April 22, 2024 School Board Meeting

001um Amy Taylor the district math coordinator and Dr Sarah Swagger the instructional specialist for secondary Ela and um while they while we make this transition if y'all would like to come to the front for the recognition we have a lot of awards to give out we're so excited so so uh good evening Dr Ross Madam chair Board of Trustees Administration and all of our guests so just a little historical background in 20123 48.7% of South Carolina graduating seniors took the sat in School District 5 we're still well above at 68.1% of our class of 2023 um who took the SAT now we for several years we've recognized students from schools for their academic Excellence on PSAT and sat examinations and we continue to support students and striving to increase their performance on these examinations this

002year we've added the recognition for excellence on the act so we have more and more students taking act and so we decided to add that to the recognition for their Excellence as well we would first like to acknowledge our academic assessment coaches from each High School who are who will be presenting the medallions to our recipients tonight from chapen high school we have Randy Johnson and Tess Pratt from Dutch Fork High School Carla Bell and Aaron rivers from hermo high school Stephanie dukes and Willie Frierson Jr and from Spring Hill High School Sandy Cole and Kelly Mone coaches we really appreciate your hard work and congratulations on a job well done for recognition purposes we use the PSA scores attained in the fall of the Academic Year for 9th 10th and 11th grade students the

003following students earned the top three total scores for their school on the PSAT nmsqt given to students in October of 2023 these scores are the total of both evidence-based reading and writing and math sections it is our pleasure to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of our PSAT participants students when your name is called please come and accept your award and remain at the front until all names are called for a photo all right from chapen high school our top PSAT scorers are Brody others who also received a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT Elizabeth young who also received a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT Ella Carson Jacob Braden and Ella Brown today we also recognize a chapen high school student for achieving a perfect score on the math portion

004of the PSAT Quinn spitler Dutch Fork High School is very proud of our students for their excellent scores on the PSAT test this year the first person we'd like to recognize is Leo sun he got a perfect score on both the math and the reading and writing sections of the PSAT it's important to note that means he made a perfect score on the PSAT our next student that we'd like to recognize can't be with us tonight his name is Andrew shua he received a perfect score on both the math and the reading and writing so he also received a perfect score on the PSAT this year our next student is Jennifer Lou she cannot be with us tonight either uh she received a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT and so did

005Rachel Syracuse she scored a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT and I think these students are at home studying right now next we want to recognize Lo Logan Rollins Logan received a perfect score on the reading and writing portion of the PSAT and tun no also received a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT and William Wong got a perfect score on the math portion of the PSAT today we also want to recognize these students from Dutch Fork High School for achieving a perfect score on the math or the reading portion of the PSAT Amina AAR for math perfect score Sarah thunderberg math perfect score Olivia myof for math perfect score Mel Nathan math perfect score Pearl Owens math perfect score Charles topinka math perfect score William Wong math perfect

006score Annie Shu math perfect score Connor thatch reading and writing perfect score e from sa from for the PSAT from hero high school we have one student who received a perfect score on the reading and writing and that is Margaret Hamburg she is not here tonight from herma Payton Spivey and finally Hayden Applegate from Spring Hill High School we are proud to recognize our students with top PSAT scores Bella Chen Riviera aart Gavin Rickers Danny Juan let's give a round of applause for these students for picture no okay just usure it this way do we keep okay the next recognition is for students who earn the top three total scores for their school on the SAT these scores are the total of both evidence-based reading and writing and math sections from their freshman year through

007December 31st of their senior year we also recognize any senior for achieving a perfect score on at least one of two sections of the SAT again those sections are evidence bace reading and writing and math students when your name is called please come and accept your award and remain at the front until all names are called for a photo from chapen high school our first student is not here tonight but it is Damen deadmond and he got a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT the next student is also not present this evening but his name is Aaron par and finally we have Leon Brown from Dutch Fork High School we are proud to repres or recognize our top SAT scores our first student is Andy Yang who also scored a perfect score

008on the math portion of the SAT our next student is Darwin Newman Norland who scored a perfect score on the reading and writing portion of the SAT Caroline hang who also scored a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT and our final top scorer is John Shelly who also scored a perfect score on the math portion of the SAT good evening herl High School is proud to present to you our top SAT scores starting with Calvin Smith next we have Hana and Dan mayor from Spring Hill High School Ava mccardy s Shasta Abigail stalker the following students earned the top composite score for their school for their score um on the ACT these students represent the highest composite score for all sections English reading math and science from their freshman year through December

00931st of their senior year we also recognize any senior for achieving a perfect Ela or perfect stem score on the ACT these distinctions require students to score a perfect 36 in both English reading for the ELA distinction or a perfect score of 36 in both Math and Science for the stem distinction the ACT top scorer from chapen high school is Katherine Stover who made a perfect Ela score on this test the ACT top scor for Dutch Fork High School was Carter hunt Carter cannot be with us tonight due a prior commitment the act's top score for hero High School is Ella wood who also made a perfect Ela score she is not here this evening the sorry the ACT top scores from Spring Hill High School are Ryan green Ava mccardy SAA Shasta all I

010can say is wow it's a lot of clanging up there and I love it I absolutely love it um miss m would you like to say anything would would you like to say anything I was just talking about how exciting it would be to follow you all for 10 years because I can imagine those one of those Awards around your neck are only the beginning of what you're going to get so congratulations and thank you for what you do for District 5 you're very very impressive so I appreciate that and keep it up because you've got lots of future with you so good luck absolutely we're going to um gather gather you together for a final picture I don't know if you need to give any instructions besides we're going to group together this is

011a good problem to have with so many of these Awards this is the one part I miss about teaching is the with being with these uh young people they can soon learn the sorority squat right right or if you want to find a way to go ahead all right I need yall to try to find a window and look at me if I can't see if you can't see me then I can't see you like I'm getting in the way right bre all right I want to um hold on a minute for listen I want to thank you for being here and congratulations what we're going to do is we're going to guide you out and not just be right here we're going to go all the way around to the entrance because if otherwise

012it's going to get loud taking our wonderful pictures so follow me around to the entrance thanks again e Dr Ross was so excited he ran away that was amazing there are I mean that was just very impressive I I mean so many perfect and very close to perfect scores all of those I mean I'm so proud of those students and their families and their teachers that was just really really great given them a second I'm killing some time with some ad lib so that they can kind of move a little bit I'm not very funny but it's okay all right all right so that was a great Schoolboard Spotlight tonight and that leads us into number nine on our agenda which is the superintendent's report and I will turn it over to Dr Ross thank

013you madam chair trustees members of our community uh great great way to open our meeting with spotlighting our students and uh their amazing work uh at this time uh just like to reminder that we are a system Guided by three critical questions each day why do we do this work the vision question how do we accomplish the why the mission question and what are our outcomes and using meetings of this to have that feedback loop to ensure that our vision and our outcomes are aligned our vision is that we love and grow our students our mission is that we're focused on academic social emotional growth and de velopment in our strategic plan outcomes as we noticed due to the change in our strategic plan uh that all of our performance goals now have six strategies

014we've deemed this year as the growing season as we looked at last year's results from those students who were off uh grade level versus on grade level uh from Fall of the previous year to this fall we have seen growth from Winter of the previous year to Winter of this year we are seeing in growth we're working each and every day to make sure that we know the names behind the numbers and the stories behind the names so that we can ensure that all of our students are College and Career ready and are able to graduate on time as we looked at last year's results for all of our measures from the state department we were growing in every measure with maintaining and graduation rate and so this is the work as we come down

015to the last month on of of school um making sure that we're using each and every day uh so that our students are meeting that objective where all students feel loved in our schools and all students have demonstrated academic growth in our schools at this time I'm ask our interim Chief Financial Officer uh Marty rolls to come forward with our monthly Financial reports for February M rolls good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Ross I have before you the revenue summary as of February 29th 2024 as you can see from that summary we summary we are up a little over 1% in Revenue collections to date as compared to the same time in 2023 are there any questions regarding regarding the revenues for general fund any questions okay we'll go to the expenditures

016and at the same time last year we're pretty much on par it's a little fraction higher um than we were in February of 2023 any questions Miss huddle um there were Portables in the budget for chapen high school have we purchased or are we in the process of purchasing those Portables or any other Portables yes ma'am it's gone out to bid we're waiting for the vendors to give us the information back so we can select the vendor and is that just for chapen high school or any other schools other schools ma'am other schools yes ma'am okay can do you remember which ones by any chance chaping intermediate is one of the ones we're looking at okay um and this may be a Dr Ross question but I I've seen the the 45 day and I'm

017sure there's another one since then and and looked at the growth and I it doesn't look like that school is growing that much so why are we getting Portables with shape and intermediate yeah well I can tell you just from having a fifth grader there that they have the largest fifth grade class they've ever had I'm C I'm curious I'm just curious about the growth because I think it's it's pretty flat from last year like maybe up five students or something I'd have to go back and look you can you site that data so that I can yeah I'd have to go back and I'll go find it but I was just it wasn't in the plan to buy for shap and intermediate so I was curious why we're buying for a school that we

018hadn't planned to buy for and would that not be I mean I guess is it the same line item because I'm it so that's not in the discussion of the budget things for the board to approve is that because it's the same line item but it's two different schools it would just be a location change it's not a line it's not a technically a line item change everything is the the same the account code except for the location and at this time we still have not secured the Portables we're still in the solicitation phase of that so no purchase orders have been issued at this time okay I mean I I'll send it to um Miss Snipes for an agenda item but I really think that the board should be approving Portables they're they're not

019as secure as the regular school there's issues with them and I would just I'm just kind of surprised that we're buying Portables that we didn't know about and I'm not saying that anybody did anything wrong I just think going forward it would be nice if we were aware of that is all m m did we buy Portables that we didn't notice you I didn't know we were buying portables for tape and intermediate we didn't we didn't buy the portable okay but I think are we in the process of buying you said there's a bid con out yes ma'am okay so we just says everything we have to bring this to approval and so that it does have to be approved by the board has to be approved by the board okay well why would we

020put a a purchase requisition out before we approve it isn't that kind of misleading to the vendors I disagree I think the the response that we had in the budget was the budget approved 1.5 for for Portables so we have communicated to our public very openly that we needed to buy Portables I think the issue that we initially thought was that we needed it for chapen high school um I would hope that the Administration has the ability and flexibility to move it to where we we currently need it we see the space and and you know when we do a budget we do the budget before the school year actually starts and then when the school year starts we see students move to places that might not have been in our projections shape and intermediate

021school is the need of those Portables when we told the board that we were buying this we said it was in advance of the projected growth at shapen high school but what we see now is that shape in intermediate school if you reference the I think it's the 135th Day Report um is that where you're seeing I was just wondering where you didn't were you there the numbers yeah I had the numbers before the 135th day came out so I will go find those numbers but I guess I was just surpris I am I didn't know until now but I'm surprised that we're buying them for Chap and intermediate and I guess I'm still under trying to understand so you're saying that the board we put it out for bid but theard will still approve

022before we actually purchase them is that right before we execute the purchase it comes to the board yes ma'am and I just want to make sure a purchase wreck has not been issued to date only the solicitation to determine what the cost of the Portables will be so that we can create the purchase requisition and purchase order when that time comes so Dr okay so Dr R I'm going to I have a question if you don't mind um just to jump in I know we're kind this is a little bit I mean it's really to this but since we're talking about the Portables that we had approved for chape in high school the idea is now that we're going to secure portables for chape and intermediate or is it for both schools is there no

023longer a need at chapen high school for Portables because that was kind of a pressing conversation that chapen high school I mean it was growing and had such a need for extra space has that stopped uh I'm asking because that kind of relates to every conversation that we have going you know like with with the bond and you know or the referendum and all of that I'm just curious how all that plays in together so I want to I want to go back to our first conversation about this and uh just want to make sure that we are referencing the data that we have been presenting all along that the most uh needed uh place of relief was chapen high school I mean the whole point of the referendum and the resoning was to prevent

024600 students at chapen high school when we talked about this $1.5 million of Portables it was so that whatever we do we would be preparing for that that growth when we do these uh projections and I think it's unfair to the administration to pin us to realities when we have to predict the future when we do these projections we're doing that on projection then the reality comes in and it's different from what we projected but what's held over our head is you did not prict the future correctly what does the reality say today we've showed you in these maps of projection where those hotpots are we'll go over it again later on today you see the hot spots at shapen Middle School at shapen Intermediate School that's where the hotpots are as we presented these

