RHS School Board Meeting 02-24-26

001Good evening and welcome to the February 24th school board business meeting. Local news media outlets were notified in writing of the agenda for the meeting on Monday, February 23rd, 2026. If you will please uh join me for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Please be seated. So, uh first up, uh we have the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Nosle. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 6. First up tonight

002is an executive session and we are have uh personnel matters. Um first hirings and then organizational pattern. Uh do I have a motion to uh adjourn the open session and enter executive session for those two matters? >> So moved. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Uh that's been the motion been made by M. Daniel and seconded by Mr. Nosal. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. 6 and we will come back around 6 o' Good evening and welcome back to the uh business meeting of the Rockland School Board for February 24th. We have been meeting in executive session for the past hour for the purpose of hirings and organizational patterns of the district. At this point, I will entertain a a motion to adjourn the executive session and reconvene the

003open session. >> Thank you, Mr. Nos. I believe you have second for Mr. Burns. >> Yes. >> Uh any discussion? Var not. All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carries 70. Are there any motions coming out of the >> Madam Chair? I move to approve the organizational pattern for the district and the positions in it. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. Thank you, Mr. Nosal. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carries 61 with Hutchinson against. Do I have any further motions? >> I have a motion. I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of Cherry Park Elementary School principal. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Harris. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those a vote. >> All

004opposed. Motion carries 70. Do I have any further motions? >> Madam chair have a motion. >> Yes, sir. >> I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of Rockill High School principal. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Harris. Any discussion? Var. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 70. >> Do I have any further motions? >> Yes, madam chair. Thank you. >> I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of Independence Elementary School principal. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I believe Miss Harris beat you. Uh any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 70. Do I have any further motions? >> Madam Chair? >> Yes. I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation

005for the position of assistant principal. I'm sorry, superintendent of human resources. Okay. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Any discussion? Wearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries six one and against. Does that conclude the motions for this evening? >> Madam Chair, I have one. >> Oh, yes. I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of Dutch McCree Middle School principal. >> Uh do I have a second? Second. Uh any discussion? Hearing none. All those a post. Motion carries 70. And if you have a motion, if you could be so kind to pass it down my way so we have the wording on it. Thank you. So with that, we're going to move into recognition and we are going to start off with the

006Northwestern High School's Girl Strength Team State Champions. Please welcome up Good evening, uh, Madame Chair, board members, superintendent. Thank you all so much for having us tonight. I am Caleb Gaither, the athletic director at Northwestern High School. And tonight, we celebrate a historic moment, um, the first state weightlifting championship in Northwestern history. are Leela Li and Autumn Linen. Um unfortunately right now Nia Coen could not make it. Um under the leadership of Coach Megan Allen who's our PE department chair. They set a new standard for our school. I'm extremely proud of these young ladies, the uh discipline, the hard work they put into the weight room, but again historic moment and they they made history in Northwestern High School. So thank you all. CONGRATULATIONS. HERE in three, two, one. Thank you. Congratulations. >> Great job.

007So, next up we have Tamarian Watkins from Northwestern High School, South Carolina, Mr. Football. Welcome. He's getting some weight. So, another historic moment in Northwestern history, Northwestern's very own Tamarian Watkins was named the 2025 Mr. Football for the state of South Carolina. Tamar Young is not only an outstanding football player, but an incredible young man off the field. His dedication and discipline led him to graduate early this past December, and he is now attending Texas A&M University on a full scholarship and now training with the team. Wow. So, we're extremely honored to be joined by his parents tonight, Tony and Martel, to accept this award on his behalf. Congratulations to you and Mari and Lisa. Way to go, mom and dad. >> Thank you. >> You'll make it. >> All right. Right here. >> Perfect.

008Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, guys. So there seems to be a theme tonight. Uh it it seems to be a theme that is centered around purple. Um our last uh recognition is something that has been a long time coming. Uh I am going to welcome up first Dr. Deborah Elder for the recognition before the approval that is on the docket for later on tonight of the Samuel Foster Welcome Center at Northwestern High School. Welcome up, Dr. El. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um I am extremely honored to get to present the formal request um ahead of the recognition um from the Rock Hill School Board of Trustees to name the current welcome center at Northwestern High School as the Samuel Foster Welcome Center in honor of Mr. Samuel Foster.

009And before I turn it over um to Mr. Abraham and and um Mr. Foster and we have somebody else after that. Um the the next speakers um I'd like to give just a little bit of background. Um, and as you know, I'm new in the community and thrilled to get to um, get to know the Foster family a bit. Um, Mr. Samuel Foster is a distinguished educator and community leader whose service to Rockill Schools and the broader community spans decades. He was the first African-American to serve as principal of a fully integrated public high school in South Carolina and was entrusted with some of the most challenging leadership assignments during the era of desegregation. As the principal of EMTT Scott High School from 1968, Mr. Foster led the process of closing the historic school and

010orchestrated the successful transition of students to desegregated settings. He worked tirelessly to maintain order, fairness, and safety during a time of he heightened racial tension, earning a reputation for courageous, steady, and impartial leadership. In 1971, he became the founding principal of Northwestern High School, where he played a critical role in bridging relationships between students, families, and staff from diverse backgrounds while establishing the school's culture, standards, and expectations that our students still enjoy today. Throughout his career, Mr. Foster cons consistently demonstrated integrity, fairness, and a deep commitment to students even in the face of personal threats and intense public pressure. Beyond his service as an educator and administrator, he has remained an integral member of the Rockill community, later serving with distinction in district leadership and as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives,

011where he was a key supporter of public education. Thank you. Naming the welcome center in Mr. Foster's honor is particularly fitting as it is the first space that greets students, families, and visitors. A reflection of the welcoming environment, leadership, and unity he worked to build and sustain. I'd like to welcome Mr. Michael Abraham, proud principal of Northwestern High School, to the podium to continue this very important recognition. Good evening, Madam Chair, Dr. Elder and distinguished board members, the Foster family, North Western class of 75, and our Rock Hill community. I stand before you with a grateful and thankful heart, thanking Miss Anne Scar. Could you please stand? Give her a hand. Miss Carr reached out to me via Miss Monday. Where's Miss Monday? Thank you. I'm going to take us through a brief history of

012how we got here today. Um, thank Dr. Elder for those beautiful words and um given a history of Mr. Sam Foster. We just want to give a background of how we got to this point today and I want to honor everyone that partnered with us. So, Miss Carr reached out and said, "Hey, um, the class of 75 would love to honor our principal, Mr. Sam Foster." And I said, "What did you know?" I know him as well. And, um, little did she know, I've been talking with the Foster family, um, talking with Mr. um, Alan Foster, and I remember one day I went to a conference with a Sam Foster shirt on, and I sent him a picture and I said, "Hey, just wanted to honor your dad. Really enjoyed meeting him." and I'm looking

013forward to honor him more. And um he made a statement. I hope we can do something um bigger. And so thank you, Miss Scar, for reaching out and and driving home the fact that hey, this is welldue. And so um in honor of Mr. Foster, we are um naming our welcome center after him. And like Dr. Elder said, what a space to welcome our guests and know that Mr. Foster's spirit, his spirit of care, his spirit of intentionality. He spoke at our Black History program last year and he remembered GPA of student athletes. So, I was just blown away by his intentionality and his, you know, paying attention to details and that let us know that he really, really poured in to his students. So after speaking with Miss Anar, she said, "Hey, I have

