March 24 2025 School Board Meeting

001Good evening. It is 6 PM and I'm going to call the March 24th meeting to order. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? I make a motion to approve the agenda. Do I have a second? All in favor? All opposed? And the motion carries six 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 as shown in exhibit A for action. 2025 and 2026 reappointments as shown in exhibit B for action. Selected employment items in exhibit C for information only. Contractual matter regarding professional development services shown in exhibit D and review of student matter board policy JII student concerns, complaints and grievances as shown in exhibit N. Do I have a second? All in favor? All opposed? And

002the motion carries six to zero. And we will adjourn to executive session. Good evening. It is 7 pm. I'm going to go ahead and call our regular scheduled March 24th meeting to order. Thank you all for being here with us this evening. It's exciting to see that we have a packed house. I'm going to go ahead and ask um Trustee Mike Satderfield to give us the invocation and the pledge. Thank you. Could we bow our heads, please? Lord, help us to live our motto of loving and growing students. We pray for all who are involved in the educational process, students, teachers, support staff, and district staff. And may we always strive to follow the example of Jesus, the good shepherd. Help us to learn to care for and love those who are our sheep. May

003all our schools be filled with love, peace, and happiness. Finally, I pray for our board who makes decisions of the highest order for our district. May we always look through the lens of what is best for our teachers, staff, and most importantly, our students. Amen. Would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. As Miss Taylor comes forward for the school board spotlight, trustees, will you all join me up front? All right, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Ross, tonight we have what is turning into an annual treat um as we recognize the recipients of our School District 5 Foundation grants. So tonight

004I would like to introduce to you Dr. Mary Kennerly who will present the grant recipients. Thank you Chairman Snipes, school board members, and Dr. Ross. We're extremely happy to be here tonight to give the grant awards to these outstanding, amazing students. We want to say a big thank you to their parents for all of the support and encouragement they've given. We want to say an outstanding thank you to the teachers who are absolutely fabulous in what they do for these students. And we could not do this without the generous sponsors. So many sponsors in our community who have helped support this financially. Um, and I just want to let you all know, you you probably do, but this year the state science fair was not was held not too long ago. In the high school

005division, every single first place winner was a district 5 student. Four of them had our grants. [Applause] Every second place student winner was a district five students. Four of those students had our grants. Every third place winner was a district five students. Three of those students had our grants and many of the honorable mentions had our grants. I think this school district has a a tremendous amount to be proud of. The grants that these students wrote were designed to make life to give a better quality of life for all of us and they have great futures um to contribute to all of us as they move on. So um what we're going to do is I'm going to call the teachers up to read the names of their students and these are our past board

006chair and our current board chair um Scott Jones and Elizabeth Blog. They'll give out the big checks to these students. They'll shake your hands and then we want to get a photograph of each one of them. We have 69 students who wrote 45 grants and we spent a little over $13,000 to fund we funded every single grant that was written and submitted to the district 5 foundation. And just a reminder for as we read their names, the sponsor names will be with them and we just invite the sponsors to come up and walk with their student and we'll get a picture with the sponsor with their student. And the first um first teacher that I'm going to introduce is here from Chapen High School. Lori Taylor is with Miss Lisa Mith's class. And if Lori

007will come up, she's going to read her um students and we'll have them come up and honor them. Hi, I'm Lori Taylor here um for Chapen High. And my our first student is Jessup Bullwear. He was awarded the American Floral AP Environmental Research Grant. Our second student is Jacob Braden. He was awarded the Gabriel Pinfeld AP Biomed Research Grant. Then Elsa Gillespie, she was awarded the Infinity Dental AP environmental research grant. She was also a grand finalist at the region 2 science fair. Then we have Jennifer Kuyava. She was awarded the Rainbow Restoration AP environmental research grant. Then we have Leaken Lane. She was awarded the Dumbar AP biomed research grant. Then we have Jaylen Tucker. He was awarded the Pampered Chef AP Biomedical Award grant. And lastly for Chap, we have Virginia Parish. She

008was awarded the Midlands Family Chiropractic AP Environmental Grant and she was third place at the District Science Fair. Our next teacher is Leslie Twining. She's a teacher at Dutch Fork High School. Thank you. Uh our first student from Dutch Fork High School is Daniel Daniel Luther Barono. He won the Scott Mosley Irmo insurance agency and AP international relations research grant. Our second student is Hunter Taylor. He won the Edcon AP environmental research grant. Hunter also took first place in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at the District 5 Science Fair. And he took first place in the Earth and Science, Earth Science and Environmental Science at the Region 2 Science Fair. [Applause] The next teacher is Patrick Smallwood who's here at Kate. And the students here, as you know, come from all of our high

009schools. And I do want to say the grant recipients are from every high school in this school district. All right. The first uh team of students that I have is Annabelle Ashton, Meline Touchberry, and Anna Ma Mayors, and they're getting the National Safety Council biomedical research grant. And then Ian Cross, he's getting the Castle Travel Clean Energy Grant. And then Brooke Edwards and Malaya Buchanan, they're getting the David Stanley Biomedical Research Grant. Then Brendan Kudrich, he's getting the Todd and Joy Rambo Biomedical Research Grant. Um, the next team of students is Leila Lindler, Piper Peterson, and Margaret Floyd. They're getting the Terry Brock Agency biomedical research grant. The next team is Lake Newman and Justin Drinker. The White and Story Clean Energy Research Grant. Uh the next student is Andrew Nickerson. He's getting the Halligan

010Mahonian Williams Clean Energy Research Grant. The next team of three young ladies is Megan Proctctor, Sarah Wessinger, and Hayden Sanders. They're getting Drs. Allen and Barb Waldman Biomedical Research Grant. Then McKenna Ryer is getting the Lake Murray Morymo Rotary biomedical research grant. Then Brena Sers, she is receiving the Century Glass Service Biomedical Research Grant. Next is Allison Smith. She's receiving the Jill Smith Biomedical Research Grant. Then Charlotte Saur is receiving the Dr. Steven Lana Biomedical Research Grant. And then the last student that I have is uh Lydia WBLE. She's receiving the Harriet Ward Biomedical Research Grant. Thank you, Dr. Killer. Our next teacher is Sher Clap. She's also here at the case. Good evening. Um our first team for engineering design is um Tilby Wiltley and Heath Winger for their um project muscle melody. They

011have um received a grant from Flight Adventure Park for engineering design. Our second team is um the project is called Sizzlefree Survival with Olivia Mhoffer and Lena Frenzil. They have received the Mayor Bill Danielson engineering design research grants. Um this team also um has received a Samsung SOL for tomorrow state finalist technology package award for the class and at region 2 we just found out that they were a second tier engineering technology um winner. Our next team um which is not here is transition tints Gabriel St. Croy Hazer Pui. They received an engineering research grant from David's Fine Jewelry. Um, and then our next one was Ryan Tilton for Forget Your Medicine. That one was awarded by Chance of Lexington Engineering Design um, research grant and he is not here either. Um, my next one

012was Cycle Guard with Andrew Brandon and Noah Perkins. Um, they received their grant from Homes for the engineering design research grant. They were also an honorable mention at the district 5 science and engineering fair for engineering. Um, and they came in the third tier at region two science and engineering fair for engineering technology. And then my last one is um Robert and Dwisa and Joseph Rush for their project called RAFT water repellent anti- flood technology. Um they have earned the Zachby's engineering design research grant and they also came in for third tier at the region 2 science and engineering fair. Thank you. [Applause] Our next teacher is Dr. Martin Chakola and he's also at Kate. Before I present my students, um I'm going to present a young man who uh just came a little bit

013late due to traffic. Uh this clean energy technology, uh the Duft Freeman Sabbert clean energy research grant is awarded to Jimmy Walker. [Applause] Okay, my first group who was not able to make it this evening, uh the artistic aspirations engineering design grant award is awarded to Nathan Boyd, Parker Kaine, and Carson Hopkins. Next, we have DJ Griggs and Nick Veroni receiving the engineering design research grant. Next we have John Grooms and Braden Slaughter received an engineering design research grant. Grace Jumper and Lane Turner received an engineering design grant. We have London Joseph and Kylie Locks received an engineering design grant. Hunter Mache received an engineering design grant. He also placed first tier and was a uh top 10 grand awards finalist. Joah Schaefer received an engineering design grant. Okay. The following team was not able

014to attend, but the art artistic aspirations engineering design research grant is awarded to Ronald Bird, Taylor Dickinson, and Brandon Goldsboro. And they actually won a first tier and uh a engineering science communication award as well. Next, the Castle Travel Engineering Design Grant is awarded to Grayson Currant and Miles Smiley. Killian Davis, Diego Sanchez received an engineering design grant. Tyler Graham and Chance Robinson received an engineering design grant. The next group was not able to attend. Johanna Overcash and Savannah Stevens received an engineering design grant. They also won second tier at the region 2 science fair. Noah Peterson and Matthew Skinner received an engineering design grant. And my final students, Drew Patrick and Noah Phillips, received an engineering design grant. I want to say thank you again to all of the parents, teachers, the school administrators,

015our school board, everyone who has contributed to support for these students. I know we're extremely proud of the work that they've done and we'll hear great things about them in the future. And I want to say thank you to all of our school board members for your service to our district and our community. [Applause] We'll find out. I know my hands are a little wipe on the napkin. Congratulations again to all of our award recipients. At this time, I'll turn it over to Dr. Ross for the superintendence report. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of our board, and our community. It is uh so exciting to see so much innovation when you think about uh not only the performance at the our science fair, the regional science fair, our teachers, but excuse me. Also, um thank

016you to all of the sponsors. Without their sponsorships of these projects, uh a lot of this couldn't be done. Uh so again, this is a community effort. We really appreciate all of the hard work and I just look forward to see all of that is innovation. Uh things that were not here, problems that are being solved and our students are at the forefront of innovation for the future. So re really excited about it. And that brings us to what we do. Uh we're a system guided by three critical questions. Why do we do this work? How do we accomplish that why? And then what are our outcomes? Our why is that we love and grow our students? Our how is that we're focused on academic social emotional growth and development and our strategic plan outcomes.