025we we ask questions this is what we're were seen in the 45th day report today so I would love to have a crystal ball of it we told you that chapen high school and the 600 freshman at that campus was the issue now what we're seeing as the most critical issue is as we showed in those hotspot projections of how we feel uh schools that shaping Intermediate School is now that Hots spot we have to have the ability to uh change as the condition conditions change I've always said the power is always in the pivot so yes when we do the projections it is our best case scenario of what happens with the data that we have but then to say that because you cannot adequately predict the future that that's going to be misleading

026I think is misleading so we'll when um we bring this to you for approval we'll outline the case we're not prepared tonight because we haven't finished doing all our homework we have to do a lot before we bring it to the board but it is on the uh plans to do it is something that we've had approved in the budget and uh just like when we do amendments to any budget we bring it to the board for approval I would just like the opportunity for the administration to have that that chance any other questions okay thank you thank you Dr thank you Miss R so at this time we're going to talk talk about changes to our grading uh practices and I just want to take this opportunity to to thank Miss Tina MCO for

027bringing this forward uh know that grading is not the uh most easiest thing to talk about or most exciting thing to talk about but it's the most important thing to talk about um we had an opportunity uh as we always do to share our growth and uh our spring uh data has come out we have spring 202 23 of last year and if we look at uh spring of this year we see growth I had the opportunity to do career day at hermo elementary school and uh when you're up against a fireman or a police officer or a Veterinary and superintendent doesn't come out too well but I brought to the kids I didn't know what to bring so I brought them the annual report um didn't go over well with the kindergarteners none of

028the words were their sight words but for one one of the uh students they said Dr Ross our students and teachers are doing very well uh a lot of the blue bars are longer than the red bars and I could see that they understood what we were trying to do but one young lady pointed out that uh what about that last bar Dr Ross the red bars are still longer than the blue bar and when you look at the numbers uh Behind these uh for each category there's thousands of students that are not on grade level for math and reading it's great to celebrate I'm so excited to celebrating our achievement and uh we're going to in our growth but it still recognizes that there's thousands of students uh that are not on grade level

029we have about two weeks before we start the assessments with some field assessments starting tomorrow and our goal is to try to ensure that all of our students are meeting that growth and so so with those Elementary School students on career day one of them gave me an idea said this is simple Dr Ross how about you work on skills that students don't know and uh you know out of U for the children is very simple um the reality is systematically in a classroom that's that's easy but as a system there's a very difficult issue with for those thousands of students identifying what those students don't know and why is that let's look at the new math standards that students are expected to learn uh if we look each of these standards or indicators build

030on the year before just in math alone there are 39 indicators that need to be taught in the eth grade 33 in the seventh grade 39 uh in the sixth grade and it goes on and on and on um and the reality is if a student doesn't get the 30 indicators by the first grade or the 27 by the second grade this starts to snowball if a child is getting half the indicators that are taught to them each year you can see how over the 200 and um 50 something indicators that they need by the time they get to the eighth grade they're missing a large amount of those indicators and so when that child says why don't you teach him the skills that they don't know it's hard to identify of these over 200

031indicators which ones they don't know and so as we start to to look at them they even start in kindergarten and so our teachers uh you know you think about it 71 indicators in kindergarten if you're not ready for kindergarten uh you can be behind already 18 in math and so this goes on and on and on the Snowball Effect so by the time they get to high school with 57 of those indicators in in English one or uh 31 in in algebra one um if you get if you're getting half of these indicators but again we have not shared what those skills are it's just the number of accumulating missed opportunities for these students so how do they catch up looking at the skills uh each of these skills or indicators requires a different

032skill set that we are are are supposed to do so tagging each individual indicator with a skill set is super important so the question is what do we require our students to produce how do we ensure that we can work on the skills that students don't know our grading philosophy which we developed a year and a half ago went into effect uh to to try to bring some clarity uh behind that but when we printed this out or we produced this we shared that behavior and effort are evaluated and reported separately from the academic grade why is that because we were trying to find the skills that the students don't know grades should identify for teachers students and families Clarity gaps in deficiencies in learning and consistent uh consistently and objectively informed teachers of areas

033where students need remediation or acceleration we were trying to do with that that elementary school student at hero Elementary said was work on skills that students don't know we think about our current grading scale the 100 point scale um there are 101 potential grades that can be given 59% of those grades are f in the uniform South Carolina uniform grading scale there are potentially 101 potential grades um and or quality points and the letter grades are more equal if you look at the history of of of grading it's started out with a fourpoint scale then went to a fivepoint scale um but the notion was that you did not have an F that represented over 59% of of the grades so with grading with the uniform grading policy in mind we see that there's two

034types of ways to deliver this the micro minimum grading and the macro minimum grading where the micro minimum grading is the classroom teacher um places a minimum grade for each individual test quiz assignment grade during that marking period but the macro is getting rid of any catastrophically low student grade at a quarter um which is typically on the 50 to 100 point scale what does an example of that look like well in the micro minimum grading which is not recommended by The Lex 5 Administration um if you would give a 50 for um any formative assessment this is an exam that even if a student didn't turn it in you do the calculations the student would receive a 65 in this scenario but what is important to look at is that this student received an

03580 a 70 and a 75 in their summative the grade of 65 does it tell us what the SK what skills the student knows and what skills that student does not know what we're looking at is what's called macro minimum grading is that if the student didn't do any of the formative assessments then they get a zero you put a zero in the grade book but to think about a scenario in which the student did none of the formative assessments but on their test their Summit of Assessments the students showed you that they knew 80% or 70 or 75% of the material that they know the material they were see they get a 45 then a 50 would be the lowest that you can get for the quarter that's a macro minimum grading the reality

036is the reason that we talk about standards based grading or using the indicators to communicate what a student knows um re really placing an emphasis that we don't grade behaviors and effort that we're trying to look at gaps and deficiencies is so that we can do what that young student said is work on the skills that the students don't know again as we are two weeks away from testing with thousands of students not on grade level um having an opportunity and a system that we can look at those gaps and those deficiencies is I think the only way that we can make sure those red bars turn into blue bars what we are asking Madam chair and members of the board and Community is to P not to pause but to continue this conversation before

037making any significant changes uh we want to use next year to clear c l communicate get feedback talk to teachers and students and families about our grading philosophy about its implementation uh before making any changes to the rule uh but I wanted to bring forth uh from me uh what are what our position is and and the why behind the the mission of reviewing the grading grading practices it is in our hope to uh continue to identify what what students don't know uh so that we can help them grow and so that is our D5 story I want to thank uh the administrative staff for their hard work on this as we continue uh to work with our our our groups uh to ensure that we're all in line on our grading philosophy that concludes

038the superintendent's report and I stand for questions Dr Ross um regarding the proposed grading practices are we um clearly communicating with teachers in the district that we are not implementing any grading changes next year I've gotten some um questions regarding or confu may there may be some confusion about when a grading policy change will occur and um I think that there are some teachers that think that it's going to occur in the next school year um and we've been told you know I'm we've been told otherwise so I just want to make sure that we're clearly communicating when any changes will take place yes I can do a much better job of communicating that I'll put out a memo um I wanted to meet with the principles on Wednesday to go over this so the

039principles are aware of my position and um they'll be receiving something and writing from me okay Miss uh barnhard um what about the schools or classrooms that are already implementing this practice so so that's the thing there there's no current District mandate to do this not a mandate but I mean there are classrooms and teachers that are implementing this right now my student my son's teacher is one of them implementing what which one implementing what so the 50 and above um in middle school and so I understand that this is a big conversation and it's a big change and whether you're for or against it it's also kind of confusing if we we have one class or one school in your email you know you said it's not a districtwide policy but there are schools

040that have set um this expectation for grading so if we have one school or one class doing it one way student a is over here and then the same you know grade student in a different school is not getting graded that way it just doesn't seem very uniform um until we figure this grading policy out and so I'm just I'm curious as to what why it's happening why it's happening already when it hasn't been implemented student their District wide so the grading has been school by school and it's been um left to the local school or the principle to do it our goal was to create a district standard and creating the district standard you all heard the confusion you heard the that we haven't communicated this clearly so to move forward where everybody's doing

041the same thing we need to take that time to make sure that we're all on the same page when I met with the principles on Wednesday it was to share that um specifically what you're saying that everybody gets a 50 that this is not recommended by the D5 Administration so that is something that we're going to communicate going to put out so if any teacher feels like they have to give a 50 for every assignment that's not coming from me that's not coming from the district office um now to be very clear uh grading is um um this is not something that has transcended just one Administration so we talking about practices that have existed um over some time our goal was to have one to your point where in this school and that classroom

042uh is consistent with another hallway in another in another school uh where we're all consistent our goal was to move to this in the fall uh but uh we saw through a lot of the communications that we were getting and the conversations that came to the floor uh that we're just not all clear on this and that's our our first goal is to make sure that the why is correct we still hear even in practices where the zero is given that it's about behavior that it's about effort that it's about the personality of the student so there's a lot before we move to that so uh I would just like to say to Any teacher that thinks that they are required to give the 50 for in the we call it micro 50 that's not

043true all we were saying is to eliminate the 59 pointf at The Quarters any other Mr saterfield uh yeah I had a question is really related to your superintendent's Report with the SC ready why do you think it is that 6 through eight math is such a challenge and and um I know you show us those slides frequently how do we compare with the rest of the state is this an issue with Middle School throughout the state and my and I'm going to ask you another question before I get done here um and that is do you think when we get to this true Fe feeder system that with more vertical planning that could help with this with these scores I'll let Miss mccal answer that and I'll fill in if there's any gaps so

044middle school students across the state do typically do worse on their math I mean you'll see that that's a trend across the state we are just right at the state average um with our math from the from last year now we don't know how we look in with map because we don't get a map you know correlation to what's going on in the state with map we only get SC ready um so and as far as the vertical planning yes I do um see that whenever we go to Middle School and we have sixth seventh and eth grade in in all of the buildings that that can that that can create that vertical alignment we've also had those conversations this year within our leadership team meetings that we have once a month on Tuesday afternoons

045so those conversations have been taking place more so this year than maybe in the past that they had been done but vertical conversations have not you know they're not faring to teachers but they haven't happened quite as often as we would like them to happen well and the reason I bring that up is uh I know that when you teachers within a school if you got an elementary school second third and fourth the typically they there's a lot of conversation you know um Mr Ross is not doing real well in math and these are the issues that he needs to work on and so that's sort of passed on so that teacher is very aware it's kind of like what you said with uh the the thing that the student said why don't we just

046teach them what they don't know you know but uh I'm I'm I'm that's one of the and I've already said I'm excited about getting back to the true feeder because I do remember times when there was more vertical planning and teachers were able to have those conversations so it was a matter you know the the sixth grade teachers and the seventh grade teachers would get together and have these discussions and that would help with placement of a child and help them you know you know help teachers be aware of the of the needs of every kid so but I was just curious about the SC ready as if I know you talk with other superintendents and other districts and local districts I was just curious uh how how we compare so we're pretty much it's

047a state average or we're right in the middle there with the mathre I'm sorry I'm sorry go ahead but that is correct okay I think we we're also seeing if you go back to the The Snowball Effect um you know it's it's tough on a um I would say it's tough on a seventh grade teacher uh to receive a student who missed half of all the indicators or 75% of all those indicators because now that teacher has to teach 33 of the seventh grade um indicators as well as try to fill gaps that the student has Miss because this compounds so the the longer that student is in missing these indicators the harder it is to catch them up because they're going to be assessed on that on that level so it is one of

048the things that um you know we're looking at in terms of why the interventionists are so important uh for for reading and math because we can't just put all of this on the on the shoulders of teachers um those interventions are are critical in making up these gains Miss hudle um Dr Ross if you could go back there right there um I just I looked at our policy policy and our policy doesn't say any it's very vanilla um and it sounds good to say behavior and effort are evaluated and reported separately from the academic grade but I've really been thinking a lot about that statement and as an as a former employer effort means everything I would take a kid that made a 90 and maybe didn't know quite as much but worked their butt

