November 21, 2022 School Board Meeting

001foreign this meaning of the Board of Trustees for School District Five of Lexington Richland counties is called to order School District Five of Lexington Richland counties has complied with the requirements of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act and notifying media and the public of this evening's meeting this agenda has not been amended during the 24-hour minimum notice period at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda which one I moved to approve the agenda we have a motion to remove the approve the agenda second we have a second all in favor any opposed that passes unanimously at this time we'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session right science a move that we enter into executive session to consider the following a selected employment items exhibit a for Action B selected

002employment items exhibit B information only see legal advice regarding contractual matter for Chapin High School stadium Exhibit C legal advice regarding civil action number 2021-cp-32-03699 and e-legal advice regarding the procurement audit is there a second there's a second foreign all in favor in your pose that passes unanimously we're now adjourned for executive session foreign school board meeting of the Board of Trustees for School District Five of Lexington Richland counties to order pursuant to board policy BD the superintendent will preside and act as temporary chairman uh at the meeting until such time a chairman is elected at this time I would like to welcome you all to this exciting meeting we have four new members here I'd like to introduce them we're going to do a square and in ceremony so it's great to see family

003and friends here so I'll start with Miss Elizabeth Barnhart and we have Mr Mike Satterfield Mr Kevin Skelly Miss Kimberly Snipes So we thank you and we welcome you at this time we will begin with our invocation and pledge led by Miss Kathy huddle please bow your heads dear God in this week of Thanksgiving let us remember to be thankful for all of your blessings for the blessing of family and friends and for the blessing of your love and guidance in this new chapter of our school district as we welcome new board members please continue to guide us that we will make decisions that support our mission to love and grow our students amen please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible

004with liberty and justice for all at this time we will swear in our new board members first we invite Ms Barnhart and her guests to the podium I think you're supposed to repeat after me raise your hand am I supposed to read it and then her repeat it okay I want to make sure I do Solomon swear I do solemnly swear I am dearly qualified that I'm doing according to the Constitution of this state according to exercise the duties of the office to which I've been elected to which I've been and that I will to the best of my ability and that I will to the best of my ability to charge the duties thereof discharge the duty and preserve protect and defend a constitutional of this state and of the United States the Constitution

005of this state and the United States so help me God so help me God next we invite Mr Satterfield and his guests to the podium foreign I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I am duly qualified that I am duly qualified according to the Constitution of this state according to the Constitution of this state to exercise the duties of the office to which I have been elected to exercise the duties of the office to which I have been elected and that I will and that I will to the best of my ability to the best of my ability discharge the duties thereof discharge the duties thereof and preserve and preserve protect protect and defend and defend the constitution of this state the constitution of this state and the United States and of the

006United States for help me God so help me God I believe next we invite Mr Kevin Scully and his guest to the podium all right uh I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I am duly qualified that I am duly qualified according to the Constitution of this state according to the Constitution of this state to exercise the duties of office to exercise the duties of the office to which I have been elected to which I have been elected and that I will I will to the best of my ability to the best of my ability discharge the duties thereof discharge the duties thereof and preserve protect and defend the constitution of this state and preserve protect and defend the constitution of this state and of the United States and of the United States

007so help me God so help me God foreign next we invite Miss Kimberly Snipes and her guest to the podium complicated last time we did this it was just an I do and they weren't here [Music] here we go there we go all right repeat after me I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I am duly qualified that I am duly qualified according to the Constitution according to the Constitution of this state of this state do we exercise the duties to exercise the duties of the office to which I've been elected of the office to which I have been elected and that I will and that I will to the best of my ability to the best of my ability discharge the duties thereof just starts the duties thereof and preserve and preserve

008protect protect and defend the Constitution and defend the constitution of this state of this state and of the United States and of the United States so help me God so help me God come on mama let's give a round of applause to all of our new board members foreign to board policy BD the officers of the Board of Trustees are chairman Vice chairman and secretary the officers are elected annually at the board's organizational meeting in November after the date of the November election the superintendent will preside and act as temporary chairman at the meeting until such a time as chairman is elected board policy BD requires vote by secret ballot unless a board member requests a Voice vote is there a motion at this time for a Voice vote hearing none we will proceed with

009the ballot vote pursuant to board policy be our meetings are governed by the 12th edition of robbers Rules of Order as a result nominations are made and do not require a second or discussion at this time we will accept nominations for chair Mr Scully I nominate Rebecca Blackburn Hines for chair Ms Hines has been nominated are there any denominations Dr Ross I nominate Matt Hogan Mr Hogan has been nominated are there any other nominations at this time I'm going to ask Communications to prepare two ballots we'll begin with ballot one without objections the nominations are closed foreign and the question of the nomination from his Blackburn Hines as chair first vote aye second vote I third vote I fourth vote no fifth vote aye six vote I seventh vote I our new chair is Blackburn

010hides [Applause] I just want to say thank you for the support um I will do my very best to represent this board to the best of my ability and the best interest of all of our students and teachers and staff and other board members so thank you very much um so now we will accept nominations for the position of Vice chair so I will open nominations do we have nominations Mr Satterfield I'd like to nominate Mr Hogan for vice chair we have a nomination for Mr Hogan do we have any more nominations for the position of Vice chair all right I will close nominations and I believe if we don't have hold on let me uh refer to my trustee Robert's Rules but I believe if we do not have um more than just one

011we can do it by we can do it by Voice vote is that fine okay all in favor of Mr Hogan as Vice chair all opposed all right that was seven to oh Mr Hogan congratulations I will open nominations for the position of board secretary Mr Hogan I'd like to nominate Kathy huddle as board secretary thank you but I declined I would any more nominations for board secretary I'd like to nominate Elizabeth Barnhart all right Mr Satterfield I'd like to nominate Miss Kimberly Snipes Miss Kimberly Snipes So we have Miss barnhart's been nominated for board secretary and we have Miss Kimberly Snipes nominated for board secretary do we have any more nominations are now closed and are we I'm assuming we are still doing secret ballot or do we would we like a Voice vote

012to have him I think you've already made the motion for the I move that we do a Voice vote okay do we have a second I'll second Voice vote all right so um all in favor of Miss Elizabeth Barnhart for board secretary say aye all in favor of Miss Kimberly Snipes and I believe Miss Snipes is now our new board secretary congratulations and with that I'll turn that over to superintendent's report for Dr Ross thank you madam chair at this time we would like to take a short break with your permission Madam chair and we will restructure the uh and we will restructure the table and the seats we'll have the officers in position and the board members by alphabetical by their last name I believe staff will be need for five minutes so with

013with your approval five minute break thank you all right I believe we have gotten everyone situated and so I am going to turn it over to Dr Ross for his superintendent's report thank you madam chair members of the board in our community we thank you so much for being here uh on on this night is Thanksgiving week or uh excited we have two days this week but we're really proud and thankful of all that our teachers our students our staff are doing each and every day we believe that our staff has Guided by three questions that drive our system why do we do this work that's our vision statement how do we do this work that's our mission statement and what do we what are our outcomes that's that's the outcomes that we desire our

014vision is that we love and we grow our students and our mission is that we're focused on academic social and emotional growth and development we articulate this mission statement in terms of an umbrella that we create this umbrella protection for our students so that they can cross a bridge to success from physical safety to physical health to social needs mental health needs addressing the behavior issues and in helping to make up academic gains with academic Readiness and all of that works to meet the educational needs our outcomes are listed through our strategic plan and we place it in this graphic of loving and growing our students and this graphic indicates those four goals that we have in our strategic plan as as was approved and that's on the school climate teacher and administrative quality student

015achievement and gifted and talented strategies tonight I want to talk about being focused on growth and development and how important that is to the outcomes that we have schools are challenged every day with challenges to our our mission and these are things that we have to deal with these are things that can become disruptions and distractions to our focus on academic and growth of our students and so we want to put that Focus back on the children put it back on the needs of those children and in that focus of growth we want to show you that Duda provides a 1.86 in this year's budget past this year we have an update on the formative assessment requirements of school districts across the state one of that is to give a full winter and spring formative

016assessment of the of our of our students in learning we use map in our district measures of academic progress if SC ready was assessed today we would see as high as 65 percent of our middle schoolers in math not being at proficiency we would see uh over 50 percent of elementary and middle school students that are not in Proficiency in English and math we are fortunate that we have amazing teachers and amazing staff and administrators and you're going to see over the year how if we can stay focused on these students focused on their needs focused on their growth you will watch them turn these red bars into blue bars that's the work that they do each and every day and so we encourage our community courage our our staff and our families to help

017us with that amazing work that we're doing each and every day in the year if we were to have graduation today 13 of our students are not on track to graduate and so we are working diligently each and every day tracking the data of how many students that we are able to get across that stage and uh shout out hats off to our our principals our school counselors all those that are working are teachers to support each and every one of those students so that they can graduate on time if we were to have graduation today 549 students are not even career ready and so this is the work that we have to do making sure that we're focused on growth so we can get our students to Proficiency in math and and reading and

