001[Music] I'd like to call to order our December 11th 2023 board meeting is it is 6 p.m. do I have a motion to approve the agenda Mr Hogan I make motion to approve the agenda do a second second Miss Snipes any discussion Miss huddle um I moveed to amend the agenda item number 23 um to change the wording to say Edon Inc uh I'm sorry to say an intent to award was issued to EDC con Inc for hermo High School East Wing do you mean 22 yes I'm sorry 22 okay do I have a second a second Miss um Barnhart all right uh any discussion on that um just to the reason why I made the motion to amend the agenda was um when I saw it I sent Dr Ross an email and got
002some emails back and forth and clarification that the contract hasn't been awarded yet so to clarify and ensure the minutes are correct I thought it should say an intent to award was issued to EDC con and I'd like to put the uh a note and the emails that went back and forth in the minutes okay um anybody else have anything to say and Miss Huddle's corrected there was an intent to award a contract um not an actual contract an actual contract has not been drafted yet to my knowledge um all right uh so I will um call for a vote on the amendments to the agenda all in favor all opposed all right that motion the motion to amend carries 6 to one the agenda and do I have another motion we need to approve
003the agenda oh also can I I'm GNA go to the I'm sorry y'all it is a Monday it's been a very long very long day um on the original motion to approve the agenda all in favor all opposed I did not see votes from um so you're in favor Mr sat okay Mr Scully are you in favor the motion to approve the agenda the amended agenda is uh 7 to zero poize for everyone listening at home on that one do I have any more motions Mr Hogan uh make motion to enter executive session and consider the following a selected employment items exhibit a for Action B selected employment items exhibit B information only and C received legal advice regarding board policy GB EB Exhibit C do have a second second Miss snip second any discussion
004seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero we will adjourn to Executive session e d I'd like to call to order our regularly scheduled December 11th school board meeting and um I would like to welcome everyone that is that is here tonight the last two to three minutes right before a board meeting it's like the longest three minutes it's very awkward silence so thank you for bearing with us for that um I am going to turn it over to Mr saterfield for our invocation and our Pledge of Allegiance Mr safield okay if you'll bow your heads and join me in prayer dear God grant that we may share with all our hearts in this profound mystery of the holiday season instill in us this peace for which
005we often seek so desperately and which you alone can give to us help us to know one another better and truly live as brothers and sisters reveal to us also your beauty Holiness and Purity awaken our hearts with love and gratitude for your infinite goodness teach us to close the door of hate and open the door of love and forgiveness in our community and all over the world during this season let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting teach us also to each be merry with clear hearts and remind us to be grateful in all things you have provided amen if you will stand and join me with the pledge please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands
006one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you for that Mr saterfield that brings us to number eight on our agenda which is our school board Spotlight Miss Taylor Ross good evening do y'all want to join us at the front for the spotlight all right thank you um first tonight the students here at the center have just completed their annual poia sale the students start their growing process in August and care for these plants all the way through the fall um and then the students in the agricultural education biosystems environmental and natural resources and vet science programs work together and use the funds from the sale to um support the center's FFA chapter and their field trips and events that they that they have throughout the year so um
007you can see that they have provided beautiful plants um for you tonight we hope that you can enjoy them SI awesome congratulations all right could I get Dylan and DeAndre to come stand with me are you Andre how are you madam chair members of the board and Dr Ross We Have Tonight with us Dylan Martinez Perez he is from leeart elementary school and this is deand Kaufman he is from 7 Oaks Elementary School and both of these boys have done something I have always wanted to do they wrote books and they have been published let's see you wrote this one and you wrote this one right so both of these boys participated in our summer reading camp and everyone at summer reading Camp wrote a book but these two got selected by Stan Tucker who
008is an author and uh Mr Tucker published their their books and they got to go to Atlanta and have a unveiling and a book signing was it fun was it fun when you went to Atlanta awesome so um we are so happy and obviously today is a special day for DeAndre how old are you today 10 he's 10 so happy birthday DeAndre we are so glad that both of you were here do y'all want to come up and see Dr Ross and all the board members for of course DeAndre come back bud birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birth dear [Music] deand and I forgot to mention in my the their books are available for purchase on Amazon and the boys do get the proceeds from those and I believe their families may
009have some copies here tonight if anyone in the audience is interested in that so congratulations to them and then last but certainly not least Dutch Fork High School football kept their winning streak alive this year as they won and um defeated white null for the Class 5A Championship it's dutch Fork's eighth championship in school history and it's coach Tom not's 15th state championship in his career uh the team had to overcome adversity this year in order to achieve this accomplishment and we are so proud of them and their perseverance and we are glad that we got to be a part of watching The Greatest Story Ever this year so coach nuts and the team come on up e crowed find a window that looks great all right all right that was a wonderful last school
010board Spotlight for 2023 thank you very much Miss Taylor and that moves us on uh to item number nine our superintendent's report Dr Ross uh thank you madam chair members of the board and our community uh we have uh very excited about a lot of great things going on in our school district um those that may be wondering and we have some other state champions the the chap and cheerleaders had a conflict with today so we will recognize them on January the 8th uh as well but a lot of great things to uh to Showcase in our school district uh we are a system answering CR three critical questions each day why are we here our vision question how do we accomplish our vision and then what are the outcomes why is that we love
011and grow our students how is that we are focused on academic social social emotional growth and development and then our strategic plan outcomes is that we uh each day have a future where we're looking that every student feels loved in our schools and a future where every student has demonstrated academic growth in our schools measured by our four performance goal uh performance goals in school climate teacher administrative quality student achievement and gifted and talented strategies it's the growing season in School District 5 and and how do we measure that in our strategic plan uh we look three points during the year we use measures of academic progress to see how our students would do on the SC ready exam uh if it was taken at the point of administration in the fall of last year
012you could see how many of our students were off level uh versus the number of students who were on reading uh on grade level in Elementary in Middle School English and math if we were looking at last year this would be the reality but it's the growing season in School District 5 and you can see uh just the amazing growth that our teachers and our support staff and our administrators were able to uh receive this year so while we have a ways to go we're very proud of the progress of our teachers and staff on the high school level one of our critical indicators is the number of students who are going to graduate on time when they enter the ninth grade four years after entering the ninth grade graduating across the stage not only
013uh with a diploma but College and Career ready ready for life and so we monitor that each week uh you can see our strategic plan goal of having 90 and a half% of our students graduating within that cohort on time uh as we track this every week we're currently at 85% uh but we are looking to find the the names behind each number the story behind each uh name uh so that we can meet those those needs of those students so that they can uh see success when we look at uh how our student our student district is held accountable we have multiple measures from College and Career Readiness graduation rate SE ready in English and math our passage rates on the end of course exam for Algebra 1 and English to and uh I'm
014very proud it is the growing season in School District 5 we have an increase in all categories uh with maintaining and graduation rate that is a testament to the amazing work of our Educators in the school district uh it is not easy to come by but they're are truly creating the conditions for growth for our school and so u in that time I just want to recognize again all 27440 employees that make this possible these results uh for our students and those that uh we will continue to do uh in order to uh meet the objectives so that every child feels loved in our schools and has demonstrated academic growth in our schools so with that uh I will now pass the uh ask the our CFO Miss Madison Wilkerson uh to come forward to
015give our monthly Financial update good evening Madam chair members of the board and Dr Ross thank you for inviting me here tonight to present the financial report for the month ending September 30th 2023 I'll start with the revenue report um as always we um we break this up between local estate sources and other financing sources um through September 30th 2023 our local sources are in line with budget and the prior year at this time um as you can tell interest income is already exceeding budget and we do expect this to continue with um the high interest rate um Market that we're in currently for our state sources um we do expect an adjustment on the from our 45 day numbers and this will be reflected on the January uh monthly payment to districts uh but
016overall through September 30th we are slightly below budget from the state revenue standpoint um and we will continue to closely monitor this and as we receive adjustments throughout the year we'll continue to update you um we did however receive our tier one reimbursement um from property tax relief in November which was earlier than we normally do normally that comes in uh December so we're thankful for that and then our tier three reimbursement starts in um in October but overall um year-to date through September 30th about 29.6 million or 12.75% of budgeted Revenue which is in line with the previous year for the expenditure side through September 30th 2023 um our expenditures did exceed revenues by approximately 7 .5 million um this is normal for this time of year really through um through December is when
017we notice that um our expenditures are starting to exceed our revenues each month um this time of year we do dip into our reserves to continue to main cash flow um and to make payroll and pay all invoices but overall in line with the previous year of 37.1 million through September or 15.98% of the total budget I'll be glad to take any questions any questions all right thank you thank you Mr Wilkinson uh Madam chair members of the board and our community I wanted to give an update on our Community Support Services uh before we go into that and I introduce uh Dr Harris uh to to make the introduction uh I want to just share why we engaged in this initiative uh what you see are two two graphs or two data points of
018the 2001 SE ready uh reading and math scores for all the elementary schools in the state what's very interesting of these scatter points is that with 71% accuracy if I know the poverty index of a school I can determine its its uh reading level with 65 a half% accuracy if I know the poverty index of a school I can determine its math achievement level uh we see this relationship between poverty and academic achievement what does that mean for our school district it means if we look at the poverty index of our of our school district we have some of the most influenced communities in the state of South Carolina but we also serve some of the most impoverished communities in the state of South Carolina as a result one size does not fit all in
019terms of an educational model we must address the needs of all children in the growing season and it's about creating those conditions where all children can succeed and we were able this year uh through the work of many in our community many partners uh to create in one of our communities an area that we saw a lot of challenges a memorandum of understanding uh between uh the owners of harbest and Gardens Apartments and the management company NH of harvest and Gardens uh to work in that community uh with those students uh to ensure that those families needs were met so that uh we could see success uh during the school day why was that important that was important because of all the interventions that we're doing during the school if you look at the waking
020hours of a student uh during that school year during that year they're in school within if you have 7 and A2 hours a day for 180 days but the amount of time out of school in the community it's 81% 82% of their time they spend the majority of the time out of schools than in schools we felt in Community Support Services that it was time for us to look at ways that we can get into that out of school time after school Summers weekends holidays and get and ensure that our students uh had supports um as we started to look at the housing situations of our student students uh we realized that there were a tail of two communities we learned about Section 8 housing which by Federal Regulation provides uh access to housing vouchers
021provides resident Support Services provides Community standards of conduct and if all of these are supplied we've seen areas in our community where our children and our families are doing well however there's also section 42 housing uh where there is no responsibility of the owner to provide Community standards of conduct there's no responsibility or obligation to provide resident Support Services in these areas we were seeing a lot of challenges it's not about who's there it's about what supports and what conditions therein so we decided for uh through the work uh with one of these section 42 housings that they would work with us on community standards of conduct uh this board encouraged us uh through a grant to initiate an opportunity to provide the first resident support service coordinator to go into that community and provide
022those responsibilities to those families uh that uh first ever resident support service um that this board approved was Mr J Julius Scott and uh we would like uh to share um how he was able to help us and continue to work to meet two very critical goals establish Partnerships with out of school providers for academic athletic and artistic and service enrichment programs that are safe for trusted adults and allow student in choice and that he could help serve as a resident service coordinator in the section 42 properties uh to support our families in need and so uh with that I ask Dr uh Harris to assume this in his department so I would like to bring forth our chief of student services and planning uh Dr Harris for introduction thank you uh so very kindly
023Dr Ross members of our entire board and members of the community certainly super excited to uh introduce uh Mr Julius Scott uh Dr Ross dubed him as a resident coordinator of our community services Support Services uh Department uh it is an additional feature of our area student services and planning and we're so very excited to have this as a part of the area and a part of the school district but more importantly and so excited to have Mr Julius Scott on board and on team he's U former principal of the Dutch folk Elementary School and since there or about July one has really uh in a very true sense hit the ground running uh in terms of meeting uh with a number of different persons and groups and even giving us an opportunity Dr Ross
024opportunity to kind of tag along in some of those meetings uh to be a part of the conversations and the discussion that have already been held uh in a very short period of time he's also been dubbed as a scale fellow which is the South Carolina after school leaders empowered Fellowship which is something that has uh been sponsored and hosted by uh the Riley Institute at Ferman so we are again so very happy in a very short period of time to have had uh Mr Julius Scott to come aboard and if he would in his own way to come this afternoon and this evening and to share with us more in terms of some of the work and the initiatives that are at play in the Community Support Services area Mr Scott thank you uh
025Dr Harris members of the board and Dr Ross thank you for this opportunity uh last spring uh Dr Ross approach me with the opportunity uh about the Community Support Services um position and I have to tell you there's power in story uh Dr Ross and I go back uh 20 plus years ago in grad school but he did not know my personal story so when he approached me about this I had to share my story with him and if you don't mind I'll like to do the same with you uh so when I thought about the position and all that and inail I said Dr Ross this really resonates with me for a lot of reasons because my life story really is no different than the life story of the students who live in many
