RHS School Board Meeting 01-13-26

001Good afternoon and welcome to the January 13th business meeting of the Rockville School Board. Uh local news media has been notified on Friday of the agenda for this meeting on Friday, January 9th. Uh we are going to uh start off today with an executive session uh and then we're going to the uh regular meeting at six o'clock. But at this point, I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> So move. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Hopson. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? >> All opposed. Motion carries 6. Uh we do have an executive session. Uh like I mentioned before uh it is for the purpose of human resource matter uh hiring and legal matters updates regarding pending litigation. Uh

002do I have a motion to adjourn the open session and enter the executive session for those stated members? So move um I believe Miss Hutchinson with a second of >> yes Harris. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carries 6. We will see you at 6:00. Good evening and welcome to the uh January 13 business meeting of the Rockland School Board. We were called um in at 5:00 and we've been meeting in executive session. So at this point I will entertain a motion to adjourn the executive session and reconvene the open session. >> So move. >> Thank you Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I believe Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carries seven. See, are there any motions coming

003out of executive session? >> Madam Chair, I move to approve the superintendent's recommendation for the position of director of budgeting and compliance. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Uh I believe Miss Harris. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 70. Does that conclude the motions coming out of executive session? If so, uh please join me for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence. [clears throat] 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, we're going to start off with recognitions. And [clears throat] first up is the South Carolina American Coral Directors Association State Honors

004Choir. Welcome up. And I see Miss Abil. Good evening board. My name is Katie Galiss and I'm the choir director at Dutchman Creek Middle School. I'm in my second year there and I am so pleased that we are able to recognize Miss Hannah WS for making it into the state honor choir. To make it into this choir, students are put through a very rigorous audition process. And this year it was well over 1,000 students that auditioned and she still made it in with flying colors. So, we're proud of her. And I also wanted to thank you and our district and our interim principal, Miss Maize, because you have afforded the secondary educators and choir to be a part of this organization, ACDA, American Coral Directors Association. If we didn't have this opportunity and be members

005of this organization, she would not have this opportunity. And because we were afforded that from you, our students are able to have a once in a-lifetime opportunity. So, they're going to go and meet at Coastal Carolina University with middle school students from all around the state and work with a wonderful clinician and have rehearsals Friday and Saturday and culminate in a performance in the afternoon for their families. And so, I am very pleased to recognize Hannah WZ as a wonderful representative of Rock Hill School District at the ACDA Honor Choir in Coastal Carolina this coming weekend. [applause] Just a little bit. That' be great. >> Two, three, two, one. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Hello, my name is Willie Penson. I'm the coral director at Rollison Road Middle School. uh actually uh have retired

006once from CMS and uh after teaching 23 years at Mcccleenop Middle School and now I've been at Rollison Road now for three years. Um I am so proud of these students who have uh exemplified uh the the talent of singing in such a way that they were selected to be a part of the American Coral Director Association um honors choir which is going to take place next week. Um, and I have five students that actually participated in the audition and were actually selected. Uh, one of them was not able to be with us tonight. That's Mariah White. But I also have Leia Williams, Joselis Hertardo, Aiden Dawkins, and Byron McNeer. And I want to I want them to know how proud I am that you listened to me first of all [laughter] and did the

007things that were necessary to show everyone that you had what it what it took to become a part of this awesome choir that's going to take place on next week. Thank you so much. [applause] >> [applause] >> All right, we're doing a few Great job. Thank you. [applause] [clears throat] >> Next up is recognition of board of trustees and signing of the South Carolina board member ethical principles. And I'm going to start off with welcoming off to share a few words. >> [clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Scott Powell and I'm the managing principal of Craig Olden Davis PBK Architects and we've design we've designed schools across South Carolina for 68 years and last year we opened up office here in Rock Hill and um because [clears throat] we design schools across the state,

008we recognize the importance of school boards and so we wanted to take this time for schoolboard appreciation month to come and we know that you've got great schools here in Rock Hill. And of course, we recognize the role that the classroom teachers and leadership plays, but we can't have great teachers or administrators without without you as schoolboard members, the oversight and vision that you offer. So, I have a very very small token of appreciation that we're going to give to you. In this beautiful Franklidd designed box, um there's an assortment of tea and a note that says, "Shaping the future like a good like a good cup of tea takes time, intention, and the right blend. [clears throat] Thank you for your dedication to our students, teachers, and community. And also, um I have uh

009been asked to read a proclamation from the governor from the great state of South Carolina." So this is the governor's proclamation. Whereas education is the foundation upon which the economic, intellectual, and social capital capital of our state is built. And whereas state school boards directly influence instruction in South Carolina's public schools. And whereas the decisions of local school boards affect the present and future lives of children while setting the direction to prepare all students to be competitive in a local, state, national, and global 21st century knowledge economy. And whereas local schoolboard members work with parents, businesses, education professionals, and other community members to represent their views to create the ideal educational vision for their public schools and students. And whereas schoolboard recogn recognition month highlights the unique role school boards play in representing their constituents

010by promoting quality public education. Now therefore, I, Henry Dargan McMaster, Governor of the great state of South Carolina, do hereby proclaim January 26 as schoolboard recognition month throughout the state and encourage all South Carolinians to recognize the contributions of local school boards to the academic success of public school students across the Palmetto States. >> Thank you. [applause] AS A BOARD, we are members of the South Carolina School Boards Association and the South Carolina uh School Boards Association asks that each board member across our state take the pledge. the pledge uh our efforts to improve public education in our community and what we will solemnly try to do. So, I'm going to read that pledge for us and then invite all of my fellow board members to come up and sign and take some pictures for

011the school boards association. We solemnly try to represent the interests of the entire district when making decisions and to rely on available facts and our judgment rather than on individuals and special interest groups. Understand the proper role of the board to set policies governing the district and to hire the chief administered officer to carry out these policies. Encourage an open exchange of ideas by all board members during the decision-making process. Seek regular communications between board and student staff and all segments of the community. Attend all board meetings to study issues facing the board and to enact policies and official actions only after full discussion at such meetings. Work with other board members in a conscientious and courteous manner benefiting the public trust placed in the position of school board trustee. Communicate concerns and public reaction

012to pol to board policies and school programs to the superintendent and other board members in a professional manner. Support employment of the persons best qualified for staff positions and to ensure a regular and impartial evaluation of all staff. Avoid conflicts of interest and to refrain from using our board's positions for personal partisan gain. Encourage recognition of the achievements of students and staff and of the involvement of community residents. Support legislation and funding which would provide the educational opportunities and environment for students and staff. Take no individual action which would compromise the integrity of the board or administration and to represent the confidentiality of information that is privileged under the Freedom of Information Act. study current educational issues and to participate in training programs such as those offered through the South Carolina School Boards Association. And

013last but not least, make our district's educational setting the best possible to encourage all students to achieve and to love learning. So, I invite all of you to come up and join me to sign this. >> [clears throat] >> There you go. picture. >> Stay nice. >> Everybody stop. [clears throat] >> Do it. We'll make it. All right. Take one step. [snorts] Next up is citizen participation. I do not believe we have any. Is that correct? That's correct. Moving down to consent action agenda. There are two items on there. Uh it is the December 9th schoolboard work session minutes as well as the personnel recommendations that were provided in the board uh packet. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the consent action agenda? >> So moved. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Do I

014have a second? Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All [snorts] opposed? Motion carries 51 with no so. So that brings us down to the discussion of the board goals that we have been working on. And um I don't know if we should do a quick review since we have a lot of district employees in the in the audience today. Um I can go up and do a quick review. Okay. So W goss uh just as a review of what was discussed in um December and presented in December uh was uh four goals. The first one was to deliver academic excellence to ignite each student's highest potential. The second one to optimize operational, human, financial and capital resources to efficiently and effectively advance excellence in each student's experience

015and academic success. The third one was to advance the board's vision of excellence by engaging all stakeholders in the implementation of policy with integrity and consistency. And the fourth one was to elevate Rockland schools to be proud the proud first choice for students, families, and employees. And each one uh came with a set of objectives. For the first goal, it was to provide consistent highquality instruction in every classroom that results in improved student learning outcomes. Uh ensure each student is supported in developing world-class knowledge, skills, life, and career characteristics as described in the profile of the South Carolina graduate. And third, to optimize instructional systems and practices to ensure academic excellence in every classroom. For goal two, it was to organize all district departments as a unified service organization focused on serving students, educators, and

016school leaders in an aligned system of support and to strategically invest fiscal resources to maximize academic outcomes. and three to ensure every student learns in safe well-maintained top care environment. For number three, it was to deliver reliable, highquality educational and operational services through consistent systems, structures and processes in every building. And the board of trustees models consistency in policy implementation. And lastly, engage employees and stakeholders in informing decisions. And for the fourth goal, it was to communicate and celebrate Rockel School successes to a wide audience to strengthen community pride, to treat every student, family, and employee stakeholder and applicant as valued members of our district family. And three, to promote a well-rounded education through high quality co-curricular and extracurricular programs. So, I'm going to go sit down and get some background. So this process um