017These are 24 strategies that are chasing full performance goals all to the day where we will see every child feeling loved in our schools and having demonstrated academic growth in our schools. As always, our feedback uh from the community is important. uh we receive our state assessments and we're tracking each and every uh measure uh towards the state goal where 75% of students will be at or above grade level by 2030. Uh we have uh completed our fall assessment, our winter assessment, and we're currently in our spring assessment. So once that data is compiled, we'll get that uh to the board and community and that will be our last uh assessment until we have this the formative assessment uh which I mean the summitative assessment uh which will be SC ready. Uh right now we're

018also tracking a a huge part of uh our report card but also our progress to our students and that is our graduation rate. Our high schools and uh district office support are working diligently uh to ensure that every student uh nine out of 10 of them are able to graduate within four years of entering high school. Um the document or main item that we make sure that we get this work done, our vision, mission, and outcome is through our general uh fund budget. Uh and so it's important that we understand that the general budget uh is a vision for uh to to ensure that we can uh execute the priorities of the district. Uh we look at our uh general operating fund that takes care of our salaries, our utilities and services, supplies and materials

019and equipment and you can see that 64% of what we receive comes from the state, 35 from local. There was a time prior to act 388 where almost 50% of the funds that we rece receive came from local almost 49%. U since act 88 that is now 35%. So it's important for us to understand that our our revenue minus our expenses um is is what our reserve is or our fund balance as we will work to put this together. Uh we appreciate your feedback. We're getting feedback from other uh stakeholders and we're going to pull that all together uh in our meeting in April. In April, we'll have a budget discussion. It is our goal to give you feedback on how we've put together all of these priorities uh within the uh uh structure of

020our of our budget. We want to hear feedback from you uh to as we go to work on the first reading. And so this uh is important to uh look at our strategic plan amendments today, see how we're working those in so that all of the actions that we're taking are aligning towards the goal of uh putting together uh a program that addresses the profile of the South Carolina graduate. So all of this is important uh that we stay on this timeline and I thank the board for moving along uh in the budget discussion as we have laid out. So that brings us to a huge issue that we're dealing with now and that's the planning for resoning. Um we are uh in the process of the operational change of moving from our current elementary

021zones to our new referendum zones. There's a lot that goes into the planning of this and it is good that we're taking next year to make sure that we get this right. Uh moving from this structure to a new structure takes a lot of planning and a lot of coordination. And so to kind of give an overview of how we move from this structure to our new structure, I've asked our chief of human resources, Dr. Tamara Turner uh to come forth and just give a highlight of um to ensure that we're not putting the cart before the horse, how we will go through the uh resoning uh process as it deals with staff. So, Dr. Good evening, Madame Chair, um members of the board, Dr. Ross, one of the things you'll notice about the process

022for staffing for 2627 is it takes the collaboration of multiple departments. So, while I stand here tonight on behalf of the Office of Human Resources, I hope what you'll notice on the next slide is our effort to make this um manageable. Um we've broken it up into several parts that we're addressing um piece by piece, including conversations around structure, programs, staffing, equipment, and occupancy. And the reason for this um process is that it allows multiple departments to come together and bring each of our perspectives to each one of those important building blocks for the resoning process. Up to this point, we've had um a meeting on March 11th where uh directors from every department met and we simply focused on structure. And in looking at that structure, it was important that we took the time

023for everyone to understand what are going to be the structural changes as it relates to grades. I know many of us are familiar with the overview of the flowchart, but we wanted to slow down so that they understood what does that mean for grades and how does that impact each school. What you'll notice as a part of this conversation, um, what you see in white are the grades that currently exist at each of those schools. What you see in red are the grades that will be added, um, or moved to the other schools. One of the reasons that this is significant is Dr. Ross will go into our timeline where we are collaborating with teachers. What we owe them is some explanation of where these opportunities will be by grade level. Um and our conversation

024one that focused simply on structure allowed us an opportunity internally to make sure that we all understood that from this the conversation will advance to uh the next part which is programs. Um and with that Dr. Ross I'll turn it over to you. Thank you Dr. Turner, and I appreciate you putting this together because as you look at the uh red boxes for each one of those schools, that represents staff that has to move along with the programs that need to move. And I think what we gain is a better middle school program within school district 5. All of our middle schools having three years embedded in them. But moving that staff uh does take a lot of time and preparation. So, as a result, I want the staff to understand that on May 10th

025after the contracts are due that they will receive a survey and that survey is allowing them to provide their preferences. So, as we move those grades there, we want them to tell us where they prefer to be moved within that structure. And so, we're going to go over this over and over and over so that everyone understands that this is to provide their preference. And how does that look? Uh we're now in ending March. The directors are meeting to outline the programs. Uh we'll do that for March and April. And in May, that survey will go out uh goes out after May 10th. We use this summer uh to uh put a preliminary assignment for everyone. And then in November, the principles will uh get those preliminary numbers. We'll finalize it in December. In January

026of next school year, everyone will receive their assignments. Those assignments will line up with the transfer window. So, you almost have two bites of the apple. If your uh preferences are not provided for if you I'm sorry, you change your preference uh from May to January, you have another opportunity in January uh to ask for a a transfer. Our principles have agreed that by March of 2026, all uh staff will have their orientations and then by May of 2026, all students and families will have their orientations at the new school. As a result of that, we'll be ready uh for the following year, the 2627 school year for resoning. So, we're excited about uh that work. uh but once we move we still have to uh do the business of educating our children and that

027requires classroom supports. One of the best things that we can do uh supporting the classroom is allow a environment where uh teachers work with each other to share great strategies that work for the diverse needs that we have in our district. Uh we call these professional learning communities where they're asking four critical questions. What do we want our students to know and be able to do? How do we know when they've learned it? How will we respond if they do not learn it? And then how do we extend the learning for the students are already proficient? It is our expectation that all teachers can communicate these I can statements to not only the students but their parents. We want parents to be empowered with this information so we can know what the next steps are.

028uh and understand this works for every student on the continuum for our struggling learners and for our our gifted and talented or advanced learners. Every student on the continuum this works for and so uh we are looking to help our teachers as we move to this kind of individualized approach by acknowledging what they their experiences uh giving them time to reflect on practice and then giving them supports. one of the supports uh that we've talked about um I want to share with the board again and that is uh generative AI or artificial intelligence and looking at some of the things that uh that this program can do uh is really exciting. Uh this list is u very limited in the full impacts of some of the generative AI that we have. But in order to

029do this really it's going to be about giving the faculty a the faculty. We heard from Mary Kennley earlier today about the work that she's doing with the foundation and uh she was the one that brought to me that the history of the faculty having a faculty really starts back in 1964 1979 in our district where we had uh instructional assistants. These were people who worked with the teacher to help those students who were behind or ahead to make sure that they received the individual uh feedback and assignments based on their performance. Well, we don't have uh that model in place, but what we do have is a tool that can help us with that today. Uh we see that AI is growing. uh I did not know my my children are using it and

030uh if you look at how fast it's growing it took Netflix three and a half years to get to a million users. It took generative AI like chat GPT five days. So the goal is to give them a healthy space uh to learn how to use this the right way so that the learning is never interfered with. I think it's important for those who are new to AI. Um, my generation, we grew up with the the movie The Terminator. And so sometimes you think about that when it comes to AI, but this is a tool. This is a tool for teachers. Our district teacher of the year, Alyssa Power, says, "I do the thinking. It does the work." And so, uh, I am, uh, excited that our chief of academics led a team to go

031visit a district that was already working in this area, uh, Ory County. And I would like for Miss McCasow to share some of the examples and things that she learned from how other districts are using, uh, generative AI like magic schools. Miss McCow. Good evening, Madam Chair. A word, Dr. Ross. We did learn some pretty incredible types of things with AI and just allowed us to brainstorm with a district that had already gone through some of the processes that we were in the process of doing ourselves. Um, and last board meeting you asked for some examples of things that that this could produce. And so these first couple of slides is an example from a fourth grade classroom in our district that the teacher took the SC ready prompt and SC readyish let me say

032that it was not from SC ready but the SC readyish prompt and put it into the AI program and then took a story that was written it was called the snowy surprise so put that story in and then put the child's response response to this. So in other words, this was a a response to a text. And so you have to put in the text itself, you put in the prompt, and then you put in the child's response as well. And this is what comes from that. It tells um the teacher that on the SC ready rubric, the child would make a three, which would be meeting expectations. It goes through and tells them specific areas of strength that the child has, specific areas for growth based directly on that child's writing. And then it

