001It is 502. So, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? I'll oppose. And the motion carries four to zero. Do I have a motion to enter executive session? Make a motion to enter executive session to consider the following selected employment items. Exhibit A for action. Selected employment items. Exhibit B information only. Legal advice regarding state budget proviso 1.120 student physical privacy. Exhibit C. Contractual matter regarding the development of security personnel or devices. Exhibit D. Contractual matter regarding technology services. Exhibit E. Contractual matter regarding professional development services. Exhibits F and G, legal advice regarding the City of Columbia water easement request. Exhibit H, contractual matter regarding a proposed purchase of property. Exhibit
002I, legal advice regarding the proposed sale of property, exhibit J. Second. All in favor? All opposed? And the motion carries 5 to zero. We will adjourn to executive session. Reconvene at 7. Good evening. It is 700 p.m. and I'm going to go ahead and call the May 5th school board meeting to order. Thank you all for being here with us this evening. We're all pretty excited to have so many students in the building tonight to be recognized. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. um trusty SC is going to provide us with the invocation and the pledge of allegiance. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to gather today and thank you for the gift of community, our school district, all the students and teachers who have worked so hard
003all year long. We thank you for bringing our families and kids home safe from spring break as we return to finish out the school year. We also thank you for a safe prom season. Father, we pray for your comfort and celebration of our kids who are transitioning from one grade to the next in the coming weeks. particularly our graduates, our seniors. Be with them as they celebrate and look forward to the next chapter of their lives and be with their families as they celebrate with them yet mourn the passing of a previous season. Thank you for your continued blessings. Please be with those who are sick and ill. In this we pray. Amen. Please stand for the pledge of of allegiance. Trustees, will you go ahead and join me up front for the school board
004spotlight? Okay, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Ross, good evening. As you mentioned, Madam Chair, we have a very special group of students that we're recognizing tonight. So, at this time, I would like to welcome Miss Nikki Powell, the district's coordinator of science and health, to um recognize our science sphere award winners. 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 2024 2025 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 and for your continued support of this outstanding program. The success of these students would not be possible without each of you. While it is certainly impressive
005to note the vast number of awards received by our students at both the district and USCU region 2 fair or even the titles of 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 for the first time last February, I was invited to an elementary school to judge their school fair. In this school in particular, every fifth grade student worked in teams with the support of their classroom teacher, the school's resident scientist, and mentors to complete a science fair project. As I went from project to project, I immediately realized that while the names and experiments differed, the opportunity each student received by participating in the science fair was
006the same. They had the opportunity to collaborate with their peers, problem solve, experiment, and discover the world around them or produce a product to solve a real world problem. And what was most rewarding to me is that they had the opportunity to then be eager and excited to share their projects with the judges to solve a real world problem. They all use scientific knowledge to describe their process. They all shared joy in not only learning about science, but truly exploring and experimenting with science in rigorous ways. Because of the impact this school's science fair left on me, this year our school shifted in how they incorporated the science fair into their instruction. Instead of sending projects home to be completed individually with varying resources, students were able to collaborate in small groups with their peers
007like real scientists in the classroom with the classroom teacher who is the content expo expert supporting them every step of the way. What we witnessed was a huge increase in student participation and engagement in the true study of science. This was further evidenced to me at the district science fair. We saw an increase of over 60 projects from last year in grades 5 through 12. We more than doubled the number of students who participated and ran out of space at Dutch Fork High School and had students representing every elementary school containing fifth grade, intermediate school, middle school, and high school as well as our five program. From experimenting the effect of gravity and hand sanitizer development to studying how bacteria on jewelry can cause contact dermatitis and how parachute technology adjustments can be made to
008optimize descent and enhance rocket performance. Our students shined and displayed 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 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 truly be. Tonight we have the opportunity to recognize 88 students from our district who received awards at our district 5 science and engineering fair or received a blue ribbon or top tier project at the USC region 2 fairs held in March. At this time I will proudly announce our elementary award winners. I would ask that you please hold
009your applause until all students have been recognized. Students, please come forward as your name is called. Isaac Gallen and Josiah Hicks, Dutch Fork Elementary School, plant sciences, Blue Ridge and Project at the Region 2 Science Fair. Evan Nancy Jones, Harbison West Elementary School, first place, math and engineering at the district science fair. Aubrey Spawn, Dutch Fork Elementary School. Honorable mention physical science at the district science fair and the biochemistry and chemistry blue ribbon project at the region 2 science fair. Molly Goodwin and Abigail McNut Leapart Elementary School. Third place at physical science at the district science fair. Zeus Chung Lewis Hardison Mckenley Novak and Cyrus Reeri Chapen Intermediate School. Second place physical science at the district science fair. Elena Dickerson, H Corley Elementary School, first place physical science at the district science fair. Mallister Albach,
010Aubrey Buckingham, Caroline Presley, Chapen Intermediate School, first place Earth and Environmental Science at the District Science Fair, Earth Science, Environmental Science and Environmental Engineering, Blue Ribbon Project at the Region 2 Science Fair. Montreal Felder, Maddie Harley, and SA Smith Galloway, Dutch Fork Elementary School. second place at life science of the district science fair. Maddie and SA earned biology and biomedical sciences blue ribbon project awards at the region 2 science fair. And Lilian Chin Harbison West Elementary School first place for life science at the district science fair and biology and biomedical sciences blue ribbon project at the region 2 science fair. Congratulations students. [Applause] At this time, I will announce our intermediate and middle school award winners. Again, I ask that you please hold your applause until all students have been recognized. Students, please come forward
011as your name is called. Aubrey Drake, Maline McGrady, and Maline Penner, Chapen Middle School, third place, math and engineering at the district science fair. Macy Hwitt, Carter Madrid, and Jude Williams. Chapen Middle School. Second place, math and engineering at the district science fair. Millie Barry at Alexis Green, Mary M. Hood, and Aniston Hooks, Chapen Middle School. First place, math and engineering at the district science fair. Haley Abercomi, Laya Dodson, Ethan Keysler, and Aiden Rooney, Chapen Intermediate School. Honorable mention for physical science at the district science fair. Burks, Brian, Mason Laur, Dean Saunders, and Gabriel Wood, Chapen Intermediate School, honorable mention for physical science at the district science fair. Cooper Hodes, Cole Hooks from Chapen Middle School, honorable mention for physical science at the district science fair. McKenna Dwire and Ava Leech, Chapen Middle School, third
012place physical science at the district science fair. Jackson Besley, five virtual programs. Second place for physical science at the district science fair. Rahoff Azabati Kenza Smith from Dutchport Middle School. First place in physical science at the district science fair. CC Newberry and Troy Rabin from Irma Middle School. Honorable mention for earth and environmental science and life science at the district science fair. Abigail Bickley, Satie Blocker, Maline Puroy, and Lacy Tac. Chapen Middle School. Second place, Earth and Environmental Science and Life Science at the District Science Fair. And Sar Ruth Vika Gapati and Scarlet Gore from Irma Middle School. First place, Earth and Environmental Science and Life Science at the District Science Fair and Plant Sciences Top Tier Award at the Region 2 Science Fair. Congratulations students. [Applause] Tonight we will conclude with the recognition of
013our 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. Each has excelled 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 the students who participated only at the region 2 science fair, then move to our district and region two fair award recipients.
014Elsa Gillespie from Chapen High School had two region two awards to include biology and biomedical sciences top tier award and grand award finalist. Mustafa Azar from Dutch Fork High School, earth science, environmental science and environmental engineering top tier award. Leo Sun, Dutch Fork High School, Engineering Technology, Sustainable Design and Material Sciences top tier award. Michael Wang, Dutch Fork High School, region two. Two awards to include math and computer sciences top tier award and grand award finalist. Arouche K. Cartik from Dutch High School, math and computer sciences top tier award. And Ronald Bird Taylor Dixon and Brandon Goldsboro from the Center for Advanced Technical Studies won two region two awards to include technology enhances the arts top tier award and the Dr. Gary Allen Excellence in Scientific Communication Award. Lydia Wamble. The Center for Advanced Technical
015Studies got second place for physical science at the district science fair. Delaney McGrath, Chapen High School, first place for physical science at the district science fair. Megan Proctor, Hayden Sanders, and Sarah Wessinger. The Center for Advanced Technical Studies. Second place for life science at the District Science Fair. Margaret Ryan Floyd. Laya Lindler and Piper Peterson, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies, first place for life science at the District Science Fair. Nidia Churikumali from Spring Hill High School, honorable mention for human, behavioral, and social sciences at the District Science Fair. Mila Rousell from Chapen High School, honorable mention for human, behavioral, and social sciences at the District Science Fair. Jillian Wartz, Chapen High School, honorable mention for human behavioral and social science at the district science fair. Two region two awards that included behavioral and social
016sciences top tier award and grand award finalist. Liza Smith, the center for advanced technical studies, third place for human behavioral and social sciences at the district science fair. Logan Berilla, Chapen High School, second place, human behavioral and social sciences at the district science fair. two region two awards that include a behavioral and social sciences the top tier award as well as a grand award finalist. Brena Cers, the center for advanced technical studies first place human behavioral and social science at the district science fair. Jacob Braden Chapen High School honorable mention earth and environmental science at the district science fair. Kennedy Cook and Skyla Guyger, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies. Honorable mention, Earth and Environmental Science at the District Science Fair. Virginia Parish, Chapen High School, third place in Earth and Environmental Science at the
017District Science Fair. Grayson Ashley, Spring Hill High School, second place Earth and Environmental Science at the District Science Fair. And for the region two science fair, earth science, environmental science, and environmental engineering top tier award, Hunter Taylor, Dutch Fork High School, first place in earth and environmental science at the district science fair. He was also the recipient of two region two awards to include earth science, environmental science and environmental engineering top tier award and grand award finalist. Joah Schaefer, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies. Honorable mention, Math and Engineering District Science Fair. Andrew Brandon and Noah Perkins, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies. Honorable mention, Math and Engineering at the District Science Fair. Killian Evans and Diego Sanchez, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies, third place in Math and Engineering at the District Science Fair.