017started really on November 11th when the board met uh to discuss uh the goals um that we were going to to work towards. Um and this was first presented um in small group to board uh in the beginning of December and then uh during the board meeting uh in December which I believe was the 9th. Um and uh the goals that you see in front of you was the culmination of notes taken uh during a full day workshop uh as well as a uh report from the facilitator that we used during the that day workshop. Um and um our superintendent by the virtue of being the superintendent is also the [clears throat] secretary of the board. So uh she had the pleasure of taking notes that day for us. So here is uh where we

018left the conversation in December was that board were going to give individual feedback uh on these goals. Um I have yet seen anything. I don't know if you have but I'm going to open it up for conversation. >> Madam Chair, I'd move that we adopt these goals. >> Okay. I have a motion on the floor to adopt the goals. Uh do I have a second to that? >> Second. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Burns. Um any discussion? >> I I do have a discussion. Um well, I'm I'm for these goals, but just to clarify, I do want us to look at our mission and vision statement. I don't think [snorts] I think that with us all well not all but majority of us four new members as a stink path we need to start with

019us as a collective group. So that's something I I was expecting from the workshop but I didn't get so I would just like to say I'd like to see that in the future. I'm I'm in full support for the goals but would love for us to come back and revisit our mission and vision statement. >> I'd love you say that because if you if if you look at my personal note for item number eight today is the talk about exactly just that because even as you know not one of the new newer board members so to speak I agree we need a mission and vision that this board comes up with collectively so we're going to work on that and we'll talk about it here in a little bit >> any other discussion >> madam

020chair may I just say that um I truly am going to vote in favor of these goals um of course when I look at them I do see kind of kind of four vision statements hear general big umbrella vision statements. I hope that we as a board will now, you know, direct the superintendent just to come back with some things that we can more measure like third grade reading, 10th grade math, something that we can wrap our arms around and that we know where we are now and where we want to end up. Again, I'm not going to hold up the process. Let's let's vote for it and move on. something that we can more concrete. >> I'm sorry, Miss Daniel. >> And I acknowledge I was the one that asked for an opportunity to

021give feedback. As I went back and reflected on it, it was more word smithing on my part and I was not doing anything that would ultimately change what was being said. So, I do appreciate the opportunity to give that [laughter] feedback. In the end, for me, it was just more words and moving things around and not the ultimate essence of the goals that were presented. So, that's why I didn't changes. Okay. Uh if no more discussion, uh all those in favor, all opposed. Motion carries. 70. Speaking of superintendent, um we have now had uh the pleasure of having Dr. Elder for over a hundred days. And if you all remember uh when she started with Rockville schools uh [clears throat] she gave us a uh her plan for her first 100 days as a superintendent

022uh that the board approved and that we have seen her work diligently through this fall. Um and tonight she is here to present to the community to the board and to all of the staff uh with that report what she has been doing since she got to with us. So, I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, members of the community. Um, as you recall, the plan was approved in August and defined my work for the first 100 working days of my contract. Um, we organized that work around the five community identified superintendent change priorities that were in the job posting when I applied for the job last summer or last spring. Um, through this process, I sought to establish a firm foundation of two-way

023communication and relationships while learning Rockill schools from many different perspectives. And in fact, I've done just that. [snorts] I've visited over 90 classrooms. I've visited one-on-one with every single principal. I've walked every single school building, corner to corner, wall to- wall. I've met with employees at every school, all 24, including programs. I held eight community parent community roundts accessible in the evening and on weekends at various locations from schools. Um the Kataba Nation EMTT Scott knowledge perk we held a virtual virt virtual session. I attended community events all over the community, connected with local law enforcement, as well as county law enforcement, local and county government officials, York County Regional Chamber, Rockill Economic Development, Kataba Region Workforce Development, Higher Education, and parents and community members absolutely everywhere I've been, including Target and the Gas Station.

024So the report on my findings tonight is not intended to serve as a comprehensive plan forward, but it is a culmination um of the the findings of that 100-day plan. Next, I will align it to the recently passed board goals in an action plan with measurable outcomes. So, I'm I've heard over and over in each of the five areas um I've taken the areas that I've heard over and over um and organize them into each of the five areas um in terms of assets, barriers, and short-term action steps. And I think I've already covered this. I've done a lot of stuff. I know I'm not going to read it to you. I'm [clears throat] going to give you the highle highlights. So, let's start with student achievement. Of course, first and foremost priority, the absolute

025core purpose of public education. Um, we have some incredible assets in our district, namely in our people, and I'm very proud that we have many of them with us this evening. Um, we have incredibly dedicated staff, incredibly dedicated leaders, um, who want the best for kids and are willing to roll up their sleeves and tackle everything that it's going to take to take us to the next level. We have parody with the rest of the state in terms of our current achievement with a lot of room to grow. Additionally, we have incredible student opportunities um throughout our district, but we have a lot of barriers, too. And I I think that the teachers in the audience are going to hear hear yourselves in some of this because many much of this came from you. Um,

026we have too little we have too little time. We have too little time to focus. We have too many things. Um, we have too little cohesion between shifting initiatives that change all the time. Um, we have too much in in other ways. We have too many assessments. We tend to be data rich while information poor. We have too many tools and resources to choose from with no cohesion that come and go. We have too many technology tools and this is at the school level as well as at the district level. We're saturated with things and initiatives and things to do. All of those things lack cohesion. Um they are constantly shifting um oftentimes with leadership changes and we lack consistency in our core systems like our multi-ter student support, exceptional student education, tier one instruction

027and vertical articulation specifically from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school. So some of the actions um that you'll if you read the whole report you'll get to read all of the actions but highlights of actions are to take some immediate steps to relieve initiative fatigue. Um, first we can immediately um free some time and attention to focus on instruction um by involving teachers and principles in the decisions that impact them, communicating the why behind decisions and looking at everything that we're doing right now and making some immediate changes. In fact, principles have already started that work. We've done an initiative inventory um with each of their schools and we can start right now looking at what can we cut back to have one less thing instead of what is common in

028education where we have one more thing and another thing and another thing and we never stop doing anything. In the full report you'll see a chart um that takes all of the entry plan items. Um, you'll see those on the left side and this slide. And [clears throat] in the in the full report, there's a little green dot next to all of those that I completed. Uh, yellow dot no next to those that are started and red next to um haven't started. There are no reds. Spoiler alert. Um, but in this particular slide, you have the items directly from the initial entry plan, all of which were completed. And then as it happens, I did a few more things and you will see those reflected on the right hand side of your slide. Um, and

029so everything on the right hand side has also been completed. Make no mistake, I'm not done talking and listening with our educators and those closest to our kids and the kids themselves and being in classrooms, but this was this was the first run. Under community engagement, I have a few highlights. We have tremendous assets and that our community is behind Rock Hill Schools 100%. Absolutely. Everybody Rock wants Rockill Schools to raise to the next level. Everybody's behind our kids and everybody's behind us. Some of the barriers that were frequently mentioned by parents is that there are so many communication tools that it's hard to know how to engage. Um, parents in secondary frequently talked about, do I go to Canvas to find my kids' grades? Do I go to P school? Sometimes there's some other

030place I have to go. It's different with every teacher. Um, and so streamlining um, some of those will be very helpful to our families to keep them engaged in their students progress. Um, community members talked about fragmented opportunities. they're unsure how to engage and um they've noticed that some postcoid practices like we used to be wide open we any come in help us be a part of our school um co caused us to lock some of that down I think our community who doesn't have children are in our schools is still feeling some of that and so we need to look for ways to bring people into our schools who want to help and help make help us be successful so next slide everything under community engagement um was completed plus more doubled it doubled

031that one down under mental health and safety. Um we do have a strong shared commitment to student well-being. School safety is a strength. People truly feel safe at school. We have strong protocols. We have great presence in our schools. Um and our staff has a really strong sense of belonging and of mutual support with each other. Um barriers include um the rising mental health concerns um are outpacing the resources available. We also have um issues around lost instructional time due to persistent behaviors and this came up at every single school. Um I want to just pull a little bit of data in that um in the first semester of this year 73% of our over 15,600 students had zero behavior incidents. 73% 12% had only one that was not in a severe category that was

032in a minor category. So that's 88% of our students who have either low-level or no no behaviors. And I think that that is a tremendous asset to build upon because students who behave well [clears throat] then show students who need some support what school looks like and how how they should do it. Um some of the immediate action steps are to make make more broadly aware the resources that are available and and school staff um agreed across the board. There's concern that we have access to mental health in school um for students who receive Medicaid but not for students who don't. Well, I checked on that to find out, well, what do we do for our kids who don't receive Medicaid? And what I found out is that there's a whole list of resources that

033the school counselors have, but that's not necessarily communicated widely. So maybe not everybody knows what resources are out there or how to access [cough and clears throat] them. So I think that's something immediate that we can do to help make sure that there's awareness and that we know we know how we can help kids get support. Additionally, um as I talked about MTSS under academic ach academic achievement, um MTSS applies to behavior too. So creating consistent systems school to school, building to building, classroom to classroom in MTS will help support as well. In this category, I completed all items that I stated that I would do in my entry plan and some additional as well. And now let's go to accountability and strong leadership. We have tremendous assets in that we have a collective willingness