033talks about the mechanics of writing. And this is something that the teacher then can read. Of course, they have to analyze it themselves to make sure that it actually is correct. but then they can sit with the child and go through this and explain specifically what that child needs to do to make their writing better. Um, and so instead of the teacher spending 30 45 minutes sometimes on a writing assignment, this is something that gets takes some of that off of the plate of teachers. Not all of it because the teacher still has to use their knowledge of writing to be able to make sure that this is correct feedback, but it certainly gives them an avenue that gets them started um without having to be completely on their own for it. So, that's one

034example for writing. Then I decided to just make my own example of something that we've heard a lot about multilingual learners um and and just a new student walking into my classroom. I just thought about what if a new student walked in the classroom and they spoke a different language. Another powerful thing that this slide shows is can you imagine if you walked into the classroom and the first thing that you see is that first line, hello, my name is Tina, how are you? And it's written just like that in English, but you're a student who speaks Dari from Afghanistan. And that's what you're used to seeing. and that's you you but then you're a child from Spain or speak Spanish and that's what you're used to seeing or a child from Vietnam and that's

035what you're used to seeing and and just to think of what that feeling could be but it took me about 30 seconds to create what's there in front of you by putting by typing that in and just putting in Dari and then I hit edit and put Spanish and then hit edit and then put Vietnamese piece and it literally took about 30 seconds to get that. And how I could make a child feel comfortable in my classroom by being able to go in and simply type something and be able to show it to them and say, "Welcome to our classroom. We're glad you're here in a in a language that they could they could speak." So, just really thought that was a powerful example to look at. We did speak with Ory County this week.

036We had a virtual visit with them and this was one slide that sort of stood out to me a lot. They gave us lots of resources for us to use, but this was a slide that stood out to me because it really took all of their thoughts and where they were going with AI is centered around professional development. It was thoughtful and strategic use of AI. It's not just the use of AI, but it's thoughtful and intentional use of it. And then the continuous improvement and teacher feedback. And that's where I think that is something that can constantly provide help and assistance for our teachers and and give them some time back, which is what what we're really searching for here. Some key takeaways, the position statement. Most of the districts that we have looked

037at, we've we've talked with Greenville County, we've talked with Ory County, we've talked with others right here in the Midlands. most of the well all of the districts that we've spoken to are not changing policy for AI because if we write policy today tomorrow it's going to be different and so we're not writing policy around AI but they are writing a position statement around AI and that is something that we are working on um and hopefully by the May 7th board meeting we'll have something to share with you for that also some guidelines for teachers and students we generally have that but this is um a little more specific to help really with that intentional teaching of AI and the use of it um that those guidelines will help but also a parent guide for

038what parents can expect AI to help with um and how they can embrace it versus being afraid of it. Um so that so that's something that we're working on as well and hope to have those three things for you on the May 7th board meeting. consistent language because AI has been out for some time and we have not you know we've done some PD around it but we haven't focused around say one particular program or one particular platform really developing some consistent language around the platform that we choose and being able to ensure that everyone is on the same page with that want to make sure that we have differentiated professional development because just like um I can tell you that I've had to make myself say that's okay because I didn't grow up with

039it. It's something new for me. Our kids are it's like second nature to them. Our young teachers, it's like second nature to them. So, we want to make sure that our professional development reaches our teachers at the level of I'm a little afraid to hey, I got this. What else can I do? And so, we want to make sure that that is really um flowing the gamut for our teachers. And this really is a tool that takes things off of the teacher's plate constantly. I I can know just just from 34 years of education hearing there's one more thing on the plate. How tall can the plates get? They just keep they keep stacking. It's it's about to bowl over, you know, and that's I've heard that all the time. But this is something that

040can truly begin to pull a string here and a pull a string there. doesn't take the thinking away and it doesn't replace the teacher by any means, but it certainly begins to pull these little pieces away to make their job as the professional of doing the work of teaching that they can truly do that work. And this is just from a a teacher um from Dutch Fork High School. Susan Appan is our specialist for instructional technology and she teaches a class with UDL, the universal design of learning and they are doing quite a bit with AI. And this was a quote from the teacher and it just stood out to me. It says, 'AI allows me to be more productive and more creative. AI doesn't create lessons for me, but it does give me feedback

041on my ideas. Sometimes AI can give me new ideas that I can take and modify for it to make sense for my students. In addition, it can help me make instructional materials that otherwise would take me a long time to do. For example, if I need to scaffold for students, such as sentence starters, I can use AI to produce this in no time. It is a tool such as a Smartboard or a textbook. AI can't replace teachers, but it can make them feel empowered by having more time to be creative. So, Dr. Ross, I stand for any questions that you might have. Absolutely. You knew it was coming, didn't you? Um, I think this is awesome. I think just providing another resource for teachers um like you say to give them even if it's just

042just a hook for their class. Um I was just curious, do the teachers have to enter like a profile of their students? I mean I know they've got so many varying learning styles and and all that. Um but um is that a consideration when she's you know looking for something to help come up with a lesson plan? I I was just curious because you know how classrooms are you get and Dr. Ross has shared with us with some of our classes we're way the spectrum is just so wide. So the more intentional your prompt is the better the product that you get out. So of course we do not input any specific names of students at all. So therefore, there's no identifiable information that would go into AI. Now, what I can do is I

043could put in a prompt that would say, I need a 10-minute remediation lesson for a third grader who's reading on a first grade level and I want it to be around this standard. And you could input your third grade standard. Copy paste. And actually, there's a bot. I learned all about bots recently, too, that we can create so that the standards are already there. But that's way too much for tonight for me to go into, but you put the standard in and it then comes out with exactly what you just asked for. Um, so you Yes, you do put in some specifics, but never a student's name. So, it's never identifiable information. Well, I was just curious as far as just learning abilities or if you have a a special ed class, I mean, or

044special ed student coming in, you know, for mainstreaming or something like that. I'll tell you the one thing that stood out to me, um, Ory County, we were talking about the enterprise version, which is the paid version, and you can create these customized bots within it, and they had created one for rigger. And so, you know, we talk we we had talked a lot about the remediation of of things and being able to remediate, but this was a bot where a CP teacher could take a CP lesson and drop it into this bot and it automatically raises the rigor of that lesson to be an honors level lesson. And so that whenever they showed that to me, I was like, "Oh my goodness, like when can we get into this?" because it was just amazing

045because you know that's hard. It's hard to have the CP and the honors and then to know exactly how to differentiate that. Um but this really was a tool that helped with that and I think it could be a big a big benefit for teachers. Yeah, that's sort of what came to mind with me too was your honors kids are it's like an AP class. They come in with baited breath to learn whatever you're going to put forth. Um, but maybe the CP kids, uh, that would be a real assistance to the teacher trying to help pull up those kids. So, I think that's that's great. this one. Well, sorry. Just keep um I am all for uh trying to get any possible, you know, help within our classrooms, but I have a bit of

046a different opinion. And it's not that I'm afraid of it. I just see this as a really, really slippery slope. Um I don't know how many of my fellow board members have used any of the AI systems that have been out recently, but I mean, these things are learning at a rate that we humans cannot keep up with. And I guess my questions are like specifically for having the teachers use them. If if we allow teachers, what what is the what's put in place to prevent our students from it? I mean, if we have a teacher writing a lesson, what's put in place to prevent our students from using the same system to write an essay or response because they can like you say, you can put this in and it'll it'll write a thesis

047essentially and they're learning every day. And so, you know, with the whole conversation of cell phones and technology in classrooms, it just makes me pause to how far this could go. Does that make sense? It absolutely does. And it actually gives me a great opportunity to talk a little bit about Magic School. Magic School AI is the platform that we are pursuing um for for our teachers to use and students to use. And the purpose behind that is that it's very much geared for education purposes. And so the student side of Magic School AI, students only have access to the tools that the teacher assigns to the student. So I assign I make an assignment, the teacher gives the tool to the students to be able to use with that assignment. But it's also geared

048that even if you go into the kind of customized part with the student where there's a Raina is the bot that you use if you're going in just as a as an adult. That's the name of the bot, but the students have a different one. But if you go into that and you drop something in, let's just say I dropped it in and said, um, please write an essay on the the impacts of the Civil War. It's going to come back to you and say, I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I can brainstorm with you and give you some suggestions, but I cannot write this for you. So, it's designed to be a brainstormer and not a to-do for you. I got you. And that's the one platform. And I guess another question that

049that brings up. I saw a video the other day. It was um it was in like a college class and I'm not sure if it's the bot. I don't know the terms on these things, but it was a video that somebody was taking from behind another student and as they're taking their exam, the student is on their computer and you can just see that it's going through and it's analyzing the exam and it's immediately popping up the answer and then she's just clicking on the answer, boom, the next question, boom, and goes through the test. And so if we're using Magic Box or these types of things, I mean, what's to prevent them from just pulling up chat GBT or Ex's Gro or any of the other platforms that are out there? Um, this one

050might keep them from doing it, but some of the other ones won't. I I'm going to use an article that I just read today. It talks about AI literacy. And I think if we think about in terms of years ago, it used to be that Google was the tool, right? and we were worried about using Google and worried about what Google was going to give to us. Well, whenever we talk about AI literacy, AI is truly something that if you look at the definition of it, it talks about collaborating and communicating. And in order to to be able to use AI literally like with literacy base, we've got to teach students how to do that. So the the article that I was reading, 65% of the jobs today expect kids to come in and use

