July 17, 2023 School Board Meeting

001I'd like to call the July 17 2023 meeting to order it's six o'clock do I have a motion to approve the agenda Mr Hogan I'd like to make a notion that we approve the agenda do I have a second Mr Scully any discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor to approve the agenda motion carries seven to zero do I have a motion to enter executive session Mr Hogan I'd like the items for information only do I have a second Miss Snipes do you have any discussion seeing none I'll call for the vote all in favor motion carry 7-0 we will adjourn to Executive session and return at 7 pm I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of July 17 2023 the time is seven o'clock I'd like to welcome

002everyone here it looks like we have a full house and that is always a good thing when the community is paying attention I do want to take a moment and have a moment of silence we've had a great tragedy in our district this weekend and it has impacted the lives of several students and their families and everyone in the district five family so if you would just take a few minutes for a moment of silence all right with that I am going to turn it over to trustee huddle for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance thank you dear Lord please help us to always remember to give Grace knowing that none of us truly knows the trials and tribulations others may be experiencing help us to remember that we are more alike than we

003are different and that everyone here has the common goal of ensuring that each of our students receives the best education possible in the best environment possible please be with us and guide us forward toward that common goal amen please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you that moves us to item number eight on our agenda which is the superintendent's report so I will turn it over to Dr Ross thank you madam chair members of the school board to our community it's an honor to bring forth our district Focus we have worked diligently to ensure that our focus is aligned with our strategic plan and for my point in here

004and our strategic plan is driven by three critical questions that we ask each and every day the first one is why why are we here why do we do this work the second one is how how do we accomplish our why and the third one is what would have we created what have we actually been able to accomplish and we have set forth our why when we asked 998 employees of our district why do you work in school district five and that response was we love and we grow our students we ask them how do we accomplish that issue of loving and growing and it was through our mission statements and that's our mission statement that we're focused on the academic development and growth of our of our students and then we articulate that through

005our strategic plan our strategic plan is driven by four oh performance goals that we have on school climate on teacher administrative quality student achievement and gifted and talented strategies and so we will continue to stay focused on that if you can just Advance it for me we can continue to stay focused on the growth and development of our students as measured by school climate teacher administrative quality student achievement and gifted and talented strategies so at this time we're going to do our monthly Financial for May and I want to ask our CFO Miss Paul to come forward for our monthly financials good evening Madam chair members of the board and Nutter Ross thank you again for inviting me here tonight to present the monthly financial report through May 31st 2023. I will start with the

006revenue report here we go um so before you you have our Revenue summary for the month ending May 31st um as always the top portion of your page will show the local sources so with one month left in the fiscal year our local sources are at 100 of our budget you will notice though that we are still a little bit short on property taxes um the offset is of from interest income that we have earned over the year but we certainly expect June to produce the um the budget for the property tax revenue that will come in through vehicle taxes in the month of June Additionally the state sources do want to pay close attention to the state aid as you will see here we are we are expecting our state aid to be just

007slightly higher than what we budgeted this is based on our the impact of our 135 Day Count from the state additionally our retiree insurance is right on target with our budget as well as our bus driver salary we have received all of our payments from tier one and tier two and we are right on track with tier three as well um through the through May 31st overall we are expected to be approximately 2 million more in Revenue over budget and this is mostly due to state revenue and the interest income increase next I will turn it over um to the expenditure summary through May 31st so again here this is through May 31st um as you will see we are about 83 percent of our budget spent through May 2023 and this is in line

008with our spending from the prior year we definitely still have several payrolls after the June 30th year into a crew back for employees that work less than the 240 days all of our services and supplies must be received by June 30th to hit FY 23 funds um in just a quick reminder of the equipment overage that you will see of the 701 701 000 in the middle of your page this was 600 000 of this was for the Irma High School land that was approved to be paid out of fund balance so you will notice that um that overage there also um if you look at the detail if you notice that there are some negatives in the salaries Line This is due to bonuses being paid out in November that again was approved by

009y'all from fund balance and there also is some slight increases to our overall budget due to health insurance but this has been trued up in the new budget year are there any questions on the monthly financial report thank you any questions thank you Miss Paul there was questions about professional development and how that works in our school district so at this time I'm going to ask our chief of academics Ms Tina mccaskill to come forth to give an update on professional development good evening thanks for having a high start off with we'll talk about from the small perspective to get then get to a larger perspective about professional development so it first starts with grade levels departments where our admin within the school building really looks at a neat survey and decides what do our

010teachers need what do they say they need give them some Choice with that professional development a lot of times that's done either on Tuesday afternoons or it's done like on Wednesday late starts for our secondary but those are done on small scales with small groups of teachers then it goes to your school-wide professional development again based on needs that are we may see in learning walks that we may do within the schools to see what types of strategies are in place based on professional development is that being implemented so looking at at how what we're doing is working or not and then what targeted needs there are both of those are mainly School driven there are a few District mandated things which usually are really coming from the state level things like like testing accommodations

011or looking at IEPs or um KRA for kindergarten teachers making sure they understand that type of testing so there's not a lot that comes from the district mandate at that level most of our district-wide PD comes in place whenever we're doing our lead D5 which is where our teachers get to choose the three days that we have set aside that's where they get to choose what they're going to go into and what types of professional development they're going to receive there's leadership Tuesdays where we have groups of teacher leaders that come in and meet with our coordinators so that they're able to talk about specific content and take that back to the schools to share to make sure that we're staying in line with our standards and looking at what do those standards say what

012do they really mean a lot of times if you look at standards there are a lot of words but then when you start looking at what they truly mean and how they come across in your teaching that's where a lot of the professional development has to take place um we have the induction program for our new teachers the Stars program with our retention coaches and then we also have voluntary enrollment with our graduate courses which our teachers really like to be able to get their plus 18 and sometimes their plus 30 with those graduate courses so that's really a plus for them then we have targeted professional development so our schools that have been named as atsi or CSI or priority schools so we have specific targeted professional development that's geared towards towards those schools

013we have Title II funds that will help with that as well as the the money that comes from the state and the federal government that helps with those um pieces and parts I listed two things there for the upcoming year the Universal Design of learning which really is targeting the needs of all students and making sure that our standards and our grade level content really is accessible by all students we can make sure that there are certain accommodations like we can have text to Texas self whenever we can have that as an accommodation for anyone we can have where a certain text might could be read to students that could be accessible to anyone so those are the types of accommodations that can be made in advance there's a difference you'll hear the word differentiation

014and you'll hear the word udl so differentiation is sort of a reactive whenever you already know what the kids don't know the udl is the proactive whenever you think about well we know this content we know what's going to be difficult for kids so what can we do to make sure that that content is accessible to kids in advance before they ever get it so and then we have conferences for local and national conferences and this is where it gets a little broad because you have schools that have their own general fund budgets for professional development that they can fund conferences for their teachers if it matches their strategic plan so whenever they look at their strategic plan and they look at their goals and they look at their strategies they're looking for specific things

015that are going to Target what their goals are same thing from a district perspective we have title two funds that we use our content coordinators to help guide that to some degree because they know the needs of their content and then they will have conferences that they include our coaches on or our department leads on our lead D5 activators on but all of our teacher leaders have access to be able to request those conferences but it's always tied back to what are the Strategic goals what are the acts steps how is it going to be shared when you come back if it's going to be for a personal teacher's gain that may be a personal conference that they may choose to go to but if it's for the larger good of the school or for

016the district then those are things that we try to find ways that we can find so that we're able to benefit from that at Large so that's a big picture of development if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them do I have any questions I actually have a couple of questions if that's okay um so I know you just touched on it a little bit that each school has their own budget allowed for professional development um and this is this Universal the way that they select professional development experiences through every school or does every school kind of determine what professional development their teachers are going to bring in on an individual school basis so it's not consistent it development plan that our schools submit to us and our directors do go through that

017I'll go through those and make sure that that it's consistent with their strategic plan so there is some accountability to it but as far as deciding what's needed within their schools that is a team-based school-based type decision okay and then you mentioned district-wide PD for the lead five teacher choice are the teachers choosing from a predetermined list or are they choosing based off of subject matter or um content matter so it starts off they choose by their content matter first and then once those groups are established then those groups get to talk about for the year or maybe for just the next three months we want to talk about this particular topic and then once that topic sort of decided or resolved then they may choose a different topic that they want to go into

018but they do have choice in kind of the Avenues that they go in but the content is somewhat started is the start off point right so what would you suggest um you know I've heard in different situa from different teachers in different schools that want Specialized or specific professional development opportunities for like say a team or a department that they have found and obviously you're constrained by budget and I totally understand that but when that happens is there like a process where the district offices notified of specific schools that have a request that they can't fulfill every year or in any given year where that could be on a like a watch list or um does that make sense it does because I mean I I think that there's a lot of I've spoken to

019teachers in different schools that really want to you know bring an opportunity into their school but we already have other um you know we've already committed to other programs or it doesn't fit into a school-wide or a district-wide learning opportunity so I'm just I don't really know how to answer those concerns on how we determine you know I'm trying to say it without like specifying the school said this or um does that make sense it does because we actually I can there's been a couple of schools this year that that has come about it fit in the realm of where their school leadership team felt that their school was headed the school could not fully fund what they wanted to do but with Title II funds we were able to assist in a small way

020because the title II funds are budgeted in advance so we have been able to help in that but really they need to go to their principal talk to their principal make sure that it is in line with what their principal sees as a need for the school if their principal can't fund it they can come and ask their director so they could ask Miss Walters for secondary or they could ask Mr Giuliano for elementary and then the three of us would talk about it and see what we could do there is some discussion right now with Title II um that that may be even more of a possibility in the future actually okay thank you very much thank you Mr Satterfield yeah thank you just to share a little bit with you when I was

021principal and I'm sure that a lot of the policies were still in place the principals did have some flexibility because every school and I've worked in all three clusters in this District every school and every section so to speak has different needs and so in order to help those teachers or those uh principals or the staff general staff to meet the needs of their specific students they certainly would allow them to have professional development if there was a new initiative that came down that was real important then that would be mandated to make sure that teachers knew about that a new initiative and that everybody was on the right track I remember when data teams came about Lord we met weekly on data teams we had a lot of professional development the schools in the

022district thought it was very important and for all schools to be on board so if there was an important initiative we we were responsible principals were responsible for making sure that teachers understood that so that they would be on the right page but they did give us some flexibility for each school and so you had a so you had a perf in the day in the old day you did have a professional development budget that you could you know talk with your teachers have teachers meetings uh your faculty advisory Council or whatever would bring up issues and so that principals did have that flexibility this mccaskill and asked Rachel if you can advance the slide and we're going to talk about the administrator's position on academic freedom there's been so much discussion and emails and

023media about the academic freedom policy and its implementation in School District Five I want to be very clear I do not make comments about staff or students uh in any detail in public form but I do think it's important to talk about the policy in terms of the administration's position in public forum and uh one of the things I think is important to understand is that there's been a lot of discussion do we teach systematic racism or systemic racism do you believe in it do what's what is that position and I I think I need to be clear Rachel we can go to the next slide on what we do teach we teach our standards our skills and characteristics I have not seen a standard on on racism in the state of South Carolina and

024so when the the discussion of do we teach systematic racism comes up I am confused because there is no standard on that now what do we have standards on we have standards on critical thinking we have standards on debate we have standards on making argumentative essays we have standards on rhetoric we have standards on helping students think for themselves and so in using that you can do that by using different topics you can use race you can use class you can use religion you can use nationality you can use ethnicity you can use a lot of different topics what's important to understand as we we look at the the purpose of the academic freedom policy is on the next slide it's that first bullet if you can see is that at the end of the

025day when it comes to any of these topics that our community hasn't worked out that is the student's point of view that that is elevated that the student must be able to reach independent conclusions after hearing all sides of a controversial issue we teach the student to develop that we promise our community and our students that they have that academic freedom we promise our students that the teachers will not attempt to directly or indirectly limit or control the Judgment of any student and that is the students ideas that come through we say to our community that they have the right in this policy this policy is not new it goes back to 2011. and says that in this policy they have to write as a parent if they have an issue to there there is

026there's remedy for them we would ask that they go to that teacher first nine times out of ten you go to the teacher the issue is resolved however the administrator is there if you go to the next slide you can see how the administrative rule procedures work we want our teachers this is public uh you think about our students are watching so this will be in the classrooms they're going to ask why why were they there what were they talking about and we're going to present signs that we've heard at the last board meeting signs that we'll hear here but we're going to ask that student to decide for themselves what is truth to them you know whether it was Alexander the Great learning from Aristotle or Aristotle learning from Plato or Plato Learning from

027Socrates they all taught the same thing think for yourself how many times are we see even adults get news from One Source and claim it as truth and now we have our students they're learning from us I would love for our students to hear all sides taking different points of view and determine their truth that's the academic freedom that we have to have in our country because now students are not listening to just one Outlet to listen to just one person of one Outlet so how does that happen how what what happens if a parent finds redress if there's something that they think shouldn't be talked about we're going to stand behind the notion to talk about it but we're going to refer them to the standard standard is that student coming up with their