018literacy making sure that we are focused on growth so our students our seniors are able to cross the stage and that when they cross the stage they they are at minimum career ready to be positive contributors to our society so we thank the support that we've done working with different entities including mintless Tech to look at ways to put skills in the hands of these students we're tracking this each and every day to make sure that we are seeing the growth that we that we are so so focused on but this work is really the result of the hard work of our of our teachers and staff and so I want to thank each and every one of you and thank the board support for American Education week we were able to give our teachers

019and our staff all permanent employees a one thousand dollar a one-time gift for American Education week I want to thank Ms Paul and her staff they dug down deep and we're able to thank our teachers we know that with inflation and the things that are going on in our economy this landed very well in the hearts uh and minds of our faculty and staff so we thank you for that and while we're in the given move we will just highlight that through American Education week our foundation is also doing a drive so we gave him a thousand dollars and we asked could you give a high five back of five dollars to support our foundation high five for fives for American Education week anyone in the community can be a part of this is District

020Five foundation.org this is so important as we get ready for this Thanksgiving season we are reminded that not every student is going to sit at a table um you know full of of food and so our snack pack program huge and making sure that when students leave for these long holidays that they have they have food and and so any support in that area is is much appreciated also it helps with our student grants our student and our teacher Grant so supporting a foundation again supports District Five schools Madam chair members of the board safety has been a number one concern of parents and community members and we were very fortunate Dr Mike Harris and his team brought us a national expert Dr Melissa Reeves who's a national expert and behavioral threat assessments and this

021is how do we know how our schools are safe so we had on November the 9th a parent event in addition to the series that we have of of parent and family events and the topic was how to keep your students safe at school we know that we've talked about this as a multi-layered approach to safety that that multi-level approach to safety yes it's hardening the outside school but it's softening the inside of the school we want our children to go to a school that is free of the student aggressions The Bullying the the prepare conflicts so we wanted to turn to a national expert on how to to do that so I want to start with some upgrades that we've done on our physical plant so that you can see the direction that we're

022doing the first is the vestibules the board has allowed us to take Capital that had not been encumbered or Capital that had been reallocated to put in vestibule security vestibules we also have the open gate weapons detection systems that all all of our schools but schools were designed in the past with more of a red carpet feel so you can open the door and you can get access to the reception area now we want to remodel all of our schools with the Safety and Security vestibule where the screening would happen the first level then they would enter into the reception where we would do identicate before they would get into the building so we're excited about these the first four that we're going to start are Dutch folk Elementary Irmo Elementary Seven Oaks Elementary and

023Crossroads So based on the money that was allocated we believe that we are able to address these these needs also we have 1 354 exterior doors in The District you we learn a lot of lessons with our safety team from the tragedy in Uvalde that a door that was supposed to be locked was left ajar put yourself in the shoes of an SRO covering a building a building that may have 80 doors I know in my house there's four and if any one of them opens there's a tone there's something to indicate that that door is open so that I can go check well these door sensors give those sros give that staff give that principal an extra layer of protection and so we are excited of the um uh the plan to put these

024on every last one each of the exterior doors in our district and as they come in we'll give you an update on its capabilities and and and how it's providing that extra layer of protection so those are the things that we can do to that we are continuing to do to harden uh the building but I want to talk about some things that we can do inside to address the issues of student aggression and one of the things was knowing what that pathway to violence was when Dr Reese spoke to us she spoke about the pathway to violence always begins with a grievance a student who has a grievance with the situation and that's not being addressed well that leads to ideation about that grievance that hasn't been to address that leads to planning that

025leads to preparation and acquisition and then eventually to implementation of the violence and so but it all begins with the grievance that has not been a met so there's a pathway to Hope and the pathway to Hope and what has been shown through evidence is and studies is that the best intervention is the connection to connect every child with a trusted adult so it is our our goal this year and I always said the powers in the pivot that we've put our strategic plan on the screen when we talked about outcomes but in pivoting I want to in addition to our strategic plan talk about what the community can do and our goal is to connect every student all seventeen thousand five hundred and two students has identified in a 45-day count to a trusted

026adult in the community someone that they can talk to when that grievance is have is is held someone that can address that and that each one of these trusted adults can work with the student to help them meet their growth targets whether it's academic whether it's through the Arts or whether they're social issues that need to be addressed and so those are the system outcomes that we are looking forward to working on this year and we're very proud of the work that all of our teachers are doing but we know it's going to take a robust effort of the community to see this through and so that's our goal staying focused on growth and development before I moved to the financial report I'll entertain any questions of the board on the superintendents report all right

027CNN I invite our CFO Ms Madison Paul to come forward with our monthly financials good evening chairwoman Blackburn Hines members of the board and Dr Ross thank you all for inviting me here tonight to talk to you about our financial position I do want to start by welcoming our new board members and congratulate our new board officers I look forward to working with y'all in the future so I want to start off with our monthly update so this is our revenue report for the month ending September 30th I do want to go a little bit more in detail since we have a few new members here tonight um as you all know with your own property taxes most of that collection process happens in December January and February so you'll notice that our actuals today

028through September 30th are about right up 4.9 million and our budget is 74 million not to be alarmed that most of that again collection process will take place in December February and January um and when we look forward to our state sources this is a little bit more cyclical so we do get a set amount each month so this is something that we can kind of rely on until those property taxes um come in place in December um this will be adjusted as our 45-day count is entered into the system and the Statewide numbers are entered as well so um we we may bring an adjustment to you in January in regards to our state sources I did want to mention a little bit about the tier one two and three property tax items that

029you see under the state sources so if y'all recall the tier one is actually when um in 1996 when the state legislator changed all homeowners assess values from six percent to four percent so that adjustment actually comes through in a sales tax instead of on your property tax bill so that is the tier one adjustment we do normally get that in a lump sum payment in um the beginning of December tier two is the homestead exemption for homeowners age 65 and above and this actually exempts their property tax assess value for the first hundred thousand and again this was funded by the state legislator and then the homestead exemption tier three is act 388 that you may hear us talk more about as as the meeting goes on but this exempt the school operating millage

030from all homeowners so this is a large portion the 33 almost 34 million dollars and we do get that in monthly installment starting in October so you'll see that starting to come in when I present the October financials but overall um looking very good for this time of year so roughly 26.9 million dollars in total um year-to-date revenues which is um above where we were last year at 23.7 million next I will move over to our expenses and get it to change oh oh thank you all right so on our expense report again this is through September 30th 2022 as you'll notice the majority of our budget goes through goes to salary and fringe benefits so roughly 87 percent of our budget so if you'll see year-to-date on our salary infringes we've spent roughly 28

031million dollars through September 30th we spent roughly 3.7 on contractual Services 2.3 on supplies for a total expenditures through September 30th of 34 million which is slightly above where we were last year but again still in line with our budget I'll be glad to take any questions at this time we do quarterly updates on Esser and reminded we have three rounds of the federal assistance and so we're going to give an update on all three rounds so miss Paul thank you Dr Ross we mentioned we do have three rounds of Esser funding um sr1 was the first round this was funded through the cares act so if y'all will recall this was passed March 27 2020 so this was during the height of the pandemic this was the very first round this is when um

032you know we really didn't know what was going to go on how long we were going to be out of school so the majority of this funding from March to June went to paying for salaries for bus drivers custodians that kind of thing just to keep them of course having jobs and because we weren't sure if we were going to come back to school we didn't want to lay anybody off with the the possibility of having to come back so that is where the majority the roughly 1.6 of the 1.62 went to and that was all paid by June 30th of 2020. um the deadline for that spending was September 30th of 2022 but as you can see the district spent all of that money by June 30th of 20 20 so the next round

033was sr2 so this was signed into law in December of 2020 so this was significantly more and again at when sr1 was signed into law we did not think there would be an s or two and certainly not an s or three but when sr2 came down there were um a little bit more Provisions in place so they had a couple of different priorities with this certainly mental health addressing learning loss school facilities and indoor air quality so these are the four areas that the district focused on so to uh to date through September 30th the district has spent 4.7 million of the allotted 6.7 million um concerning learning loss most of that has been spent on curriculum tutoring Homebound and a few other software purchases in regards to mental health most of that has

034been on social workers nurses counseling and supplies and then air quality this is when you may see around the district we have these Net Zero UV air purifiers so that was spent with sr2 money and we've also done some HVAC Replacements in a roof replacement so we do have as you can see a remaining almost million dollars to to spend of this money we do have another million dollars committed but I spoke with Trisha Larkin our I call our expert she doesn't like that but I do call her that she's our Guru and um even since September 30th we've been really drawing down this money and I'm doing a lot of construction and HVAC repairs so this is going pretty quickly but we do have a deadline to spend this by September 30th of 23