049off made up their effort did their extra credit over a kid that made a 90 and just skated by and so I would really like since we're going to put this off anyway I'd really like for us as a group to talk more about this philosophy and incorporate it into the policy um because that's just a it it again that's a lot you know I've read about this too and and when you take this path that means extra credit doesn't really matter anymore so there's a lot that goes along with saying behavior and effort are evaluated separately from what I've read and I've talked to a lot of teachers that have said the same thing and as we've talked we've had these conversations and meetings there's a lot of concern that behavior and effort doesn't

050seem to correlate with the the grade that a student is getting um and so um I think I agree like as we because this is not being implemented and because we are really um it seems like our board is picking apart in a sense the grading philosophy and the grading practices to make sure that everyone understands what they mean um and so that we're setting our kids up for success I think that it's important that we we have that conversation because it it the the way that it's been presented they're two SE totally separate issues and they're there's the mindset that they're not so before we change any policy that like I feel like those are the conversations we need to have and that's why I highlighted this because when when we started out with

051the philosophy I think we a year and a half ago we went we went ahead with it but what we hear is that behavior and effort should be in the Gres so I think it's the the notion is let's let's go and actually say is this something we believe um I can tell you that and I'm not trying to put them you know out there but we disagree right the the principes disagree but teachers are Frontline and they they may say they may think different um I advocated for the old citizenship grade Ian let's just bring that back you know make a motion somebody so I I think uh we will do that and um U um you know I do think that's important um we used to capture that in the in the citizenship

052grade where the academic grade helped us with what are the deficiencies uh what I'm worried about in two weeks you know our teachers are our interventionists our teachers we're we're working hard but you see the numbers that's thousands of students I got to figure out how to motivate how to accelerate and and give a Best Shot um to show what they know any other questions for Dr Ross for his superintendence report all right thank you Dr Ross we appreciate you all right um that moves us to number 10 on our agenda which is the approval of the minutes of the March 25th meeting Mr hugan do you have a motion yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of the March 25th 2024 board meeting do I have a second Miss snip

053second any discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to Z and that moves us to public participation um as we move to public participation the board welcomes and encourages public participation we respectfully ask that you adhere to the procedures provided in board policy bedh public participation at meetings your comments should be limited to 3 minutes and must remain on either the topic noted on your signin form or a listed agenda item questions asked during public particip will be handled in accordance with board policy EDH Miss Taylor thank you madam chair um Ayana Maye is here to speak about age appropriate Library material good evening I will try to be brief I have worked in education with both adults and children from 18 months to 18 years and

054I still believe it is important to listen and learn from others in conversations concerning age appropriateness however today I need you to listen to me as someone who has spent over 20 years advocating for youth because I know what it's like to be voiceless and marginalized in school while working at Benedict College my department participated in darkness to light training twice it is an extremely difficult and heartbreakingly hon training on recognizing and supporting childhood victims of abuse and assault their stories will never leave me I am grateful because I spent three years as the librarian for a middle school where more than half the students had at least two adverse childhood experiences Aces including any form of abuse you can name I remember one in particular who spent health class with me because she was

055too triggered by the classroom discussion which the other students needed of course but she was forced to be familiar with Anatomy too early and in the worst way imaginable I still remember her favorite book He Said She Said by kwami Alexander when I am selecting library books and find one that addresses consent and the multitude of life-altering decisions young people make that received outstanding reviews from colleagues who read it in its entirety I think of the the silent struggles of my students and remember that sometimes an author can speak to them in a way that no one else can in a way that can save them I remember a child who checked out the same book over and over because no one could buy it for her or she did not have the words at

05612 and 13 to tell her parents what it meant to her that's why we are here to provide those choices in that safe space to advocate for all not some and not just when it makes us feel comfortable thank you Connor Bryant is here to speak about book Banning my name is Connor Bryant and I'm a senior at CHP in high school in my last speech I spoke a little about how the words kill all was etched into one of the Stalls I don't want any of you listening to think that this is a one-off isolated incident the other day I'll sawell something even more chilling carved into a different stall this time two students called out my name I don't know if they're current or old students but either way it is still seriously

057concerning the words kill blank and blank have been carved into the stall replace the blanks with two names of students and you'll see how this is so concerning beliefs like these that are present in teenagers are not inherent they are taught to them e either actively or through a lack of education on the topic we tend to fear and dislike the things and people that we do not understand challenging and banning books only worsens this problem reading books is a good way to open your eyes to New Perspectives and ways of life it is a great way to become more understanding of other people's situations being more understanding and educated about other people different from yourself decreases hate towards them because you know more about them and can hopefully empathize with them Banning books however

058is a fantastic way to increase closed-minded thinking hate and a lack of understanding all of which has the potential to lead to Violent actions a world where we love each other through understanding is a safer place than our current world a world which is filled with disdain towards others unfounded hate and Division you believe that you are protecting our children but you are in fact hurting them you are creating more single-minded hateful and endgroup oriented teenagers if you really want to help us then please support then support those of us who need that support the most the Trevor Project released the results of their 2023 National survey in the mental health of lgbtq plus teens and the results are eye openening 41% of lgbtq plus people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year 50%

059of lgbtq plus sorry 56% of lgbtq plus people who wanted mental health care in the past year could not get it fewer than 40% of lgbtq plus teens found their homes to be affirming and most importantly to my argument nearly 66% of lgbtq plus teens said that hearing about state or local laws Banning people from discussing lgbtq plus people at school made their mental health significantly worse these teens could be your children or your children's friends do you really want to facilitate an environment that causes to feel this way if not then please stop challenging and banning books that give us representation you are hurting us and you don't seem to care we are people too we deserve respect and we deserve to live in a world where we can be ourselves myself and my

060fellow members of the queer Community will not be silenced you will not succeed in drowning out our voices in your hate we speak out in love which is stronger and louder than hate we are and we will continue to be heard thank you and have a great night Jackson Lee Bryant is here to speak about book banning all right book banners and those who cater to them in order to Garner their support continue to rail against children's supposedly rampant exposure to inappropriate and potentially harmful material that this material may be shelv in school libraries and classrooms disturbs you that it could be required reading enrages you I have similar though milder misgivings my son will soon graduate from chapen high school throughout his childhood my wife and I debated the age appropriateness of books TV

061shows movies um and video games frequently we consulted Common Sense Media when our son asked for a smartphone in middle school we refused smartphones unrestricted by District web filters can be used to listen to sexually explicit songs to locate adult content on websites and to stream R-rated movies and shows our son we decided was too young for such Temptation so when his school district handed all middle schoolers digital devices my wife and I were Furious according to our son one of his classmates used a proxy to play clips from R-rated films on his district device thanks to this child our 12-year-old watched the beginning of the 2017 film it wherein Penny wise the clown bites off a boy's arm before dragging him screaming into the sewer that same year our son read the fifth wave

062although Ricky y's sci-fi novel is largely innocuous one or two scenes made our son uncomfortable so he skipped them he explained to us that whenever characters conversations or thoughts foreshadowed intimacies he'd rather not read he'd skim ahead find where those interaction in ended then pick up from there his explanation illustrates to or illustrates an important Truth uh reading is a private act you cannot be forced to read every word students who turn to Spark Notes instead of turning the pages of assigned novels understand this so do adults who visit websites such as booklook where they scrutinize curated collections of outof context dirty bits before demanding that districts remove offensive titles from all schools their actions suggests that students lack the ability to choose books for themselves that their morals are exceptionally pliable that they are

063ignorant of their parents' beliefs regarding what they should or should not read their actions imply that parents themselves lack the judgment to decide what is appropriate for their children perhaps book banners should spend less time fretting about other people's children and even more time talking to their own and please talk about more than books ask to look at their smartphones ask them what they're listening to what they're watching maybe you'll discover concerns more troubling than the books they might happen to read books after all are just books that can be closed and returned to libraries where they belong thank you Jen vanan is here to speak about hermo little league using a field at H Corley Elementary School good evening my name is Jen Von on I'm a proud parent of four D5 students and

064I'm speaking on behalf of herma little league my family has been a member of hero little league for over 12 years and I have had the honor to serve as the vice president for the league for 10 years herma little league is proudly celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year 30 years of recreation baseball and softball right here in District 5 including 34 state championships three Southeast Regional championships and three World Series appearances in the last 10 years spring registration has doubled from 300 kids to over 600 Kids kindergarten through sixth grade currently playing and another expected 150 to 2007th to 10th graders about to start next month these are all District 5 students we are the largest recreational baseball program in the Midlands specifically serving the chapen Dutch Fork and hermo communities unlike IC RC

065though hero little league is a 100% volunteer organization where our main Revenue comes from player registration fees sponsorships and donations made to the league friers Gate Park is the home of herma little league since it was formed in 1994 over the years League volunteers have made many improvements to the park including building a three-lane covered batting cage press boxes soft toss area bullpens and have built the only unlocked High School size field in the area that is open for the community to use each day the volunteers of Little League either during their lunch or at the end of the night after games have concluded regularly drag and rake the fields empty trash and perform general maintenance on the field so that they are in top form for the kids to play on the next day

066since before my time on the board and in the league there has been an agreement with h Corley in District 5 to be able to use the baseball field that is located behind H Corley Elementary School this field had been used for practices in games by the league until a few years ago when a car drove through the first basee Dugout the field had been left unted touch since then as the league did not use it due to the safety issue of the broken fence and neither the school district nor the county worked to clean up the mess since 2021 our league has continued to grow each year and we are now at the point where we have maxed out our field space and are not able to register all interested players using the H

067corly field would allow us to register many more players as we could then play an additional 5 to 10 games a week giving more District 5 students an opportunity to become part of the vibrant and positive community that exists at thol Little League currently the field is not being used even by the school and has not been touched since the accident prior to co the league has already invested several thousand dollars to bring the field up to a playable condition and will maintain the fields and is willing to provide temporary benches as necessary to be able to hold games this will incur no additional cost to the district but will provide more opportunities to District 5 students the use of the field would not impact H corly as it would not be used during the

068school day and since there are no lights on the field games would not go past dusk the league and its volunteers would maintain this field each day just as we do for the six other fields at friargate Park if you have not been to Irma Little League before I encourage you to come down to Friar bit Park one night and enjoy the great baseball and softball experience and this exceptional Community for yourself thank you Kim Murphy is here to speak about rezoning and bond referendum good good evening I was shocked at the um enrollment reports recently published on the department of education's website and a substantial decrease in enrollment in District 5 overall District 5 decreased by 206 students High School Middle School's uh enrollment has decreased many if not the majority of the elementary

069schools have decreased like Valentine Elementary even like Murray Elementary in the chapen cluster decre inreased and chap in elementary only grew by three students why are you proposing portable at chap in middle school and like I got to say this is it because they helped sell a bond referendum I mean have you looked at the lower grades to see how the upper grades are now graduating on out we keep hearing of all the growth in chapen but clearly it's not impacting the elementary schools the middle and high schools in chapen are also not experiencing the growth that you would anticipate is that because many students have enrolled in practice private schools or Charter Schools or is it because empty nesters are moving in I have not seen this new data in the public board packet

070or even calculated within the zoning rezoning data in light of this trend and decreasing enrollment before approving rezoning students or a bond referendum with new schools common sense says the board owes it to the students parents and taxpayers to analyze it and look at other options and their cost any growth we are now seeing which is not significant because of lack of development on the Richland County side of the district is in the upper grades of chapen why would you move Balentine into the chapen cluster which would only exacerbate any capacity issues and cause Dutch Fork High School to lose even more students there's just one here's just one low cost or lower cost or no cost solution solve the sixth grade issue Crossroads first incorporate the sixth graders in their appropriate middle schools there

071is room at heral mle and with declining enrollment in the Dutch Fork Elementary Schools Dutch Fork Middle School should also or considering adding on classrooms to Dutch Fort metal this opens up a whole school to use for other purposes such as a district office instead of 25 million office on the bond referendum and instead of building a $41 million Elementary School to replace Dutch Fork Elementary which has decreased now to 414 K through 5 students on a phased in basis to avoid disruption incorporate the students in the nearby elementary schools which have room that opens up a second school for other uses I'm not saying to you to do these things I'm suggesting that you look at it or or them or other options before you vote to Res or hold a $240 million referendum

072thank you very much Grady Martin is here to speak about Bond and resoning thank you guys all for the time to speak I'd like to thank Dr Ross for his dedication to the district with the exception of our teachers I think he and the District staff that's here today may do more probably in a week than most of us may do in a lifetime for the children in our community with a three minute timeline I'm apologize for the quick pace of no FRS delivery that's necessitated here but and while the thoughts and information I must share are contrary to Dr Ross's plan for fix and Phill is by no means meant to Discount his dedication to the school district it's simply an honest assessment of this fix and fill plan as it stands today in