018Hunter Modka, the center for advanced technical studies, second place for math and engineering at the district science fair, and three region two science fair awards that included the engineering technology sustainable design and material sciences top tier award, grand award finalist, and the Dr. Gary Allen excellence in scientific communication award. And finally, Annabelle Ashton, Ana Mayor's, Maline Touchberry, the Center for Advanced Technical Studies, first place in math and engineering at the district science fair and two region 2 science fair awards that included biology and biomedical sciences top tier award and grand award finalist. Congratulations students. Thank you all for your time this evening. if I could have all the students um and their principles who came tonight for a quick picture up here with our distinguished board and Dr. Ross. I see everybody. All right, everybody.
019Look at me. Let's take one more. Congratulations. [Applause] When we have an opportunity to recognize our students in the district, I'm always reminded that our future future is pretty bright in D5. Congratulations again to all of them. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Ross for the superintendence report. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, and our community. Indeed, our future is very bright, and we're so proud of the accomplishments of not only those 88 students that recognized tonight, but all the students who took the challenge to innovate, to create, to solve problems as identified in our uh standards for science fair. So, we're very proud of our teachers that work with all the projects and to Nikki, her recognition of our students is topnotch. It is teacher appreciation week
020and we thank our educators. Uh, as Re Kipling said, no written word nor spoken plea can teach young minds who they should be. Know all the books on all the shelves is who the teachers are themselves. We have amazing collection of teachers in school district 5. And I'd like to bring forth uh three educators to recognize as our support employee of the year finalists. Simone Chandler, she's a kindergarten assistant at Dutk Elementary. Bridget GS was a cafeteria assistant manager at Valentine Elementary. and is Miss Cammy Rupy who is an instructional assistant at Oak Point Elementary. And also our teacher of the year finalist for 2526. Introducing Miss Brook Bridges, a kindergarten teacher at Pinywoods Elementary, Miss Jennifer Goforth, a reading interventionist at Chapen Intermediate, and Mr. Charles McDonald who works in special education at Lake
021Murray Elementary. just a great representation of the high quality of teaching and support that we have here in school district 5. As always, we're a system driven by three critical questions. Why do we do this work which is our vision? How do we accomplish that vision which is our mission and then what are the outcomes of our work and that's our strategic plan. These are 24 strategies facing uh 24 performance goals uh so that we can move to that day where we say all of our students uh feel loved in our schools and all of our students have demonstrated academic growth in our schools. We're chasing the state strategic plan of by 2030 75% of our students being at or above grade level. We track this through our monitoring that we do three times a
022year in the fall, the winter, and in the spring. And so, uh, we're working diligently to make sure that those blue bars are reaching that 75%. But there's a lot of growth that takes place within those red bars that uh we track through our strategic plan. And so we uh are looking at we're going to talk about innovations uh this evening that's going to help us in thatstead. Uh one of the larger parts of our work is tracking the graduation rate. Uh as we uh see here we track it from the beginning of the year all the way uh to graduation. And uh just wanted to acknowledge our uh those mentors, those administrators, the teachers that are working with our students to remove those barriers uh helping students not only to graduate uh on time
023but to ensure that they graduate college and career ready. And so this is what uh we we exist for. This is while our our annual budget presents itself to really make sure that we can meet those objectives. Um we'll talk about this in detail this afternoon. Uh but we are working through three different phases. Our revenue uh our expenses and our reserve uh to take care of the the district's operations needs. If you look at our revenue, you will see that 64% 64% of our operating fund comes from the state. Play close attention as you hear our CFOs speak because we have some changes to our state modeling and that's going to impact the funds that we receive from state. If our district relies on 64% of its funding coming from the state, changes in
024that state formula will impact us greatly. Before act 388, this is the act that took away the 4% uh property tax for operation of schools. This was the allocation of state to local was 51% state and 49% local within school district 5. This is critical as we look at less money coming from the state. Uh how do we meet our operation objectives? And so uh as we talk about our budget discussion and our first reading discussion today, I wanted to set the tone of this was just in 2005. We're in a much different reality now. How do you keep the standards and the high quality of education that we deliver in school district 5 with these adjustments? And now with the state funding uh coming uh lower in terms of new funds, uh this is
025the challenge set before school district 5. Our goal is to provide for the whole child. There's a lot of discussion about the needs for teachers and we see that need every day. But I employ this body to look at the needs of the whole child which is embedded in our staff that we have. Our staff are here to protect the physical uh safety needs, the the the health needs, the social needs, the mental health needs, the behavioral needs, the academic readiness skills that you see with the instructional coaches and then the what happens in the classroom. To be a great district, we have to take care of the whole child. And so, yes, our teachers are extremely important, but that support of the classroom is also equally important. And so, it is about the teachers
026and the staff to keep that great model of education. We asked about the priorities from our stakeholders and priority number one were teacher pay raises. Uh and as we look at priority number two, it was a mix between low class sizes and staff pay raises. So, our our budget this year will prioritize the teacher pay raise and the staff pay raise as we look at these these revenue uh changes here. All to the goal that we can provide what our parents asked for was that we can get an educational experience that meets their child's needs. and having the support and the teacher instruction is the way we feel that we can meet the expectations of our parent advisory and our in our community. So, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the
027things that we're doing academically and I'm going to ask for the academics report, our chief of academics, Miss Tina McKascal, to come forward for the academic report. Mascal Good evening, Madam Chair, board, Dr. Ross. Happy to be here tonight to celebrate the great things that are happening in academics. Um, there's a kind of a little bit of everything here tonight. So, um, first of all, I want to start off with celebrating some of our CTE accomplishments and awards from our competitions. You'll see with Skills USA um there are 18 gold, 14 silver, 12 bronze. With TSA there's gold, 11 gold, six silver, five bronze. The HOSA group has three gold. The FBLA has one gold and one bronze. FCCLA, seven gold. The DECA group, seven gold, one silver, five bronze. and all of those groups
028um from various from the center to various high schools within the district, those students continue on into national competitions that are taking place this summer as well. So very thankful to have that opportunity for students to shine and extracurricular types of activities that just grow them into even better citizens and better young people um for us. So I'm very happy and thankful for for the people that are sponsoring them as well as for the students and parents that give their time towards that. The next slide I'm going to go into an overview of accelerated courses. Um recently we I met with page five and I want to talk a little bit just thank them for their commitment to the accelerated group and the accelerated students in our district and really helping me to understand that
029they need to see what's happening with the accelerated students. So many times we focus on what can we do to help our students, you know, catch up that we don't necessarily talk about the accelerated students and they're just as important as all students are. And so I wanted to spend a little time today just looking at what great things are happening for accelerated students in our district. This first slide talks about just numbers of students um from elementary all the way up to AP courses in high school. And you'll notice that there's an increase in those numbers um and the percentage u meeting expectations on that. But that slide's just a general overview um of the accelerated coursework. The next slide I do want to clarify thanks to the accountability department. They were help able
030to help us pull this next this information about how did our honors students perform on EOC. So this isn't all students on the EOC. We pulled out just our honors level students and how they were performing on EOC. and you'll see I think the lowest is somewhere around an 88.9% um passage rate on that. So really really well done on the EOC coursework in the high schools. And the next slide has AP and IB stats. And you'll notice there um the AP stats overall with um 76.2% passage rate. Some students can take an AP test that are not in the course. And so I pulled that information out also, thankful to the accountability department again, but pulling out that there were 21 students that were not involved in the coursework, but they decided to take
031the test. And of those 21 students, 51.3% um passed the the um AP exam. And then for those who were enrolled in the coursework, um there were 2,972 tests taken and there was a 76.4%. So shout out to our teachers. It makes a difference if you're in the coursework. Um the percentage passage rate is definitely um evident there. So congratulations to those teachers. And our IB um has been around for a number of years. This is two years worth of data there. um to show the information that's that's taking place in IB. Now, I'm going to ask for um Nashunda Walters and Dr. Tim Swick to come and talk to you about dual enrollment because I call them my heroes for dual enrollment. um they have done a phenomenal job at just grabbing this idea
032and really growing it for students and parents and I just want to give them a kudos and a shout out and then turn it over to you. Thank you. Good evening madam chair, members of the board and Dr. Ross. About three years ago, I came before you to provide you with foundational information surrounding dual enrollment programming as we were expanding to all four high schools. Tonight, we're proud to highlight our goals and progress in expanding dual enrollment opportunities. Our goals for dual enrollment are focused and impactful. First, we want to provide more students across our high schools with access to college level coursework through our strong partnership with Midlands Technical College. Second, we aim to develop so specialized programming that supports students as cohorts, enabling them to work towards earning college certificates while at the
033same time completing high school credits they need for on-time graduation. And finally, we're committed to increasing opportunities for college and career readiness for students to get that college and career ready readiness designation. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, dual enrollment allows high school students to take college level courses and earn college credit before graduation. This opportunity not only helps students save time and money, but it also gives them a valuable head start on their postsecary journey. By engaging in college coursework early, students build confidence, develop critical thinking skills, and begin to see a broader horizon for their academic and career paths. At this time, I'd like to direct to introduce Dr. Swick. He is our lead teacher now for dual enrollment. And Dr. Swick is going to tell you a little bit about
034our progress. So, to put dual enrollment simply in one sentence, dual enrollment is the opportunity for tuitionfree college while still in high school. Um, when we're speaking to families and we're speaking to folks that are interested in, uh, dual enrollment, we like to go through a couple of things at the outset so everyone's familiar with what dual enrollment takes, what the advantages are, and what's at stake. Um, number one on our list and is it's an opportunity for students to gain exposure to a college atmosphere while still in um, high school. uh what ends up happening is we're able to open opportunities for students that may not have considered themselves college material um by giving them an that that open door to the college experience at an early age. It also allows us to broaden