028own thesis developing an argument behind it supporting it with evidence and coming up with an independent conclusion all their own that's the academic freedom entitled to every student here so if there's an issue it's handled at the school it's handled at the school between the teacher and the principal the principle is not available it can come to a district administrator it doesn't come to the board until the third offense that's to allow the school and that that teacher to use those materials when you pick up the paper in our in our current events class they're going to talk about it but the true scholar you will never know their position I remember one of my students who's been reading the paper she said Dr Ross we used to take bets I'm not going to call

029the teacher stain on what political party this teacher was because we could never tell by the way she ran her classroom we didn't know if she was democrat or republican or we didn't know she was liberal conservative she would question us and the way the Socrates would Chris question his students if you said the sky was blue so how do you know what evidence you have to support that we took back 50 who could prove who she voted for because she would continue to challenge us to think for ourselves that's the academic freedom that we promote in this District as the citizenry that I want to see for the future I wish my children believed everything I believed and agreed with me on every position I took but they don't but I'll be rest assured

030if they can say independent and evaluating all positions I was able to come up with this position myself so I want to make sure that you know as people think about is this a board issue or not it's not a board issue it's a discussion between a department chair and a teacher a teacher and a principal and a teacher and a parents under the guise of the academic freedom policy so in my opinion the the the feelings and the thoughts of the adults are very important to me as superintendent but what matters most to me what matters most to me is that my students have the ability to hear six and seven different opinions on one topic and come up with their own thesis support it with evidence and come up with an independent conclusion

031I'll say this as a personal story my daughter came home one day and she said that we've learned about the Civil War I said well tell me where'd you learn she said it was about the workers I said to who she said you know like us the workers I said uh baby girl I don't know if you well you've read that right but uh there were no employees on the implantation she said well that's what was said in class today I asked the teacher a copy the book that we used to call enslaved people workers and sure enough in the book it said the Eli Whitney's cotton gin improve the or made the work made life easier for the workers something to that effect and it was right there in print and she had to

032write about how the cotton gin improve life for the workers and I wrote to the principal into the district and to the state and to the publisher and I asked can a second opinion be introduced into that class a narrative from an enslaved person a first-hand account of how it actually was on the plantation and I'm proud to say that I didn't talk about removing any idea but introducing another opinion sometimes there's going to be topics that you agree with and there's going to be topics that you disagree with academic freedom says even if you disagree with it there'll be another opinion presented to our children our democracy needs that we can't handle differences and I need academic freedom so that the Next Generation can with that I'll take any questions on academic freedom policy

033thank you Dr Ross and just as a note we do have under our discussion agenda a more thorough conversation about um this policy IB academic freedom under um 19 and and 20 about controversial material so um with that does anyone on the board have any questions or comments at this time Mr Satterfield yeah uh thank you Dr Ross for sharing your your feelings and your thoughts on that uh you know again I was in education for 33 years um I was a teacher a coach and a principal and I I really wrestled with this all of this I I went through the board policy I'm one of those that really studies this stuff because a lot of the stuff you sort of learn because of something that happens An Occurrence takes place like what's happening

034tonight and what happened last board meeting um this policy also says boards must protect teachers from any censorship or restraint what what Dr Ross was was talking about is absolutely true we do need to have open and honest discussions but they do need to be open and honest think about that open and honest discussions I'll save the rest of my comments for later thank you Mr Satterfield um I just feel compelled to say because of what you just said [Music] um and I'm gonna I'm gonna limit it at this the board the board conversations with teachers in in the sense that you're you're saying I mean that I'm taking it and I may be taking it wrong they need to be open and honest with the teacher but not necessarily with the public individual situations

035or not the matter of the public so and I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it at that let me just add one thing to it the the the point of this and I know Dr Ross did his best to explain it and there is a process there's always been a process in place for parents I was a principal I I promise you I know I cannot remember an issue and Dr Ross can correct me because he worked with me I never had an issue at my school that we could not resolve at the school level but when board members get involved is as Dr Ross said this should never get to the board if it makes it if it goes through the proper channels we should be demonstrating that we support these teachers we don't demonstrate

036that by making public comments Mr Satterfield I am not trying to cut you off because I I'm not this is not about that at all I we just have a full conversation on that coming up so I don't want to um go off track on the agenda because we're still in the middle of a superintendent's report okay no problem does anyone else have any questions right for this right this second Mr Scully yeah real quickly um and this is in reference to a point that you made Dr Ross I I when you said that you want you would it would be great for your daughter or your child to agree with everything you said or felt I I take a different position um I I don't want my child to agree with me um on

037everything because I am frequently wrong and um it's I I rely on the teachers to pres present and provide additional viewpoints outside of my own and so I appreciate that and I want to protect that Mr Scully anyone else all right thank you Dr Ross we will come back what is the term we will Circle back to that in just a little while and so we will continue with your superintendent's report thank you madam chair members of the board and and I concur I think you know I want to make a clarification is you know probably trying to be facetious and when I shouldn't be but the the goal is um at the end of the day that that students we're developing that whether they're um their own sense of self and and it's going

038to go into what I'm talking about now why this is so important um there is I I use this picture because it reminds me of uh of a story about the Messiah the 54 countries on the continent of Africa over 3 000 tribes Messiah not one of the largest tribes but they're very famous because their Warriors are lion hunters and they hunt lions with Spears and sticks and you have to be very brave to do that and when two Messiah Warriors see each other they have a greeting if you hit the next slide button here it's cancerian and Guerra cancerian and Guerra and that phrase translated means and how are the children my disposition the reason I'm in education is just that question there how are the children that's when I talk about the positions

039we put our children in on academic freedoms yes of value every teacher we have here all 1416 of them but they joined me in asking that question how are the children and so I think it's important as we look forward to this year to to be able to answer that collectively um not all of our children are well what's interesting about these Messiah Warriors there's only one acceptable question answer to this this question how are the children and that is which means all the children are well because if all the children are well with the Messiah know is that the nation is in trouble the future is in trouble and so my continual asks is that we join together until we can all say that all the children are well and so how will we

040do that if we go to the next slide we do it by adding something a new tool to the tool belt labeling our emotions used to be that we would say that when kids came into the building everybody was ready to learn and now we have to ask that question how are you feeling and what we realize is that not all of our students can label all their feelings they don't know all their emotions none of our adults can do it either and so what's interesting is if you look at these emotions learning doesn't take place in all of these emotions you go to the next slide Rachel you'll see James Russell a psychologist in 1980 created What's called the circumplex model of effect and what he said is that these four domains of active

041and passive positive and negative we can organize our emotions that the prefrontal cortex where that learning takes place that deeper learning takes place does not happen in the negative so when kids are angry or afraid or sad or depressed we're not able to teach they're not able to learn now they're excited or happy then learning can take place but it takes a lot of energy to keep our kids excited and happy every single day where's the best learning take place is in the passive positive where children are calm content at peace my goal this year Madam chair members of the board is to create an environment where 17 500 students have the ability to put themselves in that positive passive voice that mindset that emotional state well they have the tools to move from sad

042to content to move it to peace to move from angry to come to move from depressed to at peace to give them those tools our children are dealing with a lot and our teachers are dealing with a lot as they address those needs of the students and we need to give them those skills what gives us that Authority if you go to the next slide Rachel I go back to the profile of the South Carolina graduate because in the profile it outlines life and career characteristics it outlines our goal to give the students integrity and self-direction perspective perseverance work ethic and these interpersonal skills so Madam chair members of the board in our community on the next slide you'll see our objective for this coming year and as teaching Bell to Bell with SEL social

043emotional learning working with our students to give them the tools addressing the whole child curriculum continuum so that we can get our students ready that they feel safe that they're healthy that they have their mental health issues addressed those emotions that we can work in the community to address social issues like hunger and housing that we can work with those negative behaviors that interfere with learning and we can accelerate students who need acceleration and provide support for those students who need supports and when all of that Continuum is done that umbrella protection we will see the academic gains that our community expects we will ask ourselves that question this year and how are the children and with our staff our teachers our administrators and our community our parents we will work all we work constantly

044so that we can respond all the children are well the next slide shows the story that we're going to tell our wonderful children the reason that we're here and working together to provide that that opportunity because that is our vision that we love and grow our students and I'm excited about the upcoming year as we continue to see them grow Madam chair that concludes the superintendent's report and I stand for any questions do I have any questions from the board um I just have a comment and just I looking at the emotional state of mind and our goal being that we want the passive positive or positive passive that children are content and calm you know as a you know as a mom of two or three two elementary school children in a four-month-old with

045my elementary school students daughters I noticed that that is the hardest to achieve and they have I mean I would think a pretty ideal situation but being content and calm all the time or even a majority of the time is Pretty Tough so when you look at that as the goal and you compare that to the profile of the highest of the South Carolina graduate and one of the skills the world-class skills that you're looking for is communication information media and Technology it's almost like it's an oxymoron because it's really hard to have a young person's mind content and calm with all of the outside noise that we didn't necessarily have when we were all growing up and so that's a challenge and I know that that's you know especially post-coded World technology has definitely

046like dug in and you can't what is it that you say you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube I do understand that but you know I I make the comment because as we work forward to making sure that all of our students are taken care of especially in an emotional state it would be nice to see more Hands-On more personal personalized interaction instead of like the technology and just putting so much media in front of kids and that's just my I'm just voicing my opinion I know that it's not necessarily always as easy as it is to say but I just I feel like that's a very hard that is a this being passive positive that is definitely the the ultimate goal to strive for and we should absolutely do that I'm just

047acknowledging how tough that is in practice um you know for parents for teachers for everyone and that we want a systematic view of it uh common vocabulary that expands all of our schools but you could go to some of our schools now who are putting these practices in place the biggest thing is just recognizing what emotion you're in and giving those students those vocabulary you know what are you feeling by just engaging in that and we've seen it from elementary we've seen it in secondary to see it go in a classroom and a teacher who does a circle and asks those kids to kind of address those issues that they have it allows for learning to take place so we want to launch that system-wide and give give our students those tools to to handle

048those tough feelings so they can move towards that you will end up in a lot of these different areas but having the skills yourself to move yourself into a place of of peace I think we're giving the children lifelong skill that we're all going to learn from Mr Satterfield yeah I want to say one other thing and I want to brag on Dr Ross here he is very forward thinking and considering the um the different needs of our children you can either share Dr Ross or I can butcher it but he has started a new initiative to help students in one of our feeder schools do you want to talk just a second because this is quite it's quite impressive you know I worked at Chapin High School where raising 35 000 in two weeks

049was not difficult but I also worked at Seven Oaks where I'd pack 100 food bags a day for kids Dr Ross is starting an initiative to help students can you just give a 30 seconds yes sir thank you so much for that and I appreciate that we are realizing if you take the you look at the state of South Carolina we average 7.5 hours of school a day and you just think about over the course of a year how long we have our students we have them from the the time they're awake the time they go to bed we have them about 20 percent of their their year the other 80 percent they're in the community now some of our students are getting a lot of enrichment during that 80 percent but not all of

050our students and so uh we're asking our teachers to do so much to address the mental health issues and teach and help with the social issues it's a lot on our teachers and so we started an initiative in an area working in Irmo I see the Mayors here and we've been able to put our staff after schooling during the summer in the community to help with we call it wrap around services for those families a child will learn better when they know at home is secure and we're seeing some great Returns on that already I want to thank Julia Scott for his work there and Dr Harris for making that happen and so we look forward to coming to the board to give a full report on what we call Our Community Support Services thank

051you all right anyone else all right Dr Ross thank you very much that moves us to number nine on our agenda the approval of the minutes of the June 26 2023 board meeting do I have a motion Mr Hogan I'd like to make the notion that we approved the minute to the June 26 2023 board meeting do I have a second Miss huddle I saw Miss Huddle's hand for sorry any discussion uh call for the vote all in favor that motion carries seven to zero and that moves us to the public participation portion of this meeting and before we call our first name I know we have several speakers tonight um I would just like to read a statement that says the board welcomes and encourages public participation we respectfully ask that you adhere to

052the procedures provided in board policy bedh public participation at meetings your comments should be limited to three minutes and must remain on either the topic noted in your sign-in form or a listed agenda item questions asked during public participation will be handled in accordance with board policy b e d h and I believe Miss Taylor will call the first Speaker yes thank you madam chair our first speaker is Sheena Wilson to speak about academic [Music] where's my buzzer man I was right there so I want to start over um good evening I'm here tonight to speak as a deeply concerned parent and taxpayer in this school district and an ally for teachers in public education three minutes is not enough time to sufficiently cover my concerns with the issues that have Arisen in the school

053district over the past number of years I've seen a decline in the learning and teaching environment of the school district along with our state and National reputation and it is documented that members of the previous board and the current are heavily implicated in that decline recent unwanted attacks have been launched against an educator at Chapin High School this educator is highly regarded in her testing performance is well above the average for the course she teaches given the animosity of the recent Board elections and the relationship this educator has to that process it seems quite likely that this teacher is being targeted by a small voice politically minorities who often are not even residents of the school district this suspicion is bolstered by the recent targeted foia request and then weigh the information in these foyer