026underserved communities I'm from a family of six five older sisters U my mother is clinically diagnosed as schizophrenic she's been in and out of mental health institutions my entire life up until this point at age 46 because of her situation my siblings and I not once lived in the same household my parents were married but because of my mother's condition they separated so my dad took two of my sisters to New York City to to raise them my grandmother raised two of my sisters and my older sister was 18ish or so so she was deemed able to do her own thing and I had an aunt who took my mother and I Aunt now mind you my aunt who took us in was a domestic she cleaned houses for other people she wasn't well educated
027herself and she was taken care of six seven eight nine 10 people so I lived in a house no joke 10 11 12 people a single house three bedroom house sometimes two-bedroom house uh we moved at least nine or 10 times before I graduated from Kenan High School um I saw my dad for the first time when I was 19 years old when I laid eyes on him he was in his casket he had died of a massive heart attack and I don't share the story with you to think oh my gosh it's a sof story oh my gosh we feel sorry for you the reality is somebody throughout that period of time said there are something in this kid no his mom wasn't on sic she was never a member of PTO she didn't
028attend any parent teacher conferences but there is something still we found in this kid in that process as well uh when I was in fourth grade I played organized Sports for the first time in my life I won't forget his name coach wi gate I played for the beler Cardinal I suck at baseball I'm telling you I did but coach Wingate not only paid for me to play baseball he literally took me home every single day after practice and because I played baseball for the B de Cardinals he then introduced me to the basketball coach and I began playing basketball as a fifth grader that led to me playing basketball in middle school and high school basketball for Dre high school and Keenan High School so when I think about this whole process again this
029is not just a job for me it really is a passion and so when I I wanted to share this with you I've been really moved by book that anybody that's been close to me have heard over and over and over again it's entitled what are you known for and if you had to think about that question you think about most organizations if you think about Chick-fil-A customer service would yall agree comes to mind they are known for that it is my pleasure it's not a matter of where you go in Colombia or Georgia or well I don't know about Alabama I don't know how many Chick-fil-A are in Alabama uh but you get my point it doesn't really matter where you go you know what Chick-fil-A is known for and so with that I
030submit to you there are things that we wanted to be known for and what are we currently known for and so here was our goal after talking to Dr Ross and Company we wanted to be known for multiple things building healthy relationships with family families and Community Partners ensuring every student has access and opportunities that lead to promising Futures providing wraparound Services onsite to Neighborhood hoods and pursuing what is possible and not what is traditional in mobilizing communities and here's why this is important I don't know how many of you really know about Harvest and Gardens we read about it we hear the stories but to actually provide wraparound services in that neighborhood is a game changer and so what have we been known for since July of 2023 before I get to the block
031party there's another story that's not in here to date um but when we got started we had a chance to work with human resources and the call me Mis program and heral Middle School uh and in that partnership we were able to ensure that we had a number of middle school students who attended their summer program and had access to mentors through that process we were able to provide 23 students with mentors uh back to school book bags and back to school shoes you might think well that's not a big deal well if you got 23 inner city kidss who are not sitting at home not wasting time that's a win all around and as a result of that uh Mr Joseph said to me hey Scott he said as a result of us doing
032that we now have several students that are asking us are we going to offer this Sumer program again and of course we will since that time you may have heard there was a block party out at harbest and Gardens many people didn't think this was possible and the notion of going into harvesting Gardens to have a block party uh there was no fear for my life or the life of other people there there were no threats uh there was no gang violence nobody was shooting no one was drinking it was absolutely a grand time you saw laughter you saw Joy you saw people having an opportunity to have their neighborhood celebrated and on top of that we had an opportunity to provide resources to families so we had Medicaid we had healthy connections we had
033a wide range of services that that parents were able to take advantage of um so that was July um or September um and as result of the black party a couple of things happened our D5 adult education program hosted uh a program back in November they're going to host another one again tomorrow already by five let's think about this if we're thinking about educating and growing all of our kids uh they also have hosted a program and we'll be hosting another one in January to address the needs of kids before they get to our elementary schools and that's a direct result of the BL party uh we said that we wanted to ensure that we are engaging with families so we hosted a family engagement event last November or this past November on the 16th
034and the whole focus of that was for us to continue to establish relationships with families um and so our goal for that particular meeting last month was to talk about the hopes and dreams for families if you think about it we all have hopes and dreams for our children do doesn't matter if you're black or white doesn't matter if you live in chaping or not we all have hopes and dreams and so we were able to listen to what are the hopes and dreams that these families have the reality is they're some of the very same things that I have I have two daughters I want my two girls to be safe I want my two girls to be loved I want them to be cared for I want them to do well they're no
035different than the parents who live in harbest and Gardens and what we heard on that day was man this is a great opportunity for our voices to be heard coming up in just two days uh we will have another block not block party but another parent engagement um in harberson gardens this coming Thursday and there's a reason why I'm bringing this up because we talked about after school opportuni so I want to share a little bit of information and I'll be out of your way as of last uh last week 124 there were 209 students who lived uh in harberson gardens 73 Elementary 61 middle 75 High School of the 73 elementary schools in that subdivision only 26% or 19 out of 73 are engaged in an after school program 19 out of 73 folks
036but we're fortunate uh as you can see above uh we have three organizations that have agreed to partner with us oral Chap and wre uh Universal Church Outreach and the Y have agreed to accept our students into their programs if we can provide transportation we've received multiple grants that will allow us to do so so I mentioned we have 19 students involved that leaves us with 54 students that we need to place in programs between all three after school programs we have the capacity to place all 54 so this coming Thursday what will happen is in work in collaboration with our social workers we're making personal calls to say we need you to come out are you interested in after school opportunities particularly if you don't have to pay for it and we can provide
037transportation and I can tell you we have a pretty strong number of families that will be in attendance and we will have members from each of those three organizations on hand to tell a little more about their specific programs uh I will also mention at the high school level well I'm going to go to the Middle School level um we have 45 students uh that live in harveston Garden 26% of those participate in the hive after school program uh we just receive as a district the stronger connections Grant um that will allow us to do multiple things one we will have the chance to hire three additional staff members for that program which allows us to add more students to the after school program um and so we know for a fact based on the
038folks there that we have a waiting list we just couldn't H we couldn't add any students because of the numbers and then the final thing I'll share um from the high school standpoint of 73 uh as we mentioned or did mention um we have a partnership uh with the Foundation generous donation but uh young men United provides an opportunity for 10th 11th and 12th grade males who have an opportunity go to college to be provided with a mentor job shadowing experiences um and so out of 27 students five of those actually live in harveston gardens so when we tell you that the work we're doing is M it does matter uh uh and and thanks to you we are absolutely making a difference uh the final thing I'll share is on in March we will
039have another um block party uh in the spring we have uh another host of folks that want to attend and our primary goal at that time will be to have summer uh program vendors in attendance as parents we know this your quality programs you have to get your kids signed up very early if not uh they will not be admitted and so we just think by having this in March uh we'll have some of the best programs available also with an opportunity for our families to be engaged so the reality is we want to be known for Community we want to be known by the community for what we do for the community any questions thank you have any questions Miss huddle well first of all thank you for that was a wonderful presentation and
040appreciate the um numbers and giving us a good idea of how many children I'm curious um the owners of harvesting Gardens what's their reaction and feedback and have they offered any help or assistance how's that going that's that's a great question um so I work exclusively with their property manager um she and I talk on a weekly basis literally and I'm on campus on their site on a weekly basis um and so I'm typically giv the names of families that there might be some issues within the community and she'll say hey Mr Scott here are some families that are on our radar don't know if they're on your radar but if so is there anything that we can do to help once I get that information I'm immediately get in contact with our social workers
041because typically they're on that front line they know quite well who's who and who's what and so we've been able to offset some issues on that end I will also tell you um by being out there I've had a chance to uh meet their on-site uh security officer who has shared with us that crime as actually been down within the last six months within that community and they brought up some matters uh to our attention from a bus driver and buses standpoint uh he just recommended that buses not be dropped off in the back because of camera and lighting and so because of that conversation we got the bus route changed um and just an opportunity for things to be visible and that's a I believe that's a direct result of me being out in
042the community because otherwise that conversation would not have existed so to my to my advantage point they have absolutely been working alongside us thank you any other questions Mr saterfield sorry yeah I don't really have a question I appreciate your presentation excellent job I hope that you'll come back and keep us AB breast of the your progress and the and some of the great things you're doing and and help us you know give us enough information so we'll know how to best help you in your endeavors there we appreciate app yes sir I will I would like to be back I will tell you I've already been contacted by another District to say how in the world did y'all do this and we want to do the same um I think we are setting a
043precedence that by what we're doing in Harvest and Gardens we will be able to extend us beyond our time there to other communities in our district well thank you thank you anyone else all right thank you very much uh Madam chair members of the board again thank you so much for uh supporting this initiative and seeing the hard work and the and the great work that's being done uh that concludes the superintendent's report and I stand for any questions any questions for Dr Ross all right seeing none we will proceed to number 10 on our agenda the approval of the minutes of the November 13th 2023 board meeting do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like make the motion that we approve the minutes of the November 13th 2023 board meeting do I have
044a second second Miss Snipes any discussion seeing that I will call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero and that moves us to number 11 public participation before we get started the board would the board welcomes and encourages public participation we respectfully ask that you adhere to the procedures provided in board policy be DH public participation at meetings your comment 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 handed l in accordance with board policy bedh Miss Taylor thank you madam chair Logan Ray is here to speak about policy on trans student names good afternoon afternoon members of the board my name is Logan Ray I a student of
045Spring Hill High School and I've come to speak on the recent policies requiring School sopi parents if any student requires chooses to go by any name other than was on legal documentation the recent policy has required each student who wishes to use any name or pronouns other than what is on legal documentation to be approved by school's counseling office which requires protal consent this may seem reasonable it is in reality discriminator discriminatory in nature in practice this is not applied to cisgender Andor heterosexual students which in use nicknames or middle names only gender divers students are those who do not appear to be heteronormative face discrimination as a result of this policy a clear violation of discrimination section of Title 9 of the equal protection clause on the 14th Amendment and of the board's own
046policies on discrimination gender diverse students have always faced discrimination especially in schooling from peers to faculty to even friends however this new implementation of systematic discrimination creates even creates an even more hostile environment for gender diverse and other lgbtq students removing autonomy and Fe transphobia and homophobia within schools creating a ner of hopelessness and oppression for these individuals this is a great contributor to one of the biggest problems of that public schools face teen suicide and mental health nearly 14% of adolescence who have attempted suicide report to be gender diverse in some way and unfathomably high 50.8% of transgender male students have attempted suicide in the past these figures reflect actual attempts rather than suicidal ideation or diagnosis this furthermore also applies to 29% of trans female 41.8% non-binary gender non-conforming and 27.9% of adolescence
047questioning this policy effectively requires the school to out these children to their parents potentially putting them into dangerous situations and creating home conflict which can only worsen these statistics although it can be argued that is the parents right to know their child's choice of name and pronouns within schools that a matter between child and parent it should not be the duty of the school to inform a parent on home matters such as that we should respect the autonomy and rights of individual children to have to make their own decisions and for teachers to respect them on an individual level is the duty of School faculty as state and policy jic CFA jbd and Title 9 to nurture and protect students in a positive environment free of discrimination so I asked the board to remove this
048discriminatory policy and prevent future discrimination in our schools keep these students safe the school should be should stand for what is right and just should foster respect and love for all regardless of race sex gender lgbtq status or otherwise I thank you for your time thank you Janet Howell is here to to speak about book topics good evening I'm Janet Howell I live in chapen I'm a parent of two adult children and three grandchildren and our granddaughter will be attending schools in lexon five district it has been brought to my attention that the series of books including mist and fury is up for discussion regarding placing in our school libraries after reading the reviews on this book because frankly I could not stomach reading the book it has come to my attention that this book
049has sexually explicit information that is inappropriate for schoolage children to read excuse me these conversations about sex are crude and they are abusive sexual relationships in this book ask yourself what good comes from reading material like this book if you have to question whether a book is appropriate for certain age level then it is not appropriate books in school libraries should be for educational purposes this book does not teach our students anything worth learning this is not about the freedom to read as the ACLU is claiming a person has the right to go to a public library or a bookstore if they want to read these books I believe parents have the right to determine what is acceptable for their children to read sex porn and violence should not be acceptable reading materials for any
050grade level in our school libraries as you are aware this book has already been removed from several School libraries across the United States let our school system have the courage to say no just like we teach our children to say no to drugs alcohol and violence these things can harm all of our children as well as reading material materials like this book it is our duty as parents and Educators to protect our children from harm please I ask that you just say no to allowing this book in our school libraries Thank you Lisa care is here to speak about appropriate school materials good evening my name is Lisa care I am the executive director of Lighthouse For Life where we are a local nonprofit that has been fighting sex trafficking um I thank you for