014a plaque that I want to um that class of 75 is going to sponsor. Do you have any other ideas?" And she asked the magic question and we started working together. Um again, thank Dr. Elder for partnering with us. Um thank the school board for partnering with us. And I thank the community for unity and coming together and um paying homage to Mr. Sam Foster and we're looking forward to the unveiling on Friday. And again, my my last story about Mr. Foster. He uh invited us over to his home um for dinner. And um I'm sorry, Mr. Foster, but at his age, I thought his family would be cooking for him. But when we arrived at his house, we walked up to the porch and he lit the match, the grill, and set those ribe

015eyes on there. And man, we had a great time, great fellowship, and even still, he's still pouring in to generations to come. And Mr. Sam Foster, well overdue. We appreciate you. We appreciate your um your care for the Rock Hill School community, your care for education, and this is just a small token of our um grateful hearts for what you've done. Thank you. We have a few more groups. >> Were you going to introduce him? >> And at this time, Mr. Sam Foster Jr. is going to come up, say a few words, and introduce Mr. Sam Foster. >> Madam Chair, Dr. elder members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, friends, family, it is a great night to be here. Well, thank you so much. Um, as a guy who is almost 69 years old, my

016dad is 93, so I've got a lot of stories that I can tell us here all night, but I'll promise not to do that by telling you something that uh you may not know about him uh as we talk about it. You've heard a lot about his history and you know a lot about it uh here in Rock Hill. My father was born in Chester, South Carolina uh in a family of six kids uh parents there and my grandparents to uh Scott and Katie Foster and uh born in an era of of depression where uh November 5th, 1932 was his date. Uh but the depression era was from 1932 1939 I think it was. So it was a difficult time difficult time for many families in in the country. Uh difficult time in Chester although

017Chester at that time had a lot of meals and jobs and things going on. It was still tough times. My dad tells the story of living in a home I think they rented when they first uh when he was first born and then they moved to a house and he said that the house was as cold on the inside as it was on the outside. You know, you could look down through the the floor and see the chickens under the under the under the house. So, it was it was tough. It was uh not easy. My dad did not come from uh great circumstances economically, but they had a great family and back then they didn't know uh what it was to struggle so hard, but they but they did. My dad grew up, as

018legend has it, as a mean little fella. Uh there's a picture of him with some other kids that I wish I could could bring and put up on the the screen tonight of them having this nice picture of all these kids sitting around and he's sitting on the ground and he's got this scowl on his face. And the word is is that he was just he was a mean little guy because he was little and he got picked on a lot. And so he uh uh he carried that reputation into to school and uh uh at 16 he graduated from Finley High School to head off to to what he hoped would be college. Uh there are a couple stories that I'll tell. One about how he got to college. But before that there's another

019little story about a fella. My dad loves to play cards. Uh, pinole is a great game for him. Uh, but I think he can play about every card game there is, poker, whatever it is. He didn't he didn't tell us what game this was. They were playing this particular night in Chester, but there was a card game going on and there was a uh there was a fell that came in. My dad was waiting to be next and uh fell came in and said uh his name was Hotfoot. Hotfoot was his nickname. Now, you all know in the black community, we have some serious nicknames. You know, uh June Bug, my brother's nickname was cool air. Cool air. Now, how do we come up with that? I don't know. But Hotfoot came in and said,

020"Mr., you know, who's who's uh who's got next?" And uh they said, "Well, Sam's got next." And he said, "No, Sam doesn't have next. I got next. This guy had a little reputation in the community." and um you know, strong man, a little bit of a bully. And so when the game ended, he uh you know, he said uh I got next. But my dad, without saying a word, jumped on hot foot and and took care of him and beat him up. All everybody was surprised because my dad's not a big guy. They said, "God, he's hotfooted. How'd you let Sam beat you up?" So my dad obviously got to play that game and Hot Foot never messed with him again. Most people don't know that my dad was a was a fierce competitor as

021well as a strong personality. But grow but growing up not being a big guy, but he was great at athletics. He was a a a great uh football man, great running back, played basketball, ran track, and uh he told his mom one day, "Mom, I'd love to go to college." Well, the family didn't have money for him to go to college. And she said, "Son, I don't know what we're going to do about that, but uh we will uh let me let me see what I can do." So, the story of 10 the $10 in a bus ticket is what we know in our family. My grandmother came up with $10 and a bus ticket for him to go to Columbia, South Carolina and try to walk on the team at Allen University. And uh

022he did that and made the team and found out from his coach that there wasn't enough scholarship money. And he uh said, "Well, coach, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been here. I've gotten into school and so on." on the coach said, "Well, if you just stay for a year, I'll get you some money next year and you can go to school." And my dad said, "I can't do that. I don't have money to do it." So, my dad calls my grandmother and gives her the sad news that uh you know, he made the football team, but he's not not going to be able to stay in. He said, "Mom, I don't know what to do." And my grandmother says, "Lord have mercy. Let me see. I I I don't

023know what we're going to do about that, but I want you to go to school. I want you to go to college. Somehow my grandmother comes up with another ticket with two tickets this time. She comes to Colombia, picks them up, they take another bus to Sumpta, South Carolina, where she was from. And she gets a try out. God only knows how she did it, but she got they had a try out at Mars College. and he went out there and and met the coach, made the team, and that's how he went to college at Mars. Well, he got lucky. He didn't just make football team. He also met his future bride who was a cheerleader and in a choir, uh, our mom, Justine Foster. My mother did have more than $10 in the bus

024ticket when she went to college and and so he made out well in meeting her. She was in good shape. Her father was a successful farmer down low country of Jasper County in Ridgand and they met and got married 1956. some guys named Samuel Foster Jr. came back came next and then three years later my brother Allan was born. Folks, I could go on and on with stories about my dad from Fairfield to Emit Scott to Northwest to to the transition at Sullivan and then on to Northwestern. But he can tell you all about all that as much as he wants. Ladies and gentlemen, Samuel R. lost to sing. Good evening. >> Evening. I wonder sometime since I was informed of all of this whether I'd be able to handle it. I'm not particularly an

025emotional person, but when someone demonstrate that they've been looking at you and you don't know how long and what for, it becomes a little sentimental. So I do appreciate the opportunity to be here to thank any number of people who played a role in my being here. And I'll start with Superintendent Elder Principal Abraham and the board and I make the board that I ask because had superintendent elder or principal Abraham had a problem we wouldn't be here. So the board rest with the final approval and I'm appreciative to all of you for this honor that I'm still looking for words to describe. So when you can't find the words to describe where you are, you have to come up with something else, I guess. So I want to cover just a little bit of

026information with you that will span the 50 odd years of Northwester's history. I'm going to take but a minute. I've got initially five things that I wanted to talk with you about. But I want to say first and foremost that when I went to Northwestern High School as principal, I really didn't have anything like this in mind. My desire was to put together the kind of factors that could assist with the social change of the time. Those were difficult times for the Rockill community. So, it's great to live in a community who understands its needs and who demonstrate that they want to positively solve them. So, we've had boards of trustees down through the ages that I'll refer to who had the wisdom and the ability to keep this community viable for its children. And

027still so many times I've heard it said that being a school board member is a thankless job. Well, absolutely not. you accomplish more than the community generally know you do. So, I'll cover these items with you and be as brief as I can, but I just can't thank you enough for looking at little old me. Number one in my thoughts when I was asked to make remarks was a young man on our first football team at Northwestern High School whose name was Tommy Miller. The first football team was was injured in a game, paralyzed for life, had to make adjustments in his life, serious adjustments. But I have never seen him to this day without a smile. So he played his role for Northwestern High School, too. He gave his all. Number two, athletics, I