051AI with with integrity. And so we either teach the students here how to use it with integrity or we're not really going to be preparing them for that job. And so when I read that today, I thought, wow. I actually took some screenshots of of some pieces and parts of it because personally I understand where you're going because I wondered that myself, but I also think just like Google, I've got to make sure that our students know how to use this with integrity. There's always going to be a a way that there's a copyright issue somewhere that we need to teach. We need to teach to that. But if we don't teach to it, that's when they're going to use it incorrectly. And thank you for using that. It this part of the um quote

052from the teacher, respect, I mean I I see what she's saying, but it's learning. It's it's continuing to learn. They're teaching them how to think essentially, which is a crazy concept to me. But you can see where the pause is and like a Smartboard or a textbook. It's there and it stays there and it does I mean it gets updated over time, but it's not constantly relearning itself. And so I just think that before we implement it completely, we definitely need to just think ahead a little bit. But thank you. I agree with you. I want to say and I appreciate that because you're speaking what a lot of people are thinking and uh as as I heard a AI um again I go back to my conceptualization of it, right? But I would go

053back to the notion is the tool not the terminator. I think one of the things that we have to do and we'll present to this board are the standards that they look at right now. Um few even though our test are A B C D or all of the above we're kind of used to circling in those that's not where the standards are. The standards are analyzation evaluation creation and I think sometimes our strug our kids struggle with what is the right answer? just tell me what it is. Uh I remember watching that uh that same YouTube thing like they have this and they have glasses now and I don't want to tell all our kids the secrets but uh that give the answer and I think if you look at those who are designing

054tests and not designing assessments and you see schools moving away from SAT they're moving more towards uh how well is your child able to critically think. It's it's more towards what those students we recognized earlier doing creating answers that are not googleable. And so one of the things that um I like about it is that they can get answers from anywhere but they're not taught to think everywhere. Whereas um instead of I put in what I want to divide this fraction by this fraction, it doesn't give you the answer. What it does help you do is walk through it. What we're really excited about is giving parents this information to work with their children. You know how many times they you come home and say, "What did you do today?" And they can't necessarily articulate

055what they were supposed to learn, but they ask you for help with a homework or they say, "I have this project." Um, I was able to take a standard that I did not understand and break it down to a first grade level where I can understand it and then help my children through it. So I think too it's our our our parents say very clearly that whatever you do, make sure what you're doing is for my child. And I think we finally have a tool where I can get 17,000 lessons catered to your child's needs and put that in the hands of the parents and the teachers. And I think when we get that and you look at what those standards are asking us, evaluate, uh, to produce, to create, um, to synthesize, to do

056all of those things that are kind of higher level things, I think we have a chance now for teachers, as they said, to to be able to give you as a parent more feedback. I think we always have the problems um of misuse of technology, and I agree with that. One of our teachers said, uh, there should be a moment where we put everything down and we go back, you know, a detox moment where for for this day during the week, we're handwriting and and I agree with that. We're going to the encyclopedia. Uh, we're doing those things. I think we must always keep those modalities. Uh but I think there's as we move towards individual learning having something that I can put to the parents and the teachers and the students hands that give

057you that individualized approach and feedback but not the answers um is what's unique. So we we do move with that pause. Uh I want to and I'll say this and I'll be quiet. What we bring back to you uh as we've shared in this presentation is going to be our philosophy on our position, our guidelines for students and teachers, our parent guide so that parents know how to use it and our consistent language. So we owe that to you at our May meeting um so that we can address some of those concerns. Any more questions? scum. Yeah. Um and just addressing the issue of risk with students, that risk is present today with students because of chat GPT and other uh llama and other AI generators um whether we adopt and give the teachers this

058tool or not. So it's still that is something we've got to deal with regardless today. And really that's always been the case. uh AI back when I was a student was getting a textbook at the beginning of the year, opening it up and seeing the the person who had it last year wrote the answers in the back. That was my AI. And I would love to sit here and say that I erased them and no, I I struck gold whenever that happened. So u so the effort is an that's an issue that we've always had to deal with and and something that we'll have to whether we adopt magic school for uh teachers and give them that tool. But I think your point about teaching them in integrity, using it as a platform for that,

059that's brilliant. And so I appreciate you saying that and and that's a that's a very good lesson for us. So I every teacher that I've talked to about this program has just given glowing feedback over it and is so excited and uh really pulling for us to get this form. So thank you for tracking that down. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Miss McCasco. Thank you, Mr. McCascal. So, as we work toh get this in, we will ask for a budget uh request in the upcoming budget, but we do have some uh room in this budget to go ahead and get started um once we get the position statements. Uh so, now I have our chief financial officer, Miss Heather Tucker, to bring our January financials. Hi, good evening, members of Madam Chair, members

060of the board. Dr. Ross, I have for you our January financials. Um, for the period ending January 31st, 2025, our revenue summary, we are right on track with where we were last year at approximately 68% through the year with our revenue. We expect this through January, we are a little over uh a little under 60% through the year, but we see our largest revenues come in from our local sources, our tax sources um in December and January. Just to give you an idea of the of the cash flow, December we collected 11.2 million in total tax collections. For January it was a little over $30 million and as of February we're back down to $1 million. So just to to illustrate that cash flow from our local sources, our state sources of revenue, our state

061aid to classroom, that is broken up over 12 months. So we see that as more of a monthly allocation and a much more standard allocation throughout the months. As far as our expenditures go, um, also we are kind of right on track with where we were last year. Last year we were at 49.85% and this year we're at 50.29% through the end of January. Um, I did want to highlight um, something that we have talked about a little bit in the finance department. I think the question has come up from the board about teachers spending their own money on supplies. Um if you look on our supply line and instruction, we've only spent about 35% of that um instructional supply material and we have $1.1 million. So we are making a point to educate our

062bookkeepers, our principles to have the conversations with teachers. There's money there um at this time in the year. A lot of times, I don't know if teachers aren't asking for them or if principles aren't communicating that, but we are trying to be very intentional about educating and putting that out and saying go out and ask your teachers if there's things you need to order, if there's supplies you need. There is money available there um in all of the schools accounts. So, I just wanted to make that known to you all that we are doing that and we are trying to be intentional. We have a bookkeepers meeting coming up um in in April and we will be communicating that with our bookkeepers to make sure that's something that they're staying on top of so we

063can address those needs. I'll stand for any questions. I don't have any questions, but thank you for that update on how the supply piece works. That's come up um a good bit. So, it's just kind of good to know where to refer them and kind of tell them what those next steps are when they have we have those requests. No, I appreciate that. We don't know what we don't know. So, if you bring things to our attention, we can um always do a better job of communicating and and educating on that piece. So, thank you. I appreciate that. Does Does anyone have any questions? Thank you, Miss Tucker. Thank you. And for our final report of the superintendent's report, we ask our chief operational officer, Dr. Gerald Giri, to come forth with our operations quarterly

064report. Good evening, Madam Chair, Dr. Ross, board members, um, director of facilities and operation, Mr. Alan KN is going to do our quarterly report for operations and construction. So, we're excited tonight to provide some updates to the board um regarding the projects. Some are bond uh referendum related and some are uh tied back to the Irmo project. So, our first project that we're going to take a look at is the new Rich Lex Education Center. As you can see here in the um conceptual model, this right here is a um like a history wall that we're looking to do in the the foyer of the school. Uh we have um partnered with CPL u to move forward with this project. They've done a lot of homework uh and you'll see that as as we move

065through this presentation that dives into the history of the original Rich Lex school. Um, so we're going to be starting the facility review here uh the middle of April and then we have the uh the meeting with the African-American Historical Society of Hermes Imo that's still to be determined. So CPL was able to actually go back and gather a lot of data and history on the overall facility. Um, as you can see here, uh, 1918 when the facility was first, um, opened, uh, and through every year that they made, um, some progress through the facility and updates. Uh, and it also looks like in 2018 or two or 2028, they'll have 110 years of continuous service on that site. Um, here we have a picture of the original Rosenwald School. Um, this right here, I

066believe, and I'm trying to get the reference of of where it's actually located. I believe it's um kind of near the um near the front part of the school. We have we have another um yeah, some other information. Maybe at another point we can have CPL actually come here and do a greater in-depth detailed presentation on the history of the Rich Lux facility. But I just thought that was really, really neat and I wanted to bring this tonight. The next project we're going to take a look at is the Dutch Fork Elementary School. Here is an aerial view of the conceptual design of the facility. Um we are um the overall programming for the space has been completed. Schematic design is in uh in development and the survey the site surveys are currently underway. When

067looking at the building itself, the architectural features of the building is nearly complete. We still have mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and then we have the site, the site surveying where that is still ongoing. So, we're making tremendous headway with this. In this rendering here, you can kind of see where the car rider drop off is and a courtyard uh with the school. Here we have uh just a conceptual drawing of what the classroom could look like with the lights dimmed. And then as you look through the corridors, you see where we are trying to bring a lot of natural light into the facility. Our next projects are the wings at Chapen Elementary and Lake Murray Elementary. Here we have um the 3D model and the floor plan layout for Chapen Elementary and the 3D modeling and