051your time and your consideration this evening into what books our kids are reading and have access to last year sled identified over 420 cases of sex trafficking in our state with 399 of those involving minors but that's really just a drop in the bucket as a lot of people believe that this is overtaking the drug market and prevalence and that's because it prays on something that is a natural vulnerability to all of us and that is sex sex is not something to be ashamed of but it is a very powerful tool because it impacts us physically emotionally and socially and if it is not taken care of and presented in a way that can be fostered safely then it can end up being a weapon that or a tool that fuels the sex trafficking industry
052that typically happens in one of three ways we have our youth that are getting access to content at a much younger age and are learning about sex in a way that is fueling Curiosities Curiosities that then can be prayed upon by perpetrators it also breaks down resistance for them to say no if somebody comes and asks something of them that they may not see this as a bad person who then can turn around and exploit them another way that impacts sex trafficking is it can fuel the demand there is a possible addictive quality to sex that then as our kids are getting exposed to it they end up wanting to fulfill that desire more and more which then leads to the purchase of sex down the roads and Fs the industry and lastly also plays
053upon the perpetrators who then can take that and use it as a weapon to turn around and exploit somebody for that vulnerability which as we have seen then leads to a grader teached another second grader how to bypass the default settings and look up sex videos online it leads to girls being called out of class and asking to take pictures of themselves that then they're sending to somebody that is selling them for profit and it leads to multiple cases of our boys being sused to sextortion all because of a topic sex that is being abused because it is not protected in a healthy atmosphere um once a victim of sex traffic trafficking the average victim experiences rape over 1,800 times a year that is something that totally changes somebody lifestyle and is is a tragedy
054that then at Lighthouse For Life we're trying to come alongside and clean up and it often begins with exposure within our schools so all I'm asking you to do is to help us join the fight against sex trafficking by being careful about the books that we are putting in a context that is not supported and that anybody has access to that then can be used as a weapon to fuel the sex trafficking industry thank you Trisha cing is here to speak about appropriate school materials good evening I'm here tonight as an advocate for students mental health and their taxpaying parents rights to decide appropriate get reading materials for their own children speaking as a professional with my doctor in education with 30 years of experience as a teacher school psychologist and District level leadership I'd
055like to start with two questions one is it permissible to show our- rated movies in the high school classroom to students under 17 without their parents' permission or knowledge two is it permissible to have vending machines that sell alcohol on our high school campuses as ludicrous as either of these sound is having books like a coure of mist and fury readily available in our high school libraries this book is clearly geared toward mature readers falling under the category of new adult targeting 18 to 25 years of age clearly Beyond High School limits where content can focus explicitly on sexual topics throughout this latest book in the series there are portions too explicit to read aloud to an adult an adult population yet we're considering having an accessible ible to our minors a court of M
056and fury is littered with sexually graphic passages so explicit that it could be considered pornographic or erotica all one has to do is peruse chapters 2 14 26 29 I go on and several others just to name a few examples pornographic is defined as anything containing detailed descriptions of sexual organs or the emotions feelings or behaviors associated with sex I ask you to do your own research and ask elves does this material fit the definition and if so is it appropriate for miners legally it explicitly counters South Carolina code of law 16-15 305 which expressly forbids the dissemination of obscene materials to minors there are reasons for these precautions research shows that premature exposure to sexual graphic material May shape negative or unrealistic attitudes Behavior expectations regarding intimacy lower emotional security negatively affect healthy Intimate
057Relationships trigger post trauma exacerbate ongoing trauma cause poor mental health issues perpetuate sexism objectification and distorted views of sex and can lead to deviant or Reckless Behavior resulting in unintended consequences in closing I support state superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver's comments South Carolina must establish a clear transparent uniform process that respects the legitimate prerogative of parents and protect students from materials that are not age or developmentally appropriate no one is saying that the state should ban books buy whatever books you want share whatever you feel is appropriate with your kids in your own house all we're saying is don't make other people pay for your kids to read porn and don't expose it to other kids without their consent I strongly encourage you to follow her lead and ask where are the boundaries that protect
058our students let's start with our own schools and ascertain that fape offers ures and ensures safe reading material materials thank you all right that concludes public participation which moves us to our action agenda uh first up is number 12 action as necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session do I have any motions Mr Hogan I'd like to make the motion that we approve selected employment items sh exhibit a Jo have a second Miss Snipes any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all in favor that motion carries 7 to zero and that moves us to item 13 appeal of District Review Committee decision pursuant to board policy kec library media center materials selection and reconsideration process and exhibit e da Ross all right so um with this item 13 uh we
059will hear from the complainant first and then the district yes so um we will we will yeah I'm sorry we will hear from the the complaintant I have I apologize thank you Miss philps I don't think I like that term so hello I am Karina Phelps thank you for the opportunity to appeal the decision of the Review Committee on the book a court of mist and fury I realized my unfamiliarity with the process exposed gaps in my initial submission I will utilize my time with you to provide context in the hope my appeal could Inspire this board to reconsider the decision of the Review Committee my objective is to show that the material is sexually explicit and not age appropriate for our District Libraries and that this finding is shared by other school districts I
060had not read a court of Miss and fury prior to my initial submission i' had seen a video from a Lexington Richland 2 board meeting detailing sexually explicit portions out of context from the book I found the passages on their own to be well below the bar for age appropriate content for the age ranges served by the KE Library material selection I have since taken the time to listen to the full audio book and I am glad that I did I'm 100% confident this book is not appropriate for our children and does not meet the recreational reading needs of grades 9 through 12 I had read reviews of the book both public as well as published assessing the reviews as confusing many Reader reviews make note of the present of explicit content characterized it as
061adult content published reviewers are also transparent about the presence of sexual content age ratings provided characterized as young adult with an age range of 14 and over others setting the starting age at 17 kirket reviews used by fet ra rates the book 14 and up but States while their physical relationship is mutually pleasurable and graphically hot the erotically charged leadup to the romantic story lines climaxes pun intended adds Stakes to the Cliffhanger a positive review of a book doesn't make the book age appropriate regarding the review committee's backup documentation I'd like to address a few items that were provided in the packet to the board in respecting this board's time I can't address all of my concerns multiple sources use the term book ban I will reference the United States Court of Missouri Case ckw
062Wentzville School District uh from August of 2022 the district policy does not ban the district's students from reading the book at issue here nor does it ban students from acquiring the books or lending the books to others students may borrow the books from the public library or from a friend or neighbor they likewise are free to purchase the books the policy does not even ban students from bringing the books at issue to the district schools nor nor does it ban students from discussing the books at school during their free time or encouraging others to read them simply does not ban the books or anything for that matter so the overwrought rhetoric about book Banning has no place in this case a school district does not ban a book when through its authorized School Board it
063decides to not continue possessing a book on its own Library shelves uh from The Hub only only the headline was submitted by the Review Committee in regards to a Virginia Beach case that states judge in two Virginia book Banning cases has dismissed the lawsuits the headline leaves out important context to the lawsuit I would like to submit a headline on the same lawsuit from The New York Times Virginia judge dismisses case that sought to limit Book Sales two petitions sought to block Barnes and Noble and independent book sellers from selling gender queer and a court of mist and fury to minors in Virginia because of the book's sexual content the case had nothing to do with a challenge in Virginia Beach School District the omitted portion of the article goes on to inform the book
064a court of M and fury was removed from Virginia Beach School libraries and Lowden County Public Schools only this part was submitted by the Review Committee here is the article from The New York Times And if the board would like I printed the entire article if you'd like to read it since they didn't submit it for you establishment of sexually explicit material definition of sexually and explicit from Marian Webster sexually is an adverb to sexual meaning of relating to or associated with sex or the Sexes having or involving sex explicit defined as fully revealed or expressed without vagueness implication or ambiguity leaving no question as to the meaning or intent open depiction of nudity or sexuality there was a reference made in the Carolina news and reporter in regards to my specific uh challenge dated
065November 29th 2023 from a Review Committee Member that Cornell Law school's definition describes sexually explicit material as having dominant sexual themes the Corell law school references 10 USC 2495 B and his military code for the Armed Forces on the sale and Rental of sexually explicit material for commissaries the article reports that this was read as a definition of what sexually explicit means to the Review Committee if a Review Committee Member is searching US military code to find a definition to justify a narrative in keeping this book in the library they are not unbi they are not an unbiased reviewer of the book's age appropriateness from the post and corer article written 117 2023 in regards to my book challenge multiple Review Committee members concluded that explicit elements of the book were only a small part
066of the overall story multiple Review Committee members and I agree the book is sexually explicit as far as it only being a small portion per the documents provided by the Review Committee book list states at times this straddles the line between young adult fantasy and adult romance Farah is almost 20 and her sexual encounters are many and detailed sjl supplied by the Review Committee peppered with titillating scenes from the Ala selection and reconsideration policy toolkit the Ala General guidelines for librarians to follow in making selections these books should be appropriate for the subject area and age emotional development ability level learning style and social emotional and intellectual development of students for whom the material is selected from the South Carol Ina Association of school librarians School libraries serve all the students and do not operate
067with any agenda only the desire to offer highquality materials to meet the academic and recreational reading needs of all of our students parents have the right to set reading parameters and restrictions for their own children however no one person or group has the right to make choices for other children I would like to add context to this sentence as it would rate relate to my specific challenge parents have the right to set reading parameters and restrictions for their own children when the material is obscene and sexually explicit however no one person or group has the right to make choices for other children as to whether they read obscene and sexually explicit material provided by the Lexington brelin 5 school district I'd like to share some of the book with you please note this is more
068than a few pages of material and I can only read read a small portion I know it was stated in an article it's just a small it's just a couple Pages it's far more than a couple Pages oh got stuck under there his hand at last trailed beneath my pants he snarled and S satisfaction at the wetness he found waiting for him and his thumb circled the spot at the Apex of my thigh teasing brushing up against it but never quite his other hand gently squeezed my breast at the same moment his thumb pushed down exactly where I wanted I bucked my hips my head fully back against his shoulder now panting as his thumb flicked he hissed at the contact and slid a finger inside me I let out a moan so loud I
069drowned out the rain as he slid in a second finger filling me so much I couldn't even think around it I couldn't breathe reys groaned pledging his fingers in deeper and harder he was enormous in my hands so hard he hissed twitching as I brushed my thumb over the tip I leaned down and put my mouth on him he jerked at the contact and barked and I laughed around him even as I took him deeper into my mouth one second he was in my mouth my tongue flickering over the broad head of him he sheathed himself in me with a single stroke I moaned into the pillow at every glorious inch of him Reese pulled out and plunged back in I managed to rise up enough to see where we were joined and the sight
070of it wrecked me so thoroughly that I climaxed with his name on my lips I couldn't tell where one climax ended and the second began as he thrust in again and again I slid onto him the fit so much deeper and rode him gently Reese barked my name thrusting his hips up Stars wheeled as he slammed deep gas in my name over his fingers plunged in and out slow and hard and my very existence narrowed to the feel of them to the tightness and me ratcheting up with every deep stroke every echoing thrust of his tongue in my mouth he swore again breathing hard fingers stroking me through the last throws Reese withdrew his fingers I wanted to have you right there in the middle of everyone but mostly I wanted to do this his
071high his eyes held mine as he brought those fingers to his mouth and sucked on them on the taste of me I want you splay out on a table like my own personal Feast I have no intention of doing it all in one night or in a room where I can't even you against the wall I shuddered he remained long and hard against me I had to feel him had to get that considerable length inside of me the first lick of Ran's tongue set me on fire I want you SPL out on a table like my own personal Feast he growled his approval at my moan my taste and Unleashed himself entirely on me he worked me in great sweeping strokes and when his tongue slid inside me I reached up to grip the edge
072of the world that I was very near to falling off of just as his fingers replaced where his mouth had been pumping inside me as he sucked his teeth scraping ever so slightly I bowed off the table as my climax shattered through me he remained kneeling feasting on me I watched as he unbuttoned his pants and the considerable length of him sprang free I wanted him every glorious inch of him in me ree shuddered and I watched his twitch Rees laughed in a way that skirted along my bones and slid in and in and in he stilled inside me letting me adjust Reese pulled out slightly and thrust back in slow so torturously slow again he pulled out then thrust in again faster deeper this time with each pounding stroke the bond glowed clearer and
073brighter and stronger release tore through my body and he pounded into me hard and fast drawing out my pleasure Rees roared as he came slamming to the hilt do you consider what I read to meet the standards of the South Carolina Association of Library Librarians agenda to provide highquality materials that meet academic and recreational reading needs of all of our students can any of you provide the educational significance appropriateness for students of an in-depth description of fingering somebody adding a second finger plunging them in deeper and harder bringing his fingers to his mouth sucking on them and tasting someone being made available to Children 14 and up in our District Libraries with good reason this book has been removed from School District Libraries across the country it isn't only a couple according to pen America
