if I could take
028liberty, I think that reserves a round of applause for the work that our nurses do. The next report will be how many band-aids did that represent? But we thank you so much uh for the advocacy for our school nurses and the work that they do and our nurses assistants. So mark that time May 6 uh as our our school nurse day. Uh we do this because we're a system guided by three critical questions. Why do we do this work? How do we accomplish that? Why and what are our outcomes? Our why is that we love and grow our students. Our how is that we're focused on academic, social, emotional growth and development. and then our what that's what we measure each and every day. That's our strategic plan. We're guided by four performance goals to
029two objectives that every student feels loved in our schools and has demonstrated academic growth in our schools. This is measured and we continue to look for growth opportunities. Uh but we celebrate when we see success in our students. We are now uh less than a month, two weeks away from graduation as we approach that line. Uh and so I want to thank all of our secondary um schools for their work to update our weekly graduation rate report. Um again, you've seen the work that we're doing in terms of the growth that we're seeing on our uh on our projections for for MAP. uh to see the growth that we see in our elementary school math uh is a real celebration and uh that gives great hope for the future of school district 5 and the
030work that we do. That's what operation transformation is all about. It's about the opportunity to turn that student from I can't do this work to I can. And so speaking of operation transformation, we have some transformation that is happening on St. Andrews Road. And so I'm going to ask our interim uh chief of operations, Mr. Alan Knots, to come forward uh to bring forth our guest, LS3P, as they talk about phase 2B and phase 2C of Irmal High School transformation. Mr. Nuts. >> Good evening, Dr. Ross, members of the board, Madame Chair. Uh tonight I want to introduce uh Tyler McKenzie and Clint Riddle from LSVP as they will be going through the um conceptual drawings for the small business incubator. Board members, Dr. Ross, thank you for having us here. Um just a little
031update on the on the progress of the design for this next phase at Irmo High School. Um so this this slide's a little bit out of date at this point. We're kind of in moving into design development phase. So, so the concept drawings have have been put together. Um, we had a um very successful um community information session last month at the um at the high school where folks got to see the progress of the design along with some of the progress of of the construction that's going on on the site. Now, um you can see here, excuse me, the existing um site plan there with the uh cafeteria under construction right now. And then the work that's happening over at the um existing cafeteria um where that will be uh redeveloped into the student
032business incubator. Um at this time, the concept does include a partial demolition of the east wing building that would be replaced by um new parking lot. and Tyler's going to talk a little bit about the um development of the student b business incubator itself. So, speaking to the plan, it hasn't changed substantially in terms of the programs that are going to be in there since it was presented to you all uh back on March 23rd. You can still see we have a a retail area um that's adjacent to the maker space. That's where uh student goods that are produced in in the incubator would be uh potentially sold to the public. Um you can see some very flexible uh student incubator classrooms and labs um in the yellow up top. Um designed for maximum flexibility
033for the different programs that may uh come in and out of that space as the course changes. Um a recording studio for um podcasting and and related kind of activities. And then um a uh utilizing the existing kitchen um with all the appliances and things in there. Uh utilizing that for a culinary component. Uh here listed as a culinary lab and classroom. Um that would be a part of the the program for this space as well. And then here you can see a conceptual site plan for um uh the revised area where the uh part of the existing uh east wing building. What that could look like um giving more parking to um the stadium as well as the basketball gymnasium and also a nicer procession into those athletic spaces. Oh, and then is it
034there? And then here you can see we have a um animation that we've produced that kind of shows all of the work um intended to be right now completed on the campus. You can see we started over at the new cafeteria and student center and we're kind of working our way looking at um the campus from a bird's eye perspective coming from Westcot wrapping around to the front along St. Andrews there. Um, and right now you can see the new um, east ring replacement uh, building. And then as we work our way across the campus there. And then as we work our way closer to the stadium, you can kind of see um kind of our initial concept for um the area where the part of the east wing stands now and and what that
035will look like. And then finally zooming in on um kind of a celebrated procession into uh the reworked plaza that um exists um currently between the um what is the the east wing and then the front of the cafeteria which will be where the small business incubator is. >> So at this point we just kind of want um want to open up to questions see if there's anything um questions or comments. >> Do I have any Miss Barnhart and then Miss Huddle? >> This might have already been addressed. Where's the bus loop moving to? Because I know in that little small space incubator area is kind of where the buses go now. >> Yes. So, the um the bus loop that's uh going to be starting construction soon is actually located behind the um existing
036West Wing building. So, if you can um you can kind of see the West Wing there um sort of toward the um lower right hand side. Oh, we got a pointer. Awesome. So, that area there is where the bus loop is being relocated to. >> Okay. So, that will kind of clear up the area right there where the the baseball field is and they're going to be coming in off of West Scott instead. >> Correct. Correct. becoming um kind of um above you can see the entrance from the road above the new cafeteria. So, it loops down in here and then there's a new loop and a new uh canopy that would be created behind the west wing. >> Um these actually may be questions for the administration, but the um portion of the old
037east wing that is remaining um I have three questions like what is that going to be used for? um which portion of the bond referendum does that come out of? And my third question is um I think the board approved a a plan that did not include that. So do we need to improve approve the new plan? >> I think we take your first your last question first. You said the board approved. I don't remember and it maybe just my memory but I when I when when we approved this and it's been a while I I thought the entire east east wing was going to be demolished. >> Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, the uh the goal is we can just we can certainly dismolish or demolish the entire wing. Um, I don't
038recommend it and I think that's one of the things that we're bringing to this body. Um, uh, as we discuss this matter, um, we do have funding to take care of the existing part that's out of your current referendum. If you remember, um the referendum cited the items from the MPS report and the remaining part of that east wing um was uh allocated for bond referendum funds and that's uh in your reconditioning section of the bond referendum. The second issue is uh building. If I grows in capacity, you can't get those those bricks back uh for any amount of money that we're we're going to pay for uh that I can see in the near future. So that allows us to have growth capacity for high school for the future. uh its immediate use uh
039will be uh for uh swing locations for our uh some of our instructional programs like the five program and adult ed. And then it's next uh will be freshman academy at Irma High School and again that is to give us uh more usability out of that site. Um and so again, we'll be updating a lot of that u those um item ones and item twos from the NPS in that portion. Uh but if we demo that and we need space again, uh we will not be able to get uh that square footage back for for any price if we lose that asset. I just have a followup. Do we have an estimate on what that portion of it will cost to refurbish >> to re to refurbish? I mean, I'm sorry. >> The portion of
040the east wing that is not going to be demolished. Do we have an estimate on the cost to refurbish it? >> I don't have that information. >> Can we get that? The reason I'm asking is I apologize. There's a lot of feedback. Um I was on the board when we actually approved the dis the the demolition of the east wing to build the new um replacement and my understanding was that the way that that building was built because it was originally a one-story building and then we built the two is that the cost to renovate it was exceeded to to renovate it properly exceeded the cost to rebuild it. So that's why I'm asking if we could get an estimate on what that will cost. >> And I just need before we can do that,
041I need a there was a vote to demo. >> I could go back and look, but I believe that the plan and I'm it's been several years, but I believe that the plan that we approved showed the entire east wing being demolished. >> Um, that's not how I recall the facts. I think the goal was to replace, but I don't remember a vote to demo, but we can go back and check. That's why when we brought this plan, we wanted to take it to the community because I think that was the first time they heard that their school was going to be demoed. So, we did a community outreach process. We brought this to the board, let the board know that it was the administration's recommendation to demo half of it. So, uh this again
042is coming as a recommendation for action. Uh it would be approved when uh the actual contract comes before you. But I don't remember a vote, again I could be mistaken, I don't remember a vote to demo that building. It was to build a new east wing to replace it, uh but not to not to demo it. I think in our earlier we were going to use the old building as a swing space. So that's why in the referendum you still have monies for the renovations of uh ones and twos in the existing Hermal High School. So um I think in our um in the we can get some more kind of drill downs as you get to CDs on that total work in of renovations on the existing part. Yeah, I had a question on
043looking at this site plan on the video that you just showed where it says the existing east wing to be demolished. That was a parking lot, was it not? So, we got looks like a park here and it looked like a a a much needed parking lot for >> So, this there we go. So, that's a more updated plan there. So that shows the kind of combination of of parking and then a sort of a um kind of entry procession into that >> plaza that serves athletic spaces. >> Um Dr. Ross, I ask you this question. The um kids that are in the business incubator, is that um like a one block or is that a double block class? And will they have access to their core courses in that remaining east wing? I'm I
044keep thinking about the trick Oh, I know. I've been to schools like River Bluff where you have to walk, you got to ride a bike or something to get where a shuttle or something, but uh Miss Mac, correct me if I'm wrong. This these are Kate courses, so you have uh there could be some double block uh in terms like research. You have a lot of your entry classes are single block. Uh so you do have um uh you have a long campus there but uh a lot of the work that when they do the the research uh it's like the coming to the Kate Center >> right >> where you you have that time to develop that whether it's studio so they have the option of doing single and double blocks there. And another
045simple question, this this is not a big deal or anything. I know in that when we took a tour of the new facility, the new building, they had like a commons area with like a canteen area. Will the kids that are in the um in the incubator where the in the kitchen area whatever will they be able to bring and sell at you know >> beautiful thing and you all can speak to it as the architects there. We're keeping the kitchen. So, if you want to talk about some of the functionality we have with the with the current kitchen. >> Yes. Yes, sir. So, the the most of the kitchen equipment is staying. It's in fairly good condition. Um the kitchen was renovated a number of years ago, but it's still in fairly good condition.
046So, a combination of that existing um equipment and then some new equipment to accommodate the teaching um kind of the culinary uh business incubator, food service teaching aspect of it will be updated and replaced. So, they still have that space there. >> One one suggestion the just to consider, I know you mentioned it very early on, this is very flex space. Um, so I mean I that's what I like about the new facility to be honest with the new building is there's a lot of flex space and that's what schools really need nowadays. But um myself and Mr. Bayum were at Dutch Fork High School the other night and they had a presentation for children who have disabilities. Great. I mean, I hope that it's an annual thing and that it and you know, a
047lot of parents have access to it, but maybe uh job, you know, training kind of opportunity there for special ed kids um just again in that flex space. It might that might be a real good opportunity to to help those kids in their transition. And part of this project will be bringing those spaces up to ADA compliance um current compliance in these areas as well. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. B. Quick question on the from the front of the building from the new addition all the way down. What's the timeline for sprucing up the the landscaping and are we just doing grass or mulch in those islands on the far side close to Wescott Road? Um so that that work is actually part of the um east wing replacement work under construction. So that'll
048that'll be happening this summer before before school starts. Miss >> um on the back to the um culinary, do we have a we have a culinary program in this building? Is that right? >> Okay. That's correct. >> I would just like to echo um Mr. Siderfield and Mr. Bums rather than duplicate a program that we already have. I think it would be awesome if we had a um careers type education program for secondary ed and maybe even look at, you know, Clemson Life or someone like that partner with us. So just a suggestion. >> Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank y'all so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. We're looking um forward to the the development on this site and and um so to talk about some of the things that
049we have going on, just as a reminder, there's a lot uh happening. Uh so the mark your calendars we have some uh ribbon cutings. Thank you LS3P for being here. Uh Irmal High School new east wing. Uh we'll have that on uh June 30th at 9:30. Uh so you'll be able to walk walk the grounds coming out and um and see the the great east wing development at High School. uh Chapen Elementary School July 23rd we'll start off at Lake Murray Elementary for their new classroom wing and then in the afternoon we'll go over to Chapen Elementary and open their new classroom wing. Uh we have some groundbreings in October. Uh we'll have Chapen High School auditorium will be uh breaking ground and so we're excited about that. uh the new Dut Fork Elementary School.
050Again, thanks for the the work to get that site ready and uh we should be bringing uh bids in September and uh being able to have our contract in October so that we can break ground on the new Dutk Elementary School mid October. uh the district office also will be a lot of October groundbreings for uh the PD building and district office. And then in August for Harvest and West and Nursery Road, we're putting walls. These are wall raiser ceremonies in Harvest and West and Nursery Road. Uh and so we're finalizing the dates in August for that. So stay tuned. Miss White will be in touch with you about solidifying these dates and communication, publicizing those. So, um really excited. So, again, Mr. Knots, thank you so much for your work to get these things
051through. And I just got Death Fork Elementary hot off the presses today about the groundbreaking ceremony in October. So, uh that brings us to our next part of the superintendent's report. And this is a parent teen uh I'm sorry there questions. Okay. A parental monitoring tool for home Chromebook use. Home Chromebook use. But I want to start off with a question and this um may not endear me to uh lot of positive feelings but it's because it's a tough question and that is who is responsible for improving student behavior? Who is responsible for improving student behavior? If you answered one thing, I believe it's incorrect. I think we all have a part to play in improving our student behavior. And I say that as we talk about the uh we get into Chromebook usage. Uh
052part of this is the things that we need to do as adults, but I also believe the expectations of the child uh plays uh plays at hand. The reality is and we see this as we talk to our parent advisory uh when we address student behavior. It requires parental involvement and all parents do not practice the same parenting styles. I know uh people disagree. So we did a survey. We asked parents in our advisory at what age would you leave your child home alone? You don't have to answer that. It's rhetorical. But what age would you leave your child home alone? Just to show that. and our parent advisory had three different ones at high school. It wouldn't leave that child alone until high school. So, um it's just when it comes to how we
053raise our parent our children, we we we disagree. every child development book or parenting book. It stems off of the 1966 research by um Diana Bom who uh is probably a guru as a developmental psychologist on parenting styles. If you've gone to a bookstore and Bomin's work has been incorporated in any parenting book you have and she basically um divides the parents into four styles. This is important as we talk about contextualizing our conversation on Chromebook usage. She says that the two domains of responsiveness I am there in the life of that child. I am present and demanding this. When I show up, I'm asking the child to do more than I'm doing. Uh you're going to fall in four different places on those demands. If you're high responsive and high demand of the child,
054she calls you an authoritative parent. Let's discuss this. But it's your expectation. It's my expectation that you do this. uh if you're high demand but really low responsiveness, she calls that the authoritative. Those parents says because I say so. I kind of have a lot of familiarity with that one. You have the permissive. The permissive parent is um high responsiveness. They are there. They are there for their kids 100%. But there are very low demands for the child to do the work. um those expectations are are are really sound like whatever you want. And then we have where um you know Dr. Harris and his social work team work heavily with the uninvolved low demands low responsiveness. I say this because what happens when a child now we all in and out of these domains
055but where the child majority experience u their direction is is kind of what drives their behavior. So we say who is responsible for the child? If the child is predominantly in a permissive household and runs into an authoritarian teacher, we have conflict. That's tough. Um we want all of our teachers to be authoritative. Um and I always remember the work of Bomin, but that authoritative sounds like facilitative. Um but the reality is as we talk about our community raising our child, our children, a lot of this falls on this on the teacher on the school. Um but we have to have these parenting conversations about um what we expect as a community. And so to that end we are produc a a a software that we want to give to our parents but this is
056for the authoritative work of parents. Uh and um I believe if it's used in that manner it will be a really good resource uh for all of our our parents and our students. Uh so to give us a little insight on this parenting monitoring software um I want our director of technology Mr. Kendrick Davis to come forth to talk about a project a program called I boss. The objective is to give our lecturers five parents the ability to control Chromebook screen time at home. So Mr. Davis >> afternoon everyone. Um, so for those of you who do not know, IBOS is our um our content filter. So it's already installed on all our laptops and u controls all of our Chromebooks as it is today. Um, they developed a module to assist schools and parents
057with uh helping control Chromebook use at home. Uh, what you see up here is a quick snapshot of the features of Eye Boss. You get real time visibility into what your child is doing. that is 247. So when a child is in class, you can pick up your phone and look and see what the child is doing, where they're at in class. Um, it gives you the feature to cut your internet off to the device outside the hours of school. So it gives the parents the ability when they reach home if you do not want them on the device or want them on the internet, you can cut it off from your phone. Next one is outside the school control. As I just mentioned, um, the control given to the parents is for outside of
058the school hours. cannot grant that access to control device while they're at school. And it all comes in a mobile app. So all parents do not have to sign into a web browser. You do not need a laptop. You can do all this from your phone from an app. Best use for this, like Dr. Ross said, all the parents who want to take control of the device at home. You know, this is not going to be for everyone, but for those who do want it, they'll have the option to do this. This is the home screen of the app once they log in. Can view history says see live live activity and schedule the offline time. The scheduling of the time I think is the best feature of this app because a parent or guardian
059of the child can schedule their off time on the device from their phone. So they can schedule their off time from 5:00 p.m. till 7 in the morning when a child starts school. When a child comes home from school at 5:00 p.m., that device shuts back off and goes to the parent schedule. Now, the scheduling does not override the school schedule. So, if we have our schedule set from 7:00 a.m. to 400 p.m., even if the parent does not turn theirs off, it will automatically come back on for instructional purposes. You'll see at the bottom of this screen of this home app, you have four sections. Three of them are the important ones that parents will use. First one is the summary. As you scroll down, you'll see the top sites visited by the child.