068um rendering in the the floor plan for Lake Murray Elementary. And I'm pleased to say that design development has been 100% completed for this project. Herma High School. And this is the thing that we all get to see as we drive down St. Andrews. Um we're seeing a lot of progress here. The uh Acon's doing a great job. Things are moving forward. Uh here's an aerial view of the front of the school. Uh as you can see, um as we move all the way toward the back, you'll see that back portion, that's the parking lot area. And this just a temporary parking lot and eventually that's where the student service cafeteria will reside and just a side aerial view of the school. So I'm pleased to say that this project here is close to 60%

069u being complete. So everything's tracking well. Here are change orders since our last update for Armo High School and I stand for any further questions. Thank you, Mr. N. Do we have any questions, Miss Barnhart? Just because it's up on the screen, can you tell me about change order number 14? So the aluminum frame color there was a error in the design and then how the um the bid documents um LS3P they are going to pay for a good portion of this. Um, and no more questions, but I like uh with the Dutch Fork the natural light concept. Our kids don't get in my opinion, you know, a lot of time enough time outdoors. So, that's going to be a cool way to kind of bring that natural sunlight into the classroom and I look

070forward to uh going was Thursday to walk through and see the update. So, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Sad for y'all. I really have a comment more than a question, but it's ironic you showed the slide of the school when it was a two- room schoolhouse and I imagine it was K through 12 and probably one room was elementary and the other room was high school. I mean, talk about diverse instruction with all those kids in there from all those levels. And then you showed that beautiful new uh picture of Dutch, the new Dutch Fork Elementary School. And what a long way we've come with regards to school houses and school buildings and expectations of those buildings. But like I say, it was just real I thought it was really neat to see the original.

071I'm I'm glad you put that in there and uh and the difference. Anybody else? All right. Thank you, Mr. D. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Miss Kn. I certainly appreciate the the hard work. We're really excited and looking forward as uh we move to receive these bond funds. We have already uh deep in the work. So, again, thank you for that report, Mr. Allen KN. That is our D5 story. That concludes the superintendent's report and I stand for any questions. Do we have any questions for Dr. for us. All right. Thank you. Can I get an approval of the minutes from the March 10th meeting? I make a motion to approve the minutes of the March 10th, 2025 board workshop. Second. All those in favor? All oppose. And the motion carries six to zero. And I'm

072sorry in that I said board meeting, but you corrected it. So, thank you. Um, can I get approval of the minutes from the March 10th board meeting? I make a motion to approve the minutes of the March 10, 2025 minutes and must remain on either the topic noted on your sign in form or a listed agenda item. Questions asked during public participations will be handled in accordance with board policy behind Diaz is here to speak about Chapen High Sports. I'm a junior at Chapen High School and I love basketball. I've played for 5 years. I've attended camps, worked with personal trainers, and played travel ball. We started the season with 16 girls on the team. An average team has 12. The coach wasn't brave enough to cut girls. I worked two years to get on

073this team and have I had it all taken away by a coach who allowed the politics of the school to dictate his decisions. After the first few games, I sat down with the head coach and the two assistant coaches to ask what I needed to do to get on the court. I was told that I was quote too short, non-athletic, and untalented. I was they also told me I should be grateful that I'm on the team in the first place. This devastated me. Why was I confined to only playing in practices? I felt like I wasn't good enough and I questioned my identity. My anger and depression affected my relationships with friends and family. I tried to fix the things the coaches said were wrong. I got a new trainer and I started waking up

074before school to go to the gym. I would also work out again later during my weightlifting class and I gave 110% in everything. The coaches praised my improvement yet nothing changed. An assistant coach regularly compared me to another player throughout the season. After one practice, he said it must be frustrating that she, a freshman, was starting over me. He told me that she was an exceptional player, better than me, even though we are pretty evenly matched. I started crying and with no empathy he said, "I'm not saying this to antagonize you. I just want to un you to understand where the coaches are coming from." I called my mom after sobbing and could barely drive home. After this event, my dad sat down with the head coach, athletic director, and principal. He told him how

075hurtful and manipulative it was to tell a young girl what she needed to do to change and then compliment her progress but not show any reward. The coach hung his head and admitted the issues and said he'd change things. That same night, we had a game at Irmo and I didn't get in once. I wasn't alone. I know of other girls who talked to the coach about playing time, and many others confided to me that they felt no desire to play anymore. It eventually got to a point where I felt I had no place to turn to. After work one night, I bought a pack of sleeping pills. I felt like I had no other option but to force the coaches to see how badly they were making me feel. Thankfully, because of my walk

076with Christ, I couldn't bring myself to do it. But there are some girls out there who will give into the pain and depression they are feeling. Ultimately, I decided to quit just before the season ended and forfeit my varsity letter. I felt a calling from God to let go of the sport and not endure the abuse any longer. The adults that you hire are supposed to form me for all aspects of my life, not just on a court. They are supposed to foster and encourage growth, not deny it. I was emotionally and mentally abused by the people who were supposed to mentor me. No coach should destroy the love a player has for a sport. I know I am not alone. I am not the only athlete who feels this way. This is a systemic

077issue within Chapen High and it demonstrates favoritism and the politics of money that run rampant in this culture. So, I implore you, please look carefully at who you're hiring because they foster the next generation of adults. If the people you allow into schools are supposed to be teaching kids to be leaders, what kind of example are they setting? This is not something to be taken lightly. This is a real serious serious issue that is alive in the school system. I am lucky that I didn't give into my mental health because of what I was being subjected to, but there are others who will, and when that happens, that is blood on your hands. Thank you for your time. Kim Murphy is here to speak about considering tax anticipation notes. Good evening. See if I can

078read my notes. Um I wanted to address the proposed policy change to the to increase the percentage in the reserve fund. Um instead um of increasing the percentage consider using tax anticipation notes. Uh the the purpose for the t for the reserve um is because property tax doesn't start rolling in until November. So there are a couple months where there's not enough money to pay the bills. So using that reserve um helps uh supplement that also helps assure for a favorable position in rating by rating agencies when borrowing for capital improvements. um and if enrollment drops during the year or other factors that may reduce the revenue anticipated um during the year. So um back in 2007 the percentage was changed from 5% of the operating expenses to um it doubled to 8.33% and uh

079I think it was pushed up to 8 8.5% and the reason for that was because tax anticipation notes had been used when there was a 5% reserve um and the district at that time said will increase the fund balance and that way we won't have to have tax anticipation notes. There's a very small amount of interest that has to be paid with those but um the district uh policy was changed in 2013. it doubled um which is uh was fairly um significant. Um and actually you can look at your um the amount that's rolling in from that now is in excess of the board policy and uh look at your annual financial statement and you can see uh the last 10 years what's happening there. Um well consistently the um the revenue that's received is

080more than what's budgeted which means the millage rate is set too high. Um and again the money that it is accumulated um makes it into the the balance in the reserve and it's a greater percentage than what's called for in board policy. That money came from taxpayers and is sitting in your reserve account earning interest instead of the pocket of the taxpayers or in their savings account earning interest. Instead of increasing the policy as what is being proposed to a greater percentage, consider going back to using tax anticipation notes. That way the tax payers can keep their money um in their pocket or savings accounts. Another reason for this request is that the general fund budget and revenue needed is advertised through your budget process to go towards education and educating children, but it hasn't

081been. When it is put in your reserve account, it's spent on capital projects. So again, please consider using tax anticipation notes and that would prevent that from happening. Thank you. Thank you. That moves us to our action agenda. Do I have any motions on items out of executive session? I make a motion to approve selected employment items shown in exhibit A for action. Do I have a second? All those in favor? All opposed? Abstain. Okay. And the motion carries 5 to 01 extension. Uh I make a motion to approve the 2025 and 2026 reappoints shown in exhibit B for action. Do I have a second? All of discussion. Oh, sorry. Yes. Um, I just want to quickly say that I'm I'm going to be voting for the entire package of reappoints, but for the sake

082of disclosure, I just want to state that um, my spouse works for the district and is included in that packet. And so my vote is I'm abstaining I'm voting for everyone and abstaining for my wife's. Mr. Satderfield, I'd like to sort of echo Mr. Scully's sentiments. Um, I'm in favor of the motion and what the superintendent has presented to us, but uh I would like to uh since my daughter works for the district uh and at an effort to to maintain transparency and at the recommendation of our attorney, I would like to um abstain from her vote. Right. Any further discussion? Right. All those in favor? All opposed? Abstaining. And the motion carries five with one extension. Okay. I make a motion to approve the contractual matter regarding professional development services as shown in exhibit

083D subject to the amendments discussed in executive session. Do I have a second? All those in favor? Opposed? And the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. That next um we have a second and final reading approval of bond resolution exhibit F and fiscal year 2026 capital projects funded through 8% bond issuance exhibit G. Make a motion. I make a motion to approve the second and final reading reading of bond resolution shown in exhibit F and 20 FY2026 capital projects funded through 8% bond issuance shown in exhibit G. Do I have a second? Second. Do we have any Mr. B? Do we know um last year probably around this time there was a similar um package passed? Do we have any idea how much was completed off of that or are we just kind of

