January 8, 2024 School Board Meeting

001we are going to get started in just a few minutes um we're waiting for a couple of board members to come back in so I didn't want to start without a quorum forhead okay I would like to call to order our 400 PM board workshop on the fiveyear Master's facility Workshop um we have a few board members that have just stepped out but they will be in shortly d ross I'm G to turn it over to you thank you madam chair members of the board and uh Welcome to our board Workshop this is our opportunity to look at our five 5 year Master facilities plan uh as a reminder uh the reason that we do this is under our general powers of the board uh to provide uh suitable school houses in this District uh

002to make them comfortable paying due regard to uh the buildings that we already have but also to make sure that we promote the best educational interest of the district so with that in mind our goal is to create a prioritized list of capital projects for the school district uh that and these projects will be funded within 5 years when the plan is approved uh as you remember we had seven questions that we were working our way through uh we completed the grade structure of how the district would be organized we have done a enrollment analysis uh for projections for each school we looked at the academic programs to determine our educ instructional priorities in today's meeting you will hear uh our recommendations for those items that are in progress uh the desired enrollment for our

003elementary middle and high schools and utilization rates you'll hear our minimum conditions uh that we are planning to meet for all of our schools and you'll also see we'll end with our rezoning redistricting plans so the purpose of today is just to uh hear the information that we have provided uh to solicit initial feedback with know that that the board will need time to review this data to get community input um from our from our plan how was our plan created well we us use some guiding principles to help us with uh the uh to help us with answering those seven questions if you can recall we did community analys and enrollment projections of forecast on September the 11th we had MPS come out and do our facilities conditions assess assessment on October 23rd on

004November the 13th we had our instructional plan review and then we talked about our financing plan on December the 11th this was us strategically going through all of these elements to make sure that our plan uh was uh completed and had the adequate data uh to ensure that it's its viability uh if we look at our enrollment uh and Community analysis that we see that that um and if you look at 10 years ago or roughly 10 years ago the 200 the 135th day data from 2013 you'll see the enrollment distribution of students within our community and if we look at what happens 10 years later I'm sorry maybe missing a slide here but we see that in increases in the shaping area uh as a result we had our facilities conditions report this was

005uh measured on F a scale of five uh points uh one being the lowest five being the highest with three representing average wear and tear of a facility um when we look at our facilities in our our we look at the facilities in our community you can see that we are prioritizing those facilities that average a score of two with yellow being replaced within the 3 to six year range but represents normal wear and tear uh so our priority is those buildings that have a score of two so that brings us to a specific question that we have here do we a build more schools in the chap in area or B fix uh the existing schools in the Dutch Fork and hero area what's important to note is both options will require resoning of

006students so as a result our goal was to fix fill and finance uh the schools uh again instead of building more schools in the chapen area fix and fill the existing schools that we have in the Dutch Fulk and hero area so to reone uh we have uh a new uh redition districting map uh this is draft four that will reference uh our goal pending the uh approval of this this plan is to begin this redistricting on the uh 2026 2027 school year how does this work uh as we shared uh to move to this sustainably uh we need one additional building our recommendation is that new building be D D Fork Elementary School we take the current dut Fork Elementary site and convert that to the rich Lex Community Education Center uh if you're

007not familiar with Rich Lex that was a school that ex existed in our community um it I think the last year was in operation was in 1968 uh if you can remember what high school you graduated from we have some people in our community their High School is no longer here the school is no longer here it is our goal to bring that name back and bring it back to its original location its function would be to house the academy for Success which is in Spring Hill the adult education program which is in ermo and the five program which is in Piney Woods by taking those programs out of those schools we can maximize the need uh the seats uh in those existing schools and house them at the the new Rich lakes also bringing

008back a name in our community that has been gone since 1968 at the high school level uh we would have and what what you'll see in our plan uh is that we keep to a large degree our high school structure um with even in the resoning the majority of the students will tend the high schools that they currently are zoned for chapen high 9 through 12 Spring Hill High remaining a magnet school dut Fork High School and hero High School all 9 through 12 well we start to see the changes at the middle level where the current Chap and intermediate school going to Chap and middle 8 uh 6 through 8 the current chapen Middle School going to Spring Hill Middle 6th grade through 8th grade same with Dutch Fork High School being six as

009Dutch Fork Middle being 6 through 8 the crossroads intermediate transitioning to Crossroads Middle 6-8 and hero Middle School going 6 to8 this is different from the draft three as we look at balancing the numbers you can see how Chap and Elementary and Pineywoods move into Chap and middle Lake Murray and Valentine move into Spring Hill essentially instead of building a new Elementary in chapen will be using the Valentine building as a new Chap and feeder Dutch Fork will take in Oak Point River Springs and Dutch Fork Elementary and H Corley would move as a feeder with leap heart and seven Nots into Crossroads Middle all of harberson West Nursery Road and hermo Elementary would go into hermo middle school now our options uh we provided at our uh last meeting options to fix F and

010finance uh this move uh we're recommending option b to take all two U rated buildings um add security upgrades to fill them in our draft 4 model which would require building a new dut Fork Elementary School and renovating the rich Le School U with our current uh financing uh position uh we heard from our financial advisor that this would give us 2 440 million um it would be the same tax rate as that we have C right now and so as we looked at those options um at our December meeting our focus is option b so what we' like to do now is share uh the details of the school assignment plan uh how we came up with uh the options and then present uh the final proposal for redistricting uh to do that our

011director of accountability Dr Van Holden will come forth and uh show us the uh give us an overview the math and the renderings for the resoning plan Dr Holden thank you dross there goes uh thank you Dr Ross uh as I mentioned as Dr Ross mentioned I'm here to talk about our potential options here uh to bring draft four uh into reality uh for our new educational structure uh as we get there I want to take you through a couple different pieces about how we arrived at these conclusions or how we uh came to the decision to make these recommendations to you here this evening first we're going to be looking at the current elementary school map and the school assignment plan uh we'll then uh be looking at um the implications of applying that

012current map uh to the um a new grade structure uh for whatever reason this is not advancing I don't know what's going on this isn't advancing I can't sorry it's okay switch it out now it's gone sorry we'll be looking at the implications of using that same map with the uh current uh grade structure and then we're going to look at some options for redistricting uh for the district um we conducted an analysis here uh looking at uh grade structure three a draft of the educational structure three uh that's how we arrived at four and I want to walk you through our findings from looking at draft three we looked at elementary middle and high school enrollment and we looked at this map in particular this is the map that was created uh with the

013opening of Piney Woods Elementary School okay uh so this is the map we're looking at for the first few slides when we talk about the findings now there are some limitations to how we approach this uh I am not a professional demographer so the enrollment information we're looking at here is if we took the existing students who were in our district and we plotted them according to where they live and then we moved them up one grade level for 24 25 or two grade levels for 25 26 or three grade levels for 26 27 we're not able to account for in our methodology uh enrollment uh Community changes population changes we also can't account for all the magnet and choice offerings that exist in the district the only one we've accounted for really is Spring

014Hill High School because it has such a significant impact on High School enrollment so we have tried to account for that and you'll see more about that uh the enrollment data that we're providing is as of January 3rd we wanted to provide the most recent data that we could um and we are so far from the 45th day of the school year that we felt it was appropriate to make sure we were using the most recent information that we could in this situation the very first thing we looked at was the elementary school enrollment now we haven't included every Elementary School in the district here because the only uh elementary schools impacted from from an enrollment standpoint by the initial draft of educational structure 3 are the chapen area elementary schools because they're the schools

015that are currently K4 or prek through 4 what we can see is that if we add a grade level to those schools the enrollment is obviously going to increase and for chapen elementary school it would take their enrollment based on our method uh methods of calculation somewhere between 938 and 956 for Lake Murray Elementary School it would take them between 931 and 956 and for Piney wood somewhere between 646 and 654 that's if we added in another grade level that's the average size of the current K4 grade levels or if we add it in a grade level that's the size of the largest grade level so immediately we have an issue with the um significant enrollment at two of our chapen area elementary schools we applied the same methodology here uh to look at Middle

016School enrollment okay so you can see shape and intermediate the future chape and middle uh chape and middle future shape uh future Spring Hill Middle uh Crossroads intermediate the future Crossroads Middle Dutch Fork Middle and Irma middle and you can see we provided the 45th day enrollment from this year we provided the greatest total enrollment from The Last 5 Years and then we said if you apply the new uh logic of how our feeder schools would work uh under draft educational structure three you can see what the enrollment would be for 2324 um and so the middle schools don't really have uh an issue from an enrollment standpoint um they all come back they're not balanced uh they do come back kind of within a range that we might expect uh you can also see

017the uh percentage of students who are peoples in poverty uh and how that's distributed across those schools high schools we have a different issue okay if you look at Chap and High School uh you have 2556 students who are zoned for chape and high school who are in grades 9 through 12 uh under draft educational structure three uh with no other changes of those 562 students are currently attending Spring Hill so we remove them and you're down to 1,994 students which is still um uh more than 300 students uh greater than what they currently are serving as of the 45th day of the school year and you can see if we looked at 24 25 25 26 and 26 27 what that would look like Dutch Fork High School of course declines in enrollment as

018part of this and armo high school stays the same as nothing changes there the next slide shows the percentage of students who are peoples in poverty in each of those uh zones based on those new lines so the consequence of of draft educational structure with no other changes is the enrollment at the chapen area elementary schools is going to increase significantly chapen high is going to increase significantly and dra draft three is also going to bring down the enrollment at Dutch Fork High School and you might wonder why are some of those things happening especially at shap and high it's because we're adding an entire uh verer school to it we're adding Ballentine Elementary School which is under draft three moving from the Dutch Fort cluster uh to the chapen cluster and you can see

019the current Balentine lines here labeled with a star um it's a significant portion uh of our district kind of a vertical line right down the center of the district uh and so when we see that increasing uh enrollment at chapen high school going to 2556 Zone students it's because you're essentially looking at the Piney Woods the chapen and the Lake Murray and the Valentine zones all feeding in uh so what are the consequences of that well if you're to move forward with the adopted grade structure and something similar to that feeder system you'd have to consider multiple Solutions one of those Solutions are portable classrooms one solution is new construction another solution and that's what we're looking at here tonight is redistricting okay how could we redraw redraw attendance lines and remake our school assignment

020plan uh to find a way to make that work and that's what we're looking at here um now I'm going to continue with draft educational structure three for a few slides as we work through what some rezoning options might look like under draft educational structure here or draft educational structure three the intention there is to show you the math of how we got uh to draft educational structure forward to show you the the the solutions we tried uh that ultimately we had to consider other options to get there uh we're going to again focus on Elementary and the goal here in these solutions that we looked at in uh the next couple slides we wanted to prevent the overcrowding at chapen and Lake Murray elementary schools that are going to be caused by adding one