028always felt, and academics need to be intertwined, and that's what I tried to do here. So, the next thing I thought about was Sue Frederick and our first graduating class and our first valadictorian who went to Duke University. and Duke University recruited Northwestern for a couple of years and I attribute that to her performances. She was a smart young lady. Number three, I thought about the first football championship in 1989. with coach Moose Wallace who invited me to h help hand out medals during halftime because we're going to win this thing. I was no longer of course at Northwestern. I was in the state legislature which the board had approved of my running and I mentioned vision and wisdom. They allowed me to run because they thought that there needed to be more sensitivity in

029education in the general assembly. and I tried to do my best, but that's how I got there. Had the board not approved it, I never would have been there. But after that championship, I invited the team and coaches to Colombia, lined them up across the chamber and introduced them. I saved about it was eight or 10 for the last. There was a kid in there whose name was Jeff Burus, who I understand is coaching now for the New York Giants. Jeff Burus cared about a 3.4 average academic and it's my understanding that Lou Hoes came from Notre Dame to Rock Hill to help recruit him to go to Notre Dame. Then there was another young man. I called out each of their names and asked them to step forward. And the members of the general

030assembly stood there with their mouths open or sat there with their mouths open and looking. And I got to the one that was on the end. I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jeff Dodge. Jeff carries a 4.4 on a fourpoint scale and has already been admitted to Yale. And following the introductions and break up, I had legislators coming to me that day and the next several days says, "Sam, what kind of school is that up there?" I said, "A public school?" I said, "Some schools do academics and athletics. And that one does. And so I cherish that moment as a first. Enjoy helping to pass off medals too. The fourth thing I wanted to mention, there was this young lady who happened to have been black who was a Northwestern student. I was no

031longer the principal, but I got to know her through the principal who was there at the time who gave me a call because she wanted to go to Duke University in the horse way and wanted to know if I had any influence that I could help being in general assembly and whatnot. Well, we worked toward trying to get her there, but we unfortunately didn't. She went to Ferman over in Greenville. And guess what? She became one of three contestants for the road scholarship for South Carolina. And just coincidentally, I've got a granddaughter. Furman and one of the schools were her choices and she's already been accepted to Ferman. Madison Well, the last one I'd like to talk about backto back football championships. Now, that brings us all the way up to to the 50. Quite

032a feat. Ain't easy. It takes staff appropriately, knowledge, and dedication to get there. So, I want to thank personally while I'm here, the athletic director, Gaither, head football coach. Give him that. ACADEMICALLY ON THAT ONE. There was also a young man who's already been up here who assisted with those championships to Marian Watkins. And I don't know exactly what his GPA is, but don't think I didn't ask. >> It's a 39. Now, here's a young man who has already been accepted Texas A&M. Point being, if he's got the academics and the athletic skills, he can play anywhere. That's what comes out of the Rockill community. So I welcomed my having lived here because it was members of the board who did an excellent job of seeing us through some critical times. They closed some schools

033as they are thought necessary. They built some schools that they thought were appropriate. They had some real vision to get us from point A to point B. And you can still feel the resonance of what they did. the tone they set. I never felt ashamed when I went anywhere with my Northwestern kids. Our desire was to have them compete with other young high school students whomever they were. So this is really a signal honor for me. I could call some names of people who could help, but we'd be here till in the morning. I want to since I don't know exactly where all of this got started, I know a part of it got started through the class of 75 when they had a reunion and talked about putting up a portrait, something permanent at

034Northwestern. And then the next thing I know that there might be something else. So Eddie Sin is here. He played a major role in that. He played a major role in helping to organize the uh 50th class reunion. And Star, I don't remember that Star. Uh, I remember >> Baron that was main. >> Nevertheless, they did a marvelous job with the 50th class reunion and some things have been happening ever since. So, I'm appreciative to all of you. I'll mention one name and hopefully not get in trouble. I see uh Doug Eckles here. And I mention his name because he was the first head football coach and athletic director at Northwestern. I hired him when I was there and he apparently did fairly well. He went on to become mayor of Rock Hill. So when

035you got good help, you can get a lot done. >> Yes. >> Thank you. I believe >> that we >> just just another moment of personal privilege. Yes. >> Since uh it's it's been said and and uh some of our folks have been recognized. I was I had nothing to do with this. I'm the senior class president. We were the four first four-year class at Northwestern. And I'd like for the members of our class who are here tonight to please stand. >> If not for their efforts, uh dad said we wouldn't be here. Thank you so much. So, as we have all heard and all known, Sam Foster Senior is a blessing to this community uh and has established a legacy at Northwestern. As we have a room filled with celebration of uh Mr. Foster,

036there are several groups that have asked to please come up and share a little bit about their experiences and say some words. Uh, and I'm gonna start off with introducing the fellas of Northwestern. Welcome up. >> Good evening. >> Superintendent Elder board protocol has been established. So, I'll go ahead and proceed. Um, my name is Juan Joseph and I'm the president of the Fellas. I have with me tonight the vice president of the fellows, Stace Anderson, who's the chair of our scholarship committee and Antonio Knox is also a member of our group as well. Um, before I get started on what the fellas do in the community and at Northwestern High School, um, I remember as a a young boy growing up, I remember my aunt, she was like the class of 78, I think.

037Um, they would always talk about Mr. Foster. So, I never met Mr. Foster. I always heard my parents talk about Mr. Foster. So, at that time, I was in eighth grade at Rosson Road Junior High. So one day uh he came and spoke to our eighth grade class and I remember that day he was talking to us about our future, what we need to do to get it right for college cuz we was, you know, we two years out from going to high school and then just make up our mind to what we want to do in the future. And I remember him coming in in that black suit. It was a slim fit suit. So slim fit suits are not new. uh you have that skinny tie and you were sharp as attack then

038and you are sharp as attack now. >> So I would like to thank you for all that you've done especially for me because you are a pillar in the community and uh you paved the way for principal Blake, Principal Massie and current principal Mr. Abraham and I want to thank you for that sir. And I would just like to go through what the fellas do at Northwestern. Uh the fellas, uh FE L acronym for faith, excellence, longevity, leadership, and sustainability. Uh this group got started uh early 80s uh about 83 summer 83 84 and it lasted northwestern for about 10 years and then disbanded and so we got back together about 11 years ago uh to become a nonprofit. So since then um worked with with uh pres uh principal Massie, we were established as

039a school club at Northwestern. So and it just like full circle. Um I also want to thank principal um Abraham for giving us the opportunity to continue to be there after all these years because what we do is we mentor there and we award scholarships to all four high schools in Rockville. That's including YPA, Rock Hill High, Northwestern, and South Point. So, last year we awarded what 10,000 >> $10,000 scholarship last year. And um and u we've been doing this now for close to 10 years. And uh we have some corporate sponsors too that I like to thank now. uh Wills and Fudge uh founders Federal Credit Union, Don Johnson uh State Farm and the community. If it wasn't for you guys, we couldn't do what we're doing now. Um and also with that is

040Tamarian Watkins. He was part of the junior fellows. So, and great young man. Uh, and at a 3.92 GPA, it runs pretty much across the board with in our group because right now we have uh currently 18 members there. Uh, six seniors, no juniors, they have four sophomores, six freshman uh, and two graduated early. That's included Mr. Watkins. And with that, uh, they G their GPA range from 3.5 or higher. So that gives us the opportunity to go into the schools, work with the students, and also we're able to award scholarship to those students. So, uh, but that's what we do. Um, please guys, if if you know anybody that attends Northwestern that you would like to get in our, uh, club, see Mr. Abraham or see Mr. Moody Buyers in the back and, uh,