034for to contribute individually to organizational excellence. We have a broad agreement on the need for coherence, consistency and focus and to do less and to filter out the noise. Barriers include um change fatigue, initiative overload, competing priorities, and lack of sticking with initiatives, supporting them, implementing them, and holding accountable for them because they shift [clears throat] so quickly. Some immediate actions, um identify what to discontinue. We need to look at our contracts. Some things we can't discontinue immediately because we have a contract running for the rest of the school year with a provider, but we can look at that for for next school year and be able to cut down to a manageable level of initiatives. Um, I think it's very important and I'm going to talk about no surprises and students first in a

035moment when I talk about superintendent board relations, but I think it's important to take that same concept and apply it to the relationship between the district office and the schools. I think an another immediate action is super important is to organize crossf functional teams that really are focused on school service that prioritize student outcomes and stakeholder service and ultimately to align the district office organization and the budget to our newly passed board goals. As you can see in this category, I accomplished all items in the entry plan as written. um plus [clears throat] some more. Next we have manage the budget. Um this was a learning experience for me because South Carolina finance is new to me. School finance is not new to me by any means, but South Carolina has some unique nuances. Um

036some of our greatest assets actually you're going to hear about shortly. Our audit. We have a great audit. A new superintendent loves to come in to a clean audit um and will love a clean audit a year from now even more. Um we have clean well-maintained facilities and we have structured our salary schedule for teachers competitively to help us um recruit and attract talent which we are doing right now. More on that in my report later. Um some of our major barriers in finance as we all know declining enrollment makes forecasting difficult. Um our aging facilities are another barrier to operational excellence. Um 58% of our school building exceed 50 years. This is absolutely something that's imperative to address. I saw it when I visited schools the very first time. Um some of our immediate

037actions um actually we've already started increasing public transparency around finances with our quarterly reports. We had the first one in October. The next one's coming up at our next board meeting. We want to continue to increase that transparency and engagement. Um com completing comprehensive facilities and demographic studies, um salary studies, and again aligning the the budget to the newly adopted goals. in managing the budget. Did everything I said I would do and a little bit more. [snorts] Last and finally is board and superintendent relations. Um, as we all know, the foundation of a successful organization lies in the relationship between the superintendent and the board of trustees. And I have to commend the board during board appreciation month that we have put great effort into working [clears throat] towards that towards that goal. We have

038committed to a no surprises and a students first approach to working together. Um we've made great strides in fostering direct and impactful communication and resolving issues at the source and we've established our roles in terms of governance and administration and we come to the net to talk about things and to help things run smoothly for all of our stakeholders. Barriers come when we step out of our roles. It happens and but fortunately we have ways established in our communication plan that we talk about it and we work and we work it through. So actions forward continuing to hold that mutual accountability adhering to our communication plan and assisting our employees and our community in doing so as well. Um another thing I'll be starting very soon is to begin uh policy reviews to ground our

039work together. I did everything I said I would do complete except for one thing. I will confess I have not reviewed every single foreign policy. I haven't I haven't reviewed all of them. I've reviewed a lot of them but not all of them. So transparently I did not get 100% A+ on my items complete. however, did some additional work uh that you see in the right hand column. Um added in the board uh or the superintendent leadership development as a new leader in the state. It's of course important that I learn the context in South Carolina that I create a network here, have have go-to people to ask questions. Um, and that that is well underway as well with everything in the original plan completed plus a bit more. And so to wind us up,

040we're now at a point that I've listened, I've learned, I've heard, and I have a pretty clear direction from the board with the goals of where we need to go. I have direction from our stakeholders and um kind of a compass of how we should get there. And so at this point, we roll up our sleeves. We make some sound decisions to align our academics, our finance, our human resources, and our operations all to our board goals to focus on what matters most, student learning. There are hard decisions ahead, but I know I won't be making those alone. Those decisions will be informed by the educators and leaders closest to the students, by parents, and by the students themselves. Fortunately, we've already begun. We've taken some bold action steps this first semester to move us

041towards um the goals that we didn't even know we were going to have yet, but improving improving outcomes. Um, and so I want you to know I want I want board and staff and community to know that moving forward, please expect an accelerated pace. As decisions are made to elevate our students, we have to be disciplined and honest about our limitations. Over and over again, stakeholders voice initiative overload, change fatigue as a result of many leadership changes. And I do recognize that time, attention, and resources are finite. So together we will make some thoughtful and sometimes hard decisions about what we stop, what we do less of, what we do more of, and what we start doing. We cannot improve outcomes by overcommitting our minutes or by overcommitting our dollars, nor by spreading our spreading

042our focus too thin. Instead, in the coming months, we will maximize our impact by aligning our efforts and investing deeply in what matters most for our students learning. And with that, I ask for your approval for of my 90-day findings or my 100 day findings. [clears throat] Thank you, Dr. Any comments or questions before I entertain a motion? >> Um, Dr. Elder, I just want to thank you for coming in and walking your talk. I was very surprised with your um entry plan and just some of the thoughts that popped out to me um while you were giving us your briefing was um having your compass of how we get there. And what just keeps jumping out to me is you said you're not done. So I would say that let that be your north

043star as you continue moving forward. Don't be done with um not no longer talking with the staff or the students. I think that as long as you have that communication there and they give their input that that will help get us to um where we want to be for the students student focus. So just thank you for that and for recognizing the need for um effective communication awareness awareness for our parents and our families in terms of streamlining technology and um also for the mental health um areas that that we need. So just just thank you for applying student first focus and um I support I support um your deliverables. Thank you. >> Well, thank you for being so transparent with the board and with the community and I know that this report in its

044entirety is available is going to be available on the website for anybody who wants to go in and look at the very very nitty-gritty little details including the color coding. Um, but I truly appreciate that everything is so organized and follows a pattern. I think that makes decision a lot easier for us as board, but it's also a lot easier for staff and students to understand what the district's plan is going forward. So, thank you. I know that you have been working incredibly hard at this first 100 days. Uh, and knowing your personality, I know you're going to work just as hard going forward. So, thank you for being here. >> Anything else before I entertain a motion to approve her 100 day and her report? >> I'm going to run my mouth a little

045bit. Thank you, Dr. Elder, for being um transparent and proactive. I truly appreciate the overwhelming communication that that you give to to myself and everybody else on this board. these Friday phone calls, um the constant text messages, just keeping us in the loop and keeping us aware of what's going on and what you're doing. And I just cannot tell you how much I appreciate you prioritizing the students and prioritizing the schools. And you really are you are talking the talk and walking the walks. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. >> Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that we approve the 100 day entry uh plan report. >> Thank you, sir. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Nosal. Any discussion? Right on. All those in

046favor? >> All opposed? Motion carries. 70. Thank you. [applause] We do not have any communications for tonight. Um but we do have some presentations and uh you heard uh a little bit uh about our financial audit and that is the first presentation we have tonight. Uh and uh I'm going to introduce uh our interim assistant superintendent of finance, Mr. Bobby Mars uh together with a couple of representatives from our audit firm to give the community an update. And this is something that we do in January every year. >> Good evening, board chair Miller, Vice Chair Hutcherson, members of the board, and superintendent Dr. Elder. I'd like to introduce Andrew Coleman from Green Finny Collie who will be presenting the district's annual financial audit for fiscal year 2024 2025. >> Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Mr. Chairman,

047since I'm sure we don't want to go through the whole 150 page audit, we'll go through the summary here. Um, real briefly before we get into the results of the year, we always like to take a minute just here at the beginning just kind of remind everybody what an audit is, what an audit is not, and who's responsible for what throughout the audit. So in the audit, there's really only three items that are mine, and that's the opinion. And in that opinion, it states what the district is responsible for and what we're responsible for. So what is the district responsible for? The first thing you're responsible for is to maintain effective internal controls. Um, and from a board perspective, we we we get asked why do we want to have good internal controls? And from

048a board perspective, there's really two two reasons. The first one, if you have good internal controls, meaning your processes are good, the information is being input timely, being reviewed timely, that means the information that you're getting on a monthly basis is going to be more accurate. So really, that's the first reason uh you want to have good internal controls. And the second reason is to help mitigate the risk of fraud. I know no one likes to think about fraud uh but having good internal controls can help mitigate some of those fraud risks. I mean in addition to the internal controls the district is responsible for the financial statements. So that means all the numbers all the balances and all the disclosures that are in the financial statements. So what am I responsible for? Uh again

049we give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are materially correct. And again we say reasonable assurance uh because Mr. Barnes might disagree with me or might feel feel differently. We did not look at every transaction that took place during the year might have felt like it uh but we looked at the material transactions and then samples of others. Uh so we can say your financial statements are materially correct. Uh the other thing to remember our opinion does not address the financial condition of the district. It merely states that the numbers that are in there are materially correct. Um, also my audit, uh, the purpose of my audit is not for fraud. My audit is designed and procedures are put into place to make sure that the financial statements are materially correct. Now, we do consider

050fraud risk as we're doing this, but the overarching goal of my audit is to make sure the financial statements are materially correct. The good news is we did issue an unmodified opinion. I know that can sound strange, but that is the best opinion that you can receive. >> [clears throat] >> All right. So, getting in uh to the results of the year, looking at your general fund, um your general fund, you essentially broke even this year. You had a slight increase um of 37,000. And you see your total fund balance was 53.6 million. And when you look at your unassigned fund balance, and again, your unassigned fund balance is the measuring stick that most people go by, it was 52.5 million, which is 23% of your 25 actual expenditures. and 20 uh 23% of your

051budget expenditures. Uh remember the government finance officers association recommends a minimum of two months which would be about 16.6%. So we often get asked why do we need to have a good fund balance? Remember this is just what your fund balance was as of June 30th. If you'd ask us what your fund balance is at the end of July, it would be significantly lower because your expenses are going out and you have not received your next round of property taxes. Remember, your property taxes come in at generally December, a little bit in February, but December and January is when your property tax revenues come in. Uh so that's why it is uh crucial that you have a adequate fund balance to be able to carry you around until your next uh property taxes come in.