060Um, you can go through see how many times they went there that day or the history throughout the week. The next section is the events. That's the live data of what the child is doing. Right? Then you'll see the live URLs from where the child is. Some of the URLs will look a little different if you're not used to seeing them. Um, some people expect just to see I like to use ESPN.com, but if they click on a link, it's going to be espn.comlob with a bunch of different characters. This will be the exact URL to where the child is in live time. The next section you'll see at the bottom is it says uh internet. This is where a parent can schedule the off time for the device. They can do a schedule for
061all days. They can pick the day they want to schedule. At the top you hit add schedule and this uh the last picture will show you what they will see. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday through Sunday, you can schedule your time. Um like I said, if you try to schedule your time from 7 to 7, if our times are from 7:00 to 4 that the device needs to be on, it will cut cut back on for instructional time. So your schedule does not override the district schedule for instructional time. But when they get off the bus and come home and hit the internet at home, if you have it scheduled to go off at 5, the device will lose its internet connection. Now, the key part to this is um the only people who have access
062to this are the parents and guardians who are registered in powers school. So even if you're at home, if you're not registered in P school, you will not get the registration code to log into this. So uh auntie, cousins, uncles will not be able to control the device. It is the main primary guardian who is registered in power school um that will have this functionality questions. >> Thank you. Um I'll start with Miss Barnhart and just work my way down because I saw all three hands go up down there. >> Thank you. Um you mentioned that we we already have eyeballs. >> Yes. >> As addition How long have we been using that software? Because I know that it's not necessarily just a that has a lot to do with like zero trust networking civil
063compliance and uh cyber security >> stuff. Uh we've had eyeballs want to say about seven or eight years when we uh transition over to it. So it like you say it's primary primarily our content filter. >> Um is there any extra cost in in the parent portal part of it or is that already included in kind of what we already um have funded for it? So when they develop um this application, they tied it in with the primary purchases. So anybody who bought eyeballs does not have to pay extra for this. >> Okay. Um I'm let everybody else ask the question. >> Those are the same two questions I had. >> Okay. >> Miss Huddle. >> Um two questions. One is um if the district wanted to um limit the outside activity and say no
064more than three hours a day or something like that, would this tool or some other tool let let the district do that? >> This tool would work for that, but that would require us scheduling our time into the time that they're at home. >> Okay? So if we have our cut off time say at 4 p.m. to do that as an example if the parent doesn't want it on at say you should have your homework done by 6 they can set their schedule for it to go off at 6 and the device will lose his internet connection >> but we couldn't like if if we wanted to say that they could stay on till 900 p.m. then the parent wouldn't be able to override that. I was trying to get at is there a tool
065that if we wanted to would allow us to the school district to limit how much the device could be used at home and it sounds like the answer is no. >> Yeah. Not not for this device. >> Okay. Second question is can it be rolled out with a default? So it defaults to Monday through Friday till 9:00 p.m. or something like that or is it rolled out wide open? So when we do roll it out, we do not plan on rolling it out past the school district schedule. We want to give parents the freedom to manipulate the time however they want to when the child gets home. So if our schedule we working on it ends at 4, from that point on, that would be on a parents um time frame to download the app,
066get in there, and then set the schedule when they want the device to work. >> Thank you. Um, if uh Scott Herring is in English class and he's decided to go to ESPN, can his parents see that he's gone to ESPN? >> Yes, sir. >> Well, the one thing that I hope and that is for parents that we you understand that we have a policy. Is that right, Dr. Harris? We have a policy about proper use of technology and um um I I think this is awesome. I think parents are continually asking for, you know, some way of seeing what the kids are doing when they're in class. And I know there's the thing about the time on Chromebooks and things like that, but um might be a good opportunity to just to reinforce to
067parents that we have a policy in place that says that there's acceptable use of technology and that students are supposed to be f following that. >> Do I have questions on this end? Mr. We may already be planning this, but maybe at the beginning of school, um, kind of starting off with the the kiddos in the first week, all the teachers kind of reiterate, your parents now see everything that you do. Just kind of like a checklist along with your acceptable use agreements. So, just kind of like what Mr. Satderfeld said, if you go there, we're going to find out. I don't know. Maybe a good idea. >> Do we have other questions? Thank you so much, Kendrick. >> Well, I want to uh just kind of conclude to that very point. We talk about
068um the roll out of of this some of the items that we're going to work with parents on is how to download and operate. Uh so I think the rollout should come with more instructions. We need to go over to Miss Sfield's point, the parent and student acceptable use agreement for district devices. I think it's important as you said, Mr. B, continue to remind folks of that. Uh, but I think the other piece is if uh child is off task during English um and looking at ESPN, we keep picking on ESPN, but um communications with school staff, we don't want this to be a uh where teachers are responding in real time to uh parents about concerns during the class. This should not interrupt destruct instruction. Uh it is a great way to monitor what
069your child is doing during the day. Uh but the call of to the front office, can you tell a to get off the website right now? But our teachers have to be responsive to the the children in the classroom. If the responsiveness during the workday is to the parents, we we attend less to children. So this is uh for a this is parenting. So that's why I wanted to ask who is responsible uh this is gives me a great tool. Now you are welcome if you want to submit a referral uh to the principal for violation of the acceptable use agreement. Parents are welcome to do that, but it is not to interrupt the school day with um uh so we want to talk about communications with school staff, but the ultimate purpose of the
070Chromebook is instructional technology period. And that's why they're issued for gaming or for free time. It's for instructional use. So, uh we go back to who is responsible uh for the behavior of the child. Uh and I think it's all of us. the the school, the parent, um that relationship works. And so I I think for us, we ask that um we attend a lunch and learn. Those be on Thursday, May 14th from 12 to 1, where we're going to go over all of these topics. And so, uh parents will be able to have this before the summer. So, uh in the summer, they can regulate this, uh all summer long. and we will continue that. So again, I know we only have two weeks of school left, but we want to have if you
071can attend the roll out of the eyeballs uh system. I know the question was we've have eyeballs for a while, but the monitoring tool we've just begun to vet uh in March. So we started the vetting process of the parenting monitoring tool in March. The system has been with us for some time, but this we started our vetting process uh in March um with Dr. Harris's team inviting uh the FBI and SLED to talk to us about things that we can do to give our parents tools uh to monitor activity and screen time on their Chromebook. So, please mark your calendars for Thursday, May 14th, 2026 from 12:00 to 1 for our eye boss roll out. Madam Chair, that concludes the superintendent's report and our staff. Any questions? >> Mrs. Siderfield, I mean, out of
072habit, hearing, >> will that May 14th date be the day that it's available? >> It is. Uh, that's the day we roll out. Um, and we give that's our official roll out. Yes, sir. And it's on um Apple Android devices you can. So we'll go through all of that. We want to talk with our parent advisory, our principles uh and our our teacher advisory uh so that they have some input uh on how it rolls out because again the goal is for the responsibility to increase on the child. This is not to interrupt instruction during the day uh to um to correct very well. You have the documentation when you get home to have those conversations uh those authoritative conversations with those with the children. >> Mr. Bum, >> real quick, just want to make
073sure you said when we're talking about the groundbreings midocctober for the new Dutch Elementary. >> That's correct. Um Mr. Mr. KN gave me some information today. So, MN KN, can you share what our process is on Dut for the new Dutch Fork Elementary School? >> Yes, sir. So, we are um we're expecting final approval from OSF uh early August or sometime early mid August. Um then we're going to move on to to bidding of the project. That should take about three weeks because we went ahead and we started this process, went ahead and had pre-approved contractors. So, we have a we have about five pre-approved GC's that are ready to go to bid this as soon as they get the information. Um, then there's a protest period of about seven days. So, um, you know,
074we'll be ready to have this contract turned around, you know, reviewed with our our attorney and ready to go so we can, you know, get to a groundbreaking in October. Thank you. Anybody else? All right, that moves us to the approval of the minutes of the April 20th meeting. Do I have a motion? >> I'll move that we approve the minutes of the April 20th, 2026 meeting. >> All in favor? And the motion carries six to zero. That moves us to public participation. The board welcomes and encourages public participation. We respectfully ask that you adhere to the procedures provided in board policy BEDH public participation and meetings. Your comments should be limited to three minutes and must remain on either the topic noted on your signing form or a listed agenda item. Questions asked during
075public participation will be handled in accordance with board policy BEDH. Miss Taylor. >> Thank you Madam Chair. Jennifer Martinson is here to speak about Dutch Elementary School. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Jennifer Martinson and I am here as as a Lexon County resident and voter and a parent of a Dutch Fork Elementary School student. Through school choice, my husband and I selected Dutch Fork for its environmental science program and stayed because of the teachers and staff. When our son was in kindergarten, his teacher tried to warn us that there might be something more going on to explain his behavioral problems than just having difficulty adjusting to being in school all day. His behavioral problems would eb and flow the following year. And when he started to fall
076behind with his reading, his first grade teacher gave him so much individual attention that he was able to stay on grade level. In second grade, his academics tanked and the behavioral problems persisted. It was his second grade teacher that recognized that our son needed additional testing and support. Consequently, we were able to identify his ADHD early and get him the help he needed. With the support of his teacher and the sped interventionists throughout third grade, my son blossomed. There is no other word for it. The behavioral problems disappeared and he ended up on the honor roll multiple quarters. Now that we are in fourth grade, he has graduated from his IEP after only a year and a half while his teacher and the dedicated staff are helping him stay the course. My son is wonderful,
077but he has his quirks. The teachers and staff at Dutch Fork all know my son, genuinely care for him, and are 100% invested in his development as a student and a human being. I firmly believe that he would have slipped through the cracks or been written off as a troublemaker at a non-title one school because with larger class sizes, teachers simply cannot focus on everyone in the same way. Closing Dutch Fork and moving all those students to Oak Point and River Springs will have detrimental effect on everyone. it would be incredibly impractical and disruptive. The teachers there will become even more overextended and none of the kids will get the attention they need to succeed. So, while there might be something going on with all 18 kids in a typical class at Dutch Fork, everything
078from homelessness to trauma to a plethora of behavioral and learning issues, teachers can focus on those kids and give them individual attention. But it's not just attention, it's love. That's the difference. Every single child, no matter where they come from or what's going on with them, gets love and attention every single day. My family has experienced it for five years. Even though my son will not benefit from a new building, I am here to support Dutch Fork getting that new building, which was voted for in the 2024 bond referendum. Any talk of closing Dutch Fork permanently is shortsighted and does a disservice to all the students, families, teachers, and staff that have found their home at such an amazing school. Dutch Fork Elementary School embodies the we love and grow our students motto of district
0795 every day. Please remember that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Jennifer. >> Teresa McAfee is here to speak about Dutch Fork Elementary School. >> Good evening, Dr. Ross. Madam Chair, board, community members, the whole school, and everybody else who's here. Um, a long-standing connection to the Lexington Richmond School District 5 runs through every part of my life. I'm a graduate of Armo High School, a parent of three children who attended, here we go, Harvest West, River Springs, Valentine, Oak Point, Crossroads, Dutch Fork Middle, Dutch Fork High, and Spring Hill High School. And as an educator serving now at Dutch Fork Elementary School, District 5 runs very deep. I believe that our focus is all in together on the long-term stability of our schools and the viability of our community. Discussion around the Dutch Fork Elementary
080School project deserves careful attention. The idea of not moving forward with this new build raises concern for both current needs and the future structure of district. very pleased to hear about the groundbreaking. Let me say this is not simply about a building. It is about safety. It is about capacity and about long-term planning for students and staff. Once Dutch Fork Elementary School relocates, that space will support several programs, including and not limited to the Lex Richland Lexington Education Center, the Academy for Success, adult education programming, and the five virtual program. This project is already part of an approved plan including resoning. There was discussion about reconsidering the project in order to redirect funds towards other priorities including several want to line items referenced during the April 20th school board budget conversation. Additionally, I understand there
081has been community discussion around the potential elimination of Dutch Fork Elementary School and redistribution of students between River Springs and Oak Point. As that idea has surfaced, it is important to note that the district enrollment patterns and long range planning continue to focus on capacity management through resoning and facility investment, not school elimination. There is no clear data that supports dissolving Dutch Fork Elementary School. Budget stewardship is always important and difficult decisions are part of that responsibility. During the last board meeting, there was affirmation that the priority remains students and schools even when financial implications are challenging. The Dutch Fork Elementary School project is part of a board approved long range plan addressing safety, student capacity, and program needs already identified through district planning. Because it is evident that this board is committed to being
082allin, it is important to remain aligned with the approved plan and continue moving forward with the Dutch work project. My ask is that the consideration relocate funds from the approved Dutchwork Elementary School new building be removed in order to preserve the integrity of the board approved plan and ensure long-term stability for students and schools. Thank you for your time and your continued service to all of our students and our schools. Emily Lel is here to speak about the new Dutch Fork Elementary School. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Ross, members of the community, and those from Dutch Fork Elementary. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about the special and vibrant place that is Dutch Fork Elementary School. Our family became part of Dutch Elementary when my son started kindergarten there
083in 2021 and is now in fourth grade. For those of you who do not know the history of our school, it was opened in 1918 as a Rosenwald school. Mr. Rosenwald, president of Sears Robuk, believed that black children deserved access to an education previously reserved exclusively for white children. He funded 50 schools for black children across the deep south, including what is now Dutch Fork Elementary. This history gives important context to the current value and culture of our school. We're a majority minority school rich with diversity and a true desire to learn alongside each other. One of my favorite parts of sending my child to Dutch Elementary is the diversity of his learning environment. Closing the only historically black elementary school in the district would be incredibly damaging. To be frank, I don't think there
084would ever be a conversation about closing a school in the district populated by predominantly wealthy white children. I'm here to raise my voice to protect the incredibly special school community that is Dutch Elementary and to advocate for the long promised new building. At Dutch Elementary, our teachers and administration make a loud and clear commitment to the learning of every student. As a proud Title One school, Dutch Elementary is a welcoming place for all. For some students, however, it may be the only place that they know safety, security, and love. Our teachers and administration do more than teach. They show genuine love and caring in an environment that is supportive and nurturing. They care about the whole child. Openly musing about closing our school across multiple board meetings increases anxiety and stress in a school that
085needs calm and steadfast commitment. This new school has been promised to us time and time again. Yet somehow it's still questioned. The voters overwhelmingly passed the bond referendum with a new Dutch Fork Elementary School as the largest expenditure. Many of the parents in this room actively engaged our friends and neighbors in voting in support of the bond referendum expressly due to the promise of a new school. The families of Dutch Elementary School are not asking for lavish or over-the-top facilities. Put simply, we want clean a clean, safe building that equals the other elementary schools in the district. We want to keep our close-knit learning community together to honor where we have been and work together for the promise of a brighter future. Tonight, I'm asking for the commitment of the board to deliver on the
086promise made to our Dutch Fork Elementary School community, the delivery of a long overdue safe and clean learning environment. Ben Lel and Landon Danley are here to speak about New Dutch Fork Elementary School. Good evening. My name is Ben Lan. My name is Landon Danley. We are both fourth graders at Dutch Fork Elementary School and we have been best friends since we were in the same kindergarten class. One of my favorite things about DFS is that all the teachers support me. They are kind when I make a mistake and they celebrate when I do a good job. This year we have den time every Friday where we celebrate students accomplishments. We have this spirit stick which represents school spirit. Losing my school would be like running out of batteries in a game that can't be
087saved. >> One of my favorite things is that I know everybody and everybody knows me. Sometimes people joke I'm the mayor of a school. If we had to go to different schools, we would be lost. There would be so many kids that we would not feel comfortable or all know each other. We wouldn't be able to be with our friends. We are ready, responsible, and respectful fox cubs at Dutch Fork Elementary. And we can't wait to see our new den. Glenna Sheileely is here to speak about Dutch Fork Elementary. It's really unfair to have to follow that. Good evening. My name is Glenna Shealey. I'm the 2425 teacher of the year for Dutch Fork Elementary and one of the three district finalists. I've taught at Dutch Fork Elementary School for eight years. I have 20
088years of experience in education, 18 of those in title one schools. As a member of the teacher forum, we believe it is our duty to advocate, advance, and inspire. I'm here to advocate for the members of my school community who do not have many of the resources needed to be here themselves by addressing the possibility of eliminating Dutch Fork Elementary School. As was discussed at the last board meeting and on social media, when we moved to this district, the mantra was we are one. Every student in the district, regardless of neighborhood, income and resources, receives a fair and equitable education. The poverty level of my school is currently 76.52%. In her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Dr. Ruby K. Payne states, "Two things that help one move out of poverty are education and relationships.