035so less than a year but we do feel like we are in good shape to spend this money by that date lastly I want to talk about sr3 so this came through with the American Recovery plan act and this did address a few other priorities that sr1 and 2 did not um so similar to us or two we of course are addressing a lot of learning loss sr3 did have a provision that 20 of the total funding had to go towards learning loss so that is of course a key priority and then also with sr3 we have really put an emphasis on Mental Health if you've been following some of the previous board meetings we've had discussions about caresalis clinical counselors as Dr Ross mentioned earlier we've had some parent night out so that's really

036been a focus of sr3 as well and then of course continuing our HVAC Replacements and repairs so in total our budget was 15 million we have spent through September 30th roughly 6 million so we do have roughly 7.4 million to allocate but this one we have until September 30th of 2024 to spend so we have a little bit less than two years on this one so again things are moving right along with sr3 we do expect to spend a little bit more on construction and HVAC repairs in the future as those are big ticket items for sr3 I'll be glad to take any questions any questions I actually have a question so when you look on an sr3 under um the committed column there's a few columns where we don't have any uh funding committed

037but there's I mean pretty significant chunks of money that we budgeted for is that what you mean that we'll move towards a construction category or or how are we thinking that those funds will be spent as we move forward yes ma'am so the biggest one that you'll see is sanitation services and supplies so again with the in the height of covid that was really a focus was buying cleaning supplies mask PPE things like that so we feel like we have a pretty good handle on that now we may spend some but um one of the good things about Esser is that it is pretty easily to amend your budget so all you have to really do is create a plan so if we wanted to move 300 000 from sanitation to school facilities and repairs

038we would just have to submit that with with the state and they they will approve usually within a week it's a pretty quick turnaround so we have not done that to date just because we don't have a project identified but yes ma'am we can certainly move that around and that that is one item that we've looked at that we know we will not spend six hundred fifty thousand dollars in Sanitation yes sir yeah I had a question are are any of these continuing expenses or are they all just one time in other words we're going to have to look for money to supplement these at a later date any of these yes so some of these are could be potentially continuing expenses because their salaries so this is additional Personnel so that would be a

039decision that the board would have to make to continue to fund some of these ftes that we've added like the clinical counselors social workers nurses things like that so we would present a plan that is part of this Esser funding is a continuity plan so we would we would ask to come back to the board at that time to discuss a continuity plan thank you any more questions at this time we're going to ask Miss Paul to stay at the podium we are tasked with a financial recovery plan so I'm going to let you lead us through that thank you I promise this is my last one for now so um those of you that are new to the board on September 19th we had our Accounting Group Jag Accounting Group that presented the procurement

040examination and Consulting phase two report to our Board of Trustees the superintendent and myself as part of this phase two report the primary focus was the Piney Woods Elementary School construction which was during the period of 2019 through 2021 there were several possible procurement violations and I was tasked with reviewing the recommendations and I'll just read the motion that I reviewed and direct the administration to review the internal recommendations and other relevant facts including in the procurement examination and Consulting phase two report dated September 19th and present a plan to the board for review and approval within 60 days so we're just a few days past the 60 days so I did want to give an update to the board about where we are from the administration standpoint and the financial recovery plan so over

041my short time period here um with the district I do want to say that I've had the chance to really get to know my team and I just want to first start with commending the finance staff we do have a wonderful finance and procurement team we have a lot of people that have been there a long time they have a lot of institutional knowledge and they really are here for the betterment of the district so I just want to start with that but as we know with any job sometimes you get going and you know you've been doing it so long you might forget to write down some procedures you might forget to um you know you don't think about turnover you don't necessarily think about um you know somebody leaving the district and do

042we have a procedure in place for that new person that comes in we might not think necessarily about training things like that so that's really going to be the focus of my financial recovery plan just because we have so many staff members that have been there a long time that sometimes we have forgotten to write down some of the procedures that we just are accustomed to doing every day so the first thing I want to just talk about is really new written procedures internal controls and training so y'all discuss later today the discussion of an audit committee so this was the biggest recommendation from our external Auditors and the role of this audit committee is really to be an external checks and balance or I'm sorry an internal checks and balance on the district they

043also recommended that the district hire an internal auditor in this internal auditor would report directly to the audit committee and again this is just for Independence so this internal auditor would look at all of the accounting Financial practices of the district and it wouldn't make sense for them to report directly to the CFO just because of an for an independence issue so that's the first recommendation and I would ask that the board also approve that recommendation additionally I would recommend adopting a financial services manual so I did some research and one of our the top school districts in the state Fort Mill school district has a financial services policy and procedures manual the district has worked on this in the past but it's been several years since we really updated this so I think this

044is something that we really need to make a priority within this manual I would also include references to the South Carolina Department of education's funding manual and their financial accounting handbook and this really just promotes transparency a lot of times we have things on our website that have accounting codes or account numbers things like that but there's no detail about what that account number means this accounting services manual would really help that end user as they're reviewing these items um additionally when it uh referring to the procurement code so we did have um the state write an opinion on our procurement code and that they agreed that the code was substantially similar to the South Carolina Consolidated procurement code and regulations that's required by law we have not revised our procurement manual after this just

045because we were waiting on the results of the full procurement audit so once we get all the phase three report from our external Auditors I would recommend that we update our procurement manual with the recommendations of the external auditor additionally I did want to just touch on our purchasing card program so we do have a card holder agreement but I do I would like time to do a detailed review of this program and the roles and responsibilities and also any consequences if the procurement or the purchasing card manual is not followed and then lastly um do you want to talk about record retention because this is something that was brought up in the phase two report so we do currently follow the guidelines provided by the South Carolina Department of archives and history but a

046lot of this responsibility is placed on the employee and again we don't have a ton of training or written procedures in this area as to what what those responsibilities are so I think we could certainly improve our training and our our written procedures in this area so for all those different manuals that I mentioned I certainly recommend a annual review and trainings for all key personnel so I'm working on developing that and in that process of course when we want to and strengthen strengthen our internal controls and this could mean additional staff so I do want to bring to y'all a budget amendment in January of 2023 that will you know give us time to evaluate our current staff and as we increase internal controls that does usually mean increased staff time and potentially increase

047staff so just wanted to provide that for y'all as well and then lastly y'all had originally given me 60 days for this plan um as you can see this is really just a plan at this point but I wanted I want to bring y'all the manuals I want to construct be have time to construct the manuals have time to construct the written procedures have time to work with my team on training so I would ask for an additional 60 days to be able to provide y'all more concrete information and really a detailed outline of how we're going to address some of these issues that were brought up in the phase two report I'll be glad to take any questions do we have any questions Mr Scully hi Madison um real quickly on the as far

048as the your recommendations for the manual um if I understood you correctly that's based on the procurement audits that that's currently underway the phase two correct yes sir and also I'm aware that that phase two report has in at least in some capacity been contradicted or or contested and so it's not completely been determined as far as that audit's not finished would I I guess my question there is would it make more sense to wait until the full audit's finished before we revise procedures based on that audit just so that we can have more time to one find out all the issues that are going to be contested or talked about or discussed during that and determinations made by more than just jamarillo but have have opportunities to further look into that and then also

049in this letter I noticed that that's one question that but just kind of a part to that is the manual itself you're saying is uh similar adopting a manual similar to Fort Middle School and are you aware is that the Fort Mill manual has that been reviewed by any other type of authoritative authoritative organization like the South Carolina School Board Association and have have those all been vetted in terms of the policies and what's your plan for doing so thank you thank you Mr Scully I'll address the first question um so yes you are correct there we are engaged with the Accounting Group to finish up the phase three report by December 31st so we could certainly wait until that report is completely finalized to provide a recommendation um to y'all I did um and

050I'm sorry I've probably failed to mention this but her report that phase two really just focused on procurement I asked Dr Ross and the rest of the finance team we decided we really wanted to look at accounting and Finance and Accounting finance and procurement as a whole instead of just focusing on procurement because again A lot of times it's really just a written procedure that we maybe had a few years ago that we might not can put our hands on now so a lot of it is really just written procedures so I do think we could get started on some of these prior to the phase three um being complete but you know certainly if we want to just you know weigh I mean I think some of it is just really written procedures and

051trainings that we could go ahead and get started on but if we wanted to wait until the phase three report is as final as we could certainly do that and then um your second question regarding Fort Mill's um manual I can double check with them uh to see that it has been reviewed um by like you said a third a third party um I I know the Fort Mill CFO very well so I can certainly reach out to her and make sure but I know it is a pretty common practice for other um other accounting you know departments within the state that they do have a financial services manual but we would certainly work with our legal counsel to make sure that our policies and things that we put in place are are vetted before