084building up money for projects? Everything in last year's package is is in the queue. A lot of that we just did a huge purchase order for a lot of the HVAC systems. Um but a lot of that will be done over the summer. So a lot of those things are kind of in that pipeline. We're we're limited to the timing, but I will defer to Alan on on the rest of that. Yes, sir. So that there's a lot of uh items and like Heather just mentioned I think about a million and a half dollars worth of HVAC related equipment. Not just the equipment but also the controls. We have some controls throughout the um throughout some of our facilities that are I don't know maybe 30 30 plus years old. They're extremely old. So we're

085having to update that portion along with equipment too. So we're kind of at the mercy of the the manufacturer. So, we're, you know, we're pushing this to get as many um replacement units as possible, but at a also with that, you know, when we're working with either Dyken or Train or whomever, they're like, "Hey, we can only get you so many units." It's just it's just taken a while to get that to get those back in. Okay. Okay. And so I think you may have spoke to this at an earlier meeting, but as far as if there's something that wasn't as high priority to maybe address some of the issues that they're having with like coolant and trying to find coolant for some of these units as we're going into these warmer months, if we

086had something that we needed to cut, I don't know, is that an issue or are we tracking pretty good on all of those using as far as like the units that we have that we're not replacing, the coolant's more expensive to find? Yeah. So, so we have some units that are um older R22 units and we know that that they're into life. We need to replace those and move them to some of the newer the newer um the the newer models with the newer refrigerants. So, we're going through that. We hope at a at um maybe a future board meeting we can actually show you where we've actually uh reduced our overall age of equipment and you're seeing it go down. And that's exactly that's that that's exactly what we want to do is we

087want to drive that average age of uh whatever it is and we want to go down because the newer the units we know we're going to be able to service them a little bit longer and keep um you know keep the equipment running. Just following up with his question, have you factored in the cost of changing the refrigerant on these the the whole switch that's about to happen or is happening um with that because we know we're not able to change um you know some of the R2 22 units that we that we still have um they don't even make parts for the these these units anymore that we have some schools that are like hey we can't even get parts for them so we have to move to just newer newer units. So, um,

088you know, as we go through that, we're, you know, we are trying to get the best pricing possible, but we're, you know, we're not able to go change out, you know, a unit that was designed for 22 and put in some of the new refrigerants. Have any other questions? All right, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor All oppose. And the motion carries six to zero. All right. That takes us to exhibit H, first reading approval on a proposed revisions to board policy DB annual budget. Make a motion to approve the first reading on of proposed revisions to board policy DB annual budget shown in exhibit H. Do I have a second? Second. Do we have any questions? All those in favor? All opposed? All right. And the motion carries 42.

089I make a motion to approve the first reading of proposed revisions to board policy DFAB reserve funds shown in exhibit I. Have a second. Second. Do we have any questions or discussion? All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion carries. 42. Next, we have the approval of statement of work for the internal auditing services. I make a motion to approve the statement of work for internal auditing services shown in exhibit J. Do you have a second? Second. I do have some questions or comments. Go ahead, Mr. Stford. Yeah, I'd like to ask Dr. Ross, I know that he sent us an explanation for the changes on the description. Could you share with the rest of the folks um that may have questions about that? Uh yes sir. Thank you. One of the things that

090we are looking at for our internal auditing services is to meet the objective as set forth by our in terms of having an internal auditor. That was a recommendation from his report. Uh and we wanted to do that. We tried to do that with an actual employee on the site. Um advertised multiple times. There's even a organization of internal auditors. We advertised there did not find it. Increased the salary for this internal control. Advertised again. It did not. and so went out for um um auditing external internal and auditing services. Uh in the initial draft we had um I think there was discussion about um policies and procedures and human resources and finance. Uh but the changes are for this person to really look at all departments where fiscal controls are are necessary and u

091working with our attorney uh looking at aligning this draft towards uh the board policy DIDIE uh which is your internal controls which is in the finance area. So it's the movement of fiscal assets through any department uh my department student services all of us not just one but also uh in my talks what Brian Lamin talked with him again on Friday the oi it's almost like when if the police actually arrest it's the prosecution's office who prosecutes those are separated uh these are not combined so you can execute um this external and it would be from this body this body have to do it and you say, "I want you to uh look into Dr. Ross's expenditures." That body would look in. If they find a discrepancy, they would turn it into this body and

092then you would execute another arm that does the investigation that allows due process on all sides. So, by having these two separated, one is doing the uh the looking and the finding, the other one is doing the investigation through due process. Um and that's having those separated um uh gets us out of uh some some issues that can cause concerns when you when you merge those together. So this is more expansive than the entire district. It's all departments. Uh but it has the checks and balances of an investigatory arm and then the the research arm. So that's what you have before you. Well, I want to say thank you for taking the going the extra mile with that. We ended up with our previous audit and of course that was in the news. Um, we

093sent the results to the inspector general and he told us what we were not doing right and what we needed to do better job. So, I think it's great that we start out with his approval or having him look over it and making sure that we're going in the right direction. So, I appreciate you going the extra mile. Dr. Rose, any other questions? Mr. B, do we have like just an estimated time of how long the work would take once we've, you know, retained someone? Um, that that's a good question. So, in the statement of work, we would essentially put this out and say this is kind of what we're looking at. Um, I actually spoke with Mr. Lampin as well, um, and and kind of got an idea of what he thought, you know,

094the initial look would be. um because this statement of work would have a dollar amount attached to it. we would essentially put this out um and say this is what we're looking for for the tasks to really look at you know all financial and operational integrity look at all that and so he said I think a cursory would take about six months to really kind of look high level and then start digging in and that would be where that we would get direction from the board you know once somebody comes in and looks at kind of all of the operations um where any of the finances are flowing throughout the district and then as they identify things in a report then the board can say okay now we want you to look at this and

095so we would have another statement of work with a dollar amount attached to it and a time frame. So essentially we're asking for small deliverables um trying to make it broad enough to allow them to look but then as they find things we can hone in on that with our statement of work. Okay. So throughout the process we'll kind of get benchmark reports that we have to act on. Okay. Correct. Thank you Mrs. Barnhart. Uh just for clarification purposes, this is going to be one entity that we're hiring or two separate ones. So right now you're looking for the internal services of one entity. Okay. And I do have a document um that Miss Huddle is requesting me to put into the minutes. She couldn't be here tonight. So I would like to submit that

096for the record. Thank you. So this would not replace our external auditor that does our financial and our procurement audit that that those will continue. We we have to do those every year as requirement by law. So this would be in addition to that. So thank you. Any other questions? All right. We have a motion on the floor. So I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor? All opposed? And the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. That moves us to our Thank you, Miss Tucker. That moves us to the discussion agenda. the discussion of the strategic plan amendments. Uh yes, madam chair, members of the board, uh coming to the lectern as our chief of student services and planning, Mike Harris, uh to bring us our strategic plan amendments for uh

0972022 through 2027. Thank you so much, Dr. Ross, members of the board, uh community. uh we have uh before us our current strategic plan that we want to take an opportunity to review and offer some amendments. I want to certainly give credit to Miss Audrey Black who will come forward in just a moment to kind of walk us through that as well as a number of persons who have worked with her to make these amendments available to you. Uh so at this time we'll turn the floor to Miss Audrey Black in terms of strategic plan amendments 22 through 27. So, good evening, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Ross, and members of our community. Thank you for the opportunity to present a highle overview of our strategic plan and recommended updates for the 2526

098school year. Before we dive into any questions from the proposed changes provided in your board packet, I want to take a moment to briefly explain what a strategic plan is and why it's important. South Carolina state law requires all school districts to develop a five-year strategic plan with schools creating their own five-year renewal plans. Both are updated annually. These plans serve as blueprints which guide administration in supporting our district's mission and vision. Here in district 5, our schools in the Kate Center align their renewal plans with the district strategic plan to ensure consistency and focus. These same regulations require that every district and school include goals in three key areas. Those are school climate, academic achievement, and teacher and administrator quality. Additional regulations require districts to set goals for gifted and talented education, integrating those

099plans into the broader strategic planning process. So for consistency, I'm capitalizing on one of Dr. Ross' slides. Strategic plans include multiple components which include a comprehensive needs assessment, performance goals, interim performance goals, strategies and action plans, evaluation of those strategies, evidence of comprehensive consensus building and asurances. As Dr. Ross often reminds us, our strategic plan is made up of four performance goal areas with each of these performance goals being supported by six strategies. These strategies are in turn supported by 165 action steps that serve as a practical guide to achieve our mission and vision. The next series of slides will dive deeper into each of the district's performance goals areas. Our goal for school climate asserts that we will maintain a safe and secure environment focused on the social and emotional growth of all students

100as measured by the perceptions of parents, teachers, and students. Like all of our goals, this is a smart goal, meaning it is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. On the slide before you, you'll see our baseline data on the left, our target outcomes on the right, and our annual interim benchmarks in between with the latest data highlighted in bold. As you can see, our district has high satisfaction rates among parents, students, and teachers regarding the social and physical environment of our schools. We've already exceeded our projected goals for both parents and students. Our 5-year target for parent satisfaction was 89% and this past year it reached 89.3%. For students, our 5-year target was 84.6% and we surpassed that with 84.8% 8% satisfaction. Teacher satisfaction also increased this year with 93% of teachers satisfied with

101the social and physical environment of our schools. We are well on our way to meeting our goal. We are currently in this year's climate survey window which these results are based from. So this window closes on April 11th. So far, we have received 390, excuse me, 3,954 parent surveys. Um, that is the highest return rate thus far for any school district in south in the state so far. So, we still have a couple weeks. Um, but I'm hoping we're going to stay on top. And so, all of our schools have scheduled teacher and student survey time slots with a goal of 90% completion for both groups. So the state requires 80%, we are aiming for 90. So so far 11 schools have met their goal for teachers and eight schools have met it for students.