07427 school districts have removed this book and that was 20 2020 2 2023 a court of M and fury doesn't meet the K policy for material selection as follows it doesn't meet educational significance appropriateness for students in each School such as grade and age level and does not add value to the collection reputation of the off author is not significant based on not meeting the first three an appropriateness of the text of the South Carolina Department of Ed standard for Library uh School library resource collections Agee and developmentally appropriate for the students or the grade definitions High School standards serving grades 9 through 12 the fet system shows the age rating by the publisher to be 17 and up whose rating should we use the publisher who will sell less book with age limitations or
075the fette system that will make a profit from the sale of the book Goodreads has 17 and up then list the grade levels 10 through 12 so folet system uses 10 through 12 grades rather than 17 and up does the fet system shop around websites until it gets the age rating it needs to be made available in schools for grades 9 through 12 booklook age rating 18 and up Common Sense Media 17 and up Goodreads 17 and up backup documentation submitted by Margaret Adams and Carol Lansford of Spring Hill High School from fette says the book is rated age 17 by the publisher this book is intended for an adult audience yet the district has it available to 14 and up in conclusion the information I have provided for the removal of the book does
076not violate the First Amendment according to ckw Wentzville School District Supreme Court case Pico versus Island Trees judge Brennan's opinion suggested it would be permissible for school boards to remove based on pervasive vulgarity I have established the material per per the post and quer from multiple Review Committee members that the book is sexually explicit and pervasively throughout the book based on the backup that they provided the board the material is not age appropriate for grades 9 through 12 due to the age ratings and does not meet the standards set by the South Carol Carina Association of school librarians the Ala or our district KC policy thank you and I would like to request that my written notes um be put into the minutes of the meeting thank you very much and and just for the
077record Miss Phelps um was informed prior to this meeting that she had 15 minutes to speak um so I did not say that prior to you speaking I didn't want to interrupt you but you did a good job um so that will uh bring us to uh the district's response and they also have 15 minutes to respond thank you good evening Madame chair board members Dr Ross thank you for this opportunity to share the work of the School District 5 book Review Committee my name is Carol lindford and I'm the coordinator of instructional technology and the district supervisor for library of media service services in adherence with District 5 board policy kec and kcr the district Review Committee conducted a thorough evaluation of the challenge material a court of Miss and fury by Sarah Moss
078the committee composed of diverse representatives from Chap and high school Crossroads Intermediate School Dutch Fork High School Spring Hill High School and the district office engaged in a comprehensive review process Guided by board policy ke and kcr and independently read a court of Miss and fury by Sarah moss in its entirety as we face book challenges like this one it's critical that we trust the process outlined in board policy and the members of the committee that were was formed to conduct the review the committee diligently followed the instructions provided by board policy as stated in our policy the committee emphasized the importance of the freedom of inquiry that is vital to education the evaluation process involved an in-depth examination of the material as a whole without extracting passages out of context the commit committee considered
079the values and faults of the book and weighed them against each other ensuring a fair and balanced assessment if you'll please refer to policy ke in your packet you'll see under the section procedures for handling questions or challenge library center materials where it clearly outlined that we must follow these procedures various review sources were consulted during this process including the South Carolina department of education standards for Library resource collections good reads Amazon reviews bloomsberry public publishing Common Sense Media kirkus reviews book looks Publishers Weekly and several others ensuring a comprehensive understanding of public and professional perspectives I have provided a copy of each of these resources for your review one of the task from the board was to determine if this book was in just one library and it was not it was in three
080libraries across School District 5 and six additional copies were purchased for the purpose of this Review Committee members also identified other districts in South Carolina who have open Li Library catalogues like ours those this book was also found in Richland 1 Charleston Lexington one and Greenville many other collections are closed to the public additionally commit the committee discussed one additional District Buford County that has reviewed a court of Mr Fury by Sarah moss and chose to return it to the shelves the committee then reviewed the South Carolina department of education standards for School Library resources and highlighted that 40% of the libraryies collection should be made made up of fiction titles another Committee Member identified that there should be 15 books per student in each collection and that the Librarians must know how to build
081a collection to meet the needs of their school the book was chosen to be in the collection because it is written by award-winning young adult author and recommended by several professional Library review sources as a good choice for high school libraries it is important to note that this title is not required reading for any course in School District 5 the committee also identified the following while reading over several professional Ally reviewed resources bestselling author and title the reviews have differing age recommendations ranging from age 12 to 17 with the committee identified median of age 14 the committee's opinion was that the dominant theme in a court of Miss and fury is found through its literary value characters thoughts and age appropriate themes for high school students included good and evil strong female character and the
082fantasy fiction the committee then discussed the explicit scenes in the book the committee reviewed the resource book looks and their rating system a court of M and fury was rated four out of five on that resource and was deemed obscene and sexually explicit the committee based on the committee based on the materials that were reviewed agreed that the title is not intended for young adult adolescent readers and is intended for young adult Ages which included high school students committee members emphasized the importance of looking at the book as a whole not sections pulled out of context which was clearly stated in board policy ke and that these scenes in the book were not dominant the last resource reviewed by the committee came from a student perspective piece the article shared student interviews regarding their opinions
083on book bands two students in the article referenced a court of M and fury by Sarah Moss specifically one student stated it changed her life and that she found found a book she could enjoy it has encouraged her to read more another student stated that the excuse me another State explicit sexual activity and read it at age 11 no child should be allowed to read this type of book at that age per board policy kcr the instructions to the evaluating committee State the board directs the district Review Committee to bear in mind the principles of the freedom to learn and read these are also available to you in your handout the Committees must base their decision on these principles rather than on defense of individual materials freedom of inquiry is vital to education and a
084democra y the committee should study all materials thoroughly and read available reviews the committee should check the general acceptance of the materials by Consulting standard evaluation AIDS and local Holdings in other schools the committee must not pull passages or parts out of context the Comm committee must weigh values and faults against each other and base its opinions on the material as a whole these instructions were the guiding principles for the committee's work therefore after very careful consideration the district review Comm voted 8 to one that a court of Miss and fury by Sarah Moss is deemed acceptable and appropriate for School District 5 high school libraries aligning with the district's policies and guidelines therefore the committee decided to return the three original copies of the book back to circulation however parents and Guardians May submit
085a request to school administration or the school librarian if they do not wish for their child to have access to any title within the library in closing I want to publicly acknowledge and show appreciation for the work of the book Review Committee members and their service to School District 5 thank you thank you all right so I will open this up for a motion or conversation from the board Miss huddle um I move that we support the complaintant and um remove the book from all of our libraries as well as all of the other books in that series I have vly second Miss Barnhart seconds would you like to start the conversation Miss huddle thank you um I I um when I found out that we were this we were going to hear this appeal
086I went to rent rent that's old school I went to get the LI the book from the the library I didn't really know anything about it at all at all um and so when I went to get the book from the county library the librarian looks in the computer and says ya that book shouldn't be ya and I didn't know anything about ya what that meant and I said what's that mean and she said young adult that book should not be young adult and left it at that rented the book um I have tried to listen to it I cannot get past chapter 2 which is part of of what was read um so I did a little research like why is it ya if this one librarian thinks it shouldn't be ya um and
087I I sent some information to the board members and I'm not going to to read this whole thing but there was one part of it um that I thought was really interesting because I was trying to figure out I kept running into reviews that say said it had been rated from its original Ya by the way ya is generally 12 to 18 um and so I I was trying to figure out why do people think that it got changed um and I read a ran across an interview that said um Mass agreed that's the aror author Moss um and said that we were now in a golden age of ya thanks to Twilight and The Hunger Games but that AC o t a r which is abbreviation for a CT of thorns and Roses which
088is the the whole series does skew a lot older she was surprised it was shelv as ya especially considering there is a three-day sex Marathon in one of the books a court of mist and fury but Moss mentions that new adult Cate categorization which by the way is 18 to 25 hadn't really caught on the way Publishers hoped it would she agreed to publish a court as ya as long as her editor would censor any of the sexual content so and I want to you know say one thing as far as you know our Librarians there's no way they can read all these books it's not possible um so you know when you have a book come out as young adult 12 to 18 and it gets some good reviews I think it's understandable how
089it got in our libraries I and I don't think there's any blame there but it's it it sure looks like the publisher did that on purpose to make the book more marketable and then people have realized that it's not age appropriate and now you have Target saying it's 22 plus Amazon 17 plus good reads actually defines new adult 18 to 25 and gives examples of new adult 18 to 25 and this series of books is in the in the list so my take on it is the book was misleadingly put in ya and that's why it ended up in our libraries it is not young adult it is new adult 18 to 25 and therefore I don't think it belongs in our libraries do I have anyone Miss Barnhart first of all I want to
090thank uh Miss Phelps for coming and speaking to us I can imagine how grueling that was to have to read that um as it was for everybody in this room and I want to thank the chairwoman for allowing her to because we've seen instances like this so many times to where they're shut down and the full story is not told as uncomfortable it was as it was this is a conversation we have to have because I don't believe these are the only books this series um currently or maybe in the future and um given the the basis of it I'm I'm I'm glad we're having this conversation um given the policy you know the number one thing in the material selection criteria is educational significance what part of that book was educational um I understand
091uh the good versus evil the strong female characters uh Miss huddle mentioned the Hunger Games diverent series there's so many other books that show strong female leads that don't include sexually explicit content um um I noticed in this packet that we were given and I'm not sure who put this together but a lot of the reviews shockingly enough um they're coming from the children's section I mean in in two of these things one was a children's uh book Council this one I'm not sure where this comes from the copyright of school library Journal um review in the children's section and I mean right there in the review of the book including some fiery sexual encounters to put those two words in the same sentence is I mean that's a problem um and I agree with
092Miss huddle that this entire series should should be removed uh when we talk about the band part of it um because I've noticed in a lot of these reviews it has the word ban this book is not being banned this is simply saying that our taxpayer dollars should not go to funding these types of materials in our school libraries I went and checked it out from the librar like Miss huddle did um you can go to Amazon you can go to books a million you can go to any of these these places and get this book if that's determined but I don't believe that our tax dollars should go to um to funding material like this um I noticed in a in an article that was came out U back in October regarding this topic
093um Dr Ross quoted you know so we want to make sure that one opinion doesn't dominate the majority I can promise you right now miss Phelps is not one opinion she represents the opinion of many many mothers parents anybody you can think think of um with any general common sense that you can determine that this type of material is not appropriate um so again I want to thank Miss Phelps for her incredible bravery for coming up and speaking about this tonight um and I second the fact that these books should be removed than Miss barnhard anyone else have anything to say Mr saterfield yeah I have a couple of things first of all to the mom who got up there I know that was nerve-wracking I I understand uh my wife has been up there
094before and she says she's never been nervous in all our life so um I appreciate you and this is part of the process when parents and community members do come and speak to us I I will tell you from uh an educator retired Educator's perspective to consider a few things the first thing is we established a policy the board approved this policy and we and the committee was made up of Educators and parents SI IC chairs uh parents representatives from a lot of different schools and uh this was not a split decision this was an 8 to one decision now would I want my 12-year-old read this book no I would not um but a lot of what we're hearing are personal opinions and I understand we all have our personal opinion when I was
095principal I could ask I would get a myriad of personal opinions from parents as you might imagine on a lot of different things but this is not the world according to Mike saterfield if it was we wouldn't have these things you talk about sexual explicit material available to Children this has got far more than you can ever imagine but that's neither here nor there I I do want to say that I understand your concerns and I do believe that um uh some material is appropriate for some students and some material is not appropriate for others but my one of my other concerns is where do you draw the line where do you the draw the line in what parents tell their children what they can and cannot read you see if we have books I've
096heard uh I was looking I I I did ask around to some other folks to get some other opinions I asked teachers and some parents and I looked to see what other districts had done and there are quite a few districts that have including Buford I think that had one time had like like 90 books just automatically pulled off the shelf and um they did return the book to the Shelf um but a lot of folks as offended as some of you all are with this content a lot of people are offended with sorcery or talk of sorcery or things that they consider um against their religion and they're just as passionate about those things um again we have a policy we put this policy in place we had the people they were assigned to
097this they came up with a decision and um I'm not you know again I'm struggling with this I'll be honest with you but at the same time why do we have a policy and why do we have a committee and if the committee comes to a decision why do we not follow their decision so that's the part that I'm I'm struggling with and I know that everybody's got their own opinion about this but again parents do have the right I know one parent said well parents you do have the right to tell your children what they can and cannot read you really do you every day um but um we have a policy ma'am this is not interaction this is not interaction um that would lead to chaos as you might guess we have a
098policy we have signed the committee the committee did their job they came up with a decision and um I'm not sure that sends a very good message to the professionals and the parents that served on this committee that if they came to an 8 to1 consensus that this book should be returned to the shelves that were in support of the policy or their efforts that is my concern thank thank you Mr safield you're right we do have a policy and that policy allows uh for the committee's decision to be a appealed and that's what we're hearing tonight um I'm going to add my thoughts to this I did read the book um it's very long it is very intense and there is more there are more um sections of that book that Miss Phelps read