054requests has been weaponized to damage this District employee's reputation I'm appalled that this district has repeatedly sacrificed the best interest and safety of its teachers and students so that outside political groups can impact the majority of our district children and teachers in terrible ways this is political cowardice not service-based leadership it is an it is known that school board positions are frequently viewed as springboards to Greater political office but it is shocking to see open political alignment and pressure brought by energies that are not within our district to negatively impact the educational opportunities of our students it's embarrassing and obvious let me remind you you don't work for extremist groups to fill a political agenda you work for us you aren't fulfilling your obligations as elected officials and you are making a mockery of your

055positions I ask that you use your position of leadership to which you were elected to preserve the ability of our students to learn and rigorous challenging environments that will better prepare them for the future lives in a diverse and integrated Society outside of the homogeneous attitude of their homes and hometowns thank you foreign is here to speak about an AP English class greetings I am chairwoman of the education Committee of the Lexington branch of the NAACP and a retired school counselor all children have a right to a free and appropriate education no matter their race or ethnicity certain individuals and moms for Liberty are trying to prohibit a free and appropriate public education and divide communities as well as students with their cause these divisive actions of a few hurt all students furthermore these tactics

056engender the demise of the teaching profession especially when districts are hard-pressed to hire and retain good teachers advanced placement courses and tests are designed by the College Board in the United States and Canada not by the teacher or the district consider that college level coursework may not be developmentally appropriate for some students even though they may be high achieving students and parents choose enrollment in AP courses teachers provide syllabi at the beginning of the term hence School leadership students and parents are aware of the course content including supplementary material and assignments this there is no doubt that allowing a few individuals and moms for Liberty to threat the good of all students for no other reason than feelings would certainly cause far more harm than the AP English course assignment and question how about other

057ethnicities in the district such as African-American Hispanic Asian and those of multiple races and others who who consider their feelings during the teaching of sensitive historical topics such as slavery the Civil War the building of the Transcontinental Railroad the attack on Pearl Harbor the American southwest and others will a few and moms for Liberty cause the total disregard of the rights of all of these students will the district leadership acquiesce I play Pray not we applaud Ms wood for being an advocate for the education of all students and her Noble service we strongly support her we she must be reinstated and restored to full employment status immediately she has demonstrated Excellence with resulting in consistent strong test scores we thank the board for their opportunity this opportunity and we remind you of your commitment to

058the success of all students and retaining excellent teachers for them we urge you retain Ms wood thank you teachers for your commitment to the education of all students Patrick Funk is here to speak about the controversial topics policy I'm Patrick Funk father of two children District Five and former Chapman High English teacher is 17 years the previous school year was my last with the district and I hope to explain a little about why when I started in 2006 I inherited an English 2 curriculum that opened with Sophocles ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex this play long accepted as a literary classic tells the story of Oedipus who becomes king of Thieves upon saving its people and marrying their Queen unfortunately in his pursuit of the throne Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother with

059whom he has four children in order to rid his kingdom of a terrible plague Oedipus is forced to reckon with his true identity uncomfortable as it may be in the end Oedipus gouges out his eyes and banishes himself in the Kingdom this after learning his wife mother inconsolable has committed suicide it plays major events centered around incest violence and self-harm despite this community's seeming objections to controversial materials I've never seen a challenge to this piece of work despite it being taught regularly at high schools across the district obviously I'd never promote any of these ideas nor would any teacher I've ever met perhaps you're wondering why I teach a play like this why read something that makes us uncomfortable why bother with tragedy at all let alone tragedy that involves such grisly details escalus another

060notable Greek playwright wrote that wisdom comes through suffering when we are comfortable we're not likely to learn much today was good today repeat the same tomorrow but when life gets difficult we learn a lot in fact the purest tragedy is one in which our suffering is empty and begets no knowledge instead festering into bitterness hate or resentment Oedipus suffers a lot but he will never get at the truth without this discomfort and the truth as uncomfortable as it may be is what sets his people free this is why we continue to teach Oedipus not because of the lurid details but because the play shows us that education and discomfort are inseparable and necessary for intellectual Freedom a thing that anyone promoting Liberty ought to Champion policy that puts student Comfort especially is vaguely defined in

061this District's current policy above their need to learn is doomed to fail since it undermines the uncomfortable process of Education altogether critical thinking requires us to hold different ideas in different lights with a willingness to explore them earnestly critical thinking and exposure to a wide variety of ideas some uncomfortable are not the ingredients of indoctrination they are its antidotes I left D5 after watching the public excoriation of my colleagues for attempting to do such Noble things as challenge students to be better critical thinkers these teachers rather than being celebrated have been unfairly maligned and misrepresented both by members of the community and members of the school board until they offer full-throated support for their Educators D5 will continue to Hemorrhage them for our educational system to be viable the ability to challenge students must be

062part of the support David Foster Wallace wrote that the truth will set you free but not until it's finished with you it's not finished here in D5 and it won't be so long as we're too frightened to stare it down thank you [Applause] David Jenkins is here to speak about supporting teachers good evening and I want to be very clear that I'm here to support teachers I love teachers and we see them I don't know who would want to be a teacher in this day and age the way we treat them my family my kids have been in this District as an elementary school in middle school and high school my daughter just graduated from Irmo High my son just great he's going to be a sophomore at Irmo High this fall and they have

063benefited from tremendous Educators and staff in this district and I am very proud of the staff that we have me personally I've benefited I've been impacted by Educators all my life my kids have been impacted my wife has been impacted I cannot say enough to support our educators do Educators need oversight we're not arguing that they don't but I have plenty of faith everything I've seen gives me faith that our educators are trained and they have the best interests of our students at heart and I leave it in their hands and I'm I'm really happy that with the experience we've had we all are going to encounter ideas that we find disagreeable but a healthy Society is one that can evaluate those ideas and discuss them and not dismiss them off hand I want to

064reiterate that I support teachers that I love teachers and that our society is better for teachers and our nation is better for teachers thank you Beth biedenbeau is here to speak about concerns about following the challenge policy foreign good evening my name is Beth bedenbaugh I'm a retired teacher of Lexington Richland 5. over my 33 years as an educator I taught language arts and South Carolina history so I know how to teach a novel and U.S history as a parent and a teacher I am here to share my concerns over the incident with the novel at Chapin High when a novelist taught vocabulary is introduced to students so that students can understand the ideas that will be presented in this case the term was systemic racism this is not I repeat not the teaching of

065critical race Theory this is how a novelist taught you as a board administrator should support good teaching practices which this is teachers are leaving the profession in droves and largely because of things like this number two never take a novel out of kids hands especially after it's already been handed out number three follow the district policy for challenging books if a parent or student challenges a book then they should have to follow the procedure of filling out an official challenge form and present it to the powers that be not just send an email then the district appointed commit they can meet to decide if the challenge book should continue to be used in D5 currently I believe the book is removed until the committee meets this is wrong why should one challenge lead to the

066immediate removal of a book why should one parent be able to decide for someone else's child what they can or cannot read most parents support and Trust teachers in these decisions and the superintendent administrators and you the board should support them as well some parts of History should make kids uncomfortable I am a proud American and there are many things in our history that we should be proud of but there are also many things in our history that are not good in fact they're quite horrible I as the teacher wanted my kids to feel bad or to feel uncomfortable why because this creates empathy which hopefully will help prevent the bad parts of our history from repeating itself when teaching slavery in the Civil Rights Movement my students were horrified that African-Americans were treated this

067way some would even be moved to tears as details became specific but this was a good thing because they saw a horrible specific events were my students became empathetic toward their plight and would then vowed that history would not repeat itself if kids don't learn about the difficult stuff if they don't become uncomfortable history will repeat itself if slaves Native Americans Jews the Little Rock Nine Ruby Bridges women suffragettes and other groups can endure what they did then our kids can most certainly learn about it no matter how uncomfortable it makes them because that ladies and gentlemen keeps us from repeating the bad parts of history that is how we become a better country we all of us need to trust and support our teachers not cower to the loud minority thank you [Music] foreign

068Kathy Hogan is here to speak about censorship and freedom of expression I'm not sure I can follow back but I'm going to give it a try because I feel passionately about this I really appreciate your remarks Dr Ross and the remarks made by Mr Satterfield about this issue but I think we still need to think about the politics that are involved here because I'm appalled at what happened last month you heard from local politicians who didn't come in the interest of District Five they came here to to win some support from their conservative voters and in the process they smeared the reputation of a gifted teacher they claim that the assigned book promoted Marx's Marxist ideas undermine America's founding documents this book is not about Marxism I read it have you read it I hope

069you all have read it I read it twice I might read it a third time African-American writers and leaders want the Fulfillment of the promises made in the Declaration of Independence if we truly want to give students the opportunity to be free of indoctrination we must support teachers who challenge their students to think for themselves as said did Mr wood the partisan nature of this attack was evidenced Again by the subsequent censure of chairman Hines by the Lexington County GOP for not demanding the immediate dismissal of Miss Wood even though that would be a violation board policy thank you chairman Heights I appreciate your valuing the process it is all about due process I hope you all are committed to following word policy teachers make difficult instructional decisions every day I know I was in

070the classroom and taught AP US History and boy there were some difficult days and they may be challenged by students who fear that they can't rise to that challenge they they literally you know they're they're a little intimidated by the the difficulty of the course and we can't let that stand in their way of learning as Miss biedenbaugh said once somebody said I can't even remember but they they well noted the fact that they intro that she introduced the assignment by showing two short videos and they were about getting the kids ready so again and I believe as well that if students are uncomfortable that's a good thing I I appreciate that somebody's already remarked that the students and their parents should go first the teacher and then the principal and follow their concerns Any

071teacher will provide an alternate assignment that the students who are intimidated by the assignment May then go to so I want you to just consider the fact that we need to stay out of politics we need to be careful about what we write and there is still racism and inequity in our world and our kids need to do something about it so we got to train them to do it so thank you all you teachers who do Mallory green is here to speak about banning books without following proper procedure foreign hi my name is Mallory green I'm 14 years old hello to the board members my parents taught me to be a critical thinker not every student in this district has that luxury between the world and me was banned because it talks about issues

072that make people uncomfortable we cannot become critical thinkers without being uncomfortable in some way if students can't learn these things in a safe space like school how are they we meant to make good decisions and think critically we need to be exposed to diverse perspectives and points of view different from our past exp different from our past experiences own I'm about to enter high school and have yet to have encountered a major piece of literature written by a person of color as required reading in any of my district five classes without the guidance of our teachers and parents many of us would only be as well informed about racial issues as the odd video video we encounter on social media there's an expert excerpt in between the world and me where the author tanahasi Coates

073speaks about his childhood in Baltimore Coates talks about how he grew up thinking of the United States like a Galaxy he contrasts the idyllic white Suburbia on the TV with his own world I live on the other side of coatsa's childhood Galaxy I've grown up privileged and comfortable being able to be exposed to these other points of view brings awareness not shame however if the school district continues to censor these important outlooks will become blind to them there is shame in that [Applause] Josh gray is here to speak about censorship and support for teachers my time started yet there we go so um yeah I think I know most of you up here I assume you have received my emails and I appreciate the responses that I have received I'm here not to speak as

074a member of this community and a taxpayer in this District I am an educator myself and I am the child of a public educator my mother taught for 27 years Northside Middle School over in West Columbia um like many others behind me I'm here tonight to speak in support of public education public Educators teachers faculty staff Administration students in the communities that they serve you know and I am specifically here around the same issue to support the teacher at Chapin High School in the middle of this political controversy that has largely been kicked up because of local state and National political groups bringing this to Bear we saw them last board meeting many of whom are not in our district and they claim to speak on behalf of the community and family so I am

075a person in this community I'm a taxpayer they do not speak for me they do not speak for a lot of people behind me um and you know I'd like to make that clear a few other things you know I saw the presentation Dr Ross and and I appreciated that um I started all thinking some notes but my perception and what I understand is that that policy was not followed and I think that's the problem um right is that a small number of students are able to effectively censor a lesson for the entire school school district that is a problematic position no matter where you stand bye bye calculus bye-bye geometry right if it's a question of my subjective anguish you can't tell me what makes me feel anguished later that is a really really

076difficult thing I also want to mention uh you know in the last speaking of history in our last election for the seeds were won by three candidates who were not particularly politically extreme and you know I think that is something that you all should pay attention to as well when these guys show up and they yell at you started with code you're watching you well we're watching YouTube I'm about to do an office and and I think you should remember that um I want to close this by saying my understanding of school boards is this is supposed to be essentially an oversight group for Education it's not as many people behind me said it's not meant to be a political witness test I'm not going to be a political springboard and so uh you know

077I guess I ask that you keep in mind as you contemplate whatever policy you're going to put in place around these issues or policy changes you know um the things you do and say I want to reflect yeah they're going to reflect on you but who's going to really carry this forward to the kids in our district they're the ones that have to go out and compete National and internationally and I can tell you as a redneck who has worked all over the world and with people from all over the world don't make the perception that they have to go out and compete against worse by actions like this that do not reflect well in our community it is not helping those students thank you for your time have a nice night Tess Pratt is

078here to speak about CRT my name is Tess Pratt and I'm the English department chair at Chapin High School every time that a member of our community addresses the board and supports the narrative that teachers are teaching CRT or indoctrinating our students our hearts grow so heavy think about what they are suggesting that we are repeatedly stating beliefs or ideas to our students until they accept them without criticism or question that's indoctrination this is completely antithetical to what we do each and every day in our English classrooms our state standards require that our students engage in inquiry transact with texts consider multiple perspectives collaborate with peers analyze synthesize form conclusions cite evidence and determine meaning this is literally what we do every day in our classrooms with regards to CRT as the department head at