089Emotional resources are the most important of all resources. To have emotional resources that are healthy, one needs to have an identity. We have worked so hard in the last six years to change the climate, build community, and develop trust in order to improve achievement, including block parties in our neighborhoods, fund family engagement nights, and family literacy and math nights. We have built an identity that says we belong here. I am safe, valued, and loved. It has become a second home. As a result, since the 22 23 school year, we have increased our total conditional growth on math map testing from 54 to 68% and from 47 to 61% in reading. Chronic absenteeism has decreased from 22% to 7.1%. The number of truent students has plummeted from 130 to 38. Our students believe they are getting
090a school that represents fairness and equity. acknowledges their place in the community and further instills their identity and worth as a learning community. Solutions that displace them, however, unintentionally communicate to family, students, and staff that their hard work doesn't matter. Essentially, that they don't matter. Libby Stanford in an article in Education Week says this, "Students who attend a school that closes during their K through 12 career have lower test scores along with worse attendance and behavior in the short term. In the long term, they're less likely than their peers to complete college and have a job, and their earnings tend to be lower. Dr. Ross once said, "We are a thousand passions with one heartbeat. These students are mine, my children. I will give anything I have so they can grow and maximize their potential."
091Same. So, my question to you is this. What do you value? Are we going to be one heartbeat for the least of these? I invite you to spend just one den time with us Friday mornings at 8 am to see the community and identity we have built and implore you not to go back on decisions already approved until you have seen us in action to the community. I challenge you are your core values being represented. Teacher form is hosting a candidate forum in the fall. Thank you. >> Thank you. Heather Danley is here to speak about Dutch Fork Elementary School. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Heather Danley and have a current fourth grader at Dutch Fork Elementary. As we talk about moving forward with a new
092building for Dutch Fork Elementary, I want to be clear that that that this is about more than walls, classrooms, and facilities. It's about continuing the identity and existence of Dutch Fork Elementary. A building does not make a school. People do. A great school depends on great A great school depends on great people. When we invest in our educators, through resources, support, and a positive environment, we directly impact the quality of education our children receive. DFES has been built over time through relationships, trust, strong leadership, and a shared commitment to the students. It's a place where children feel known, families feel connected, and teachers go above and beyond every single day. So, as plans more move forward, my hope and my ask is simple. That DFES doesn't just move, it continues. That means preserving the culture
093that already exists, keeping the school community intact, and recognizing that what makes DFVS so special cannot be recreated overnight. It has to be carried forward with intentions. A new building is a great opportunity. It can enhance learning, provide updated resource, and support future growth. But those benefits only matter if the heart of DFS moves with it. As we move forward, we ask that progress protects, not disrupts, the school community that already exists. Because when you have something strong, something connected, something that clearly makes a difference for students, you don't start over. You continue and you build on it. I believe in DFES. I believe in its leadership, its teachers, and its families who show up every day ready to make a difference. And I believe we can move forward in a way that keeps this
094community whole. Thank you for your time and keeping focus where it belongs, on the students, the staff, and the community that makes DFS what it is. Thank you. >> Thank you. Monica Stewart is here to speak about Dutch Fork Elementary School. >> Good evening. Very nervous, a little nervous to follow that, but you can just tell that we are all so very passionate about our school and the community it is built. Um, I have a rising fourth grader who She might give a lot of sass and attitude at the school. When she gets home, she talks about all of her wonderful interactions with every single person she encounters. Um, and again, we are a huge community and I see the same wonderful faces every time I go in there and anytime we have a PTO
095meeting. Uh, sorry, I'm very nervous, but they all care so deeply and all of these kids have formed such a huge bond. Um, we also just reearned the magnet status for Dutch Fork, which is wonderful. We've got our bees garden composting, which we, you know, work on through the year. Um, if I should have been more prepared, I should have gone to Dutch Fork as a kid. Uh, so but we the voters approved that bond referendum. We would love to see you in a building. And that is all. Thank you so much, >> thank you, Ashley Petty is here to speak about replacement of stadium video boards. I'm Ashley Petty and I have a 10th grader at Chapen High School and a seventh grader at Chaffin Middle School. and I'm here with um some Chapen
096High School student athletes to ask the district to please prioritize investing in the updating of the video boards at all three high schools in the district. Some specific reasons Chaffen's video board is in need of replacement are throughout the spring season, the video board has completely shut down during our games. Sections of the screen continue to go black even after repairs. The score display has completely failed, forcing the use of an emergency scoreboard on the side of the fieldhouse. We've lost game clock visibility, so coaches and players can no longer see the clock, leaving the officials as the only timekeepers. And we continually lose the ability to to communicate with a stadium full of people, fans, coaches, and players because our sound system fails. At every event, it's become a not if, but when situation,
097when is the board going to fail? At what point are we going to lose it? which obviously creates stress for coaches, officials, game day staff, and it leaves our volunteers scrambling to adjust in real time. All of this will then in turn clearly affect our 450 plus athletes and um those 12 different teams. To give you some examples of other missed opportunities due to these video board glitches, our broadcasting students at Chapen are amazing. They create this super cool hype videos, um, highlight reels, all kinds of video and media content, and we're unable to at many times showcase their work. The glitches interfere with special moments like homecoming court introductions, senior night recognitions, um, and any athlete athletic recognition moments. Dancers and cheerleaders are amazing because they can pretty much compromise um, without music, but
098it's hard to dance without music. I don't want to try it. I don't know if you want to try that. But they're on the field in front of all the people and the dance um their music goes um off or it's interrupted. So all in all, the limited functionality of our video board limits that full game day experience that most of the people expect this little competition. Um the basic scoreboards are really a thing of the past and a video boards are now standard and not a luxury at this level. Schools we compete against have them. Most 4A and 5A programs have them. In a district that values being progressive and forward thinking, we want our facilities to match that of our students and our programs. In closing, we ask that the board prioritize replacement
099of Chaffen's video board, consider a district-wide plan for video boards at all three high schools, which will support the safety and functionality of our events, and ultimately provide the best experience for our student athletes and the community that supports them. Thank you. Brenda Thorp is here to speak about use of unapproved and racially offensive instructional materials and district response. >> Good evening. My name is Brenda Thorp and I'm the parent of a junior at Dutch High School. I'm here to address the use of racist and racially offensive instructional material in my daughter's English classroom and the district's response to that incident. On March 25th, 2026, my daughter was given classroom material that included harmful racist stereotypes and derogatory classifications of African-Americans. This content was presented in a racially diverse classroom as a part of an
100assignment and was not aligned with district instructional standards. The district later confirmed that the material was not approved and had not gone through required review process. While the procedural issue was acknowledged, the impact on students and the need for clear accountability has not been addressed. A classroom apology was communicated as next steps, but it was not implemented. Referring to the situation as students simply feeling uncomfortable minimizes the seriousness of what occurred and does not reflect the nature of the material that was presented. I was presented with an option of removing my daughter from the classroom as a solution. I do not believe it is appropriate to remove a student from their learning environment when the issue originated from their use of unapproved and inappropriate instructional material. The response should focus on addressing the source of
101the issue, not displacing the student. Because this content was presented as a part of a classroom assignment, students should have received a clear age appropriate explanation that material was not approved, should not have been used, and did not meet district standards that did not occur. Without that clarity, students are left without an understanding of what was appropriate and what was not, which is an important part of maintaining a safe and respectful learning environment. As a parent, I rely on the district to ensure that students are in a safe, respectful, and standards aligned classroom. When that standard is not met, it is critical that the response reflects the seriousness of the situation and includes clear follow-through. The situation also raises broader concerns about how student concerns are heard and addressed. When students report harm, the response
102must reflect accountability, accountability, follow through, and a commitment to a safe and respectful learning environment. Because this matter has not been resolved at the district level, I'm requesting that the board ensures that this situation is thoroughly reviewed and that appropriate accountability accountability and corrective actions are implemented as as all students deserve a safe learning environment that is free from racist inflammatory content and that reflects respect for their identity, culture, and dignity. My daughter's experience matters. Her voice matters. I'm asking again for acknowledgement, accountability, and assurance that this will not happen again. Thank you. Cheryl Hickman is here to speak about the merits of Dutch Fork Elementary School. Hi, my name is Cheryl Hickman and I'm a proud parent of a Dutch Fork Elementary School graduate who has excelling at her new school with the foundation
103that she learned at Dutch Fork. I wanted to express that a school is more than its building and its spreadsheets. It's a community and Dutch Fork is unique and worthy. Dutch Fork was founded as a Rosen school to create school buildings for black children and still serves the disadvantaged with approximately 77% lowincome and majority minority. Miss Umbberger at that school runs an in-house science fair that includes all fifth grade students and has removed multiple barriers to equity and success in science. And her program is now being used and replicated in other schools within the district. and Dutch Fork Elementary students and Kyra students were here as winners as a result of that instruction and that experience. And of course, we also have the environmental science magnet program at Dutch Fork, which is amazing. Teachers and
104staff at Dutch Fork included the entire school body in a creative writing program that teaches every student that they matter. their story matters and they should write about it. As a result, we have multiple Dutch Folk Elementary students who are published authors. You can buy their books on Amazon. This not only taught them that they matter, but it taught them and they actually receive royalties by the way. So, buy their books on Amazon, but it has ignited their love for English. As a former Dutch Folk Elementary student parent, it is not surprising to me to see so many of the students recognized here tonight for perfect South Carolina Ready scores as well as the science fair. Um, we had many amazing teachers at Dutch Folk Elementary, including several that are here today. Dutch Folk Elementary
105School teachers love and grow their students, and part of that is also emotional support. My kid was the new kid. family. Those neighborhood meetups not only allowed her to meet her new teacher, but also students in the class and she entered knowing people. That's huge. We during her time there lost a family pet. Not only was she shown sympathy from her teachers, the family received condolences. When I tell you that Dutch Fork is more to us than numbers can explain, I mean it. Dutch Fork has been a blessing to our family and this community. Thank you. Evelyn Hitman is here to speak about her experience at Dutch Elementary School. >> Hello. I would like to say that my experience at Dud Fork was awesome. I made friends immediately and everyone was trying to be there
106for me. And I also made the best friend of my life there and she's stayed my best friend for four whole years. And I would also like to say the science program is awesome. It's made me want to pursue pursue a life in science and I'm still working toward that. And I actually came up for two science things as you guys saw me. And I and I also I also liked the English program. It allowed me to write down my experience and I was recognized for it and I was actually got my book published and it's one of the ones selling on Amazon and I would like to say that the community at Dutch Fork is awesome. It was like everyone was there for me. If I if something happened, everyone was there. Thank you.