052publishing do we have any other questions I have a question kind of piggybacking on the Fort Mill policy um did you just is have you looked at other policies other than the Fort Mill policy for the financial services manual uh I mean I'm not talking about the School Board Association other school other school boards have you compared that compare the manuals yeah so the reason why um I you know just pointed out Fort Mill is because they also use infinite Visions which is our accounting system that we we use so um theirs is already very similar to something that we would adopt um there are other I have reviewed um Charleston counties I reviewed green Bulls there are several others I'm sure that I can't think of all of them right now that are posted

053to their websites um and I could I could certainly review those in more in more depth I would I would not recommend just adopting what they have because we have to tailor it to what we have but I think that theirs would be a good starting point just because they use they already use our accounting system and they are of similar size similar um number of students similar number of schools so I think we could kind of start with that as a skeleton and then of course make adjustments to fit our district and add in any any best practices that we see from other districts right I just didn't know if there was any like glaring differences that you see in the policies across the different districts but I understand the using the same accounting

054system makes it a little bit it's more user friendly because it is very um detailed as far as account code and things like that and how the system you know going steps to in the system so um it's a little it's it's very detailed in that in that respect so I would I would recommend starting there and then adding any other you know policies that we can yes sir and this is a question for you or Dr Ross maybe can answer this question compared to other districts like us similar in size with the same sort of budget do they also have internal Auditors is that pretty common practice um not that I have found in South Carolina so um the only two organizations that I can find in South Carolina that have internal Auditors or

055Charleston County School District which we know is a very very large school district in Greenville County um so I have not found others that are like size um I did sit in on a meeting at scasbo last week and the investigator General was there and he also provided this as a recommendation for the Richland 2 report um and pretty much everybody said well how do we fund this you know so it it is um kind of a Hot Topic right now just because that report did come out but I have not found any others in my research that are our size our size I know that I talked with somebody who's an internal auditor in Richland one I believe and uh they it's just a really good practice they feel like it's a great practice

056for them so okay thank you thank you quick question on that the the IG report that came out do you know since you were having a conversation about that with other districts did they provide any best practices for having an internal auditor or for school districts that were trying to implement any type of policy relating an internal audit or anything that may impact some of our decisions as we move forward really the only thing that he discussed because there was some conversation about who who does the internal auditor report to um and you know basically he said it cannot report to the CFO directly or the superintendent directly it has to report to a third party as an a board or a audit committee or something like that he said it if it reports you

057know to the CFO when it potentially could be reporting on the CFO it's just a conflict of interest so that was really the only feedback he gave as far as that Madam chair would you entertain a motion for uh the 60-day extension to the financial recovery plan sure I'll enter entertain the motion Miss huddle I'll move that way excuse me I move that we um defer the recommend the final financial recovery plan recommendations for 60 days which would put it at January 19th is that right I think we have a board meeting on January 21st okay thank you let's make it January 21st Mr Hogan seconds I do have a question regarding that just because I'm thinking about like our dates and we have Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas holidays coming up has that been

058factored into your request for 60 days or do you think that that's realistic so that you don't come we don't come back and right um I mean I would love more time if I'm being honest um you know I think this is I'm gonna be I think this is a work in progress I don't think that in 60 days I'm gonna have four manuals that are 100 perfect to give to you with training and document I just I think this is just going to be an ongoing task so I'd really prefer to kind of do a 60-day update if that's okay um and then that way we kind of give you what we have we can talk about the trainings that we've already done because I do really want to start some trainings prior to

059the second semester I think that's a good Miss missoul yeah and I just want to make the point a plan does not mean you've done it right so you know I I think that if you need more time for the plan but I you know just speaking for myself I don't think that I would expect you to rock Walk in here with a bunch of manuals so to me this is a plan you're just saying I need more time to expand on the plan yes that would be great thank you anybody else have any discussion okay all right all in favor of Miss Huddle's motion all opposed so we have six to one thank you and the motion passes thank you thank you Madam chair members of the board since we're talking about finances what

060really helps us is shopping so we're going to talk about our shop local campaign uh this week brings us two big opportunities the Black Friday and the small business Saturday which is November the 26th we talked about where these positions come from as we see Esser moving away from our district how do we lower class sizes how do we take on the support services well we do that through full-time equivalents or ftes and where do they come from they come from the general fund our operational budget six percent of that is federal funds 51 percent are State funds based on the student weight and 43 percent of the local funds that's the assessed value of our six percent property and so always do a little uh School Finance 101. and I always like to point

061people that you know our operational budget is for our staff our debt service budget is for our construction so our primary homes our four percent assessed properties are exempt due to act 388 so they don't pay for staff so all of our staff comes through our six percent property that's where our ftes come from and that is in our community mostly our businesses and so the strength of our school district depends on the economic health of the businesses in our community as sales goes up in our businesses then so does the assessed value we tax that value as sales go down and in our community so there's the value of those businesses we tax that value so we are and even in Lexington County there's actually a sales tax that goes to Capital Construction or

062schools but so we do very well when we we can shop local and so how is this shop local campaign affect us well we want to establish a database of goods and services and from our local vendors considering two items price and costs a vendor outside of our our line may have a low price but the cost because that money does not come back to school district five the cost is high but a vendor inside of our lines may have a higher price but because that money returns back to the schools it the cost is low and so we we love to articulate this our student planning office was able to create a map of our attendance on the Shaded area is the election of five attendance Zone the unshaded area is another school district

063well in there is the Costco off of Fernandina and Piney Grove so when we shop there we send that value to another school district but you can see it's really close to our lines now saying don't shop at Costco if you have a Costco car but we're just saying be very understanding of the impact of shop local so we were very excited of establishing a database for of goods and services with our local vendors we are working with the Irmo and Chapin Chambers of Commerce our Communications office and Courtney morbido have put together this beautiful logo that represents all of our schools from the lake to the uh of uh take Taking in Border the border of our of our district and uh we are working to put this on their website you'll see the

064shop local button you can go there and look at all of the uh vendors in which we can shop local to support our schools when we look at the money that is eligible due to the procurement procedures that we have last year's budget would have put 7.7 million dollars just from this District into a shop local campaign so by helping our local businesses we help our schools now I must confess Madam chair members of the board that as we shop local there are some habits that even the Ross family has to break so you might have seen in a box on my porch it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to shop local is that I have a Amazon habit that we have to break so if that's the case and we ask that you

065consider Amazon Smiles Amazon Smiles is a has an opportunity that you can donate to Charities so if you go to Amazon Smiles you may pick a District 5 school money many of our district five schools are Amazon smile Charities or if you can't find you want to support the district as a whole consider the District 5 Foundation for educational Excellence so a district five school or the District 5 Foundation for educational excellence and so all of this shopping will is an opportunity to support those six percent assessed property values in in our district and also our schools Madam chair members of the board this is our D5 story uh please follow us on hashtag rd5 story to see each and every day the amazing way that our faculty and our staff and our administrators are

066loving and growing our students Madam chair that concludes the superintendent support and I stand for any questions any questions for Dr Ross Mr Scully yeah Dr Ross um I guess regarding the shop local campaign and you know well I apologize being my first opportunity to ask these questions they may be things you've already heard or just new um when you what information or data are you did you rely on to come up with this program this recommendation in terms of the revenue because my understanding of the way the money works and I'm going to Simply simplify it but the the tax assessed value or the assessed value is not Revenue based that's so there's not a one-to-one direct correlation between the revenue generated within the district versus the money that we would then be returned

067to us as a school district so what information is is where is that coming from and I'll kind of point to your slide where it said um in 2021 the the 7.7 million dollars well that was good all right Johnny on the spot um the 7.7 million in goods and services that would qualify So based on your your information how much of that 7.7 what would we see from a dollar figure based on that 7.7 let me handle the first uh Point first the first point is sales don't come back to the district and that's not necessarily true when we look at our Revenue stream on local taxes we have the operational side we have The Debt Service side so any sales tax in the county of Lexington has a direct correlation to Capital uh

068resources that we receive and so that comes in on our Capital pot so that's the direct sales to District benefit that we have and so if it's within our lines that that really increases our revenue for the Capitol Buildings because of the if you pay sales tax in Lexington you're paying for um which is School District Capital funds so we do see that the other issue is that if you're a business in the more you do sales the likelihood that you can you keep that door open assess values every year so that's that's not this is a long-term view of keeping the health of that business available we've seen certain communities where because deposits had diminished we see the property value diminish so if you're shopping locals businesses want to come there it raises and

069or maintains at least that assessed value we tax the value and so that's where the health of putting this money back into our local communities helps us before act 388 we relied on our on our houses on the subdivisions and that gave us in School District Five a bedroom community a huge financial benefit to our our our our bottom line because that's gone we need to make sure or that all of our businesses and so if you look at the short view and say well you know we don't have to support the you know we don't have to put that money in because that that direct um uh impact is not articulated in the dollar figure when their assessments come theoretically right theoretically that will go down and that's what hits us especially on the