099that reads very similar to um that very uncomfortable two to three minutes of reading that information I recognize that we have a commit I recognize that you can have a cell phone and and go and obtain really obscene information from a cell phone from a Chromebook from the television from the news from the public library from a bookstore from Barnes & Noble from books a million for sure I recognize that but those are not schools those are not public schools and we have a respons responsibility to have a fine line with certain material and sexually explicit material is where that line is we're not talking about all of the other conversations about books that are challenged or um or controversial that's not what this conversation is tonight tonight is sexually explicit material and um and
100putting that information that in my opinion conflicts with state law at times in the hands of minors which is anyone under the age of and that I mean that is where this conversation is I understand that the book committee um did a lot of research and spent a lot of time and I respect their opinion even if I respectfully disagree with their opinion uh I think something that resonates with me tonight is someone who spoke in public participation talking about sex trafficking and the over sexualization of our children and not being able to put things in context when they are reading materials when I read this book it's intense it take I mean if you put everything collectively together it is intense so for it it blows my mind that an 11-year-old read this I
101mean an 11-year-old is absolutely not prepared for all of the TP all all of the material that this is this covers uh an emotionally sensitive 17-year-old 18-year-old is not I'm very concerned about them reading this book as a whole without having some type of oversight or someone or Outlet to speak about what is said in this book I'm not saying this book is a terrible book I don't believe that it's a terrible book but it is very very uh intense and when when you read any of the reviews um outside of I mean I read the book but if you read the reviews all of the books say that it's it is intense it's suspenseful it's provocative it's sensual there are all of these sexual descriptors about a book that we have in a public
102school uh whether it's a library or not and I understand we have an opt out form but parents don't know what to opt out of they don't know what's in there's thousands of books in libraries how are you going to opt out of books that you don't know exist if you don't if it's not put in front of you um so I mean that that's where I am on this um I I will open it up to fellow board members before we call for the vote Miss Miss Snipes y before we vote I just want to um make a couple of comments and I'm not here to change anybody's mind I just want to be on record as sharing my position and response to a couple of things that have come up up here here
103um Mr saterfield said you know he's conflicted and you know I'm not I just you know I've had been very had very open conversation with Mo most of you and on my position of um call it Banning or not taking books out of the library um out of the library that's just what we're doing I think that um um to Cathy's motion about taking out the entire series I have issues with that because the entire series isn't up for debate we haven't read all of the books and I think um regardless of how the vote goes tonight on uh Court of missing Fury that that is a um knee-jerk reaction I made um multiple notes um as this conversation has been going on you know what is the educational significance of this book I'm not
104arguing educational significance of this book but let's also be clear that in our libraries school and otherwise all the books aren't there for educational significance and I and I feel like that's just kind of a an additional copout to kind of um sway um the way that we're um leaning um you know into this book I've also share thoughts about different processes from when parents don't want their kids to read books I agree there are a ton of books in the library and it's hard to know what you can opt into but I do believe that once books start becoming challenged then they're on everybody's radar and parents can have the option or maybe we could look at them having an option for their kids to opt in to be able to read the book
105as opposed to asking parents oh sorry as opposed to asking parents to you know to opt out um I just feel like now we're getting ready to open up the flood gates um um for this and like Mr safield said before you know where do we draw the line and I hear you you know it's only this one book but that's just today um it doesn't tell us you know what's going to happen you know next month or whatever and it was just important for me to kind of put you know where I stand on this and to follow up on your comment to thank the book Review Committee for their time um and for their feedback um and I hope that just kind of as a district and as a board we can come
106up with better ways to manage this because um something that has been repeated multiple times from the floor and from up here is um taxpayers and parents rights well I too am a taxpayer and a parent and I also have rights and it just seems to me that sometimes we only care about the parental rights if they're the same brights or same views as yours and I think that's problematic as well thank you Mr Hogan um M snip thank you um Miss Phillips thank you uh for taking your 15 minutes and and speaking I know that was a little bit difficult to repeat some of that but I guess the the the conversation that that I want to stick on is that you know the the line and where we draw the line I think
107in this particular situation is obscenity and and where I I feel that there is there's budget provides and there's laws in place that that keeps obscenity outside of school districts and outside of children um where I think we're we're really missing a lot of guidance from our lawmakers is just truly what constitutes OB cinity and in this particular situation I feel I'm in a position to where I have to make a determination as to what I determined is obscene and and what I heard today was absolutely obscene I I don't feel that it it belongs inside public education Library um so I'll leave it at that anyone else all right Mr Mr Scully yeah so what I'm hearing is really the issue is age appropriateness um as far as the majority of the concern um
108and there's a solution there I was over 18 for the vast majority of my senior year of high school uh my wife was as well um a lot of students are 18 in high school when you're 18 you can join the military men have to register for the mil they're con required to register for for the military um for war to fight maim kill and be killed in war at 18 high schoolers when you're six we sign up to drive vehicles what which are essentially weapons and we put weapons in the hands of teenagers at 16 15 really 15 and 16 years old that kill kids and other people that's a it's a big gap for me to say that we can allow our kids our high school students rather our students to participate in
109those types of activities but they can't read a book and I know the argument is not about whether they can read it but even when you look at whether it's available in the in the public LI or in the uh School library sometimes that is the only resource for certain students we just talked about tonight um the the extent of persist istent poverty a lot of those families don't have the ability to go to their Public Library the only place that they can even get their kids to go is to school public school and the only reason they can go to school is because they're picked up by a bus so they don't have the ability to go to a library or go to a store and even if they can go to a store
110they don't have the money to buy a book if that's what they wanted to do they're fighting just to be able to afford a meal so any kind of subscription service that would cost money to have access to books uh would be problematic and that's not fair to our poverty stricken families and students to take a book out of their uh hands out of their availability but again would I have my child my daughter read this book absolutely not but that's my right and my decision as a parent and I agree with what we said or others have said that you number one I believe in the Constitution very heavily and I believe in parent choice and just because I choose not to let my kid read it I don't have the right to tell
111you that you can't or that your child cannot and I think if we remove it from the library uh the public school libraries then we're doing that for uh everyone and that's that's anti- that's against parental Choice um so I again with you know whether or not it's taxpayer funded I'm going to remind you the military is taxpayer funded when these high school students get sent off to war they're taxpayer funded when we put them in cars they're driving the car because they got a taxpayer funded driver's license so that's not an that's not not a reason that's an excuse and so I don't agree that that that pertains in this case I understand the sentiment so I also agree with Miss Snipes that it's not the whole series that that's up for debate tonight
112so we should not be banning a book that we have not re read which is what the additional books are that's not that's out of our scope tonight um so I'm going to make a Amendment to the motion uh to to that I move to only make uh to make the book the subject book available only to students 18 and older and that we only consider the book at issue tonight right there's an amendment to the motion on the table do I have a second Miss Snipes any discussion to that or should Mr Hogan um Kevin I I am going to disagree with this amendment not for no other reason then the what constitutes obscenity has no bearing whether students 18 or 17 or whether it's you or I checking out in the library there's
113there's rules in place that prohibit obscenity from inside a public library or School library and so whether the student's 18 or not it's still in my opinion this constitutes abcity what about the second half of motion for the whole series even miss Snipes we can't hear you sorry I asked what about the second part of the amendment for the whole series which so that's that the amendment is what we're discussing right now we're discussing Mr scully's Amendment we're not talking about the the the the amendment was to remove the second part of Miss Huddle's motion which is the rest of the series all of the other books in the series and that's what Mr hugan was speaking to any other uh I mean I just have a comment on that I think that even if
114we do remove that part of Miss Huddle's motion now don't doubt that there will most likely be book challenges for the rest of the series because the later novels in this series are far far more graphic so I would just make that comment um regarding the the later half of the series any other comments to the amendment seeing none I will call for the vote on Mr scully's Amendment all in favor of Mr scully's Amendment all opposed abstaining Mr saterfield all right that motion fails and that brings us to the original motion on the floor we have heard from the complaintant we have heard from the district and we have heard from every board member so Mr or Dr Ross as your superintendent I have to um as the way this amendment I mean this
115uh motion is made there is no vehicle for the administration to through policy to consider a book that has not come through your ke policy so I'm just I got to put that on the table as your superintendent you have a clear policy that says how these books come to this body we're we're considering one right now if this motion passes there is no mechanism through policy unless I'm I'm missing something so I just wanted to state that okay so I will call for the vote all in favor of Miss Mr saterfield I'm sorry could could you give me a little more clarity on that Dr Ross uh correct the if if you look at uh a lot of districts there have been some districts had as many as 90 books that have gone through
116the policy uh 80 something books that have gone through the policy each one of those had to go through the K process either variations of it as as adopted by those local school boards in those uh in those processes they created in some cases 80s something committees and those committees would review each one of the books to consider titles that have not come through the complaintant process we the administration I don't know how to move forward on that so I just wanted to state that I appreciate that Dr Ross I think that that's not what's before the board right now I mean the Miss Miss Huddle's motion is before the board so if we want to reeval evaluate the policy ke in the future I think we do but for purposes of this hearing we
117have a motion on the floor um we've heard from the district we've heard from the complainant and we've heard from every board member so I would like to call for the vote at this I don't want to go back and forth with all of the different um Bo board members Clarity Clarity Mr Hogan so if hearing I'm hearing Dr Ross correct and and the nature of Miss Huddle's motion it's to remove a Court of M and fury and the remaining books inside it correct but as far as our policy and the challenge of this book only a court of Mr Fury was reviewed through the first process of a formal vote challenge correct that's correct so if and just here I'm talking this out out loud as as I'm building a plan as I'm applying
118it so in the event if if a motion's passed to remove another book that has not gone through the first process of of a challenge are we putting ourselves in a situation to where well so Mr Hogan I think if we're going to talk about um um any of those conversations that is a different conversation from this hearing um I I I really do believe that that um we are I've called for the motion so I'm going to call for the vote and I'm not trying to step on your toes Mr Hogan but we we've got the motion on the floor we could debate this back and forth but that's not the purpose of this hearing tonight miss huddle made a motion it was seconded we've all discussed it and I think that we all
119need uh we'll call for the vote and it'll lie where it is and if we have to readdress the conversation then that's what we'll do miss hudle will you read your motion I didn't write it down um so I don't know did you guys write it down by any chance okay I'll try to paraphrase um what I um I moveed to support the complaintant um and remove the book um a court of Miss and fury and all other books in in the court of thorns and Roses series from all of our libraries and I am calling for the vote all in favor of Miss Huddle's motion I'll opposed to miss Huddle's motion that motion carries 5 to2 and we will we will move on to the next item on our agenda which is the second
120and final reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy AE accountability commitment to accomplishment exhibit F uh Madam chair yes we bring for you for second and final reading proposed policies uh proposed U revisions to policy AE accountability commitment to accomplishment uh as you're aware we go through our accreditation in January and ask that this help align the board's vision and Mission with the school district's vision and Mission and we bring this again for second reading do I have a motion yeah Miss I would like a motion um that we approve the second and final reading of the proposed revisions to board policy AE accountability commitment to accomplishment do I have a second Mr Hogan any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all in favor that Miss sorry I didn't see you
121that motion carries six to zero uh Mr Scully has stepped out that brings us to item 15 the approval of the proposed 2024 2025 school calendar exhibit G yes Madam chair members of the board uh we bring after discussion uh our recommendation for approval option b calendar uh for the proposed 20242 school year and I'll have directive Communications Mr manate Tay come forth with that presentation the board glad to be with you again um to discuss the approval of the 20242 um academic calendar for our district um we presented two options um at our last meeting for discussion and after hearing your your comments through those discussions we went back to our parents advisory and also principal advisories um they expressed an overwhelming preference for option b um based on the instructional value of that
122calendar primarily being able to end the first semester at the winter break um that allows all um finals and midterms to be held prior to um the winter break and also for students who have semester classes when they come when they return to school after winter break they will start um a new with their SE second semester classes so um that was overwhelmingly preferred by particularly the secondary principles and parents that we that we talk to um the other item in calendar B that was appealing to those groups were the additional teacher and student breaks in March and April spring break does occur late in the calendar next year um and so that will just allow some flexibility in those months those long months um before we can get to spring break so I'm happy
123to take any questions you have at this point um regarding those calendars Miss Barnhart just to refresh my memory was this the one that was voted on in um the majority of the people who took the survey wanted or was that a no ma'am the survey results showed a 6% higher preference for option A okay and then this was also the one that um to where the I'm sorry I'm losing my train thought the work was done before the end of the year so that the break is that the same option b which is the administration's recommendation tonight is the first semester will conclude at winter break okay thank you yes ma'am Mr saterfield yeah um I know we were given option A and B can you tell us how we get to the point