107Karina Phelps is here to speak about the budget and trustee comments. Good evening and thank you for allowing me to take a moment to come up and share some ideas about the budget uh vote coming up. Um, taxpayers in our community are being asked to shoulder a lot right now with rising gas prices, higher energy bills, increasing food costs, and now another potential increase to the military. While some members of the board, administration, and community members may be able to absorb the cost without significant hardship, there are many in our community who simply cannot. We have hardworking parents, some of whom are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Every additional tax increase matters to them and to the taxpayers who want fiscal responsibility. Those realities deserve to be acknowledged and respected. I am
108asking this board to take a serious and transparent look at all the programs we currently offer. Not just in terms of cost, but more importantly in the terms of the outcomes. This is not a request for cuts. It's a call for accountability. If a program does not demonstrate positive, measurable outcomes for students and or educators, then it should be re-examined. At the same time, there may be programs we could invest in that would better serve our students and educators that provide greater value for our tax dollars. We are currently having community discussions about the Chromebooks, particularly particularly their positive and negative impacts on elementary school students. If these devices are treated as a core instructional tool, then the full cost picture should be clearly understood and shared with the taxpayers. That includes the ongoing maintenance
109costs, replacements costs for damaged or outdated devices and the licensing fees for each software program loaded onto the Chromebooks. Should also include the cost of Chromebooks, how often we replace them, and how much this is added to the annual budget. These are reoccurring expenses, not onetime purchases, and they deserve careful scrutiny, especially when budgets are tight and taxpayers are being asked to potentially pay more. I would ask the board to review programs that were introduced during the CO era. Were some of these programs previously funded by federal or state government money that is no longer available? If so, are we now paying for them locally? And if we are, we need to ask the Third question, are these programs still necessary and effective or were they there intended for a temporary response to an extraordinary
110situation? Lastly, I would like to address a comment that was made publicly the last board meeting by Mr. Scully, who unfortunately is not here this evening. As uh Mr. Skully stated and was correct, um I'm sorry, Mr. Scully was correct when he said it was going to sound really bad to say that he didn't care what parents think. Tracy Greset is here to speak about press box at Urban High School. Good evening, Dr. Ross, members of the board, and community members. I come to you this evening as a parent of a 2018 graduate athlete, a current student athlete, and the vice president of the Irma Yellow Jacket Club. I have attended a few of these meetings in the past and listened to people video scoreboards. The idea of having video scoreboards for all district schools
111would be amazing. I however would like to speak to you this evening about the Irma High press box. There have been no remodelings or renovations at least in the 20s. We are now 2000s I'm sorry and we are now 26 years in. To get the press to the press box, one would have to climb a ladder. Not a staircase, but a ladder. This is not only embarrassing for our school, but also poses a safety threat for those who go into the press box to operate the equipment and for our visitors. And anyone with a physical disability may be denied the opportunity to complete the job they have been assigned. The equipment is dated, not remotely close to the technology that other schools have mentioned. And most recently, the restrooms are unoperational. An email was previously
112sent asking for someone to come and observe these conditions and the response was they would send someone. No further communication was received. I'm guessing they were afraid to make decline. I am asking that you prioritize the renovating of Ir's press box to run safe and efficient events. Thank you. >> Bryce Harter is here to speak about the new school board for Chapman High School. Good evening. My name is Bryce Harter and I'm a rising junior at Chaven High School and a member of the varsity football team. I'm also here speaking not just for myself, but for my younger brother who will be coming through Chavin's football program next year. I want his experience and the experience of all future athletes to be even better than what we've had over the past year. I've been at
113a lot of Chaffen athletic events, not just football, but also soccer and lacrosse, supporting my friends. There have been multiple times where part of parts of our scoreboard were not working and it was difficult to even know the score of the game. During football season, as a player, the scoreboard issues became more than just frustrating. They were a distraction. There were moments when it would just shut off unexpectedly or not display correctly. And instead of adding the game atmosphere, they took away from it. Our game days are something our community takes a lot of pride on. Players, coaches, students, and families all show up expecting a great experience. The scoreboard should be something that enhances that environment, highlights our teams, and brings energy to the stadium, not something that people are worried about trying to
114fix during the game. When we travel to other schools, it is clear that a working, reliable video board is becoming the standard. It's how schools recognize their athletes, engage their fans, and create a complete game day experience. At Chapen, we have that same pride, that same support, and that same commitment to excellence. We're simply asking for a video board that matches that standard and allows our athletes, our fans, and our future players like my brother to have the experience they deserve. Thank you for your time and consideration. Jackson Livingston is here to speak about video. Good evening uh ladies and gentlemen of the board. My name is Jackson Livingston and I'm currently a junior student athlete at Irma High School. But I'm not here just to represent uh the football team in which I currently
115play for. I'm here to represent every student athlete at Arma High School. Um I propose a question to the board. What is our district's biggest asset? Is it the school? Is it the school? It's the students. The students are our biggest as the biggest asset of our district. So let's invest in our students. We go to school 7 to 8 hours, get out, go straight to practice, and get home at 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. until game day. But our facilities don't reflect that. Our video our video boards throughout the district are run down, don't work, and have to be reset, turned off, and on just to continue the game. When we went to Burns last year, we were shocked. It was so loud. The environment was electric. Their new video board kept fans engaged and
116always entertained. Don't you think that we deserve that right to have have up-to-date facilities that reflect not only our schools but our district? If you want lectur 5 to be the best district, if you want to call lecturric 5 the best district, make the facilities reflected. Thank you and have a great good night. >> Tilman Lac is here to speak about new scoreboards. Good evening. My name is Tilman Lmanac and I am a current student athlete at Chapen High School as well as a leader in our school spirit and pep club. I am speaking tonight on behalf of my younger brother Dalton who will be joining Chapen athletics next year and will be out there on the field. I want his experience and the experience of all future athletes to reflect the pride we have
117in Chapen. Being involved in our pep club, I have had the chance to see just how much effort goes into creating a great game day atmosphere. I have a lot of respect for my classmates and community members who spend hours preparing videos, graphics, and photos to recognize our student athletes and make each event feel special. But when the video board isn't working the way it should, all of that hard work doesn't get the chance to be seen. Instead of highlighting our athletes and building excitement, those moments become lost. At games, the video board should be something that brings everyone together, students, families, and a community. It should help recognize our teams and celebrate the people who represent Chapen. When it is unreliable, it takes away from that game day experience. At Chapen, we already have
118the school spirit, the community support, and the people willing to put in the work. We're simply just asking for the tools that match the effort so that we can continue to build something we are all proud of now and for our future members of the Chapen family. Thank you for your time and go Eagles. >> Our final speaker tonight is Maryanne Cooper to speak about Dutch Fork Elementary School. All right. Good evening. My name is Maryanne Cooper and I'm the physical education teacher at Dutch Elementary. I'm speaking tonight as an educator, a colleague, and someone who deeply cares about our students. Sorry. This year, our school motto is small pause, big impact. Tonight, I want to ask you one question. What kind of impact would it have if Dutch Forg Elementary no longer existed? I
119have taught multiple schools in this district and in Berkeley County. As a PE teacher, I've experienced what it's like to teach in a space that doesn't support student learning and spaces that simply cannot handle the number of students assigned to them. Dutchwork Elementary has one of the largest elementary gym spaces in this district. And I see every day how space and class size affects student safety, engagement, and instruction. If Dutch Fork Elementary is dissolved and students are redistributed, we are not just moving students. We are increasing class sizes, stretching resources, and placing additional strain on special education services, intervention programs, and support staff who are already working at capacity. ratios exist for a reason and exceeding them impacts the quality of our education our students receive. I understand that finances are a part of this
120conversation, but as educators, our responsibility is to ensure students have the best possible learning environment and that becomes much harder in overcrowded schools. Dutchwork Elementary is also an environmental science mag magnet school and that's not just a label. It's a living hands-on experience for our students. Our students don't just learn about the environment, they actively care for it. We have a schoolwide composting initiative that every student participates during lunch. As of March, our students have diverted over 4,000 pounds of waste from the landfill. That is real, measurable impact. Our kindergarten students raise trout from eggs and release them into the Saluda River. Our students experience a live bee exhibit, learning importance of pollinators firsthand. Our after school program plants and maintains school gardens, giving students ownership over sustainability from the ground up. These are not
121just activities. These are experiences that shape how students think, how they problem solve, and how they see their role in the world. When we remove Dutch Fork Elementary, you are not just redistributing students. You're removing access to a specialized curriculum that provides real world meaningful learning opportunities. While other schools offer valuable experiences, this level of intentional environmental integration is not easily replicated. Under leadership of Rebecca Dilly, our principal, our school has built a strong, positive culture over the past three years. We've seen growth in academics, behavior, and community. Our school is more than a building. It is a place where students feel connected, supported, and inspired. Our students may have small paws, but the impact of our of your decisions will be big. Thank you. Miss Snipes, I have a question. Um, and I know
122this is unusual, but I mean, we had a parent that expressed concerns with instructional materials and felt like they hadn't gotten answers. So, can that parent follow policy and submit a complaint on instructional materials to the board? >> You're ask asking that. Can she submit a can you? >> Yeah. Yes. You have multiple pathways for that parent. That parent can come through the board through uh instructional materials um as well as parent complaint. So um Miss White can direct the parent as well. >> No problem. That concludes um public participation and moves us to the action agenda. First up, do I have action as necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session? >> I move that we approve selected employment items per exhibit A. >> Second. >> All in favor? And the motion carries
123six to zero. That moves us to the board request. BE DGA board records. >> Scott, do you want to explain it? Um, that might help the motion. >> Yes. I sent a request to the administration to ask for um a report of legal fees over the past 10 years. Um, we were told that the legal fees fall under the contracted services. Is that the right is that the right line item? Um and we so we don't really see where those legal fees are and I think it important in budgeting that we know where those are, what trajectory they are on. Um and does that need to be considered in the contracted services uh line item of the budget? Miss Huttle, >> I just have a question as far as um and this is probably for
124Miss Tucker, the the way that the legal fees are accounted for. Um how difficult or hard is it to get um because I'm afraid if this passes, it's just a big number, right? Can those be broken down either by what they were for or by the law firm, which is generally kind of what they're for? Is either of those possible? And and how much work is that? Um, it would be really hard to go through and do it by like what they were specifically for because it would be every line item on the bill, but it they are all in one object code in our budgeting system and by vendor that would be an easier sort. How about would there be I'm not sure who to ask this question to but uh I'll look around
125the room and see if anybody's willing. How about um the issues of lawyer client >> you know I mean can we discuss can can one attorney discuss that with another attorney or >> here's a I think some of the complexity in this it is easy for us to and we have before provided a copy of every legal invoice we have we've we've done no reports with that it's just that and only document because it's attorney client privilege. So it sits at the you want us to pull all that we can you can pull that and I think in the past we've able to come to the district office and review nine item but that's not how it uh you know it operates. We don't have one law firm and so I think the the best
126thing would have an attorney kind of go through it because you may have special led legal matters that are not privy to finance and you have HR matters that not privy to academics and so forth and so on. So to have one person go through every line you may have one account one invoice has 40 lines on it those 40 lines could be with seven different cases. Um, so I think the easier thing is to pull it by vendor and you can see for the attorneys for construction, for special education, for human resources and personnel, for student services, and then the premiums that we pay to the um to the insurance trust. But um I think anything else we probably need someone with attorney client privilege to break that down because there's no staff member
127that can walk through all of that. >> And I don't I didn't think we were looking for those kind of specifics, right, Todd? >> And I definitely don't want someone to have to sit and wade through and redact names of phone call with this person, you know, consultation. That's not at all. I'm just looking for like a trajectory of what those legal expenses are and how they really how they affect that contracted services line item. I don't even >> how much of the contracted the services line item is going specifically to legal fees. >> Honestly, a legal fees for 2025 26 20 24 25 back 10 years I think would be would be plenty sufficient for what I was asking for. >> Okay. Do we have a motion for this? >> Can I ask one
128question? Of course, >> Dr. Herring, are you um so are we going to ask for this by um I know that our attorneys are are divided into specialties, things like that. So, we're going to ask for um all different classifications. So, we're just going to get a total for each classification, so to speak. Is that what you're asking? >> Legal fees by the year, right? >> Even now, I just said just legal fees for one year legal fees for the past year. >> That's it. Okay. >> To simplify this request. So, I'd like to make a motion >> to ask the administration to provide total legal fees >> by year for the past 10 years. >> Okay. Second. All right. >> I'd like to amend the motion um to to also break it down by
129vendor. >> Second. break it down by vendor because the reason I'm making the motion if I can speak to that um is if we're going to get the it anyway and let's say the trajectory is weird it's way up or it's way down the next question is where why so why not do that while we're at it and Miss Tucker made it sound like it wouldn't look a huge deal to do that >> was that second >> I would second that amendment >> okay all right we have a motion on the floor um that's been amended and properly second all those in favor or the amendment and the U motion carries five to zero and then back to the original motion. All in favor and uh motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you. That moves
130us to this uh second and final reading approval of the spring 2026 capital projects. Do we have a motion? make a motion uh to approve the second and final reading of the spring 2026 capital projects as seen in exhibit D. >> Second. >> Um discussion. >> Yeah. Um the the schematics we've seen show um middle school football fields and we will have correct me if I'm wrong. Three, four, five middle schools. That right? So will all five get a football field? >> All middle schools will have athletic facilities. you want to talk a little bit about as soccer fields, football fields, combo fields. So, I think the the the bigger thing is is that they're going to have fields and they're not going to be stadiums. It'll be like a multi-purpose field because you could
131do lacrosse, you could do soccer. Uh there's a new thing out um I saw just recently where these people are starting to have these like hackysack clubs which I think is pretty neat because that's what they did back when I was in school. So, you know, so it's not just football. And then also we're over at um um there's a field over near what will be Spring Hill Middle School and Spring Hill High School. There's a field that we're looking to have like an all-inclusive field. Um >> I guess what I'm trying to figure out is because you know how things are. It's just like somebody gets a video scoreboard and somebody doesn't. So the pictures we saw showed fields big enough to play a football game on. They showed stands and lights. Which middle
132schools will get an arrangement like that? >> So that was just a concept. So we don't have the full drawings of what we're where we're headed to with that. So it was just a concept to show this is what it could look like as we um as we move forward. So, um, you know, looking at all the fields, um, you know, that I think every middle school will be touched to have something because, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but a part of the high school league, you know, if you have athletics with the middle school, you have to have place to play those sports. It doesn't have to be a complete stadium, but they have to have places. And the beauty of us going through this process is these fields are currently under
133contract with our our um um grounds mainten maintenance group that you know they already take care of the big fields like the baseball fields and softball fields and they're maintaining those the the current spaces that we want to go through and bring some additional things for athletics for all of our students there you know there's already maintenance already tied into that. So you know while we do have these you know for transition from the intermediate schools to the middle schools you know we have fields trying to put something um so the programs we have, you know, we can support them at schools. >> If I may, that was my follow-up question. Are these going to be natural grass or um turf, artificial turf? >> You know, right now we don't have the drawings and plans,
134but the fields are currently being maintained. Uh that's already built into our maintenance budget. >> So, question for Miss Snipes. Will the board approve this? I mean, is this the final approval or will the board approve this again in terms of schematics and exactly what's getting approved? >> Well, I had a I don't know, but I sort of had a question along the schematic lines. Um, you respons it is a schematic and doesn't necessarily that's not necessarily what it's going to look like. So, but are all the schools when we do decide what it's going to look like, are they all going to be similar? And I only asked that question as we heard from people tonight as we talk about sort of like equity and that sort of thing. So if one school has