035our range of options um of courses that we offer students. There's some courses that we can offer through our partnership with Midlands Tech that wouldn't normally be a part of a high school um course selection. Uh what is also um something that is a very um popular option for our students that are taking dual enrollment is it comes with that GPA boost. It's the one quality point that you get for an AP course. Um so it really stands out um on a college transcript um because it shows that you're taking the most rigorous courses that are available. Uh there is research in dual enrollment um that points to that it does increase success for students their first year in college. And one of the most popular options for parents is it's the opportunity to save
036time and money to um a four-year degree later on should you be successful in dual enrollment. So, some things to be aware of um with the opportunity of getting double credits, high school and college credits at the same time. There's some things we want all of our students to understand. Um first, number one, off the bat is we want them to understand this is meant to be more rigorous and it's supposed to be a challenge. So therefore, it's not something that is um something we suggest for all students. Um we like to say we're looking for those students that are highly motivated. Um it is important to know that the grades you get on your dual enrollment courses will not only be reflected in your high school GPA, but you're actually starting your college GPA
037at the same time. So should you not perform at a high level, you could um hurt your college GPA as well as your opportunity for scholarships. So, it's important to know that making a good grade is obviously very beneficial, but not performing at a high level um could also harm you um in your college journey. So, we want to make sure that is clear made clear to students before they um decide to go on their journey with dual enrollment. Um the state of South Carolina provides lottery tuition assistance for students to make this a free option for students. However, one of the requirements that we have to adhere to is that students must take two courses per semester. um that means that they could take two courses in the fall and none in the spring
038or two courses in the fall and two courses in the spring. We actually have um some students that are choosing to take as many as three courses in both semesters, getting them six college credits or 18 hours of college credit in one school year. um in order to maintain um uh access to dual enrollment um our partners Midland Tech Midlands Tech requires students to get a grade of C or higher for them to stay within dual enrollment. And then also we mentioned to students that your dual enrollment grades are included in your transcripts. This can help you with scholarships and help you with your application should you perform well. Some things that we find it's important to communicate is that not all colleges and universities will accept dual enrollment courses in the same manner. Um
039I'll highlight that um the agreement with the state of South Carolina and the lottery tuition assistance program is that um the courses that you take with dual enrollment through um our partnership with Midlands Tech, all instate institutions will accept those credits. However, outofstate um institutions are not um uh going to adhere to that um guidance. Um luckily our partner Midlands Tech is widely known throughout the nation and something like 95% of the colleges and universities in the United States will accept credits from Midlands Tech. But we also want our our participants to understand that it's impossible um for our department to track down um how all of these credits will be um accepted by different institutions in the state as well as out of state. So, we really point our our our parents and our
040and our students to check with the schools that they're interested in to see what those transfer um requirements are so that they understand exactly how these credits will um will appear on their college transcripts when they start college um after they leave D5. Also, something we make sure that we make clear to all parents um is that when you choose dual enrollment, you're choosing to be treated like a college student. And we want to make sure that our parents are aware that communication with college students is different than high school students. Um, most notably, college professors will not be emailing you um, parents directly. So, we make sure that our parents are understanding that the instructors that the students have in dual enrollment, they will only communicate directly with the students and um, the guidelines
041that we have out set for our students and we make it clear is that they will only communicate with them through their Midlands Tech email address. Um, we do have a partnership that allows us to communicate with the dual enrollment staff at Midlands Tech and they do notify us when students are not performing or not meeting their goals. So, we can um we do have an outreach that that is is enacted at different phases throughout the semester. But we also want our parents to know that the understanding isn't that the um the instructor of English 101, for example, is not going to email parents when a student doesn't perform well on an assignment. Um, and that's that's built into the expectations of the program. Again, it goes back to that increased rigor. If a student's
042choosing to choose dual enrollment, we want them to understand that they need to act and they will be treated as if they're college students. A little bit more about how things transfer. Um, many if not most of the Midland Tech credits will um be transferred to fouryear colleges and universities. Our our recommendation to families as I said earlier is always to verify that transferability. Um there is a website that we point to parents to SCRA. Um however sect.org is not always up todate and up to the minute um with changes that might be made. So we always encourage families to reach out to those college counselors, reach out to those admission departments so that they have the absolute correct information. So who is eligible to take dual enrollment in district 5? Um, we we have
043juniors and seniors right now with the possibilities of sophomores growing. Um, we ask students that are applying to be accepted with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and we look for students that are in good standing with no disciplinary issues. So, how do you start your college journey? If you meet those qualifications, we um encourage you to um choose dual enrollment. It'll start your transcript. It will help you build your GPA for college. These classes will affect your college admissions. We know that they're factored into scholarship consideration and we want to highlight that you need to be careful with poor performance because not only will it affect financial aid, but it could impact your state scholarships. So, we encourage all of our students to keep a minimum GPA of 3.0 or higher. Um, I know in
044an earlier slide we said that the minimum grade is a C. Um, all the students that I've talked to this year, I say my expectations a little better than that. I expect A's and B's. I'm pretty sure your parents will agree with me on that. Um, and so for the most part, we've been able to do that this year, which I'm extremely proud of. So, what does dual enrollment look like um right now in district 5? Um, as you've heard, our partner is uh Midlands Technical College. All students are competing um district dual enrollment application and they will be preapproved prior to their Midlands Tech registration. So earlier in the fall, um we met with families and held um workshops to explain what dual enrollment is. Families that were interested were able to fill out
045an application. We were able to look through and see who was um actually qualified. And then now we've reached the point in the in the school year where students have met with their guidance counselors. They put in course requests and we're actually currently actively working on working with this group of students through their Midlands Tech registration. The only courses that are available to students are the ones that are pre-selected and they are listed in our course guide. Um the students must take two classes or six credit hours each semester. Um this is a requirement of tuition assistance and currently um up to this point we have covered the co textbook costs for all students um and so far for this school year and we hope to be able to continue to do that as we
046expand. Um dual enrollment in D5 offers two options. Um there is in-person or onampus instruction, what we also call face-toface. And then there's also virtual or online courses which go in a asynchronous format which means students are able to to manage the pace in which they take those classes. There are usually weekly assignments and readings. Um but they they can tune into the class so to speak at their at their availability. Um asynchronous courses are easier to schedule because of the flexibility built into those courses. um onampus or face-to-face instruction is done here at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies. Um and we're able to this year to have 11 students take um advantage of the onampus in-person instruction. Um we have 19 different and dual enrollment course options that are available to students. Um
047they break down, we have social studies, we have general psychology, introduction to sociology as well as next year we're adding contemporary moral issues. We have two US history courses. Um if taken together um and also with a EOCC um score, passing score that counts um for your world your US history credit. We also have offer world language Spanish one and Spanish 2. If you take Spanish, there's a placement test and if you want the world language credit for high school, you need to complete Spanish 2 for that credit. Um, in English, we offer English composition one as well as two, also known as English 101 and 102. Um, in our district, we ask that students complete both courses, um, for the English for high school credit. We have two CTE electives, um, medical terminology as
048well as health careers prep. And then we offer a variety of electives. Music appreciation, art history and appreciation, intro to theater, intro to criminal justice, intro to computers, computer applications, as well as freshman seminar. I put freshman seminar in italics there because this is the only course in all of the dual enrollment options that we offer that does not come with the honors boost. So, if you take that class, you don't get the the advantage of getting the added GPA. Um, I've also highlighted it because typically most four-year universities are going to require students to take their version of freshman seminar. So, um, it's something to keep in mind that freshman seminar is probably a good option for a student that's planning to go um, the Midlands Tech route or just take the class with
049the knowledge of knowing that you're going to retake a newer version or a different version of freshman seminar. For example, if you decide to go to USC, Clemson, or Coastal or a school like that, uh, dual enrollment data from this school year for 2425, we had a total of 73 students um that were enrolled. We had 11, as I mentioned earlier, in in-person students here at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies, as well as 62 students throughout the district at our high schools that took classes virtually. Um, in the fall, our average grade across all students, in person and virtual, was an 84, and that earned students in our district 381 credit hours in the fall semester. In the spring, we don't yet have our grades reported. Um, but I do know that we have
050passing credits for 336 credit hours. Um, the slight drop there is really mostly due to not as many students enrolling in the spring as we saw in the fall. So for the total credit hours of this year, we saw 717. Um right now instate average um cost per credit hour is roughly $500. So if you do the math, 717 credits times $500 gives us a potential savings of D5 families of $358,500. Pretty close to half a million. Looking at next school year, we're seeing some growth. we look at um an estimated total next year of 115 total students. Um so compared to the 73 we had last year, we're looking at close to a 40 um 40 person increase. Um notably, we're seeing a lot of interest in in-person. Um we have right now um
051we're still working out schedules, but it looks like about 35 students that will be coming here in person. Um, as we see that program grow, we're now actually adding um, more class um, availability. For example, this year the only way to schedule in person was to be at the Kate Center in the mornings. Next year we're actually going to be able to add classes for the afternoon. So, this um, helps with the schedule building that we're doing for students. Um, and then we're going to have 80 virtual students across the district um, participating next year as well. And then um based on interest that we were hearing from our meetings in the fall, we had a lot of families interested in knowing if we could do a summer session. Midlands Tech was more than happy