079Chapin High School I can assure you that our school has never had any professional development or training on CRT we have not dedicated a single leadership meeting faculty meeting or Wednesday planning to CRT training or implementation we have never discussed it at an English Department meeting except to ask what it is because we've never we've been accused of teaching it I've never seen CRT mentioned in any of our administrative Communications CRT is not a thing at Chapin High School Mary wood taught tanahasi coasters between the world and me an appropriate text for an AP level classroom it was I who ordered the book for her class it was approved by Administration the previous year and taught without incident her use of this book supports the AP requirement of multiple perspectives as related to studying argument

080and developing skills for civil discourse furthermore all questions posed related to the text and supplementary materials invited students to give their own opinions while also analyzing for rhetorical elements making connections to other texts and posing interpretive and analytical questions she is an excellent AP teacher as is evidenced by her 82.6 percent pass rate in 2022 and 80 pass rate in 2023 far surpassing the global pass rate of 55.7 percent in closing I became a high school English teacher 34 years ago because I believe that every human being has a story I believe that every story deserves to be told I believe that we are connected by our stories and that without these shared stories we would be a world without empathy I have dedicated my entire life to sharing such stories both fiction and non-fiction

081with my students I have shared my own stories with my students throughout these years and invited them to do the same with me on the day that I took tanahasi coates's books out of the hands of Miss Woods students I silenced his story Miss Pratt even though this was a decision that was not mine I will regret that moment in front of those students for the rest of my life because it was wrong Miss Pratt thank you [Applause] Dr Lauren garer is here to speak about supporting teachers Administration and District leaders mm-hmm good evening my name is Dr Lauren Gare I'm an English teacher at Dutch Fork High School the head cheerleading coach at Chapin middle school and the mom of a future kindergartner at River Springs Elementary I'm here tonight to encourage the board

082to trust the process trust our district leaders and teachers to uphold the policies already in place for questioning curriculum and to leave curriculum planning in the hands of professionals where it should be I asked the board to follow their own policies and not their personal beliefs if our community members and parents want to be stakeholders in their children's education encourage them to follow policy and engage in civil communication about educational concerns through the proper channels our district office leaders our school administrators and our teachers are amazing we work together and use our experience in education to create instructional material that is rigorous and challenging because that is what we are trained to do aside from Dr Ross only one of you on the school board has it has been a teacher before he has 33

083years in education almost every single cluster in our district except for him though none of y'all are Educators none of y'all went to college to be educators the only people that should be deciding what should be taught in a classroom and is good instructing instruction are teachers what the school board should do is enforce policies to support Educators district and school leaders and the diverse Learners of our district support teachers especially when there is a crippling teacher shortage and it would be irresponsible to engage in rhetoric and policy making that will lose even more teachers teachers don't keep their curriculum choices a secret we create a syllabus every year that details policies and procedures in our classroom and the specific texts that we are going to teach I taught an AP class once and I

084had to get it approved not only by my API but by the College Board as well our syllabus statements are not secret we email them and we post them to our website if you want to know what's going on in a classroom pay attention or just ask as a district we already have policies in place for students and parents to reach out as Dr Ross mentioned when you receive concerns from community members over curriculum please encourage them to follow the policy that you guys already have in place we are a district for public education our current policies support the education of all students not just the beliefs of a few I trust current D5 policy as a teacher and a mother I trust the English teacher at Chapin with over 14 years of experience and

085a master's degree in teaching I trust the English Department at Chapin High because in the past six years that I've been here they have not only created a district teacher of the year but also a state teacher of the year I trust the um the whole District all of our leaders and teachers because they educate thousands of students from all backgrounds in all schools I trust the process because the success is clear if you truly want to know what's going on in our classrooms have frequent conversations with Educators from all across our district not just certain schools and as always as I ask you guys when I come before you please come and visit my classroom anytime to see the great things that are happening at Dutch Fork High School thank you [Music] thank you

086Kristin Devers is here to speak about supporting teachers hi my name is Kristen Devers I have been an educator for 20 years with experience in elementary middle and high school serving as both a teacher and an administrator during this time period however I started my hardest job in 2011 when my daughter was born I spent over 10 years and thousands of dollars earning academic degrees to teach me how to be an educator you become a parent they send you home with a couple of brochures and some good luck wishes I remember looking at her when she was born and experiencing this overwhelming feeling of Love and Desire to protect her and it's scary you're responsible for a human now when they're small you're terrified you're going to break them just by putting their pajamas on

087and as they get bigger you buy everything on the market to safeguard your house before you know it they start daycare or school and it's the first time you have to trust someone to take care of this little human that belongs to you I'll be honest I cried on our first day with a sitter she didn't each experience as a first time parents knew but we learn it's uncomfortable at times and during this parenting Journey we get advice from our family our pediatrician our church our friends parenting groups parent groups on social media we learn from all these sources and ultimately we construct the knowledge on our own that's needed to be successful parents a child's learning process it happens in much the same way parents and Educators share the same goal of keeping children

088safe and we both provide them with valuable resources along their Learning Journey Educators facilitate learning by teaching children to think critically to analyze information to communicate their thoughts to collaborate with others and present their ideas parents and teachers should be one team with the overall goal of ensuring the success of children learning is and should be challenging students need to confront ideas and all subjects wrestle with difficult questions think critically and construct their own knowledge for learning to be transformative it will be uncomfortable at times when we never expose our children to ideas other than our own we are depriving them of the opportunities to learn from others just like when we became a parent we learn from others it was super super uncomfortable at first because everything was new we owe our children the

089same opportunities to learn about the world they live in and its history even though it may be uncomfortable at times unfortunately censoring books instruction based on the political agendas of a few takes away these opportunities for children I only want the decisions about what my child can learn being made by professional Educators like the ones in this district and surrounding districts I do not want to witness more qualified Educators exiting the profession because we've taken away their professional autonomy the number of teaching vacancies Rose by 39 this past school year by February 800 more teachers had left the profession I want to see Educators staying in the profession in a safe and diverse learning environment for all Jennifer rice is here to speak about controversial sensitive issues hello my name is Dr Jennifer ice I'm

090a proud graduate of Irmo High School and proud parent of teen girls who attend a Dutch a D5 High School I'm young but yet a first generation student who is educated at integrated schools my children's grandparents did not receive the same opportunities that my children now receive Dr Ross and Mr Satterfield basically said everything I wanted to say please follow District policy support teachers help support students thoughts to arrive at independent conclusions I spoke with my daughters about the situation that occurred at Chapin High School and they said they would feel forgotten if the same situation occurred in their classroom when I asked one to come speak she stated and I quote she didn't want to receive hate from 50 year olds on social media it's so sad that a 15 year old realizes she

091could face social media criticism from adults for having a different viewpoint when we don't teach our children to think for themselves we create divisive robots I remember feeling very uncomfortable in a District 5 classroom when during a discussion about slavery a classmate commented that slaves were happy I was one of the few students of color in that room and I vividly remember my classmates looking for me to respond was I uncomfortable yes did I grow from that situation absolutely I was also able to educate my classmates with a different perspective I want my children to be challenged to think for themselves I want them to feel heard and learn how to express themselves I want my children to have teachers who feel supported and encouraged not demonized I also know my limitations and do not

092want to educate my children myself because I don't see how anyone wants to teach anymore thank you to the teachers thank you to the board for supporting these teachers and thank you to all the parents that are here tonight foreign Josh Malkin is here to speak about books are good evening my name is Josh melkin I'm a former educator and now the senior advocacy strategist for the ACLU of South Carolina I will say books are good is an official ACLU policy statement I first read between the world and me before I entered my own classroom it challenged me as I struggled to understand the author's lived experience which was so different from my own coach led her to his 15 year old son does exactly what many good books are written to do it opened

093my eyes to a different world a world that had existed alongside my own for my entire life but that I had never been forced to see during my years in the classroom my experiences with my students helped me see this world and better better understand the advice that coats offered his son Seth wearing his school sweatshirt was prevented from observing a debate tournament Tim was pushed from school to prison by a zero tolerance policy that valued the tidiness of his uniform more than his love of science our zoo was killed unable to escape the systems that ensnare far too many young black men I saw the world my students had to navigate I have seen the data I have read on comfortable books I believe systemic racism exists Dr King's dream has not yet been

094realized I've heard the viewpoints of those that disagree they are not convincing but this is America and we have the right to disagree we must remember however that truly hearing viewpoints different from our own pushes us perhaps uncomfortably but pushes us to be better thinkers better Debaters better problem solvers better people between the world and me presents us all with a vital challenge listen to this passage from the book I propose to take our country amongst claim of American exceptionalism seriously which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard this is difficult because there exists all around us in apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much I am troubled that people feel that these ideas are dangerous and need to be

095erased or hidden that our children shouldn't inquire too much I am troubled that this District decide to stop its Educator's lesson both for the students who were denied an opportunity to process a new idea and those denied the opportunity to have their reality seen I'm troubled that there are those demanding that this educator should be fired for presenting an idea if we are going to prevent our our Rising leaders from thinking critically we must worry about their ability to solve the complex problems of the present and future if we are going to punish our Educators for presenting ideas that make someone comfortable we must be Gravely concerned about the fundamentally American free Marketplace of ideas if we are going to acquiesce every time those in power call for the suppression of ideas and thought we

096must worry about the future of our democracy I imagine most of you did not expect to find yourself in this moment this moment requires you all to do what is right by the students of this District even if it is unpopular I hope this board can meet this moment I thank you for your time and with with that speaker that concludes public participation that moves us to number 11 on our action agenda action as necessary or appropriate on matters discussed in executive session do I have a motion Mr Hogan like the notion that we approve select an employment items shouldn't exhibit a for Action do you have a second Miss Snipes any discussion I'll call for the vote all in favor that motion carries seven to zero the next item on the agenda is the

097approval of the district's legal services for the fiscal year 2023 2024 in Exhibit C Madam chairman is a board as our CFO Madison poll comes to the lectern we present the legal services we have two lists one outlines the the firms and the other one outlands the attorneys that are listed for the policy so miss Paul thank you Dr Ross good evening again as Dr mentioned Dr Ross mentioned we do have two lists before you board policy bdg governs board attorneys legal services this policy states that the board will evaluate and approve this list at least annually based on the discussion at the last meeting the request was to include all of the attorneys that the district may work with in the in the new fiscal year as well as as their Martindale Hubble ratings

098so on that you'll see that as your second attachment the first one is again the same list that you had the last time this these were the attorneys attorney firms that we use in FY 2223 and they're different um topics that we use them for and then the second attachment will be actually the different attorneys within the firm that we could potentially use in fr24 as well as their Martindale Hubble ratings I do want to just mention that um you know based on the research that we have done there are several attorneys that do not have a Martindale Hubble rating and those are also noted on your sheet as well um so at this time the administration would just recommend the approval of the firms on the second listing as stated thank you Miss Paul

099do we have any uh comments or questions do do I have a motion um a move that we approve the list of attorneys per the second list of Exhibit C drive a second Miss Snipes any more discussion since I asked for discussion before the motion sorry all right uh Mr Scully yeah real quick question um so when we approve the attorney the firms on the second page the attorneys listed specifically are the only ones that we can use from those firms correct yes sir okay all right any more questions I will call for the vote all in favor of Ms Huddle's motion all opposed and Mr Hogan stepdowso he abstained so that motion carries six to zero and that moves us to number 13 the first reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy gcqe

100retirement of professional staff exhibit d if it pleases the board we would like to handle both of these policies are very similar so while it may take two motions we will explain them together if you're okay and then that would go with 14 first reading approval of proposed revisions to board policy GD QC retirement of support staff and I can't ask for a motion if you want or to combine Dr wicker you want to explain go ahead yeah just real quick discussion took place last time first of all good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Ross discussion took place last board meeting regards to board policy gcqe retiremental professional staff and gdqc retirement of support staff to correct outdated eligibility requirements as it pertains to Terry teacher and employee retention incentive program is

101recommendation on the administration that the board approved the first reading of the proposed revisions to board policy gcqe in GC gdqc and proceed to the second and final reading at the August 7 2023 board meeting all right do I have a motion okay Mrs Tuttle um do you want them combined or separate I think it's easier a movie that we approve uh first reading of proposed revisions to board policy gcqe retirement a professional staff and policy GD cute well that's both says oh see gdqc retirement of support staff and our second Miss Barnhart um any any discussion seeing that I'll call for the vote all in favor and that vote carries seven to zero thank you Dr wicker and that moves us to number 15 on the action agenda approval of establishing a procurement review

102panel exhibit f I asked that Ms Madison Paul Come forward as she comes to the lectern one outline that this procurement review panel is uh required through our procurement policy so as Paul we can kind of share what brings this before the board I'll recall it the last board meeting we did talk about presented in our procurement code it is in section 4410 label procurement review panel and it's part of the SE code chapter 11-35-4410 so basically what this States is that their the district does need to create a procurement review panel that the as part of this panel that they will review requests for written determinations by the chief business official pursuant to just sections 4210 which is in relation to the right to protest 4220 which is in relation to the authority to