073February when Dr Ross called a meeting at Valentine Elementary he laid out the price priorities for the fix and fill plan it had the needs of the student as the number one yet throughout his presentation he focused on the $2 200 or $300,000 study on what light bulbs needed replacing in District buildings and what door knobs were borne out facilities are a big expense so possibly it was necessary to complete such a costly process but if you spend that on facilities you would spend as much or maybe even more on the number one priority your students well when we pose that question to him and what studies were done on the mental health and emotional needs of the students during the rezoning we got a canned answer that skirted the issue and the formal answer

074later was to State how much was spent on Mental Health overall to Echo the words of all of you on the board from his 2023 evaluation the community knows when something's wrong only positive messaging during those times could be seen as sweeping something under the rug this is certainly how we feel why is the board not demanding better research and information there's volumes of evidence to support the need to minimize School changes for elementary age students yet these most vulnerable ones are the ones that Dr Ross's plan punishes the most in fact a study in Texas even found that high mobility in schools had a dramatic impact on the academic achievement of not just the students moving but all of the students in the same school why am I the parent of a kindergartener providing

075this information and not the team task with the project well simply put they were too busy hiring Consultants to look for burned out light bulbs and broken door knobs to focus on what matters the students the other takeaway from the February meeting BS was to potentially allow for grandfathering of children attending Valentine as an attendee we all left with the feeling that that was all but guaranteed then on the April 11th Town Hall was announced we as a community we hope we would get further answers on that grandfathering plan but instead of a town hall we got a recycled PowerPoint and a handful of softball questions grandfathering was addressed with a turst it wouldn't be resoning if we allow grandfathering this is contrary to what many schools and even Lexington County are doing in fact

076Lexing one is utilizing a grandfathering process as part of their Elementary resoning for the next school year so I would disagree with Dr Ross it with resoning can be in place with grandfathering and finally the public is being grossly deceived meline Garland Wilson is here to speak about teacher retention according to the Center for educator recruitment retention and advancement there are over 1,600 educator vacancies in South Carolina at the beginning of the 2023 24 school year this was up by 9% from the previous year in fact this is the fifth year in a row that teacher vacancies have hit a record high last year about this time the teacher Recruitment and Retention task force released their recommendations regarding this issue while there are 23 suggestions and to improve retention and recruitment which should be going

077to affect this June I want to focus on suggestion number seven Implement a public relations campaign suggestion number seven reads in part quote recruitment of Educators suffers from negative discourse surrounding the field of public education the issue of respect was a consistent threat in a majority of comments respect was side is the primary issue for teachers who Express concerns about remaining in the profession Educators reported feeling a lack of respect from a variety of sources this campaign should also feature the educational value and importance of educator roles other than classroom teachers especially School support professionals like school librarians end quote School District 5 of Lexington and Richland counties has always been a leader in education in South Carolina so let's see how we're doing in the effort to recruit and retain teachers and other school

078support professionals by showing them respect here is just one comment from social media quote indoctrination is very evident here the teachers are disgraceful for putting these children up to this they should be disciplined for this why are children even at these meetings they do not even have enough life experience to even remotely be able to speak on these topics do they think current adults needed to have these books to survive I don't think so as for the male guest speaker I love how he took the lowest Road possible through manipulation to discuss his horrible childhood and create an emotional environment to persuade people to think as he does what a total loser I have no words for the second male that stood up except far left liberal that meeting sounded like a meeting from the

079most liberal School District in California end quote did I mention this comment is on the public page of a trustee I'd want to be educator in this District wouldn't you this comment of course is in regard to students teachers and community members speaking at board meetings after the board voted to ban a series of books that have been previously approved by the committee of actual professional Educators after the initial challenge the committee was completely disregarded by the trustees of the district that employs them I'd want to be a librarian in this District wouldn't you yet here we are again in a situation where rather than being respected as the professionals they are media Specialists and educators are being belittled because District 5 is in the unique position of having students who use the school libraries

080intentionally but some people in this community and on this board trust book looks more than they trust degreed professionals with many years of experience working with young adults if this state if this District doesn't begin respecting the professionals they hired 2024 25 will become the six year in a row for a record high deficit of Educators thank you my name is Garland Wilson and I'm speaking on behalf of my mother Sheena Wilson Madam chair that concludes public participation all right thank you Miss Taylor that moves us to our action agenda tonight um number 12 action is necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like to make a motion that the board approve selected employment items sh an exhibit a for Action do have a second

081Miss Snipes any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero then number 13 approve request for traffic calming on Chadford road do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like to make motion that the board approve the request for traffic calming on Chadford Road and exhibit F do I have a second Miss snip seconded and this is just uh for the Public's knowledge this is a request for um speed humps is something like that uh in front of H Corley Road uh we had a nice presentation from some gentlemen that are here tonight um and they were from Town Council in hermo and they gave a presentation about the need for that um near fire gate part actually um so I just wanted to kind

082of give an explanation of that of this motion any more discussion oh I'm sorry we had a presentation but we can do we need a presentation I think does anybody need a presentation I think we okay okay all right um I'm going to call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero and then that moves us into you're welcome gentlemen Mr Penfield and Mr sickinger were here um on behalf of the town so we we cut your presentation I apologize and that moves us to number 14 on on our agenda um which is to approve a request for a teacher supplemental signing [Music] bonus do I have a motion and then we'll do a presentation have a motion Mr Miss huddle I move that we approve the request for a teacher

083supplemental signing bonus have a second second Miss Snipes I or not miss I looked at you and miss barnhard all right Dr rash you want to yes ma'am I'll go through this and we have uh Miss Marty rolls here to answer any questions uh that may come up but um was stated uh the teacher supplemental um the funding source is is from our current um our current operating budget this is to prohibit uh $838,000 contract through June 30th uh you would be eligible to receive that M rolls correct that would be for uh returning teachers and for teachers who signed their contract again prior to June 30th okay do we have any questions Miss I'm wondering if I'm just to eliminate any confusion could I amend my motion and call it a hiring SL retention

084bonus is that we we went through legal counsil get a name so I want to just make sure okay okay it was always some particularities of Dr Turner okay but we just need to make it clear it is for returning as well yes yes ma'am anyone who signs anyone who signs with School District 5 for next year will receive this yes okay great this would be for Te for individuals on the certified salary schedule and it is the signing bonus so it would cover um returning and new in that signing or resigning okay Mr Hogan correct now does this does this apply to all employees support teachers support staff is this just Educators this is only for people paid on the certified salary schedule any other questions all right seeing none I'll call for the

085vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero and that moves us to number 14 on our agenda no it moves us to number 15 on our agenda which is the discussion of board policy KF Community use of school facilities exhibit G in discussion of administrative rule kf- Community use of school facilities in exhibit H and this has been put on our agenda um because we have had a lot of requests to to board members um this year regarding our use of uh our community use of school facilities policy in particular the fee schedule and um there's been a lot of questions from board members so this was the way for the board to be able to have this conversation um Dr Ross I don't know if you want to if you have anything

086to contribute if you if you have anything to say about this before we start kind of throwing out question questions that we've had from the community or yeah yeah so uh our position is we're here to answer qu really take information back I know we have been working with our attorney on this policy and its implications so we just wanted to hear the discussion of the board have an opportunity to take that back do research and bring back proposals okay um well if the board doesn't mind I'll kind of kick it off and then we can kind of have conversation all right so we've had several different Community organizations nonprofits um and other community organizations that have been frustrated this year about the policy relating to the SK the administrative rule that has a fee

087schedule and I think some of this is the frustration is because and the question that I have as a board member is how this this fee schedule was set I know that it's an administrative rule um but feedback that I've heard and it's not just one um organization I know we had an organization speak here tonight but it's not just that organization um is that we've had several groups that work directly with District 5 students that provide after school um support whether I mean it's Athletics I mean typically it's related to Athletics I think that I have heard I'm not sure if other folks have heard other organizations um whether it's at one school or or several schools and our fee schedule this year for some reason has become um it's like cost prohibitive where

088it will stop after school activities that are very important to students and I'm trying to figure out where we're setting a rate and why that is happening and especially with organizations that are willing to provide maintenance and upgrades to facilities to to maintain them and that are proven organizations um they're not trying to get rich it's not like a a you know it's not like a a for-profit entity it's not like a travel Allstar athletic entity um and so those are questions that I've gotten and I'm concerned as a board member where where this is coming from um so I think that you know when we're and and I want to make sure that it's I don't want to call out any organizations but I know that we do have organizations that have memorandums of

089understanding with our district that do provide maintenance to you know to provide maintenance to athletic fields or um spaces that the district doesn't have to do that because that there is an agreement in place and I think that we need to be considering that um with long-standing relationships with organizations I mean there needs to be some kind of like Common Sense conversation where we're not phasing out really important programs um so I'm going to throw this to another board member if anybody has any thought miss miss I'm calling everybody the wrong names that's all right you were looking at me um yeah I guess I would just ask that the commonality that I'm hearing is um Outdoors um organizations that um manage their own activities they don't need somebody they are watching they're for our

090students um and it just and I understand like you said there's limitations because of prior agreements but it bothers me that we have a Zer lease agreement with an organization that doesn't support our kids and we want to charge these organizations what seems like a small amount but to them when you're a nonprofit and you're really just trying to cover your cost it ends up being a lot of money so I guess I would just ask that we go back and we look at the fee schedule and we look at the rules and we see if we can't come up with a way to make it as low cost as possible particularly for organizations that are not entering the buildings I almost think that that we need to have a waiver for specif I mean

091there maybe there needs to be a criteria set to make sure that because you know on the flip side of this one of the concerns that I've heard is you know there's going to be some organizations that are going to tell you that they don't want to pay a fee but they're actually making a lot of money like for a profit [Music] um but those aren't the organizations that have come to us the organizations that have come to us are organizations that have been in our district for a long time and are waving fees for students that can't afford to pay for them and those and so they're actually losing money at certain schools because they're they're being charged you know a fee and for folks that aren't don't know what the fee schedule is

092I mean I'm looking at the fee schedule for baseball and softball facilities it's $500 for the first hour and there's a minimum apparently of two hours from what I've heard um for just practice field facilities you know I think it's $100 I I mean but $500 for the first hour now a football stadium that's a diff that's a whole different ball game but a field at an elementary school that's not being used or um having students run around the uh school campus there are actual employees that are monitoring that Pro program I just I don't understand I don't understand that so um I'm going to go to Mr saterfield and then Mr Scully uh Mr wisman um we still have the school Park Agreement right yes so anything that has to do with uh the

093park the park school agreement they can use our facilities and we share facilities correct there's no there are no charges correct okay now I know that the one public participant they they were talking about they live in an area that's friargate Park and that's not part of icrc no sir it's part of richon County and we do not have an agreement with I could not find one but I've been in conversation with the director there and we have kind of getting back to what you we have been in discussion on how we're going to address these issues I I know that um like Miss Hines has referred to if you go to a lot of these schools especially Elementary Schools chapen elementary school it's you know it's the fields are always lit up and there's

094hordes of kids and it's just a great place to be I mean I I just like a Coke and bag of peanuts and go and watch the kids and there's a bunch of kids that it's such a great thing that they're out playing um but uh um I think I think back in my years um there were certain there was there was Common Sense sort of that was used I mean I was the sponsor of the sca for many years I was never charged anything and it that's that's not really a school organization um that you know that's part of the fellowship of Christian athletes and uh we never had an issue with but it was just sort of common sense so to speak but uh um maybe it's it'd be a good idea to

095sort of revisit this and look get um some of these fees that we're charging um if the folks I know that um at again I use chapen Elementary as an example because I that's where I first worked uh Crooked Creek actually was hero chapen they came in and built all those fields there was nothing but one big field out there they built all the baseball fields and they kept them up and they marked and they were free for us to use all during the day and we used them for physical education classes and field days and things like that so it might be a good idea to look back or just you know if there's not somebody trying to make a huge profit off this uh but it's for the good of the community uh