041want to thank them and they will, they will be glad to get you directed and, uh, get them in the right direction. So, Thank you for having us at Northwestern and all the other schools. So, last but certainly not least, we have uh a representative from class of uh 75 and that would be Mr. Eddie Sin who I believe we already had mentioned. Come on up. Good evening, Madame Chair, Superintendent, members of the school board, Mr. Foster, and the Foster family, and fellow citizens. I'm Eddie Sin, a proud product of the York County Public School System, and a member of Northwestern's class of 1975. Thank you for honoring our principal, Mr. Foster, by naming the Welcome Center at Northwestern in his honor. During my 27-year career in corporate America, we received a great deal of

042training under the rubric entitled shadow of the leader. We were told that as leaders in the company, we cast a shadow over our teams and within our organization and how good teams reflect our leadership, our values and our that our words were important and that our actions spoke louder than words. I will admit that at first I was rather skeptical of these exercises but grew to understand that the concept of shadow of the leader was a valuable concept an important principle that helped us as an organization to develop a culture that would strive for excellence. I believe that Mr. Foster also understood this concept because he cast a very very large and important shadow while he was our principal at Northwestern. He understood that he directed and molded the atmosphere in which we were to

043learn and work together. For our class's 50th reunion, I was asked to reach out to our teachers and faculty and invite them to join us in celebrating the first class to spend all four years at Northwestern. I reached almost 20 teachers and everyone told me about the importance of Mr. Fosters's leadership, his guidance, and his direction. He indeed cast a large shadow and set the tone for a successful educational experience. Members of the board and Mr. Foster, on behalf of the Trojan alumni community, thank you. So that concludes the segment of speaking. As you've seen on our agenda, we have a couple of things that we are going to go through before we take the formal action from the board. Um so and then we are going to take some pictures post the formal action

044but I will give some further instructions and I know if at that time with those motions coming out I'm sure board members may have some comments as well. So with that said, we are at this point going to check on citizen participation and I don't believe we have anything else. Um going down to consent action agenda. We have the minutes from the February 10th uh business uh meeting as well as personnel recommendations. Uh do I have a motion to approve the consent action agenda stated? >> So move. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Dr. Del. Any discussion? Var all those all opposed motion here 70. So that puts us down to the action agenda. Tonight we have heard the testimony of our entire community regarding uh

045Mr. Foster. Rockville schools have a long-standing going back decades policy that we do not name facilities after people. We normally name them after places. That's a rule and a practice. But for every rule, there sometimes has to be an exception. And I think that the sentiment that we have heard tonight is that that exception is Mr. Sam Foster. So what you're going to see tonight is three motions. The first one is to suspend the policy we have in place. The second one is to name or dedicate the Northwestern High School Welcome Center to Mr. Sam Foster Senior. And the last one is to reinstate set policy. So with that, do I have a motion to suspend policy FF naming facilities? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Vice D. I'm sorry. Do I have a second?

046Thank you, Dr. Belton. That post remain notice. Um, any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. Seven. So, with that, do I have a motion to dedicate the Northwestern High School Welcome Center to Mr. Sam Foster, Senior? >> So move. >> Thank you, Dr. Belton. Do I have a motion for a second? >> Second. Thank you, Vice Chair Hutchinson. Any discussion? You made the motion so you can start. >> You almost get emotional, want to speak. And like many in this room, I probably could speak for days. Um when I first came to Rock Hill, one of the first people was told to me was Mr. Foster. Um Principal Abraham, I too have spent many days out at his house. My family has spent days at his house. Um he can

047cook ribe eyes, but he also cooks a mean breakfast. um when he when his wife was still living there and here recently I jokingly said to him about a year ago, a little less than a year ago, I called him on the phone um as I do from time to time. And he was actually driving to Atlanta and I said, "You got to be kidding me. You're doing what?" Yeah, it's on I 95. I'm like, "You there's no way." Yeah, I have a grandson in Atlanta. So, I'm I'm in route to Atlanta and I just asked his children before this event where they've told me they've taken the keys. there are no more trips down I I 85. So, thank you all for doing that. But in all seriousness, Mr. Foster, welld deserved. Um you

048are mentor to many of us. Um some of us publicly, some of us privately. We all lean on you for your wisdom. There's not a public move I have made. There's not an office I have run for where Sam Foster has not been one of the first calls and I've not gone and put my feet on his table and seek sought his advice to include the seat I sitting in right now and so his endorsement his support is extremely important and you've always given it. So God bless you Allan thank you so much who's also a friend Sam Jr. Thank you Mr. Foster thank you for all that you've done for this community. Though I'm not a native Rockilian, um when I moved here, I've heard of the stories of you, Mr. Foster. So, you

049are a giant among many, and I personally am grateful for your service, not only to Rock Hill, but to the state of South Carolina. I thank you for being an advocate of education all these years. Um, as a an African-American woman, I I am thankful for you for paving the way for so many African-Americans and leadership in this district and again across the state. So, I thank you for your service and Alan, thank you for your support as well. I enjoyed our conversations over the the several years and and um just definitely again it's honor I am honored to be a part of this motion tonight to honor you for all that you have done for this community and for the state of South Carolina. So, thank you, sir, for your service to us all.

050>> Okay. Anyone else? >> Yes, Mr. Nos. >> Mr. Foster, thank you. I'm thankful that we recorded everything that happened tonight. I could listen to you talk for a lot longer than you talked and I appreciate you giving us that narrative and and bringing everyone back um to let all of us know about it. Thank you everything that for everything that you've done for Northwestern High School and for Rockill Schools. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Foster. I'm Melissa Harris and I'm a proud graduate of Rockill High and love area miss. But I have to say that wow, I'm very impressed and I feel like I've missed out. I feel like not being a Trojan, but um grateful for Mr. Lesmeister, but just thank you for your tenure and for your dedication and just listening to

051your story. I'm just I can listen all night like peace. I'm glad we we have that. And um so what whenever I come to greet you, I have a piece of cedar. Um I'm Kataba. So for us, cedar is representative of prayers and offerings. So I hope I can give this to you to have many more years of life and impact of um impact meaningful impact to our community. So thank you for your service. >> Anyone else? If not, all those in favor. All post. Motion carries. 70. If we can quickly entertain a motion to reinstate policy FF. >> So move. >> Uh thank you Dr. Belton. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Nosil. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. 70. So, at this

052point, we are going to take uh a moment uh to take some pictures because I know that Laura Brie is very excited back there with camera to make sure that we get some good pictures of u everyone involved tonight. We do have a rather lengthy board meeting for the rest of the evening. Uh so there will however be a small reception that may or may not be of the colors golden purple that is in the room next door. So for anyone who wants to spend some time in there uh we invite everyone to to take a take a stroll through there and and maybe visit a little bit afterwards. So thank you. >> Start the board. Yep. >> Yep. Yep. >> All right, everybody. >> We're We're good. >> I guess we're good. >> Even

053out. Yep. Thank you. >> All right. Everybody right here in three, two, one. >> Great. I just want to take a seat. Okay. >> Do not have that. We owe the class of 75. She can't get pictures. We get it right. >> You look at the camera right here. >> grand hear about I don't have more right. Take it off two cameras. First, two. Perfect. Second >> right here in three, two, one. Perfect. Thank you guys. >> Thank you so much. I hear I Oh yeah, >> you know Lory's been in the hospital. It's Lloyd's girlfriend. >> Good to see you, too. in there. That's right. with you here. Thank you for everything. >> The coach 76. Okay, >> next up is uh communications. We do not have any today. Um, and we're going to

054move into presentations and I am going to introduce Mr. Daryl Wilson uh, who is going to give us a quick overview of the demographic study. However, I recognize that this is a very tough act to follow. So, please uh, give Mr. Wilson and his team a round of applause. >> I as Dr. How am I supposed to follow that? Um, but I do want to say it is an honor to follow that because what you just saw is what inspired all of us that are in education to be in education. So for that I am honored. Um, good evening madam chair, uh, madame vice chair, members of the board, uh, Dr. Elder. Tonight we are pleased to begin the first phase of a three-part process uh, this evening related to board goal number two. Tonight's