021more grade level we want to prevent overcrowding at shapen High that's caused by the additional feeder school and we want to temporarily delay the need for new construction in shapen we use the same limitations as before we can't control uh and our roles uh and our our data that we have for what might happen with the community different population changes new um new developments um new housing uh we're strictly looking at the students who are currently enrolled in the district and what that might look like as we move forward um when we do that we're going to be looking at the elementary school assignment plans um and then we're going to be looking at uh potential modifications to the Middle School assignment plans as Dr Ross mentioned one of our priorities here too was to

022keep as many students at their zoned high school as possible uh so if you're zoned for chape and high trying to keep you at chape and high zoned for Dutch Fork trying to keep you at Dutch Fork and if you're zone for hermo trying to keep you at hermo there were some exceptions to that and we'll get to those in just a second the key exception uh I should say the key exception the M The Only Exception really is the students who are directly um next to or very close to in proximity to Ballentine elementary school because Ballentine is shifting from the Dutch Fort cluster to the chapen cluster that means the building itself is moving to the chaping cluster and there are neighborhoods directly around um Valentine Elementary School that necessitates it moving uh

023those neighborhoods moving into the chapen cluster as well that's the only real change that we're going to see when we look at the high school lines here's our first uh scenario that we looked at here uh you can see the redrawn lines um uh significant impact here at uh chapen Elementary School which changes and uh takes up a significant portion of up to the Border uh with Newberry and up to the river uh you can see Lake Murray Elementary Schools attendance line changes as well it's currently one of our largest attendance lines uh one of our largest attendance areas uh and so it's uh come down a good bit here and you can see Balentine also uh grows a bit it was that Center portion of the district and on this map um you can

024see that it goes up to the river now and expands into what was the lake Maria attendant Zone another change you'll see is that Oak Point expands into what was uh formerly Valentine's Zone uh River Springs expands into what was formerly Balentine Zone Dutch Fork Elementary is going to expand a little bit into Ballentine Zone and H Corley expands into that zone as well uh because um we're needing to off uh move as many students from the Balentine Zone um into the Dutch Fork Zone uh for high school purposes in order to prevent the overcrowding that it would cause at chapen high school when we look at that you can see the the general balance of enrollment uh we've got a range there uh Lake Murray Elementary School ends up at 801 students followed by

025chapen Elementary School at 736 um that's a column three number of students zoned to attend the school in scenario one uh and you can see the range from there follows Valentine is going to increase in enrollment up to 703 students and you can see the other schools and what their uh enrollment would be uh major note there we're looking at K5 in column 3 haven't accounted for prek um in these numbers here we're looking at just the K5 students who would be zoned for those schools if we go to the middle schools uh you can see a different issue okay so while we were able to better balance the enrollment in the elementary schools with those changes um the middle schools are looking okay as well uh you end up in column three you've got

026717 stud students zone for what is now chape and intermediate will be chape and middle under the plan 825 zone for chape and middle which will be Spring Hill Middle uh Crossroads and hermo end up uh much smaller but the major issue you see here is Dutch Fork Middle School increasing to 1,245 and then every other year that we modeled out would be 1,00 now I said earlier we're not intending to do projections but I can tell you that one area we do uh we don't see that kind of decline every year with is Dutch Fork Middle School specifically actually see those numbers tend to increase a little bit especially with their seventh grade group uh so even though you see a kind of a decrease there over the three or four years that wouldn't

027be what we generally see with their enrollment uh so that's just a note there too uh about that piece but the key issue from this slide in our Middle School analysis which we solved while we may have solved the chape and area elementary school issue uh or brought it down to be a little bit more manageable we created a new issue which was Dutch Fork Middle School's enrollment uh High School enrollment again brought it down to be a little bit more manageable ual shape and high is larger obviously because it's adding some students it's now at uh if you look um we've got 2,199 students who are zoned for the school but of those 2,199 479 are attending Spring Hill so if we've removed them we're at 1,720 which is again an increase over where

028we are today uh or where we are on the 45th day of the school year uh but it is not quite where we were in the original scenario uh the 2,500 students who were zoned for chapen high school you can see the Dutch Fork impact again smaller than it is today again that's due to some of the factors we've already described and then hero High remaining roughly stable yes um I have the 45th day enrollment I can provide that it's around 1100 students um the intention would be to keep it under these we're assuming the same parameters are in place for Spring Hill that it's going to remain uh accepting roughly 300 students per class per year so a maximum enrollment there of 1,200 under this uh we haven't changed any other rules with that

029okay uh and And to clarify with your question there we're then assuming that roughly 21.8% of the students in that shapen Zone would be attending Spring Hill going forward so that when you see the 1718 or the 1715 or the 1645 that's with 21.8% removed um or 16.6 at Dutch forer Irmo High having 19.4 we've attempted to remove out what we anticipate that number be if if it if it was to hold relatively steady over the next three years that's what it would look like okay thank you and then you can see the poverty levels at the uh at the three high schools uh excluding Spring Hill which which is of course the uh all Magnet School uh you can see what the enrollment would be or the the percent of peoples in poverty would

030be at those schools uh we then considered uh after looking at that and noting the issues that we saw at Dutch Fork Middle uh even though we solved some of the other problems that we anticipated we then looked at an entirely different scenario we looked at what would happen if we expand the Piney wood Zone okay uh expanding the Piney wood Zone gives us some other opportunities uh it allows the chap and Elementary Zone to grow a little bit more and absorb more of the Lake Murray Zone um and it allows a few other changes to take place again this is an attempt to better balance the enrollment from some of these changes um we did that uh it actually brought the Lake Murray and chapen zones uh down uh a good bit and made

031it a little bit more manageable again there but that's because we're increasing the enrollment at Piney Woods there everything else was kind of a trade-off uh with those pieces in try terms of trying to balance enrollment uh you can see we still have the same problem at the middle level again that's because the middle level pieces didn't change here when we ran this analysis we still end up with 1,245 students at Dutch Fork Middle and remaining above 1100 um in every other year and the issue there is that we anticipated uh the greatest enrollment from the last five years was 138 so we're talking about um a significant number of additional students um caused by this kind of shift um so scenario two didn't help us with that piece scenario uh two the high school

032numbers here are roughly the same as we mentioned the high school numbers aren't changing because we're not trying to uh change any of the High School attendance lines as part of this okay um but like scenario one scenario two has the same issue as uh that we identified which was we um addressing the issues we set out to address which were reducing enrollment at the chapen area elementary schools uh balancing the enrollment there uh and reducing the enrollment at shape and high but inadvertently C an issue at Dutch Fork Middle uh and so that's what led us really to uh scenarios three and four and that's also draft educational structure three and four so we took the same lessons we learned from scenarios one and two and we said what if we applied them to

033a new model where we tried to address what's happening at Dutch Fork Middle okay keep the same concept where we've got uh the schools feeding into that high school um and uh what you're going to see on the next few slides are what happens when we take scenarios three and four uh which are essentially scenarios one and two but with some modifications to the middle level since that's the inadvertent problem that we created here uh to give you some sort of parallel here scenario three is actually the same Elementary School attendance lines as scenario one scenario four same attendance lines as scenario two okay High School uh assignment plans don't change okay it's the same uh thing we just looked at there okay so nothing's going to change there the focus here on scenarios three

034and four taking the same attendance lines you already saw for scenario one and two and let's apply that to the middle level instead so this is the same map we saw earlier for scenario one okay and what we're going to look at here is what that what would happen if you apply scenario one but we use uh scenario one's attendance lines we use draft educational structure for so this is H Corley moves to Crossroads and you can see what that does is it brings Dutch Forks enrollment uh down to 98 and every other year somewhere around 800 students uh it increases the crossroads enrollment um the move also increases the Irma middle enrollment uh that's because Harbison West was split under the previous plan and here it's not split it's all going to Irma middle

035uh that's what you'd be looking at there so we've scenario 3 effectively addresses that issue um uh but it has the same limitations as scenario W did uh when we go to scenario four again that's the same uh attend Elementary School attendance lines as scenario two same lines as scenario two not changing anything else so here you can see the Piney Woods expansion followed by the chapen elementary school expansion and the reduction at Lake Murray in terms of their current footprint and what we get to there um is an even closer balance between shape and intermediate and shape and middle those two get even closer together in terms of enrollment uh and then we can also see uh that the Dutch Fork Middle School enrollment remains what we saw on the previous slide again the

036increase at Crossroads and a minor increase there Irma middle from where it would have been um under scenarios one and two uh so our findings there if you go with something like scenarios three and four uh you're going to be able to reduce the potential enrollment caused by adding a grade level at chapen elementary and Lake Murray Elementary you'll be able to reduce the impact of um adding an additional school to the feeder system uh at chape and height and you'd also be able to prevent the de uh prevent the increase potentially at Dutch Fork Middle uh that's caused by um adding sixth grade to that school uh so scenario four emerged as the recommendation uh that we felt best fit draft structure three and the needs of the district again implementation of drafts three

037and four um there's no way to do those things without some resoning uh those things have to take place or you're looking at uh portable classrooms in some cases or new construction uh redistricting scenarios one and two that we showed you earlier uh those effectively deal with some of the issues we noticed uh created by not doing anything uh but they don't address the overcrowding at thefork middle and scenarios three and four uh we feel like um address all of those issues uh and scenario four is the recommendation of the administration this time I'm going to turn it back over to Dr Ross before we go to questions Madam chair of the board I just wanted to outline our discussion with a timeline uh we Pro uh provided a proposed facilities planning timeline our goal

038in terms of uh is to meet a lot of objectives uh the resoning the uh facility issues the capital issues but also the certification issues of moving staff from elementary to Middle uh to make sure that we had all of our programs adjusted and so with that uh we have set an implementation of this resoning plan for 2026 uh the 2026 2027 school year uh why is that important uh in our recommendation uh we require a new building with uh averaging 18 months of building or construction time uh that would mean to make this happen we would be breaking ground next year this time with the prep work that's needed before breaking ground you need another eight to U 6 to8 month months of of planning uh prior to that um we have a bond

039resolution coming up in April uh we would like to align that resolution with our Five-Year Plan uh so that puts us in having a decision of of the board in March uh of do we accept this plan uh as our 5year plan so in the uh the process between now and then uh the Administration will uh continue to do feedback uh sessions with our community uh with our school groups our sic's and and different um stakeholders within the community but I just wanted to just share um what a potential timeline would look like while it seems like a long time away uh with all of the moving pieces that we have U uh it really is not so uh with that that we will pause and and fi questions okay any questions Missle I don't