096you know I just think it might it's worthy of discussing anyway I agree I mean I think you know we honored herma little leagues at our school kickoff with all of our entire District a couple of years ago when they went to the World Series so we're like claiming the them as ours but we want to charge thousands of dollars for them to use a field that they pay that they're paying to they've paid money to help rehab is that correct I I know they're doing some work on it or literally started doing some work on it we wasn't aware that they were going to do that at time that's why we halted it that's also why we've gone back and talked to Richland County and I will tell you that the ones that you're

097aware of there are probably a half a dozen other issues that I'm having to address which is why I'm happy this is already on the agenda we were already working on a a a proposal to address not only athletic programs or or Sports programs in the school districts that are non-profitable but sometimes churches use our parking lots uh other facilities ochre strut uh but those are not student facing organizations and what I'm trying to do is get a policy that's fair and consistent across all of those areas so that maybe there's a seasonal fee so it's not by hour it's a just a small usage fee so that that one we know who's on our property you know we just found out two weeks ago that there was a church using our property that wanted

098to do some improvements which we're all for but we didn't know they were on there so we didn't have a uh a release of liability so those are the issues that we're just trying to capture it's more about maintaining who's on our property knowing who's on our property and making sure we have the right uh Insurance call policies with a if you will a registration fee for the season Kevin or Mr Scully yeah um I guess the first thing I want to figure out is what's the intent behind the fee and the fee schedule is it in terms of setting the fee and the amount and so forth is it to make it budget neutral is it so that we can earn a profit whatever for for our purposes I guess that's that's the first

099thing I would want to know um and then second but because if if is a cost to us then that's a question the Board needs to consider is are we willing to bear that cost and that expense um what's the district's responsibilities um when these properties are being used are we required to provide security um and other services while they're being used what costs are associated to us for that and are there any other one thing I when other groups are helping to enhance our properties I guess are there any legal issues are risks there I mean could they if they invest money into our properties could they turn around and make a claim on that same property in the future because they put money into it so those are just some general questions that

100I would be interested in have any answers to you I think our policy kind of addresses some of those um in the sense of you know our policy requires that anybody that uses our facility has a Certificate of Insurance which I think the organizations that have approached us have had that um and I think that it actually in um in both of them I think it identifies that the the fees are to cover any operational or incidental expenses for use of those facilities which was kind of goes back to what Miss huddle was saying when we talk about the use of outdoor facilities um especially for some of these situations because it's not using like the cafeteria or um something in school for like a church group or I think there's something in here that

101political groups can use facilities it it identifies who can use the facility so like for-profit entities I think it says that it can't um things like that so I think that that's addressed in the policy it's just we haven't really talked about the policy um and the fee schedule is part of that administrative rule that the district is using um and that kind of is coming into place play like how do you know if it does if we're using a a practice field what is that operational cost it's outside if you're not especially if you're not using lights or it's during the day I mean those are just I'm kind of spitballing questions off of off of what you're saying yeah Mr Hogan but um we just need to be aware of the cost and

102make that decision of whether we're willing to contribute if there is an actual expense to the district for that and it's not covered certainly you know wholly by the fees you good Kevin all right uh Mr wisman I guess my my request as you guys are evaluating the language inside these policies where where I guess my my issue within this fee schedule is that you know we put such a focus on the students while they're in our care customing control and and we've got these 17,000 students from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. plus or minus and and these organizations that are student facing are the ones that are taking care of these kids from 4:00 till whenever right and and from the perspective of how you guys are going to look at it what I

103would encourage you to do is to to figure out a caveat to where student facing organizations have more of an advantageous way to utilize resources that we've got within our district that I mean they are taxpayer funded property and um just looking at as to how we can make sure that no child's Left Behind the the intent is to do just that sir do we know how much money we make a year off of um facility rental fees uh I or how many different entities rent space outside of the major Park and W one I I don't have that information available so it's not like a a big budget maker oh no m r do you know that answer like is it significant where I don't know ma'am I would I could certainly research that

104okay I'm just curious because I would feel like it's not we're we're not we shouldn't be I mean I don't think we're trying to make a profit off of this the policy doesn't read like that's what we would be doing if it's covering you know the operational expense during that time um anybody else Miss bar Miss Barnhart sorry just a couple comment um you know the organization that we have been discussing currently here this evening that's being represented uh my child played there for years my husband coached there so might be a little biased but my question is on for example in that situation where we are talking about a field that is out of the way not being used the organization is willing to kind of cover the cost of maintaining um using it

105the appropriate hours I guess on the fee schedule now it'd be one thing if say somebody was wanting to use the current sitting chapen High School baseball stadium or the current hermo High School football field or something like that but I guess in this one instance it does seem um kind of outlandish to charge $500 an hour for this this one simple thing but um yeah I would like to maybe work on this policy with the fee schedule when it comes to to stuff like that because to your point if it's not really being used I mean not being used that much and we're not really getting a lot of funding from it it really would help our our community especially because a lot of these organizations are things that our students do after school

106and kind of tie hand inand with um just the loving and growing of our students from school time to uh after hours so right personally I think this V schedule is ridiculous and it makes me angry because it's very expensive to put your kids in after school activities and when the when when have fee schedules like this where you have a CH you know especially you know the the field that they want to use they're not even trying to use a and I'm talking about one specific situation now they're not even trying to use that after it gets dark so those are going to be for the young kids that are already playing super late um and as a parent like that's frustrating and I will say in that situation as well I mean they

107have put a lot and I'm sure there are other places across our district not just this one but just because it's the one that we've been talking about tonight that they have put a lot of time and energy and I'm sure finances into making into really updating that area as it is um at that at that Park and um it would just be a good investment back in our community to help them out because I I think that that parking lot still used kind of as parking anyways so in any other situations like this you know just might be beneficial okay does anyone Miss uh hudle um I'm wondering I was just looking at the dates on the policy and I don't think it's been changed since 2019 no not that I'm aware of I

108went and watched that board meeting to see what this was about and it wasn't about the fee schedule it was they adopted um the policy that was basically they had a committee there was a committee at that time that talked about the actual policy and AD and changed the language of the policy kind of to conform with the um the school Board Association but it wasn't relate they didn't discuss the fee schedule okay well and I guess that's kind of what I was getting to is even if they did I guess I just wanted to probably take a little heat off of you because my impression is that you didn't create it but you're trying to manage to what we have and do your job and so you're not being the bad guy you're just

109following the rules and that what we need to do as a board is look at the rules and whether or not and and I I agree and I also wonder if this has been like uniformally applied over the years because what I'm hearing is that these some of these organizations have had agreements or have not had to pay fees and now in the last year it's come to their attention that they do so if we just need to get rid of the fees we can I will I will tell you this because I I I don't know uh I have been looking at this specifically for a number of different cases I will tell you that the policy doesn't give me the latitude to say it's one cost for the whole season it's basically per

110use so if you're using that baseball field several times in a season you know that's where the cost comes back I would like to come back with a proposal that for the smaller organizations that are really related to some of the the smaller kids there's not a lot of wear and tear on on the the facilities that we come back with the seasonal rate that's more manageable for the organizations I'm specifically concerned about making sure I know who's on our property that they're properly insured and that if there is a cost afterwards something happens somewhere we have a way to go back and and and recapture our funding um it's not a profit making entity but it is a a a requirement I think that I have to make sure that we have accountability for

111handshakes that were done 10 10 years ago uh you know in the last couple years we've changed a number of different folks a lot of people don't recall we we've changed principles and and other things don't recall some of those those written or Unwritten U policies or agreements so my intent is to go back and formalize everything so that five years from now we're looking at the same group of information so that you can make different decisions as you see fit and I understand that I think that that you know definitely one of the good things about the policy is that it does require that anybody that uses our facilities to have an insurance riter and have those kinds of the kind of information that you need what the policy also does say is that

112the administration can set up a fee schedule which takes into consideration the purposes of the the purpose of the event and I think that phrase is what is so important taking in consideration the purpose of the event and when you're dealing with organizations that are student facing and beneficial and after school activities that we're discussing are very very important to the growth to the whole child um when you take that into consideration that fee schedule is not a set schedule I don't even think that we have to like take a vote on a fee schedule right now to say that the policy is already get already gives you the authority to set a fee schedule for an organization that is trying to help our students students personally I just I don't even think that we

113need to make a change in that um and and I I'll say this because Dave just kind of walked into a policy putting you in the firing squad but I do I do want to say that I think for us we just wanted to hear this we we weren't prepared to respond or even provide that our notion is consistent application of this uh you know no one I think in the in the room is against kids being involved on campus what we all are trying to do is we have this this was on the book for some reason these prices were set I would like the opportunity to just research what's behind it um make sure we're cost neutral and then provide um uh with many opportunities we do know that um our our notion

114was that if you were a partner uh through a um previous partnership or um if there was no profit to be made by the organization that that was kind of the litmus um but uh we know that there's going to be a lot of use requests we just want to be consistent so um that that's what we're going to go back and and look at these things uh low cost as possible budget neutral understanding what our responsibilities are as a district and our liabilities are with our insurance carrier uh to make sure that we've looked at qualifications for student-based um organizations and then kind of put collect how much we got last year so uh I think it would be smart for us to not make any changes until we've heard from our insurance trust

115and our attorney for uh uh for this policy and then bring back some recommendations anybody else thanks for taking the heat Mr Wiis oh I'm good thank you have a good one appreciate you all right that moves us to number 16 on the discussion agenda which is the discussion of the April 18th 2024 board workshop on the 5year master facilities and rezoning plan for 2027 thank you madam chair uh since we've already did the the workshop on Thursday uh I'm just going to do a recap uh for your consideration uh of the fix and field resoning plan um and uh our response of this was uh preparing for uh what we see as ch change in the future uh we are one District operating 25 campuses and as we look at um the the role

116we asked those who attended the uh pres uh presentation that we did to our community we had a virtual community Town form on April the 11th and uh so you're going to see the results of those who uh participated in that form so we asked those in attendance uh at this time in the presentation was 118 respons es which ATT tenant zone of the school district Community they they lived in uh we talked about the challenges that we Face uh in terms of the conditions of the facilities the enrollment uh issues that we're seeing in the chape and attendance areas and then also the need to modernize our instructional Workforce uh for our instructional programs for Workforce Development and so this brought uh these uh 13 projects we categorize them into three different uh subgroups

117campus Improvement projects instructional and Workforce Development projects and then resoning related projects in terms of the campus Improvement projects we talked about the security vestibules uh and while we are uh currently in the process of putting Security vestibules in some of our schools the goal is to put that in uh some Advanced uh security cameras features in all of our schools uh we talked about the uh NPS report that did a facilities condition assessment Report rating 3.7 million total square feet of space uh looking at everything from health and safety build an envelope mechanical electrical and plumbing sight conditions and interiors that report found 11,137 incidences uh with about a price tag at that time time that they provided the report uh that we presented in in the fall of this year almost 180 something

118million dollars of of of issues what's important to note is that we average about 29 maintenance work orders per day so it's uh it's important to understand that we're continuing to receive issues as a district that we're addressing when you do a composite of these facility conditions you see that the the Dutch Fork schools and the hero schools are in dire need of of repair uh We've also looked at the need to enclose the walls at Harvest and West and Nursery Road Elementary School uh these schools unlike any of our other 11 elementary schools or any of our schools have open wall Concepts um which uh don't work very well in terms of the instructional environment So the plan was to renovate those by enclosing the classroom walls um also the uh district office uh

119is in uh which uh do the conditions of the Portables and part of the uh building that we can't use right now uh due to mold was to have an administrative professional development building uh to replace that building on the baseball field of the current site um we talked about the multi-purpose Pavilion uh and uh versus the indoor um facility and uh I want to share that in the beginning of this presentation I talked about indoor climate control practice facilities uh and uh hearing from our um our experts in the field uh we have shifted it's not the request for a fully enclosed indor practice facility the request is for a covered practice Pavilion uh I've asked um Mr mck Harvey uh to to come forth and just quickly share uh some of the slides

120that he shared not all of the slides but some of the slides that he shared at our Workshop so that we can have it on record for board meeting so uh joining Mr Harvey U we have our ads that are are here representing all of our high schools uh but I ask him to come forth to just share um basically the the request for the cover practice Pavilion good evening uh so an indoor practice facility versus a multi-purpose Pavilion uh we are we are in the business of of working with a lot of young people in in the summer months uh and in the late summer months uh it's very hot as we know and so what we want to talk with you just a minute about is is providing shade uh for those young