103debar or suspend and also 42.30 which is in relation to the authority to resolve contract and breach of contract controversies um so each of these items would be written determinations that would be made by myself as the chief business official um within 15 days if there are requests for review of that the committee would then need to convene to review this uh these requests and at that time they would uh the panel would then be formed to be able to review the request the panel is made up of one member of the board that is that would chair the panel um this would be a vote by the Board of Trustees and then the other four members of this panel would be appointed by one by the board chair one by the board Vice chair

104one by the superintendent and one by myself so at that time there would be five members of this board and again it would only convene um as necessary throughout the year and that the members would serve from July 1 through June 30th annually and could be reappointed each year if they so choose so at this time we would recommend that the board decide on a procurement panel chair as a member of the board and then if that is decided I would request that each of you as members to a point would just send your appointed member to me in writing that sounds good so that means that we need a motion or we don't need emotion we need nominations from the floor uh for a chair Miss Snipes I um nominate Captain Scully to chair

105the procurement review panel do I have any others Miss huddle I nominate Matt Hogan to chair the procurement review panel do I we have any others so we will so we're going to do a voice yes Mr Hogan Miss Paul just clarification what would I be able to serve as chair with an appointment of a selected position on this committee yeah so I looked into that in the code it does not address that specific incident so I I do not see anything that would you from serving in that role right and that's because and I think Mr Hogan is saying that because as chair and vice chair we both have appointment powers and then the superintendent and the CFO have appointment powers for that position so um I'm going to call for a Voice vote

106on that so all in favor of um Mr Scully uh raise your hand and all in favor of Mr Hogan all right so Mr Scully has been appointed as the chair of the procurement panel for the next year all right thank you thank you all right that moves us to um the discussion agenda number 16 audit services update manly Garvin auditing process invite Ms Paul to come and introduce our guests good evening thank you I do have the pleasure of introducing Mr Josh Garvin and Mr Luke Vickery here from mainly carbon tonight they're going to give you just a brief update of where they are in the audit process where they're going for us and a timeline of what this audit process will look like so I'll invite them to come forward thank you Miss

107Paul and I appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you tonight board members again my name is Josh Garvin I am the shareholder and CEO of the firm manly Garvin out of Greenwood South Carolina we're here tonight just to kind of give you a brief introduction to ourselves along with myself I have Luke Vickery who's the senior manager on the engagement he'll be leading the day-to-day operations of the firm as it relates to the uh again to the day-to-day uh audit process itself am I giving you the finger there we go all right so who is manly Garvin manly garve is a full service accounting firm residing in Greenwood South Carolina uh we were founded in 2015 but but have a much more robust history uh related to that we were actually part of

108a much larger firm Elliott Davis which you you may have heard of we were the Greenwood office of Elliott Davis from 1955 through 2015. 2015 we had an opportunity uh to Branch out our on our own purchase the uh the practice from Elliott Davis still still remain good friends with those guys and and uh refer work back and forth but that's kind of our history we forged our own path we're proud of where we are we specialize in in governmental auditing So based on our experience with Elliott Davis we uh the only thing we audits are are uh governmental entities in not-for-profits so we we do that I won't read to you but uh we we've got about 25 folks in the office uh two shareholders myself and Jim Manley um next uh talked a

109little bit about the audit team already myself will be leading as the shareholder Luke will be an engagement lead as the senior manager and then we have three other professional staff who will be intimately involved in the audit process this particular engagement team has over 65 years of audit experience with with local school districts so we know what we're doing next timeline interim testing obviously this kind of came at us fast and so we were mindful of that mindful of the size of the engagement the complexity of the engagement so as soon as we were provided an assigned engagement letter we hit the ground running understanding that we were already a little behind the eight ball so our team has done has completed the interim testing we've gotten to where we want to be we're

110still working uh vehemently behind the scenes to get things prepared for the actual year-end audit processes you'll see the timeline there we're looking to do that uh in the September October November time frame with a draft of the financial statements uh to management by November the 20th an issue before the November 30th going forward in future years we'd like to accelerate that time frame that is our that is our objective no again this kind of came at us fast and uh we wanted to step in and help the district uh so we we expect it to to drag a little bit this year but going forward we expect that again to be accelerated into a more uh appropriate time frame next uh what what have we done so far we've we've set our file up

111uh we've worked with uh Miss Paul's team to get everything pulled in as far as trial balances and financial statements uh templates are being prepared again that's kind of the stuff that's going on behind the behind the scenes our audit process as you know is is based on a risk-based Model that's how the auditing procedures require us to do it so we've gone through our risk assessments and know where we're going to concentrate our efforts you'll hear me say this at the conclusion of the audit process as well as as we talk to you board members specifically we do not audit every single transaction if we audited every single transaction we'd be sitting over there with uh with Miss Paul and her team so it is a risk-based audit process and one where materiality comes

112into effect we're not going to audit every single transaction as I've said uh so just just be mindful of that as we go through the audit process and again I've mentioned the board member inquiries part of our planning process is that we have conversations with various board members we've taken the approach given the size of the district as well as what's going on here that with a first year engagement that in our first year engagements we always talk to every board member so if you haven't been contacted by Luke or one of our team members thus far you can expect that conversation to happen sooner rather than later expectations of administration and the board so Administration Management is responsible for sure in the accounting records are complete and accurate we're responsible as your external Auditors

113come in and audit those transactions and audit those financial statements most people kind of uh most uh in the public assume that that goes the other way that we came in we come in and we prepare your financial statements so we audit everything that's actually the opposite so Management's responsible for getting those financial statements pulled together complete and accurate we come in and we audit those uh management responsible for providing the information that we request for during the audit process we do help pull the financial statements together but that's done through a process of the information that you have provided at the conclusion of the audit process prior to issuance we provide a draft management reviews and approves that draft priority issuance what do you do in your board in your board capacity you have

114the fiduciary responsibility to the district as you know and you have to evaluate the independence of the auditor and and so obviously uh with a signed engagement letter you guys have been through that process uh one thing I always like to mention is uh that in your board capacity you have open and honest conversations with us as external Auditors you're going to have our contact information you have the ability and the right to reach out to us as your external Auditors at any time we welcome that conversation so feel free to do that as needed and really that's that that's the long and the short of it uh as uh again we're manly Garvin we're here to help uh we we're excited about partnering with the district we're just up the road and and look

115forward to helping you guys get through this audit process anything else thank you dude I have any questions or comments from the board Mr Satterfield I had a brief commentary for Mr Vickery I want you to put a name and a face together I did try to get back in touch with you but you were out of the country I appreciate you getting in touch with us in such a timely fashion but I apologize thank you sir do I have anything else all right thank you very much and that moves us to item 17 on the discussion agenda uh discussion of board policy dfab Reserve funds exhibit G thank you madam chair members of the board we're going to toggle between board policy DB annual budget and board policy Abby with your permission I mean

116Reserve funds and DFA be reserved funds and DB annual budget I want to ask Ms Madison Paul our CFO to come forth we have Jake Glover from our our financial advisor I'll have to hear and on the call we have our bond attorney Miss Franny Hauser here to ask her any questions so I'll turn it over to miss Paul thank you Dr Ross as he mentioned so first off on the agenda is policy dfab which is regarding Reserve funds so we did ask Mr J Glover and Ms franchiser to be here tonight to give a presentation about the importance of Reserve funds we also may just end this discussion move a little bit into policy DB annual budget because there is a section in that policy that also talks about Reserve fund so I will

117invite Jake Glover up to speak on his behalf thank you thanks Miss Paul Madam chair Dr Ross school board members Jay Glover from pfm financial advisors the district's financial advisor and I am here to talk about credit ratings in the context of fund balance because there's in many elements of a fund balance but as your financial advisors who helps you access the capital markets there's a need to fund capital projects credit ratings are available very important part of that and fund balance quite frankly is if not the most important one of the most important elements of maintaining a high credit rating so a next slide here please the first bullet and hope you all can see that really the first bullet just restates the fund balance policy itself and you will see in there that

118one of the reasons you strive to maintain a strong fund balance is to stay in that double a double a two rating category which is actually consistent with what your current credit ratings are which we'll talk about on the next slide reasons why you need to have strong fund balance really the number one reason is because it's there for unforeseen circumstances there's always the potential for things to happen and for the district to need funds on a moment's notice whether that's some type of natural disaster that might happen whether that's some type of litigation there's a need to be able to access cash on a pretty immediate basis to fund needs that are unforeseen there's also the element of cash flow within a school district whereby when your fiscal year starts you obviously start spending

119money but the bulk of your revenues don't come in until later in the year when taxes start coming in so while you're fund balance per your financial statement is sort of snapshot in time at the end of your fiscal year that fund balance fluctuates significantly throughout the year as you spend money compared to when actual revenues come in and I know Miss Paul has a graphic after my presentation that speaks to that many school districts that do not have strong reserves actually have to issue what's called tax anticipation notes so that's actually going out to the capital markets and accessing funds that allow you to bridge that gap between when revenues come in and expenditures are made so given your strong fund balance you can actually internally finance that difference and you don't have to

120access the outside Capital markets to do so that's just a little bit of why a fund balance is important the next two slides really talk about the credit rating process and the importance fund balance has on that credit rating process so here on the next uh actually it's up on the next slide here you can see your current credit ratings again you all are rated double A 2 by Moody's in double A by s p those are two of the three major rating agencies that look at your credit on an annual basis and assign a credit rating and I'll tell you those credit ratings are in the upper echelon of where school districts get rated around the country and in South Carolina there's only maybe one or two that have credit ratings higher than that

121which would be double a one double A Plus and just given the nature of a school district and how the finances works it's very difficult to get credit ratings higher than what you have now so you should be very proud of decisions made to maintain those credit ratings and allows you to access the capital markets at an effective cost of capital when you do fund Capital needs the next three bullets just talk a little bit about the rationale that was provided in the most recent credit rating report from Moody so these are not things that I'm pointing out these are actually things that are exerted right from their report so the rationale for why you have a strong double a two credit rating from Moody's you hear see here in these four sub bullets favorable

122location within South Carolina's capital region strong resident income levels solid stable financial position which is really related to fund balance and refers to the ability to have structural balance so what maybe about structural balance is you generate revenues each year to cover your recurring expenses so you're not using fund balance to cover budget shortfalls and pay recurring expenses and then the final thing is long-term liabilities that are slightly higher than copper rated school districts and we'll get into that a little bit on the next page as to why Moody's is saying your leverage metrics are slightly higher than other rated school districts again here just pointing what I mentioned before factors that could lead to an upgrade uh lower long-term liabilities which are really pension Focus which we'll talk about on the next page and

123then Improvement in fund balance and liquidity levels so it's really a big driver of fund balance and maybe even more importantly for this discussion is the factors that could lead to a downgrade being uh material decline in fund balance and liquidity so obviously as I mentioned and we'll show this on the next slide if I can see it the importance of that fund balance in the credit rating process so and I apologize in advance this is getting a little bit into the weeds it's hard to talk about credit ratings and financial positions without getting a little bit into the weeds but I do want to try to keep this as high level as possible as you see here on the second bullet Moody's has a scorecard process they go through so it's a very transparent

124rating process as to what goes into this scorecard and there's really four factors that do so and you'll see them here economy is 30 of their metrics and what economy is broken down on into is income levels looks at the full value of your tax base and it also looks at enrollment Trends they see a growing School District with a growing enrollment as having a strong economy so those are the three sub factors that go into 30 economy financial performance again is another 30 percent of the criteria and I'll skip over that one real quick till I move to the next bullet institutional framework is 10 of the criteria in every school district in the state of South Carolina has a double A institutional framework score and that's just related to how you all are

125funded and the state's involvement in funding so you really have no discretion over that metric that's 10 percent of your score and every school district gets that in South Carolina and then the final metric is leverage which is broken down into pension debt and opeb liability I mentioned before that they say in their report that your leverage metric is slightly higher than comple rate did school districts Nationwide and keep in mind in this higher discussion Moody's is looking at districts across the country and trying to provide comparability so they look at things differently than you might look at them because they have to rate a School District in California one in New York one in Florida one in South Carolina and they want to do that on a comparable basis so they actually are able

126to not only use this scorecard but have other factors outside of the scorecard to offset those metrics and one of those is leverage in the case of South Carolina because a lot of your leverage metric is made up of your pension cost over half of it and as you all know that is funded largely by the state and South Carolina which is an offsetting factor that a high leverage levels and at the state funds that cost so while that metric looks a little off per se in their rating score card they do know that that's somewhat offset by the fact that the state funds those costs so that's just one example of another factor that goes into the rating outside of the criteria it's not like that in some states so they're allowed to make

127adjustments based on that but getting back to the financial performance ratio which is really what we're talking about here in terms of fund balance it's broken down into two categories that is available fund balance is 20 of the score and then your liquidity ratios is ten percent so again that 20 percent Mark for fund balance is the one highest category of the whole 100 percent of your credit rating score so it's very important and Moody's looks at available fund balance ratio and Compares that to operating Revenue so and they do include assigned unassigned and committed fund balances and their ratio again that is different than what the school district might look at in terms of how they fund their uh fund balance because they're again looking at that across all comparable school districts in the