070operational side so I miss Paul is that am I explaining that correctly are those that was correct thank you somewhat let me follow up have you had any feedback from the county in terms of so if as to their approach for assessment in other words I I don't I don't believe they use the income approach for for their value assessments they would it would only their values would only go up if there was if the businesses added on to their property or made an improvement to their property for some reason and that may be likely should their revenue continue to increase but it's not guaranteed correct and then also um you know you know just from having an economic background you know uh a film would would speculate or theorize that Imports must equal exports

071so shop local it it makes sense in some in some cases in a lot of cases but it there's also sense and and um when what when we don't shop local and we we buy a broad then it's kind of a trade-off and and there's a balance there so we benefit from lower prices when we go outside the area in some cases but we also have where we have specialization in our areas and our businesses you know they're also selling abroad so there's a there's a trade balance there that's also in place so it's not necessarily reliant on our community shopping local to necessarily generate that value either that's just a point I'm making but for consideration let me just another thing just uh why I think this is important is when you shop local

072and we put that back into our if you are a a working in schools or or clubs organizations athletic teams they are hitting our local businesses for financial support so if we can turn that into their sales they can then turn that back in if we look at our baseball team so you know the range of it we're knocking on the same door is asking for that support of clubs and organizations so I think in terms of of Revenue and and how that money comes back uh while we we would need to see how this works I think it's safe to say that if we don't drive this locally we haven't done all that we could to uh to really increase the financial and fiscal position of our district I understand and I also understand

073there's not an action being requested that could I will request that can I get information can I get the uh could I see the information that you've put together on this or whatever that is and so right now this is the the campaign that started so as that starts to happen and we can see some some actuals for it yes sir yes sir do we have any other questions Mr Hogan did you have something more so just clarification Dr Ross I think it'd be safe to say that there's really not much harm in shopping local okay thank you thank you any more questions I have a question just relating to the database of goods from local vendors to service our actual schools in our offices um I think Mr Hogan is correct there is absolutely

074I mean it's a great thing to shop local I would encourage anyone to do that I wonder how I know from what from what my understanding is each individual School kind of handles their own um you know if they're going to do a fundraiser with t-shirts or if they sell you know sweatshirts or they use a vendor for a certain reason they handle all of that on their own right so they've they have each individual school has built relationships with uh either you know local vendors that's correct so we and I'll uh turn to miss Paul about how those schools and those bookkeepers build that and engine is so I know they have families that own businesses that provide deals to the schools but they're built but their physical building maybe outside of our district

075but they are providing that value within our district so say you know Joe Smith um screen printing is in another you know is in across the dam but they live over here they pay taxes over here their kids go to school over here and they're giving us good deals to help promote our schools are they being excluded from this or is there like an asterisk so you have business partners and your business partner to Mr scully's point they may be outside but they're providing a value and they're going to continue to be business partners so this is really looking at opportunities when we when we pitched this we talked about vendors that um that we've seen closing the doors especially the big box stores the the small mom and pop shops um you as they

076close their doors the question is what comes behind that and is that going to represent the community that we've we've kind of moved to so the notion was if you don't have those business partners if there's an opportunity to find it within our community let's drive as much of that money to it and again as we evaluate this program a year out it makes it you know it doesn't have that impact but we made a lot of good friends in our community Dr Ross do you mind if I just add one one point to that um so I did want to just add a few clarifying points so um we did when we looked at the 7.7 million we came up with that number based on um any so per our procurement code any um

077any purchase under ten thousand dollars is just subject to a fair and reasonable price we're not required to get three quotes we're not required to get put it out for bid anything like that it's just a fair and reasonable price so we looked at last year's financials and um any any purchase under ten thousand dollars fell into that category we also looked at our purchasing card transactions and so on your purchasing card the most you can do and one transaction is twenty five hundred dollars so we added those two amounts together plus our Amazon purchases because we know we spend a lot at Amazon and that's how we came up with the 7.7 million dollars so you know we do realize that can we truly put 7.7 million back in the community probably not because

078there's probably services that we bought or supplies that we bought that maybe are not available in within this District boundaries but that's you know the kind of the top Mark you know if we could put all that back in that's where we came up with the 7.7 million dollars but again we will always follow our procurement code so we want to make sure that it's just transactions under ten thousand dollars is what we're looking at we certainly encourage schools that have those relationships with local business partners whether they're within the district or right outside our boundaries you know if you've already got that relationship we want to promote that as much as possible so I think that they understand that I hope that they understand that but you were right you know pretty much it's

079kind of up to the school up to the bookkeeper and the principal kind of where you know the principal is really in charge of all the funding at the school so if they already have those relationships in place we encourage them to continue to use those vendors foreign all right all right so that moves us to agenda item number 11 the approval of the October 24th 2022 board meeting do I have a motion to approve the minutes Mr Hogan I'd like to make a motion we approve the minutes of the October 24th 2022 board meeting all right do I have a second second Miss huddle second all right all in favor all right there's it so there should be three votes and actually Robert's roles everybody everybody else went okay all right all in favor

080I can't see all right all right Mr Scully as I'm saying so that's six yes and then Mr Scully is abstained all right that moves us to item number 12 public participation Ms Taylor and with that I will read the board welcomes and encourages public participation however the privilege of addressing the board does not include the ability to make personal attacks on any board member district employee or other member of the public we respectfully ask that you adhere to the procedures in decorum provided in board policy b e d h public participation at meetings your comments should be limited to three minutes and must remain on either the topic noted on your sign in form or a listed agenda item questions asked during public participation will be handled in accordance with board policy bedh and

081Miss Taylor Madam chair we have five speakers tonight um first is Taylor Hallett of Irmo to speak about stop it Solutions hello this is really intimidating um I'm just gonna say that um I won't take up your time and I'm I feel this is this is a lot for me but anyways um hold on let me get some more notes my name is Taylor Howlett I'm a parent of a sixth grade student at Chapin intermediate I'm just here to address some concerns about um in a nutshell a bullying an incident and um and the portals like tools that you guys have in place that I think are really great tools specifically the stop it portal um and how they're being I guess implemented I heard earlier you guys were saying what was it um like

082how can we keep our students and our teachers safe and um and implement the tools that at hand and I'm concerned that maybe um they're not being used as intended um without getting into like gory details and stuff like that um my child made an anonymous report that was not kept Anonymous like purposely like admittedly and then not even dealt with or taken seriously um and it created a lot of other issues and and just nothing's really been dealt with and so my concern is you know if this is like the front line of dealing with you know preventing certain like tragic incidents and stuff like that um what are we doing you know to to follow through with that like the protocols like you know at Bay because I um I mean I read

083the whole stop it like um it's a great system you know um I just don't know if um you know with the protocol if is you know that should be handled you know because if you're if they're not using the protocol then it doesn't really matter if it's there or not you know and so and you know a lot of this will prevent kids from even reporting in the future so which scares me you know because this is like the the conception of where you know the seeds are planted and so um I guess that's really about it um does the board respond to things or is it just kind of stating we do not respond okay thank you we'll we are taking notes okay thank you thank you I appreciate it Odessa Hilton of

084Columbia is here on behalf of the scea and the library book challenge we had greetings superintendent Dr Ross board members Lexington Richland five schools Representatives students family and friends on behalf of South Carolina Association of Education the scea we want to thank you for placing the children's book Black is a color the rainbow color back by Angela Joy back on the shelves for all to enjoy thank you Josh Malkin of Columbia is here to speak about the library review policy good evening you all certainly keep a healthy agenda as a former educator I want to thank you Dr Ross for sharing your vision I certainly don't miss talking about map data my name is Josh Malkin and the legislative Advocate can you all hear me I'm just going to leave this for the ACLU of

085South Carolina I'm gonna truncate this um recently black is a rainbow color was removed from District shelves well under review is a children's book about black joy and black history the Review Committee found it was an award-winning book with very few if any negative reviews they voted unanimously to keep it on Library shelves the woman who submitted it certainly has a right to her opinion that opinion shouldn't dictate what's on Library shelves I commend the Review Committee it seems they thoroughly considered a variety of factors in reaching their determination a determination that supports libraries and learning However the fact that this review took place the fact that this book was taken off shelves suggests that there are tweaks that can be made to this policy so that the opinion of one or a few doesn't

086determine what information is available to the many so one policy is a practical based uh one suggested modification practical based on the policy I imagine you all have in place and the other is a little more substantive so I know the model policy suggests that the parent meets with the teacher perhaps an administrator I think this process is probably in place to kind of you know so that parents can be having conversations with their teachers and administrators and that's really you know imperative to building a healthy and inclusive welcoming School environment I also imagine it would weed out some of these complaints and and you know help parents see that their individual unique discomfort shouldn't determine what's available to other people's children uh second I think the policy could be modified to be aligned with