055presentation will focus on the initial component of the work, a comprehensive demographic study designed to establish accurate student enrollment projections to help inform long-term planning efforts. On March the 24th, we will continue this process with a second presentation that will highlight results of an in-depth uh facilities assessment. Together, these two studies will uh be datadriven foundation necessary to guide future planning. Following these presentations, in accordance with policy FB, we will convene a facilities master planning team. That team will include school district administrators, teachers, parents, local government representatives, community members, and district district facility staff. They will collaboratively work together to develop recommendations that will address our district's evolving needs. We are grateful tonight for our partners. Um we have Mr. Marty Little with um the Taba Regional Council of Governments and Mr. Jim Britain with

056LMG who will present tonight's findings of our recently completed demographic study. With that, I would like to turn the presentation over to Kaba of the Regional uh Council of Governments and then immediately followed by J uh excuse me, by Jim Britain. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, superintendent, members of the board. Uh good evening. My name is Marty Little. I work with Kataba Regional Councils of Governments. Um, and we were contracted with Jim with LMG this past uh month or so uh to provide tenure student employment projections for uh the district at the school level and at the grade level. So, I'll get into a little bit about our model um some of our methodology, but then leave you with our key findings before I hand it off to Jim. Okay. So, just real

057quick who we are. There's 10 councils of governments within South Carolina. We're one of them. We cover York, Chester, Union and uh Lancaster counties, their municipalities and the Kataba nation and really our charge is to provide technical assistance to local governments within the region um in special districts such as yourself. Okay. So, we developed this model uh for the district and it's a modified cohort survival. that uses modified cohort survival method, which is really just a way of saying that students that are in fifth grade on year one become sixth grade on year two. Um it's modified because we inject um local and state data um into the model. It kind of helps you know beef it up a little bit. Like I said, we did this for 10 years uh into the future. And

058the primary driver of the model is residential building permits. So when someone submits a permit to uh Rockill or York County um for a for a home, they get assigned an address point in their GIS system. So we took we take we took all that data uh from July 2022 through December 2025 um and aggregated that into each school's uh assignment boundary or what we call attendance zone. So basically um if you live on you know X Street, you go to Leslie Elementary. If you live on this street, you go to Mount Gallon, etc. Um, the model assumes this level of permit activity that we that we saw over this time period is going to continue into the future. Obviously, we know that, you know, things are can fluctuate and often do. Um, however, just

059for the sake of consistency with the model moving forward, we assume that the level of permit activity remains steady. Um, I do want to say because the model is permit based, um, it includes homes that are currently under construction or haven't been constructed. Um, so like I said, it goes through December 2025 if someone applied for a home permit in November 2025. Obviously, that house isn't built yet. Um, but that permit was issued, so we we captured it there. Um, and not at the certificate of occupancy level. Um, it does not account for plan developments or existing residential entitlements. So if someone got approved for say a 500 lot subdivision, we don't count all 500 of those at at one time. We, you know, it's it's as they apply for those individual per. The model

060captures public school enrollment only. So it it accounts for private charter and homeschool students in kind of indirectly. We apply a public school participation rate. Excuse me. Um sorry about that. Um but it does not quantify uh those private charter homeschool students uh directly. U non-attendant zonebased schools which I think Cherry Park those those that don't have a set boundary um are included in the model but we use a separate methodology um and the model doesn't account for any you know legislation that could change within the next two years. So just a little bit about the methodology and I won't go into you know the specifics. It's really easy to get into the weeds of this uh but we started with the 2024 2025 end of year enrollment as our starting enrollment for the next

06110 years. Um student population projections for new home sales like I said uh are calculated by by residential building permit. So each new home gets applied per home uh population or persons per household uh from the US Census Bureau. uh they also give us the percentage of distribution of school age children by grade level. So you know 6% of the population within the district is elementary school age you know three etc. For existing students uh we established a three-year average cohort survival rate which means you know we averaged out three years of uh each grade at each school uh and how those changed within those three years. And so that factors in or hopes to capture those students that are either uh moving across town, moving out of the district, coming into the district through

062existing homes and not new building permits. U we did this at the grade level first, aggregated it to the schools on each school and then finally at the district level itself. uh and then whichever final enrollment number we get for analysis year one that becomes the starting enrollment year for analysis year two and so on. Um grades one through two like I said are just kind of your basic cohort survival if you're in fifth grade year two you're in sixth grade year three etc. uh three-year-old and pre kindergarten had its own you separate methodology that I really won't get into but um it is included in the methodology document u the full projection document you have kindergarten was the same way and then sixth and nth grade uh were the same way they all have

063their kind of individual ways we capture uh those different cohorts same for the like like I said the uh the schools that are not based on specified attendance zone boundaries or individual streets um we we established a rate for them based on the district population. So that's more of kind of a linear model as opposed to the other that um includes different data. This is all the sources that went into our model. You can see there that's where that modified cohort comes into. We we uh factor in you know everything from you state address or building permit date or lo excuse me local address or building permit data to uh state school age population and home school enrollment uh percentages at the state level. So the key takeaways from our model is that based on

064our analysis the school district is anticipated to decrease by approximately 10% over the next 10 years. When you average that out, it's about a decrease of 1% each year. All but two uh schools are expected to lose population over the course of 10-year period based on uh the math we did. Um and as far as we can tell, this decline is largely attributable uh to decreasing average household size uh which is about 2.34 for the district. Um and statewide decline in the number of school age children attending traditional public schools. So, we know there's kind of that migr migration towards home and charter and private school. So, that was included as well. That's that's kind of all I have before I turn it over to Jim. I'm happy to happy to answer any questions from

065the board. >> I have a question. Um, could you name the two schools? >> Yes. information. >> Richmond Drive Elementary and York Road Elementary. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Those are the two uh attendance zones that are not going to lose population. Is that >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay, great. >> Thank you. >> Um what There seems to be a lot I I do have a question, Madam Chair. Um there does seem to be a lot of burn in the northern part of Rock Hill, like the Newport area. Is that was that considered um in the study or just want to make sure I understood like maybe some areas of town where things are growing? >> Yeah, it's definitely uneven. There's um there's a there's an appendex in the back that kind of

066breaks down which which areas had more building permits uh issued within the in the study within the study period uh than others is definitely uneven, you know, throughout the throughout the district. Uh whether or not that was what you're speaking to exactly was captured in, I'm not entirely sure. I don't have the I'm trying to picture the map in my head when we were doing this, but uh >> uh so that area is going out on Oh my goodness. Uh most of that is York Road. >> Okay. Um is that any of it? No, none of it. Got it. Okay. Okay. That's that was that answers it then. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Good evening. Um, thanks for having us. Uh, very interesting stuff. Um, I'm going to convert it into I'm

067a visual person, so we're kind of taking this information and putting in a different uh um format. Okay. So, um, these are things we're going to talk about. I'm going to we're going to talk about high level, district level. Um I'm going to go over some historical data. You've got three pieces of information. Uh three studies that have been done over the last uh eight years. Uh more layers are always good to develop a a model. And um so we've got we'll show you the uh the model they just put together. They put one together a year ago. And then we've got one that was put together by McKibben I think in 2017. Um then we'll show you trend lines and then we'll show an average. Generally speaking we um u working with other districts