124of just having a or b i I like as a second former secondary person I do like again for those middle of the road students mainly having the exams prior I am concerned that we continue to start the school year earlier and earlier every every year um it was a trend that I had seen over the years but it seems like we're really starting earlier can you was was there any other were there were this did it the committee just narrow it down to these two options and pretty much come to a consensus yes sir it it seems that over the years the preference has been to end the school year earlier in the spring to be out by the first part of June um so that's kind of where that you know first week
125at the beach yes sir pretty much I understand no so you know to end at one place you have to to start you know 180 days prior to that but um okay that would I just I was just curious how we um again I do like having this in the semester you know ending before the kids go home but uh I am concerned that we keep pushing that start date back early and early and it really causes parents to adjust their summer plans and kids with summer jobs and things like that thank you yes sir anyone else Mr saterfield I agree with you I mean summer camps run through middle of August um for kids so I mean I have a this is no secret I have a major issue with us starting at the
126beginning of August um especially if we're not even talking about adjusting the start starting age of a kindergartener you have um children that will be four um that I mean my child started and I'm not making this about just my child but my child started kindergarten at the age of four and her birthday is at the end of August and and that's a struggle and you're required to start school you can't hold your child back if they're in that age range um so if we're telling you know parents that they have to have their 4 year old start at the beginning of August that I mean that is a a struggle um I don't know if we're having those conversations my other concern that I have with this uh is you know we put out
127a survey and to kind of gauge where we are and then we we don't really go with the majority of the survey we go to just the um I mean I'm seeing that the parent advisory committees their recommendation and I'm and I know several people on the pack and and I respect that but I think one of the I've asked about that um conversation and I think that there was a big concern about the to Mr saterfield point the exams before the holidays it's my understanding that in some schools a lot of teachers have the exams before the holidays anyway so um they're wrapping up the the end of the semester going into January but that most of the exams are happening right now that may be a oneoff from some folks that I you
128know that have students at different school high schools in our um in our district but I really I I have concerns starting the year so um so early I think that we are trying to circumvent state law on one on on on some level I mean the only way that we can do that is to have a modified year round schedule so if we're actually trying to go to a year round schedule we should actually say that that's what we're doing um I've asked that question and I feel like the response is well we're not doing that we're not doing that right now but if we're slowly trying to do that so we get to the point where it's easier to say that we're going to a year round schedule I think that we need
129to we need that that's what the conversation needs to be um we shouldn't be moving the every year the school year up by another week or another two weeks that's just my thoughts anyone else uh we need a motion to approve the Mr yeah I just want to catch up I stepped out this is for the vote on the calendar yes Miss Taylor are you for it you're for the plan B recommendation the district's recommendation is option b yes sir okay Miss mccal are you for this recommendation yes sir I am okay I was hoping to have missed that vote but thank you yeah do I have a motion yes Miss Miss Snipes I'd like to make a motion motion that we support the administration's recommendation of option b for the year round modified academic
130calendar do have a second Mr Hogan all right any more discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor of Miss snes's motion all opposed motion carries six to one another year I'm now voted and it's okay thank you Miss Taylor thank you all right all right um that brings us to item 16 the first reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy I promotion and retention of students exhibit H can I get a motion before the discussion Please Mr Hogan make motion the board approves the first reading of proposed Provisions to board policy ik promotion and retention of students do a second second Miss Snipes all right Dr Ross all right thank you madam chairman the board we bring to you our chief of academics Miss Tina mcco to bring our first
131reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy ik promotion and retention of students miss mccal good evening um nice to see all of you again um and I'm here to talk about the first reading again the only changes here are the numbers of courses that a child needs to be identified as a sophomore junior or senior and it will be phased in so it'll be for the nth graders this year and then each year will add another year so it'll be phased in to align with what the state um requirements are if there's any questions any questions all right seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor that motion carries six to zero Miss spart has stepped out thank you Miss mcal that brings us to item 17 the renewal of District 5's
132Foundation of EX educational Excellence Incorporated memorandum of understanding and agreement and exhibit I do I have a motion Mr Hogan make the motion the board renews the renewal of District of foundation of Education Excellence Incorporated memorandum of understanding and agreement have a second second Miss Snipes Dr Ross all right ly I ask you to come forward and um speak to the motion please I was about to say wow that was easy um so good evening everyone I know it's been a long night for you all but um it as always it's an honor to come and speak before you on behalf of the District 5 Foundation and our partnership with the district um it is that time of year that we renew our memorandum of understanding and agreement and we as a foundation could not
133function adequately without the clerical support and the web support as well as everything else that's stipulated in our memorandum understanding so we certainly appreciate that uh and we look forward to continuing the support to the students and staff of the district so all of their needs can be met along those lines I wanted to give you a quick update on where the foundation stands as of today on our goals unfortunately our Fall fundraiser was not as profitable as we had hoped this year um we raised uh under $30,000 when we had a goal much higher than that of course um as a result we've had to postpone the dispersement of our teacher grants um until we can come up with some other creative fundraising ideas they're not gone they're just postponed we had around $50,000
134in Grant monies requested by our teachers and we're looking to find creative ways to fund at least parts of all of those um applicants Grant applicants our biggest challenge at the moment is our snackpack funds which are quickly dwindling as we've heard so much today about our um impoverished students and our students who have food needs um we as a result we had to move some of our funds from our emergency fund to our snackpack fund just to cover the cost of our next round of checks that will be going out so we need your help um first any and all donations are welcome as always you can visit our website second an easy way to send in a donation is to recognize an educator with a $5 donation to the website as as I'm
135sorry to the foundation as part of our 5 for five or as our Christmas card campaign that started uh this week so um and lastly we have partnered with a local business so I hope everyone can join us at BJs on harson Boulevard on December the 21st hope you can take a break from shopping between noon and 900 p.m. we they gave us a 9-hour window for this fundraising event the foundation will be receiving a donation of 20% of all food and non-alcoholic beverage uh purchases for every special flyer that is presented it's good for in restaurant as well as takeout Flyers are posted on our Facebook page and I believe did we print some for the district office there are some available in the district office um so hope everybody can come out to
136BJs and it's a great easy way for us to make some some great money for our snackpack program so enjoy a meal and help others help feed others at the same time so thank you for your time tonight uh we look forward to our continued partnership um and I would welcome any questions if you have any do I have any questions Mr Scully can you repeat the hours on the 21st sure it's from noon until 900 p.m okay thank you any other questions all right seeing none we have a motion on the floor I'll call for the vote all in favor all opposed abstaining all right so that motion carries five with two abstains two abstaining abstentions abstains sorry abstentions all right thank you very much thank you getting late guys all right that brings
137us to our discussion agenda with Lexington County ordinance plan number 23-15 and exhibit J Dr Ross thank you madam chair members of our board and our community uh we have our director of Community Development for lexon County Robbie Derek is here uh to uh talk to us uh about a new ordinance in lexon County Mr D thank you Dr Ross thank you members of the board uh Lyn sturky our County Administrator sends this apologies this evening he cannot attend he's a little under the weather so uh he does regret that he cannot attend tonight but uh this evening for you I know in your agenda you've mentioning ordinances ordinance 2315 which is a concurrency ordinance that County Council has adopted as a pending ordinance uh I'm going to go over just a little bit of
138detail about our department what's kind of LED County Council up to some of the ordinances and and things we're actually looking to amend with our development code standards and I'll include a section on ordinance 234 and 15 and kind of give you an idea of what direction and what support we're looking for at least from school districts and just a little background with lexon County Community Development on your screen we cover a variety of items within our development standards within the county our zoning landscape and open space subdivision regulations we handle our storm water management regulations our flood damage and prevention building safety and inspections and we also Encompass Our Community Development block grant program which is a HUD funded program just to kind of paint the picture for the board and me and and
139the folks in the public before you there will be some various slides regarding past population and projections for population within Lexy County as you see the color schemes your darker Reds your darker oranges give you a higher density of population as opposed to your lighter colors which is a lower dens of population in 2010 our population in Lex County was 26 2,391 in 2020 the census population was 293,2mb 380,000 2040 460 almost 470,000 into 2050 almost 600,000 folks projected within l in the county each month we present data to our Planning Commission uh we do show our Planning Commission past data and current data with our stick buil homes or site build homes and mobile homes this is a 14-year Trend specifically to mobile home and manufactured homes you can kind of see where this
140has steady growth up until 2020 we had a spike with the co year but the growth has been maintained even after 2020 this is just a highlighted version from 2014 to 2023 to kind of give you an idea of the numbers per month and we do give a a quarterly report to our Planning Commission uh currently through fourth quarter of this year uh we have 98 permits through one month this is through October we're on Pace to have roughly 1,400 single family residential permits within lexon County keep in mind these are mostly unincorporated numbers for lexity County with building permits however we do issue building permits within the town limits of chaping which are encompassed with lexon and School District 5 lexon Richland 5 manufactured home permits again the through 2023 in the past years
141we're on Pace to for about 400 mobile homes within Lexy County this year each month we provide data to our Planning Commission what we refer to as pipeline Maps pipeline maps are projects that have submitted full engineering plans for review this is where projects out there are plans for infrastructure clearing and grading which is the first step to actually put houses on the ground uh we keep a year-long database that we provide to our Planning Commission members you'll see each one of them are colorcoded if they are in red they're located within municipality if they are green they are pre moratorium which is 2021 if they are blue they are post moratorium regulated subdivisions um after 2021 just to call out some a couple developments within lexon and Richland five you'll see these as a
142star there's one West Lake Estates uh which is off the lake tide Road in chapen which is about 40 acre development also one off of John's Creek uh which is U also within chapen area these are from the last 12 months within this data we provide Planning Commission you can see the total number of lots from the previous year which is three 3,790 and just more graphics on the number of pipeline Lots we have received uh within the past year and for planning purposes the school district can go back to our meeting portals within our our County website meeting portals do have past Planning Commission meetings which do include past pipeline mats past data and even projects that are submitted per Council District we do have the pipeline Maps also available online now we have
143the the month pipeline map for each Planning Commission we also have interactive map where you can go back and research historical data for pipeline Lots uh for several years past for Leon in Richland School District 5 since January 1st of 2021 through the end of September we've pulled the various subdivisions that have been submitted as a pipeline subdivision uh the total number of lots we're looking at over the past almost two two and a half years is 980 Lots what is Council doing to address growth and development within Lexy County uh there's several ordinances we've started with County Council one is back in 2018 basically this looked at ways we could mandate or reduce the amount of residential density per developments this was adopted in May of 2021 which basically capped the single family homes
144to a maximum of four dwelling units per acre countywide 2102 was the moratorium that was enacted by Council in 2021 for staff to review our Our Land Development code specific Des zoning in landscape and open space um prior to the ordinance being adopted for the moratorium we had roughly uh 2500 lots already in the pipeline for development prior to the adoption of Mortor we received another 2800 lots for development throughout this process we're going through a comprehensive Plan update with the county this is the first major comprehensive plan Lexing County went through since the late 1990s uh basically this is a road map for future growth and development within Lexy County one key piece to this comprehensive plan is it did recommend a code analysis and rewrite for our potential development codes which staff is
145working with the vendor now to go through that code analysis comprehensive plan is available online there's a link on the website with the uh with the presentation we had several amendments to the zoning ORD in lie of the um of the uh moratorium uh we adopted a Lake Murray residential overlay which added additional open space provisions and more restrictive density requirements within the Lake Murray are of Lexy County we also had additional Provisions for an Agricultural overlay District which has some buffer and protection areas for agricultural activities staff even review Council even reviewed some of our um regulations regarding Apartments we also did some revisions to our landscape and open space the key piece of this is Council adopt Provisions for different for additional trophy tree protection as well as increase the open space at
14620% for new residential developments countywide for the Lake Murray overlay District count also added a sliding scale for open space so the larger lots a lesser amount of open space the smaller Lots the more open space that would be required just some graphics on the screen for you to show the location of the the agricultural overlay District was approved in 2021 and the Lake Murray overlay District which again encompasses a large portion of lexon Richland 5 within lexon County Council is also looking to amendments to our land Our Land Development manual particular the ma uh limits on limits of of clearing for residential developments they passed an update to this back in 2021 as well um capping residential subdivisions to only allow 20 acres of clearance at one time before you today is that the
147main topic is ordinances 2314 and 2315 which is addresses concurrency for new residential developments County Council wanted to ensure adequate public services for new developments in Lexy County due to our substantial growth and development uh we have received certain measurables from fire service EMS and and Solid Waste Management and we're still working with our local law enforcement to find measurables to review these new developments we do understand that local school districts cannot provide a yes or no however we would like feedback from the school districts on resources available for new developments our County administrators is coordinating with nville school district to provide representation uh to meet and develop a questionnaire that we can provide to each School District per development to gain feedback as far as if Portables are available the Staffing etc for County