135all the bells and whistles in all the things, how does that figure out across the board? And then is the and is what we are proving now from a budgetary standpoint. Can it cover it for all the schools? >> Right. And and that's uh I I'll answer that and I think it's going back to process. I wish we can pull back the LSP process because it showed you the five bubbles. One of the things we tried to do is we knew we would get to this point and these questions would come up and we were delayed because this is a new process. We kept being delayed so we can show you exactly what it looks like. What you're approving tonight is us to move forward to get to the bid process. At that point, the
136board has to approve uh again that process to go forward. But this lets us get to those bids, get those CDs drawn, and get to the bid process. When it comes back, then you can see, all right, these are the groups that that won that. These are the designs that they have, and here are the options, just like we're showing you with Irmo High School. So, um, moving the capital approves us to to get down to the CDs, get out to the bids, and then bring back that final product for all. The intent is to use the space that we have available to provide middle school athletic fields. The goal is to have a finished soccer field size field for everybody that you can do football, you can do lacrosse, you can do soccer. That's
137the size for all of them. But also, we were looking at recess and and so every site will have fairness. And so the only site that I think One more thing that no one else has is the Spring Hill Middle site because that site has the inclusive um playground uh for um like our Screaming Eagles special needs students. So um we we we wanted to have those uh construction documents in front of you. We were delayed twice on that vote and so now we're sitting here without that information. asked about it. So I would ask that this allows the budget. We will still have to bring back those final pieces to this body for final approval. >> Miss Huddle and then Mrs. Sfield, did you have your hand up? >> I have a question. This
138is probably for Miss Heiser. Um because again, I'm I'm worried about equity. Um So, if this comes back and it says, um, there's only enough money to do this for two of our five middle schools and we decide that's a problem. We don't want to do that. We want to wait. Do we do we have to spend that money? Like, if we approve this and then we decide, hey, there's a million dollars, $2 million, whatever it is that we don't want to approve yet, do we have to spend the money? And if not, what happens to that money? Miss Heiser, did you hear that question? Okay. Yeah. Um, well, that there are a couple of different um ways to respond to that. The the first is that that if you um know before you've actually
139issued debt that you're not going to need to um to spend the money, then you would issue slightly less debt. or if you've already borrowed the funds, the the uh funds could be re reallocated to another project. One of the things I'd like to point out, and I know we're not at that point now, but I I've heard from a couple of folks now, you know, the issue that we're running into the high schools is that none of the schools were built at the same time. So, they all have different stadiums. They all have different press boxes. They all have different scoreboards. It's just But this project gives us an opportunity to do everything. You talk about equity. Do everything at the same time so that um a booster club can't come in and say,
140"Well, we'd like to put in a, you know, video board for our No, we're here. This is this is going to be something of equity." the the impetus behind this and we have had a lot of discussions about this along with the cooperative programs with uh ICRC is to find ways of getting kids more involved getting more actively involved more opportunities for involvement that's the impetus behind this but I just for future boards I just would say this is an opportunity to make sure everybody starts out at ground zero and so everybody there is this equity equity and without equity then there should not you know >> I would see it going forward. >> I mean my concern is what if there's I don't under I mean I'm just frustrated and I hear the frustration
141that we have put this off but I don't understand why we can't go to to vendors and say because we did this for the bomb referendum and said how much will it cost to do this because I'm concerned that this isn't enough money to do it fair for five middle schools and that we're going to end up doing it for two and then we've got three. My other concern is not knowing how much the maintenance is going to cost on this because we're getting ready to talk later about do we need to do a b do we need to do a tax increase so that we can give our teachers and staff a fair raise. Well, maintenance of all this stuff comes out of the exact same budget that we pay our teachers. >> So,
142I'm just frustrated. I'm not voting yes because I don't know what's in here. And if I'm gonna vote yes, I like the scoreboards. I agree with the press boxes, but we showed fancy middle school fields with lights and stands. And if we do it for one, we got to do it for all. And Dr. Ross, I mentioned to you, maybe Mr. KN, is there any date ranges you can give us for the bus depot, the I know the fields, the school boards, the press boxes, maybe the is the easiest low hanging fruit. >> So, scoreboards would be the easiest. We're looking at two different vehicles right now. One is with a new state procurement um um like vehicle that allows us to do um job order contracts up to a certain dollar amount. So, we're
143actually I' have engaged with Gordian to see, you know, you know, what does that look like? if we decided if if it was even a possibility, could we use them for press or not press boxes, but the jumbotrons or video boards and how fast could we, you know, get those installed. So, we're working on that. In addition to that, um this weekend I started working on developing the scope of work for a um solicitation for scoreboards. So, we're trying to do two things at once um and and trying to see which one's going to be the absolute fastest route. Um we know that Chapen has an existing structure in place. So Chapen would probably be faster. Um you know then then would be Dutch Fork and then Irmo just simply because of logistics of of
144the materials and everything that's already in place and the um you know the utilities. >> So could we say throughout this next school year? Is that a realistic timeline? >> I would try to hit this as fast as I possibly could. I mean, you've seen what what I've been able to do with the with the uh wings at the elementary school. So, you know, could we get it done before the season started? That would be the, you know, that that would be my goal. >> And then on the um the press boxes, I understand we still have to do design. Are we how how many years out you estimate? Just these are just ranges. Um, I think that that could start um potentially um maybe sometime late winter. I mean that, you know, there's some
145I have some visions in my head. you know, we know that it's it's not going to be the exact same thing that we have at Chapen, but each school has their own individual needs and and then there's a um a way to to have that u that fairness. >> Okay. And then I understand we still have to get some design on the the middle school fields um with the bus depot. I know that's kind of an urgent thing. Are we thinking still within a year? One of the things that helps us on the bus depot is a lot of that works in with the middle school redesign of that middle school field. So we get some efficiencies there. So that'll kind of go out um we really pick up that space in terms of maximizing
146that together. So that should speed up the work on the on the depot and um because the depot is two parts. relief of Chapen's car rider line and then the new site for the new bus depot. So you really have two projects in there. It's the Chapen Elementary School car rider loop and the bus depot. >> Okay. And then the final question may be for um Miss Heiser during the 2024 um bond referendum. I recall at one of the board meetings, um, correct me if I'm wrong, you said with the the main bond reference, I think it was 240, if something if the board decided not to do a certain project, they could not spend that money, but they could not reallocate it. And I want to make sure I heard on this one we're
147discussing now, is that still true, or can that money be reallocated? Um, I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough with the the answer I gave a moment ago. The money could be re reallocated to another project approved in the referendum, but you would not be able to reallocate referendum bond proceeds to a project outside of the referendum or a project that was not approved in the referendum. >> Okay. Thank you. Mhm. >> Um, Miss Franny, does that mean that with that money, if that project was not coming to fruition, that money could be used to pay down the debt? >> Um, well, if if you knew in advance that a project was not going to be undertaken for whatever reason, um, the option would be to the best option would be to not borrow that amount
148of money. Um once you've borrowed the money, there are some IRS rules about using bond proceeds to pay down debt. So, um I think I think that what you'd want to do is just monitor the um the progress carefully and as we get to that final bond issue um a year or more from now to make sure that projects are underway or projects have firm enough numbers so that you will know what the the um the full range of the referendum projects will be and you'll know if any need to be uh left out. >> Thank you. I'm gonna probably mess this up, but I'm gonna try to ask this anyway. So, if we approve this amount of money tonight, when could we get a cost and scope of the fields like Miss Huddle is
149asking about to know whether we actually need to pull the trigger on that much money? Does that train of thought make sense? So and I think when we do the budget here we are doing estimates on that and the question is why don't we have actual cost of it and I don't how how in the budget process you get the actuals until you approve the process to get the actuals and we don't know the actuals until we get the bids open. So our budget estimates and We did do estimates based on what's out there. >> So we like everything just like the bond referendum, we go out and we price schoolboards. We price square footage build of press boxes. We price um how much concrete we need to pour for um a particular for a
150pad in order to do a bus depot. So those things are priced estimates. And so in the budget, you're you're saying, "Okay, this is what we we see per square foot. This is what we're kind of getting comps around um with contingency calls. This is what our our estimate of that process would be. Then what we need is to to actually move forward with that. When the bids come back, those bids are under budget, then you go with it. But if they're above, um, then you have to look at other areas where you you were under and make those decisions. But I think what happens is for us every day, we jeopardize missing our estimates because we don't get the answer. And the answer comes through that bid process. that we are not doing and
151there's many different ways you can do this. You can do um GMP processes or or design bid build but these special projects we haven't talked about the rest of them right um or maintenance issues those are estimates bus transportation the new bus all estimates >> so everything on this slide is a estimate of what we're seeing in the market right now but it's not until we go out and these budgets to actually purchase that. We need know the exact cost. So, we're asking to treat special projects just like we treat everything else on the on the capital budget. >> And I get that. I guess maybe I didn't ask the question wrong. If we got the estimates and decided, oh, we can't do what we want to do. Is there still time before you borrow
152officially borrow that money to not borrow that much? So you can we would be approving a maximum amount of 24 million on this um on the capital funding, but would the estimates for these projects come back in such a time that we could actually pull that 3.6 million back? >> Typically what we've done is every capital year because these bonds and J can speak to it once we approve the resolution the bonds go out for sale. That was >> typically what what happens is as we go through, let's just say we have overages and you can't do we can't do the press boxes. You still used all your funds up >> because you've used them up on other projects that you have there. But I think the the the only thing that moves faster than
153the board are the buckets, right? These special projects move slow and in deliberate view of the of the board. So you have a lot of control over you know how much we spend and how much we don't spend. I think the the the there's no evidence that we don't have enough money now. Like we're talking about a lot of ifs and we're not going to vote because if this happens, but we we place confidence in these estimates. We present these from what we see out in the in the marketplace, but you're asking Allan to predict the future, and there's no evidence that our estimates are wrong. Now, someone said, "Look, when I look at to put a field in, you know, soccer field was $300,000. How much were stands and and lights? I don't see
154where we're we're over budget. Um I don't see any estimates to say that we're over budget from anything we've seen. So we're asking to move forward with this budget so that we can so that we can execute. But Jay, I don't want to overstep in terms of the timeline of when the the bonds are issued. >> Yeah. school board members, Dr. Ross, thanks, Jake Glover from PFM, the district's financial adviser. I mean, I think the reality is under the current time schedule for the financing, you know, we anticipate going into the market within the next, you know, several weeks for this 24 million being proposed as well as the 100 million referendum project. So, you know, that that point the bonds will be issued and the proceeds will be received. So, I think kind of
155the direct answer is no. There's not additional time to to wait unless we just push back the need for funding on all of the projects. >> Thank you for the clarification. I And just to finish up, so the bus depot was something that did we not get requests from the Department of Transportation that we need to take care of this problem with the cars on the road. Right. Correct. >> We have had parent after parent after parent come and talk about the middle school fields, the video school boards, the press boxes. I I'm just going to say I believe we owe it to the community. We have heard about this time and time again. Plus, we have a safety issue. I don't see how we cannot pass this. >> Um, I just want to go
156back to the first question I asked is, and maybe I misunderstood the answer, but I thought I heard we don't know which of the five schools. Did I misunderstand that? >> No, we didn't say >> all five. >> Okay. So, the 3.6 6 million will cover similar fields for all five. >> And we can reference the presentation. I'll I'll send that back out uh again. But remember um you have you have five sites. Crossroads and Imo share the same site. So the work on there was was really to ensure that on that same site they had similar uh resources but that was that's one site. Uh Dut Fork which elementary where we famous kid rolling down the hill was the toughest site to deal with and so we were working to make sure that we
157could fit uh a soccer field um in a play area on that site. um Chapen Middle School which is currently Chapen Intermediate was the first slide on that and then the last slide was um this site here at Spring Hill Middle School. Now the only difference the only difference and we shared this is that Spring Hill Middle School would have an extra field that would be an inclusive field and that would be for special ed students like the um Screaming Eagles. So the only inequity is that Shaping Middle School will have a screaming eagles field that no other site would have. But other than that, we've not communicated anyone would have anything different. >> How about that? Dutch Fork Middle. >> So Dutch Middle, that's the kid rolling down the hill. Um that would have
158we showed the schematics on that one. Again, it's what we're looking at is called multi-use fields options. The multi-use field is if you give me the size of a soccer field, then I can overlay on a on a turf option, baseball, softball, baseball, lacrosse, football, all of that. If it's a grass field, you just got to draw the lines on all of that. So those were the options that we were bringing back, but everyone was going to have those those those spaces. >> So this I just want to make that. So the 3.6 would cover a multi-purpose field for Dutchport Middle. A multi-purpose field shared between Irma Middle and Crossroads or not? >> So in the uh schematic, each had their own. So um I had its own field for practice. Crossroads Middle have had
159their it's all one site. So you're really working with the vendor to just maximize that site. So um I crossroads on the same site but separate um we had separate field spaces >> separate areas. >> Okay. >> Dut. >> Sorry. Go ahead. Dutch Fork, which is the third school, um that was looking at it's probably the hardest to work in. Uh but they needed a recess area that also doubled as their their their playfield. So, um we were working to back on that rock area give them a better access for recess and a multi-use field. Then the uh fourth site is where this thing all started with the chap intermediate student which is now chap middle school that's the fourth site is using the current bus depot bus depot and the upper field and reworking
160that in for their their recess like they had a horrible recess area. Then the fifth site is uh which is middle school which be Spring Hill Middle School. Um that was the only one that had an extra space and that extra space was an inclusive playground. Um so if anyone says well they got an inclusive playground we didn't get one. The answer is yes. That was the only place and we put that is that that inclusive screaming eagle space would be out here in Thank you for the details. And just to be um clear, I want to make sure. So with um Dutch for Hermo, Crossroads and all the ones I've been to, they have their recess areas, you know, right up near the building off usually the gym or the cafeteria, the dirt areas,
161they, you know, have their recess or refocus areas there due to there's such a short time window that they're allowed to have lunch and refocus. And any transition to a field is going to take at least five minutes off of that time. So, I just want to make sure that we're talking about the same area, those dirt patches basically all our middle schools. That's where this is going to be or away from the buildings. So you have the um most of those fields are uh with the exception of I think Dutch Fork is probably the one that gives us the most concern because Spring Hill Middle is right off the the cafeteria. Crossroads and Hermo Middle is just going out the back. Um the Chapman intermediate school right on top of it. So that's not
162an issue. The only issue you have is Dutch fork. And so that's why we we contracted with this group to give us some design elements of what they what they can provide there. So you have the recess refocus, but you also have the athletic after school piece where we're working both of those in. >> And so with specifically coach, because I think it's the most complex, you got car rider loop, then you got the bus turnound. Is that going to be eliminated because it's kind of a hilly area? Go ahead and do some work. >> Right now, all we can say is the the field space would be redone. Um I don't want to get into what they would draw in for the car loop. U we do know that their existing loop doesn't work
163for recess and so we were looking at options there. Um Just know that our current uh when we go next year, we'll have middle school will be different schedules now as we work in more recess time. >> Mr. Satderfield and Miss then Miss Barnhart. And then if we don't have anything else present, I'm going to call for the Let me ask you a question. Yes, sir. I think this is probably where some of the confusion is. Um when you look at when you examine a budget just as a budget you look at say all right you got five middle schools all right so you take that amount of money and you divide it up equally it's not going to work out that way because each school is going to be different their needs how much
164site work or prep work is required some of them already have pretty nice fields and they don't need as quite as much to get to that point that we're trying to get all the schools Is that am I correct in saying that? >> Correct. >> Okay. Because I think that you know you know if you look at everything rationally or in that when that sense then you send to think well all right so this one gets this much money and this one gets that. But if you're trying to bring everybody up to a certain um standard so to speak well for some schools it takes a lot more work than it does for some of the other schools. >> Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you. >> Guess we're kind of getting in the nitty-g gritties now,