128country and they actually set their benchmarks higher in terms of race ratio because they include some funds that might be committed in that that calculation so you can see here and I guess that's about the fifth bullet down where fund balance ratios fall in terms of Moody's scorecard within that subsection so a district that has a fund balance ratio of greater than or equal to 25 percent would be considered to have a triple A score within that one segment uh 17 and a half percent to 25 percent would be considered a double A score within the fund balance criteria and 10 to 17 and a half percent would equate to an a score within that criteria so again within that one criteria that shows you how Moody's looks at it from a fund balance perspective

129so if you had a lower fund balance score you would have to have a higher score in some other category to offset that in order not to potentially get a rating downgrade so again just gives you some context and into what Moody's looks at again I'll mention all fun balances are not sort of you know kind of created equal everybody looks at it a little bit differently if you ask S P or Fitch who are the other rating agencies they might have a slight Twist on it as well what they include what they don't include what they actually compare it to is it revenues is it expenditures but I think the point of my presentation today is not necessarily to make a policy decision on your behalf about where a fund balance needs to be

130but just make you aware of the importance of it especially when it comes to credit ratings you know the district has to access the capital markets on an annual basis to fund its capital needs I know there's talk about a referendum which would require a longer term debt issuance having the strongest credit ratings possible in particular if you're going to access the capital markets for long-term debt is really going to obviously limit your cost of capital and allow you to create more funds based on your target debt service millage ratio so again I think Miss Paul has some information about the fluctuations and fund balance as we move throughout the year that she's going to discuss but I'm also happy to answer any questions you all might have about credit rating impacts or any other

131element of fund balance that might be helpful as you will have this discussion about your policy okay do I have any questions for Miss Tuttle um yeah several questions the um as you said Moody's uses the assigned unassigned and committed um do you know based on their scoring where if because we've been looking at undesignated which is very different if we were to calculate or how did they calculate do we know where we fall on that and I I do I actually have a breakdown of the scorecard and they show your your fund balance uh the way they calculate it at about 23 okay so it falls within as I mentioned that double a category range so it's it includes more thus it's a higher percentage okay and so a follow-up question is um and

132I know you can't promise this but I mean in your professional judgment if we were to get AAA How likely is it that it would improve our our rating because we can't go we're already real high yeah I know I you know obviously getting a fund balance above 25 is is a difficult thing to do and I don't necessarily know that that in and of itself would move you from the double a two category to the say double A1 category there's no school districts in South Carolina and quite frankly none in the country that I'm aware of I'm sure there are I shouldn't say that on the record but there's very few that would ever achieve achieve the AAA rating I mean it's you see a lot of cities and counties that have that type

133of credit ready but not a school district so um you know I was kind of a roundabout answer but you know the importance is sort of maintaining that fund balance at its levels I I think you should strive to kind of keep your credit ratings where they are now I think making decisions to try to get a higher credit rating might be going against some other things you're trying to do to spend funds to educate kids and then my last question at what do they measure your average or once a year at what point do they measure and how yeah so they're basing it off of audited financial statements so you know they're looking at it on your case on a 6 30 fiscal year in basis and that's one of the reasons they want

134the ratio to be higher is because they know that that is a snapshot in time there are points and times where your fund ratio was much higher than that after you get you know revenues in and it's times when it's much lower than that you know after you're having expenditures and things so it is a snapshot in time if I might just one more thing that's it's very important that I meant to mention if there ever is a need to spend fund balance it needs to be spent on one-time expenditures I think where you really get into trouble with rating agencies is when you're using fund balance to cover recurring expenses because using fund balance is a one-time thing and if you're using it to pay recurring expenses you're going to continue to bleed your

135fund balance year over year so there are districts and cities and counties if you do build up excess funds you can draw it down for a one-time need they don't want what I use the term structural balance before they don't want you to use your fund balance to fill a gap that's recurring each year that structural imbalance and that's when you start getting downgrades talked about anyone else have any questions Miss um speaking of that structural imbalance um even though there would be one-time projects if you on a recurring basis pull fund balance for construction would that concern them well even if they're separate projects yeah we're talking two different things because we're talking more operating funds in terms of fund balance versus Capital so it's really two different things I don't think most of

136the funds that are in your fund balance can be used for Capital needs I think we're talking more operating purposes well we have we have voted from time to time to pull fund balance for a construction project yeah so I just wanted to make sure if that's a one-time I would say capital projects are one-time needs yeah or if you're funding you know one-time expenses just not like you know you know we talk a lot about teachers today you don't want to give raises based on spending a fund balance I know you might want to give raises but then what do you do the next year because that fund balance can only be spent once could you give a bonus a one-time bonus one time okay one time never do it again all right anyone

137else okay thank you Mr Glover and just if there's some questions that come up we'll call you back up again okay thank you this fall thank you I think Rachel's getting my side I just um you know as we talk about cash flow and fund balance throughout the year you know of course our audited financials our fiscal year end 6 30. so that is the snapshot in time that our Auditors will look at um so at 6 30 of 22 which is the last year that we have audited our unassigned fund balance was 38.4 million which was right at 18 of our budgeted expenditures for the new fiscal year but I wanted what I wanted to review is what this looks like over time so we did start from a calendar year because that's really

138more of how our revenues are collected so you can see you know this again is just the calendar year of 22 because we don't have a full year for 23 currently but um at really you know January 1st of 2022 we're looking at about a 39.4 million dollar fund balance unassigned fund balance for the district if I look at the three I have three different lines here the red one is the state requirement because by state statute 5920-9 D we have to have one month of operating expenditures on hand or we uh we fall into that fiscal large category that can be designated by the state superintendent of Education the second uh the green line is looking at what Jay just went over the double a requirement so that's really that two months of operating

139expenditures so kind of looking at those two lines you know for us about 17 million dollars and again this is looking at last calendar year but it's about 17 million dollars is one month so two months is about 34 million dollars um would be our double a rating so if you look at this kind of you know again over time we definitely have a spike in uh January 31st that's you know taxes are due January 15th um so we certainly have a spike in fund balance at that time um you know in January 22 went up to about 63 million but you see that it steadily declines over the calendar year um so again at that June 30th year in Mark we were at 38.4 from our audit audited financials but in November of 22

140which is really November 30th or 22 that's really our lowest point throughout the year we were at 20.2 million which is really just above that state requirement line again we do bounce back pretty quickly we do get start getting some tier payments from the state and then of course the the property tax revenue does come in in January so we have a quick turnaround but we definitely hit that low point that is very close to the state um one month of operating expenses requirement so just wanted to show that graphically for you all as we talk about this discussion as well okay does anyone have any questions for Miss Paul Miss saddle um is the state's definition it's not the same as Moody's right it says undesignated undesignated thanks any more questions uh Mr Scully

141yeah Miss Paul just to kind of summarize I guess the big takeaway here is that not only is the fund balance important to us as a district from an operating standpoint to have money available and if we needed it but it's a big component of our credit rating which then impacts the not only the availability of credit to us but also the cost of credit so not having a fund balance I this isn't I know it's often portrayed kind of publicly as we're we're just accumulating money that we don't need for the fund balance and that's not what this is it would actually be fiscally irresponsible for us to continually dip into that fund balance or to not carry as high a balance as we're recommending or as you recommend as we can see how

142that impacts our credit rating and therefore our cost and availability of credit in the future so I just want to summarize that yes sir um you know I would just say as he mentioned before you know we'd certainly get to that low point in November and you know if we get much lower than that we would be into the situation where we would have to issue a tax anticipation note which he mentioned would incur more interest costs for the district you know it would be paid off quickly it would be a short-term loan but at the same time that is something that we can avoid because we have the cash flow available to not have to issue that that extra debt yes sir anyone else all right thank you Miss Paul thank you all right

143so that moves us to um items yes um I was just wondering it says um discussion of board policy so are we contemplating perhaps changing the board policy no this recommendation was actually uh brought forth by the administration to discuss these policies um at our last board officers meeting and so that is why they were on this agenda because the administration just wanted to give like a we wanted to show the position of the reserve we do not recommend any change but again it's a board policy so we are bringing it here but we're we're sharing our position on what we want to keep the reserve policy as is um I I mean I would just like to comment that I don't think our policy is consistent with the goals I heard here um I

144Heard two overarching goals one is a fund balance for writing service to us to achieve a good rating and the other I heard is the state's requirement for fund balance to avoid a fiscal watch and ensure we have enough reserves on hand the problem is the current policy doesn't really address the the rating service because the way that the rating service calculates it is very different and so there are two totally different things in my opinion so um I would hope that we would address it and look at maybe having two goals in there one a cash flow goal that's based on the state's requirements and a second which is a rating service goal which is based on the rating Services requirements um and and I would add into that a policy of what we're

145going to do if we exceed either of those two because the reality is we have over the last three years spent a good deal of fund balance on construction projects and so we have accumulated excess we don't have it now because we took it out of fund balance but at any rate I I would just ask that we look at that and I think that's the safest thing to guarantee that we meet the state's requirements and as much as possible guarantee that we meet the rating service requirements uh Mr Satterfield just for clarification Minnesota are you saying that you're in favor of passing a or making a motion to incorporate there cannot be a motion well I'm just I'm just asking just the philosophically theoretically but to maintain that whatever when we go through the

146budget process the year all in favor of maintaining making sure the fund balance is adequate so that we maintain a two-way at a minimum a two-way rating yes sir I mean and we can't make a motion tonight but I really would you know it's up to the officers to put items on the agenda but I really would like to see us bring this back and and put that in the policy that our goal is to get the 2A rating and that measurement of the 17 to 25 percent and our goal is to meet the state's requirements and we could even up that just to be on the safe side um and and specifically what we're going to do if the projected fund balance is going to be over that um because for example that would

147allow you to maybe not increase taxes as much as you otherwise would have to or there are other things that you could do with it um but that yes I would like to see us put it on the agenda and Okay the reason I ask is I know that as a my turn sure thank you I wanted to make sure because we did have a lot of discussion about the budget just for folks in the audience and those that might be watching and I know that we talked about the fund balance uh Dr Ross and I think the projection was making sure that it stayed at a minimum of 17.95 or nine nine which is really at the low end so I do like the idea of main making sure that we maintain such a

148balance that our credit rating stays where it needs to be so that we can borrow money when we need to at a very good rate which is being responsible so Dr Rossi I don't know if you want to say anything yeah I was just going to say to that point about it we do have inboard policy DB annual budget one of those goals of maintaining the two months and I think we were just add it in both places so that we could specifically outlined that that's purpose is for the the credit rating so just want to make sure both of them are combined well and I think the the point I was making is that the the formula the credit rating agency uses is different so I would like to see us include both formulas

149in the policy um when Miss Paul goes over financials we would see the results of both so that we're sure we're meeting both because they are different it would be possible to meet one and not the other and then the other is I really would like us to see the policy says arrange but it doesn't say what happens if you go over that range and I think we should address that in the policy as well Mr Higgin with the uh Miss Paul actually question for you with the district's Financial rating um and while I understand it's incredibly important does it play any bearing when we go to skego for bonds or does it have an impact when we go to the private Market or is there an area that I'm just not thinking about where

150our financial rating is going to have an impact um I was going to defer to Jay if that's okay yes that's a great question again Jay Glover from pfm when you access the capital markets through scago your credit rating is obviously less important because it's also has the state intercept program but keep in mind scago is only available if you do a one-year financing so like this year we did a one-year note we were able to use scago where it becomes much more important in terms of your own credit rating as if you were to do a referendum and you had longer term debt but so if you did a 10 or 15 year financing it would be very important to have the strongest credit rating but yeah but in dancer your kind of private

151debt a market doing bank loans and things like that we often get the first question we ask is you know does the district have a credit rating can we send that credit report it's it's almost like the bank's credit officers takes comfort in looking at someone else's third party opinion on the Dexter's credit so I think from a bank Market yes it helps get approval for transactions long-term debt very important skego not so much but that's limited to only one year financings okay all right thank you very much that move did you have anything else um that moves us to the discussion items uh 19 and 20. I say that because it's very likely that these conversations may overlap a little bit which is the discussion of board policy I'd be academic freedom in the

152discussion of IMB teaching about controversial and sensitive issues these items were placed on the agenda after our June 26th meeting I had asked Dr Ross to put these on the agenda and trustee Barnhart also asked these items to be discussed relating to the policies the administration I don't believe has any recommendations and this is really for us to be able to have a conversation about the subject matter that many of you are here tonight for and that many folks at the last meeting were here for so um what I think is probably best is to let I know Dr Ross touched on academic freedom earlier um but to maybe discuss that a little bit and and bring in IMB which is teaching about controversial and sensitive issues and then the board can discuss uh thank

153you madam chair members of the board we've talked about the academic freedom policy and I want to spend on time just kind of sharing the board policy IMB teaching about controversial sense of issues and a lot of it has to relate to what we've talked about is providing the opportunity for our students to be able to have a wide range of perspectives about a particular topic the question is what is controversial and that's where we get caught up with and our I think it was best said when it is defined by the community it is when that person calls in we we have safety and securities to some degree in the standards in the we have support documents we have indicators that are used recommended authors but that doesn't mean that or preclude that any