068we always kind of measure to and and um kind of use the the the average as our goal to work towards. So um first one is there's going to be a lot of different colors on this chart. So um and I've got a legend at the bottom but just generally speaking the McKibben is going to be in blue. Cog 24 is purple. Got two other colors of purple. Um Northwestern um average McKibben Cog which will be the one that we really want to kind of focus on. And you have a trend line. Um and then on top of that we're showing it doesn't really matter showing you uh these numbers without having some context. That context is your capacity. So first one is uh you don't know where you're going unless you kind of understand

069where you've been. This is going back 2010 111 forward. Uh every district I've worked with had a big dip in 2020 2021. So that's not uncommon. Certainly some recovery. Um so these are actual numbers end of year numbers that the district had overall. This is a combination uh those three those one two three four five lines. This is a combo map. Your historical and then uh kind of pushing you out. says uh 25 years of of of enrollment either actual or projections that we're looking at. So this is going to be the the overall district. That's the right side of that graph I I just showed you. Overall, there's 21,189 seats in the district based on capacity that the the district was. The blue line uh was established by McKibben in 2027. was different conditions

070back then, but we thought it's valuable to show that since it still existed to to continue showing it. The um uh light purple um is the 24 cog and then the dark purple is the 26 cog. Trend line is the um the red line or orang-ish that looks it's kind of taking the historical data going all the way through. this is where the way you're trending. And then we average those together for the green dash line. So this is kind of what's looking like pushing forward um over the next 10 years. This is elementary again capacity at the top. You're going to be open a new school soon. Uh and then you've got those other um same layers on top. Incidentally, the the red diamond is your actual numbers at 45 days. Middle school is

071a little tighter again. Uh orient everything. Um your trend line seems to be fairly status u moving forward. uh you you pretty um it feels like u the trend line is is is saying that you're going to be fairly uh consistent high school. This is uh I think you some of your schools are a little tighter in the high school level. Uh again, you've got some wild numbers and they do change based on economic conditions and I don't do the math or the calculus to develop these but uh uh kind of representative where you are. It's actually the actual is right on top of your trend line and um we can go into details um later but that's kind of a high level review of the uh the enrollment projections. Any questions? It's a quick

072question, Jim. If you go back two slides going out with our average out 10 years on the screen, >> the dip >> the Yes, >> look at the district one. I think that's just middle school. I'm looking >> Yeah, that one. >> So, the dip I think is because um the last data point they from the last one, >> right, >> fell off and so it's just So we follow inconsistent that it would be a more of a consistent line. That's a just an anomaly with the the graphing. >> So that number if I'm reading it correctly from here is 15,182. Is that what it says? >> 162. But again, that's because the the dark purple at the top, the one says 18159. It it it's short one year. So when you average it together,

073you have data point or number to average in. So, it's really kind of a >> I was actually just impressing you that I could read that number so far away. I just can't read it if it's right here in front of me. So, but thank you. Thank you. >> So, I know that we are spending a great deal of time digging down into this data in the work session in a few minutes. Um but with that said, if there any questions right the second before we go into the work session to continue the deep dive on this. Did you have anything s >> No, I can wait. >> You can wait. Okay. >> Nothing that can't wait. Just to just to circle it all together. Every one of your models has a steady decline. Correct.

074I'm not looking at it incorrectly. Correct. >> That's correct. Thank you. except for the 2024 which is an outlier. So >> u and the cog I'm not I don't want to put you on the spot but they you know they we rely on the experts to put these models together and then we just pull the data in and show it in charts. I'm a visual person, like I said earlier. It's more meaningful to me to see it in lines. Um, as far as how they got, you know, what the difference was, I'm not I don't put you on the spot. If you feel comfortable speaking to it, I think that'd be very valuable. >> Yeah. Uh, one one key difference between, you know, the distance between those lines is in the 2024 model, we had

075another 700 building permits. So, like I said, residential building permits were the primary driver. uh we had 700 fewer this time and so that's why there's that big gap. There's also uh the uh average household size has lowered you know it's 2.34 uh people in each home on average which you know comes out to napkin math I think was you know 30 30 something students per 100 homes total and that's divided over the entire district. So kind of a kind of a low number we we really want to see that be 2.5. It's just demographic changes. >> Followup question to that. We see that, you know, there's a certain amount of folks that are moving into York County into Rock Hill. Is there anything that could be said about the age and and makeup of

076the population that's coming to Rockill that could potentially affect these numbers as well? Are we having families move in or are we having >> retirees come in which obviously would not impact our building capacity? >> I I think that shows that more if they're not retirees, they're not they're at least not having children or they're waiting to have children. And I think that's a trend that goes beyond, you know, the district and is just, you know, on a national scale for one, but especially in South Carolina. South Carolina is getting you older becoming an older state. So >> I I can give you one thing in a microcosm. So it I can give you one item that's in the microcosm. It's um and it's about four years old. We were putting together a pro fora

077for a business. Um and we were comparing it to Fort Mill and we did one of the uh the points of information that was important to that business was age of of population. Fort Mill was at that time at an age of about 37 and Fort Yeah. Fort 37 and Rock Hill was about uh if I remember correctly about 12 years older. So, it was it was a bigger uh an older population. >> Thank you, >> answer my question. >> Jim, just one more question and I I or I'm sorry, what's your name again? >> Marty. And not to put you on the spot with the numbers, but you know, I often make the argument that Rockill is a unique position because per capita, if you travel around the state and move in education circles,

078nobody per capita, there's not a district in the state per capita that's dealing with the sheer volume of charter schools we have and the size of our charter schools. You know, most communities you go in, charter schools got 200 kids in the 300 kids. We got charter schools, several charter schools with a few thousand kids. So in your model here, what my theory is, can you just talk a little bit if you can put it down where I can understand how do you control for that? Because I heard you kind of glance glossed over it, but that's a whole another control mechanism that has to be in this data as it relates to Rock Hill that you may not have to think about in other communities because the the impact is not as significant as

079it is here. >> Yeah, that's a great question. We don't do it specifically for Rock Hill. Um that's data we get from the state. So the South Carolina Department of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs um publishes their school enrollment includes, you know, traditional uh district students versus charter students versus homeschool students. And while the traditional district students is is rising, so so are the home uh charter and private school students. Um, and importantly, the rate is increasing of of the number of students that attend non-traditional public schools. Um, and so we we calculated that in our model, that rate of change over the past, I think it's three years in the model. I'd have to double check, maybe it's five. Um, but we assumed that that trend would continue, just being realistic over the, you know,

080over the course of the model. Um and so if it if it started out as you know I want to say 86% of school age children attend public schools and the rest attend you know non-public um that that would continue to decrease based on what it has in the past 3 to five years. >> So it's being controlled for before you get the numbers but I I guess you're answering my question it is being controlled for. >> Yes. Not on not on a local Rockill specific level but general trends across the state. Yes sir. >> Thank you. And like I said earlier here in a few minutes we're going to have a work session that is specifically digging deeper into this information. So I think at this point we say thank you and see you

081in a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> Um so with that said I'm going to turn it over to you Dr. Elder for the report of the superintendent. >> Right. Thank you Madam Chair. members. Um, I am very happy to report that we have added yet another state title since our last board meeting. We are very proud of our Rock Hill High School girls wrestling team for being named 2026 5A state champions and we look forward to having them in for recognition very soon. I got to see them um not at state but two nights before and they were truly impressive, very powerful young women. Um, as a reminder for the public, we do have a new teaching pathway for juniors and seniors through our partnership with Winthre University. Students can earn up to two

082years of teaching degree credit. While in high school, scholarships are available and the deadline to apply for the first cohort is coming up at the end of February, close to the end of February 27th. Um, please call our front desk to get connected. Over the over three days, we had 98 students from all three high schools attend makeup school at Northwestern High School during the inter session. So, they were able to get to make up some of that time. Um, thank you to the team who helped make that happen. The program options lottery registration opened on Monday, this past Monday, February 23rd. That will close March 13th. Parents will be notified March 23rd. This Thursday, we for real are going to host a recruitment fair. For real. This time at Cherry Park Elementary from 4:30