052to help us um put this together. And um I'm really pleased to see that we had a total of 30 students that have worked towards registration and selected classes to take this summer. I'll be honest, I was a little surprised by that. Um textbook expenses in the fall were $2,144. in the spring was 1430. Um the decrease in the spring is um for twofold reasons. One um we we changed where we get our textbooks. We now look for um virtual textbooks which helped us decrease the cost. But also um Midlands Tech is working hard to reduce the cost of textbooks and a lot of courses now use what is called OEER um which is open education resources. So that has helped us lower the cost of textbooks. For this school year, the total cost was
053$3,574, an average cost per student of about $52. And that brings us through dual enrollment and up to AI. Thank you. I hope you see why they're my heroes. Miss McCast, before we move to the next part of your presentation, that was a lot of information, so I think it'll be helpful if we go ahead and take questions specific to dual enrollment, if that's okay with you. Sure. Um I know Miss Huddle already um messaged that she had a question, so I'll start with her. Um yes, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Um I had a question about the only doing it at the Kate Center. Um I hate doing the same like when my kids were in school, but both of my children did dual enrollment. And I believe back then this would been
054like the early 2000s. Um they it was offered in their high schools so they didn't have to get on a bus and go anywhere else. Uh so have we looked at maybe doing some of the courses at the high schools to increase our enrollment? So we are we would love to be able to do that right now. It's because of numbers like we had 11 this past year um in person and that was from all four high schools that came. So in order to have a person to come from Midlands Tech, we had to have it in one location to be able to do that. But as the interest grows and we can have it within the school, we certainly would want to do that. But that is something that we just have to watch
055the numbers and see. I guess I'm wondering if it's a chicken egg thing if if it was offered. I mean, maybe could we try one course at one high school and publicize it and that maybe if it were offered and they didn't have to leave their school in order to take it, your enrollment would increase. We can certainly look into that. Okay. Um and and one school in particular, just to um kind of go back several slides, the IB at at Irmo, I guess I'm concerned about how low those numbers are. So, you know, we don't have to get into it now, but I just wonder if Irma might be a good place to try it to see if we would get a lot of kids who maybe are missing out on IB that would
056do the dual enrollment if they didn't have to leave the school. So our our our enrollment at Irmo High School right now is really larger than most of them around us in the district and other districts around us within the Midlands. Um, but I agree that that is something that we are looking at in terms of trying to see how many we can. And you'll find that a lot of our students are opting for the IB career versus the IB diploma because it doesn't lock them into as many courses. The IB diploma requires the six courses and really does not allow them to take anything else. Like it really locks them into nothing but IB. But the IB careers, they can take two courses and get their IB career diploma and that allows them to
057take some dual enrollment, some AP, some IB. So, the numbers look low, but there are some students that are taking IB courses here and there. And if you looked at at all of those numbers in all the different courses, you'll see that there's those are not necessarily the same students over and over. They're different students. And so we do have students that are like you said taking a chance and taking a class. But that is something that we are looking forward to what maybe even our primary years program at 7 Oaks Elementary can begin to develop students so that they have that global mindset to want to do some of the IB programming. We also have the international middle school with Irmo Middle where it comes through. So that pipeline is forming, but um certainly
058something that we will be continuing to look into. Do we have any other questions, Savannah? Just a few questions. Do each high school's principles, do they select which courses are available or all or are all all 19 available to all high schools? Spring Hill is the only school that has um a few less. Um they have a larger AP um focus at Spring Hill High School and that's the only school that would have a few less. So does the and I know you mentioned that it goes to both their college GPA and then their high school. Would that affect our school report cards negatively if they perform poorly? Dual enrollment is not part of the school report card. No. That was all. Thank you. Is there tuition assistance for students in the summer? Yes. Yes.
059Thank you, Mrs. Skully. Yeah. Regarding the question Miss Huddle asked about the um the location being able to to be in each high school. Did that when did that change? Because when I was at Hero and it was in the early 90s, I took a psychology class that I got USC credit for. How did how did that go from that to losing it from the high school and and all being centered in one location or was that so years ago there was a different partner than Midlands Tech and we do have Midlands Tech as the partner now. Okay. Um so that that's part of it. um some of our some of our teachers within our buildings can become teachers of the dual enrollment classes if they have the criteria for that and then we could
060use our own teachers to teach the class but Midland's Tech I mean like if the class if the school only has one or two students can't send a teacher there for one or two students. So that that's really kind of where we are with that. We do have a school right now that's got a pretty large growing number that we are looking at what the possibility of having the class at that school could possibly be. But it is a logistics kind of Yeah. No, and I understand and but I do agree with Miss Huddle's point that the chicken and the egg thing. I think just reflecting back I mean that was an extremely popular I mean they had I think she the teacher had I was part of one of two full classes that she
061taught that semester I took it. So it was extremely full and popular and in demand. So I think if it was an option if we could somehow get to a a place where we had the numbers it would it would be popular. Anybody else? All right. Thank you. Thank you. So, we want to go into AI. Um earlier in executive session, we talked about um the AI magic school and you'll be voting on that soon. But as promised from a few meetings back, I told you that I would bring to you our position statement for AI. So, we met with Ory County and we've talked with several other districts across the Midlands and and Greenville and lots of places within the state to talk to them about what they're doing with their AI statements. And
062we have crafted hours um to look as you see before you now, but it it goes into the academics piece, the ethics piece, the student centered learning, the support, and the communication pieces of that. We also whoops we also have developed the guidelines for teachers and staff to use of using AI and then guidelines for students using AI. So that we have some criteria there that shows teachers that the expectation is that we have to teach students how to use the AI first and foremost. And then for students that they have to understand that their their teachers are going to be guiding them and showing them how to use AI ethically and responsibly. Um because it is the wave of the future. It's here. We don't have any choice in it. But we also have
063to know how to use it correctly. Um, and so that's part of of that document. And the final document is some guidance for parents on how to use AI and how to help their their children to use AI and some key points to to point out for that. There'll also be resources for parents as well on our website that will help guide them if they have questions. There'll be some resources there for them as well. The last thing on the academics is to discuss a band PE band course three years ago. Um it was approved by the state that the band could become a PE course and then every three years it needs to come before the board again um for approval. And so what you have in front of you is the syllabus with
064all the information in terms of the month by month how it how band will correlate with the PE standards and where that will be incorporated. So that is it for the academic update and I'll answer any questions that you may have. Do we have any questions for Miss McCascal? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss McCowskal. For a bond referendum update, uh as we move forward in our referendum from 2024, be reminded of all the projects that we had set for us. Uh the first and the highest priority was the security upgrades to include the security vestibule entrances and the cameras. Uh today we bring for action uh the procurement of the camera systems but I wanted uh for the public and for the board to see just an update of what this system would
065entail. Uh for security reasons some of the particulars of uh the details have to remain in executive session to not compromise the uh capabilities of this system. So, I invite our chief of student services and planning, Dr. Harris, to come forward with an update on zero eyes and crisis go for our security bond referendum purchase. Dr. Harris, thank you. Uh, Dr. Ross, um, madame chair, members of the board of general community, we're certainly excited about an opportunity to talk with you in reference to an update to security systems. um and that uh inclusive of that what we refer to as crisis go if I've said it once I'll certainly say it again I think the item that we're talking about is perhaps the second best thing that has happened in such a long time here
066in the district the first being that of the collaboration and partnerships that have exist that continue to exist between divisions and departments namely our safety office as well as our technology office uh certain under the leadership of uh Dr. Garary as chief operations officer. We've invited uh director Jenny Garris and our lead safety officer, Officer Wise, to come and share with you in reference to Zero Eyes and its uh collaboration and uh partnership with crisis go system that we currently have in our school district 5. Good evening, madam board members. Dr. Ross, thank you. Appreciate that. I'm very excited to bring uh just kind of a brief today of a new AI gun detection software that we have been vetting. Uh this is going to excuse me integrate with our crisis go as uh Dr.
067Harris has stated but today I kind of just want to give you a 50,000 foot view of what it looks like, how it works and how it messages us in emergency situation. Sorry. So just kind of overview of what zero eyes is with the detection platform. We always want to look and we're talking about IIA. How is it learning? How is it vetting items that are coming to our schools and sending those alerts? So cool with zero eyes. It it is a learning software in the fact that it is always getting better. It's always learning getting better. There's no facial detection and I'm going to know uh director Garris is going to speak more on Furpa and stuff with that in a second. When we're looking at visual detection, as you can see up in
068the presentation, it does narrow down to an item in question, an item of interest, and when it does that, it does time stamp it and helps us get to that location in a quick manner. The big thing with Zero Eyes that we're excited about that may differ from other AI gun detection software system is that this is man 247 365. That's that's awesome. Really helps us out. And the whole goal with this human verification is it's cutting down time that we need to go into a lockdown emergency situation. Three to five seconds. The whole goal of this software system is to be proactive in the sense that it gives us more time in an advanced situation, advanced notice to go into a lockdown, which inevitably keeps our schools and our students safer. And the last
069we'll talk about alerting. The alerts allow us to narrow down where that individual is on school campus without going into detail, which allows law enforcement, safety officers, and the SRO's on campus to respond quicker as well. So, how does it really work actually looking at the detection and alerts? As you see on the presentation, it detects we have an a weapon, a possible weapon. It goes to that human verification within a matter of seconds. It has the ability to not only alert people on campus, but also law enforcement dispatch, which really cuts down the whole 911 phone call and it allows them to get rolling here quicker than what we have right now. The next thing we're going to talk about is the biggest one that we would like to talk about is hold yours.