121people when they're outside so our two options are we have a fully inclosed practice facility with with air conditioning and and uh able to control the temperatures versus a facility that's open to the to the outside uh one that will be hot but maybe not so hot uh heat acclimatization very simply is when you work with uh student athletes and help them get used to the environment this is a a process that uh takes uh at least 15 days uh to accomplish and your goal here is to help young people uh when they're playing sports when they're when they're outside to be able to handle the Heat and and not have any major heat related issues so once you acquire this climatization uh you want to to maintain that uh going inside and working out

122in an air conditioned uh environment uh when it's too hot to be outside uh is really counterproductive to maintaining climatization so our uh proposal here is that we move from uh a enclosed area to one that is open we did do uh some some Gathering of some information uh this is an example of what we do every day within our athletic department and we uh we monitor the heat uh and we use something called the wet bulb Globe temperature which is uh a combination of of atmospheric pressure U radiant pressure or radiant temperatures that comes from the sun uh this also takes into account the wind and then humidity well this particular chart goes back to August uh 14th of last year and you can see that from the hours of of 10:30 all the

123way to 9:30 we had a number of uh readings every 30 minutes we we read the temperature the wet bulb Globe temperature and you can see the readings that are in r red and in Black uh those are the readings are times where it's unsafe to go outside the orange and the yellow uh you you have to monitor uh what you're doing outside with practice uh and then yellow basically just tells you that you uh you need to take more water breaks and just pay attention to what your athletes are doing so the unshaded uh column tells us what uh the temperature the wet bulb Globe temperature was outside and then the Shaded uh area tells you what the temperature could be if you're blocking the Sun and uh and allowing your uh your athletes

124and your young people uh to work in a shaded area we all know it's just cooler in the shade this was a study uh that we found we wanted to do something more than uh just uh what we thought would happen and and man and working with different uh formulas but this was a study a gentleman by the name of John Shirley did uh where he was wanting to look at the effects of heat uh concerning shade and how that affected cattle uh and he basically has determined the same thing that that we are uh understanding as well and that is that uh if you take it the the exact same time of day and you you uh take a wet bulb Globe temperature reading in the sunlight and then compare that to a wet

125bulb Globe temperature reading in the shade obviously the shade is going to be cooler so what we're proposing and what we would like to to ask you to all uh to think about and to uh to move forward with is a pavilion style uh shelter where uh this would be a facility large enough uh to do a lot of different things uh we have the band in this picture practicing uh as well as an open area uh where you you can just use your imagination for all of the things that could occur in a facility this size during the school day with our PE classes our band classes uh all kinds of things could go on during the school day and then as well as in the afternoons uh we would be able to uh

126continue continue and maintain our U our activities uh and and worry less much less about the temperature and how those uh high temperatures affect our our young people thank you uh Mr Harvey for that and uh we also have with him ad wesinger from from chapen and athletic director Calbert from herl high school uh but before we move on if there were any questions for our athletic directors I would Pauls at this time any questions I think you answered most of our questions at our Workshop so thank you very much thank you sir so we asked our attendees of these campus improvements what was their first choice and you can see uh that security vules uh followed by the uh two rank facilities uh were were the uh number one and two choices followed by

127the um enclosing of the classrooms at h e uh I'm sorry Harvest and West in Nursery Road uh we asked what was the second choice and the second choice um was the rank number two facilities uh followed by the security vestibules you can see on one and two each of the um projects received um some votes we talked about instructional Workforce Development projects and to prepare our students to be College and Career ready um and preparing our state to meet its need for uh what we see in our state is the the workforce shortage gaps that we see in uh projected out to 2030 uh and so we discussed the digital Solutions and artificial intelligence uh program at desk High School the Fine Arts Center at chapen High School and the small business incubator at

128hermo uh during the workshop we shared the location the conceptual location of the uh heral High School incubator which is currently in its cafeteria we are currently building a new Wing which is on the opposite end of the current cafeteria so we would use that current cafeteria uh for the small business incubator here's a conceptual of what that maker space uh would look like on on the inside and then uh the current cafeteria would be the new student center on the end of the new building we discussed the construction Workforce Development Lab at the center for advanced technical studies uh to help with um backflow issues that we're seeing and Workforce issues that we're seeing in construction um and so we also talked about the location of the Fine Art Center at shapen high school

129and its conceptual drawings of how that would be placed in between the two buildings we showed the front elevations of that conceptual as well as conceptual of the Interior we ask those in attendance which instructional program for Workforce Development is most important to you uh and you can see the digital Solutions and artificial intelligence lab it do Fork High School uh received the most votes uh followed by the construction Workforce Development lab then we went into the resoning related projects uh we talked about the expanding of uh Broad River Road and uh its impact on an elementary school located in that space um but the opportunity to bring back a historical site of the rich Lex Education Center to House the academy for Success adult education and the five Virtual School uh we talked about

130the new Dutch Fork Elementary conceptual uh and uh what it would provide the students of Dutch Fork Elementary School in terms of uh being able to meet their needs uh from the uh first feedback meeting we had or second feedback meeting we had uh at bentown elementary one of the recommendations was adding on to the Lake Murray Elementary School as well as chapen Elementary School uh so with that we estimated a 20,000 squ foot addition to Lake Murray Elementary School as well as a 16,000 foot addition to chapen elementary school so we ask which of the following resoning related projects is most important to you and the results were the elementary school wings at chapen elementary and Lake Murray Elementary followed by dut Fork Elementary School uh I think it's important to to continue to

131articulate how we are um planning to uh do the F of our facilities and I guess uh as a superintendent I look at it more of an at large issue versus localized to one area um as we've seen population shifts and I'm going to talk about in terms of today's numbers um there was one point in our district where iro had the largest percent of students there's another point where Dutch Fork had the largest percent of students and that's where the buildings were built and now it's in shapen uh even if you look at the release of the 135th Day Report the decline in students where are they located uh it would be very misleading to say that that decline in students is represented all over the district that's incorrect the reality is hero is

132stable Dutch Fork is losing and chapen is gaining even if we are losing overall we're seeing that Trend uh that shaping is growing uh in in its schools uh Dutch Fork is declining in population and hero is stable that's what the latest 135th Day Report say so the question that I asked from the beginning of the year do we build a new building in school and in shaping or do we fix and fill our existing schools uh we have been uh on our staff uh working tirelessly to present a plan of the fixing field at large looking at our entire District uh without raising the tax rate uh we had a meeting at Valentine Elementary School it was on March 7th at o'clock uh at that meeting the recommendation was are you providing mental health

133support for students in impacted by resoning um and what I think is important is to understand that students move all the time we deal with student transitions daily whether it's the military or parents with jobs or changes or or or just shifts that happen some of the most transient populations that we have um is at Seven Oaks where 42 to 45% of that school changes yearly uh so uh we have a lot of experience with with students who are moved for matters that they have no control over there was a recommendation from the community to grandfather families that have been impacted by resoning I hope to show through the data how blanket grandfathering grandfathering means because my grandfather had that respon that ability or that privilege that I get it uh but we said and

134we posted this we had the meeting I believe believe it was a Wednesday by Monday this was posted um and and presented to the community that we're a choice district and uh we are drafting a Preferred Choice options for families most impacted by resoning and this could be offered to students through the highest grades of their current School uh we had the recommendation to add existing buildings to prevent future resoning we've Incorporated that within our within our plan so uh with our plan 99% of the students and it's actually 99.7% of the students keep their original High School Zone 1% which is really3 um will be reson uh from dut Fork to chapen high school and there were no plans to remove our 3K 4K programs when we drafted the uh the new map uh

135you can see how the elementary schools were were charted out this was using our existing facilities to handle our our existing growth um this is uh we showed this at a workshop on January the 8th uh where we had U the office of student service and planning uh with our accountability director Dr Van Holden showing all of the data behind how we could move our students into the buildings using not theoretical field but the max fi that outlines how programs are used and that's what's important to understand how programs are used at the at our schools uh but since the January 8th meeting since the January 8th meeting as we received input we added new construction to chapen Elementary and Lake Murray Elementary uh for the Master facilities plan um and that has increased the

136capacity at these new at these two schools which gives us new opportunities and with that new opportunity uh we can move less students so uh we have now uh an option for if the referendum passes uh that would increase uh the capacity of Chap and Elementary increase the capacity of Lake Murray Elementary and have less impact on the current Valentine Elementary families uh I want to point you to how these schools um would look based on our our current data of our K5 enrollment uh without the referendum and our first map balen time is at 7:01 and I don't think it's ever been that big I think maybe 680 is probably somewhere in there 6:30 um um but we would we would have over 700 students there we're not looking at projections we're looking at

137axles um you see the size of chap in Lake Murray and Piney Woods if with the referendum by enlarging shaping and Lake Murray we can get more students into those buildings and it could reduce the population at Valentine what this would do is allow for our Preferred Choice option to take effect what is Preferred Choice these are the families that were moved out of Balentine Elementary into either Dutch Fork Elementary H Corley Elementary oako elementary or River Springs Elementary right now if you look at Valentine about 89% of the current Valentine students are zoned through the the Dutch Fork area without the referendum that redu down to about 30% 30% because 61% of I'm sorry um we need to move uh more students into uh Balentine from from Lake Murray about almost half about 49%

138of the Lake Murray students are going to be moving into Valentine it's a movement down from from the West to the east however with the expanded Lake Murray we can keep more students uh in in the the Lake Murray Elementary School so this is just showing you using the the data as of April 15th of what these schools would look like um now some of the potentials that we we have some of the uh advantages of the with the bond with a bigger Lake Murray and Chap and Elementary is we impact less families um I don't know how to do a resoning without impacting All Families we are trying our best to work in uh as many um minimizing issues uh whereas you know students keep their high school as possible um we have tried

139as we've moved students to keep neighborhoods together and then when that has come up that uh um to work and to keep as many neighborhoods together as possible uh so that they move in with their neighborhoods so in short uh we have two maps a map of how we move students in our existing buildings uh with right now in terms of no referendum we are about at 94 95% Max of our 8% funds so I don't know where a new elementary school would come from even if we did want to put it in chapen uh but with a referendum uh the goal is to at large take care of the whole District I do see a day if you look at with the referendum map um in the Lake Murray attendance Zone on the Northern

140end that you could put a future Elementary school there and the lines are drawn such a way that you could have a natural divide um for that school uh but in The Five-Year Plan is to address the facilities that we have uh throughout the entire District uh for for the referendum so uh with that being said um we hear uh a lot that you know we should just make the move uh but there's no planning in that about programs and teachers and certifications um and the growing number of requirements that we're resp that we're responsible for doing our work in this fix and field plan is to make sure that when we move students we're not just moving them to a building but that we're moving them to a place that is ready to receive

141them in their needs so as we move from this program to to this program um we are doing it using the same meal rate as if uh if it fails however we do have a plan uh if if we don't move forward with a referendum so we ask the community to uh look at um how this affects you you have a QR code uh Dr Harris and his team has placed up where we have put hundreds of thousands of parcel into um our program here where you can put in your address and see how this uh impacts you and so uh we explained that here's our financial situation in terms of the tax rate um millage that's required for each limiting our borrowing over 20 years where we don't have to go over uh the

14269 a half Mills to to pay this back um and uh so we asked which of these options before the Board of Trustees do you prefer and uh we had 158 total responses um and bond referendum with no tax rate increase received 94% of those responses so we have uh received many questions that have come through I think we've posted those on our website for your review you can see those questions that are that were posed and the respon uh so on our on our web page um and then we ask how would people like to be updated and and that was through email so we encourage um uh to the community continue to stay involved and aware of the things that we have um of the updates as we make through move through this

143presentation one of the things that we wanted to point out that the Board needs to consider is uh to complete the rezoning uh if there is a a successful referendum by August 2026 we need the following projects to take place a new Dutch Fork Elementary the rich Lex education center the wings at chapen elementary and Lake Murray Elementary looking at solicitation of A&E firms uh getting construction documents and actual construction time of the facility that's 30 months two and a half years we don't make 202 August 2026 with 30 months uh so looking at the Timeline um uh the goal was if the board uh moves forward with this that we U move ahead with the A&E it'll be my request to the board to move forward with the A&E uh for those projects only

144so that uh if the referendum succeeds uh then we can move um with full deliberate speed to make sure that this can happen in 2026 uh if it fails then we have um we have our projects and construction documents that we can use for future use uh my calculations have February 2025 as being that point where we need to be able to start these projects in order to have a chance of implementing this in 2026 of of the Fall so today is about uh discussing the fixing and filling projects um we have talked about having it again on the agenda on May 6 and uh asking the board to make a decision on on May 20th uh again these are the estimates of the cost that we have uh for uh each of the projects