083to 6:30 p.m. No snow is allowed or invited. Um, we invite passionate educators interested in joining the exciting work happening in the Rockill schools to come and join us and meet your future colleagues and see what we are all about. In honor of Black History Month, our schools have hosted many celebrations and learning experiences. I was happy to attend a great event at York Road Elementary. The student performances were absolutely incredible. The energy was through the roof. Um, students from Ronill High School's IB history class helped clean up the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, a historically black cemeter cemetery located off Flint Street. It connected both learning and community service. And there's still more happening this week. Castle Heights is set to host their annual program this Friday at noon. And that is my report, Madam Chair,

084and board members. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. I don't believe we have any other future business. Nope. So, with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Uh, and before I do that, actually, we're going to take about a fivem minute break after that motion. And in that break, we're going to rearrange the room real quick and then we're going to call the work session to order. So, motion to adjourn the business meeting. >> Uh, I believe Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Nosel. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All the motion very sexy. uh for the uh February 24th uh meeting. I was notified in writing of this agenda on Monday, February 24th. Uh do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> Motion. >> Thank you. Do I have

085a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion right now? All those in favor? All opposed? Motion cares 6. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Elder to introduce uh the work session. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um I'd like to reintroduce Jim Britten um to continue our discussion on demographics, uh look back and look ahead. Um the purpose of doing this this evening is twofold. one, it allows us to prepare for looking at our facilities, which will happen at the March 24th um board meeting. We'll have a work session on the condition current condition of all of our facilities. So, when you take our demographic data along with our facility needs, that helps to give us the data we need to inform future action. We'll take that

086future action in accordance with policy FB on facilities planning. And so tonight sets the stage with the demographic information enrollment forecasting that will help us not only for to forecast for our capital needs but also as we move into budget season. It gives us an idea of how to look ahead strategically at how we manage our budget and how we how we plan for the future. So with that I give you jump right. >> Good evening again. Um the items that I went through earlier they're the first part of the slide. I'm just going to spin through them unless there's any specific questions and then we'll get into um first item we're going to start with is what we call flame chart and we'll spend a few minutes on that. Um it's a it's a

087really nice uh executive summary. Um so this is what we call a flame chart. Green good, yellow careful, red bad. It's uh it's based on the light blue column is your uh building capacity and that's if it's used as it's designed meaning a classroom is used as a classroom. Uh that's how many students you can get in each facility. The the item the second part of that blue column is uh your core capacity. Um, if you look at a four bedroomedroom house and you put u a bed in each one of them with and then you're serving you have two bathrooms to serve it. Pretty comfortable. You put bunk beds in each one of them tight and that's what core is. So um so if you follow it across it goes from um 2425 all

088the way through 3334 and that is where we got all the information. That's just different way of looking at the information that we've already presented and what we will present. At the very bottom, it kind of gives you overall district capacity percentage. Um I want a high school 75 it's a fourb block school 75% is is tight unless you put teachers on carts. Elementary you can get close to 100%. Um certainly you could exceed uh those capacities all of them but um 75 80% 90% is where you really want to be max. So we're going to go from here is there any questions about the we're going to go to each one of the schools. I'm not going to really um kind of go over what you each bar but if you have questions stop

089me and and we'll spend a Yes ma'am. >> Just a quick so just want to make sure I understand. So the building capacity is what the building is built for. >> Correct. >> Well, there's >> Well, and I'll say this if it So, when you're building a school, um, Sunset Park, it it's 931. That's the building capacity. The educational capacity could be a little different depending on how it's used. Does that make sense? >> It does. >> These are building capacity. >> Oh, thank you. And so the core >> that's like if you uh if you've added onto a school over and over and over your cafeteria might be too small um or you might not have enough restrooms. We might you know that sort of thing but things that everybody uses >> and I

090appreciate that. >> Um our first one is Cherry Park. It's u this one uh Marty I believe you did not include that. What we ended up doing was pulling the data of where each student where their home school would be. We decrease that home school to overlay it into trademark. Otherwise, we'd be double dipping. But it's uh uh it's fairly consistent there. It's a lot of school, so you can up to 900 students. I think you choose to be a little under that for capacity. Uh Ebenezer, uh 680. See that? 680 and u so uh you know again trend line is coming down >> Evanport 644 trend line is down you're at 494 or so now uh independence I mean it is you're right on top of it and um um with the projections but

091you are 563 um with the capacity the um 621 that's India hook 690 and you're 46 Leslie 621 you're 440ish somewhere around 480 490 Mount High 690 495 North Side 6442 Oakdale 667 475 Old Point 690 and you're at 545 And and again to your point uh Dr. Belton that the dip on the green is an anomaly based on having one fewer years on our uh previous projection. Richmond Drive 641 436 Sunset Park you are moving into a new facility. Um 9:31 uh 455 435. Now we're getting into middle schools. Um 11. You're pretty consistent with your capacity at these schools. Um 11:44, you're 685. Uh, Sister School, Dutchman Creek, 1144, Little Higher, uh, 820, Rosen Road, 1173, round 600, uh, 1052, 738, 10:44. Can I ask a question really quick for the S? Can

092you get back to Sullivan? Okay. Uh I don't know if you broke this out, but that you counted the middle school kids, but a whole corridor is elementary. >> Um did we peel that? How do we handle that? >> Because I think it's F-wing is not part of that. Believe it's called. >> So you you took that out of >> I believe. So we've counted that capacity in the park. >> Okay. Do we know how many of the kids that are in language immersion that are at Sullivan the the percentage of that 738 versus the zone kids? >> Um I do not I I wouldn't probably pull that data. I >> I think that's a great data point for Dr. Elder and team to supply over the next day or two because we absolutely have

093the numbers but maybe not tonight. >> Okay. and and where they're pulling from too would be a better a good layer because we may have some additional counting here trail high school level um you know build those your your high schools are roughly at capacity across um if you're unless you know you certainly could you can get more kids in a and these are based on 20 25 students per class. You can get more in a high school. Um but you really don't want to go over 75 80% capacity without before you start putting teachers on in carts which uh can be problematic for recruiting and retaining time. Um 19 So you're actually over that capacity there percentage-wise. Even though you're under capacity, you're really you should you really you should be feeling real tight

094on that in that school. South Point, you do have capacity there, 1100 to 1,800. So you've got um maybe three or 400 kids before you start feeling that capac that, you know, pressure at that school. And that's kind of a nickel tour quickly just to and one thing scale on the XY axis is not quite the same. So it does look a little >> right. appears there quite a bit of capacity at Rollins. I'm sorry. I said appears there's capacity at Ros. >> You have capacity there. Quite a bit of capacity. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Middle school kids are at Sullivan. >> Say again. >> I think a lot of those kids are at S. That's just my gut. >> Probably right. >> I had a parent call me the other day that

095was complaining that >> Thank you. >> She they live near Northwestern. a kid goes to Rollston Road, but they're zoned for South Point. So, like we were, we've always been talking about the feeder program. Makes no sense to have all these kids going from different middle schools to different high schools due to the zoning. >> Well, look at my house. I'm zoned for North Side Elementary. I'm zoned for Rollison Road as a middle school. I'm zoned for South Point as a high school. >> It doesn't make any sense. >> Makes zero sense. Zero sense. So, the parents around me have small children, they all opt to go to Sunset Park. So, they have to apply to go to Sunset Park. So, they can go to their neighborhoods. >> The kids at Wedgewood and Middle could