087best practice so that books are kept on shelves throughout review this change would respect the concerns of individual parents while also preventing them from single-handedly dictating what information is available to all children for any period of time Librarians are trained Educators and experts their expertise and selection process should enjoy presumptive respect especially during an era where books with characters from minority groups are increasingly being challenged this change would create a policy that is attentive to parental concerns while treating our Educators as the experts in dedicated public servants that they are I do not want to highlight a problem without providing a solution I brought policies from Iowa and Texas that would solve this problem and prioritize the right to read over individual discomfort thank you for your time consideration and dedication to academic freedom Peter

088Lawson of West Columbia is here to speak about gratitude foreign good evening board and Dr Ross I wanted to come up in front of you all and thank you all for your service it's been a contentious couple of years and um hopefully that's behind us um I want to thank the board members that served and especially Jen Hammond and she is truly an educator and her Services really appreciated by the teachers and uh thank you and have a great Thanksgiving and mayor Barry Walker of Irmo is here can I use this mic does this work y'all hear me I can hear you good well thank you very much I bring congratulatory greetings to all the new board members from the town of Irma we are ecstatic that you guys have made a commitment to run

089for office and win and now you are serving the town in The District Five we are really appreciative of all of that I say this because I want to tell y'all a quick story change is good change is real good my church asked me to play Santa Claus uh this year so I grew a beard and I think the beard came in pretty good and you know it's changed for me and they also gave me a Santa Claus outfit and when I put the Santa Claus outfit on I didn't need any extra padding so I think change will be good for me come the first of the year I will be making a change but I say this and just because it's a Synergy between the school district and the town we are working hard

090in a town of Irmo to bring people to our district to the district we're working hard to bring new businesses that want to open up that Mr Roth said those small businesses that want to relocate and be a part of our community we're working hard to make that happen and when we do that the first thing they ask us is well how's the school district well I can tell them what a with a conviction in our school district is second to none you can get there from here you don't have to go to Princeton but you can be the leader of your carpentry class your your Plumbing's uh company you can be a leader in your in your in your careers but you can get that get there from here the partnership between the town

091the school district and Midlands tech because they're right here also it's going to be crucial for us to build up our community so I say to CEO and I again congratulations congratulations to all the new school board members um the town of Irma was ready to work with y'all to make it happen I want us to be the best place to live in the country not in South Carolina but the United States and we're working on it and I know you all are working on it also so thank you very much and thank you for your service thank you very much all right that concludes public participation so we are moving on on our agenda we are on item 13 on our action agenda do I have any motions from executive session prove the tires

092Mr Hogan like to make the motion that we approve selected employment items exhibit a for action do I have a second second Miss huddle all in favor all right that is 7-0 do I have any anything else from executive session all right all right so that takes us to number 14 on the action agenda which is the certification of delegates for the 2022 delegate assembly under exhibit G and um the way that this works as I understand is our district has six votes under um the school boards Association and we have listed all seven members so we need um one alternate and six delegates for this form I believe Mr Hogan I'll jump on that grenade as an alternate all right so can I have a motion for the six delegates I may have a

093conflict with that meeting so I would like to give mine to to Mr Hogan so can I have a motion for the six delegates and the one alternate I move that um Mr Scully Mr Satterfield Miss Snipes Mr Hogan Miss Hans Blackburn Hans and Miss Barnhart be our delegates and Miss huddle will be the alternate all right a second Mr Hogan okay um and then all in favor that's unanimous all right that moves us to the our discussion agenda item 15 the discussion of the proposed 2023-2024 school year calendar exhibit h uh all right Madam chair members of the board Dr Ross good evening I would also like to add my congratulations and welcome to all the new members and officers I'm looking forward to working with everyone this year pursuant to board policy I

094see about this time every year we will bring to you all a proposed academic calendar for next school year so um I think we're working on getting it on the screen but it is in your packets um the proposed um 2023 2024 year-round modified academic calendar and the version that you all are seeing okay great okay the version that you all are seeing is actually um what we informally titled option C there have been two versions before it and we shared those versions with several groups the superintendents parents advisory Council The Faculty advisory Council and our principals and in fact we did a survey of District Five faculty and got about 400 responses with the first two versions and um what that feedback really told us was that they weren't happy with the first two

095versions so um using those comments we developed option C and the what we were able to see from those comments were they the faculty and and the parents expressed this and the principals expressed this in their comments that the um the winter break was not long enough the way the calendar fell we were starting a little later in August around the 22nd of the month which is later than typical for our students to start so um all of those comments and concerns led us to investigate our district transitioning to the year-round modified calendar and that gives us a lot more flexibility with our star with our start dates and the ability to take more breaks throughout the year so that that is what we are presenting tonight is the year-round modified calendar and I'm just

096going to hit a very few of the highlights on that for you um our faculty and staff would begin school on August the 7th students would begin around August 15th which is really more like our typical start dates for the district and then the fall break has been very popular in our calendar for the past few years and that is included here in October October 13th and 16th which is just prior to the end of the first nine weeks which feedback we've gotten from faculty in the past couple years is they prefer having a teacher work day before the end of the nine weeks to get grades in and organized for for that time and then we do have um two full weeks for winter break which I think is um preferred by the faculty

097and parents for traveling purposes and and just having a good break um everybody needs that and then you can see the other days that we have in here the typical holidays and then we would conclude school for the year on May 31st so all students and staff would be out of the buildings by the end of May so um I'm presenting this for discussion tonight I'm happy to answer any questions you have and then we'll bring it back to you next time for final approval do we have any questions I know I do but I'll let I'm going to defer to anybody else that may all right I'll kick the questions often it may stem some one of the concerns that I have about this calendar is under state law it has always been for

098several years that school does not start before the third Monday of August and there is several reasons for that that impact the state of South Carolina so some of those reasons relate to the fact that we are a very service oriented um we have a very sorry service oriented economy tourists oriented economy and when we don't when we start school back early that pulls kids students and their parents out of the workforce which is one of the reasons why state law implemented that third Monday the third Monday rule to start after that date unless there is a modified year-round academic calendar I'm a little concerned that this isn't actually like a year-round calendar but it is trying it is phrased that way so that we can start a little bit earlier and I'm I'm a

099little I'm a little can I'm a little concerned that we're starting too early I'm also a little concerned about that um as a parent um and and as hearing some feedback from some folks because I've asked about this calendar about the full two and a half weeks that were out of school in December because that requires working parents to find child care and other arrangements so when I have spoken to some teachers and to some parents on Pacs um on on the pack and on different teacher teachers across the district when they asked me about this schedule the first schedules that they showed or the schedule that was proposed to the board was different than what they've seen so I'm wondering if we've actually presented this particular version again to the pack to the sics

100to the different teachers and we've gotten feedback on this version because it starts a full week early and it ends a full week early in the summer and because they haven't seen this I'm hesitant to vote on this without actually having some feedback on this calendar yes ma'am um I'll start with the pack and the the pack the parents advisory and the faculty advisor they have not seen option C the principals have right um and the principals were pleased with it um we we formulated this based on the comments that we received from those advisory councils um so no they have not seen officially option C but it was developed based on their feedback and just as a point of clarification over me we are we're not going to ask for Action tonight yes sir

101so we are going to take all three schedules back to uh our advisories and schools this gets this out into the public and uh bring this back again uh for final approval correct that first phase of that kind of like last year we got feedback brought it here went to receive more feedback and at that time we can breathe in data from those those polls right I would love the data from the all three because I've I had heard about the first two and that option A was had a stronger response than option b yes but you know I know that that is not comprehensive and this is just totally different than either one of those options so I'm I'm concerned that we're not I just want to make sure we're looking at everyone's feedback

102that's just my insight anybody else all right y'all knew I was going to ask questions as chair all right we're going to move on to um the discussion agenda thank you Miss Taylor um number 16 an update on Chapin High School stadium project Mr Wiseman boss members of the community I wanted to give you an update on a project that's basically been in a year in the making kind of give you an idea of what's going on with this particular project with regards to the Chapin High School stadium as you may recall back in October of last year the board approved seven seven million to 7.5 million for the construction of Chapin High School stadium and another million for the architectural design over the last several months we've been meeting with both the engineer and

103the architect to discuss the the progress of that back about four weeks ago they came up with a GMP which is a gross thanks for maximum pricing for the cost it came back to us at 9.9 million which far exceeds the 7.5 million that was allotted for this particular project so we've gone back to both the architect and Engineers to talk about ways how we can still fund this project with the money that was provided to us meet as many of the concerns in the requirements for the 5A Stadium project and now at the same time stay within budget so what I we have proposed are just to advise you of is that we're talking about looking at each the issue is just looking at it exceeds the cost that you provided us and looking

104at phasing it in we have not got the actual cost from the engineer or the architect yet about what each phase would look like but we're had a brief discussion down the hallway with one of them and we plan on talking with them both tomorrow just to see what kind of timeline that we have to come back with each of these projects in phases in a sense independent of each other but they can be done at the same time but what we didn't want to do is be able to delay something because we can't tie in sewers at the right time where we can't bring any right equipment during this time so we want to try to move forward with the many produce as we can but again keeping in in line with the budget