052Because if your fund balance is too low, uh what you would have to do is then you're uh issuing tax and pay notes uh just to make payroll and pay bills. So looking at your general fund revenues, you can see there's about 215 million for 25. Uh you had 91.3 million in property taxes and 919 million in state revenues. When you compare that to the prior year, it was about a 9.2 2 million or a 4% increase. And the two biggest increases, your tax revenues increased 3.9 million just due to higher assessed values. And then your state sources did increase 6.2 million. When you compare that to your budget, you were slightly overbudget uh mainly due to your investment earnings being overbudget uh and your property taxes being over budget. Looking at your expenditures, you

053can see had 232 million for 25. When you compare that to the prior year, that was 18.9 million or about a 9% increase from the prior year. Uh, one thing to remember, this was our first year uh out here without ESSER. So, remember ESSER, we've had all that COVID money. We've done a lot of one-time stuff with it, but anytime so this past year, anything that would have been priorly paid out of ESSER had to come back to your general fund. So that's really some of the uh drivers of your increase there from the prior year. Uh when you compare it to budget, uh you were about 3% under budget uh primarily due to staffing vacancies. So, we always talk about the general fund, but we always like to remind everyone you have other funds

054out there in addition to your general fund. Uh, so remember you do have your uh special projects funds and this is where your title one funds, your IDA funds are. And you can see you had about 17.5 million expended in those funds uh this prior year. When you look at your EIA funds, uh you had about another 19.2 million expended in your EIA funds this past year. The other thing to remember generally those funds are given for a very specific purpose. So you have to use those funds for the intended purposes there. It's not like you can move those to your general fund and just do whatever you wanted to with them. Uh looking at your fund uh food service fund balance. So you had about a net increase about 1.5 million. You see your

055balance there. You're about 62% of your actual expenditures. Uh, in the state of South Carolina, once you go over 30%, you have to submit every year a plan to the SD on what you're planning to do to reduce that fund balance. Uh, and we've got, you guys have a plan to use this on some capital needs, a lot of one-time items. One thing we don't want to do is we don't want to get too many recurring items in there. Uh, because then year over year, uh, your food service fund balance will typically go down. Looking at your debt service fund, you have slight increase of.7 million with a fund balance of 8.1 million. The entire balance to be used for debt service and your capital projects fund you had a net increase of 1.4 million.

056Uh and you can see the entire fund balance uh in your capital projects fund to be used for planned capital projects primarily Sunset Park. And we'll talk about some of your construction commitments here in just a second. >> [clears throat] >> These next two slides, I just want to briefly mention them. Just as a reminder, remember you all participate in the state pension plan and state uh health insurance. Well, because you're in those plans, uh due to some accounting rules, we have to record your portion of the state's liability on your books. That sounds great, doesn't it? And you can see your portion of that liability is about 224 million. Does that mean you were going to have to write a check for 224 million? Absolutely not. What it does mean is if you ever

057wondered why some of your fringe benefits seem so high, it's due to the amounts that you guys are paying in for all of your employees for uh retirement and for their retirey insurance. Because if you can think of it this way, just with the search charges that you pay for retirement and retirey insurance, for every dollar that you spend, you're sending another quarter to the state in fringe benefits just for these purposes. So that's why if you've ever looked at what your actual fringe benefits, they're probably they're a good bit over 40%. Uh and it's really due to some of these items right here. And again, this is what I was talking about earlier, the retirey insurance plan, and you see that liability is about 190 million. [snorts] So looking at your um total capital

058assets, you see they're about 314.4 million. Slight increase from the prior year, mainly due to we had about 25 million uh in additions this past year. Another item number I wanted to point out is the depreciation expense of 19.6 million. You might be thinking why do I as a school care what my depreciation expense was? That's not cash that has to go out. Another way you can think of depreciation expense is just to maintain the current buildings that you have. Current buildings, current equipment, you need to be spending at least 19.6 million to maintain what you have. That's another way you can think of depreciation expense. you either need to spend that or be setting that aside for future uh purposes. And then at June 30th, uh the construction related commitments you all had was

059about 44.1 million. Looking at your total outstanding debt, excuse about 133.9 million, uh decrease of 8.7 million. Uh and looking forward to 26, uh your total debt service payments are expected to be 13.9 million. Um looking ahead at future auditing or accounting changes, nothing on the auditing front. Uh but on the accounting front, one item your accounting staff will get to deal with next year. The biggest one there is Gazby 103. In your financial statements, there's the management discussion and analysis, and that's where you describe what happened during the year. Well, with Gazby 103, they essentially want more. They want more explanation, more budget to actual explanation. They encourage charts, graphs. Uh so that's something we will uh have to implement for next year. Uh so looking at compliance, um on the financial statement side,

060we had no uh findings, no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses to note. We did have to do a single audit for this past year. And remember, a single audit is essentially an extra compliance audit that we have to come in and do anytime you receive more than 750,000 in federal awards. Obviously, as a school district, you're always going to be over that uh threshold. So, this past year, we looked at your title one program and your USDA program and had no uh compliance issues noted with either one of those. We do have a separate management letter that we've issued. Just have one comment just mainly just a reminder related to pupil activity funds. Remember, anytime cash is being taken in, there's always a risk. We think the policies and procedures that you guys have in

061place are adequate. Keep them up. Don't definitely don't take anything away there. It's just our reminder uh that there is some risk anytime cash is uh taken in. So again, in summary, again, unmodified opinion, a good financial condition. Again, the staff are great with work great to work with. want to commend uh Mr. Barnes and his staff, you know, with your turnover and finance. He was doing a lot of stuff for the first time. Uh so there was a lot on his plate this year. In addition to that, throw a [clears throat] a monkey wrench into everything else. The federal government every year issues a compliance supplement that tells me what I have to look at when I'm doing your single audit. They issued it this year the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Uh normally that's issued

062in May. uh which also meant the South Carolina Department of Ed could not issue their single audit guide that did not come out till December 7th. Uh but happy to report even with all those delays there, you were able to meet the December 1 deadline, get your draft in just like every other district. Uh so you were able to comply with everything there. >> Well, thank you. >> Sorry. Well, thank you. Do we have any questions for uh Mr. Coleman? No, [snorts] >> I I do have one. The last page of that report that you sent, someone summarized it here, but it was toward the end on the pupil activity fund. Um, I think most of our athletic events now are own on that app. Where are we collecting cash in the district that puts

063us at risk of fraud? >> We're mostly collecting cash at the uh at the [clears throat] offices, at the schools. Um well actually the teach the teachers will collect the cash and then the bookkeeper will deposit. So >> it's like field trips or something. >> Field trips um various uh ice cream money stuff like that. So [laughter] >> and again and just to clarify this is we are not unique. This is something that I would assume that you put in pretty much every school district across the state. This really just our reminder anytime cash like that just to make sure that you're following your policies and procedures um and make sure that you you know you're checking on these guys making sure they're still doing what they're doing. We think your policies and procedures you

064do have are put in place are adequate. Let's just make sure everyone's following them. And since I I'll tell a little bit here since I am married to a teacher I know how they can be sometimes. Uh so getting them to follow some of these procedures I know can be difficult. Uh so that's where it can be. uh just make sure you're giving your bookkeepers the uh support that they need as well. >> I think the elementary people answered my question. They told me it's an elementary thing. So, all right. I just wasn't aware that I am married to a kindergarten. >> I I do want to like follow up with that. I I will assure you that at least in the high schools that there are policies and procedures in place with receipt books,

065right? >> But when you go to a parent athletic meeting and they say we need I don't know what it's called like the activity fee. If if you have to pay your activity fee, we take cash. You write us a receipt for that and then if you're buying equipment or something else that you need to participate in that sport, it's like a separate receipt. But it is it there is a lot of cash being taken. But it but there are systems and procedures to >> Thank you for educating me. I mean the last couple of years at least since co I've everything has been on the app. So I I didn't realize that. So, thank I saw it in the report when I finally read it over the weekend. So, where where are we still

066collecting cash? But thank for educating me and thank you elementary people for letting me know it's ice cream money. >> Thank you. >> I believe Dr. I just want to say information for elementary parents. When the communication comes out about ice cream money and when you need to pay it and why you need to pay it, this is the reason. And the bookkeeper at elementary schools are very thankful when you follow those procedures. This is why those are in place. I just I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Barnes, for stepping in um into it was a trying end of the year last year, but from all accounts, you have, you know, stepped up and and done the work. So, definitely appreciate what you're doing to hold hold it in the road. Thank you

067for working with our auditors to make sure that we have the information and looking forward to uh working with you in the budget season so we can have the budget for next year. So, thank you for your work. I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Just [clears throat] want to be proactive with you. Um I don't know if you're keeping up with legislature right now, but the Homestead Exemption Act right now they're they're talking about going from 50,000 to 150,000. I don't know if you're keeping up with that, but um for the others who don't know that what it is, it's whenever 65, the first 50,000 of it is is tax exempt. That's going to go to 150,000. So that's going to leave us with a delta. So just kind of want to give you a

068heads up before it happens. >> Thank you. And just to summarize uh I think a feeling from from the entire board and and I'm going to speak on behalf of Dr. Elder as well that it's not just Dr. or Mr. Barnes, it's his entire team and as you heard from Mr. Coleman. Uh it was a kind of a perfect storm this fall is a good way of putting it. Um, and and I know that the extra hours that your team has been putting uh in this fall and and early winter in order to uh land us where we're at tonight with this report. Um, just thank you. Thank you to [clears throat] all of them and and hopefully you'll have a little bit of a break for a few days until we start budget season.