040I don't really have a question as much as a I guess a request um I feel like we've kind of jumped a step here in that um like one of the slides I think the the proposition was do we um address the overcrowding or build a new school and chapen or do we fix and fill and I don't feel like we've really I mean I'm hoping it's not an either or for one thing but I I feel like we haven't really addressed our our situation and our priorities and I know we can't like do that right this minute and take a vote right this minute but I would like to suggest that as part of maybe our our next board meeting we we do that um and I think it's going to be easier for

041the community to understand um what may be needed as well if we first can get agreement on what are our priorities just for example um they they they've been discussed but I we don't have a a list per se that we've agreed on um is it um addressing overcrowding is it addressing the Middle School alignment is it um addressing the facilities that um need some some work to get up to speed with health and safety so that's just a suggestion I would make this is very confusing for me without having that ground workor done the other thing I would like to do is is request that we add um capacity on here um a couple years ago when we looked at this we did have capacity on this and I know it's helpful to know

042what the five greatest years were but for all we know that was a lot less than whatever the capacity is for a school or a lot more than what so I think we really need to have the the capacity uh amounts listed on here as well and I do have a question so um I do have a question and that is I know there's a reason but I'm not sure why the percentage for pupils in po poverty are on here so um and maybe that goes back to what our goals are as well so I would just ask what's the significance of that well one of the things that we we shared and as we did our our reports we talk about the impact the S and we see that in the data there's an

043impact between the number of students in poverty you have in the school and its academic performance we see that Statewide in fact I think we looked at data and with 65 a half% um if you tell me me the with accuracy uh if you tell I'm looking at Dr Holden if I'm wrong you tell me the poverty of a community I can tell you the performance 71% accuracy you tell me the poverty of a of a school we can see Statewide now uh it's academic performance we try to balance that it has significance when we look at um our title one uh allocations uh right now we know that um we have them all in the elementary schools uh um but so so that's important it also as we look at providing resources for students

044in poverty that's important to know where those shifts are uh in terms of academic uh or or what we do in terms of of nesting schools and providing those so uh just in in the the role of supporting schools supporting children supporting families uh it's important to always keep an eye on those impactors also like like to say as we do this the the goal is to start the conversation today so we're welcoming any feedback that we can get today uh that would help us in making a um informed decision okay Mr Scully and then I'll come to you Mr SFI Yeah couple of questions and one will be a followup to the what you just talked about Dr Ross but um first as it relates to the options um a b and c you're

045recommending B my question is um if we did B what would the timeline or the time frame what does that buy us from a timing standpoint in both as it relates to Building Maintenance and conditions as well as future zoning in other words if we go with B which is the middle option the the middle budget um how much much time does that give us before we have to take the current buildings that are in condition three and four and do the same thing again to them and also zoning because zoning is a big thing as well and very unsettling um how how much time does option b bu us from a zoning standpoint as well before we really have to go back and reconsider it and would it did you compare that to what

046would that look like in comparison to option C for example where yes it's the highest amount of money but also economically a dollar today is worth more than it would be tomorrow so we'd kind of get a banger a bigger bang for our buck theoretically today if we went with that um would it buas enough does the benefit of doing that you know does it biy us enough time on those other two issues so if I've got one more question I'll come back to but if you'll address that and you don't have to have an answer to those today I'm just raising no know um if Mr Wiman wants to chime in where error he can as well but what we're looking at in terms of uh option b um really was our capacity to

047do a lot of different things at once uh rechange our grading structure uh move uh uh students and staff with the rezoning and also start with our most needy facilities uh at the same time we recognize that that um these would have to be phased in um as as we set priorities uh there are certain things that we could handle uh in our level ones of those 7,700 in um instances that we need to start handling through Capital without a full phase of all of those which we're working we met with MPS uh before the break uh so uh they're helping us with that phasing of of those projects um but they would like to do it in totality uh so that we're not um buying something that could be U financed in a different

048way and and wasting that money today so uh part of us is uh of this is as we bring back from here to March these uh these questions uh we'll have more and more data about how that phasing would look okay thank you um and then just touching back on the pro poverty discussion I looking at it obviously um I I don't want Crossroads to get lost in the shuffle here and in in every scenario the poverty uh percentage is vastly much higher for Crossroads specifically than everyone else um I know we're having a balance capacity issues with that um in that consideration but is there anything that can be done because it does relate there is a correlation to Performance and we're already seeing the challenges that crossroads um has uh but currently they're

049feeding from more schools so it their their challenges today are much different than they perhaps would be in the future but their the poverty poverty percentage is still high and what can we do to help them um if there's not if we go with this scenario knowing that they're looking they're facing those percentages of poverty what can we do to offset that good point one of the things is we considered this I think in our initial draft and deliberation it was much higher and um I was not a fan of of busing or anything like that but using natural zones in order to do our our feeders uh to to get balanced but by bringing um H Corley in I think we were able to kind of get a greater a better uh balance of

050in the poverty the other thing is the number of students that you'll see at uh it's not in the 900 that you'll see at the other two uh but I believe that under the right and and I use the nest philosophy but under the right supports all children regardless of of background and Position will succeed this allows us to better utilize our our our resources uh to uh surround and wrap around uh uh the crossroads school we will also uh talk about options for our our magnet flows and and academic programs that we're excited about coming that way um and so I think with the right supports not pulling from because we can see the growth that they do pulling from 10 schools so pulling from three schools and you can go and map back

051all the way to kindergarten your students and support them all the way up uh it will put our Crossroads teachers on on even par uh to compute uh to compete despite the poverty and just just real quickly um and and this is things we can even start doing today but are we have we considered from a resource standpoint um allocating additional Staffing and uh I know ADP are assistant principles are are very helpful in that regard have we considered any anything along those lines we have begun I'm not going to put Dr Turner on the spot there we we have begun looking at uh first to make sure that we have the right um certifications um programs and so taking this this time to 2026 uh we want to make sure if you're not certified

052Elementary uh but you're going to Elementary that we've paying for that certification if you're not certifi secondary and you are going to a secondary that we've taken care of that as well so we'll start with Staffing level on uh the classroom level first and program uh and then supports but we do have um and Dr Turner can correct me if I'm wrong here um we are looking at for instance when Crossroads goes to a middle school it takes on Sports right so it it it then would require a sports program it takes on the full complement of Arts so we needed all of a full complement of arts program so there would be uh parity and Equity between Staffing of all those uh programs not turn if I miss something Mr saterfield wrong button um

053first thank you Mr Scully for back actually Dr Ross and I had a quite a lengthy conversation about that very thing uh when I saw the numbers with regards to the um uh poverty index and the numbers um when I was involved with schools um I told people I can put 35 kids in an AP classroom but if you have a class of struggling Learners you can try to keep those classes small and provide as many resources so Mr Scully a lot of what you were asking were some of the same concerns that I had and and I know that Dr Ross is forward thinking we'll look into that uh one of the questions that I did have well I had a couple questions but one of them was how about assignment of special education

054programs will that change any and is there consideration being given I'm I know there's consideration being given but I did want to ask that question Dr slatton and I have just been talking about that so yes we are looking at various programs and and how students are being served and how they could be served differently so there's lots of conversations that are taking place and how even Zone schools can possibly serve their own students versus having students that have to go different places so we are looking at a lot of different possibilities with hopefully the everyone moving 26 27 like like let that be the one time when there could be movement that would take place well thank you for that I I know that like you said uh I know that in the past

055um the there's been more of moving students to the school which means a lot of times out of their attendance area out of their zoned area where their friends or their family members are sometimes because that's the only place where the program is house so I hope that we'll that's something that we can be forward looking especially with so many children that are being uh identified with autism and there I was talking with one of the principles and uh she was talking about the ways that she was dealing with those particular students and so I think that's really something important for us to to plan for one of the other questions that I had Dr Ross was I noticed in the different scenarios Dutch Fork Middle School was up in the 12200 range that's a

056lot of uh middle schoolers um now the one scenario they'll had him back down to around the 800 888 was that correct yeah now what is a school designed for I mean what's the capacity of do you does anybody know for Dutch Fork Middle School you know Miss huddle I I was looking at that while we were um talking and um a couple years ago Malone and MC Brom did a um report it's on the online and according to it and this is actually not capacity it's targeted enrollment Which is less than capacity the report didn't put capacity but the targeted on that report was 1149 okay I know that years ago there was a lot of emphasis placed on the Middle School model and the trying to keep those numbers that's a difficult time

057for kids uh sixth seventh and eighth grade um and my last question I had was back to Spring Hill I know that Dr Ross and I had a brief discussion on this as well um it seems to be that are sort of a I know it's a school of choice a magnet school but it seems to be our sort of a spillover school um it takes the takes the uh extra kids off out of the chapen area or some of the other schools um is there would there's I know that y'all had a lot of discussions about this would it be um would it be prudent to think about assigning an elementary school to Spring Hill High School um so yeah there's been discussion about we call zoning Spring Hill and uh that's not something

058I'm in favor of right now I think there's a there's a future where that's going to end up happening we we won't have any options um right now Spring Hill is academically uh as a magnet school a national leader in magnet high schools and so its choice and its programs are coveted by a lot of people in our community and U I want to preserve uh what has been built there at Spring Hill uh our goal by moving the Academy of success out of that building building into the uh Rich Lex building what we propos to be called the rich Lex building would be to free up more seats for chapen Zone students um and then by um working with Spring Hill Middle and you know this is a principal you can identify um groups

059of students that would be in a Spring Hill Academy at the middle school so by going to Spring Hill Middle being in that academic Academy that they create you can almost predict the attendance that would draw down from shap into that new space uh what this does is bring up a good point though in our plan we don't decrease the hero and dut Fork seats we just increase the chaping seats I see okay thank you Mr hugan thank you um so with the fix and fill option and I appreciate Moto bringing up you know bringing uh more information to us will we get a list of the the the schools that we intend on fixing and filling and with in priorization to what is the most important school if this referendum passes this is where

060the first dollar is going to this school and once that's complete this school to where we can see just exactly what $240 million potentially could impact uh So currently correct that's our our plan between now and in March to to bring that we'll meet again with uh MPS we have some initial but as the administration we want to go over them uh and those estimates uh again the um the two 40 is based off of the 15-year financing we also want to bring you what I'm Sorry Miss Miss Wilkinson you can share um U some other options that we have as well so that not only we prioritizing the projects but prioritizing some um financing options there so you just kind kind of speak to what would give us some more flexibility yes sir thank