148for County Council and staff to make a determination if uring adequate resources are available for new developments just some additional SS that County Council is going through right now um we do have again the code code analysis and assessment which is currently under undergoing with our our clearing and Clarion who is our um consultant they actually were the same company that prepared our comprehensive plan uh we're looking a holistic approach for apartments and multifamily uh also we're looking at some additional changes to our zoning ordinance to further review density within the county um as well as several other instances with our open space regulations for additional protection of open space uh we actually had a tree campy survey completed through a grant program with the South Carolina forestry commission to hopefully have some tree cany
149coverage requirements for new residential developments one thing not listed in your in your packet was in 2020 uh we went through a massive resoning uh project within the chapen area of the County uh County Council ask us to review 80 roads within the chaping area to potentially rezone to have more restrictive density 51 those 80 roads actually received a more restricted Street classification 27 of those were reduced to having allow one dwelling unit breaker 14 of those roads reduced to having only two dwelling units per acre so as you can see council is has been very active in trying to adjust adjust some of our development regulations to um to combat some of the growth and development we're having lexon County and again we just want some time to before you this evening to kind
150of go over the two concurrency ordinances and what process we're looking at moving forward with those any questions thank you very much Mr Derek I appreciate this presentation and um I also appreciate you made a clarification on the involvement or the role of the public school districts um in with the ordinance and I know that there has been some confusion um over what it what the role would be and whether or not the school districts would have a yes or no vote um I had several conversations with uh the chair of County Council and I know that in your um public committee meetings on December 6th this came up and I appreciate that clarification on what our role is and what county council's role is I've gotten a lot of questions about that so thank
151you very much um for that uh do we have any questions for Mr Derek Miss huddle um do you envision um any type of questionnaire to try to keep it as objective as possible like asking about the Portables that kind of thing yes ma'am we're developing a work group with a representative from each School District Lexing 1 two 3 four and five and we're going to work with those folks to develop that question there so to be um basically consistent across the board for all school districts any other questions Mr saterfield yeah Mr Derek do you live in Lexington or chapen I live in Lexington you live in Lexington well I will tell you our we are just overrun in shaping but anytime I get discouraged with the traffic and shap and I go over
152to Lexington and I feel a little better um I wish that you know I know that nobody could anticipate such growth and it's gone crazy so I hope that you all can I I appreciate that y'all are making the effort here to try to get a handle on some of this um I was talking to one developer that in chapen that was saying that he can't further his development because he can't get enough water pressure because they growing at such a and he has a huge subdivision waiting to go in but I appreciate the efforts that you all are putting toward this thank you absolutely anyone else I I I Echo Mr saterfield I think that uh it is very evident that Lexington County as a whole is growing very fast and we just need
153to make sure that we can keep up with the Public Services Public Schools where we obviously are trying to make sure that we can um keep up with the capacity in all of our schools so um I would encourage and I'm I'm glad that we were able to have this conversation I think it's important for County count for the for the county and the school districts to um have continued collaboration so that we're always on the same page and we can help you and you can help us and we're we're overall serving the um you know everyone in Lexington County and and Richland County and our we're lucky we get two counties so thank you very much appreciate thank you all for having me thank you all right that moves us to item 19 on
154our agenda agenda which is the fiscal 2023 annual comprehensive financial report as seen in exhibit K Dr Ross thank you madam chair um members of the board we ask that our CFO Miss Madison wierson we get it right come forward to present our audit thank you um um good evening I'd like to invite Josh Garvin up um he is a partner with mly Garvin um he has coming here tonight to present the financial state statement audit report for fiscal year 2023 the Administration has worked closely with Josh and um his colleague Luke vicory over the past several months to complete the annual comprehensive financial report um on behalf of the administration i' would like to thank you and your team for the support and guidance as we all work together to meet the December first
155state deadline uh thank you for being here tonight to present this report and I'll turn it over to you thank you well first and foremost uh Dr Ross and and Bor we I appreciate the opportunity to be here I said we and uh that was intentional uh Luke vicory uh should be here tonight but his his uh wife is uh due to have their second child any day now she had contractions over the weekend so I I told him to stay at home and I I would take care of it but again I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight I understand uh that we are here tonight to discuss the 630 2023 audit process that we have completed uh we have completed that audit process and issued our opinion uh which I'll get into
156in a minute uh you should have three documents in front of you one is the big bound audit report uh this is uh affectionally known as an annual comprehensive financial report an a for uh which get submitted to the uh gfoa for a certificate of achievement in financial reporting each year uh the second document that you have in front of you is a stapled document that'll have our uh letter head uh right on the front uh this is a board packet that we put together rather than putting you through this uh this document this gives you a plain English uh version of the audit process gives you uh uh talks about our responsibilities as your external Auditors but also talks about your responsibilities as board members and so if if I were you this is
157where I would encourage you you guys to start uh as you get comfortable with the audit process and and again responsibilities so on and so forth the third document is where we'll spend the bulk of our time tonight this is a a three-page stapled document that really is just an overview of of where we landed at the conclusion of the audit process so uh without further Ado I'll jump right in um the audit of the financial statements has concluded uh as you know uh the information is a bit stale you guys are smart people you guys get an update on the uh on the finances on a at every board meeting uh so so I I don't talk generally about the specifics of the audit process uh uh the numbers so much as I do
158about the overall uh objective of the audit and what happened so we have issued an unmodified opinion on the on the fairness of the financial statements for the district uh we issued that opinion on November 29th uh which is again a couple of days prior uh to this meeting as well within the guidelines as set out by the State Department of Education you say Josh what does an unmodified opinion mean unmodified opinion in in the world of independent auditing is just a clean opinion that is the highest level of audit opinion that you can receive from your external audit Auditors uh what I do talk a little bit about and what normally most boards want to talk about is what happened in my general fund so what you'll see uh is that your general fund
159fund balance increased approximately 3.9 million an increase in fund balance is just a fancy way of saying your net income within the general fund was an increase of about $3.9 million uh I will uh switch uh to the second page of the staple document uh this document provides you a a budget to actual analysis uh revenues and expenditures within the general fund again without uh without reading to you you can you can see that your actual revenues were $26 million uh total expenditures of about 215 and then you had some transfers in because of some of the funding flexibility that the state allowed you to have uh during this year so all in all uh your again your net change in fund balance or your bottom line to the general fund was an increase of
160about $3.9 million um and then the final page of that stapled report is something that we've come up with and given to our boards that they seem to enjoy is a trend analysis as to where we've been over the last several years so this trend analysis gives you uh the numbers from 2019 through 2023 what you'll see is revenues uh and expenses it's make no mistake you guys are aware that this district has has and and the uh counties are uh that incorporate this District uh have been growing and you'll you'll see that in in these numbers uh one thing I do want to draw attention to is that uh the fund balance uh the the gfoa the government fin Finance Officers Association generally recommend a to maintain a fund balance of somewhere in the
161neighborhood of two to 5 months of operating expenditures you'll see in that Trend analysis you guys are sitting right about three months of uh operating expenditures within your fund balance so certainly uh certainly within that recommendation um to a clean opinion on the financial statements the other things that we have to do as external Auditors for you guys is uh we have to also provide what we call a our yellow book opinion yellow book opinion is just uh a report on internal control over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations if we were to run into anything that we uh found that led to uh by definition a significant deficiency or material weakness we would be required by the auditing standards to put that in writing in that yellow book report those yellow book
162reports are at the back of back of the act for um um Happ to report tonight we did not find anything in internal control or or violations of uh laws or compliance with laws or regulations that we felt Rose to that level that would be required to be put into this report and then the third and final opinion that we are required to provide is is what's known as the single audit uh a single audit is required for any any entity who receives and expends greater than $750,000 worth of federal funds in any given year as you know you guys uh receive uh well in excess of that and so we um I think the total federal expenditures were just south of $25 million uh and so the the audit guidelines require that we come
163in and select major programs as defined by the auditing standards uh we actually had to test three major programs Title One the co eser money as well as the uh Magnet School assistance program we tested all three of those programs prams and did not find anything uh that that uh would result in a finding as related to the single audit so a clean opinion on your financial statements as a whole they are fairly presented in all material respects a clean opinion on uh your internal control over financial reporting and then a clean opinion as well on your single audit so um I think I would be remiss if I didn't uh mention uh Madison and the team here this is a very very strong team one of the strongest that I've worked with in in
164my almost 25 year career uh this is what we do at Manley gar we specialize in uh governments and not for-profits and it's it's been a pleasure to jump in uh a little late uh got a little late start which is why the report was dated so close to to the deadline will certainly make that uh make that a little uh a little more smooth process next year as as we've got our feet in the door now and know what uh know what to expect and how to get in here any questions or concerns that that I can uh address any questions Mr Scully yeah first of all thank you so much for the work that you've done and for jumping in so late abut we really appreciate that uh and thank you for your
165comments um regarding our financial office and uh Miss Madison we we've heard that a couple of times this year and we we very much appreciate um her her work and her team's work quick question about the um am I understanding this correctly so when looking at your your financial statement I guess your cash flow my question is it looks like our operating cash flow would actually be negative is that accurate um so so for 2023 if you read that just in context yes that that would appear that way uh the reason that um I would I would if if I were in your position I would caveat that a little bit mad Madison can speak to it as well is some of the funding flexibility that I mentioned uh uh with respect to the special
166Revenue uh monies that that are received for 2023 there's flexibility that allowed that to be transferred into the general fund and um it's really just a the semantics of the way that it was presented in the current year is that fair yes okay thank you anyone else Miss huddle yes um this may be related to that um the 3.5 million that we um moved from the general fund um the fund balance the ending fund balance of $56 million that was after we moved the 3.5 million correct no I'm sorry the 56 million includes that 3.5 so if you go to I'll try to find it in here um let's see see if we can all hopefully flip together um sure I'm on the right page don't go this way thank you sorry let's Okay so
167if we go to um Pages 16 and 17 of your full Acer um you will see under on on page 17 you'll see the general fund and you'll see um the categories of the general fund so we've got nonspendable of the 3.6 uh restricted zero assigned of 9.9 and then unassigned of 42 million point4 or 42.5 roughly for a total of 56 million um and then you can find in the notes to the financial statements actually the description of what that assignment is and um do you know what page that is probably yes uh looks like on page 57 in the um again in the same document under the note section regarding fund balance it states the assignment so as of June 30 uh the district has uh set aside 2.8 million for construction hero
168high school 543,000 for salaries for six full-time equivalent positions for critical areas 3 million for employee retention incentives and 3.5 million for potential future Capital needs so the total assigned fund balance as of June 30 2023 is 9.9 million so it's still in I thought the reason we were voting when we were we were pushed to vote was to get it go ahead and get it moved so it's still in the operating fund and on this report it's in the 56 yes ma'am so it was just it was meant to assign it for a purpose not necessarily to move it out of the general fund but to to assign it for a purpose when we do find the purpose we will then transfer it from the TR general fund to the capital projects fund okay
169so it's still as of today in the general fund assigned in the general fund yes ma'am okay so it's assigned in the general fund okay um unless anybody else has some questions I have a couple others anyone else all right okay on page um the 144 well first of all I have a question because I think these numbers are flipped The Debt Service fund is showing at 80 million 722 and the capital projects fund is showing at 144 I think those numbers are flipped page 56 of the yes 56 um the inter fund receivables you guys don't have to answer that question right right now cuz I realize you got but I would suggest you take a look at it um because it if you look at last year's financial report they they The Debt
170Service fund last year was exactly the same amount 144505 so I think those numbers may be flipped or they were flipped last year but it okay so that's y'all y' don't have to answer that question right now but the other question I have is um in the in the notes at the bottom it says all interfund balances are expect to be repaid with in one year from the date of the financial statements that number is exactly the same which tells me it hasn't been repaid within one year if you look at last year's report page 53 of last year again we we'll have to take look at it I don't know off hand I I think to to to to give a generalization I think that's a pretty standard disclosure because if if if you
171if there was no intent or ability to pay that back they would they they wouldn't like the gfoa would not like them classified as in fund uh balances back and forth it's it's probably just again not to make make light or or be dismissive of a comment it's probably just the semantics of the way that it's presented I mean I realize y'all can't and I apologize we had a ton of stuff on our agenda and wor I did not get to this until this morning um can you guys just let us know maybe through um Miss Hans what you guys find out for sure on both of those we can okay thank you any other questions Mr Scully this is a real basic quick question um our fund balance is that an interest bearing account
172by chance so so I get this question a lot not not about necessarily the interest uh bearing account nature of it but your fund balance is actually different than your cash balance where your cash is and so your fund balance is if you took all your assets and all your Li less your liabilities that's what's left over that doesn't necessarily mean it's all your cash balances are exactly the same okay but I'll let Madison talk about interest but yeah if we just want to talk about cash um in general it is interest bearing so we do invest in the elgp the local government investment pool for um really all of our our funding so that's um our cash related to general fund and then any cash proceeds that we receive from Bond proceeds would also
173go into that lgp and it is interest okay so we're we're using that money the best we can okay thank you thank you any other questions thank you very much and thanks for your patience uh staying so late at our meeting we appreciate it good luck to your partners appreciate I appreciate time we get we'll get those questions answered for all right have a good all right that brings us to number 20 on our discussion agenda that is the five-year Master facilities plan financing update thank you I'm ask Mr Wilkerson to stay at the podium there um and we thank Miss Franny Hower for being here for former also I want to thank uh lean and Connie thank you all so much for being here uh supporting Miss Wilkerson in the work we know there's