145and uh we had at the the discussion conclude it with the discussion of the potential question uh so with that I will pause for any questions any questions Miss hle um I have several um but I'll just um ask a couple now in case other people do um the construction um I can't remember exactly what it's called but um where where would that be located and would it be on existing land or would we need to buy land for that we would need to buy land for that okay the other question I had um is you said it quickly so I want to make sure I understand when you talk about A&E um you're talking about basically paying an architect an engineer a I'm assuming that's the A and the E to design the new

146Dutch Fork Elementary those things right there those top four okay okay and so you're you want to go ahead and pay for that before the bond referendum okay so um two questions there um one I guess is where would the money come from to pay for that and then the second question is when would we vote on that very good so uh one of the things that we discussed at the workshop was if this was to um pass on May 20th what we would do is we set up about 3 .5 million aside for the fixing field plan of that I think we've exercised about 600,000 of that in the purchase of land for hero uh hero High School uh so those funds would come from that the the funds that we've set aside for

147the fix and field plan uh that um was a fund balance assignment so how much all the 3.5 million I don't think it would cost all the three okay and you say fund balance so you're talking about operating fund balance or Capital this was uh operating book that would have been general fund fund balance assignment okay so is this money that we've is sitting in the general fund right now we haven't reallocated it yet we already assigned it it's sitting in in the fund balance for the general fund that was I think the assignment was done last year the assignment was done last year okay Y and I have some other questions about I'll I'll pause anyone else have any questions go ahead Miss uh Miss barard um just a quick one uh could you

148go back to the slide with the cafeteria on it no maybe well you're scrolling keep goingo cafeteria yeah Theo one yeah I'm I guess it's just a really kind of random question but corre I don't remember when we I know we had talked about the um the one before that I think it was yeah um the business incubator but first maybe I must have missed it or I might have missed it and I could be mistaken but when was that added to the The Proposal um for the new Cafeteria on the East Wing so uh this was the uh con the conceptual was to always add a a small business incubator in the current cafeteria that's what displaced this so in the estimates of of this project all of this was included within the estimate

149gotcha so it's not an additional cost or anything right when we said small business incubator it's the total project so it's the incubator and we were calling it a student center uh but that estimate of that we have includes this total project so that will be included in the construction of the East Wing correct now it would be a separate um a a separate bid a separate project um but the way the new East Wing is designed is is designed with uh uh the ability to attach on to it one of the concerns that uh the Administration has is with the new East Wing let's say this project doesn't exist you can see every day you have to move the students from this end all the way across the campus to the cafeteria that becomes

150a a challenge each and every day um it can be done but the the goal was kind of bringing replacing that cafeteria with a new one and then having the incubator as the elective space on the end and um it said in on that timeline the East Wing is looking at completion around febrary March of 26 would the would this part be after that or would it be so yes it would be after and then of course it would have to be bid separately so uh part of that bid would be um working either with that GC or that GC might bid on it um and so that's when that phasing would come in I think typically we have um we have what is it Mar I'm not trying to put you on the spot

151but like six years five six years to exercise the funds for these for the referendum yes ma'am yes sir yeah uh so that's kind of the the the phasing timeline um of that but that's why the Student Center was replaced but in our estimate uh we have both projects there a lot of construction on that road for a little while probably worth it um and then my second question is how much um is it going to cost an annual maintenance or like the cost increase of the maintenance for kind of all of these projects as a whole um going forward that that's a um that's a good question I can get um I can look at what our existing footprint is and I'm not trying to put U maintenance on a on the spot here

152but we've looked at sub Max men per square foot um industry uh estimates of cost um I think the Min was uh $654 a square foot and if that's the minimum point of of maintaining your facilities at 3.8 million square F feet uh that's about $24 million a year as you know we currently don't spend $24 million on our existing plant so um I think that's why we're in the kind of deferred maintenance plan that we are is that as we expand our footprint uh but do not expand the maintenance budget to maintain it um we kind of get into this run to fail system so um our goal is in a um what I would hope uh or I would say a hope but one of the options that we would have with a

153referendum is that we could spend referendum debt and not 8% debt we could use that time to pay down the 8% capacity uh get it into a much more manageable space so that we could use more of our 8% to to take care of the the square foot plant but that was just a minimum number of $654 a square foot so um just uh that that's in terms of Maintenance numbers Mr saterfield just a quick question uh apparently we're not doing a very good job of selling the issues that we have with our district office because it was the lowest thing on the totem pole I guess they don't know about the mold and mildew um on half of the building um the practice field um I think when we first start when we first

154started talking about it and look looked at the price that was uh the estimation for the for the build it wasn't a full sizee field at that time we were talking about a partial size knowing that it is we're now talking I'm assuming by a full size two End Zone completely covered fied um and if there going to be multiple used by multiple groups when we have to fall into ADA compliance and um all that goes with facilities being accessible to all students I was just curious um the the price and I've never built one obviously I don't have one in my backyard but the price it seems like for that price to build three um uh it seems like it ought to just to me it just seems like it ought to be higher

155do we have have we looked at that really are you all confident in that price and and so you what we're looking at is estimates of of facilities that have been built and in other places um of course you don't know until you get down to the actual bid of what it would be um one of the things we talked at the uh the the workshop is our priority of projects right you know uh if we get down to it and um this is this is cost prohibitive then then it's it's not prioritized as one of the top uh projects we looked at and um I'm looking at my team here if I'm wrong you can come and correct me here uh but it was um uh full fields that were were turfed is that

156correct so um one of the things that we're responsible for for all of our facilities as you say accessibility um uh whether it's uh Ada or even Title 9 accessibility uh for for anything that serves the the the athletic um squads um and just as you know whether students get hurt and so whether it's wheelchairs or crutches or scooters uh making sure we have access to all of our facilities any other questions Miss um on the Lake Murray Elementary wing and the um chapen Elementary um for each of those how many students would that add what what capacity would that add so um we can do the subtraction together but but that's enrollment right because I did the subtraction and it really like not much on um Lake Murray so is it really just gonna

157add 80 82 right and so remember what we're doing though is we're removing Portables here so when I we we take the Portables out you're talking about 82 over all of the I forget how many Portables are on on the campus there but all of those Portables are now off the campus so it is not just 82 it's whatever the the uh number of students that are outside the building plus that uh additional same thing with uh Chap and Elementary all of those Portables would now be gone plus you would have uh additional uh capacity there I think this would not be um this is probably not the best thing to look at I think the best thing to look at would be today's current numbers plus um plus the uh addition so uh let

158me make sure I get this exact number yeah or just tell us for this addition how many students that addition could hold is that how we look instead of getting enrollment in the way just look at capacity I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out is how much would each of those additions increase capacity and what what I want to I guess we let me make sure I get that that right answer I know the square foot but in in terms of the number of students we're putting in our our work was to make sure that we had all of our our classrooms in um uh that were in the Portables and then we could receive additional but we'll make sure we get that number okay I mean we don't have to have it

159today I just kind of wanted to understand it the other thing is can you go back to the slide that has the question like it had like if would you want to do the bond referendum the one that had the Big Green that one I mean in the interest of true transparency shouldn't one of the options be no bond referendum and your tax rate decreases cuz that's what would happen let let me ask is that true absolutely true when before um Pony Woods Elementary was built the millage rate was I think 54 Mills and when they built Pony woods they used 8% money and they spread it only over three years so the the rate would have actually gone down if we hadn't kept it at 69.5 if the the debt starts getting continues to

160be paid off the millage rate will go down down can I ask a question clarifying that sure how could you promise that if you have if you if you have a report um that shows a lot of critical needs you can tell the community that we're we're not going to take care of those needs and we can guarantee you we'll reduce the the millage rate there I mean I'm not saying we shouldn't take Nick care needs but it's it's Finance I mean what we're talking about is if you borrow $240 million there's a cost it's not free there's a cost and it's paid for in the millage rate staying like it is for a very long time if you don't do that or you do less than 240 million you don't borrow that money therefore

161the millage rate will go down and I I guess it's just disturbing to me as person with a finance background to pose the question like this to people people need to know cuz back when I watched the board me meetings on Pony woods and there was a lot of discussion about how the millage rate would go down when these Bonds were paid off so I I'm not saying I mean just be frank with people but I want to be clear we're accused of misleading and it it gets gets very tiring to hear that is misleading it is it's absolutely misleading but I didn't cut you off so if I can have that respect to say to people that the that the debt service would de decrease how could we promise that The Debt Service would

162incre would decrease to say that would to say that a board in the future would never Raise The Debt Service we just told you that right now our debt capacity is at 96% 95% so that means that the boards of the future would say we are not doing anything we're not going to do aggressive repay we're not going to raise to uh execute uh more barring to take care of problems that all of those options are off the table for a future board the only thing we can promise is if we act or if we don't act with this barring capacity this is the impact on voters but to say that a future board would never take care of those issues I don't know if we can promise that and that's all I'm saying is

163that to say that you could decrease would be to ignore the facility issues that we have in the district as an at large superintendent I don't see how we could promise that to our community and to the students and the teachers who work in these facilities okay Dr Ross by that logic you can't say this is no tax increase either because this does not solve the problem at chapen high school and it's getting worse and so by that logic you can't say this is no tax increase either because we could pass this and then we could say we're out of room at jaap and high school we're going to have to increase your we're going to have to borrow more money so it works both ways if we do this there's no tax increase immediately

164but there probably will be to fix chape in high school's enrollment the converse is true too if this tax if this Bond referendum doesn't pass the next year the tax rate will go down will it stay down no but it also might not stay flat either I'm just saying we we don't need to let people think money is free cuz it's not when you P when you pass a bond referendum or this board borrows money there's a tax impact to people it's never free I I would uh and I'm not I'm not going to argue I'm just sharing with our financial advisor share with us it may be helpful that we question a financial advisor U but always Sharon is what are the implications to The Debt Service billage rate of these decisions What hap

165the ifs are not in either one of these scenarios of of what can happen in the future it is the implication of a 240 million doll Debt Service borrow I'm sorry Mr hoan and then Mr saterfield Dr Ross you had mentioned that um with the additions to Lake maray Elementary that would eliminate Portables correct that's correct yes sir um would it eliminate Portables at shape and Elementary as well yes sir that's correct okay are there any other elementary schools that we have in our district that are currently utilizing Portables no sir okay and I say that from the sense that um I mean I've had kids in in lakeer elementary and I've got one there now and uh one of them had the opportunity to be in a portable looking at the aial unless Google

166Maps is out of date I think I counted 16 Portables at Lake Mar Elementary and and at just say 20 students per portable I think the max is 23 per class correct 25 25 per class but just at 20 that's 320 students in affordable and I say that from the sense that my child was he's a runner not in the sense that he runs away from school right not the sense that he runs away but in the event of a certain situation he's a designated Runner because he's in a portable and it wasn't a position that he had Safety and Security right and so understand what anything that we could possibly do to eliminate the Portables vulnerable areas in our school I'm behind so I I understand you know the philosophy behind it I would

167encourage us to look at any opportunity to put all of our students inside of brick and mor yeah I wanted to clarify a couple of things too at least from my perspective and that is that I don't feel like this is misleading at all I think that there we have have been given a presentation from one end to the other every scenario that is possible what would happen um I really believe that um you know there may be we we've had some discussions about chapen high school in the future there may be a situation because of the situation with Spring Hill that there is another referendum you you can't just say that there will never be another this is going to solve all problems but I think that um putting in there that no bond

168referendum and this could lower your taxes would be misleading in of itself as well I think that would people would a lot of folks would see that as oh I lower my taxes that's why I'm going to vote for this um that's what I'm going to vote for I'm going to say no because I want to lower my taxes because that's how a lot of folks see this I mean they don't take the time I I looked at the um the video from our last Workshop there were 27 people that watched the video 27th the rest of people the rest of the folks get their information Word of Mouth um I don't know how many people are watching this meeting tonight but I suspect there's not a 100 people watching it so when they look