061you Dr Ross um so as he mentioned the 240 that was that's shown on the slide is really just our our debt capacity number it doesn't it doesn't contain any cost estimates because at this time they're still working through that so you know when we get a number back you know it could be 240 it could be 500 you know million we're we're not sure what that number will look like at this time so um you know some options that we've just talked to our bond counsil and our financial adviser about are um you know different financing options so right now what um we've looked at is the 240 would be our our capacity at 69 A5 Ms for a 15-year financing term um and we would do that over we would issue the bonds

062over a three-year period uh roughly 60 million or 80 million each time um and then he's also looked at some scenarios where we actually extend the term of those to a 20-year financing option which would create a little bit more of flexibility um from years about 2030 on um in case there was some needs Beyond the 240 because again that's just looking at our our debt not taking into account any cost estimates and if I could add just a rough look at the numbers ones and twos which being our two priorities we have over 2,645 uh so that's going to keep us busy we got to go through there and kind of identify of course obviously the cost or at least the estimates and start working on those but you someone asked a question earlier

063where would that put us in in 2016 2017 we could start working toward the threes and the fours which by then they'll be close to two so you're talking about 4,000 specific different or items throughout the schools and our Focus just on if you look at just sheer numbers some of our schools like uh Dutch Fork High School uh even chap High School Crossroads had the higher numbers of ones and twos so those are the things that we'd be focusing on anyone else I have some questions um and it might just be kind of talking through some of um what everyone has said Miss huddle mentioned talking about um putting something on an a future agenda to address priorities relating to overcrowding and middle School alignment and facilities and prioritizing that and I guess in

064my mind I kind of I struggle with how we necessarily prioritize it because it seems like it's all like together so addressing all of those issues they all play off of one another so it's not like it needs necessarily a vote it's trying to I mean the when we get to the point where we decide this is what we want to present for the bond resolution like that's the vote but for right now when we're having conversations I don't I guess I'm struggling on like how we prioritize like if we just prioritize one over the other it kind of throws everything out of whack because it's all together but there's a lot of information and a lot of moving parts to all of this so it makes it a little confusing um to your point

065I mean I get that so I'm I I'm trying to figure out like what that conversation looks like um and how what that conversation looks like does that make sense yeah yeah and let me I probably wasn't clear enough I wasn't really saying to take those items and prioritize them I was just saying to come up with what our priorities are so I think we all kind of know because we're talking through it but just put it in black and why you know because unfortunately I feel like it kind of one of the slides kind of came across as a choice like a choice to address what's happening with enrollment and chapen or a choice to fix our schools and I don't know that we have that choice I think we have to do I

066think it's all I mean I guess I kind of I I look at this and I think that maybe options were given but really the recommendation is that last one because every element is important I mean I might be well I guess okay so one option is that I didn't really see in there was we have we have neighborhoods that are currently zoned for chapen high school that are physically closer to Dutch Fork High School which is also interesting because this plan it seems like a lot of the neighborhoods that are around Dutch Fork like Valentine like now will all go into chap but chapen is overcrowded so it doesn't really logically make sense why that would happen does that make sense Dr Ross like to me in order to get to to alleviate some

067of the overcrowding in chapen um why would we put more students in chapen I think I think let me try to make it plain um we were is that we need direction from the board because any option we draw takes a lot of manpower to put these together so the question is are we we're operating with the Assumption of a new building if there's no appetite for that we need to stop here and then start start looking at some different options with our existing buildings so when I say that there is a a direction we have to at some point address the growth and shaping and I think that's the kind of some ground rules we have to understand is there unsustainable growth in shaping I think it's very clear there's unsustainable growth in shaping

068so how do we handle it this option was was our recommendation for how to handle it so the rezoning uh Factor was to to Really maximize a building that sits in shaping which is Spring Hill so that's where we could we can pick that up I think the the important thing to to yall to the points that were made is our intent today is not to have a decision it was to get gather questions that we can go back and further further research so that we can we can put together something that you are ready to make a decision on so I would I would suggest that um we can gather questions uh over the next month so that the administration can know but I think at at some point we have to determine what

069direction are we going so that we can we can get those detailed you know drawings on on whatever Direction the body wants to go in so Dr Russ I think where I get confused in this is I keep hearing like what we know we need is an EXT a new building that new building being Dutch Fork Elementary I agree that we need a Dutch Fork a new Dutch Fork Elementary but when we're talking about the lines where chapen the chapen cluster is and we're talking about the lines off of the peak exit which is where a lot of those you know those schools are you know there's the Ballentine Elementary School that feeds into Dutch work that were now saying would feed into chapen um and we're changing to the Middle School model I have

070I I I am having a hard time connecting how Dutch Fork Elementary impacts enrollment at at chapen high school or chapen middle school where th that those schools don't impact chapen now I mean that's work Elementary School does not impact the enrollment in chapen the chapen cluster especially the schools that were having capacity issues so when I hear like the priority is to add one new building it is hard logically to follow how that impacts overcrowding and shapen does that make sense and I and I understand the the thought process and I might I'm going to kind of recap it so I know that I'm understanding it correctly that when we go into the middle school model and we have a Spring Hill Middle and we have a chapen middle school that the intent would

071be that there would be a program in the new Spring Hill Middle School where students would naturally funnel into the Spring Hill High high school and that would help alleviate enrollment numbers at chapen high school because those chapen middle school or I mean I'm sorry Spring Hill Middle School students would want to stay close and go to Spring Hill High School in in a magnet program my concern is what if you don't have 300 students from Spring Hill Middle Middle School that want to go to Spring Hill High School and then they want to go to their zoned High School which is shapen high school and you still have the enrollment issues does that make sense that makes makes perfect sense all right so we have to we have to solve three levels of problems

072and so uh problem number one is going to be at the elementary level problem number two is going to be at the middle level problem number three is going to be at the high school level how does dut folk Elementary solve these problems is is the biggest question question remember we're taking our existing buildings um and basically we are shifting East so with existing buildings we're going to be shifting our students into the spaces that are allowed in the East when we conceptualize Balentine we conceptualize that as a Dutch Fork High School feeder so the students that were currently in Dutch Fork uh in Valentine Elementary are no longer going to Balentine Elementary so that we can shift East right fixing the pineywood tension fixing the chape and Elementary tension fixing the the um Lake

073Murray tension because we have this building of Valentine that we're shifting at East by having a dut Fork Elementary School we can maximize every space in Pineywoods by by removing five at the middle school level we are uh fixing the tension at the uh middle schools U right now chaping I don't know off the top of my head what the chapen Middle School numbers are uh but we can all agree that it is not sustainable in terms of uh we're even looking at next year having some some growth issues there so by splitting the population of the existing shaping students um into two middle schools we solved the Middle School issue at the high school level we have two programs that are in our current high schools ml High School is uh currently housing adult

074education and Spring Hill High School is currently housing the academy for Success uh that has a wing of a High School feeder that is um being utilized by building the Dutch Fork uh El element El the current Dutch Fork Elementary now takes in those programs which gives us space and shaping so a Dutch Fork Elementary in the Dutch Fork Elementary Zone gives us a whole wing of a building in shaping at the high school level so that's what uh it's this Eastward shift uh that we're creating but bringing those programs out of Pineywoods out of um and out of Spring Hill gives us that space in in chaping the very valid point that you have um what if that um we have those students at Spring Hill Middle who are in the uh program for

075Spring Hill High School but do not want to attend um their their uh that feeder school when they want to go to chapen high school that presents uh what I feel would be uh the habitable which Dr which Mr safield talked about which is um bringing a cluster system in now as we look at our priorities for facilities our priorities have always been uh the fixing of of our of our facilities are rated one and rated two items um once you start to make Spring Hill a full High School uh program uh we at the that point have to look at uh its athletic facilities its Arts facilities and that would change the the um the construction uh priorities for that so our it was our hope that uh in this transition once these programs

076are up you basically have a a lead to see how many students do you have in that Academy going to the the Spring Hill uh piece so uh I do want to say it's a very valid point it was a hedge against the zoning of Spring Hill uh but we wanted to give um Dr Lofton and and and Miss hucker be an opportunity to prove that that model could work um while we slowly build out uh to maybe in the 10-year plan and I I don't want to scare anybody when you say it on on uh TV but uh of of inevitably at one point that being the fourth cluster did that answer your question kind of I do have a it kind of raised another question so are you saying that the students currently

077at Valentine are going to be zoned out of Valentine which would mean that students at Lake marray Elementary are going to be split where Lake Murray Elementary students go to Valentine so uh if you had currently you can come to the podium if you want to uh clarify uh if you're what we zoning you are moving elementary schools uh but students who are at Valentine now except for those are right around the school um those students will are currently going to Dutch Fork they will be going to Dutch Fork still but they may be at Oak Point now or River Springs so I'll let uh Dr Holden kind of walk us through that yeah exactly when we're looking at educational uh structures three or four with Balentine moving to the chap and cluster uh unless

078we want to add significantly more students back to 2500 Zone students for jape and high we have to move some students from that Balentine zone out of the Balentine zone so the first thing we did was we mov students to uh for example Ballentine students mooved to Oak Point Balentine students moving to River Springs to Dutch Fork Elementary School and H Corley Elementary School so we divided up the current Balentine Zone Zone when you're looking at scenario 4 we've divided up the current Valentine Zone into those four places left a small portion of the existing Balentine Zone uh zone for Balentine uh and then we took uh places like Lake Murray Elementary School currently one of the largest Geographic zones in the district and divided that up a little differently so part of Lake Murray's

079Zone then goes to Balentine part of Lake Murray Zone uh then goes to chapen elementary school chapen elementary school uh gives up part of its tant Zone under scenario 4 to Piney Woods Elementary School okay so there's a variety of shifts that take place there in order to make that happen but yes you're you're correct in in in looking at it from the standpoint of some of these uh some of these neighborhoods that are currently in the Balentine Zone the current Ballentine Zone under scenario 4 would shift to a different Elementary School uh those that remain at Balentine those that remain in Balentine which is the area again right around the Apple that you see uh just south of 176 south of 20 uh i26 what we're looking at there is those students would then

080where they're currently zoned for Dutch Fork High School because their school is now moving to the chapen cluster those students would be rezoned uh to the chapen chapen high school zone because again their school and their feeder s um two things that I would like to see us look at one is the um the gentleman from Lexington County came here and I think there was roughly 900 home sites in our District that were underway and I believe the vast majority of them were in chapen and I don't know if this is something that maybe would fall under the um de demographers but I think it would be very interesting if we could find out um what age children we expect in in those homes because right now the elementary schools are not overcrowded in the