165but I did want just a clarification on the mo and the crossroads because my kids have gone to both in that area kind of behind and then you got the tennis or the tennis courts and everything behind crossroads, but isn't there like another field back in the woods kind of behind crossroads? is that going to be utilized for these projects or >> so I just want to thank Sydney for helping us pull this up here. We can go uh through the presentation here. Um so that's uh we're going to call it Chaping Middle School next year. And so here's the design that you you saw. Uh notice how where those buses are. Uh now that that's being moved, we can pick up some opportunities to Mr. point closer to the building, right? Um because we're
166going to be reworking the traffic loop and kind of tying that all in at the same time. So, um I think what what might have scared people is the lights there, but that's not a stadium. These are um I guess a turf field on the >> And I think just the way he designed it, he you know, just kind of showed how the field could look. So, you know, it could be turf, it could be grass, it just depends on what our, you know, what our budget looks like. >> We go back to those five circles. This is not the schematic design. >> Correct. This is all just a conceptual what this could look like if we decided to move forward. >> We go to Spring Hill. Uh we were showing the issue that you
167had with the refocus and right off of the cafeteria. Um you can see if we look at that sidewalk area there and pick up the sidewalk here, it just empties them out right into a field. It gives them more space than what they currently have. Uh and again, these are not stadiums. These are just combo fields. As you can see, uh we're going to do an inclusive uh playground field uh right there for the screaming eagles. Uh crossroads and that's the combo piece. Is that the question you were asking, Miss Barnhart? So that's in the back. The question is where is this going to be? Uh the this is behind crossroads is centered here. This is Irmo where the gym band is and that's all of that that space that we have behind crossroads. They
168share the same backyard, >> right? And that was kind of my thought process. I mean because they do share that space and I'm not saying they both don't deserve kind of their own thing, but if if there was an ability to kind of combine the two, I don't know how that logistically would work, but um just a thought, >> you know, you you see like um you want to give them their own space. We have the room to give it to them, so that that kind of works there. I mean, it's a very unique setup that they're they're sharing the same space, but they they'll have their own. So, as as programs grow, they don't have to compete for um compete for space. >> Anything else? >> All right, >> I'll call. >> All right,
169we have a motion on the floor that's been properly second. >> That's nice. I like making amendment. >> Go for it. I would like I would move to defer this to the next meeting and ask that we get for specifically the inclusion and middle school fields for the public's benefit everything that we've talked about kind of summarized list each middle school what's going to be done so we can be clear with the public because I think there's a lot of confusion. I know this is just a estimate process, but I do want to make sure that we're going to be clearly communicating this. So, the amendment is for the move to defer to the next meeting until the administration can get a list of the five middle schools with a summary of what's going to
170happen under this second. My issue with that amendment has more to do with the fact that it seems like um what's being asked kind of goes back to Miss Huddle's question about what is each of the fields going to look like? And it seems like I don't know how they're going to answer that question better at the next meeting. So then we would be back in the same place. >> I mean unless I'm wrong, which I mean it's not My goal, if I can just really clearly say it's I don't want to get into the semantics or anything. It's literally just for communication for the public because right now it just says inclusion middle school fields 3.6 million. >> When we bring back the design, you know, I don't want a board to have to
171choose one or two schools. If it's not, I want to make sure we're clearly communicating boom, boom, boom, this is what's going to happen. >> So, I still have the same thought because It seems like they can't for sure tell us that because they haven't got into the into the they haven't got into the cost breakdown. So, I guess I still have the same question. I do understand what what where you're trying to go with this. I just don't know how we would have it at the next meeting if we're being told tonight we don't have it. But I'm referring to >> correct and just keep in mind that when it comes to the fields and we have the package, you know, that will be presented to the board because the I apologize my voice.
172The board will still have to vote for the fields to be done. So, you know, and and as we get further along into this right here and we can sit there, we know we need the fields. seen the just concepts just this is a conceptual view of what it you know what it can be at these fields. So as we get this and we move forward and we bring it to the table that's when we're going to have clearer designs and the board still has to vote do we move forward with those fields or do we not? But what that will not do is it's not going to delay some of these other things like the video boards >> and that is one of >> and the bus loop. It doesn't it doesn't delay those
173things. But you know, you still have to vote on all these things because it's stuff I still have to bring back to y'all. You know, it's it's not like some, hey, Allan just approved it and been moved forward. I still have to bring it to back to the board for approval. So, you know, but it also it doesn't slow down the bus depot. It doesn't slow down the video boards. U it doesn't slow down on us looking at the press boxes. So, and those are all individual projects. >> And Mana, to be clear, I do understand where you're trying to go with this. Um like MTO, I have equity questions about the um about the fields as well. I'm finding finding my solace in the fact that it has to come by and I'll publicly
174say I won't you know I would be against this if it comes back to us and it does seem like some schools um are getting way more than our other schools because Mr. Satderfield was trying to make one point earlier about how some schools just may not require as much um you know because of the grounds or how they're already set up. And I got the point that he was trying to make, but it also made the point that the concern that I had because it is easier um to drop things into certain schools because of the makeup and just by default maybe some of the things they have access to and ability to get that could be better. That might not be the intention. That's just the reality of it. And so, um, you
175know, I would publicly say that if we get there just because a school can have all the bells and whistles, um, on the middle school fields, if we can't do that for all the schools, then we need to look at a baseline >> and and that's where we move toward and if you've kind of seen the pattern, I know Dr. Ross, you know, we've had discussions on, you know, using the word fair versus equity and everything else. And that's one of the things that I've tried to do is make sure that we have equity amongst you know the schools even though everything ain't exactly fair um you know you know to a to a penny but if we sit there we say hey here's our standards that we have you know we know we're not
176going to put a video board at a middle school field but they have to have a ticker board that shows scores if they have a game you have to have a ticker board there you know um we need to make sure that we have you know some ADA compliant restrooms We need to make sure we have seating, you know, appropriate seating. Um, because they're not going to be stadiums, but there's going to be places where, um, you know, you know, um, maybe a match or a game is played. We also want to make sure that, you know, um, when it is like recess time, you know, if they use that still that term in middle school, that they have a place that they can go play or, you know, congregate with their peers. We want
177to make sure they have that. But, you know, Um that's one thing I've been driving home for the last couple years is making sure that we are fair and you know amongst all the schools and I think this right here shows you know our commitment to making sure that these step that we are providing you know fair um fairness and equitability amongst our schools. >> Thank you Scott. And just I just want to point out just to respond I mean the administration asked us to do this at least twice and we voted it down. We as a board voted it down to get real estimates like real time costs and we voted it down and we now at this point where you know we got to make a decision to do it and we asked
178them to just give us estimates. That's basically what the board decided and that's what they've done. And until they get those A&E services done for everything, they can't really provide us specific costs. >> All right, we have a um a motion to floor that has been amended and second. All those in favor of the amendment. >> Mr. B, >> I'll make it simple. I'll withdraw and we just vote on the original motion. Okay. All right. Well, Mr. B has withdrew his motion. We have the original motion back on the floor, which has been properly second. All those in favor? Opposed? And then motion still. All right. That moves us to number 16 on action agenda. third party survey of parents on technology and Chromebook usage. >> So, are we skipping number 15 on purpose, but
179I got you. Okay. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> All right. Um, >> I'll start with the motion. I move that um we ask the um administration to select a third party to do a survey of parents on the use of their um students Chromebook and technology. Okay. So, um this was a recommendation that came out of the Chromebook committee. We um learned that the state is doing a teacher survey which includes several questions to teachers. Um and the thought was to do a similar um survey of parents to use a third party so it's not biased but to try to do things like find out what parents how they how they monitor usage. Do they know what tools to use? Um what if any concerns do they have? What do they like about? So um that's
180the idea is to find out from the parents what how their children are using Chromebooks at home and what they like and or don't like about that. So that and let me back up. The policy hasn't been updated in over 10 years. So that's part of what the Chromebook committee is trying to do is gather information to inform any recommendations to the full board regarding any updates to the policy. >> Mrs. Satfield pressed the wrong button. Um, and what would you do with a survey >> to inform the policy, you know? No, I'm I'm talking about if you the the third party survey of parents on technology and Chromebook usage. If you cut back and say 55% of the parents say they don't want Chromebooks, are you going to make a motion to take them
181out of schools? >> Well, first of all, the Chromebook committee cannot do anything in and of itself. It can only make recommendations to the board. So again that let's kind of back up in time. The policies over 10 years old Chromebooks um especially at K through two were were never like this um concerted decision right what happened as co happened. So the idea is to look at all if you watch the news if you watch what other school districts in South Carolina are doing they're all I say all a lot of school districts are looking at this. So I don't have the answer to that. I don't you know it may be that it's so balanced that the Chromebook committee says we don't recommend any changes. It could be that the parents you know say
182I want them my kids to use more of it for this. So I don't have the answers but I think we need to know it's such a pervasive issue and again it all kind of happened accidentally. Nobody sat here and said we want to make the change like this. It was a reaction to co Well, let me tell you a couple of questions I guess or concerns. I know that Miss McCascal has shared with us on numerous occasion the Chromebook usage at the elementary school, the early childhood and at the elementary and so on. Um, I don't know that parents are going to have an accurate understanding on how much Chromebooks I mean they're not in the classroom. they their eight-year-old can come home and say, "We want our Chromebooks, you know, for well, they
183really don't know the time." I I you see what I'm saying? I I understand the there there's a lot of uh discussion about Chromebooks. I mean, it's a statewide thing. I mean, obviously, we got something from the Is there a state law regulation regarding the use of the technology and how much time it can be used in the classroom? Dr. I don't think there's a state, but we've, you know, we we've done a lot to kind of share what we're doing in terms of average use, elementary, middle, and high. Uh, so that's one of some of the things we talked about at the Chromebook community and the eyeballs piece was a parent tool that we felt like we can get parents to monitor at home. >> Right. We miss Sam, do you have any other
184questions? I was going to listen to what you said before. >> I don't have a question. I was at the I was at the Chromebook committee meeting, so I already >> Yeah. Well, and I'm not on that committee, so I I can't fine >> the things you're talking about, but I guess um there's so many things that if you ask parents, you're you're going to get it's kind of like when Dr. Ross showed that schematic of some are very permissive, some of them are not, some of them are very, you know, whatever. Um as far as parents and their perceptions are going to be varied as well. Um I don't want want teachers to feel like that we're questioning their um instruction in the classroom. You see what I'm saying? I want them I mean
185if if um if we're monitoring and parents can certainly monitor when the kids are on their Chromebooks um with this bypass um but the idea is that I don't want um because the discussion has come up several times and I from what Miss McCascal has shared with us it doesn't sound like they're on their Chromebooks very much at school. Now I do know when there are snow days and things yeah they are that's how they get their instruction. But um I'm I'm just a little concerned with that aspect of it because it would be like asking parents to, you know, look at the discipline code and tell us what you think. Get we're going to survey you and tell you um if a kid >> I have no problem with that. I mean >> I'm
186just saying but if you get a myriad of responses it's and we've done that in here. We said remember we were talking about something to do with kids and you mean you send them home for two days? Well, you know, there's a different opinions. I think that I trust what Miss McCascal is sharing with us and I'm sure that they're not not looking at the research and the amount of times that kids should be on the Chromebooks and teachers too. So again, that those are my concern. I'm not saying that I'm right or that you're wrong. I'm just saying those are my concerns. >> Well, let's go first. Do we have any idea what a survey by a third party uh firm would cost to do this? I mean, it might not even cost us
187anything. You, the lady from um USC said wanted to work with our district said they already did. They provide grants. I mean, we could ask her, they may do it for free. >> I get that. But do we know that for a fact? I mean I think before we definitely embark on this >> well okay I will amend the motion to say um that we ask the administration to give us options for how this could be done and done cost effectively >> it seems like a board project so it seems like Ross is already shaking his head so I think we would clarification. Once we produce products, they get placed up here and ripped apart. We've watched that over and over and over again. This is a board action. I think the board should give
188us direction on what it wants. Every time we produce something, it comes up here and it's is ridiculed. It's ripped apart after tons of work from the administration. We provided our Chromebook position. set before us with our position. We we've communicated with our parent advisor. We've gone through our process. We just need very detailed specific direction from the board on what it wants and we'll execute. >> Um I'm going to amen my motion um to say um that um I move that the board ask the um Arnold School of Public Health at USC um to develop a survey of parents on technology and Chromebook usage by their students and give us a cost to do so. >> And would you only be looking at one vendor? >> I mean, if we want to just th
189They're local. They, you know, >> y'all, I I just think we we need to Our parents are >> bombarding us with concerns, and I think we need to listen to them. Maybe we don't change a thing that we're doing, but I think they deserve to be heard. I went to the doctor's office the other day, and the MA came in there to talk to me about how her son can't to do math and anything on paper anymore because he can only do it on a Chromebook. I mean, this isn't going to go away. The parents are have concerns and maybe it's a small fraction and we'll learn that from the surveys, but I just think we need to to ask do you have any other questions? And I feel I wasn't trying to uh cut
190you off in the wrong thing. I know you weren't at the um No, I know you weren't at the meeting and so one other thing that came up there is that the state department just did a Chromebook survey that was just specific to the teachers. So the thoughts came up about getting um perspective just from the other side as well as we talk about and think about whether we want to make any changes to the policy considering how long it's been and that sort of thing just for context. All right. All right. We have um Miss Huddle's amended motion um on the floor that's been properly second. All of those in favor of getting a quote for a survey on technology and Chromebook usage. This is your policy. Um and all those. Are you >>
191It's been a long night. I'm sorry. All right. And the motion carries 5 to one. All right. And then I skipped 15 by accident. I'm sorry. the second and final reading of approval of bond resolution. So I have a motion. >> Make a motion to approve the second and final read reading of the bond resolution authorizing spring 2026 referendum and 8% bond issues as seen in exhibit E. Have a second. And I have a point of order question. Um, the bond resolution is predicated on the the capital projects. So, can we pass a bond resolution if capital projects didn't pass? Scott did ask that same question and I just didn't know. So, we're back. How about I amend my motion to say only the bond resolutions authorizing the spring 2026 referendum funds? >> One one
192second. I think you need to hear from your bond council before you >> um the um the plan is to um sell both of the the series of bonds at at the same time. there's some some cost savings that that come when um when we can combine two bond issues like this and so it would probably be you know better to postpone both bond issues than um postpone just one of them. Um um also the looking up the specific language in the um refer in in the uh 8% bond resolution because the um the purpose is to um is to pay the cost of capital improvements to be approved by the board. It um is not really absolutely necessary that that you approve the list of capital improvements before the bond is actually issued. The
193the critical thing is that you approve the um the capital projects list before you begin spending the bonds u proceeds. So theoretically, you could issue the bonds in in May and approve the list of um capital projects in in June. So we need to skip this for now. Yes. >> No, I think what Miser was saying was >> I needed clarification. Thank you. um the there's there's cost savings if we issue these together. So the bonds are 2026 A and B. A is for the bond referendum and B is for the 8% capital projects. >> Okay. We would the board would have to approve the capital projects not necessarily before the bonds go out for bid but before we start spending that money. Am I saying that correctly, Franny? >> So we could go to
194market with the bonds now as long as the board is okay with the two amounts. the $100 million for the series A for the boner referendum and the 24 million for the 8%. But we would have to have board approval on the projects before we start spending that money. in the in the bond resolution for the 8% uh in the first section paragraph sub paragraph F says that the purpose is to um fund capital improvements approved by the board and that's defined as the project. So, we don't actually identify the capital improvements in this resolution. And as long as y'all are comfortable that you would have $24 million of capital improvements um upon which you would spend the proceeds of this bond of the bond issue, then um you could approve the bond resolution tonight.