096walk to school to Northwestern, but they go to South Point. >> Yeah, that's ridiculous. In my old neighborhood, Shiland, it used to be Evanport, Sullivan, Rockill High, and then Svin got full. So, now it's Evanport, Rollinsson Road, Rockill High. So, I mean, if you're doing after school activities in eighth grade, parents have to leave work to come get you, pick you up, drive you to Rocky High instead of just walking across the parking lot to Northwestern. >> Well, I think the other problem is some of the last time there was a big zoning conversation. There was, you know, demographic information about neighborhoods, right? But neighborhoods are cyclical. As in, you may have had a bunch of elementary school kids in one neighborhood when they did that last. Well, now those kids are in college or

097in high school, right? So, I I think that there's a lot of discrepancies from what used to be a kid neighborhood that is now a teenage neighborhood, so to speak. Right? Just I don't have any data to back it up. I'm just visually experiencing it. >> I think to to what you're saying um I mean our demographic considering that what was it four years ago the average Asian board was 37 and in >> ours is 49. >> Ours was 49. >> It it was a 10ish year difference. >> Yeah. So I mean you know we we are an aging we are an aging population in Rock Hill. So to that the neighborhoods do look different where there were kids 10 years ago when kids unfortunately >> but I think anecdotally too a lot of the

098folks that are moving into the community are retirees not necessarily families with small children. You know I think that there's a lot of folks that feel like this is a good midway point between up north and Florida. You know, >> we saw a lot of that after co lot of that. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? >> What? >> Unless you got answers. >> Do you have the answers? >> Hey, you got >> Can you fix this? >> No. Just kidding. >> Overnight, please. Um we don't have traditional feeder schools but what are the um the three high schools what schools traditionally feed into feed loose word is it it's South Point get Saluda Trail and Saluda Trail uh Porter Rollinsson >> uh part of Rollins Road. >> Yeah. And Dutchman is split between Rockill

099High and Northwestern mostly. >> Three quarter one quarter. >> Yeah. >> So Northwestern gets Rollins Road, part of Dutchman Creek. >> Rollinsson South Northwestern actually gets kids from all five middle schools. >> Yes. Okay. >> Rock High. >> Yeah. >> Probably. out of South Point. I mean, there were kids, my boys went to there was a there was a boy at Dutchman Creek that was the kid that went to was known for South Point. So, everybody else went to Northwestern Rockco High and they had one kid that went to South Point. >> But then you're going to remember that South Point is also a school of choice with open enrollment has been for a long time. So, that means that you have STEM kids. They're coming from everywhere. You know that. I guess that's the

100point is that you can be at a middle school and every single one of our middle schools goes to all three high schools. I I mean I could be wrong, but I think that's I think that's accurate. >> I think it's accurate. >> And I do believe if we started doing feeder patterns, kids would because because of their friends stay with their friends, we'd lose less kids obviously. So Deborah's I I know why this this this whole debacle with the zoning came about 25 something years ago. this is obviously a good time. We can fix it. That's what we're here for. >> I think the other thing that we see both with athletics and hearts, we've had a lot of conversations about how the school experiences is not just traditional academics, but how we are

101really focused on the overall student experience and all those things that that brings to children's future. And I do think that arts and athletics, but maybe in some cases arts more, it's challenging with limited resources to be able to enthuse and recruit kids from the middle school level to go into your bands and courses and certain certain athletics when you have to go do that at five schools. It's a lot easier when you have a smaller amount of middle schools that you can have close relationships with. So those kids know that, you know, if I'm a chorus kid at Rollinsson Road, I'm going to go get to be a chorus kid at Northwestern, for instance. And this is, you know, kind of like the reading buddy program, but the same idea. It's just right now

102that is really hard. And I think certain sports, maybe not all, but certain sports are really feeling it, too. >> Yeah. And and I would just to mention orchestra. I don't I >> I don't think every one of our middle schools has a strings program. >> They don't. So, it's not how do you how do you have a healthy high school orchestra if one of your main feeder main schools that feeds into your high school doesn't isn't having these sixth, seventh, and eighth graders playing strings >> and to that I think one of our high schools doesn't have orchestra, right? >> One of them don't know >> I because they don't have a Can you check on that? That's another information request. Orchestra offerings at middle school levels and high school levels. I mean, but

103to to what you're saying as a >> yes >> band kid, you want to go and be in the band with your friends because it's >> hard to transition from high school to middle school. So, at least you have a familiarity with people uh that you've spent that time with. So, I get it. But I think that there is something to be had for getting mentorship from older students in a positive way that makes you want to continue with that sport or that activity or that art offering and if it's not there like that's makes you quit and sometimes that means that you quit school altogether you know because extracurriculars right for kids >> and I just believe that vertical articulation just articulation just helps the district academically with instructional programming. It helps the district

104athletically with theater patterns for theater programs, junior varsity, varsity, middle school, etc. Um, I remember being a teacher at Rollins Road, Moose Wallace knew that every single kid at Rollins Road was coming over to Northwestern High School. He came over and he recruited. He walked the halls of Northwest of Rosson Road to get kids. You know, I remember the coaches um would come over and the band teachers and those people. Colonel all who was at that time was over the ROC would come over to Rollinsson Road because he knew every single child over there was coming to his school and it also helped with the arts with the band program and those things. That's why we had I don't know if we still have the Northwestern Trouadors, but those kids started in sixth grade and

105became, you know, the Trouador. And I don't I mean I'm I'm I'm dating and aging myself. We do. Okay. So, you know what I'm talking about. >> Yes. That's actually the example I was using. >> Okay. All right. So, so I think vertical articulation and I'll just end by saying this that I actually agree with Mr. Burn. Not actually because we agree on a lot. I I agree with Mr. Burns and I'm sure Mr. Britain is a great guy and I'm sure his company is good, but I hope that we're not spending money with this data and do nothing with it. Um, we obviously got some issues here that need to be addressed and they need to be addressed sooner rather than later. And we're in February. We could probably correct some of this or

106at least try to start moving some of this before August when kids come back to school. And I think we got some real hard conversations. So, I'll be the first one to say it and I'll take the take the arrows for it. We got some real conversations we've got to have with buildings if we're running that type of capacity and we don't have the students. And I asked the question very clearly and was told we have a steady line going down, but we're still paying for the same capacity. Um, and we got aging facilities. So, we're paying for capacity that's aging. We're going to have to make some hard decisions about some buildings. and just the community just needs to understand that's why we're doing this to make informed decisions, but some hard decisions are

107probably coming in coming sooner rather than later. I'm just going to second what Dr. Dton said. I absolutely will take the heat for it as well. Let's get the facility studies done and let's let's have the hard conversation and let's do what's right to fix this. And one of the things that I encourage all board members as you you you know we have hard copies of this data and I know that all of us are going to go dig through it further you know with specific information. Um keep the questions coming to Dr. elder so uh she can send that out to the entire board because there's a lot of info in here and as you start thinking about the feeder patterns and historical knowledge and things like that that is something that's easy for

108Dr. elder to don't save your questions, shoot them over while they occur and then just make sure that we get them as we know for the whole board, you know, but I think no no saving questions because we got like everybody else says, we got a lot of work to do in front of us. >> You really have a silver lining here with the new Sunset Park opening, being able to absorb that many kids into one building, one state-of-the-art building. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Brad. >> Yeah. Okay. So, that was the the work session start. And next up is going to be the um >> motion to adjourn. >> Yes. And I was going to say facility studies, but yes, I'll take a motion to adjourn. >> Motion to adjourn.

109Madam Chair, >> yes. Yes. Yes. Doctor, I heard you loud and clear. All those in favor say I. >> I. All >> about six.