070Okay. All right. So, in the data privacy um and protection side of it, I just want to point out some things about this system. This is an AI software. Um, it does not collect or store PII. Basically, there's an appliance that the camera feed goes through and the AI weapons detection and it's only weapons detection. It's not facial detection. Um, it's not monitoring the live stream per se. What happens is the um camera feed when it detects a weapons a weapon, the AI sends images to zero eyes. They have what they call a Zach and it sends it directly there. And these are still images. So I think it's important to say this is not someone that's monitoring and watching a wall full of our camera feeds. This is detecting a weapon. When it happens,
071the image is sent to zero eyes and then uh officer Wise will talk about the steps that happen next. But I think from a privacy standpoint, I want to make clear on that of how this works. Also um they do not collect or distribute PII. So they are compliant to FURPA. And also the last thing I'll point out up on this slide is the uh that they're vetted by the Department of Homeland Security. So they have several different certifications that they have passed that are pretty high level in terms of what they're when they um what they can do with that data when they transport it, it's protected and so on. So I think that's an important part that I want make sure people understand of how that works. The the live human part of
072it is only after the weapon is detected. Thank you. I appreciate it. So, I was excited. So, now I'm going to talk about it. The best part of this zero eyes, it is integrated into Crisis Go. And with that being with our emergency notification app that we use across the district being automated into Crisis Go cuts down the crucial seconds from being detected by this software system to issuing that alert. And that's invaluable. being able to cut down that time, be proactive, and let us know that something is approaching our school grounds or that it is our school grounds that's a danger to to students and staff. To help better explain this to you and to see how it is integrated, I'd like to show you a video of how Zero Eyes is integrated into
073uh Crisis Go. I can I can I can narrate right now. Okay. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] So to Dr. Ross, members of the board and community, this is a a brief presentation of the the um crisis goal which is in combination with our zero eyes and certainly stand ready for any questions that you might have. Uh but again a very uh worthwhile, very useful and very upto-ate tool that this district can certainly incorporate into it repertoire of safety features and safety measures. turn it back over to for any questions you might have. Do we have any questions? Right. Thanks y'all. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much for uh this opportunity to share what we have going on in operations, academics, and with our
074update for the bond referendum. That uh concludes the superintendent's report and I stand for any questions. Do we have any questions for Dr. Ross? All right. Thank you, Dr. Ross. That moves us to the approval of the minutes from the April 7th board meeting. Madam Chair, I make a motion to approve the minutes of the April 7th, 2025 board meeting. Have a second. Second. All in favor? All oppose. And the motion carries six to zero. At this time, I open the floor for public participation. It's my understanding we have one participant. Correct. Yes, ma'am. That's correct. Um, the board welcomes and encourages public participation. We respectfully ask that you adhere to the procedures provided in board policy BEDH, public participation at meetings. Your comments should be limited to three minutes and must remain on either
075the topic noted on your sign-in form or a listed agenda item. Questions asked during public participation will be handled in accordance with board policy behing enrollment information on the website and disclosing fund balance information. um that you post the uh enrollment reports for the 45day average daily membership and the 135 day average daily membership on your website. You have all kinds of enrollment data posted, but it doesn't include those two important reports which district 5 is required to submit to the department of education. The reports reports which um used to be posted on your website um are used by demographers to determine growth in a school's attendance area and in determining your budget. In fact um the numbers um though just the grand total are used in tonight's budget presentation but nowhere on your website
076um are they to be seen. Also tonight, the superintendent is asking the board by way of changing a board policy to approve an increase in the district's operating reserve account, which will be funded by a tax increase. One of the main reasons for the reserve fund is to be able to cover your monthly bills in advance of tax revenue being collected. The shortfall in your cash account occurs during the first few months of the year. However, the superintendent has not shown that the current amount is inadequate. There has been no discussion before the final final vote tonight uh of on the policy how much over the $60 million um you're how much of that $60 million you're actually spending um during that time period. um and um you've not shown that it's not adequate to
077um and now you're requesting an increase. But it's interesting um during those during throughout the year and during the shortfall months, money has been spent on other things from that reserve as if the purpose of the excess tax dollars from taxpayers is to fund things that have not been publicly vetted in a budget. Some of it doesn't even go towards education. It goes towards construction. There are no controls in place. It's sort of like a slush fund. But now you're being asked to approve even more money going into the reserve without showing any uh indication or giving any information to indicate that it's inadequate. I request that before you vote um that you request this information and that instead of approving an increase, please consider using tax anticipation notes like the district has done for
078many years. Uh this would avoid a tax increase and avoid the temptation of using the reserve as a slash fund. Thank you very much. Thank you. That takes us to our action agenda. Starting with action is necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session. Do we have any motions? Make a motion to approve selected employment items discussed in exhibit A. We have a second. Second. All those in favor? All opposed? And the motion carries six to zero. Make a motion to approve the subscription agreement contract with zero eyes incorporated as shown in exhibit D subject to changes discussed in executive session. You have a second. Second. All in favor? All oppose. And the motion carries six to zero. Make a motion to approve the master services agreement contract with Magic School Incorporated as shown
079in exhibit E. Second. All in favor? Miss Hunt, Miss um Kimberly, Miss Knight? Yes. Can we discuss? Sure. Um I just I don't think that that we're this program is ready for us. Um I'm we found an item related directly to our school district that it got wrong. Um, my sister-in-law teaches in a in a county that is using this and she teaches math, middle school math. And um, their teachers uh, have reported problems with it, with it being inaccurate. And so I would I would just like to voice that I really think we should wait on this and look at uh what other tools are vetted completely vetted so we don't have to our teachers don't have to wonder whether or not it's accurate. Mrs. Satderfield. Yes. U I understand uh kind of what
080Miss Huddle is saying. I I want to emphasize something though that when you put in a a program like this, this is not something that is appealing to everybody in your and your teaching staff. Um we have been given presentations two presentations I think on this now and uh um the our instructional services uh and uh testimony of many teachers and we have explored other schools that have been using this um I think that uh because of their recommendation and the research that they've done it's not like they just found something on the internet and said look here I think this is a good idea how about let's put this in our schools. Um, I can tell you no matter what program that you came up with, you'll always have a teacher here and there
081who would say, "I just don't like it." And that's just human nature. Um, but I think uh, the reason I would like to endorse this is because um, we have the people who are dedicated to our instruction and our teachers and everything, they have done lots of their research. They have gone to other districts um and gotten favor very favorable responses and um and the teachers that have tried it. We have several testimonies that were shared. Um so I think uh I think we should move forward with Do we have any other comments before we take the vote? All right. All those in favor? Those opposed? And the motion carries 42. Make a motion to approve the professional development services requested in exhibits F and G. Second. All those in favor. The motion carries 6
082to zero. Make a motion to approve the city of Columbia water easement shown in exhibit H. Second. All those in favor? The motion carries 6. Make a motion to approve the purchase of property proposed in exhibit I subject to the contract presented in executive session. A second. All those in favor? All oppose. Miss Snipes. Yes. See, sorry, I was trying to get your attention. I have an amendment. What was that, Miss Hod? I would like to amend the motion. All right. Um, I would like to amend the motion to defer the purchase of land until we have closed on the sale of land under the um, next item on the agenda. Second. Um, the reason I want to do this is it's this is a very expensive piece of land that we're talking about purchasing
083and we do have alternatives. Meanwhile, this other potential sale that could offset this or help offset this. It's it it's going to be at least a few weeks before it closes and anything could happen between our motion if it passes to sell it and it actually closing. Meanwhile, we're not in urgent need to purchase this land today. So, that's the reason I think that we ought to defer just to make sure the other goes through. We have a an amendment to the motion on the floor. All those in favor of Miss Huddle's motion to defer. All opposed. And the motion fails 4 to two. Back to the original um motion on the floor. All in favor? All opposed? And the motion carries 4 to two. Make a motion to approve the letter of intent for
084the proposed sale of property discussed in exhibit J. All in favor? And the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. That moves us to the approval of the OS offs waiver form shown in exhibit L. Make a motion to approve the OFS Office of Federal and State Accountability waiver form shown in exhibit L. I got a second. Second. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor? The motion carries 6 to Z. Make a motion to approve the budget transfer request to African-American studies textbooks shown in exhibit M. Second. Do we have questions from the second? All in favor? The motion carries 6. Make a motion to approve the second and final reading of proposed revisions to board policy DFAB reserve funds shown in exhibit N. Second. Miss Snipes, I move to amend the motion. Yes,
085ma'am. Um, I move to amend the motion to remove the word undesated from the first sentence of the fourth paragraph and to change the percentage in the fourth paragraph to 17.5 to 25%. And lastly, to add the following paragraph, unrestricted fund balance above policy requirement. In the event the year-end fund balance exceeds 25%, the board will determine the cause of the excess if the cause of the excess is a structural trend and if so address the cause to ensure excess fund balances do not continue in future years. Reassignments of excess fund balance will be require vote of the board. The board will make every effort to use excess fund balances for expenses with a direct positive academic impact. However, excess fund balances may not be used as a funding source for ongoing recurring expenditures. And
086I sent you guys all this as an email today and I also have a document that I sent that I would like to put in the minutes. So, I'll email that um to Amy. But the the reasons for the um well, let me see if I get a second. I second the motion. Okay. Um the reasons for this is and I I outlined that in in the document, but they're they're basically two controlling entities here. First is the Moody's and the Moody's doubleA rating is 17.5 to 25% of your fund balance. Not your restricted fund balance, but your fund balance. And so that's why I think we should remove the word restricted. And that's why I think we should change the percentage to match Moody's. Also, the GFAO is not a requirement. Moody's isn't either,
087but it's a suggestion or a recommendation. And they specifically mentioned that school districts can have lower than their twomonth um recommendation. Um and even two months would be 16.6% restricted fund balance. So the ideal for Moody's would al also work for the GFAO recommendation. And lastly, the GFAO recommends that if you're consistently having excess fund balance, you should study that and determine if there's a reason for that that that needs a trend that needs to be addressed. So I think that needs to be in our policy. Um because that's what the GFAO recommends. but also we have consistently I believe for the last four years had excess fund balance. So those are the the reasons that I think we should make those changes. Miss Snipes, I would just like to say we have Jay Glover
088from PFM and Luke Vickery from Manley Garvin on the phone as well in case there's any questions for any discussion. So just want to let you know they're available as well. Thank you. Do we have other questions or discussion before we go? Mr. Satderfield. Yeah. Um, that was a lot of changes. I mean, that was a whole melody of changes. Um, I wish I had gotten something earlier, Miss uh, I don't know if you could have emailed us something to study that. That's um, you want to go? I did email it, but it was around 3:00 today, so I apologize for the lateness, but I did email it. Oh, wow. Okay. Um, yeah, maybe earlier so we can make sure we got it. You want to go through that again slowly so I can Okay.