069>> Madam Chair, as they're leaving the podium, this is not a question. It's much of a statement. I also hope the public saw the fin that Rockill Schools is in a good financial position. That's what's most important that the community needs to see and hear that we are we are on a solid found financial foundation and you know that's new to everybody. But thank you so much Mr. Barnes and your team. Um thank you. >> Thank thank you for stating that Dr. Belton. I think that's important because um there are always rumors running around and and I think we've all heard those and and and I think what you hear tonight proves the opposite. Um and as Dr. Elder stated earlier, you you know, one of the things that this board and our superintendent are

070very committed to is the transparency uh to the community and that includes uh consist or or continuing um financial snapshot updates to the community and the next detailed one will be I believe at the next board meeting in January. So for those who are interested who would like to see the very detailed numbers, tune in in about two weeks and and Mr. Barnes and team will let us know all about it. So for that we say thank you. [applause] >> 23% fund balance. >> We are hardressed. You would be hardressed. >> This is an amazing audit that we should be very proud of. >> Come on, Mr. Ham. Yes. So next up, uh I know Mr. Pam is is already up at the podium, but before I turn it over to him, um I'm going

071to uh introduce the ne next segment. It's continuous improvement plan updates. Um we have three schools uh that are on uh continuous improvement. Uh what that means is that they uh get to uh come present to the community and to the board about the work that they're doing for their school communities. Um, as a board, uh, we are incredibly blessed and pleased to see an entire boardroom today that is filled with teachers, parents, and families from these three schools, and that speaks volumes. Um, we're going to hear all about the journey that these three schools are on. But when I see a room, and I think all of my colleagues will agree with me, when you see a room with school families that are supporting that process, that just shows that the support is there

072and it is going to be amazing. So with that, we do have three principles uh here tonight representing their individual schools. And I'm going to call them all out and then I'm going to turn it over to uh so number one is of course Robert Ham with Richmond Drive and then we have uh Carrie Beth Brown with York Road and then we have uh Dr. Celia Leonard with Ebenezer uh Avenue Elementary. So with that, don't Mr. Ham, I almost gave you an extra degree there. >> That's all right. Pay >> ear. UM MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, DR. ELDER, our viewing audience. Um I'm Robert Ham, the extremely proud principal at Richmond Drive Elementary School. We have approximately 440 student leaders and 85 dedicated professionals, many of whom are here tonight. If they'll please stand, I

073want you to see the faces behind the hard work. [applause] That was very hard for some of them to do. So, thank you. Uh, Richmond Drive is located in a neighborhood off of Cherry Road and across from the Winthrop Coliseum. U, we are a title one school with a very diverse population. These pictures highlight that we are dedicated to developing the whole child and creating meaningful experiences for students that they will remember forever. Whether it is the principal dressing up like Santa Claus, taking the entire B-grade Academy to the um Carolina Panthers event in Uptown Charlotte, having school board members attend school events, or published authors reading to our fourth graders to enhance their science lessons. This is a comprehensive approach which defines Richmond Drive and our commitment to student development in a holistic approach.

074The continuous improvement turnaround plan serves as the planning document for schools identified with state and federal designations. You will hear from three principles this evening and each of us have used the structure of this plan to move our work forward. This is a copy of our school report card and I just want to give you a quick reminder of the categories. Academic achievement is grades three, four, and five in math and ELA. Preparing for success measures fourth grade science only. Multilingual learners progress is measured by WEDA. Student progress is only fourth and fifth graders um in the area of growth. School climate is a perception survey taken by certified staff and third, fourth and fifth grade students. I want to highlight very quickly that we increase in academic achievement and student progress. And if you

075remember from my presentations last year, I said that if we continue to grow that academic achievement would follow. So we increased in both of those categories. We still have work to do, but we're very proud of that success. Some of our school highlights include we're embarking in a partnership with Dr. Roo and her team of teacher support specialist and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching with strength-based coaching for our teachers. We've continued to increase parent support and involvement to build that trust between home and school. It was a priority last year and it will continue to be a priority till we get every parent in our building at all the time. um our multilingual team attended either a state or a regional conference and also we did a school visit along with school leadership

076and district leadership to a school in Colombia that was like our population. So we went there to see the because they had success in their state report card. We wanted to see what are some of the things that they're doing that maybe we could mimic at our school to see that that success. Um we are also implement implementing town halls to build community and give students a voice in their learning environment. Town hall designed and implemented by our new assistant principal Mr. Josh Boville focuses on student expectation grades and discipline. We are extremely proud that we are the district leading school for positive referrals. 83% of our students have not received a minor or major office referral, which means that 83% of our students are doing what they need to do to be successful in

077that classroom. I also want to say that um I also have teachers that have worked so hard to enhance classroom management strategies. The state South Carolina state vision. Every South Carolina student graduates graduates college ready, career ready, or military ready. By 2030, at least 75% of students perform at or above grade level. The state strategy includes early literacy focus through the implementation of letters training for all kindergarten through third grade teachers as well as an investment in high quality instructional materials. This is our school um goals which focus on teacher expectations, language arts, reading and science. These goals are outlined in our state school renewal plan and they are increased by a certain increment each year so that we hit that goal of 75%. Some of the action steps that we are doing, school leaders,

078teachers and students will reflect on data to maximize learning. Teachers will work collaboratively to create meaningful student experiences. We strive at Richmond Drive to create these unique learning experiences to increase student engagement and mastery of skills. We recently had York County soil come into our fourth grade classrooms and do a hands-on learning activity on erosion. Also, teacher teams will use what they learn about students to guide daily instruction. Our professional development last Tuesday allowed teachers the opportunity to break down map data and once the kids were categorized they discussed commonalities amongst [clears throat] those groups of students so that they could impact student learning. It is imperative that we meet students where they are academically. Some of the imple implementation strategies is that data notebooks have been implemented with teachers and each grade level team

079analyze data twice a month with a coach or a district specialist. Teacher clarity which is the breaking down of state standards, ensures students understand learning intentions and success criteria. This also helps teachers reduce confusion, makes learning purposeful, and allows students to focus on what to learn and how to demonstrate that mastery of the learning. Formative assessments help teachers know which students have mastered the content and which students need more support. We have incorporated an intervention block into our schedule, Tiger Time, which provides a structure to offer this additional instructional help. This slide represents a comprehensive list of the district and state assessments that we administer to our students. The way in which data is disagregated and used to inform instruction may vary from school to school. Some of the insights from our current data is

080that we have targeted focused areas have been identified for each grade level in the areas of math, ELA, and science. I want to give you very quickly um an example of each. In ELA, based on our fall map and benchmark data, we saw that we needed to emphasize an emphasis on our vocabulary strand because if students don't know the words, then they can't understand the text and they can't read the passages. This has been our focus in grade level meetings and in partnership with our school literacy coach which resulted in a 10% achievement increase in vocabulary strand on MAP from fall to winter. In math based on our common assessments and benchmark data we have identified that solving realworld situation is an area of concentration in grades three through five. In grade level meetings we

081are analyzing the data to create daily spiral reviews. Spiral reviews questions are added to each common assessment to monitor retention. The evidence of growth in this area was shown in our latest winter maps. In science, we are proud that our benchmark data showed numerous increases in multiple standards. As a result of our analysis of standards and recognizing that there were areas of growth, we are partnering with Dr. David Consolvi, the district science specialist, where he will be co-eing with our fourth grade teachers to model effective strategies and to increase mastery of concepts. And also, Dr. Consolvi was in our building today co-eing with Mr. Dan Stone in a fourth grade class on a science experiment. So, it was fun to be in there to watch them co-e and to talk about that the standards. Some

082of our next steps include there are co-eing partnerships that we have to do with our resource teachers and our multilingual teachers. Um, our multilingual teachers are pushing into third grade classrooms because we found that 43% of our third graders are multilingual learners. That's 43% of our third graders are multilingual learners. Special education teachers also recognize the need in fifth grade and they are now pushing into those those classrooms. So they are co-eing with the teacher and supporting those teachers in real and those students in real time. District specialist supporting teachers through coaching cycles and modeling lessons. Any district specialist that works with Richmond Drive Elementary School is going to be in classrooms working with teachers and impacting students. And I am proud to say that every partner that we have from the district office, they

083are doing just that and they are invested in the work at Richmond Drive. I want to thank you for your continued support at Rich for Richmond Drive Elementary School. We welcome you to visit our school anytime. We are offering school tours on January 22nd and 28th. Again, we are offering school tours on the 27th or 22nd and 28th at 2:30 as part of our district initiative #learn where you live. I want I want to end by sharing how extremely proud I am of the faculty and staff for their dedication to ensuring that we not only improve our state report card, but that we change the lives of every single student at Richmond Drive Elementary School. Thank you so much. >> [applause] >> We have a thing in our school. Hash Laaf Familia. That's La Familia.