174a lot of hours to go into putting this together and we certainly appreciate your your hard work uh as was stated um we wanted to give an update on our five-year Master's facilities plan uh as the state law state statute outlines that we're pro promote the educational interests of the district and our goal is to create a list of capital projects for our school district uh that would be with considered as a part of The Five-Year Plan as approved by the board uh we had five major elements that went into this uh planning Community analysis enrollment projections facilities conditions assessment instructional plan review and tonight we are addressing the financing plan uh as a reminder when we looked at Community analysis and we saw it today from Mr Robbie Derek uh we see that there's
175a great change in our community 10 years ago 25 a half% of all imperson or student enrollment was in the chapen schools the largest inperson enrollment was in Dutch Fork uh well as of last year's 135th day numbers we see that that fork is now uh has the lowest inperson enrollment and shapen has the the highest uh as we look at uh our our plan our our goal is to uh with these options do we build more schools in the chaping area or do we fix fill and finance our existing schools and so our plan was to fix fill and finance and going through that we did a facilities condition assessment uh we brought in uh a a MPS to evaluate all of our our buildings in our district they have a schedule chart from
1761 to five uh these represent individual issues uh but also they average all of these out uh five being something that's brand new a like new condition one is uh interoperable and so uh three is kind of like that normal average wear and tear if you look at our facilities in terms of their average uh rating their average rating you can see the number of uh buildings in our uh District that scored two that number that scored three and those that were scored on average four not to say they're not ones or issues at any of these facilities but what they average out in their system we also talked about potential instructional additions that we would like to uh discuss um we Dutch Fork High School uh building off of this stem program with it
177or um artificial intelligence uh A Fine Art Center at chapen high school small business incubator at iral high school and the residential and commercial construction Lab at the center for advanced technical studies uh we talked about how we would fill our schools uh with a plan to create five middle schools uh that would help us in in filling those and so tonight tonight we're going to be looking at options of financing um we are currently developing uh three options to fix fill and finance our schools uh option A would look at only addressing the one rated items as funding allows as funding allows using our existing uh buildings um option two would look at addressing or prioritizing all two- rated buildings and security upgrades as funding allows uh to have our instructional upgrades build a
178new dut Fork Elementary School we don't have estimates on uh these projects at at this time our goal is by the workshop to get more details option uh C uh would be prioritizing all two and three rated buildings U and security upgrades as funding allows and then uh the instructional upgrades building the new Dutch Fork Elementary for the field options and expanding on Lake Murray Elementary uh but what we can talk about tonight is how we would Finance these potential options and option a uh $15 million um would be our um plus our 8% debt capacity that would be what we would have in our in our annual maintenance option b 240 million plus our 15 million of annual maintenance and option option C $343 million plus our 15 million annual maintenance you can see
179what we have estimated to be the additional cost for these options and so I would like to uh turn over to miss Wilkinson now uh these figures are are based on debt capacity again not estimated cost of projects so we would uh we're still working on the fix and fill process uh but tonight is about finance and uh those particular options so I'm going to turn it over to miss wilker to go over uh these particular options thank you Dr Ross um I will like to add that uh Mr J Glover is also joining us virtually hopefully he is still tuned in um so I will turn it over him in just a minute we also of course have frie Heiser here um from bur Foreman she's our bond attorney so um the task at
180hand um here was to look at our different financing options and again as Dr Ross mentioned this was based on you know what does our capacity from a financing standpoint look at not necessarily what does um what what do these items pay for necessarily so um we looked at you know no bond option A would be no bond referendum so keep really kind of doing what we've been doing for the past um several years we annually issue about $15 million worth of debt um short-term debt that we um issue once a year and um that's really for our annual maintenance um to continue to operate um but we do have an 8% debt capacity that's a state statute um so in this scenario we would not go out for bondor and don't would look at
181okay what can we do without a bond referendum looking at our um 15 million annual maintenance and then um really trying to maximize that 8% um capacity from the state level option b looks at well how much can we Finance if we do go out for Bond ref randum in November of 2024 um and do not raise our um existing Debt Service millage as y'all know that is at 69 A5 Mills and has been for the last couple of years so trying to maintain that and trying to not pass on a tax increase um to our taxpayers what would that scenario look look at um and as Jay will go through in just a minute um he was able to to look at 240 million in a bond referendum plus our annual maintenance of 15
182million and then option C was looking at a 10 m increase um we did kind of derive from this because of the bond Workshop um back in March where we talked about these different scenarios and we did go up we looked at keeping the millage of St at 69 and a. half Mills and then we looked at keeping or up increasing the millage to 7 9 and a half Ms or a 10 mil increase so with that um we would be able to issue about 343 million um in three tranches and additionally the 15 million um at this time though I'll ask Jay if you don't mind uh jumping in and going over the next few slides great thanks Madison can you all hear me okay yes thank you thanks Schoolboard members Dr Ross again
183Jay Glover from pfm financial advisors the district's financial adviser on debt related matters and I appreciate you all allowing me to attend the meeting virtually um I'm going to talk about the next three slides uh which have some graphics on them that I think will be familiar to you all as we've talked about financing scenarios in the past um if you can flip to the next slide I think it's labeled no bond referendum 8% debt only uh as you can see here in the graphic uh this uh scenario would allow you to issue your $15 million for annual maintenance and then between fy's 2026 and 2032 you're able to issue about 8 to6 million a year of additional debt within your 8% debt capacity and your 69 A5 mil Debt Service millage and then really
184when the bulk of the funding comes in under the scenario is when you get out in 2033 to 2039 when you can actually issue capacity and the reason that number jumps up significantly in 2033 as you can see in the gray bars in the graphic that's really when your existing debt uh is paid off so your capacity to issue additional debt increases significantly uh so while this scenario does generate significant funding over the next 15 years that funding is really deferred uh for 10 years and doesn't allow you to get the bulk of the projects done over the next several years like the referendum scenarios would do if you flip to the next slide again here which is holding a 2024 Bond referendum with still the 69 A5 mil Debt Service Target uh We've estimated
185that you can issue about $240 Million worth of debt uh starting in 2025 and there would be three installments of $80 million each that you could uh issue in 2025 2026 and 2027 um and as you can see in the graphic to the right that still gives you a little bit of room in the latter years for additional debt and you could actually layer on some 8% debt out of those latter years to addition rate generate additional funding uh the reason we can't do additional referendum debt is because really the 69 A5 mil limit really limits your ability to pay interest in those early years so with no tax increase we're estimating again about $240 Million worth of debt could be issued uh in addition to the 15 million a year you're getting on an
186annual basis so that's really your estimated cap in terms of a no tax increase scenario uh and then if we can slip to the FI flip to the final slide that I have here uh this shows the same thing a 2024 Bond referendum but with a 10 mil Debt Service increase so that would bring your debt service millage to 795 Mills starting in uh 20126 um and what this scenario does is increases your capacity to about $343 million that being with a $100 million issued in 2025 and 2026 and then about $143 million issued in 2027 and and the increased debt Serv millage uh gives you that capacity to issue additional debt and still have the room to pay the interest on that debt you know in the early year so you you juice Up
187Your Capacity about a hundred million do or so by increasing your debt service millage and what that equates to on a $150,000 property is about $60 a year of tax increase by increasing that 10 mil limit I will point out in all three of these graphs you'll notice in 2024 and 2025 uh The Debt Service bars extend beyond your debt service millage uh graph line and that's because as we've discussed in the past we're actually planning to use some of your syncing fund balance in 2024 and 2025 to retire debt uh to give you a little bit of additional capacity uh in the out out years and not use 8% debt capacity in in in those out years so again those are the three scenarios that we looked at uh these are all based on
188sort of current market conditions with a little bit of conservatism built in for interest rates and they also assume 2% growth on your uh taxable assess values which we think is fairly conservative I think historically you all have grown at a level in excess of that and we also don't take into account any sort of reassessment process so to the extent that your milit or your ad uh tax values would go quicker under these referendum scenarios you would also have the ability to layer in additional 8% debt because with the referendum approved you would not be issuing 8% debt beyond the $15 million annually so you'd have some flexibility with that as well so again I know that was a lot of numbers to digest but happy to address any questions you all might have
189on these scenarios and we could obviously run additional scenarios as might be needed thank you Jay all right do I have any questions Miss huddle Mr Glover would you repeat what you said about planning to use the sinking fund balance yeah so again if you notice in your uh each of these graphs in 2024 and 2025 they have we have the millage Levy line shown there based on 69.5 Mills and we're projecting de service to be a slightly an excess of that because we're going to be spending down your uh syncing fund balance to pay a portion of your debt service in those two years and then after that obviously the millage covers your debt service payments oh what about um there there will still be substantial sinking fund balance correct after 24 and 25
190uh I don't know that I would characterize it as substantial syncing fund balance but once we use these amounts I think there'll be a level that you know we're comfortable with from sort of a policy perspective of having a you know a balance in that fund but it I think these two uh uses amount to about uh let me look at my model real quick I think we're planning on using about $15 million of the syncing Fund in those two years so that will be a significant draw down in that amount um to where it is today so it would just be used for 24 and 25 and not anything else uh not based on these projections no you can see that the actual millage line covers your debt service in each year under all
191three of the graphs other than 24 and 25 and keep in mind The Debt Service being shown for payment in 24 is The Debt Service that was already issued in the past including last year and then as we get into next year you'll have another issuance of debt that you'll pay off in March of 2025 so that's really a projected line being shown there in 2025 based on what we expect to issue uh you know in the first half of next year any other questions any more going once all right I appreciate it very much thank you thank you Mr Glover Ross is that does that conclude all right so that concludes item 20 do I have any more m I know we want to get out of here but I still have a qu
192I have a question I was asking okay oh I didn't understand I thought it was just for him um so if Dr Ross if you could go back or somebody could go back to the slides that had the three options a b and c okay um I guess I was kind of Blown Away by the Lexington County um of what he showed us and I did the I looked at the um let's see where was it I looked at the slide that was just pipeline subdivisions um new ones and it was 980 lots and I know that was throughout our whole District but I know I think almost all these neighborhoods and I think all but 90 of these are in the the chapen attendance zone so I guess and we we we paid for
193MC McMillan Pon and Smith and I guess I'm just trying to understand how are we if our if the process is fixed Phil how are we going to deal with a ton more students in chapen and and I guess I just I I really and I know it's late tonight and I don't want to get into it tonight I know you're talking about having a a facilities but I would just like to see us not proceed so fast into a solution that's all built on fix and fill without addressing de demographics and growth AOW to um we're planning a workshop on the 8th and it may be a series of workshops where we could outline this for you uh tonight we were finishing five elements of all of the information that has to go in
194we know it's a lot of information we wanted to make sure you were presented with Community Information With facility information with uh instructional information and tonight Finance information well we would ask that uh on the 8th we'll start a a series of going through those seven questions so you can see how we will do that we will be uh we're developing uh three different maps to show how we're going to do that with five middle schools uh to really try to decrease what we're we're seeing uh in that chapen area we too are worried that the pace of growth uh in chapen uh is something that I think um we have projections uh but like we see every year um when when the students show up that tells the realities uh as you remember we
195asked for money for portables for Javen high school you'll hear when we come back we're going to need those for chapen middle school so U all of that um so a great Point um but we we would ask through either this Workshop or series of workshops that as we go through those seven questions we use this information to to answer those and Dr Ross and and to the board I I would as we kind of go through all of this and we and Miss what Miss to miss Huddle's point about the population growth in chapen and making sure that we have a that addressed and as we talk about a bond referendum and we go through the seven questions and we have a workshop and you just mentioned a series of workshops I want to
196make sure that we are we all make sure we're all on the same page and we are having the conversations um and even if that means that we have special called meetings for just for the workshop portion of it so that we don't find ourselves in a situation where we're close to when we need to know if we're having a bond and and information is still fluid and changing uh because I feel like the last time we had Bond conversations everything was changing all up into like all of the information we were that we were given or that you know with input from the board or for from whatever situation everything was changing up until that August deadline um and we've been working on this for a while so I hope that I mean that
197the administration would tell the board if we need to be more intentional about scheduling workshops whether I don't know what that looks like whether we get you know I hate to say we revert back to the zoom meetings where if we have everybody has to go online and it's a online meeting for everyone I don't know I mean I don't know what everybody else's thoughts are but I feel like when we come in for the workshop s you know an hour or two goes by pretty quickly and we're given a whole bunch of information and then we leave and it's not like completed so that's just my thoughts I don't know if anybody else has any thoughts to that or agrees with that or disagrees with that or if it's too late to I mean
198I I I personally would like to suggest that if we're going to do a lot of workshops that they some of them are Zoom because you lose at least an hour probably depending on where you live just getting here and back and the staff has to go to all this work so I I really think that's a great idea thank you okay all right do I have any other motions Mr H I'd like to make a motion but before I do that I want to make sure everybody understands to please take your poet is home and can I make an announcement oh my gosh no real quick Clemson won the National Championship in soccer yes and I would root for South Carolina if they had won it to all right congratulations to Clemson back to
199business I'd like to make a that we adjourn the meeting a second oh miss barnhard seconds any any discussion are you sure all right I'll call for the vote all in favor a motion carries 7 to zero we adjourn until the new year thank you Jay good job thanks everyone happy holiday thank you