195we could issue the bonds and even after the bonds are issued, you can come and approve the projects. If if that's y'all's pleasure, um if you prefer to approve the capital projects before you issue the bonds, then I would recommend that that you postpone both bond issues. >> I withdraw my amendment. Okay. So, we're back. So, Scott withdrew his motion. So, we're back to the original motion to >> Yes. My original motion was I move that we approve the second and final reading of the bond resolutions authorizing spring 2020 2026 referendum and 8% bond issues as seen in exhibit E. >> Okay. Does everybody understand what's going on? Okay. Um any other discussion questions? All those in favor >> and the motion carries. >> The cat >> five to zero. All right. Then that moves
196us to the last item on the action agenda which is first reading of the 2627 general fund budget. I make a motion we approve the first reading uh of the 2026 2027 general fund budget as seen in exhibit F. Do I have a second? I'll second that. But I do have a couple questions. All right. >> We'll go to discussion. I mean, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. Go ahead and second. >> I'll start off and then give it to to Miss Tucker. >> Um, pursuant to board policy DB, we're establishing uh our budget plan. This is to express and implement the programs and activities of the school district. This budget represents the priorities of in financial terms of the educational programs of the system. We looked at those budget priorities um throughout the entire year. We
197started with the advisories from student, parent, faculty, principles, directors and board of trustees. And you see the priorities that are represented in the budget. As teacher pay became uh the number one priority that we saw across the board. Uh we looked at what we have been able to do for teachers within our school district with the minimum teacher pay increasing 48% uh since the 2018 2019 school year. Uh we developed a budget calendar to look at the uh prioritizing and submitting our our budget uh to the board. And so that brings us for first reading uh tonight for May 4th and uh with second and final in our public uh budget hearing on June 8th. I want to talk as we move through this process and understand the difference between an audit and a budget.
198Our budget is our look for plan. uh and so we are you see estimates of our expenditures. These are best case estimates of our expenditures. Uh but it is not an audit of so as we look in um when will we have the audit of this budget that will be uh December of was it 2020 >> seven we'll have an audit of this budget. So I know sometimes what's the exact number that we will use. We don't know that until the audit comes in December of 2027. Why so much variability? Because in a u unlike multiple businesses or private businesses, we have legal requirements to operate and to provide services uh special ed services, title one services, um uh teaching based on certifications. And so we don't say to a principal that you can only
199hire, uh a teacher that fits within this budget item. We tell that principal, hire the best, most qu teacher staff and we would have budgeted what their salary is by picking a midframe. Some go over, some go under. But in May, uh we don't know what that teacher is going to be in that third grade classroom or in that kindergarten classroom. So we are taking our best case budget estimates as 88% of our budget going to be people. And so uh as we look We want to go over what are some of our budget considerations at the state and local level. Let's talk. >> So just to reiterate some of our budget considerations at the state level, $150 million investment to raise the minimum teacher salary to 50,500. We are already currently over that at
20050,922. Um state health plan, there's no recommendations for increases for this year and there is a 2% increase for school bus drivers from the state. Um also again just the homestead exemption. Um we are again being told that we will get dollar for dollar for that um as we move into next year. Um so what does this look like for next year? So our current um local taxes projected at 261 mills um would go up by 1.6 million. Um uh our state revenue or would sorry would go up um by uh a little bit more than that. Um and our state revenue would go up by 1.6 million. So, we have seen um some differences in our state revenue. Our state revenue essentially I'll get into that a little bit more. Um is we've seen
201sorry I'm I'm going to stop there and I'll come back when I get to the slide. Um so we looked at really kind of what does this look like for basically our projection with our must dos and the and the want to do from last year or from last up meeting. Um, so that would essentially be a $5 million increase in our salaries in French because the majority of that was in the increase in teacher salaries. Um, the increase in support that we had looked at. Um, that was not included in this budget. This was really just the must dos. Um, and then just some some essentially some kind of shuffles between the contractual services and supplies. What I did for this projected budget, um, if you're looking at your budget book, is I really
202took our current expenditures for this year through I ran the report as of April 29th. I looked at our incumbrances for the rest of the year, and I looked at where we'd spent the money this year, rolled that forward for next year, added the step increases for the teachers, the support staff, and the administration, and use that as our basis. So, what have we spent this year, and that's truly our basis for our proposed budget. um kind of how that breaks down across all of our different departments. Leadership 11%, operations 19, instructional support 13, and instruction is the line share of our budget at 57%. So, our state fund estimates, so we saw a decrease in our average daily membership of about three and a half%. We saw a decrease in our weighted pupil units
203um from last year to this year of about 2.7%. But when you look at the new money that the state gave us last year versus the new money that the state gave us this year, it's almost a 50% decrease. Last year we got a little over $4 million in new money from the state and this year we got 1.6. So it's hard to look at a 3% decrease in our ADM and our weighted pupil units and losing about 50% of that new money from the state. um and trying to figure out that apples to apples comparison um is really difficult when you look at the state of the classroom formula and how they shifted um each one of those lines the state of the classroom the health insurance um the CTE funds and looking at
204all the different lines from the state a classroom. So this formula, the total amount of new money that goes into the state formula, the number of students in the state divided by the target teacher student ratio that decides how much money the state's going to give us to fund not just the teachers. What goes into that formula are our um special education teachers, our child development teachers, kindergarten special education classroom teachers, speech therapists, and purchase services teachers. But that doesn't include all the other instructional staff. we have to fund those at the local level. So that ratio does not necessarily make up every person on the instructional side that's in the classroom. The makeup of those different positions that don't fall into that calculation has to be paid for 100% at the local level. And
205so when you look at this, this is what I was talking about. It's really hard to look at apples to apples here because last year we got additional $4 million in new money and this year we're seeing only 1.6 million um in increased funding from the state. But if you look at just our state aid to classroom, it looks like it went up by three. If you look at our health insurance, it looks like it went down by 2.5. Basically everything above that subtotal line is essentially just a shift. Um CTE looks like it's going up uh $2 million, but really that's going to fund some teachers that used to be funded in the state of the classroom line. So again, you have to look at it in total from the subtotal. So we're going
206from 100.9 million to 102.5. So an increase of 1.6 6 million in state aid to our or state uh funding increase. So our local side, so what does that look like on the local perspective? So the local perspective has to pick up those teachers that don't fall into the state aid to classroom calculation. And so we rely on our state um taxes, our local taxes to to cover that difference. So right now our proposal um was at an operating village of 261 um and and we looked What would this look like as far as what our our current operating millage is 261 our millillage cap which is our total increase that we could go up this year is 11 mills that looks at CPI and growth in our area for an allowable percentage increase of
2074.2. Um and we have total allowable lookback mills plus our millage increase as 32.8 which gives us kind of our cap is what we're allowed to increase. Um what have we done the last few years? Last um few years we've had a mill cap of 15 12 and 11. um we have not increased that much. Um but we also changed how we calculate the local percentage. Um we moved that collection rate from 95 to 97%. And I will say looking at the other Lexon districts after reassessment last year, some of my counterparts in other districts have seen assessed values last year that were much higher than our assessed values that we had this year. Um just some discrepancies in some of the tax reportings. I think we actually balanced out because I think one of
208our I think our Richland district maybe underestimated and Lexon overestimated. So between the two, we actually came out really well and so our local projections really are matching what we're seeing in our collections right now. Um even with the delays in collections. Um so right now our estimated value of an operating mill is $361,990 at operating um mill rate of 261. So what does that look like for local revenue? So if we stayed at 261, we would have an additional um local revenue of 1.6 with the local re or with a state increase of 1.6. They just happen to be about the same um for a total increase of $3.2 million. If we were to keep our millillage at 261, if we jump that to 266, you can see the corresponding increases in revenue of
2093.4 um and so on and so forth all the way up to our total allowable um look back of 32.8 with an additional $13.5 million. Um so for our budget considerations, what does this look like? Our must do is really our our basis to move every teacher on the current teacher salary scale up one step. Same for support and administrative staff to move all of those up one step. Um the one caveat in the administrative, we also um wanted to change the middle school assistant principal contracts to increase from 215 to 225 days just to make those the same across all um and basically that rolls right into our administrative staff increase of $300,000. Um and then the 2% for our bus drivers. So a total of 3.1 million increase for salary and benefits. And
210if you remember um if we stay at our current millillage we're at 3.2 so we could cover our must dos. Um the want to do the teacher increase to change our teacher salary scale to move the minimum to 515 is an additional $1.1 million. Our supplement study to look at those supplements that need adjustments, that's an additional $300,000. And the tier 2 tutoring is an additional $900,000. And so our first breeding recommendation was 266 mills, did you? >> Yeah. So, thank you so much, Miss Tuckers. The question is, how do we pay for this? Um, and I want to share with you um our proposal uh as we consider um the total millage for uh the 2026 2027 school year. Uh right now we operate two or we levy two mills. One is in operations,
211the other is in debt service. Remember operations are 10 and a half% properties like your boats and business vehicles and 6% properties uh your your cars businesses and rental properties that pays for our salaries, benefits, supplies, utilities and maintenance. But on debt service side uh where we take care of construction, technology, equipment and renovations um that's paid for by the every tax rate but also uh the houses at the 4% property. So our recommendation um is we need more operating mills. Uh we know that next year uh that the boats uh will be a decrease as they move from that 10 and a half% mark. Uh and so we would recommend that we take the five mills from debt service um and use those as operating mills. Uh lower the debt service meals by five,
212increase the operating mills by five. What would that do? that balances out where our total meals are 330.5. So there's no total increase in meals that are being assessed. However, you do get a savings for as a bedroom community for all of our families in school district 5% properties who do not pay um the operation meals. Um when we dropped five mills last year, they didn't see any savings there. this five mills here for all the families and we have people speak about the struggles that families are going through. Uh this decrease would see a lot more. We don't have a lot of $300,000 cars in our community, but we do have a lot of driven homes. And so the goal is to provide that relief to those families while maintaining the goal of our
213board policy is to take care of educational programs and priorities of the system. So uh with that uh recommendation we provide a balanced budget with no total mill increase a reduction in debt service by five increase in the operations by five and then to balance that you still we would take the 5.1 million of revenue increase uh the 5.4 and expenditure increases and then the district would take all new positions and uh handle those through repurposing. That's expectation coaches, the cyber security positions. Um those uh would be repurposed through 15 FTEES and then we would reduce the budget by five FTEEs to do a net savings of.3 million. So with this uh we can provide a balanced budget, no total millage increase, but also a savings uh for those homeowners uh within our in our
214footprint. Uh I think it's important uh to look at trying to do the like todos, especially the teacher pay raise. Uh our teachers have to sign their contracts by May 10th and they're watching tonight. And if we can adopt a plan that gives them faith that the new pay scale that is presented in our budget book will be theirs, uh that will go a mighty long way. So we provide a balanced budget um with no total mill increase uh just a reduction in debt service and an increase in operations and that gets us to a sustainable operating place uh as we find efficiencies uh within our N segments. So that's our first reading recommendation. >> Thank you Dr. Ross. Thank you Miss Tucker. Um, I will open the floor for discussion and questions. Miss, >>
215um, I got several concerns. Um, if you don't mind, go back to the slide that showed the 2425 mill. Okay. Yeah. So, first of all, just to make sure that we're all on the same page here, we didn't The reason our Miller rate went down is because of roll back. So, when Richland and Lexington County have 15% roughly, most people got a 15% tax rate, we were required to roll it back and actually we didn't roll it back as much as we should have in my opinion because we then increased it. So, the 261 last year was actually an increase over roll back. So, It's like apples and oranges. Um so, you know, it may sound like it's not that much to take it to 266 because gee, that's where we were um a few
216years ago, but we also most people's home values and businesses went up 15%. Um in the last couple years, also, if you'll go forward to the one that shows us reducing a debt service, um I think we have to be cognizant that you're right. um homeowners um don't pay the the um operations, okay? But business owners do, okay? Um and I realize that we're probably comparable to most of Lexington County. We're comparable to one of our Richland County, but not the other. Um this does fall on businesses. Um and most business leases are what they call triple net negative, which means that the property taxes are along dollar for dollar to the less the less the lesser. So, um the less either they rent it or they own it, they're going to get um the
217increase. The other thing is this is a short-term fix because that debt service millage is based on the outstanding bonds that we have and the interest that it takes to pay them back and and paying them back. And the reason we're actually able to do this is because of the reassessment. That's why um we can do this. So, um the last thing I just kind of want to say is I sent everybody on here at graph that I did from the consolidated annual financial reports from 23 to where we are now. We've lost 5.6% of our students. We've lost 2.2% of our teachers. But our administrative staff in our district office, and that doesn't even count this year. It doesn't even count these positions that we're talking about, went up 9.6%. Uh before we increase
218anyone's taxes, including businesses, I really think that um we need to look at what can we do, and I'm not talking about decrease, taking someone's job away, talking about openings, whether they're now or they come open. um other things that we can look at. What can we do? And I just think that we owe that to people that we do that before because this is not sustainable. If we do this, we're going to be in this exact same situation next year. >> Miss um Miss Tucker, to Miss Tuttle's um comments about the um the taxes, what um with this plan, how does that increase the business the local business taxes. >> So, this would be a five a five mil increase on the operating side, which doesn't affect our bedroom community, but does impact our
2196% businesses. >> Go ahead, Scott. >> Do the businesses not also pay the debt service millage? >> They do. >> So, they would they would see a reduction in the debt service millage. >> So, they would >> it would even out, right? So, it would not change their overall millage. >> It would not change their overall millage. And while I'm here, >> so you said we have had a about a 3% decrease in students from last year to this year, >> but nearly a 50% decrease. So by that logic, even with a small increase in students, we would have still seen a decrease. So this really doesn't need to be about decreasing students. It's about the funding we're getting at the the state level >> and the weighted the way the students are weighted. And