089I just want to make sure. It's basically three changes and two of them are very small. One of them is to remove the word undesated from the first sentence of the fourth paragraph and the other is to change the percentage in the fourth paragraph to 17.5 to 25%. And both of those changes are supported by the way Moody's rates school districts which Mr. Glover could speak to if if you'd like him to. And then the last change was to just add a paragraph as recommended by the GFAO on how do you deal with recurring excessive fund balances? Mr. Heron, did you want to say something? I'm only asking because your mic was on, so I'm just making sure. Sorry. Didn't want to skip anybody. All right. Well, if we don't have further discussion or questions,
090we have um an amendment to the original motion on the floor. So, I will take that up first. All those in favor of Miss Huddle's amended motion. All opposed. The motion fails 4 to two. And then we have an original motion on the floor. All those in favor? All those opposed. And the motion carries 4 to two. That takes us into the first reading of the budget. Make a motion to approve the first reading of fiscal year 2025 2026 general fund budget shown in exhibit O. I'll second that. I want to say thank you Jay and Luke for being on the phone. All right, so first reading of our general fund budget 2526. All right, so just our budget calendar just to give you an overview of kind of where we are. We started the
091year off with a budget workshop on March uh 10th and April 7th. Um tonight is our first reading and we have conference committee that starts tomorrow at noon which is essentially house two. So the budget has passed the house, gone to the senate, and now is going back to the house um to debate anything that is different between the two versions. And that will start tomorrow at noon. We're looking for conference and house to go through this week, 6th to the 8th. Um the snee die adjournment is May 8th and we look for um having a budget shortly thereafter. Um we will have our second reading on May 19th and our third and final reading on June 9th. All right. So um our budget level considerations at the district level. So we as um Dr.
092Dr. Ross mentioned, we actually start our budget with looking at our average daily membership and our weighted pupil units. Um, average daily membership is that report is available on the South Carolina Department of Education's website. You can look at that for district. You can look at it by school. Um, that is a a report that we have to certify with the South Carolina Department of Education after our 45th day and our 135th day. And so those numbers are published by the South Carolina Department of Education. Our weighted pupil units is a different metric that we do not have a statewide report that calculates weighted pupil units for the state. So while that is a metric that we have to take into consideration for our state funding formula, it is not something that we can look
093at globally as all of the schools in the state. So, we know what ours look like, but we don't have a report that we can go to and say, how are we in comparison with other districts, which is one piece of the formula that I'll get into in a little bit of how this complicated funding formula is impacting our ability to project our um our revenue. So, other state considerations, budget considerations at the state level. So, a couple of things that passed both the House and the Senate. Um both the House and the Senate have voted to increase the state minimum salary schedule for bachelor's year zero to $49,000. Um that's a $1,500 increase over where the state was last year. They've also voted for a $1,500 per cell increase in the state teacher salary
094schedule. Now, if you think back to last year when the state voted on increasing the state teacher salary schedule, it wasn't a flat dollar amount per cell. Um it was to bump up every cell. And so some cells, the ones closer to the bachelor zero in those first few years got a much higher increase than the doctorate many more years of experience. So it was a very disproportionate increase across all of the lanes in the state teacher salary schedule. This year it is a flat dollar amount. So last year everybody got an increase. It wasn't proportional. This year everybody's getting a flat increase. Um there's also a 2% increase for our uh school bus drivers which are our state employees. So all three of those passed both houses of uh both the house and the
095senate and will not have to go to conference because they're in both both versions of the budget. Right. So a couple of considerations at the district level. Um when we look at our stakeholder ser stakeholder survey um from all of our different stakeholders of what the priorities were for this year um increased teacher salary was the number one priority across all stakeholders. So we looked at a couple of different iterations. One of the things that's in the state budget is to get rid of the bachelor's plus 18 um uh lane essentially in the teacher salary schedule to move it from five lanes down to four. And so we talked about as a district how could we hold those teachers harmless? We don't want to move them back because even though the state will move their
096certifications back to bachelors, there will no longer be a bachelor's plus 18 certification level. we don't want to penalize those teachers because that's that's the salary they've been given. So we looked at taking our salary schedule and moving our bachelors to the bachelor's plus 18. So that gives us a a increase on that first level, but it doesn't harm those teachers that are already there. So, our first option was to do that, move the bachelor's pay scale, uh, remove the bachelor's plus 18 and move the bachelor's pay scale, and then do the $1,500 per cell across all the cells in the teacher salary schedule. And then option two, we did that same thing. We removed the bachelor's plus 18, moved the bachelors over a lane, and then added $1,000 per cell because the state essentially
097said they will give us $1,000 per cell in the bachelor's plus 18 lane and $1,500 per cell in every other lane. However, the funding for that doesn't add up. We'll get there. So, what does that look like in terms of cost increase? Um, option one to move everyone to bachelor's plus 18 that's in the bachelor sale plus increasing each sale um at $1,500 in every other lane is a $9 million increase in our in our um salary and benefits. Um 75% of that is actual salary increase and this also includes fringe retirement FICA all of the increases that go up with this increased salaries. Option two to do the same but moving them moving each cell up only $1,000 is a 7.8 8% or $7.8 million increase over our current salaries. Um the second priority
098when we looked at our priorities across all stakeholders was to increase support staff. So we looked at support staff and doing a 2% increase like we would do for the bus drivers which was in the state budget. So 2% increase for support staff is 5.8 million increase and then the bus drivers would be $386,000 increase. So other budget considerations um potentially salary potential salary and benefit decreases. So we looked at where we can u where we can have some savings in operations what we can what we can reduce there. And so all of those temporary time limited positions that were included in ESSER that the board voted to fund one year through last year. Those positions were funded one quarter of the year last year through ESSER funds and threearters of the year last year.
099So starting October 1, those positions rolled to general funds. So they were funded for threequarters of the year last year out of general funds. So if we were to remove those positions since they are no longer funded with ESSER and that would be a $1.2 million reduction in our operations cost and salaries. Um so that would be a give back to the operations budget. And then the current cost of the NER program which if we look at the teachers we're recruiting we're recruiting more uh teachers that have come in with a few more years experience. So we haven't seen as many come in that would qualify for the NRE program. the current year we're in, we paid $394,000 out as part of the Ner. And so whatever we would um what we would do with
100that next year, we would fund that out of fund balance to continue that program for one more year. One other additional consideration, we have to pay for our sled checks. And so this year that's about $63,000 that we need to add into our operations budget to cover those expenses. So how do we do this? Dr. Ross has talked about our jar. So, uh, we have 64% of our funding comes from state, 35 from local, um, and there's that last little bit from some other funding. Um, so how does this look? Um, again, prior to Act 388, we were we were closer to 50/50, but what do other districts look like? So, when you start looking at what other districts look like across the state and how they're funded, um, this is kind of hard to
101see there, but if you look at Charleston, Charleston receives 32% from the state and they receive 64% of their funding from the locals. Um, so they they have so much more flexibility because that additional funding is coming from their local piece. They're only receiving a small portion from the state. Um, Lexington One is more in line with where we are. uh 63% from the state and 37% of their funding comes from their local. Fort Mill is about 50/50. They have 51% from the state and 49% from local. And then district 5 is at 64 state and 35% local. So why is this uh an issue this year? Why is this starting to become more of a concern? So state aid to classrooms which is outlined in proviso 1.3 outlines how the state looks at providing
102aid to classrooms. So it looks at a a dual model that has proportionality as well as some weighted pupil units. It's looking at how you compare to the state but also how you are growing within the state. if you're growing at the same rate of the state or if you're growing but you're not growing at the rate of the state that impacts your um your allocations from the state. So how do they come up with this? So the state looks at this funding formula that takes the total number of students across the state this year they're looking at 770,000 students and they have a student studenttoteer ratio that they base the number of teachers across the state on which is 11.2 two and they come up with okay how many teachers do we need across
103the state for this formula. So total number of students ratio of 11.2 uh teachers to student ratio and they take an average salary um this year it's masters plus 12 years of experience at 77,000 and that's the allocation they give for the additional state aid to classroom for teacher increases. So that's the total statewide allocation. That statewide allocation has dramatically decreased over the last few years. In FY24, the new state aid to classrooms was $324 million. Last year, that allocation was $200 million. This year, we're looking at only $112 million. And if you look at how that splits out, um, in the past the last two years, which if you remember three years ago, the state changed the funding formula to calculate this uh this kind of two dual um dual model where they're looking
104at uh your growth, but also the growth of the state and then your ability to pay with your local district. Um, but also funding both charter and traditional schools out of the same dollar. So in the past two years since this funding formula has been in place, traditional funding has been about 75% of the additional the total additional new funds and charter schools have received about 24%. You can see the total number of traditional students the last few years while it has decreased slightly it has been around 93%. The total number of charter students across the state has increased from 5.8 to 7.4. However, the percentage that charter schools are receiving versus the percent that traditional schools are receiving this year has dramatically changed. We've gone from receiving 75% of the new funding to receiving
10554% yet we have 92% of the students statewide. Um so why has this become a problem? Um and here's just the same information in a chart form. So the the total state aid to classrooms of $112 million new new money this year um 54% of that is going to essentially 90% of the students whereas 43 or 45% of that is going to about 8%. So and there's the there's the numbers. So 45th day adjustment for charter schools was about 57,000 students and the 45th day adjustment for traditional schools was about 700,000 students. So this has been complicated by a couple of things. So last year's allocation for increased teacher salary because of the um the non uh uniform increase across the board played a part into this. Um when you look at that average the
106uh masters plus 11 years that number last year was the average whereas the cells closer to the bachelor's plus zero got the majority of the funding. the closer to the doctorate plus 20 years experience got very little of the funding. So you lost a little bit of the cushion with the those dramatic differences now that you've got one set dollar amount across all cells. And so that has been a part that's played into this um this change. Also the last three years we've also had ESSER funds. So we've had an additional padding of funding that we've lost this year. Um if you look at our fund balance increase over the last few years it's almost equal to what ESSER was. So you can see we were being essentially propped up by funds that we are
107no longer getting this year. Right. So what do our state budget estimates look like this year? Based on our 45th day enrollment, um the House Ways and Means gave us a projection on additional um the additional funding we should get, which is a little over $4 million. Now, we are not guaranteed to get this $4 million because we have not gotten an addition we have not gotten an additional projection based on our 135th day enrollment, which was essentially flat from our 45th day. So, from that aspect, we should be receiving the same amount of funding. But we don't know what our WPUs look like in comparison to the state. So, there is part of the formula that is an unknown to us because we don't have a statewide report that calculates the weighted pupil units.