154topic can be to one person controversial so we we believe that the best thing is that that Educators work with Educators the teachers work with the administrators and if there are some issues that come about that are not explicitly written out in the standards or the support documents that you can you can talk about that with your your principal and that's what the the policy outlines we look at four areas and we've talked about this with our our principals about appropriateness to the course the the the majority of the students the age group of the students the approach to instruction and then the teaching materials use and so that is a decision that we put at the principal teacher level and and so that is how we address that I will I will say this

155just to give some context uh there's data posted in education week last week that says a teacher makes 1500 decisions a day that that study came out pre-covet they have not done that that study recently um 1500 decisions a day of a teacher and again that's old data and and I will share that um our teachers are doing an amazing job with 15 200 2 000 decisions every single day um but we prepare if there is a decision that someone disagrees with that our policy allows that to be worked out with the the teacher and the principal so that's our position of this um we we realize that a controversial or sensitive issues will be discussed you know that's debate that's argument that's rhetoric we have that but when these arise we do have a

156okay we do have a policy and procedure around that so I just wanted to offer that again as with everything in academic freedom our policy establishes that the teacher's attitude is that of the true scholar so we're presenting not the teacher's position but multiple positions within the discussion so that the student can make their independent decisions and can all right um Miss Bernhardt I know that you had called for um a discussion of these policies I just wanted to let you go first if you have any thoughts or comments on these policies or what you um to change them in discussion but again with teaching controversial issues I agree with everyone I mean they should be taught to children as however you know we should just ensure that when they are taught they are taught

157in a way that um abides our policy as well as state law and that was just my um first topic of discussion we came to that okay um and I'll kind of also piggyback off of that because I also asked for this item to be pushed on the agenda um you know I have been asked many times um if we were going to discuss a CRT policy or anything to that effect in in a school board meeting and what I think that and I don't want to be presumptuous but I think that what folks may not understand is that there's not a CRT policy so when we're looking at our policies about controversial materials and academic freedom that is the most closely related policies that we have you know it's it's frustrating because there are

158there isn't a like a model policy or anything to that effect but the language that's important are contained in both of these policies which is why I wanted to discuss that because what is in these policies is that you know teachers are not trying to control what this is what the policy requires is that teachers aren't you know trying to control students judgment um that you don't know where your teacher is coming from I mean Dr Ross's uh commentary about um you know knowing a teacher no you know the students taking a bet on what their teachers political ideology was I mean that's what you know in my opinion um what indicates a proper a you know a good lesson a good teacher that you don't know and that a teacher is challenging you um

159and I think that these policies address that controversial materials as as well I mean I think in my opinion it touches on all of this I think what where we get ourselves into trouble um and you know this is a very hard conversation to have right now because of what is going on externally and what the board can and cannot discuss but you know where we get ourselves in trouble and where you see this disagreement amongst the community is the fact that there are situations where material is presented I I'm gonna say allegedly um but or where you hear situations where material is presented one-sided or it's you know when you when you say that you're making a student feel uncomfortable there's a difference between making a student feel uncomfortable and making a student feel

160like they are less than currently or that they need to be apologetic and you hear those conversations happening and that is what gets parents upset um that's what gets teachers upset that but I mean I'm saying that because that that is the reality um so I'm not speaking for moms no okay so first of all you know that you're out of order ma'am it's okay but here's the thing there is a small minority in any group it doesn't matter if if you're in a group about Pig farmers and how Pig Farmers want to do one thing or another and I'm saying that to be funny but there is a minority in every single group that speaks loudly that does not speak for a group and that's frustrating because then it's hard to have civil discourse

161and that is what we're trying to do tonight is to talk about these these policies I want to hear back from my fellow board members on you know what you think about these policies what you know if we were to change them what does that look like and how does that fit current state law how does that fit you know policies relating to teachers what are what are we thinking about because what happens is everybody goes out and speaks outwardly and not necessarily internally and I'm not just talking about this board I mean you have the general assembly is having conversations about um material on controversial you know or legislation on controversial material and CRT and all other topics and they haven't perfected that either so um this isn't something that just like you just

162fix um so I'm sorry oh okay you know I do I'm going to say this what is frustrating to me and when I say that there's always different points of view and we cannot talk about whatever it is y'all I know that there's folks that want to talk about certain things but sometimes what you hear is not what actually happened so I think that that happens on all sides I think I heard things last week where things you know were said that I don't believe that are true I I believe the same thing happened tonight um and so I'm saying all of that to open up conversation and dialogue with the board and I'm going to turn that over to trustee Snipes please in a media response to your what what our thoughts are on

163the policies I think the policies are fine I think um generally where we have gone wrong and I don't mean we specifically the board I mean we as a community is back to when Dr Ross gave his superintendent's report and he shared the story of you know the policy the process that he went through when he did not agree with the material that was being um submitted um as a person of color I can attest to the fact that um his reaction to Slaves being considered an employee was handled much better than it probably would have been maybe from another um parent of of color and although we know that not to be be true he still took the proper steps and did and followed the process and I think that that's something that we

164can all um learn from on both sides as a mom of four children two who are already in elementary school you know you want to keep them in a bubble and as long as you possibly as long as you possibly can I'm very open um about that however I realized that the bubble that works for my house might not be the bubble that works for your house and so I think it's important that um we stick to what the policies are and just be very careful that we don't um I'm trying to think of the a proper way to say this but that we don't take the um some of our adult issues and and make them our kids issues because um I think that how my kids are growing up looks very different from

165how I grew up coming from King Street and going to a school um just demographically that was not diverse and only had a handful of kids that weren't black um and then my kids don't have that because my friend group is diverse by Nature their friend group is diverse and we have challenging conversations and they're not always comfortable they sometimes ask me you know why they might be the only person of color you know in a camp that they're in or some other opportunity or whatever and so I think when we have material that is challenging and thought-provoking all we're doing is growing our children and preparing them for what America actually looks like and I think that that's important and I don't think that this is about or it should not be um about

166politics or any of those messy things I think that if we um just stick to the policy and if we just think about collectively the community and and the board just think collectively about what is most important for our children we will be all right that's all I wanted to say um yeah um thank you I I guess also to address your your initial question how do I feel about the current policies I think that the policies are fine the way they are the point of the policies and I just want to reiterate we do not somebody said it earlier but we do not teach CRT it's not part of our curriculum that's not a concern it's not a thing um the point of this is to prepare I mean to to create a framework

167a construct for the teachers to to be able to teach lessons and also handle inquiries and I think and and concerns about whatever it is whether it's this or any other issue and we have that in this policy uh so no I I think we're fine um I I don't recommend changing anything about that as far as our policies are concerned and I agree with you know keeping the overall goal in mind we are we're trying to prepare our kids to compete in a national and Global world and we cannot do that by limiting what they're exposed to and so we need to I I appreciate the the lessons and the the different opinions and viewpoints that are brought into the classroom here in in this district and elsewhere that I was exposed to as

168a student um and It prepares our kids to compete because they're gonna whether we like it or not or agree with it or not they're going to have to compete in the world and life is coming Adam regardless of what we teach them we better teach them to be ready to handle it and to be able to get along and get by alongside everyone that they're going to come up against and and with and Miss Snipes she touched on it this I think reiterates the importance of keeping politics especially out of a non-partisan board operation so um I just wanted to I don't think there's really any problems with the policy there might could be some things that could be expanded um my mother taught high school she went on to talk to teach College

169my dad taught College everybody I knew taught um I and I didn't understand when I got my first job that I only got two days at Christmas it was it was quite a shock for me growing up um I love teachers teachers are what make our district great I mean if I could pick two things it would be the parents and the teachers um the policy does and is something that people need to realize and if you don't like it the current policy you need to to make your voices heard but it does give the community the right to communicate their concerns to the board and board members then by policy communicate any concerns that come to us to the superintendent um a couple of things that I mean I do think that we ought

170to look at um is incorporating the you know the law the budget Proviso is a law right now um and I think we ought to look at um selection of materials and relevance to the course um I think one of the things that's happened in our technical Society is um when I was a kid everything was in the textbook and that's why all the laws are written and we have board votes on the textbooks but the reality is that we have access to so many more materials now and that's a good thing generally for for kids but the other problem is that those materials also aren't necessarily vetted and I'm not so much talking about a book here I am as I am other things um videos websites that kind of thing and I'm also

171not talking about just issues of systemic racism or that kind of thing I also have concerns about age appropriate sexual content so as a board member I think these are good policies they're they appear to be model policies I've looked at other school districts but I would like to see us look at selection of materials and relevance to the course and the law and I and I'd like to see us develop professional development for our teachers so that they feel comfortable and they don't have to worry that what they're doing you know they understand where this line is when do I I need to go to the principal and all of that versus when you know because you should feel comfortable knowing that your lesson plans are within policy I just I want to kind

172of comment on something that you said Miss huddle um you mentioned that the policies say that this does say that you know parents can connect with the board so what I read in this policy is that the community has rights to express has a right to communicate concerns regarding these matters through the proper channels to the board so what's frustrating to me as a board member and it's not even just about this issue that's hap you know the CRT issue it's or I mean it's any issue really when when someone contacts me about an issue and they haven't even told the school about it there isn't really anything that we can do and then it it then it muddles the water from like the very beginning so what I think is important as we discuss

173these policies is yes the community absolutely should communicate with the board but they should communicate in the right way and if they haven't reached out to a teacher and they haven't reached out to the principal and they haven't reached out to the district office and they come straight to us and we're the ones that are you know emailing Dr Ross and saying what happened here and then it it starts from the top down to figure out what actually happened and then we still don't really know what happened because it's not our position the administration can't just come to us and tell us what an investigation is or or what actually happened and I know that that is frustrating believe me I have taken a lot of heat for that it is very frustrating but there

174is a proper way to handle a situation and I think you know what if if we leave this meeting with anything accomplished at all I just want everyone the community to know parents to know if something happens in a classroom that upsets you about your child talk to the teacher and if you don't feel comfortable talking to the teacher then you have been then go to go to a principal because listen I have kids you know and if if some if something happened that made my child feel uncomfortable I would be down there that day I I would not email myself or you know my counterpart or a board member you know I mean you go to the teacher and you find out what's happening and I think that we've gotten so we've got these

175blinders on and it is creating so much chaos for everyone and it's unnecessary the other thing that I would say that is is frustrating about some of this and you mentioned the Proviso and I've had conversations with several several legislators um you know before any of this happened and definitely in the last week and that Proviso that you're referring to like I mean it came up on the fly on the floor it wasn't really well thought out there is no tie-in to what a district is actually supposed to do if something violates that provazo um it doesn't talk about the different sources of funding it doesn't talk about what the action is that would happen to the teacher it doesn't talk it doesn't that Proviso does not mention the word student wants and it is

176frustrating because you're accused of breaking the law a teacher's accused of breaking the law and the and our policies are actually you know most of our policies are rooted in legislation in state law statute and we talked about when we talked about supplemental materials on April 24th we talked about that um about you know there was a bill on the floor we thought it would pass it did not pass we that's one of the reasons why that we haven't brought that back because it didn't pass so when we're talking about something that is novel like that even the general assembly hasn't been able to figure out changing any of our policies makes me very nervous because it opens the district up to liability and I don't want to give anybody the impression that board members

177have the ability to fire a teacher because it comes straight to them because they don't and that has nothing to do with my thoughts on any issue at all it's just I mean there's the right way to do things and there's a wrong way to do things I've said that a hundred times I feel like this week it's the truth um and so I do think I mean miss Mr Scully mentioned you know that you don't think that they're CRT or or whatever I hear that too I also I have heard concerns about teachers maybe being overzealous and maybe not presenting two sides of a story um or making students feel a certain way and I you know that's where this all stems from I think that there are some Rogue folks out there that

178have they don't believe that there's more than one perspective on every issue I'm not I'm not applying that to our district right now I'm not talking about anybody specific I'm just saying that that happens but the reason why this is so controversial is because there are a few folks that have opinions and my you know that they only see one side that is my opinion as as you know as me um but it's not it to me we have I mean there isn't anything that we can do and I know I'm on a soapbox and I will I will try to step down Mr Satterfield and you know as a retired principal I have an opinion about all this um you know I remember when George Bush was running for president and he brought in

179he introduced something called No Child Left Behind we all remember that those older folks can probably remember that you know politicians do this all the time they do this they do this all the time it helps them get elected it's very partisan but the thing is it's kind of like with this Proviso they're not responsible for implementing any of this so what it does it's very vague but it sounds pleasing there are groups like that moms for Liberty who wouldn't like that moms for Liberty I mean No Child Left Behind there's a lot of those things that they're just presented as such that they sound really good this provides though just so you know was a bill that was introduced that failed in the Senate and was interjected as a Proviso in the finance area

180I'd like to challenge anybody again you know me I'm a reader I go back and check does anybody in this board know how many provisos were introduced or changed you know that they're only good for a year they're only good it's a year to provide though a provision so they have to be Revisited or Rewritten as am I right Miss Heinz I know you're more affiliated with that they I mean they can be renewed they can be removed and a lot of them are deleted which would does which is all the more reason why you shouldn't change board policy on something that is a provision but does anybody on this board want to take a guess at how many provisos or Provisions from this year or last year regarding education specifically hundreds there were over