105so we will come back to you once we have some good data with the actual cost for each project this is just something that we looked at is not a commitment to the actual phases once we have a cost price and a timeline we'll come back with you with recommendation any questions do we have any questions does anyone have any questions so I have I just want to clarify for the for the um for the record and just from questions that I've gotten from the community um originally we were hoping that we would have the stadium done at the beginning of the football season is that is that can you kind of give some some thoughts I know that you're talking you don't know a timeline but well are the projects going to start in

106time for football season no man I'm just going to be honest with you uh based on the supply chain and the projects that they're looking at a best guess and I will say guess based on the engineer and The Architects uh information we're looking at a should be finishing about a November time frame uh so they're going to be working on the stadium during football season yes ma'am will that impact the football season yes ma'am how will that impact the football season you will not be able to play on the football field okay um and will we get a presentation on the phases from the contractor at some point yes ma'am once we sit down and talk to them and they they've got to have time we presented this to them last week so they

107really just haven't had a good time to sit down come up with the schematics and come up go back out to the bidders and look at a price line so we hope to get a rough idea of what timeline is before the next board meeting and again I emphasize a rough idea because it really depends on getting back with the subcontractors and getting some prices locked in but we will provide you information every step of the way all right so we're trying to get a plan together relatively quickly so that at least groundbreaks sometime at the beginning of 2023. That's My Hope yes ma'am I just got to be careful about we need to make sure that we understand the supply time timeline some of this equipment when we met a month ago was about

10812 months out so you know just basically because of supply issues and getting parts on order but again we're looking at how we can work this so we can get as much done as possible I would be hesitant to say that we could play on on in November or during football season only because I don't want to give you false hopes Satterfield yeah Mr Wiseman have y'all talked at all with the athletic directors about this because of scheduling and maybe they could do Home and Away using some I know when Dutch Fork High School first opened I think they used irmo's field somewhat or I think about a month ago before this plan came in effect before we knew the cost we already looked at delaying some of the football games just because of the

109timeline at the uh architect and engineer presented to us they knew they couldn't get some of the parts in so we already looked at trying to change and do most of them away obviously with the visitor seam in some cases an emerald reduction yes sir yeah but we haven't sit down with them we want to present this to you before we sit down and talk to them as well well you might want to I appreciate what you're saying but you might want to just say you know this is a possibility you probably should be thinking because I know that being an old football coach they work on that stuff well in advance so yes but uh anyway that's just a suggestion Mr Scully Mr Wiseman I understand that this project in total is uh us

110kind of viewed as a revenue generator as well and I know when you come back for additional information to bring this could you provide a breakdown by chance of what the projected Revenue would be for faces one two and three and then what the projected revenue for the stadium would be for if all four phases were completed just so that we can see a difference in because I I and I it just the question occurred to me when I saw your schematic if the Concourse includes additional concessions or you know even additional seating that could generate Revenue I'd like to see a breakdown of of what we're looking at for phases one through three and what we'd be looking at from projected for all four phases and what we're trying to reach is the requirement

111by South Carolina High School league for a 5A team to host second round playoffs is seating requirements of five thousand I think we'll see that just by a little bit we'll know more here in the next couple weeks so we can give you a rough estimate based on the number of seats that are being you know available to sell so yes sir yeah and and the reason I'm asking is I'd just like to see from a to make an evaluate from a cost standpoint would would it be if there's a significant or substantial Revenue generation for all four in addition to rather you know as opposed to just the three maybe it would be that changes the the dynamic there of of the cost and perhaps we could consider that that's the only reason what

112we need to look at is as we go through these phases is still being able to do concessions still have access to the restrooms provide visitor lockers so we're looking at those items first so that as soon as we can get back on the football field we're still a fully functional Stadium sure I have a question is there is there a that when when we kind of go through these phases that there's a that the contractor can come up and kind of like show us visually hey this is what phase one is this is the increased seating this is the Press Box this is these are the visitors um phase three is the visitor's side locker room right and then phase four is The Concourse is that correct yes just to kind of see like

113what it looks like if how we do it in phases visually and as we're talking about the numbers like how you know how expensive each phase is and what phase we can do concurrently um so like when Mr Scully was talking about you know which phase May produce different Revenue based off of capacity I'm assuming is kind of where you were going with that we can kind of see what that looks like and and we can ask questions about like how long it takes for the phases to actually get built yes ma'am thank you does anybody else have any questions Mr Hogan just to make sure I heard you correctly the the phase with the Press Box does get us into ADA compliance correct yes sir okay in the phase with one with the seating

114would put us in compliance with South Carolina High School league to host playoff games yes sir um third phase of course is the phase three we just need to make sure we're in compliance with the High School league as far as business but but regardless of of what the revenue could potentially generate we were bound to the dollars that we have yes and there there is no Magic Pot to get an additional sum of money correct is that an offer sir no I'm just I want to make sure I'm clear with okay It ultimately comes down to a prioritization of making sure that we get the best thing for our buck right now in this economy correct yes sir we just need to make sure we follow the the guidelines you give us on the

115budget requirements yes sir correct thank you right and it also helps to know like if we we do this in a phased approach like towards the later phases phase three or phase four I mean it seems like every day costs go up so the longer that we wait to complete the project the more expensive the project is going to be so I just want to make sure that we have all of the information so that we can you know I mean I know the board's already voted on this so I mean y'all are kind of hand the facilitation of making it happen I just want to make sure that we're moving you know as responsibly but as quickly as we can so that we don't price ourselves out of having a stadium exactly yes ma'am

116or or a school or any of those things as it seems like everything is going up right now all right all right thank you anybody else we have the contractor here is it anything you want to say Mr Edwards I mean they put it pretty well you know we're concerned about the timeline of course we had sort of initially you know hoped to get this thing done in time to play next season um where we are right now you know we don't foresee that happening and it it has a lot to do with really supply chain stuff as Dave mentioned um it's just it's things out of our control and this isn't unique to edcon or this school district they're having these same discussions at board meetings across the state right now unfortunately and it's

117just something that we're having to deal with in the construction industry there are things that we can't control unfortunately it's just things that we can't get but we're going to work with Dave and his team to come up with this phase plan that you know they presented and we'll come back to you all with the cost and talk through it all and hopefully we can get this thing going so but if y'all have any questions let me type you answer anything else thank you yeah all right that moves us to item 17 on the agenda discussion and first reading on proposed revisions to board policy bde board committees exhibit EI I want to ask Miss Paul to step to the podium to help us lead this this is a recommendation coming from the policy committee

118regarding board policy bde we heard from the Inspector General as well in terms of safeguards from the latest report on November issue November 2022 about safeguards and this one was the board policy outlining the how the internal auditor would be established so you take it away from there yes thank you Dr Ross members of the board thank you for having me again tonight I did just want to the biggest change here is regarding our board policy in regards to standing committees so as he mentioned if we do choose to add an internal auditor we would need to have that internal auditor report to someone other than myself or the superintendent so the recommendation there would be that the the internal auditor would report to the audit committee which would be a subcommittee of the board

119so in order to establish a subcommittee of the board we would have to amend board policy bde and I will I would gladly defer to Ms huddle if you have any other information yes the policy committee met I don't have the exact date a couple weeks ago three weeks ago and recommended just modifying the policy because it says we won't have standing committees but if you're going to have an audit committee it needs to be a standing committee so that was the reason for recommending the the change to the policy and then I believe you've got a different policy to address the internal controls but yes that was the policy committee's recommendation yes and I just want to add um you know the audit committee because the reason for it to be a standing committee

120is that they would not be responsible for just um the internal like selecting an external auditor the internal auditor would report to the audit committee throughout the year there could be special projects at the internal auditor would need to assist with that they would need to report back to the audit committee throughout the year so the audit committee could meet several times a year as needed so that's why we would suggest it'd be a standing committee of the board do we have any comments or questions Mr Satterfield yeah I had just the same question I asked you earlier compared to other districts like I know you obviously are in conversation with Fort Mill do they have standing committees with regards to something like this or do you know I know that they do not have

121an internal auditor so I don't I don't they do not have an audit committee but I'm not sure if they have other standing committees okay and the second question is how frequently would this standing committee meet with the internal auditor um it could be on an as needed basis the recommendation from our external auditor currently is at least twice a year um you know certainly to to choose the external auditor would be one meeting um to also get the report from the external auditor would be another meeting and then any other times throughout the year that they would need to have discussions with the internal auditor okay and this recommendation came from the group that did the internal auditing right yes yes sir that did our external audio sir okay uh the reason I asked

122is I I was looking at the previous board policy which says that uh there will be no standing committees so this is a big change for us it really is um and if they were not going to meet more than twice or three times a year why would they not just present it to the whole board I think that could be your choice in speaking with our external auditor about having either the full full board or a subset of the board whenever the full board meets it is in public session um there if there is a quorum you know emotions can be made if it's a subcommittee of the board and there is not a quorum then it is not on the public does not have to necessarily you know be invited um and a