108Um, so this projection will be altered based on the 135th day enrollment as well as the weighted pupil units across the state at that time. And again, we will see an additional change to this based on our 45th day moving into next year. So the state will essentially adjust this throughout the year and we'll see that potential increase or reduction in our monthly allocations from the state as we move forward. All right. Right. So our local revenue what we do essentially have control over. So our local revenue is again a little bit simplified allocation based on proviso 1.3. So the state takes those weighted pupil units and they determine our portion based on the state. Again we don't have a report to know how we compare to other districts. And then they adjust for charter
109schools because the charter schools don't have a local funding base. So they are 100% funded by state funds. And then they look at our index of taxpaying ability. So how are we able to collect taxes based on um the wealth of our district versus other districts in the state. Um I think at last look we were about 16th across uh we were 16th highest in the state as far as our index of taxpaying ability which just means that we have a higher tax base and a higher ability to to increase our local taxes. Um so what does that mean for our local revenue? So after act 388, we don't get operating um expenses from any of our 4% properties or any of our primary residences. We only receive um uh debt service millage from our
1104% properties. We're essentially collecting on 6% businesses um rental properties and cars and vehicles. So this year also the uncertainty, that's going to be my word for this budget, the uncertainty of our um our uh local revenue. Both our counties, Lexington and Richland are going through uh reassessments. Richland did their reassessment last year. Lexington is looking at our their reassessment this year. So that means we're in a roll back year. So what does that mean? So our roll back value should be we need to c we need to c collect the same dollar amount in t local taxes that we did last year. The property values have increased and so we need to we would lower our millillage to a roll back millillage to collect the same taxes um if we were to do a
111full roll back. So Richland County sent out their property taxes in December with those reassessed values. Lexington will send those out this coming December. So we'll we'll see those taxes coming in next year. So, our total estimated new assessed value on non-owner occupied, so this is for our operating expenses. Um, these are values that have been given to us by Lexington and Richland County based on their reassessed values, um, as $366 million. So, using an estimated collection rate at 95%, um, the adjusted estimated assessed value would be $348 million for an estimated value of a mill at $348,000. Um our projected revenue from last year was 84.7 million and if we were to do a true roll back to calculate only collecting 84.7 million which is our projected revenue from last year um we would
112need to roll back our millillage to 200 243.2 mills. So with that roll back we are allowed to um increase based on the consumer price index as well as our population growth. So our consumer price index is 2.95 and our population growth is 2.04. These numbers are given to us by revenue and fiscal affairs and our allowable growth percentage for this year is 4.99%. So if we were to look at our operating millage from last year 2.66 uh mills our roll back millillage of 2.4 243.2 our millillage cap for this year would be 12.1. So that's taking into that taking into consideration our allowable percentage increase. So allowable but not previously implemented. We also have a look back provision where we can look back three years on any millillage that we haven't um used to
113increase our taxes over the last three years and we have availability to use that. So um this year we have 12.1 and then the previous two years we have 39.7 mills available for a total allowable millage increase of 51.8. So looking at the mill cap from the last few years, that's how I come up with a cumulative total of the 51.8 uh look back mills. Um and then the impact to the general fund. So if we were to have um uh to use the 12.4 mill cap for this year, we would uh we would raise an additional $4.2 million. So what are our options or what are your options for our millage rates for our local taxes? So in FY24 with our millillage at 266 with a value of a mill at $34,000 we project
114800 or $84.7 million. So our true roll back and with our updated value of a mill based on both reassessments in Richland and Lexington County at a new value of 348,000 our roll back millage would be 243.2 and that would collect $84.7 million. So zero additional revenue for next year based on the true roll back calculation. So if we were to look at roll back plus growth. So take that roll back mill millillage 243.2 and add 12.1 that's just including our consumer price index plus our allowable growth with our current value of a mill we would collect an additional $4.2 million. The third option there is millage stabilization. So to keep the millage rate at 266 which is our current millage rate in order to do that we would essentially excuse me we would essentially
115have to use 10.7 mills of the look back millillage allowed to us. So 10.7 mills would get us from 255.3 which is our roll back plus CPI and growth um plus 10.7 would get us to 266. That would increase our revenue by $7.9 million. And to go to the far extreme end of what's allowable, um we could increase our millillage an additional 29. So 29 plus 10.7 is the total um look back mills allowed to us outside of this year. We could essentially increase our millage rate to 295, which would bring in an additional $18 million. So, I wanted to give the board our true options from one extreme to the other and let you see what um what your local revenue options are based on what the priorities are voted on. All right. So,
116I'm going to stop there for a minute before we get into fund balance and see if you have any questions because that was a lot of information. Um and again so much of this is um with Richland and Lexington County both going through a reassessment. Lexington County decided to change their computer system for at the assessor's office the same year they did a reassessment. Um so their computer systems have been giving um different reports based on last year. So, we've had a lot of discussion with them and the other CFOs across all of our Lexington districts to make sure that we have the most um up-to-date, accurate information that we're all looking at the same thing because so much has changed this year um with just the lo with the local piece, but also the
117state piece. And so, there are so many changes to our revenue streams from the state side, from the local side. Um wanted to give you all this information, but also tell you this is these are my best numbers given the information I've been given. Um, and so all of this and talking to the county auditors, they're like, you know, it's it's the information we have is the information we have and that's the information I'm going off of. So I will say that so much of this is uncertain. Understood. Thank you. Mr. Bayum had a question. So I'll start there. So last year I sat through as many as I could of the the meetings where they were discussing the bond referendum and um I don't know if if it was ever brought up the cost
118of the additional staff that we'll need for these new programs. You know, we've talked about increasing our salaries for staff and teachers. I don't know if we have a number of what that looks like for these new programs that we're going to implement for the bond referendum because those will be obviously reoccurring expenses that need to to shoulder. So, as we're thinking through these, you know, increased amounts. I mean, I would imagine that's into the millions for all these additional personnel. So, I don't know if we just have some rough back in the back math for that. What additional the different programs that we're going to be initiating like from the construction lab to the small business incubator to the the different schools and as we're know obviously increase personnel to you know staff those
119projects was that factored in last year when y'all were discussing the bond bond referendum I wasn't a part of the board so just curious so the the um Kate programs that we have are rotation of our our current offerings as one offering and you know with Kate or extracurricular is driven by student enrollment so as enrollment increases in one area it may decrease in the other And so we would rotate those teachers around to the areas of need. Uh there could be just as any budget year um if there are increases and you know we take that with that that previous budget year. So that's why I was asking what specific programs most of our referendum um items were to fix the current conditions of our facilities. Um but the cake programs just like any
120other cake offering that we have um as we we presented during the referendum talk discussions uh that Mr. Priy show we are rotating programs around due to losing enrollment in some areas but we're offering more options in others. So we can do we would have a better estimate of that once the registration comes out. But the majority allian referendum wants to fix existing facilities and their conditions. Miss Hule, you're muted, Miss Hut. Sorry. Um I was looking at last year's package and we had a projected u basically a a income statement revenues showing um the current year's actual estimated versus the budget and the same thing for the expenses and I don't did I miss it or do we not have that in this year's presentation? I do not have that in this year's presentation.