081chapen CL cluster it's the high school and it feels like it's because a lot of people move there between maybe in middle school or whatever so I don't know if if there's a way to do that but I think we need to try to figure out what ages are people moving and then the other thing I I will just beg again I really believe part of it is Crossroads and if we could if we could fix Crossroads sooner we would keep more people in iro and Dutch Fork I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that again it's not the the administration The Faculty is doing a great job it's just the concept of 10 elementary schools feeding one grade that has a lot of people looking for Alternatives um and I just

082feel like I know we want to do it all at one time but the sooner we can address that I think the better for those children and I think it might even take some pressure off a chapen any other I would I would say one of the things that I would I would like to be able to see just in my hand as we um move forward Dr Ross would be um and and Mr Hogan touched on this a list of what all of the projects would be because what some of the things that are a little bit different now than um when we were talking about the bond the first projects the first go around um is now we do have the Middle School realignment um you know eliminating the Intermediate School models um

083which would put fifth grade back into the chap and school clusters and would um add some diff you know changing schools in the Dutch Fork and hermo clusters so like seeing what those projects are in front of us um in a in addition to having updated information with school capacity and I know that capacity is one of those things that's like a little crazy because just because you have a thousand students that doesn't mean that that there's a thousand seats I I understand that um but I believe Miss huddle asked um for that addition if we could have that information that's helpful to kind of bring the whole picture together with us um in my in my my thoughts I mean Mr saterfield yeah I appreciate you saying that because I was thinking the same

084thing the other one other piece to throw into this large puzzle that we're trying to solve is I know that uh Miss Wilkerson spoke she said it could be 240 million it could be 500 um is there at what point in time will we have I know I've seen the the colorcoded you know greatest need and you know red and yellow and green and blue and but any idea of of cost for these projects um uh I I think the public before we go forward would surely like to know that we have a pretty good idea instead of backing into this uh exactly U for each of these projects how much we're asking for and what we plan to spend the money on uh correct so to to that point on to see what those

085projects are those won't change so what we provided to you on October 23rd those are the those are the projects and in in priorities uh what what we're working on now is the cost estimation of those and then given some buffer from uh as Mr Skelly said what what the cost projections are now versus what they look like when they're bid it out you know could be two different things um and so what um our topend number of 240 won't change or less likely to change it's the question question is what's the cost of these when they all come back uh some of the things when we we have to be realistic when you look at pricing some people give you a 30-day guarantee on that material and then after that you know uh the

086cost are subject to change so uh we're putting those together uh our prioritization is the was it 2,645 items that's going to be our our priority so we we uh so right now we're going through each one of those to get cost estimates that way we can go to the voters and say here here uh here these are so we're going to use that NPS model provided to you on October 23rd as the priorities I think just kind of putting it down to the top 2,645 U would would be the the goal but the reality is the the problem is Big you know it's it's a it's a every building you go to that principal is telling you I need help I need this taken care of so um we we we are we're trying

087to to get some some numbers behind it that would uh give us confidence that we can go at it anything else I would just say just to everyone I I really hope that when we it's so important that we rezone correctly so that we don't have to rezone again uh the kids in the chaping cluster uh I me know there's several of them that are have are going to have been rezoned several times because we rezoned when we built Pineywoods and those kids are getting ready to get rezoned when they hit the eighth grade and if you know I would hate for something to change where they get into high school and we have to rezone a senior year because we didn't do the high school resoning correctly um so being able to explain all

088of that as well I think will ease some conc concerns because I'm hearing a lot of concerns about the constant change in schools and that makes it hard for families and I don't want to lose folks from our district entirely because they we can't either make up our minds or we don't have a clear Plan and there's just so much information that it's really hard to do I get that I just want us to be conscious of that as we are moving forward um Miss Barner no I completely agree I think um you know in a lot of these discussions obviously Mr st's Point even the the cost of it I I work in the industry so I understand that something that cost something three months ago might completely change or alter within three months

089from now so I understand that's hard as well and then like you said just to be able to make a a firm decision so that we don't have to come back I think we heard a couple comments okay well if we do this we might have to come back and do this later and just so that we know that it's all going to be solid so that like you said we don't have to keep changing up I think that's a good idea you want close so to recap um we are to come back at uh we would ask if we don't do another um put a place on the agenda to just kind of do updates of this in a regular meeting uh capacity numbers um the phases of the capital Improvement uh that's the

0902,645 we're pricing uh and our priorities of those of those projects um looking at uh communities in the chaping area that making ATT the dut Fork area to so we're not heavily relied on the Spring Hill model to work um were there others that I I know we talked about poverty index making sure that we were balancing poverty and the number of students another thing I think that's important to kind of get a calendar out or an estimated calendar out is the community engagement and getting feedback before we go and make a definite vote because what I will say is um you know when you change things up constantly and you don't just have a firm plan uh that makes it harder you know to it makes it harder for me to be able to

091get on board um personally I I think we need to have a firm plan and get some feedback and sometimes you know I mean there's going to be growing pains not everybody's going to be thrilled with the changes I mean and that's very unfortunate so we need to be very intentional that we we do this as you know we get this as as right as much as possible um but I think that part of that is uh getting out there and starting to talk to the community and getting Community feedback so that if there is some glaring issue that we're not seeing or we're not hearing that we might be able to address it before we get to what is it March Dr Ross that you're trying to end of March 1 of April our

092goal is to uh maximize our our Capital funds and uh this year's um capital budget uh I think U sko if you want to speak to that yeah so what we normally do each year is is um you know if we're going to issue through sko which is only a shortterm bonds um that's usually in May of each year um they do a fall um issuance as well but we usually try to get in under the May um the May issuance so kind of the to backtrack from that timeline would mean that we would need to talk about those capital projects usually at the second meeting in February to you know just as a discussion y'all would vote on those capital projects the first meeting in March we would bring the bond resolution to you

093the second meeting in March for a vote in um April so that they could go on to the sko bond since we only have one meeting in April so that's kind of you know once we know what the The Firm deadline is we can backtrack to see the timeline based on the board Go I mean do we have to marry the two the I mean is there any reason we can't look at the capital needs in terms of the repairs and the items that were identified separate and apart from separate and apart from um our challenges with enrollment I guess I just don't want to see it one delay the other if we know that we've got repairs to be made and we know that we have some Capac debt capacity why not I just

094don't want to wait if it to to make changes and and um address things that we have to I I agree I think for for us what we were all we were saying is if we could align so it's not it's not waiting but there's x amount of funds is it aligned in a in a larger plan or if it or we're just handling it this year's piece so because for us it's going to be all those ones right it's going to be all of those ones that we have around the that we're aware of them we know we have to address them and um and now it's it's getting those prices out and go so do I have a motion to adour Mr Hogan like to make the motion to adjourn the board fiveyear

095Master facilities planning workshop I second second Miss Snipes all in favor and now I would like to call to order our regularly scheduled meeting at 5:15 do I have a motion to approve the agenda Mr Hogan that make the motion to approve the agenda I have a second Miss Snipes any discussion all in favor I'll call for the vote that motion carries 7 to0 and I may not have uh called I call for the vote for the motion to adjourn it carry 7 to zero right yes okay sorry sorry guys Monday Monday Monday meetings all right um do I have a motion to enter executive session Mr Hogan make the motion to enter executive session to consider the following a selected employment items exhibit a for Action B selected employment items exhibit B information only

096and C legal advice on potential property transaction Exhibit C do I have a second Miss Snipes any discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote that motion carries 7 to Zer we will adjourn for executive session and reconvene at 6 p.m. for hold on e I'd like to call to order January 8th school board meeting um I'd like to welcome everyone that is here I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday break and they're getting back into the swing of things in 2024 trusty Scully is going to kick us off with the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance Mr Scully thank you Heavenly Father we give you praise and thank you for the opportunity to cons continue serving our students in the new year thank you for the many people who did dedicate their lives

097in service to our schools thank you for the teachers and administrators who sustain them the officers and security staff who protect them and thank you for the parents who give support and entrust their children to us thank you for all of our students who work hard to further their education finally thank you for Chap and varsity cheer for their hard work dedication and for being role models in our community we especially are thankful for their Redemption story as it serves to remind us all of the Redemption available to all of us through your son may our schools continue to be a home of love and growth in 2024 in your name we pray amen stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for

098which it stands one nation under God inis with Liberty justice for all all right thank you Mr Scully that brings us to number 10 on our agenda which is the Schoolboard Spotlight Miss Taylor um would you like to join out front Okay the first thing I want to do is wish all of you a happy School Board recognition month uh we will be celebrating you all throughout the month of January uary but I didn't want tonight to go by without thanking you all for what you do and for all that you do for our students and schools and then tonight um I'm very happy we have with us the chapen high school cheerleader Squad they have reclaimed the division 5A state championship this year it's the 17th State title for Chap and cheer and Coach

099Vicky Williams 16th State title at chapen and a little fun fact for everybody to know and share since competitive cheer became a sport chapen is the only High School cheer team to win state titles in 2A 3A 4A and 5A divisions so we are happy to welcome them tonight and recognize them for this accomplishment ladies come on up for e they give us a hard time you see way done this before all right I'll let y'all take one for Mama first all right here we go three one two three one more [Applause] onew for all right great job ladies that brings us to number 11 on our superintendent report or number 11 which is our superintendent report Dr Ross thank you madam chair members of the board and our community uh Happy New Year uh

100we are excited about this New Year excited about the new things in 24 uh would also like to take this opportunity to thank uh our Communications team our technology team uh I guess the whole from operations and academics uh HR everybody in finance put together uh student services our brand new website uh special shout out to Barrett Isel and all of his hard work and many hours uh we ask that you go and check out our website the opening shot by our own Barrett uh uh very great pictures there that just not only highlights our district but highlights our community and that's what I I really am excited about the website um as always we are uh driven as a system Guided by three critical questions why do we do this work how do we

101accomplish that our mission and what are our outcomes our vision is that we love and grow our students our mission is that we're focused on academic social emotional growth and development and then our strategic plan outcomes um it is uh exciting that this is starting to take note we are uh actually have researchers from the University of Maryland College Park who are interested in how we come up with our strategic plan and our and our outcomes uh in our objectives under our vision and so uh we work tirelessly on school climate teacher administrative quality student achievement and gifted and talented strategies uh we have said that this year is the growing season and indeed we are growing if you look at fall uh projections of map last year versus this year you can see the