220I've looked a lot at that trying to figure out the formula and what makes sense because there's districts that I've talked to in other places that have half the number of students that we have but got a similar state allocation this year. Um have a similar poverty index, have a similar local tax base. So it's really hard to make heads or tails out of the formula from the state of what we're specifically getting when you look at the state as a whole and all districts are seeing a decrease in students because Now you're seeing the impact of charter schools and the other options for education. So it's hard to plan for what that state pot's going to look like when you're funding two different educational systems out of one pot bucket of money. >> I
221just need clarification. Miss Huddle, you said we had a 9% increase in admin. Is that true? >> I'd use the numbers in the annual financial report. It's in the back. It's a schedule. Um, and I'll just tell you what it shows. It shows that in um 2023 we had 178 and in 2025 we had 195. >> And what positions are those? >> It just says that their district office. That's all it says. It's in that annual report. >> We have a class. Okay. And the reason being is when we we use figures, we make that we are we're representing the reality in it. So, I'll I'll review that. I'm just not aware of a 9% increase. And from 2023 to 2026? >> Yes, sir. Um the 2023 number in the back of the report is
222178 and the 2025 number is 195. Um we don't have this year's number yet. Of course, Mr. Saffron. >> Um I I think I was I know what you're referring to. Um when I was looking at that schematic or that chart, a lot there were a lot of positions that were listed on there that weren't really ad. >> It breaks it down. The chart just simply breaks down um students, teachers, other schoolbased staff and district office staff. And if you look in the book, it adds them up. So that's the the only breakdown that it provides. It doesn't get into individual position. >> I thank you for saying that because I think that when I was looking at those numbers, there were other positions that were like other positions that I'm not sure that there
223ever was a C like expectation coaches. One we had like five, eight, eight expectation coaches at some of our schools. Um you know, the other I know we we we talk a lot about um you know how things were several years ago and how they are now and all that. You know, schools are just evolving. They are just changing. But there are more. We got it's like I'll bet you we have twice as many special education teachers now than we had 15 years ago. And the reason is because so many more kids are identified now than they were before. Um so that equals more staff. That equals more assistance. it equals a lot more of of of a lot of other positions. Um I think at one time we had one person at the district
224office that was in charge of special education and they didn't do any that was it. One person and you just the numbers are just too great now. So um just and I'm not trying to say anybody's right or wrong but I'm just saying that schools are ever evolving. I was I was I'm looking at the wanttodo list and you know a 1% increase for teachers. If you're a teacher making $60,000 and you get a 1% that's $600 and then over the course of a year that's $50 a month and after taxes it's $40 a month. I went up to get gas today. I didn't even fill my Jeep up and I spent $40. I stopped it at 40. Um, so that is the and this is not I don't think this is a short-term situation
225for our employees and I I know we talked before about um about our support folks and how some of them are living below the poverty line. I couldn't imagine them trying to pull up and on their salaries and pay for groceries and get gas, too. So, uh, the other thing is is the tier 2. Um, I'm so excited about tier 2. I think that is a a a step out in the right direction. And I know we've only had it for half a year. Is that right, Miss McKascal? So, we really haven't had the time to test and all, but we have a lot of turnout, a lot of participants, and a lot of good feedback so far, too. So, um, I don't know. I just I I I'm I'm in agreement with the the
226the the request. I don't we we have been such a conservative district for so long and not not that we're not conservative now because I think we we really are. We've had two bond referendums in 20 years. Think about that. There are a lot of districts that have bond reference every five years. They got a new referendum. We don't we haven't had one for I mean again and this last one didn't increase the millillage. So we're very conservative but we got to get to the point to where we're not you know pinching and niggle. So, a nickel so tight that the buffalo's screaming. You know, you you got to and I understand times are difficult and they're difficult for everybody. Our employees are going through these very difficult times, too. So, that that's just my
227point. I I think we can't um we can't you just can't nickel and dime everything and still move forward as a district. And and I know times are tough. They're tough for me and my neighbors and everybody else. But anyway, Mr. Bum, >> Stucker, do we know when the um the House and all the final budgets like estimated? Is it end of June where we'll have our final numbers? >> No, we should have something um conference is um essentially going on in the next few weeks. So, we we should have a final numbers very quickly. >> Thank you, >> Miss Huddle. Um I do want to build on something that um Mr. field said and that is um even if you're okay with this and you're like well that's not too painful because the um
228total tax rate is not going up 1% is painful for teachers and staff. The consumer price index is up 3.3% over last year. So, even if you're fine with this, I say we we squeeze the nickel because our teachers and staff, which means our students deserve it. So, I I I don't think this is good enough. I think we can do better and we we owe it to people. What is wrong with having an open conversation about what we can do? And we might not choose any of those things, but we need to talk about them. I think >> I would Karen, no. Go ahead. >> So, at 88% of the budget being staff, salaries, and fringe, you can't talk about making bigger cuts without talking about it affecting people. And I'm looking at the
229summary of vacancies. I only see two of those that are at a level that we're talking about. The rest of them are certified staff, >> but you have vacancies during the year. People leave during the year. The other thing that you can do potentially is use fund balance if we're committed to that. And again, we haven't made that decision. But if you commit to that course of action and you don't end up having enough vacancies, you can potentially use some fund balance as a one time because you don't have a whole year of a vacancy, for example. And I'm not talking about just that. I'm talking about looking at everything. I mean, you seriously, we have a $250 million budget. You don't think there's 1% 1% that we can't find. >> I don't know. I
230just wish we instead of giving a big vague ask, can you tell us where you think it is? Can you give us some spec something specific? Where is it? >> Okay. I think first of all, I think you we've grown non-eing positions. You can look at those positions and we've done it I feel like a lot just since I've been on the board and look at those as they come open just like a business. Okay. When I worked at Colonial Life in Accent, we didn't have a choice and say, "Oh, we want to ask the the stockholders for more money." You don't have that luxury and you can't cut things that hurt your customers or you won't have any just like we can't cut things that hurt our students. So, you look at things like
231hiring freezes and you look at things like um consulting contracts, legal fees, um you look at some, you know, we're spending how much are we spending on technology? You look at all those types of things, you know, and and um I'm sorry y'all didn't get to go to the edenomics thing at this department of ed, but that is exactly what was talked about and all the different things and having a board do their job and talk about them and look at them. If you don't find anything, you don't But we owe it to our teachers and our students to try. >> Um I I don't disagree with the premise of what you're saying. I just disagree with the timing. I think if if if the board shares what the administration says just please be cognizant
232of, you know, when the hiring or the replacement or programs. I mean, they come to us and ask for approval already. So, we're the ones that are approving these things. Not like they're doing it. They have the power to do it. So, we're the ones approving it. But I don't think at the ninth hour it's time to turn around and look and say, "All right, let's redo the budget. Let's just ris just start invest. This is that would be an ar arduous task." I think that um I think that there's nothing wrong with saying and telling the next board or in the next coming year say look, let's just be cognizant of some of this stuff so that we can within the realm of not, you know, running cost up for some of the project.
233And I know you've asked a lot of questions about contracts and, you know, things like that. They're good questions. Um, I just think that this is at this point in time, we need to approve our budget and I don't think that going taking the time to go through and start looking at every employee and every program is the is the right time to do it. That's just my opinion. My biggest concern um about the budget is the teacher retention piece of it and if we um delayed the first reading I mean obviously it doesn't make it final. We can still talk about it more at the next meeting but I am concerned that contracts are due before we have another reading of the budget. And although I know that you're not saying I hear you
234when you say you're not saying to like let staff go, but we all know things don't always land the same. And I worry that if that's the narrative that somebody runs with coupled with if we don't pass the first reading of the budget, what what risk do we take um in in the messaging that we are sending? And like Mr. just how I feel. I I do understand um you know cost savings and are there opportunities to be able to um you know to do that which I feel like you know we brought up at the last at the last meeting. I'm trusting that Miss Tucker feels like this is just where we are um and the best option for us right now. It's just a thought. >> I have a question. I was actually
235I had to believe for a second. Do do we have a motion on the floor? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. All right. Um do we have other um questions or comments as it relates to the first reading? >> I mean, I'd like to amend the motion to um move that we have the administration provide the board with the following budget related information before our next board meeting. the number of classroom teachers, number of classroom assistants, and the number of total personnel included in the 2526 budget and the proposed 2627 budget. >> I'll I'll second just so you can explain. >> Yeah. So, the reason I'm asking is we're hearing it's all based on headcount. So, I think we need to know like what are the headcounts and so that's why I'm asking. So we
236know, you know, are we increasing teachers or decreasing um admin uh classroom assistance up or down? Total personnel up or down. >> So your motion is to approve the budget, but at the second reading, you want to be able to look at the numbers for those things. >> Exactly. >> Go ahead. >> You're again, we're asking for all you're going to get is projections. We don't know exact and that's what's in this this budget is the projections of where we expect. Um we don't tell principles that they're locked in to this many kindergarten teachers and you cannot move. Um if that class grows, we want to be a district that gives those principles the ability to shift as registration comes in and we want to offer another class. We're not going to tell that high
237school principal, you can't do another section of Spanish, too, because in May the board locked you into this many sections of French or or Spanish. Um, our process, again, this is not an audit. This is a budget of where we plan to be. We are rolling forward. Um, and I will say this, I think it's important as we look at this this budget, 88% of this is people. We be cautious as we heard families come up very emotional when they heard about potentiality of being cut. We're being very specific about positions and the public and on Facebook. We don't want to stir up notions of cutting when we can balance this budget. We don't have to touch anything. So, I think um I just want to make make that case known. >> We have an
238amendment um to the motion on the floor and it's been properly second. Can I just ask for clarification? >> Is this in addition to approving the first reading of the general fund budget but also asking for that request amendment that's in the act? >> Okay. >> Um and I do have a question um if it's all right Miss Knights or Miss um Tucker. So um budget obviously things change but normally when you do prepare the budget is it based on headcounts? >> The current projected budget right now is based on our act current staff. So the current staff that are in our headcounts right now. So >> which would be different from the 2526 budget. So that's really what I'm asking for is just what is the projection based on? You you can't you need
239to know that they don't know how every elementary school doesn't know how many kindergarten teachers they're going to need until >> asking what's in the budget. She just said they use numbers to project it current headcount. I'm just asking what that is. I mean so we know it's just like once we approve the budget things change too. >> So would will that change your vote if you're if they came in with something? I'm just trying to I'm trying to understand the rationale behind the >> I would assume that the amendment would at least get her to vote for the budget is how I'm interpreting it since she's adjusting. >> All right. So, >> you know what happens when you assume? >> So, what So, what are we vote what are we voting on right now?
240>> We're voting on it. We're looking at an amendment original. The original motion was to approve the budget and Miss Huddle is saying is made the amendment to approve the budget with the ask that the uh that this that the that we get these numbers at the second reading. It's been approved. It's been properly seconded. I'm calling for the vote on the amendment. Did you get the amendment, Jason? You weren't in here. Okay. All right. Are we ready? Okay. Okay. You're in favor of this. Okay. All opposed. >> Yes. I'm taking a vote on the amendment to Yes. to approve the first reading with the request that at the second reading we get these numbers. And I don't remember what the numbers were. >> Miss Huddle, will you repeat the the um >> the number
241of CLA in the in the projected budget, the number of classroom teachers, classroom assistants, and total personnel included in the 2526 budget and the 2627 projected budget. >> Let me just tell you my concern is that it's two different motions. One is to approve the first reading and then second one is before the second reading I'd like to make a motion that >> you're allowed to do that under Robert's rules. >> I'm just asking. I just seems like anyway. >> Well, I guess because unless the chair is going to entertain additional motions, I'd be happy to make it as a separate motion if on item 17. >> Did I not understand your motion to be that we're approving the budget with this coming? Batterfield doesn't really like it being added to it. So, I'm saying
242I'd be happy to make it a separate motion. >> No, it's not a contingency. She just wants this information at the second reading. >> Yes. And does this information already exist somewhere? >> I can I can pull it. Okay, back to the amended motion to approve the first reading of the general fund budget with an amendment to include the requested um information that Miss Huddle would like to see before the second reading. I think that is correct. All those in favor raise your hand for your motion. >> I'm confused. Are we Are we making the Are we Are we voting on the amendment? >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. I thought we already did that. >> We had hands up over here. Okay. All opposed. >> The motion passes four to one. And I'm abstaining because
243at this point I don't know what we're doing. And then we have an the original motion on the floor is to approve the first reading of the general fund budget. >> We already voted >> As amended. As amended. All in favor? >> Yes. And you didn't vote on that? you abstained. >> So, it's now amended. So, now we're going to vote. >> So, now we're just voting on the original. We voted to approve the budget, >> the first reading, >> but with the request that we have this other information, we still have to go back to the original >> on the actual first. >> So, we're we're going to vote again to approve the first reading of the budget, but we just approved the first reading in the amendment. >> No. because then that would
244mean that you voted no on the budget and not >> We just voted on on the amendment. I know it's a long night. It's a lot going on up here. So, we voted on Miss Huddle's amendment to the motion. Now, the original motion is back on the floor, which is to approve the general fund budget as amended. All those in favor? And the motion carries six to zero. That moves us to the discussion agenda. Miss McCascal. Okay, this um is a waiver request. Um it talks about a gifted and talented um strategic plan goal where we are trying to encourage and provide um enrichment for students that are high achieving. There is a um regulation with the state where in order to be a high school credit course, you have to have shown uh complete
245uh mastery of seventh and eighth grade content through that. And we would have to have a waiver for that for a student, say a sixth grader to be able to take a high school credit course. And this particular waiver would allow that that type of a change. There would definitely be some criteria set. This slide outlines what that criteria would be overall. And um we would take this for any other the students would have to take any type of testing like if they're a sixth grader, they would take the SC ready sixth grade test. Seventh grade would still take seventh grade test. If there was an EOCC high school credit um test that went with that class, then they would have to take that as well. But I will stand for any questions that you
246might have in the discussion. >> None. >> Thank you very much. >> Miss Huddle, do you want to provide a brief update from the last Chromebook meeting? >> I'm just going to I already did. Really? And anybody have any questions? >> Nope. >> Awesome. I move that we adjourn. >> All in favor? Thank you y'all. Have a good night.