121I can definitely get that for you though. We can we can include that. Okay. And I mean could you also I've had some people emailing me about it. Could you um put it in the bould we put it in the board packet or is it too late to do that after the board meeting? You can do that. Okay. And then I also had a question um and you don't have to answer it right now, but I would like to answer if you could by our next board meeting. And that is what would the millage rate be if we used a 99% collection rate? And and I ask because if you look at the AFER the the annual financial reports we average over I think 99% both in Lexington and Richland County ultimate collections and I
122I believe that's you're getting ready to talk about fund balance but I believe the fact that we're using a 95% when our actual collection rates around 99% is is one of the reasons we keep having um excess fund balance. So, if if you could figure that what that number is out for us by the next meeting, that would be great. I actually have that calculation. I did it when I was looking at this um and talking to some other CFOs in the Lexington area. Some of them, most of them budget at 95% collection. Um looking at the data, it looks like we collect about 96 to 97% in the current year. Um a lot of those collections come in delinquent like as a property sells and we might get those um after the fact. um
123given the uncertainty of the n the the reassessed values essentially from both counties this year, there were so many other factors that I felt comfortable using the same so I could have kind of an apples to apples based on last year and then looking at what the what next year will look like given all of the uncertainty then potentially increasing that um to like a 97% collection in the next year because that again it's just one more factor to change in a year where everything's changing. ing and so when I was looking at it um but I can definitely I can definitely share those because I I did calculate it at a at a higher percentage rate to see what that would look like. Yeah, if you don't mind that would be great. And also
124what that dollar amount would be you know if in terms of if if um it didn't turn out to be 99% over you know 3 to four years what that loss revenue would be. So we can compare that to the fund balance. Mr. Scull. Yeah, thank you. Uh, Miss Tucker, kind of going back to the beginning of just uh make sure I I understood you. You said that 7 and a half% of the students in the state are going to receive 45% approximately of the state funding. Did I hear that right? You did. Okay. Um the my next question relates to the bachelor's plus 18. Um just so I can understand what's our long-term plan for that that lane. Are we looking to graduate those teachers through attrition off of that pay scale eventually? or
125are we going to continue to pay bachelor's plus 18 as a segment and whether we we hire new teachers with that on board or we continue to incentivize them to get the 18. What's our long-term plan there? Are we going to fill in any blanks that I missed? One of uh our goal this year is because the state's moving away, we won't have that verification on certificates anymore. So, the best thing for us to do was collapse that lane, that bachelor's plus 18. We did something very unique is we moved our bachelors to that line. So, our teachers with bachelors, they're going to get a big boost. So everybody from now on everybody coming in essentially getting what is currently the bachelor's plus 18. Correct. What we did to essentially hold harmless and I'll say
126essentially we took um basically the five lanes we cut the first lane off. So bachelor's what we were paying out we shifted them all the bachelor's 18. And do you know, I mean, because that's a statewide cut or everybody in the state loses that pay scale, do you know what other districts are doing? Not that I I'm asking because I care what they do, but perhaps Dr. Turner would Are we exploiting that as an advantage perhaps to to gain teachers from other districts who may not be who may not have made that shift? I'll cover Dr. Turner here, but One of the things that that everyone and I just be perfect, everyone is watching each person's budget presentation. So, we're going on Monday, they're watching us and then on Tuesday, other boards will meet and
127they kind of balance. So, that's kind of what goes on during this season. Uh what we have uh looked at is what we can do inhouse and inhouse uh was to try to get our teachers to that master's name. Uh and what you're going to see in our proposal here is that our teacher pay scale really at midpoint was very strong. It was at the beginning point that we we weren't as competitive as our neighboring. So with our proposal we are providing avenues to get to that master's lane but we are still giving a benefit to those with with that increase. Yes, we believe that if this scale should pass that we'd be very competitive in and I want to just take this uh opportunity madam chair we are looking for three readings on this
128and I will say um just to follow up on that if you look at the two options um let me get back to that real quick um the two options for teacher salary increases um so option one where we essentially move we get rid of that bachelor's lane and move all of those teachers over. So nobody in the bachelor's 18 would lose the bachelors would essentially have the highest gain. Um the additional of $1,000 per cell is an overall average of a 2% increase for all um for every cell in the teacher pay scale. Um the $1,500 is a essentially almost a 3% average. Um, but the highest gains because those those folks that were in the bachelor's lane that would be moving to the bachelor's plus 18 essentially gain more because they're moving over
129further and they're still having that increase. So there's a little bit of a higher increase there, but it's still an average of two and 3% increase. So do I understand correctly that we would choose either option one or two of the the teacher salaries? Yes, sir. That would be for that would be for the board's choice. Just wanted to give you some options on since since teacher salary was the number one increase um wanted to give some options on what those two would look like as far as um as far as pay increases. Okay. So supposing we went with option two and we have the bus driver increase. Just those two alone are $8 million. However, we're we're projected to receive 8 million less in new money based on the new calculations. So it's a
130math equation at this point. So, whatever increases we have on the um on the salary side, we're going to get the additional $4 million from the state provided that formula holds. Um so, whatever difference in that we would have to either make up with the the local piece. So, all right. You want to go ahead to the reserve fund? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Okay. So uh the last piece of this is our um is our fund balance. So our non-spendable fund balances of the year-end um audited financials uh was a total fund balance of 63.6 million. Um so that non-spendable piece is prepaid, inventory, things that are not really easily converted into cash. Um our assigned fund balance are things that the board has essentially voted to set aside. Um last year
131there was 3.5 million set aside for some construction. We had bonuses that was um there were things um essentially the 1.5 million that was set aside for portables that ended up being um reassigned for band instruments, band and orchestra instruments. That all falls under the assigned fund balance and the unassigned is what's available for non-recurring budget needs. We would never want to use our fund balance for anything that's recurring. Um which was our recommendation to use our fund balance to pay for one more year of NER. So currently board policy DFAB um uh shows our the different ranges there and so what um our options would be for fund balance is next year given the um uncertainty of what our revenues look like. We have the uncertainty with the state, the uncertainty with the local
132piece is just far as the reassessments. Um there are some bills moving through the state that could impact our um our expenses. We had there's a healthy meals which would increase our food cost. There is a Senate 78 which was essentially going to give uh one year of teacher credit for every two years of um of work experience. There are many other bills. The watercraft bill at the state that would cut taxes on your boats um would have a dramatic increase on taxes collected by the local entities. Um we actually collect about $2 million in taxes from Watercraft. So if we were to cut that in half, there's another million dollars that we could lose. So all of that uncertainty would be essentially supported by our fund balance given so much um that's up in
133the air for next year. Having a strong fund balance would give us the flexibility to essentially use our fund balance if we were to lose revenue or if we were to heaven forbid even lose federal funds um to give us some time to make some decisions. Um so these are our thresholds. the legal threshold of one month. Um our board policy which was uh voted on tonight um was previously 15 to 18%. Um and then the recommendations there um which again um voted on tonight. So our final piece. Thank you, Miss Tucker. Do we have any questions before I call for the vote? All those in favor and the motion carries um back to zero. I had to drop make a motion to approve the change of the July 14th, 2025 board meeting. Sorry, apologize.
134I correction. I make a motion to approve the first reading of proposed revisions to board policy KF, community use of school facilities shown in exhibit P. I have a second. Second. Do you have any questions or comments for a call for vote? All those in favor? The motion carries 5 Z. Make a motion to approve the change of the July 14, 2025 board meeting to July 21st, 2025. Second. And just before I call for the vote, do you just want to tell why we're making that change? Uh yes, Madam Chair. This is an opportunity uh during the summer. Uh we don't get a lot of utility in terms of interviews and during the 4th of July week. Uh so this allows when staff comes back after the 4th of July holiday, we can schedule those
135interviews and have those recommendations for the board packet. We will be able to hire more without calling a special call. If we move this meeting to Thank you. All those in favor? Oh, I'm sorry. So when this was scheduled last year and like coming up for the um the next schedule meeting. Are we taking that to account so you can have that time for for the future? Yes. Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor? And the motion carries 5 to zero. And that moves us um to the discussion agenda. Coming to the podium to discuss the hourly fees um as a this is a rule of the previous past KF policy is our chief operating officer Gerald Gary here. Good evening Dr. Ross, Madame Chair, um for the board members, we administration
136brings to you um the attached proposed visit administrator rule KFR, community use of school facilities and changes for KFE hourly schedule for use of district 5 facilities and KFE2 hourly fee schedule for outdoor facilities into one document KFE schedule for use of district 5 facilities. The fee schedule miles reflect the former fee schedule with a reduction in cost of the following spaces and updating the personnel sum benefits per hour chart to reflect current overtime rates for the district. The changes made to the fees a highlight of the document KF fee schedule for the use of district 5 facilities. All the changes are the ones we talked about um during our last discussion with the exception of one additional one. All staff require a three-hour minimum charge um regardless of how long the event is. In
137the past it was two. who were updated after 3 hours to help some of our employees um receive overtime pay. And I stand for any questions or discussion. Mr. Satderfield, I really don't have a question. I just want to make a comment. I I appreciate your hard work with all this. Uh this is a can that's been kicked down the road for several years actually. It's been something within our community and uh I understand their concerns and their wishes to get our students more involved, but Um, uh, again, you've done a a yman's job of looking into this and coming up with a plan that's feasible and I think acceptable, and I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that it all works out well. But, uh, again, this is something that's been talked about for
138for many years. So, I appreciate your efforts with this. Thanks, sir. Mr. Bum, and it looks like you've already kind of got it set up, but just as far as doing some research and talking with folks, um, some districts will use um salary personnel that don't require overtime. I do see where there's a like an hourly rate. I guess that's for non salary. That's that's an average. That's for our non- salary people. Correct. But but does use like just salary, you know, administrative staff, that's not something that would be first choice, I'm guessing. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? So for the facility, say if you use a high school in some districts, they'll use the principal or one of the assistants that are salary to, you know, open or close. I don't know if
139that was explored. Dr. Turner, can you kind of talk us through the salary, average salary? I think our um policy requires um a supervisor be on site. Are you saying the supervisors also provide custodial services? So if it was just one person that was needed like if you know they were open up for you know a church or a game or something that it would be the you know the principal or the assistant that would be open and close situation. Yeah, our policy does give the principal to discretion. If an administrator is not needed, they aren't required. We don't pass that um that charge on to the requester if it's not needed. Dr. G, do you see that the adding the minimum three hour might make this a more attractive option for our staff that
140they would maybe choose that rather than doing something else, one of the other jobs? We do think it's an attempt. It does many of them in overtime. We do think it's an attempt. Anybody else? Thank you so much. Thank you. Make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? And the motion carries five to zero. Y'all have a good night.