102growth that our teachers are doing with our students uh in the January 22nd meeting we'll talk about the winter scores and the news is out I'll go ahead and tell you that that growth continues so we celebrate the work of our teachers students stakeholders and families uh on the high school level we look at uh the number of students that are going to enter high school and receive a diploma uh within four years our target has been 90.5% uh we measure this every week and currently we're at 85 a half% of that cohort on track to graduate on time we work purposely uh with our schools to make sure that there's names behind those numbers and stories behind those names so that we can meet those challenges to make sure that every child has an

103opportunity to graduate on time and meet their potential um we are excited about last year's results we saw increases in every area uh and in graduation rate maintaining and so we looked uh as we see exciting uh progress in our graduation rate to continue that growth but it's indeed the growing season in Lexing Richland School District 5 and we're excited about that uh that work at this time I'm going to ask our CFO Miss Madison Wilkerson to come to the podium and present present our monthly Financial update uh for October M Wilkerson good evening uh Madam chair members of the board and Dr Ross thank you for the time to present the monthly financial report for the month ending October 31st 2023 I'll start with the revenue summary um so as you can see on

104the screen our total revenue through October is 46.8 million or 20.7% of our total budget this is on Target compared to the same time frame in the prior year uh looking at our local sources our local Revenue um is strong through October due to vehicle property taxes and interest earn um as you all know most uh the significant portion of our local uh local Revenue comes in the months of January and February due to real estate property taxes um moving on to the state sources our state aid to classrooms um is slightly below budget based on being 33% of the way through the fiscal year um um but still on target tier one of our homestead exemption will be received or was received in November about 90% tier two comes in the spring and then

105tier three uh the first payment did start in October so you'll see that on your report and will continue through the end of the fiscal year eia funding um under other financing sources is actually slightly higher than than we budgeted um but this will be adjusted again in January for the 45-day adjustment at the ADM um so overall in total for revenues uh definitely on track with where we were and um in comparison to Budget on the expenditure summary again through October 31st our total expenditures were roughly 56.5 million which is about 24.3 3% of the budget um which is again in line with the same time frame uh looking at last year um as y'all will notice it's about 9.6 million over our revenues year-to dat which again is typical for this time of

106year just due due to um the real estate property tax revenue and when that when that does come um come due um additionally our expenditures are in line with the same time frame um and approximately 24% of the total budget with about 33% of the Year surpassed um I'll be glad to take any questions any questions Miss huddle um we I I got that I think we all got that email where we were increasing the fee for the electronic payments for student meals is that that's a pass through or do we bump that up or how does that work no unfortunately that's on the the vendor side so we actually don't see any of that that's completely um vendor based that's through our um Titan that's our our third party vendor system um so we

107actually don't see any of that from that standpoint okay and is that um all student fees or is it just meals just meals because that's a separate vendor so we use rore for all of our course fees um and that is actually an expense of the district so that's something that we do see on um on our books but the meal system is a separate vendor and that's completely pass through and they do have the option to pay cash yes ma'am okay and Kathy I have asked for Dr Ross to put on um the next board agenda a discussion item relating to the food service costs and increases and an explanation so we can ask specific questions for that any other questions thank you thank you Miss Wilkerson thank you m Wilkerson and last but

108not least as we released our 2022 2023 annual report uh is available uh will be made available to you online uh you also will get a copy uh we'll send this out um uh through our channels and uh make sure that we have these available in schools at the request of the vice chair I will now read this word for word I'm I'm lying I'm joking I'm joking but this is a this is a opportunity to be made available for you a lot of hard work went into this and so we want you to uh uh to see all the great things that are going on in our school district uh to see the amazing work that uh our teachers our staff and our students are doing so it just gives you a great update

109of the things that are going on from last year but our I submit our ual report um Madam chair uh members of the board that concludes the superintendent report and I stand for any questions do I have any questions seeing none we will move on thank you Dr Ross that brings us to item 12 approval of the minutes of the December 11th 2023 board meeting do have a motion I'd like to make motion to approve the minutes of the December 11th 2023 board meeting does second second Miss um Snipes any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero and that brings us to public participation um I would like to make a statement before Miss Taylor uh introduces our public participation guests um the board

110welcomes 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 participation will be handled in accordance with board policy bedh Miss Taylor thank you madam chair Dr Don Weathersby is here to speak about board policy kec good evening I had intended to walk in here tonight and be intentionally provocative I was going to read a passage from Ezekiel you know the one about the promiscuous woman her breasts her silver and gold toys and her desire for donkey well you know my purpose with this would have been to prove to you that out of context

111passages can make even the Bible sound puant I decided against reading this excerpt however because I didn't want you to fixate on my inappropriate use of outof context passages from the Bible the way I have fixated on your inappropriate use of out of context passages from a court of M and fury I am very concerned about passages being taken out of context by people who haven't bothered to read the book I think we can all probably agree that that I could spend at least 15 minutes up here reading lewd verses from the Bible verses about anything from incest to genital mutilation yet because you're likely familiar with the entirety of that text you'd recognize that these passages do not represent the book as a whole most of you did not bother to read a court

112of M and fury yet as a board you wholesale rejected the advice of the committee who did read the book in its entirety and reported that the sexually explicit passages do not represent the book as a whole instead you listen to 15 minutes of out of context passages and then purposefully decided to become book banners yes banners we're not going to quibble over the multiple synonyms people who ban Books use to mitigate book Banning and for context the audio book for a court of mist and fury is 23 hours long so you really didn't get a perspective of the book as a whole after only 15 minutes and I want to be very clear on a point here my commentary isn't truly about a court of M and fury I'm not going to die on

113the hill of a high fantasy book no matter how much I personally enjoy the book and the resilience shown by the protagonist in overcoming her childhood trauma PTSD and domestic violence no rather I'm going to die on the hill of your indiscriminate Banning of a series of books that most of you haven't bothered to read and that none of you bother to discuss in their entirety you have set a treacherous precedent in denying the challenged book committee's recommendation this board has unparalleled power without any of the responsibility of that power in board policy ke I naively believed you wouldn't misuse this power I was predictably disappointed and now according to board policy ke this particular set of books can't even be Revisited again for five years regardless of your Hasty dismissal if you decide that

114you indeed deserve the privilege of being judge jury and executioner in spite of the hard work of the challenge book committee then at the very least consider revising board policy ke so that the board is also required to follow the instructions given to the challenged book committee and board policy a rkcr which reads the committee must not pull passages or parts out of context the committee must weigh values and faults against each other and base its opinions on the material as a whole your students your teachers and your constituency deserve a board that is thoughtful and thorough in its decision making thank you Tess Pratt is here to speak about book Banning if you were to walk into my class room you'd likely get an idea of who I am based on some of the

115items in it they serve to remind me of who I am never have these items mattered more than in recent years who I am frankly feels under attack upon entering my classroom you'll see a plat of the Boston Tea Party participants many took the secret of their participation in this event to their deaths but my fifth great-grandfather did not Thomas fracker is listed I am a descendant of a man who participated in this country's original protest perhaps this is why his granddaughter is so dedicated to the rights of all Americans to protest on my desk you'll see a copy of a book written by Thomas's son George the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Argentina he did two things when he returned wrote a book and became a teacher perhaps my Destiny

116as a teacher was sealed by George's decision on the wall behind my desk is a photo of my second great grandmother Ellen Robinson fracker who homesteaded to South Dakota and built a one- room Schoolhouse How brave she must have been to Traverse across the country to an unknown land inspired by a dream to teach perhaps I carried Ellen with me when I came to teach in South Carolina draped over my chair is a wounded warrior blanket a reminder of all the sacrifices our soldiers have made for the freedoms we enjoy in my family we have served all the way to this country's Beginnings hanging on my wall is my favorite Soldier Captain St Captain Stanley S fracker III he is in a helicopter in the jungles of Vietnam my father would return from his service

117on the battlefield and ultimately serve in the classroom I've always been struck by the fact that he was dedicated to serving our democracy on both these fronts perhaps I carry my father with me as I fight to protect our precious democracy in the classroom I share this with you because I refuse to own the narrative that a loud minority seems hellbent on perpetuating I am not an indoctrinator because because I believe that we should teach diverse literature and as the LA last meetings of pent seem to suggest I am most certainly not complicit in the sex trafficking of young girls because I support the decision of a nine-person team to keep a challenged book on the shelves of a high school library for the record I fought to protect sex trafficed children long before this

118issue became what it is today over 20 years ago I consulted with experts I was a guest speaker in churches I walked door to- door soliciting signatures on petitions in my vast experience I came across zero evidence connecting books with sexual content to sex trafficking finally neither I nor members of my department should be the target of board emails to my superintendent I was recently privy to two board emails one called for supply lists from and for anyone in the chapen high school English department since August of 2020 the other suggested that racism should only be taught in history classes as English teachers are not trained for this I am a certified history and English teacher and I'm stunned and Incredibly disheartened at how little you know about what we do in closing I would

119like to share a final classroom item with you it is one of the many blacks that I have received from my sweet students throughout the years it reads one child one teacher one book and one pen can change the world this is who I am this is who we are Sarah kimberland is here to speak about book Banning good evening I'm reading an excerpt from Ray bradberry's novel Fahrenheit 451 Bradberry was a famous and widely celebrated 20th century American novelist essayist and poet I read this because I fear we are on a very slippery slope with removing books from our students hands what more easily explained in natural with school turning out more Runners jumpers Racers tinkerers Grabbers snatchers flyers and swimmers instead of examiners critics knowers and imaginative creators the word intellectual of course

120became the swear word it deserved to be you always dread the unfamiliar surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally bright did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many Leen Idols hating him and wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours of course it was we must all be alike not everyone born free and equal as the Constitution says but everyone made equal each man the image of each other then all are happy for there are no mountains to make them coward to judge themselves against so a book becomes a loaded gun in the house next door burn it take the shot from the weapon breach man's mind who knows who might be the target of the well- r

121man me I won't stomach them for a minute do you know why books such as this are so important because they have quality and what does the word quality mean to me it means texture this book has pores it has features this book can go under the microscope you'd find life under the glass streaming past an infinite profusion the more pores the more truthfully recorded details of Life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper the more literary you are that's my definition in a way telling detail fresh detail the good writers touch life often so now do you see why books are hated and feared they show the pores in the face of Life the comfortable people want only wax moon faces poreless hairless and expressionless we are living in a

122time when flowers are trying to live on flowers instead of growing on good rain and black loone Lee Bryant is here to speak about the importance of books ongoing vitriolic book debates tend to cast ELA teachers as villains but it's easy to villainize strangers so I'd like to introduce myself I am Jackson Lee Bryant just Lee to friends and family when I was little my family lived in Colorado Springs in a house subjected to my father's alcoholism and abusive rage his rage infected his three children my older sister and brother fought brutal battles while I shouted mostly at my brother I always took my sister's side because she always took mine even against our parents they eventually divorced remarried new people and our mom and stepfather relocated us to South Carolina where while we lived