102So most of the remaining schools are scheduled to complete their surveys this week. Our second goal focuses on academics and establishes that we will provide challenging curricula that support academic growth and prepare students for college and career success as measured by median student growth percentile on MAP graduation rates and college and career readiness. As with school climate, the slide before you outlines the target outcomes, interim benchmarks, and the latest data in bold. Our first two goals focus on the median student growth in math and reading for students grade through two through eight as measured by NWA MAP. A growth percentile of 50 indicates that on average students are growing at the same rate as their peers nationwide. A percentile above 50 means they are growing at a faster rate than their peers, while a percentile

103below 50 shows slower growth. Although we did see a decline from the previous year, the district is still meeting its target growth percentile of 55 in math. In reading, we are just three percentile points away from reaching our target growth percentile of 56. For our graduation rate, it increased this past year, rising from 89% in 2022 to 89.4% in 2324. The percentage of students who are college and career ready has also improved from our baseline. In 2324, it reached 82% which is four percentage points above our target goal. A district is only as strong as its educators. Our third goal ensures that we recruit, retain, and develop a highly effective and diverse team. We measure our progress through teacher retention rates, teacher satisfaction with working conditions, and teacher feedback on professional development. As with the

104other goals, our targets and interim benchmarks are on the slide before you. At 89.5%, our teacher retention rate is nearing our interim goal. At 93.1% teacher satisfaction with current working conditions has already surpassed our goal of 92%. We also saw growth in the percentage of teachers who agree there are relevant professional development opportunities increasing from 90.7% to 90.9%. Our fourth and final goal focuses on cha or challenging our highest achieving students by providing challenging instruction through an honors framework focused on the academic development of students in gifted programs and to provide equitable opportunities for participation in gifted programs. We measure our progress by analyzing median student growth percentiles in MAP math and reading advanced placement passage rates and participation rates of underrepresented students in higher level courses. As noted in your board packet in the

105table of proposed changes, this goal was previously worded as providing challenging curricula, but we are recommending an update to challenging instruction through an honors framework to better clarify our focus. Since this coal contains multiple metrics, we have split them across slides. Once again, we are looking at the fall to spring median student growth percentile. For our high achieving students in grades 2 through 8, the goal is 58 for math and 55 for reading. In the 23 24 school year, our students reached a medium 57th growth percentile in math and 46 in reading. Before you are the final two goals for our gifted and talented students. Advanced placement passage rates have risen over the past two years, reaching 76.2% this past year, which is 8.2 percentage points above our target. The district is also increasing participation

106rates for underrepresented students and higher level courses. Growth has remained steady at the elementary level, rising from a baseline of 17.1% to 19.9%. In 2023 24 at the middle school level with a steady progress at the elementary and middle school levels, we anticipate this momentum carrying into the high schools. Our baseline was 49.1% and in 2324 the percentage was 47.7%. So with our current trends, we expect to see continued increases. Our district strategic plan follows the South Carolina continuous improvement model. Once a plan is approved by the school board of trustees and the South Carolina Department of Education, it becomes the district's roadmap for the next five years with annual updates to ensure we stay on track. Our strategic plan is a dynamic living document that guides decision-making across our district. Each strategy has a

107designated lead who works with stakeholders to evaluate progress, gather feedback, and make necessary adjustments. This update marks year four in our current five-year cycle. Next year, we will begin an 18month process to develop the next strategic plan, which will take effect in the 2728 school year. In your board packets, you'll find the administration's or recommended updates for 2526. As you are aware, the strategic plan is extensive and details work that has transpired over the last three years. Therefore, we've put the updates in a manageable format at the end of the plan, and I'm happy to review any parts of that with you tonight. So, at this moment, I'm happy to answer any questions. Do we have any questions? All right. Thank you so much. We are going to take um exhibit L and exhibit M

108together. Items 19 and 20, the discussion of board policy KF community use of school facilities. Thank you, Madam Chair. Coming to the lectern is our chief operational officer, Dr. Gerald Gary uh to handle take us through the discussion of exhibit L and exhibit M. Thank you. Thank Dr. Ross and good evening again. Um the office of operations brings to you board policy KF community use of schools facilities for discussion. It is exhibit K in your packet. As you begin your discussion, we ask that you consider um two things. The policy does not currently have any guidelines about animals on district property. Uh we recommend the administration um recommends prohibiting animals other than other other than official purposes, service dogs and district property due to the potential unnecessary damage to school property and the policy does

109not currently specify what type of nonprofit community groups are allowed to use school facilities. Recommendation specify what type of documents are required for nonprofit. Is it just 513C or can other documents be included? And what type of groups are restricted and if so can that decision be appealed? Does anyone have thoughts on that? I would agree that we should prohibit animals other than service other than service animals strictly because of the damage issue which I assume is just more money to the district. So, and property damage and whatnot. I don't know if other people feel differently about that. everybody seems to have thoughts on it. Um, so there's so this says that we should consider specifying what type of documents are required. So currently there's a policy for groups to to use it. Um, what's

110been in discussion here is the fees associated just based on feedback we've gotten from the community. But what What kind of documents are they already having to provide is my first question and then secondly would be why are we asking for the same documents from anybody? Well, some may provide 5013C status but all nonprofits may not have have that status may have applied for that status. So, is that the only requirement um to be considered nonprofit and have use of our facilities? What or what document? What additional documentation or what could be provided in lie of that? If they do not have that status, if they don't have that document or that status, does that make them not a nonprofit? Some just may not want that tax advantage. They may not apply for that tax

111advantage status. That I don't know how we prove that. I'll give an example. Some PTO's in the past in districts I worked may not have a 5013C status. They don't they don't yet have that. There's some church organizations that may not have that. Maybe in the process of getting it but may not have that but may want access to facilities. There's that slippery slope because well with the PTO's it's like such a thing that's easily verifiable because they're within our schools you know and I feel like people know if a church exists. I um I don't know. I don't I don't know the answer to that. Um does anybody else have missfield? Um and excuse me if I ask a question on something you already answer and my hearing is not getting any better as

112the night goes on. Um I think I think everybody on the board we've expressed concerns. Um, and this is not directed at anybody. It's just our concerns with We have students. The young lady that spoke earlier in public participation. I used to coach basketball and I hated making cuts and I hated the fact that I had a hundred kids out there trying out and I was going to end up with 13 on the team. Um when I was at an assistant principal at Dutch Fork High School where you formerly were I started an inter mural program got the blessings of the high school league and so we were able to use our facilities for our inter just to get more kids involved and I think that's the key thing that we've sort everybody sort of

113shared is how to make our facilities more affordable or available to our students and I'm not talking about an outside entity or and you know I understand that with the with the nonprofits and things like that but I think that's a discussion that's worth having is finding a way for our students I mean you know again I like a lot of parents or grandparents I've coached some of the you know younger kids and that's I never got paid for it but and I understand that there are insurance issues and that's probably the biggest driver of a lot of these fees. Um but um I I think it's worth discussing because the key to students being successful is keeping them actively involved especially with a school. I don't care if it's after school or not and

114you know that you're a former principal. Um, so, uh, when we talked a little bit about maybe the old complex or something along those lines, something that we have available to us already, but um, and I was looking at the dates. It was issued in ' 83. It's been revised a number of times and I'm sure that the price has gone up each time. Um but and I know this is the part of the discussion agenda. I just think that it is definitely worth the effort to find a way for to meeting the needs. You know, years ago, the school was the heartbeat of the community. Schools were built right in the middle of your neighborhoods and different organizations and maybe town meetings or community meetings and all that were held there. But, uh, if

115we've got kids that want to be actively involved in programs, um, I think it's worth investigating and looking for solutions. Okay. Yeah. I guess um, I guess I'll couple of comments and then a couple of questions. The way I view this is there's a cost to using our facilities. And what our policy does is simply determine who pays that cost. And currently it what whatever that cost is um it's written to where the specific user of the facilities is the party who pays the cost of using it. um which has its advantages and disadvantages. But some of the advantages is all taxpayers aren't responsible for a specific group's cost of using our facilities. Disadvantage of that is it makes the cost sometimes prohibitive to certain to some groups and and uh more widespread use perhaps.