181100 last year there were over 50. can anybody on this board name another Proviso can you miss Hudl you might win the schedule is a provider the steps get that's one you got any more see the my point is this and I hope it's well taken this is this is something that folks that who had do have a political agenda have done to our schools and like I say with George Bush it drove me crazy because they're not responsible for dealing with it they throw it out there and they cause a lot of scramble and a lot of anger and frustration and then they expect us to get together and solve this problem they cheat they force people to change sides and and part of the Proviso is was as they I and I've got

182copies of both I've got the bill which does not read the same as the Proviso just so you know but it's it was supposed to prevent Division and Lord what has it done but caused division now the other thing I want to say is that we've talked a lot about board policy and about not changing if we would just follow board policy we are asking we are asking teachers to follow this policy when I was a principal that was one of the most frustrating things is when I would get a call from a board member how am I getting a call from a board member if a parent it's very specific well you're right Miss huddle they can contact board members they can but the board members should knowing the policy say you need to

183talk to that teacher I am not going to make a decision I am not going to get on social media and make commentary about something before it's even handled or it's even been looked at as a matter of fact I'm supposed to be nonpartisan the board the board policy says very specifically we are non-partisan I don't care who elected me thank you for you I'm not sure thank you for your vote now but I want you to know that I represent every child ever I don't care what religion what race what gender identity I don't care I represent every child every teacher and the last thing that I want to say about this is Teachers thank you for coming not because I agree with you although I do I want you to know that this

184is your format we are here to serve the community you are an integral and immensely important part of this community you determine the success of our schools I know I've been there Mr Funk are you still here Mr funk I hired Mr funk and I got a Heisman Trophy winner there I'm very sorry that all this took place and you are having you chose to leave this District you should also know that when we go into executive session we look at Personnel issues right now we have 40 certified openings is that correct Dr Ross 40 certified vacancies that is only going to increase every year when we look at the contract or the contract status of those employees huge amounts I'm guessing probably 35 to 40 percent are loas does anybody know what an Loa

185is Loa is something a category given to teachers that's called letter of agreement do you know why their letter of agreement because they are already eligible for retirement so a majority a huge number of our teachers are aged aged I'm not sure the correct word English teachers you can correct me but they are ready to retire they can retire so the worst thing we can do is to give them a reason to leave because we depend on these allowas we should be and Dr Ross and I have had this conversation many times we should be doing everything we can do I was an active recruiter as a principal I'll be honest with you I'd go outside the Realms and recruit good teachers that might be how I got Mr funk but the point being is

186this is getting very difficult we've talked to other districts who are telling us that they are fighting fighting to find ways to hire teachers they're offering huge bonuses they're talking about putting in teacher housing and daycare we should be doing everything we can I guess I know I'm on my soapbox and thank you for giving me this time Miss Heinz but we should be doing everything we should do to retain and support and demonstrate stay off social media quit publicly criticizing you're a board we're supposed to operate as a unit we can have we can vote and have disagreements but it sends a terrible message to those folks out there when we get on and I don't care if you say I'm not speaking as a board member or not you're a board member all

187right all right um we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna stay on on topic um I have just one question for Dr Ross and then I'll turn it over to you Miss huddle um we've had we've had several people make some comments um and it has actually made you know the part of like what has dropped you know stirred the national media um I just want to know if there has been a book challenged or a book banned in this calendar school year no ma'am we have not banned a book this year okay thank you uh Miss huddle I have a question for Mr Satterfield you said that we broke board policy what board policy did we break and who broke it well we in my opinion we the first one we broke was not telling

188people to follow the board policy with regards to making a complaint the second one is not to show any sense of partisanship the third one is where it says we are not administrators we are board members who establish policy and we should know the difference all right I I am going to stop this conversation because breaking the board policy that's not what we're breaking board policy is not what we're here to discuss we're here to discuss these two controversial materials so I that is a conversation for a later date um do we have any other conversations relating to the two policies that we're discussing tonight I would just like to make the point that you may or may not like a budget Proviso but it is the law the step schedule is in the budget

189Proviso um we have an opportunity here to look at the budget Proviso and put updates in our policy and train to that that will ensure that we meet the law and if you've read the budget Proviso I mean I actually have a hard time understanding why anyone would have a problem with it um I'm just going to read it that the following con okay I'm not going to read the entire thing but the following concepts are prohibited One race or sex is inherently Superior to another racer sex an individual by virtue of his race or sex is inherently racist sexist or oppressive whether consciously or unconsciously an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his race or sex an individual's moral standing or worth is necessarily determined by

190his race or sex an individual by virtue of his race or sex Bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex and I'm not going to finish reading it because that's about half of it but I encourage and if you disagree if you disagree with it it is the law you go to your legislature you go to your representative but you know as a school district Miss Hans as a school district we are required to uphold the law just like we uphold the step schedule and adds even more to it we are responsible for following this budget Proviso as well whether we like it or not Miss irons can I say one last thing and this is not a negative comment or anything towards Miss huddle I

191do want to say she is right it it is a budget Proviso you're correct at the very least tell the teachers I mean give them some professional development don't leave him and I just told you there's over 150 provisos we can't name them because we're not interested in all those they're all very important but before we attack a teacher or any teachers I know I don't own a cross about before we attack teachers or say things negative about teachers let's make sure that they've at least had the exposure to in the professional development that's my point real quick though um and then I'm going to turn it over to Dr Ross Miss huddle I'm not suggesting at all that we don't follow the law um I think that you're absolutely right the sentences that you

192that you just read I mean those are very important it is the law that's also touched on in the policy maybe not as specifically the reason why I don't think that we amend the policy for a Proviso is because that's not a permanent law and a policy is permanent the problem with that Proviso is that it suggests that we don't you know it the Proviso as written says that funding from this State Department of Education cannot be used in furtherance to instruct all of these other words that you have in front of you for all of those subjects that you just said and then that's it first of all we get funding from several different sources we are not it does not talk about how a teacher is disciplined or any of those things so

193if there is a complaint there's still a policy or there and there's still you know actual law that talks about what the procedures are in the teacher employment and dismissal act on any type of discipline any type of investigation any of that it doesn't get to us I think that's what is so upsetting to me is because it doesn't come straight to us and that is the narrative that has gone out is that it should come straight to us and that if a teacher is violating one of those laws then we need to do something well the district may need to do something but we still have to follow those procedures and uh you know I really feel like when we talk about a mending policy or or implementing a new policy we need to

194make sure that we get it right so we don't get sued that does not mean that I don't agree with the actual that part of that Proviso or that you know any board member does or doesn't agree that's just how I see that on that science I'm going to turn it Dr Ross okay real quick I just want to reiterate and I completely Echo and support your notion that we should not amend board policy based on a temporary Proviso and also want to just clarify that um our board policy was not violated by that situation we were in compliance um and so uh just like I I think it would for the point of you know don't amend policy that should is permanent based on a Proviso I want to go back and touch on

195a previous issue on the um the financial the credit rating I don't know where we are that that is not on this conversation okay nice so that's fine I will talk about it we can talk about the next time we have that on the agenda similarly with with this policy you don't I I would not recommend uh adjusting amending or our board policy for temporary issues all right and I'll click I'll let Dr Ross close that out um your turn oh thank you um at the end of every uh class the teacher asks what have you learned today um and so I think one of the things I can model is what I've learned and it was a teacher from Nazareth who gave a speech on a Mountainside he said blessed are the peacemakers uh

196so I'll take the fault to make peace tomorrow we have kids we have kids to to work we have teachers to hire we have staff to train we have buses to fuel we have bus drivers to train we have we have work to do we have buildings to get ready we got 17 500 students coming back and I need my people so so I commit to working with our staff to teach how we use books like between the world and me so there's no confusion I commit to staff development to ensure that teachers know where their where their protections are I commit to ensuring that that young lady who says she's never seen a required reading from someone of color that that's no longer the case I commit to providing a world of multiple viewpoints

197for all of our students I commit to that even though it's not in the r policy that we asked our principals to see if we've talked to the teacher first uh tomorrow the sun rises and I got kids to prepare for tomorrow I need us as a community together if that takes the fault of the the leader to assume these issues so that we can move forward and that's on me and so to this board to the community Madam chair these are the commitments we make and we will follow up in subsequent meetings to show you our progress and we thank you for that time thank you Dr Ross all right um that brings us to thank you that brings us to 21. um discussion regarding board officers meeting being live streamed this was a

198request from Miss huddle so I will let you um yes ma'am I asked to um talk about this because um a lot of things the rest of the board has really no idea what's going to come on on the agenda until the Thursday before the meeting when we get the packet and sometimes we don't get the packet till late Thursday or Friday and I understand it's a lot of work to put it together so that's no no issue there but I know in some of the board officer meetings have at least one or two attendees have been able to watch it um YouTube or I don't know what tool was used so nothing fancy but I just think it would be helpful if we could watch the board that that officers meeting so we would

199know and have a clue as to what's coming up on the future board meetings all right um I'm going to let Dr Ross had some things to say I am going to say there has been one time where we've live streamed or we didn't even live stream we had a virtual meeting with Miss Snipes and Mr Hogan because of unexpected um work commitments where they couldn't be there and we didn't have time to reschedule that that particular meeting on that day uh you know board policy actually doesn't even I talk about board committees that started a long time ago um where board officers met with a superintendent it continued when I first when you know when I was Matt and I and you joined the board that continued and we're continuing I think it's important

200to have you know the board officers talking to those you know superintendent in tandem I hear what you're saying about the um the not knowing the about the agenda until on the Thursday before I know previously like there have been a conversation um a couple of years ago about having the board secretary send out notes about what was happening on the agenda I don't know if that's something that we want to discuss as well you know later what I will say is that the board agenda is fluid so it changes based on circumstances you know that the administration brings to the to the board of officers so we may talk about and set like a like a skeleton agenda and things may be taken off or added on based off of what information is available

201and it goes all the way up until that Wednesday or Thursday before a board meeting um and so I mean I just wanted to give those thoughts and then regarding like the actual staff time and the the um resources used for that I mean that would be Dr Ross would need to answer one of the things I was just going to say for consideration we don't pay our staff for the board meeting so we thank them but they're they're they're not getting paid right now and so what we do is we Flex their time uh so whatever time they devote to board meetings they they get off tomorrow but they'll tell you they'll be here bright and early tomorrow because the workload is there so I would wonder if there was some consideration for a

202budget for broadcasting if we go this direction so that we try low Tech once and uh the sound issues became a a problem so we got we got beat up by uh about that so we want good quality Productions um but you know I have to consider just the demands on them that they do this on flex and comp time we tell them in advance the days that they're doing is when we pull them offline for a morning meeting or afternoon meeting what we're doing is now we're we're taking a technology a trainer a uh our data support we're taking all of that offline again and while it might not be long that's going to be twice as much the workload so uh if we're going to do it I just want to do it

203right we need to vote resources to digital broadcasting for this so that's just my concern advocating for the staff they didn't say anything so it's just it's me but you know again there is no supplement for staying late they they do these meetings we try to flex their time they never even Flex it so I just say if we're going to add that extra piece let's let's put the resources around it uh all right thank you Dr Ross um Miss Snipes um I know we're not doing emotions it's just discussion but um I just wanted to comment on your uh that I guess y'all used to have like that they talked about it I think it happened a couple of times but I mean it wasn't like a regular I never thought about it but

204um I think that's a good idea especially given Dr Ross's comments about budget in the financial piece that would have to go into this the means aren't that exciting so I don't know if that's if we're going to use extra money for something I don't know if that's where we want to put it in there open so anybody could come yeah you know in person um I mean I appreciate that y'all accommodated like when I was traveling from work and Matt had the last minute thing but it was in my opinion kind of harder to do the officer meeting it was for us too yeah it was it was more challenging so I just wanted to say that miss out a lot I mean I understand exactly where you're coming from with not really knowing

205exactly what's going to be on the agenda so I do understand that would it would it help if um going forward the draft agenda would be sent out to all of us I mean there's kind of a shell of what would be discussed and obviously there's changes the daughter also make between that meeting and when it actually was published us on Thursday but at least it gives a basis of kind of what can be expected yes that would and that's something I mean and the other point I'd like to make is I I there's a way to do this that doesn't require anybody but us because we're not I mean during covet we all should have learned a lot about this and I'm not suggesting that the other board members be able to speak I

206mean you can do a Google meet um go to a meeting I don't know what all the platforms that the district has but it shouldn't if it requires another human being besides us then we need to do a little um I.T homework on our own or I'll show y'all how to do it but I just low Tech doesn't but just the ability to watch would be nice and without involving any extra District staff if there's some reason we can't do that then yes a draft agenda would be nice yeah after these meetings just where everybody gets it individually um all right do I have emotion do we have any other discussion relating to this do I have a motion for number 22. I move that we adjourn the meeting at 10 o'clock did I have

207a second discussion no discussion every discussion on whether we should address this real quick um congratulations to our summer graduates to miss mccaskill thank you so much for your work at try to act this summer it was wonderful you did an outstanding job all right any any more discussion I'm gonna call for the vote all in favor to adjourn I motion carry 7-0 our meeting is adjourned our next meeting is August 7th and it will be at the district office district office for the Senate he's still here yep foreign