123in abley when we lived in ay trailer outside St Matthews my sister then 17 and in her first semester of college died she heading home from a date she crashed her powder blue Volkswagen Beetle into the side of a moving freight train the tragic thing about trauma is how it isolates my siblings and I internalize the violence of our upbringing differently silently becoming not allies but combatants my whole family grieved my sister's death re rearranging our lives around the shape of her absence but walled within ourselves we mourned alone multiple times I contemplated Escape I can say without a shred of exaggeration books saved my life in novels by Dean coun and Stephen King I encountered believable characters confronting unbelievable situations most of them survived in literary works such as their eyes are watching God

124I in encountered survivors who were internally destroyed from them I learned that true survival requires ongoing difficult inside work and their stories inspired me to start that work myself in poetry I encountered people who'd had similar experiences and their crafted language taught me that trauma need not stay ugly that it can be transmuted into art simultaneously painful and beautiful so the next time you consider removing a book I want you to inv Envision the child who may need that specific book maybe he can't afford glasses and he leans close to the bookcase as he Squints at the title maybe she values playing lacrosse more than reading but something about the cover art speaks to Her Imagination maybe she's a recent transplant with multicolored hair and the author's book jacket photo resembles the best friend she

125left behind none of us knows exactly who the child is none of us knows what the child endured just to be here none of us knows why this particular book has the power to reconnect the child to this life we all share but I know this if we remove that connection we endanger the child remember that Grace Abbot is here to speak about band Book committee good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board superintendent Ross District personnel and Lexington Richland 5 residents my name is Grace Abbott and I am your District teacher of the year at the beginning of the school year my message to all district faculty and staff focused on teamwork and lifting up every individual because everyone matters I spoke about how each person has something of value to contribute and how

126our students are better because each person is contributing their energy and time and talent the board's decision to overrule the book committee's Finding about Sarah J Mass's book and then to proceed by Banning the whole series directly contradicts that message and it has invalidated the process which is otherwise serve the district so well instead of trusting the individuals who read and analyzed the book and had knowledge of the students that the book would reach the board's decision undermines the committee's authority and professionalism and the board's ruling the message sent was that the committee met read and discussed without purpose their energy their time and their talent were wasted and their findings were useless this does not reflect well on our district and it does not reflect well on our values as a represent res ative

127of the teaching Community as a professional educator and as a future parent of a D5 student I want to publicly thank the committee members who gave of their energy and time and talent who are experts in their field and who deserve better from our leadership if we are going to ask individuals to give of their resources for the betterment of our students then the least we can do is to listen to them and to show them the professional courtesy that they deserve deserve thank you for your time and thank you for your attention Mary wood is here to speak about books good evening I don't think I need to introduce myself and I'm going to be reading from between the world and me the streets were not my only problem if the streets Shackled my

128right leg the schools Shackled my left failed to comprehend the streets and you gave up your body now but failed to comprehend the books or the schools and you gave up your body later I suffered at the hands of both but I resent the schools more there was nothing Sanctified about the laws of the streets they were the laws were amoral and practical you rolled with the posy to the party as sh as you wore boots in the snow or raised an umbrella in the rain these were rules ra aimed at something obvious the great danger that haunted every visit to shake and bake every bus ride downtown for the laws of schools were aimed at something distant and vague what did it mean to as as our elders told us grow up and be

129somebody and what precisely did this have to do with an education rendered as rote discipline to be educated in my Baltimore mostly meant always packing an extra number two pencil and working quietly educated children walked in a single file line on the right side of the hallway raised their hands to use the laboratory and carry the laboratory pass when and Route educ educated children never offered excuses certainly not childhood itself the world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls how could the schools algebra biology and English were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline in the body to practice writing between the lines copying the directions legibly memorizing theorems extracted from the world they were created to represent all of it felt so distant to me I remember sitting

130in my seventh grade French class and not having any idea why I was there I did not know any French people and nothing around me suggested I ever would France was a rock rotating in another galaxy around another sun in another sky that I would never cross I precisely was I sitting in this classroom the question was never answered I was a curious boy but the schools were not concerned with curiosity they were concerned with compliance I loved a few of my teachers but I cannot say I truly believed any of them I sensed that the schools were hiding something dragging us with false morality so we would not see so we did not ask why for us and only us is the other side of free Free Will and free spirits and assault upon

131our bodies this is not a hyperbolic concern when our elders presented school to us they did not present it as a place of High Learning but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing F Le 60% of all young black men who drop out of high school will go to jail this should disgrace the country but it does not and while I couldn't crunch the numbers or Plumb the history back then I sense that the fear of that marked West Baltimore could not be explained by the schools Miss Woods your times has a run thank you Katherine ROM is here to speak about instructional materials hey I'm Dr Katherine ramp um I'm a D5 graduate my children attend school at Piney Woods Elementary School and Rin Hills Baptist um I'm an Ela teacher

132at Dutch Fork High School and I'm a professional uh I have the ability to choose books that are high interest um that can also help teach the standards and grow my students Um this can be a bit of a difficult balance though trying to find books that are rigorous that are acceptable for everybody um and are high interest at the same time but I have to say that I am thankful that we have this opportunity here locally to talk about books right because who knows Lex Rich 5 students better than the people who live and teach in Lex Rich 5 right we're not the same as students in Charleston they AR not same students in Greenville um and I'm thankful that we have the local power to decide what's best for our students um which

133is why I'm concerned about what's happening at the state level with instruction materials um if you guys haven't checked out regulation 43170 it's the uniform procedure for selection and reconsideration of instructional materials um it's much bigger version of the discussion that's happening right now right here about books and banning books and instructional materials um the second reading of this uh regulation is happening on February 13th public hearing and the final day for public commentary is January first so if you have feelings about instruction materials and making sure that if something big happens tomorrow I can show my students an article about it and teach it and have that teachable moment then I suggest you reach out to Lisa Weidner that's ellm Weidner at ed.sc.gov to share your thoughts about keeping that control local within our

134district where we know students and we can have these discussions um I'm worried that decisions both here locally and Statewide are being made not in students best interests and that these recent discussions touching on literature are actually a pretense for getting rid of diverse viewpoints um in my dissertation on the first page I quote Dr rudine Sims Bishop I don't know if you've read anything by her but she said says that literature is a powerful tool for building empathy understanding and compassion in our students they need mirrors in which they can see themselves and windows through which they can see the world and I don't know about you but I want my child to be able to see himself in literature but also peer into other ways of thinking and doing so that he can

135be more Urbane and sophisticated the kind of global citizen that we want our Lex Rich 5 students to eventually be anyway thanks Scott Herring is here to speak about book review in District good evening also here to speak about the same to topic but maybe a slightly uh different perspective to briefly recount uh at the December meeting uh the book Accord of Miss and fury went through the established book review process and was found acceptable by an 8 to1 margin app parent appealed and the decision was given uh opportunity to uh speak here at the meeting following those remarks a motion was made to remove both M and fury and the remaining series had that motion only included the book in question and the board decided to remove it I may not be here tonight

136I may not have liked the uh the outcome of that decision but I have to respect the process it went through the process nearing the end of that discussion Dr Ross and two other board members tried to iterate that the board was debating removing a number of books that had not yet been reviewed Dr Ross said and I quote there is no vehicle for administration through policy to consider a book that has not come through your K policy clarification was then being sought by two other board members the search for that clarification was then quickly dismissed and a rush to take a vote as a result of the vote four books that had not been reviewed were removed from the district schools my issue with the board's action is not that Miss and fury was

137removed through due process my concern is that the board completely ignored the due process for the remaining books in the series why would a motion to remove books without those materials going through the process even be entertained as a result it's now been established that materials don't necessarily have to go through that process to be removed during the next appeal can a board member now make a motion to remove other unreviewed books that have during that motion if a theatrical work is reviewed and deemed appropriate but then appealed can a board member move that that play and all other plays or any other plays by the same author be removed if a musical composition goes through the same process May a board member make a motion that that composition and compositions by the same composer

138be removed indeed it's a slippery slope as you're all aware I ran for one of these board seats last election and I can tell you unequivocally I would be very uneasy wielding the power you have now given this board you have a policy for reviewing materials and it's your job to follow it as Dr Ross indicated each book should go through the process meaning the series should have had five separate committees several of you are parents in the district with the same rights and privileges as the rest of us you could have simply submitted those for review yourself but instead you used your privilege as board members and took matters into your own hands are you really certain you want this board to have that power and are you certain you want future boards to

139have that power I know you all intend to act in the best interest of our children and I hope you'll continue to do that I just hope that you will use the very policies and procedures that you have set in place to do that work thank you that concludes public participation all right that concludes public participation and that moves us to our action agenda number 14 Action as necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like to make the motion that the board approve selected employment items shanon exhibit a do I have a second second I believe I heard Miss Barnhart first any discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor the motion carries 7 to0 and that brings us to item 15

140on the action agenda the second and final reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy ik do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like to make the motion to the board to approve second final reading of proposed revisions to board policy ik promotion and retention of students in exhibit e do I have a second second I hear Miss Snipes and that brings us to the discussion Dr Ross and miss m m mcal is available for any questions on this policy all right do we have any questions seeing none I will call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7even to zero thank you Mr mcal and that brings us to the discussion agenda which is the discussion of proposed revisions to board policy dbj budget transfers which is seen in exhibit f

141d Ro thank you madam chair members of the board at this time we'd like to bring for discussion our budget transfer policy uh we are looking at how it operates in reality and its intent and so our CFO uh Mr Madison werson will come forth and explain what we recommend as we looked at the policies from around the state in our in our area that would help us in um in our daily operations so Mr Wilkinson yes I am going to discuss uh proposed revisions of board policy dbj which is regarding budget transfers as y all know that we are required by law each uh each year to adopt a budget by July 1st we begin that budget process really now um and administratively and then we go through um you know of course talking

142to our principals our directors in the months of February March always looking at Revenue projections at the state level and then that takes us really to um the the meeting in April where we excuse me we discuss with y'all the first kind of iteration of the budget and then we have first reading in um by the first meeting in May so that's normally kind of our our our annual process but as youall know school doesn't start until August so there is certainly um things that change over the summer there's certainly enrollment changes just different things that truly just happen over the summer and into the new year um so as schools are starting to open we definitely noticed some shifting um from you know our FTE level so we try really hard certainly from the