084>> Okay. Any questions for him or are we going to welcome Miss Carbette? >> Just want to make a quick comment. Mr. Ham, I just really want to appreciate you for all of your hard work. I know that all of you all are working very hard to support every child in that school. Um, the times that I've been in there, I feel the love. I know that y'all are working hard. I know that you all have a unique population that is different um from, you know, other schools in the district. And I know that you all working hard to support uh those students. So, thank you for that. And if there are supports and I know I asked you last week what you need and and I heard >> I told you >> you did.

085[laughter] You did. So, if if there is a way that we can find a way to to find that for you, I hope that we can because I know that y'all are working hard. I really do. Thank you all for uh for what you're doing for our children. >> Thank you. And it's nice that they hear that from you because they they've heard that from me and they actually heard it from me today. So, to hear it from someone outside of our building, it means a lot. So, thank you for those comments. >> Oh, thank you all. Thank y'all. Thank you very much. And for the viewing audience who cannot see this when I say the boardroom is packed with staff and parents uh from these three schools uh that is not an understatement. Uh

086so that is what we're referring to and you may have heard them in the background as well which [laughter] is fantastic. >> Well thank you. Uh >> we got more. >> Yes. I'm sorry. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ham. Yes ma'am. I just want to say that feeling when you walk in your school building is something that cannot be put into words between your leadership team and your teachers and those children in there. I know that they feel loved and seen when they are within your school building. I also want to acknowledge you mentioned it briefly here and I asked you further questions in a small group but I want to acknowledge that your team is thinking outside the box to bring learning experiences and um just general experiences to your students. So for that I

087think you said it was a fourth grade teacher that brought the soil company in. >> Correct. Yes, >> keep going. Keep thinking outside the box. Please continue to do that. And then a statement for all three schools for the teachers here. No one wants to be on this list. >> I understand it and I get it. But at this point in time, you can look at this as a way to laser focus on what is needed and what your attention should be focused on. You are in a position to move mountains if you all stick together. Um, at this point, do not let this report or this distinction determine your worth or your value as a teacher because it does not. I'm here to support you in that and please continue to work together all

088three schools and you will go far. I appreciate you and I see you and that collective gasp that we heard around the boardroom with that assessment slide on our board. I continue to have conversations and you heard Dr. Elder mentioned in her plan, we realize there is assessment fatigue. I am here to be that voice for you and all of our students in the district. I will also be a voice moving forward with the state to continue to make that argument that we have over assessed our students and we need to be moving beyond. Thank you for what you are doing and I appreciate you and the sense of family that you've created in your school. Thank you. >> Thank you and thank you for coming to our last event. >> That was a blast.

089>> Thank you. I almost was hard to follow Miss Lacy. >> I know you got a nice amen and disenediction. [laughter] I I do want to add um school leadership is hard. It's much harder than people think. And all be 20 years ago was in the role that you're in. And I've told you privately and tell you publicly, Richmond Drive has a special place in my heart. That was my entry point into the district. First place I worked as an employee of the schools where both of my children went um to school. My daughter K5 there and my son third grade through fifth grade. So has a special place in my heart. Um Ebeneia is where my son went kindergarten [clears throat] through 2 grade. He was a student at Ebene and then York Road

090when I was a teacher at Rollinsson Road. It was back then it was 100% feeder into Rollison Road. So we work a lot with vertical articulation. So the three schools that are in here tonight just have a very special place in my heart. Very special place in my heart. And so I do too wish you well and know um everyone has spoken to the teachers and everyone knows and this is just in case some of the teachers leave by the time the third presentation is that I want to speak directly to the three principles. Certainly we appreciate the teachers but we also appreciate the three leaders who taken the mantle to lead these schools. It is very easy to go to schools where you know the children are going to come in day one already

091prepared to learn. It is a yman's work to go into schools where you really have to know how to lead and what to do um to lead those schools. So, thank you personally to the three principles who are at these schools and please, as late um as Miss Daniel said, please don't get weary and welloing. And those of you who are Christians, you understand where that comes from. Please don't get weary and welloing. It is tiring, exhausted work. But these children need people who are committed to the work and committed for the long haul. Lastly, I'm going to say I was happy to hear in your report that you have a lot of partners at the district office. The board received and I'm not sure who else got who else got this information, but on

092January the 8th, we got a report from the district office and we have a lot to celebrate. And I didn't read this until last night, so I'll be um to admit this, but I want to applaud Dr. Di who is the one constant in the instruction department [applause] and we deserve to give her I mean that I know there are a lot of people working with you but this work is led by you. I'm looking from 2022 to 2025. Anybody else read these tables that when um 2022 to 2025, we had 10 schools that were part of this ATSI. We're down to three now. [applause] We have seven elementary schools. We're down to three. We had two middle schools. We have none. We had one high school. We're down to none. >> That is in

093the last three years. >> Team effort. >> It's a team effort, but you're the leader. you're going to get the criticism. So, I want to give you the credit and you spread the love wherever it needs to be spread. So, I want to say to you that somebody in this district knows what to do. So, whomever these partners are, please continue to look to them, work with them cuz the work I mean the numbers are here. We were given them to they were given to us. I didn't read them until last night and had not paid attention to them. So, I wanted to make my comments before everyone clears the room that we have a lot to celebrate. you all stay the course and then you're going to be on this chart next as a

094zero. Um so thank you all so much. >> Thank you. >> Stop. Next is Miss Carth Brown with York Elementary. [cheering] Chairwoman Miller, members of the board, Dr. elder and folks in the audience. I'd like to give a big shout out to my folks who already made a lot of noise in the audience, but also we have a group of folks that are already at home. We know cheering us um from their living rooms. But I am Cara Beth Brown. I'm the current principal at York Road Elementary and I have the privilege and the honor of coming tonight to talk to you about the great work of my people. [clears throat] Maybe there it goes. Just like Mr. hand. We're going to start off with a few pictures of the work at our school. Um

095I hope that as you uh listen to the presentation, these are just a small glimpse into the work that we started last year together um and continued on into this year. Our whole goal has been talked about repeatedly um through your presentations through the board, Dr. Elders, Mr. Mr. Hams, is all about increasing student outcome. So everything we do is through the focus of that lens. Again, Mr. Ham talked about us having a continuous turnaround plan. I'm not going to spend a lot of time with that. We kind of explained what it was. Um, but Miss Daniel hit on it for York Road and I think speaking for the all three principles. The great thing about this plan, if you can use those words together, continuous improvement planning, great. Um, is that it's an opportunity

096for refinement and reflection [clears throat] and to really hone in on our action steps. So that's our plan in a nutshell. Um just like Mr. Ham, we'll start with the past two years of SC ready report card. Um you'll notice a significant change. We went down seven points. Um overall, um what I would like to say on behalf of York, York, York Road Elementary is that we are we were a different school in 2024 than we were in 2025 in respects to 43% of our instructional staff had a changeover. We had the leadership team was new and different. Every grade level PLC was new and different. We added folks to our interventionist. So last year for York Road was a begin again year. It was a year of building [clears throat] trust, of building relationships,

097among staff, among students, among our families. So we focused a lot last year on that. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But what you will notice is that we did slightly increase in academic achievement. We slightly increase in our school climate. You'll also notice our two areas of focus clearly defined here is fourth grade science preparing for success and overall student progress. So that reflects um our ELA and math growth scores um for our fourth and fifth grade students. Having said that, it's really a focus from 4K in our building all the way through fifth grade because it starts with our little people. Having said that, again, our school highlights weren't captured on our school report. [cough] Um, [clears throat] York Road Elementary last year when we began again, we focused a lot

098last year on building sustainable long-term schoolwide systems, right, to impact student outcomes ultimately. So, one of the biggest highlights I'm proud of is we had a 48% reduction in our major office referrals. Um, through the implementation of explicit behavior expectations being taught repeatedly through small group. We know we have students who need additional support, putting those supports in place. We built teacher capacity and how to handle students. That was our work for last year, those sustainable um systems. Another huge accomplishment for York Road. We look a little different this year. Last year we were title one. So that meant this year we did decrease in staff numbers. Um however of the positions, instructional positions that returned this year to continue the work. 98% of our staff returned. Um so what's the significance of that? We've

099picked up where we left off and we keep moving. Um York Road staff is beyond committed to student outcomes. Another proud point for us is that we had an 18% increase on our state report card of parents who indicated having satisfaction with homeschool relations. Um, if you take all parents that were surveyed last year, 97% of them are satisfied with the homeschool relations. We did a lot of work last year on how can we really connect to our parent group. York Road was blessed, has been blessed for many years and continues to be blessed with a strong parent base. um our work is how can we really tap into those resources? That's a huge resource for us. Um we love our students, they love them more. So really figuring out how we can tap into

100them. Um finally, our work this year transitioned from last year building their sustainable schoolwide system for student outcomes to how do we look at our core environments where the child spends the most of the day. So, we have we're working to improve um our classroom environments this year with a strong focus there for how we can do that to improve student outcomes. Again, Mr. Ham went over this goal. By uh 2030, um 75% of our students will be at or above grade level and be college, career, or military ready. So, for York Road, in order to be on track, these are our specific goals for next year. You'll notice 75% of our teachers will agree that all teachers in our school have high expectations for students. That's about a 10% increase from where we were

101spring of last year. If you'll notice the bottom goal, skipping down to science. Um, we're hoping to have 32 or more% of our students ready to meet or exceed science um expectations on SE ready. That is a 16% increase from where we were for last year. Those two goals in the middle reflect ELA, SE ready ELA and SE ready math. Um those goals are quite lofty. Um but we're committed to the work. Um those goals represent anywhere from a 14% increase to a 43% increase. Um so we have work to do. We are committed to the work. So I hope as we move forward you will see the work that we are committed to to get us our student outcomes. >> [snorts] >> All right. And did I think I went too? I'm just zealous.