116But that's also if we change the policy to where the we take the cost off of the specific user, the cost doesn't go away. It just gets redistributed. So we're taking it from the specific user and then spreading it out to the district because if the user doesn't pay it, then the district has to pay it, which means the taxpayers pay it. And that can be advantageous by encouraging wider use of our facilities but also has downsides. Uh anybody that you know we we already have people talking about we're overt taxing. Well that just increases our tax need and our tax burden perhaps. Uh it also comes into play where if you have a a group uh or or if certain taxpayers don't want to pay the cost of a certain group. If the I

117don't know transgender MAGA uh Christian Muslims, rich people who hate puppies groups wants to soccer team wants to rent our facilities. Somebody's not going to be happy about that. and they're going to say our funds, I don't want to have to pay my tax dollars to fund their that group's use of the facility. So, that's a that's a consideration that we have to think of as as well. So, there's advantages and disadvantages to it. Um, and I'm I'm all for the discussion as long as people understand that if we take the cost, the more we take the cost off the specific user, then it puts it on all taxpayers and that's fine. But the people need to understand that that's the result and that's that's how the impact of it. For Dr. Ross, I have

118a couple of questions regarding our current fee structure. How representative is our current fee schedule to our actual costs um that that we see for for the use of those facilities. In other words, does this current fee schedule result in a net gain or a net loss to our budget? Or is it is it meant or intended to be budget neutral and just reflect actual cost? Are we making a profit? Are we losing money? How how's and what's our intent? Thank you for that question, Mr. Skully. Um, when we when we were originally looking at this, we went back through and looked at the cost for different types of personnel that would be required to staff facilities, whether it's a custodian to have an administrator there with the keys for access to the building. Um,

119if it's for an auditorium, you've got to have somebody that can run the equipment. So, AV or um IT folks there. Um, if there's student nutrition, those those costs and if we needed to provide security. So we went back and looked at those costs and for most of the folks that would be working these events, it's going to end up being overtime. So we were calculating those cost based on paying them overtime and we are not making money. We were just covering the cost. Um the current the current policy doesn't have updated salaries, hasn't had updated salaries in in years. Um, so even looking at the current co the current facility cost, what it would take, we would just be breaking even. You know, I I'm completely fine with changing it or or exploring options,

120but the cost doesn't disappear. In fact, it's probably going to increase like Mr. Satderfield said due to insurance liability. So, somebody's got to pay for that. It doesn't go away. So, that's part of the discussion. Yeah, it was mainly a question about liability. In the policy, it says that the organizations will assume liability for every occurrence that takes place during their use. So, they would have to have liability insurance to even have a contract to use our facilities. Is that correct? That is correct. When they go through MLA, before they can create an account, they have to create a certificate of liability. They have to upload that, bring it to the DO, present it to us before they can create a user account and have access for approval to the facilities. Right. Okay. That's Thank

121you. Um I remember we had this discussion. It was on the agenda maybe a year or so ago. Um this was a discussion that we had previously within the last board about a year or so ago. I think it had something to do with like the one of the fields behind the schools. it wasn't like an official it's the property but it wasn't officially being used as a field or something like that. So are we talking kind of in specifics here or we uh like is there something that brought this discussion up again or could you expand on that? Yeah. So, I think that was the uh and correct me if I'm wrong, that was the baseball field uh that was behind uh H Corley uh that has been in kind of an agreement that

122uh another um I think the Irma baseball uses. So, this would be more encompassing of all of our facilities uh having one policy that meets meets all of them. And uh what we wanted to do today was just kind of hear your feedback. We haven't made any amendments. We would like to use next meeting to bring some amendments. Uh but as you can see there are just uh two items that um we we needed to just we have some recommendations. Wanted to hear your feedback. Um there mult like as Dr. Gary said there's multiple different types of nonprofits. Uh we're letting all profits or we're going to be restrictive of of different types. Not all of them are 501c3. Some of them have different tax breakdown. So, I think that would take care of the

123the baseball issue and I think we heard from a basketball parent um at our last meeting at the last meeting. Uh so, we're we're trying to find something more inclusive of all and that's what I gonna say miss my heart. I think a lot of it is because of the parent complaints and feedback about accessibility to the facilities, but more so the fees that are associated with it. Um, I don't know that I I didn't think the discussion was whether it was going to be free. I thought the discussion was whether or not we would be willing to adjust it for specific programs um that are servicing our students. And I know that that gets sketchy because everybody thinks that their program is the program. Um, but I do think we have to draw a

124line somewhere and there have to be some parameters and I don't know how we do that without alienating people. That seems like a question for legal and not for me. But I do think that's something we need to think about and um and try to define as much as possible. Did you have another question before I cut you off? I'm sorry. Just one more on the uh recommendation to change from office of finance and operations to office of operations throughout the document. Is that simply just because the name has changed now within the district and so we're just reflecting the policy to that is correct. Apply it. Okay. Mrs. Satfield, do you still have a question? I'll be short. Um yeah, I I agree with everything just about that everybody said because that's this is

125synergy when you listen to everybody's ideas and then eventually you can arrive arrive at a conclusion and that's really important to have these discussions as I said earlier um you know one thing that I learned long ago was that if you're looking at a straight line on how it was done and how we can fix it based on how we've done it before sometimes it doesn't always work. Um, as a former coach, I used to visit with other coaches and ask questions and get ideas and I would learn a great deal. So, you know, maybe looking or visiting or asking some other schools, uh, some of our surrounding schools or something, see what they do. Um but uh I again I I get back I think my original exposure to this was from our screaming

126eagles, our special education students and um they couldn't get a place to practice for their sports on school grounds and there are students um and so they were had to buy a piece of property in Newberry County I believe. Uh, I'm not 100% sure that that's right, but I think that's accurate. And um, you know, that's just that's not what our school should be about. It should be about all our students. And um, you're this is coming from a former coach and I was very protective of my gym and my football field. But um again, I just like it I'd like us for us to have this discussion and sort of maybe ask around and get some input for some other folks and and maybe we can at least make it a little bit better,

127more accessible. I was just going to quickly ask Dr. Ross, would our uh schisbit insurance increase or decrease with expanding the access? Uh yes, we reached out to um Li Graham uh with Skizbbit and uh he is going to give us uh an opinion from their attorney. Their attorney is going to put that together and I think we'll take that opinion and and and include that in our recommendation for next meeting. But we did not get the pricing increase yet. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Very quickly, do you think it would be possible to get some um representative fee schedules from the other districts just so we can see what we how we compare? Yes, I thought we include it's in the packet. It is. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We got Lexon one, Lexon 2. Oh,

128thank you. One, two. Um Dr. Ross, um, as you and your staff started to talk about this internally, are there were there any glaring concerns that came up in yours discussion that you think would be beneficial to us as we think about our feedback? Uh, yes. I think u to Mr. Skully's point, the question was would the would expanding access increase risk and the answer was yes. So, we wanted to look at the safeguards that we can put in place that would minimize that. And I think uh the consensus that I'm hearing is our students. If if we're taking in our students or using it for our students, that is something that we want to expand access uh but put those safe grounders around because we want to give our students access. So, that's a

129that's a big part. I think what we could do is if we look at our the uh rule and kind of go through the rule that will give us a little bit more idea of what this actually looks like. So we were looking at the big policy. Uh but if Dr. G, if you want to kind of go through the rule, I will. Then that will give us how does this actually look on the ground. Administrative rule KFR, community use of school facilities. Um it's kind of like what we talked about priority for groups requesting including school groups is not established and it's unclear which groups are required to pay which fees. Um something to consider added user group category list identify which priority each type of group is scheduled and the fees that pertain

130to each. For example could be your your booster clubs your um PTO that could be a priority one no fees attached. Then you may have um chap and wreck or the good news club church group might be a a group too. No fees or or smaller fees and put different different groups in categories associated with fees. Something to consider. Um the level of personnel required for the vents is unclear. recommendation. The school administrator will designate what personnel will be required for the event and the school design will review conditions and expectations for use of the facility with the organization prior to payment. So, they will submit the request. The administration receives it. He said we're going to need based on the number of people attending, we'll need one custodian, two two custodian security um send

131out um coordinate information with the person requesting as well as fees and they can make informed decisions at that point. But right now, people don't know exactly if I'm going to rent this facility. I need one one custodian, two custodians. What's the rationale of that? And having that conversation prior to them making a decision, I'm sure. Yes. Quick question. Um Mr. Herring had a a good question and I just want to kind of go back to that. um when he asked, you know, h how do we compare to other district fee schedules? And I just want to uh emphasize a little bit of caution when making that comparison because we don't exactly resemble other districts from a need and population standpoint. And whereas it it would be easy to get trapped in that comparison if

132we're looking at a highly rural district and comparing ourselves to a highly rural district where the majority the vast majority if not all of the people who would use their facilities come from their district. Whereas our district is has more urban, more population, more spillover from other districts and other areas. And so we get a lot of requests I would imagine from outside groups coming in. So doing a kind of a rote just comparison on the the nominal numbers um dollar amounts would be kind of misleading. So I would just urge caution as far as making those types of uh comparisons, but it is something to consider. I have a motion move that we adjourn this meeting at 9:05. Well, all right then. Um, do I have a second before we said that? Dr. Gary,

133thank you. I'm not sure if we uh how helpful we were as we just kind of thought about this out loud, but I think we're going to lean on the administration to maybe just kind of help give us a little bit of guidance. I think we are in agreement that we want to serve our community and we want to help, you know, in some way because it seems to be an issue, but I want to better understand what that is and and what that's going to look like mainly around how are we going to determine looks like we need to clean up, who's going to get what and I feel like that would solve a lot of our a lot of our issues. So, I guess we'll just continue this conversation at the next meeting.

134All right. Thank you. All right. All those in favor of Miss Barnhart's motion. Oh, I thought I heard a second. I made it up. Can I get a second? Second. Literally, my bad. All those in favor? All of those in the motion passes. Meet stern. Y'all have a good night.