123lot of times when it is does pertain to audit internal auditor there there are a lot of confidential matters um so it could be either way I believe yeah I was just again I just in the and being as transparent as we can with the whole board and and removing I guess all barriers I was just concerned when I read that so I guess this is the first reading so I guess we'll have opportunity for more discussion if we decide yes I'm sorry um I think your question makes a lot of sense um I'm actually on the audit Committee of the board I'm on the board of a life insurance company I'm on the audit committee as well and I did want to clarify that the committee would not make any decisions um as Miss

124Paul said things could be presented to the committee and then the committee would make recommendations to the full board and a good example of why you don't really want to do that in public is one of the things that an audit committee usually approves is the audit the internal audit plan you don't want to advertise that because if the area knows they're going to get audited they do things different than they've been doing them today another example of why you don't want to do that in public is we recently had to use a forensic auditor for a situation at a particular school that's something that if we had an internal auditor they could have done that and it would have actually been less expensive and they could bring that information back to the audit committee

125without you know an active investigation in front of the full board but anyway I did want to clarify that that the audit committee could not make decisions they would just hear things and make recommendations to the full board also um just wanted to point out I did look at this um Deloitte which is one of the big four audit firms they actually recommend that the internal audit when the internal audit function reports to the audit committee it allows internal Auditors to remain structurally separate from management and enhance objectivity so that's why that's typically done as well do we have any other questions yeah I want to ask another question Miss huddle knows a lot more about this than I do obviously but other boards like corporate boards and insurance boards they don't meet as frequently

126as we meet and that's I guess that's one of my questions and if we and if it's only twice a year or three times a year and when I meant transparent I'm I please I didn't mean that we should expose I was just talking about as far as us as a board if we're getting information from another committee well we get the information that the committee shares with us and I don't doubt that it will be good information but I was just thinking if it's only going to be twice or three times a year why not just include the whole board but I was not part of the original discussion so I'm not privy to all that information but that's all I wanted to say thank you um you you could um the the reason

127as Ms Paul say stated is you have a quorum then so we would have to do certain things in an executive session and then certain things in public and it would just make it last longer um but you could do that I mean I will say personally I thought that the committee approach that we had worked well because as you see I don't know what time it is but I'm tired it helped because you can see even tonight there are some people that have a lot of questions and there's some people that really don't have questions and that way the um the Committees the people that really want to ask a lot of questions and get a lot of information can come and it's not requiring all of this but that's obviously for us to

128decide we could make the audit committee could be a committee of the full board foreign Miss Paul I have a question where did the language for the audit for the audit Committee in this first in this policy come from um so we met I met with uh the policy Review Committee a few weeks ago as Ms huddle stated and it was part of that discussion but I will let Miss huddle lead because she really did lead that yeah I took notes during the policy committee and that that was still running this policy yes well we the original Apollo all we did was make some minor changes to it yes so I believe that there are audit committees in other school districts and and I mean like for example like the University of South Carolina has

129an audit committee and and I believe that in some situations it's not just board members on that committee and I would be curious and I'm just saying this to the board um as you know I would like to see some more policies and see how they're actually like the Committees are actually implemented um if you know if there are other people involved in committees or not that may not be a good idea I'm not sure um Miss Barbara and Hunt I will say I spoke with our external auditor today and she did recommend um that there were at least two outside members from the board on the committee um one being a financial expert and then one being a parent or other Community member she said that is what she um normally sees you spoke

130to Jag yes okay um I would I would just I mean personally I mean I think that I think that an internal auditor is a is a good idea and I'm not complete I'm not the biggest fan of committees because I believe that meeting in the presence of the full board we can have conversations with everyone um I mean I think that that's probably the most transparent way to handle it I'm just not necessarily um for this this is such an important part of this policy that I I would like to be able to see some options on on how or get some feedback on how some of these audit committees are working for schools whether that's a university or a state agency or um or or a school district I'm that's just my thoughts

131to that I'm saying out loud to fellow board members um and if you have any feedback on that that's great I think that your feedback from from JAG was fantastic yes and I can certainly bring other look at other policies and see what they have as well anything Mr Scully yeah I just wanted to say that I Echo your your concerns uh about the uh the transparency and having the and what Mr Satterfield said about having certain just a a small number of board members on the committee I I do fear that even though minutes may be taken information would be lost or not presented to all the members as far as you know the the discussions we wouldn't have the details on the discussions that take place um likewise the public wouldn't I I

132think it would increase their burden from uh transparency perspective to have an additional committee and additional time that they'd have to devote in order to follow along follow along with the the activities of the district and just one more thing that that they would have to keep up with it's hard enough with with just the current board meetings that we have um so I I I'd also be concerned about you know the policy currently today is that there are no standing committees um and that's not recommended standing committees are not recommended by the South Carolina School Board Association as well um and so once we or were we to amend the policy and all of a sudden we go from no to having one committee that's a slippery slope and before you know it we're

133going to find ourselves well what about two committees we can we can do two that'll be okay and and everything will be justified I think the um the safest route personally would be to not have a standing committee um and and but yeah I don't have enough information so I I welcome the information on that anybody else all right so with that we'll move to discussion item number 18. do we I mean we would normally make a first reading on that one do we want to defer do we want I mean I'll take a motion whether to defer the first reading on this policy or to make a motion on this policy Mr Scully um due to being new and not having all the information I would make a motion to defer the first reading

134on this policy to another meeting do I have a second Mr Satterfield I saw that all right all in favor of the motion all right that's five to all opposed five to two so that motion has or that policy first reading has been deferred to the next meeting or to another meeting let's move to discussion agendas 18 which is the discussion and first reading on proposed revisions to board policy d-i-d-i-e [Music] fiscal accounting and audits for exhibit J point of order I guess since 17 is deferred do we want to defer I'm just asking Miss Paul or dude I mean we could still we could still discuss 18 because it really just talks about internal controls it doesn't mention an internal auditor or an audit committee it's just discussing internal controls but it's up to

135the board thank you I'll defer to the board do we do we want to Mr Scully I make a motion to defer the policy reading the first reading right do we have a second so we have a motion on the floor right now to defer policy di fiscal accounting and audits exhibit J so all in favor okay Miss huddle for discussion um Miss Paul you said it it um the the recommended changes don't impact the policy we just discussed correct correct I would recommend that we go and talk about this um Richland 2 just had an audit and a lot of the changes that Miss Paul has recommended touch on the things that the oig took issue with with Richland 2 and I think it's just we're not finalizing the policy tonight we're just talk

136discussing and first reading so I would recommend that we go ahead with that all right so we have a motion on the floor to defer the pot to defer the discussion in first reading so can we but we'll vote on that first so all in favor of deferring to the next meeting raise your hand that's all opposed all right that's for all opposed your four you're you're for it okay so for deferment is five to and then all opposed two all right so we're going to defer this this conversation to the net to the to another meeting and that also gives us some time to review the um I know for myself the next time that we put this on the agenda we can refer the um the IG report for Richland 2 so that

137we can be informed of what those policies are or what their recommendations are all right so that moves us to discussion item 19. thank you Miss Paul which is discussion and first reading on proposed revisions to board policy IMDb flag displays proposed revisions to board policy ihac social studies education and proposed new board policy imda patriotic exercises exhibit K I want to ask Miss Tina mccaskill to come forward and bring these policies good evening to your Hans and new board members Dr Ross all board members as well but welcome we have three we have two policies that are being revised one that is a new policy all due to laws being changed and so that the section 59-1-325 is what caused these changes to happen so the shifts happen with um policy IMDb you'll notice

138that the word motto is being added to that title so it's Flag motto displays and you'll see that the motto displays are being added to that particular policy the social studies education policy ihac the days that are for um Memorial Day celebration days for social studies education are being moved to a new policy which follows the model policy from the state which is imda and that lists your Patriot Day your Constitution and citizenship day Veterans Day patriotism week and then the youth patriotic societies so they kind of go hand in hand I know it's three separate policies but all of the changes go hand in hand with that so it's recommended that you go forward and move to Second and final reading with those I know I had some questions about what this was when

139it first came up and I actually pulled up title 59 and this is pretty much just verbatim state law make you know making our policies comply with state law that's correct yep all right do I have a do I have a motion for first reading on this policy do I not believe okay I move that we approve first reading of board of revisions to board policy IMDb flag displays and proposed revisions to board policy ihac social studies education and proposed newborn new board policy imda patriotic exercises all right I have a second Miss Bernhardt seconds all right all right all in favor of this motion all right that's 7-0 and that moves us to our final item on the agenda number 20. do I have a motion to adjourn all right I'd like to make

140the motion that we adjourn the meeting I have a second Miss Barnhart second all in favor all right that's 7-0 thank you very much everyone have a great Thanksgiving holiday