102All right. Our action steps. School leaders, teachers, and students will reflect on data and maximize learning. Teachers will work collaboratively to create meaningful student learning experiences. Teacher teams will use what they learn about students to guide our daily instruction. And we will use effective instructional practices that are high impact in all classrooms for all students to strengthen our tier one. Specifically, the strategies we're working on is really looking at that differentiated instruction. We no longer can do a one-sizefits-all um in a classroom full of diverse learners. So if you come to York Road, what does that look like in practical application and steps? So these are things that you will see that are helping us to fulfill those former action steps. You will see we spent a lot of time implementing PLC's, professional learning communities

103with teachers. Um we do a lot of that work collaboratively because we know effective teacher collaboration leads to increased student outcomes. Those are our best assets to impacting our students. We are better together. So that is what our PLC work is. It's around learning intentions, formative assessment and then determining the next right steps for students. Other things you will notice is a professional development. We are committed to developing ourselves. I am the number one learner at York Road and will always consider myself to be. um but all grown-ups and students so that we can really strengthen our tier one instruction in the areas of ELA and math and of course fourth grade science even though it doesn't say it up there. Um we're doing a collaboration team. So just like Mr. Ham um and just

104like Dr. Belton um mentioned we are really focused on partnering with district specialists um working together to pull all of our expertise on how we can impact our students and be sure right that our support continues through monthly check check checks and balances. So we meet monthly to really look at is what we're doing effective? Is it having the impact we want? Um do we need to change? Do we need to make shifts? So continuing those ongoing conversations. Um and last but not least, we are doing strategic coaching in our building um from my school coaches and from district district coaches on those highly impactful instructional um strategies that transcend subject. Um we're also looking at the ones that are specific to math or ELA, but ultimately right now we're looking for those high impact

105strategies that transcend all subjects. We're looking for high impact strategies all subject all again Mr. Ham and we've heard a lot about our district and state assessments. Um York Road participates in all these as all of our schools do. Um, however, if I could take a few minutes to talk to you about what we're seeing in our current data. All right. So, insights from our current data in ELA. Common summitive assessments indicate improvements in student understanding of summarization in third grade, elements of literary text in fourth grade, and text features and text structures in fifth grade. What we're doing is beginning to work. It's starting to show up in our academics. Another highlight for ELA, um, compared to last year, um, MAP midyear AVT growth goals, we've made a significant increase in the number of

106students that are reaching those goals in ELA and math. To continue our work, we're going to continue to highlight the foundational skills of students and how you apply those foundational skills into text. And then really, we have to work on our reading stamina. Um, we find that reading stamina is what gets us on a lot of our SC ready. So, it's tying our foundational skills into text to make it meaningful for students. in math in recent common summitive data, math growth data, and I ready student data indicates that teachers are enhancing student outcomes by using handson learning experiences. Um, no longer can it just be solve the math problem. There's a lot of thinking that is involved and we want our students to experience math. We're also working to um build and our students are

107I'm sorry where students are demonstrating increased student achievement and growth on standards related to fractions um which is a high is a tough standards. So we're seeing that in fourth and fifth grade and in uh multiplication and division and math. Science science our students are demonstrating mastery of the science concepts from quarter one to quarter two. Our work in science is really building that scientific thinking so students can make connections across the content. So, our next steps, we're going to continue to focus on the collection of student evidence. At York Road Elementary, we're committed to that collection of evidence. We don't want any grown-up to hinder the progress of a child. In order for us to do that, we have to know where they are and what their next steps are. So, we're committed to

108that. We're committed to implementing additional targeted PLC support in the area of fourth grade EL um fourth grade math and science and fourth and and fifth grade ELA and math. We're also committed to having continual conversations. I call them my focus and finish meetings. And those are intentional data conversations for reflection, refinement, and most importantly for me is to be able to remove any barriers that are in the way of teaching and learning to the best of my ability. Um, we're continuing to implement spiral reviews in ELA and math for a third, third through fifth grades based on our benchmark data. This allows us to continue to enhance and make sure students have the content they know while building an opportunity to scaffold and teach again and to review items that we still need to

109learn. Um, at York Road, we're defined uh again, we're committed to staff capacity and building staff capacity. So, we define as a leadership team with staff what we call our instructional look force. um those are we provide professional development on them and then we go out and implement them and then as an instructional leadership team we provide actionable feedback steps on how those are being implemented. Additionally, it guides our practice into what supports are needed needed for teacher and student success. I believe that teachers have to be successful in order for students to [clears throat] be successful. And last but not least, the number one thing if I could tie it all up in a nutshell would be we're working to switch to a growth mindset for both students and staff. Just like Mr. Ham,

110I'd love to cordially invite you to our open house. Um, we're having those on January 22nd at 6 PM and again on January 28th at 9:00 a.m. We'd love for you to come by, meet the staff, meet our students, um, and just really see the great things that are going on at York Road. Um, York Road staff is committed to creating a positive school environment where all students learn, lead, and succeed. Um that's part of our new vision statement. So again, thank you. Um and in closing, I would just like to say how much I appreciate the space and the opportunity to praise the good work that's going on in your >> Thank you so much. any specific questions for I [clears throat] I think you know to to um kind of reject what some

111of what the um uh board member said earlier is the fact that we do not have as many comments on Miss Brown's work is not because we're not just as supportive and share the same sentiments. It's just so simply that we we we sort of ported out over all three of you originally. Yes. >> Great. like no no first. >> Okay. >> So, Miss Brown, >> be a hard act to follow. I know though. >> Miss Brown, one thing you will not mention, but I will. That 98% of the returning instructional staff is staff that chose you, the leadership within your building, and that is staff that chose those your Corona students specifically. That says a lot, an absolute lot. So, just like for the last year, [applause] [cheering] as they and I'm going to

112try not to tear up, but as you continue to work together and create more cohesive teams, your momentum will build and you will see that. I asked Miss Brown last week what results are being seen with your midyear assessments. Pick an assessment. There's a lot of them. Um, and she said that you are seeing results that your scores are showing your students are growing. You need to use this as a teacher to contain and build that stamina and push you forward into this second semester. Continue to see that growth. You are seeing the results of your work already. And then the fact that you've listed your PLC's. That is not just a statement that you have put into your action steps and your implementation. I was in your building and experienced PLC's. I do PLC's

113every week. It's one thing to say you're there. It's another for the fact that the continual question was what do we want our students to know and how [clears throat] are we going to know that they conversation is what those questions are what your conversations circled around all day long for me that says you're doing the right work your leadership is leading you in the right direction and it appears that you have the staff there to support the direction you are taking them in the best around that's the most important step with who's there in the classroom every day I appreciate your efforts and I appreciate your view on this continuous improvement plan. Miss Hutchinson, you want to follow that? [laughter] [cough] >> No, [clears throat] I just also wanted to say thank you for

114your presentation and um as a parent hearing how it that that um appreciation of the relationships that the teachers have with the parents is so cool. And I always hear that in the community how like parents really love York Road um and how you all pour into them and they pour into you and you all work together and that's how you turn things around as well. those relationships, that transparency. So, thank you to the to the teachers, to the staff, to keeping the parents informed and working hard to do that. As a parent, that's important to me. That happens at my school, too, by the way. I just want to say that. But but I know I know and I'm sure it happens at all of them. But I just know um making sure that

115parents are able to be engaged and involved is very important. So, thank you all um for doing that. And thank you for that hands-on [clears throat] math stuff because I have a kid that just is like, "Mom, that's just the answer." And I'm like, "Can you show me how you got to that?" [clears throat] Cuz I can't show you how I got to it. >> [laughter] >> I need a calculator. So, >> cross over into high school math. So, >> I'm I'm not ready for that. But just thank you for that in particular because I think that's important laying that foundation as they get into middle school into high school. So, thank you for your work in that. Thank you. Thank you teachers and staff for that, too. >> Mr. Nel. >> Um, [clears throat]