143HR standpoint not to actually shift people but we look at our budget and we say okay well we have a kindergarten teacher over at this school that we were not uh we no longer need it's a vacancy we're going to just plop that over here and we're going to take it over to a different school and that'll be now a second grade teacher you know different things like that so that's something that they the HR will kind of work around with enrollment and different things that we know at that time additionally um throughout the year another big thing that happens is that we may have some critical needs areas that uh we are unable to hire that could happen at the beginning year middle year end of year um with Staffing changes and um we

144we look we of course try to post it try to hire and we may notice that we're unable to hire for those positions so we we kind of look internally and we say okay what can we do so our next step is to possibly look at third party contractors um to see if that is something that we can then you know get get the needs in these classrooms um and as part of that that in indicates really an account code change so we're moving we really need money that was originally budgeted in salaries and infringe because we were going to hire internally unfortunately unable to do so we really need that money to move to a purchase Services account number so that's truly a budget change um and then additionally another big thing that comes

145up each year is that the state department of Ed does do an annual Financial Accounting handbook and there are usually slight variations each year but there are some account code change that we need to just kind of update as um things continue so with knowing all of that we currently have a budget um transfer policy that indicates uh the board um authorizes a superintendent or his or her designate to approve general fund Lem line item transfers in the aggregate totaling no more than $10,000 general fund budget transfers over $10,000 will will be presented to the board for approval um so you know as yall know our our general fund budget is roughly 232 million um so $10,000 is really a pretty low threshold um for just our daily operations uh you know some of the

146things that again we kind of kind of see on our end every month I do present to you the um monthly financial report um if y'all have noticed on the revenue side you'll notice that we have our state aid to classrooms is in a state aid to classroom account but the actual amount is hitting a totally separate account so that's $73 million that we have budgeted in one account but the actual money is coming from the state in a t a separate account I would like to make those match so it's not necessarily an overall change nothing would change you wouldn't see anything you know our budget would still be 232 million but right now with this restriction I'm unable to make that change without your approval um another item that we see a lot

147of times is technology so there have been some funding um changes at the state level and um this is kind of in the weeds for you guys but something that used to be coded as an object code 345 is now an object code 445 so we have the budget in 345 we really need to move it to 445 it's not anything that I I don't know but I don't think you guys necessarily care about something like that um but again with this current budget uh board policy I can't make that change without your approval um another item that we do see a lot is from our supply standpoint so we consider anything under $55,000 a supply anything over $5,000 we have to capitalize um so uh something that does come up from time to time

148our band instruments we see that a band instrument might be over $5,000 well the school has the money in their supplies account they really need to move that money over to their um their Capital account they're buying two of them they don't have the money to do that we can't make that transfer and additionally it says in aggregate so it's something you know when I when I think of aggregate I think of the whole year so it's not that they can move 5,000 this time and then 5,000 in a month and 5,000 the next month when I look at it or when I read it and interpret it it seems like we just can't make that transfer um so in essence it it puts the budget out of whack um some other items that do

149come up up from time to time or certainly at the school level they may have money into their supplies account they really need to purchase service may need to move to purchase service for different reasons this certainly happens at the facility standpoint when um they have money and supplies and they thought that they could do the project in house well now it's an emergency and they've got to hire a contractor in there to get it done um so it's a different account so a lot of times it's truly just moving it's it's the same project it's just moving it to the appropriate account number um and that does happen from time to time um additionally just you know full disclosure there are human errors in our budget from time to time um you know something

150that actually came up today is that um we have a school with a very specific program um and they had some Supply needs that program was the supply needs for that program were actually budgeted in an in an incorrect location so we were able to find it and I need it's $25,000 I need to be able to move that over to the correct school um when that does happen another item that has happened this year has been a typo in a principal Supply account um we put in $1,200 it should have been $112,000 so again it's over that $110,000 threshold but it's something that should be a you know readily available for me or a member of my team to be able to fix but right now with this current policy I would be out

151of compliance without coming to y'all um one last item just again I'm trying to give you kind of really examples of what kind of come through our office dayto day um we use a lot of what we call budget control codes and this really helps us from a budgeting standpoint um one of the ones that y'all um probably have seen before is our substitute account so we budget for substitutes in one line item but of course we know that we have substitutes all over the district in all different grade levels so where they're actually charged is to the specific grade level the correct account so if I'm you know kindergarten teacher I'm out of course we're going to charge that substitute to that specific account but the budgets over here in this one account we

152what we do is we create budget control control codes so that they're all linked so when I look at that budget control code I can tell you know if we're how how we are from a balancing standpoint but at the end of the fiscal year if you're looking at that one account it looks over budget so just items like that where we should really be throughout the year TR up those accounts a as we can um so what I've presented for you is certainly our our current policy some proposed revisions I did take a look at some policies around the state certainly policies that were districts that were similar size to us and um you know located geographically um close to us I did look at several the two that I kind of um I

153guess merged together were Lexington 1's current policy and Fort Mills policy um so in here I have that the superintendent or his his or her design um is approved to transfer budget amounts between function and object codes um as long as total spending does not exceed the approved budget addition itions to the approved general fund budget must be approved by the board so that would be in total so at any time if the um Administration needs to go from 232 million to 233 million of course that would always come to you but anytime we're staying within our total budget that would be something that we could do administratively um and then additionally all general fund line item transfers regardless of the amount will always appear in the monthly financial report so you'll notice that's already

154in there um if you look at the columns we have our original budget we have our um adjustments and then we have uh final budget so that column will still be there so if anytime there's questions or you need further information that will still be there and that will always be presented to y'all and certainly if there's ever um a large transfer that we would we would want to just bring that to your attention to to be able to discuss it but in general that would all just be presented as information for questions and again that does kind of merge the two policies from Fort Mill and Lexington one but I have also um supplied you some some existing policies from districts around us so we have Richland one um similar to Lexington one where

155the superintendent or his or her design um will establish the approval parameters for all budget transfers so they really don't mention the board at all um but I did like the language in I believe it was Lexington 1es that talks about bringing those always at the F uh the monthly Financial reports also included Richland 2 um that authorizes the superintendent or his or her does a need to approve budget transfers between major categories within the general fund uh to effectively operate the school district so those are just kind of some examples but I just wanted to bring it to your attention to give you kind of real world operations of some some things that I see on my end and I that I feel like maybe um are are kind of delaying our operations a

156little bit if I truly have to bring everything to y'all to approve and I'll be glad to take any other questions um I did you know I included a handful of board policies from around the state but I did just kind of quickly look at some other ones um very similar to the policies that I've included in here were Richland one 2 Lex One Fort Mill Rock Hill Sumpter Anderson Bob Lexington 2 Newberry they all had very very similar language um there was a a couple that had um a little bit more restrictive language um in there as well um bufor did have a $50,000 um program limitation okone had a pro $50,000 program limitation but again program wasn't necessarily defined so I didn't feel like that was very clear putting in that dollar value

157so um that's why I left out the dollar and just said in total as long as the budget in total does not exceed the approved budget by the Board of Trustees that the Administration has the authority to make those transfers and uh we had legal review this as well yes sir so we did have um Alan Smith from Mahoney hallagan and Williams I believe um Miss Kathy Mahoney's um firm he looked at it for me um he did not see uh any legal issues with that um I did look at the school board's association website as well I was unable to find a model policy for this um but I can certainly reach out to Stephanie Lawrence um in their office to to see if she has any suggestions as well but I did reach

158out to Alan Smith so we submit this Madam chair members of the board for discussion only all right any questions Miss huddle um the one of the examples you gave was on the musical instruments um so that would be moved from the capital to the operating or it would still be within the operating it's still within the operating it's just considered a capital expenditure for us okay so just from one category to it's just an account yeah an account number change yes ma'am well that would one suggestion I would have is I think it was Richland too it the policy was very clear it said operating fund so I would suggest that we include that just to make sure it's Crystal Clear um the other thing I mean I totally agree with doing this I

159mean I I can see how it's just very time consuming to like especially the substitutes and that kind of thing the only um caveat I would make is I think it might be good for some kind of threshold to get board approv and I'll just give use an example we bud budgeted um how much for for um chapen high school for Portables 1.5 million okay 1.5 million that's a lot of money okay I would think that the board would want to get involved if that money was going to be spent differently so I don't know what the thresh I think 10,000 is way too low or maybe you carve out things like the substitute teachers because that's not really it it's just Bean counting right there you're just moving it from one pot to another

160it's the exact same thing it's just in two different places so that's the only you know suggestion that I have uh other suggestion is just um and you're better at the wording of it but if it's within the same type of expense you know I think that I don't see why the Board needs to get involved but if we're moving it from one type of expense to a totally different type of expense and it's over certain amount I think that the board ought to approve that and I have a question and and this may be to Dr Ross and I'm looking at this and I just can't I I don't see it in here but I feel like um that I heard when we were you had mentioned that we you were bringing this policy

161today and there was um some discussion about putting like when this policy is is implemented and utilized and there are purchases or there's money moved around that that would be included in the monthly financial report so that we would know that that had happened and it wouldn't be like a it would be like in real time yes so um essentially is that is that part of that because that's not in the policy well well the where I guess where I'm seeing it is in the second uh to last sentence it says all general fund line line item transfers regardless of the amount will appear in the monthly financial report so um if you look at your monthly financial report now you'll notice that like it has the original budget and it has a and a

162column for adjustments right beside it so we're already doing some transfers but again we're trying to keep it under that $10,000 threshold so you you can already see that there's some movement in and out the other um thing with that uh the way that that is presented it's not by location so you may even look at that report and say well look at these adjustments like there's one for 27,000 well it's not really 27,000 that's looking at all the high schools so it could be that chape in high school did a 9,000 and you know hero did eight and that you know so it really is kind of misleading anyway because you don't see it so granular um so those adjustments do already look like well maybe you're not already following the policy but we

163are it's just the way that y'all see it is not as Gran as the way that I'm looking at it and I see it from you know an account number with a location everything like very very specific but the way that it is presented is truly just in general by function okay any other questions Mr Scully yeah real quickly um I don't think uh the recommendations from Miss huddle are necessary I I think the way that it's written um in the proposed language kind of takes care of those concerns and like you said we'll get a monthly report that'll um those will show up and uh the policy says they'll be in compliance with the guidelines found in the financial accounting handbook for South Carolina public school districts so I I really think it would

164still it wouldn't be necessary that's that's just my my opinion so I just wanted to say that anything else all right thank you Miss Wilkerson Mr Hogan I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn this meeting do I have a second oh I heard I heard Elizabeth barart on that one uh any discussion all in favor Mike are you voting against okay wow all right that motion carries 7 to zero we adjourn until the next meeting thank you