169at that referendum if they look at a question if it says if you vote no we could lower your taxes well you're also going to have schools like Mr Hogan said filled with Portables which aren't safe for kids we've got kid we've got a lot of schools and those of us who have been out visiting the school schools we know the condition of these schools they have been let go for a very long time we are in desperate need of this in my opinion of this referendum so I I disagree to say that it's misleading I think it would be more misleading to say to imply that um it's bad because it's going to and that's how some folks will see it it's going to increase your taxes um because you were just saying nothing

170is free of course nothing is free but to say that no referen it means that we're going to your taxes will probably get lower well for a lot of folks that's all they'll know that's all they'll see and that's what they'll vote on so that's just my two cents Mr scy I have a background in finance I work in finance every day what you said is misleading all this is saying is that the relating to the funds in the bond does not require taxing increase or a millage increase to raise to to secure those funds it does not mean that there is not going to be a tax increase in the future or a tax decrease or anything relating to that this is talking specic specifically about these funds cheese and rice this is you're

171you're OB obis skating the issue this is clear all right Mr Scully um you need to stop okay all right we're not we listen we're not we're not getting in into back and forth right now um I please no I agree I mean please okay please I'm I'm not making derogatory comments care who making derogatory comments we're not getting into that right now it is 10 o'clock I'm we're going to respect each other guys all right does anybody else have any other comments all right Dr Ross is that what you have for 16 all right thank you very much all right so that's going to bring us into item 17 which is the fiscal year 2025 general fund budget calendar and exhibit I yes as our inter room uh Chief Financial Officer Marty rolls comes

172to the uh Podium we just wanted to outline our budget calendar for uh fiscal year 2025 Marty rolls thank you um as you can see from the calendar here tomorrow starts the budget debate on the senate floor uh the the budget bill out of the Senate Finance has already come through one thing I want to make sure that everybody understands is the $47,000 starting salary for a bachelor's degree teacher with zero years of experience is the same in both houses so unless the Senate makes an any amendments on the senate floor that will carry through that will not be debatable because it does match both houses um the first reading we're planning for May 6th second reading on May 20th with the final reading um on June the 10th and that will be the date

173of the public hearing couple of things that I want to bring up that are in the house version and are um also the similar in the Senate version is there is a proposed increase of 11.8% in employer contributions for health insurance and over the last three years that'll be a 33.6% increase when you look back to fiscal years and add the 11.8 so that's a substantial cost to the district also wanted to remind everyone that obviously the Esser funding ends September 30th and over the three Esser one two and three we have uh been able to profit or been able to put money in the system of 23 million plus dollars it's made a huge impact in the district um it it's made opportunities for social emotional learning for learning um us to be able

174to provide instructional programs for learning so it's it's made a a big difference and how we respond to that after September 2024 is going to also make a difference what do we need to continue that we have been doing that we've seen successes with and how will we fund those items going forward so those are some of the things that we are looking at as we go through this budget season obviously we're all uh very familiar with inflation it it's happening in every facet of our society um not exempting instructional programs supplies services and we all know how utilities are increasing so these are some of the again some of the things that we're looking at as we look at the budget for the 2425 school year the the funding formula for the education is

175based on the 7525 ratio so once the they go through the entire formula um right now the number of teachers per or number of students per teacher is and remember their teacher is not what we call a classroom teacher it includes guidance counselors it includes a lot of other people in the mix is 11.23 teacher or students per teacher in the Senate version 11.2 in the house version so a little bit of change there but when you when it everything shakes out and you can see it if you look at our monthly uh financial statements our local to State instead of being 7525 we're looking at about a 6436 ratio So based on what the ability of our district to pay for taxes kind of changes the amounts that we realize of State funding um

176all this is based on the index of tax paying ability which is an amount that is provided to us by the Department of Revenue it is our total assessed value as a percentage of the entire State's total assessed value like I said that number is provided to us annually uh last year I went back through Miss Paul's um presentations from last year last year District 5 was the fifth largest on the index this year we are the 14th largest out of 80 districts in the state so we are number 14 out of 80 um want to also remind you that just because our weighted people units for enrollment is going down does not necessarily mean our funding will go down it doesn't mean that our funding will go up if it goes up it just

177is all relative based on what our percentage of the whole is it's a um a pretty involved formula when you look at all of the the data points that they are including in this um I wanted to make sure you had the information on our 135th day we had 16,750 61 individuals students in K12 this does not include include anything prek this is only K12 which is what our funding is based on that's compared to the same time last year of 16,9 5632 when you calculate the weighted pupil units um the way they do it a traditional student in grades K through um 12 would be a one however if you have um special needs it's a 2.6 waiting there also additional waiting for um gifted talented um our Ling uh multi- I say it

178wrong every time our non-english-speaking students um is their primary language you get an additional weighted average you can get um additional funding for peoples in poverty and academic assistance so when all that um settles out our 135th day weighted pupil units will be 26,7 57442 as compared to 268 1107 so just a a small difference from last last year um still waiting to find out what the state's weighted people units are on the 135th day uh the problem with calculating that is that with Charter I don't know the mix between what's brick and mortar and what is um a virtual Charter and that adds into the whole State's weight to people units usually about 1.2 1.3 million um overall so as soon as we get these numbers I we did get some numbers today for

179the Senate um and they were just a a small bit different than the house as far as the allocation so I think we're looking um we're looking good I'm I'm pleased with where the revenues are coming in at I think we will um you know we'll have to tweak some things but there again with the 47,000 being the same in both houses um about a 6% increase overall for the whole certified teacher salary schedule um the bachelor's column is realizing a much larger increase than the doctorate column and that's just based on the way the state has assigned the uh increases the numbers that they calculated and came up with and Dr Ross I think you wanted to speak about the um the charts at the bottom yes very briefly I just want to share

180that this is something that we have to consider as a as a district and board as we do this budget last year the base State salary was 42,00 ,500 the base lexon Richland 5 was 44,000 so we were over the state budget now the state is bringing it up to 47,000 for base it appears in the media that we're getting 47,000 for for every teacher and we're we're not uh as you heard we get 64 68 cents about 64 cents on 64 cents on the dollar so we have to come up with that that difference um uh and plus we have we do a 25:1 ratio um the state allows you to go up to 35 to one so we have more teachers uh on our on our in our district because we have smaller

181class sizes so more teachers more allotment that we have to come I just want to just make sure everyone understands it takes a lot of local to get to 47 all of our teachers at 25 to1 so um I I don't want everyone to think that there is a a pass through of funds at a 100% dollar for dooll for this this is going to take a lot of local to do we are able to do it but to be 2,500 Above This 47 I don't know how we can pull that off uh so I I just wanted to make that clear I don't want labor the point tonight but as we go through this um you're going to talk to D5 teacher that we we are paying a lot uh tell Dr Turner all

182the time if we were at 35 to one we wouldn't have a teacher shortage but we we invest in the smaller class sizes we're going to continue to invest in those smaller class sizes it's just going to be um we have to come up with that other uh 30 something cents on that dollar any questions any questions Miss hle um did the waed people units for Kate stay I think it was at 1.3 was that 1.2 1.2 yes what um what classifies a student as Kate is it one class is it a course or a enrollment in a certain program I understand that it's one class is that correct they it's my understanding that it's that one double block class because it is double blocked and then Perkins is the completers correct that's correct all

183right so one class a student count so so one of our goals should be to fill all our cake classes we read you loud and clear just making sure okay Dr Russ um when we are looking at this um chart for 2425 do you have a ballpark of what you're going to recommend for the base salary in Lex Rich 5 for we going to stay with the 47 or we going to go up because we've historically paid above I I'll I'll tell them we're waiting till see what our neighbors put in right and then isn't the goal to raise the starting um the governor's goal I think is to raise the starting State the base salary to like 50,000 or ,000 by 226 so like every year it's going up so every year we're going

184to be going up and salary and to stay competitive we're going to need to be a little bit above what that base rate is and then that moves it that kicks it up all the way up the what's happening steps right it's it's that's the biger issue right it's going to kick it up all the way up to the steps what you would try to do is create some kind you want some slope in your payment schedule so there's incentive to stay a longer amount of time if the slope decreases um then you you get flattened out so by raising to 50 without the funding to bring it up through the rest of the scale so you can realize a 6% increase on the front end and at the end of the scale we're we're

185at one you know it's like at 1% I mean you can see the numbers here from 425 to 47 um you're looking at an approximately right at 10% increase right there so if you see a 10% in the first you know right there in that first square and when you get to a doctorate with 28 because they've they've added the extra five years to the schedule as well um it's like a 1% the the entire doctorate column based on their minimum salary schedule is 1 to 2% increases whereas the bachelor's is much higher and and they're frontloading it um to get the newer teachers in into the education field Mr saterfield yeah and I was going to say and if you couple that with the cost of getting that master's degree and you're only getting

1862% one and a half percent in order to recoup that cost to increase your pay it could take several years and that's that's that's a real issue that should be addressed um what are we I'm just curious Dr Ross what are we telling teachers new teachers right now when they're coming coming on board so we we want to thank yall for giving them $500 for the signing Bon now uh we do have the ner program where we we give our new teachers in our first three years $2500 so on top of this whatever we do if we go to 47 we're almost at 50,000 in that package but I would also say to one of the things that um we have to share is our our benefits package now that's going up in healthcare about

18711.8% this year so those are funds that don't realize in your paycheck but they do realize in your benefits we are the primary carrier of a lot of families uh um we carry a lot of non-employees we pay their their health benefits and I think uh to some I think we had like $15,000 an employee covering the family's uh Healthcare so all of that has to be paid we hit that big time on the local side so as we go up in in the payroll salary it's just uh it's going to be a huge drain uh not drain but you know it's going to be huge demand so I just wanted to share that as as we make this move to 50,000 uh there's not money dollar for dollar for that and we have to

188look locally for that so we're going to we're dedicated to the class sizes um you know I was being fous but I'm being serious we want to be competitive too so um you know asking around where are you going and so we're trying to work that in with um our operational things I think right now like 88 cents of every dollar we have is for for for people we're about 88 to 89 cents of every dollar yes so looking at how that other 12 11 cents is going to require with no yes sir so that's what we're going to bring back to you on the uh six working to to put a proposal in there um but I I just can promise you we can't be 1,200 or or or $2,000 above the minimum this

189year any other questions on this all right thank you Miss RS I think you might need to stay there uh this brings us to number 18 on our discussion agenda budget transfer for instructional supports exhibit J Ross M rolls so I put out a survey to the principles talking about the 2425 school year and I asked them what their priorities were with their funding that are has nothing to do with people nothing to do with capital what are your priorities and it was a very telling that for the elementary and the middle intermediate and middle schools they all shared a common need need and so what I would like to do and I'm asking you all for the permission to do or the approval to do a a budget transfer is our grades K through

190two um talked about decodable texts so the first thing I did of course was go to Google and find out what a decodable text was and it really reinforces those site words um these kids are the ones that are going to be in this new read to succeed we will have have to um do reading recovery camp in the summer for these students in K12 going forward I think that anything that we can invest into that to get them more familiar with their site words more of that love for reading that that was for me that's a no-brainer um they this was a districtwide this was not one Elementary School I'm telling you I got it 13 times everyone of them was interested in that um grade three through five classroom live libraries as far

191as class sets of books so that they all can read the same book and share together and have um book studies and there again continue to grow that love of reading um fifth through eth grade was pretty consistent uh they were looking at what could they do to reward positive behavior to have Behavior interventions to support students um I will tell you I'm not above bribing to get what I need and get the results and if that's what it takes for these children I think it's something that we can certainly we have the ca capability to invest in so I went and looked at um played around with some numbers trying to figure out what we could do um with the 13 elementary schools K through two $10 per student for the co decodable text

192for the classroom libraries third through fourth and fifth grade um $8 per student and then for the student Behavior interventions $5 per student these were all based on um the most recent enrollment numbers that I had so you're looking at a $81,000 um budget transfer and it would be coming from unencumbered um support benefits it's money that based on the per um payroll and the Personnel that we have hired today these dollars will go unspent and I think this would be a great area that we can use and see results quickly um with these dollars we've talked to the principles and told them they will have a short turnaround period because it has to be ordered and received before June 30th so if this is something that you all would support we can certainly make

193this happen for each school I think this is a great idea anyone have any questions thank you for taking the initiative to do a survey and find all of this information and I think it's great thank you anybody else Mr Hogan I've got a motion for 19 go ahead we can adjourn I have a second I second Miss uh Barnhart second any discussion all in favor motion carries 6 to zero we will adjourn until May 6