116thank you, Madam Chair. I was trying to figure out how I was going to comment during Mr. after Mr. Hams, but I did not. I wanted to abide by our no surprise policy. Um, I'm going to say it like this. I am so proud of all of our elementary school principles and the the work that you've been doing. Um, y'all have been through a lot in the last 10 years with the way that these schools have changed. All three of your schools are learn Where You Live schools. Um, my my boys went to Ebenezer and I I would send them to York Road. I would send them to Richmond Drive. Those are the schools that I would send my kids to. And I I see Mr. Dagel back there. He is one of the teachers

117that when my boys look back on their their career, he's they're going to think about Mr. Dagel. So, thank you for the work that you're doing. And I really appreciate it. >> Thank you. And I'm going to welcome BACK That that will be uh Dr. Leonard uh together with Ebeneer Avenue Elementary. You are in the house. [laughter] >> Good evening, Chairman Miller, our school board members, Dr. the elder our online viewing community which at this time also incorporates my husband and two daughters and my mom into our Eagle community of parents, some students and my Eagle staff. I am here I am Shalia Leonard, principal of Ebeneza Avenue and where our vision is to build an empowered community of leaders and learners. We have 463 students, 50% black, 36% white. >> This collage, because I

118was not able to just share out a few pictures, is a culmination of many things around our building. Our collage showcases who we are as a school. We are a school community where we spark curiosity, our staff and our families collaborate meaningfully, and students engage with real world experience. handson with science and even some live animals. We had goats earlier this semester. They highlight our dedication to critical feedback. Our leadership through our student lighthouse team and school service projects, connections with our community partners like Hope Rock Hill, Oakland Presbyterian, and the Omegas of Rock Hill. We have meaningful parent engagement. The majority of my SIC and my PTO are here tonight. And we have parent events like are you smarter than a fifth grader? A parent virtual event focused on math instruction. As my colleagues

119have shared, we have a continuous improvement plan and we are here this evening to share more insight with you. Here's a look at our school report card over the last two years for Ebenezer. This data focuses on third, fourth, and fifth grade. Our overall achievement data continues to show steady increase reflecting the collective efforts of our students and our staff to meet and or exceed grade level standards. Each year we have several students that are recognized for exceeding on SC ready. preparing for success which is measured by fourth grade science only and student progress which is measured with fourth and fifth grade only for math and e ele are areas of focus as our goal for our students and staff is to go deeper in content for student growth. While our climate data reflects an

120average standing, our goal is to strengthen it as a school community of leaders and learners working toward shared success. A few of our school highlights. Our school continues to shine through student leadership nights which were implemented last school year. This school year we are offering it at the end of each quarter. Our students have leadership portfolios and our families are able to come in in the evenings and see what their child is learning, what their progression is with map data, I ready data, what their celebrations were for the quarter, see plays, see anything that our students have been doing throughout the quarter. We both have in-person and virtual parent sessions. We strengthen our partnership by empowering families with tools to support learning at home, including showcasing how we teach math, supported by strong community partnerships.

121We have a dedicated staff committed to collaboration and in innovative programs such as our monastery and inquiry programs. We have a partnership with Camp Explore who helps us with high yield strategies and student engagement. And we also connect with our department with Dr. Dicki and her team as well. We proudly embody the spirit of once an eagle, always an eagle. As my colleagues have shared, this is our state's vision. By 2030, at least 75% of students will perform at or above grade level and be college, career, or military ready. So, here are our goals for Ebenezer that are in our continuous improvement plan. ELA performance is trending upward with both fourth and fifth graders exceeding last year's school renewal plan goals. Fourth grade was at 63.5% and our school renewal plan was at 52.63% 63%

122for ELA. Fifth grade is at 68% for our school renewal plan versus a target of 64%. We are showing strong momentum toward the 2026 proficiency goals for ELA. Math remains a key growth focus as current performance is showing that we are below target in some areas and we need to look at targeted small groupoup instruction. students having time to practice and engage with the standards and align with our plan to reach our goal by 2026. Our school climate reflects a strong foundation. 73.2% of teachers agree that our expectations are high. However, if you add the mostly agree and agree on our school renewal plan, we are at 100%. >> [laughter] >> Current math data shows we are trending upwardly in reading with achievement and growth in all upper grades. Math is showing upward trends and

123growth for fifth grade. Here are action steps that are found in our continuous improvement plan. School leaders, teachers, and students will reflect on data to maximize learning because our most important stakeholder are students. So they have to be in this plan as well. Teachers will work collaboratively to create meaningful student experiences and teachers will use effective strategies while teaching students in differentiated small groups. So Leonard, how you going to get us there? This [clears throat] is our team. We have data conversations that are focused on student growth, student ownership, and adjusting instruction to ensure learning is maximized for all students. Throughout our data conversations and our focus with leader and me, we're building an environment where students, we want them to take ownership of their growth. We're setting goals. We're tracking progress and we're using

124an angry mindset to ask questions. And we want our students to advocate for their learning. These conversations guide our teachers in selecting the high yield strategies that best support every learner. Teachers collaborating. They collaborate in their PLC's. They collaborate vertically. They collaborate with district staff as well to design standards aligned lessons that engage our students have handson and we are grounded in student curiosity helping children explore ideas and understand the why behind the learning. Students learn in flexible small groups where teachers use researchbased strategies and real time data to support and or extend ensuring every child grows as a confident learner and leader. As my colleagues have shared, here is our comprehensive list of our district and state assessments. Each school use them differently into how they're going to support their school. So, how does

125Eenezer use them? So we have target focus areas that have been identified. Our current math data shows we are trending upwardly in reading with achievement and growth in our upper grades. Math is showing upward trends and growth for third and fifth grade. Our summit of assessment data shows strong vocabulary and language instruction with effective routines for summarizing and foundational comprehension skills. Students are sharing early math foundation and computation skills as areas of strength. You ask our student what a wildly important goal is. They each have a data tracker for their fact fluency. Our areas of growth include moving from the what to the why in ELA. Strengthening mathematical reasoning and justifying our answers with current evidence of learning is where we are headed with our students. You guys, you know, you ask students, "How'd you

126get the problem?" They like to say, "I just got it." We need you to justify. You got to show us how you got that answer. As a school though, fourth grade is the only one rated on the report card. Science is an entire school focus. We know that if fifth grade is not teaching it, what's going to happen to sixth grade and middle school? So, it is a focus for us as an entire school. During quarter two in the area of science, we use district common assessments in grades third, fourth, and fifth. Our science data for fourth grade shows that our students are performing better on common assessments than they are on our benchmark assessments, which is what we want to see because our benchmark assessments are beginning are done at the beginning of the

127quarter as a baseline for information. Our noted challenges of the assessments are the duration of the exams, the level of reading, and the rigor of the questions. We are completing data discussions, comparing our benchmarks and our common summitives. And we're looking at patterns. What do we need to spiral back to? Our temp teachers are implementing greater rigor in their assessments for quarter three. Our teachers are developing enhanced review activities and strategies to support student preparation. I sat in a professional development today where Mr. Dagel shared a strategy that a a group of teachers had professional development with last week. They came back and showed us a strategy today to help us even within science. Our teachers have mapped out integrated lessons that leverage high quality materials including handson activities. So what are our next steps

128for Ebenezer? Our next steps as a school is diving deeper into the work that we have begun. Our professional learning communities are intentionally planning lessons that require students to explain their thinking not just orally but also in writing particularly in ELA, math, and science. Our ES staff is pushing into PLC's and I myself am meeting with our ESSE team bi-weekly. Teachers consistently using high yield instructional strategies from questioning academic discourse, checking for understanding across all classrooms to ensure tier one instruction is there. We are looking at evidence of learning of student growth through exit tickets connected to our success criteria and student mastery. Why does this matter? While achievement percentiles are strong in several of our grades, our growth data is where we will continue to build upon. Strengthening tier one instruction ensures that all

129students, not just those who may be in intervention, but every student receives their rigorous engaging instruction every day. Our win time, which is what I need, is protected and it is purposely designed for grouping, enrichment, and interventions. We are strengthening in this time to ensure we are meeting the needs of all students. I share with you a quote that's in my weekly newsletter to my staff that has been there since the first day of this school year. It says, "Success doesn't come from what you do occasionally. It comes from what we do consistently." As principal of Ebenezer, I'm committed to doing whatever it takes for our school to show success consistently. I encourage you as my colleagues do to visit our school. We do have a open house on this Thursday and on the 26th.

130However, I actually encourage this community to come to some of our student leadership nights because that's when you actually see the work that's happened within our building. We encourage you for those. We have a science night later this month. To my Eagle community, my parents, my students who are up late to stay here, and my staff, and my support system, I thank you because this work I cannot do alone. You are in the trenches each and every day. My parents, you've had my back since day one. I know you are crying, but it is because you are there for me and this school. And I thank you. to this team. We are in the trenches and we will make this work because every day we are empowering leaders and learners and we will celebrate growth

131and success at the nest because once an eagle we are always an eagle. [cheering] [applause] any comments? >> I just wanted to say thank you for your enthusiasm and thank you to you all too for supporting her. That that really shows the dedication that you all have. Thank you for the invitation of the student um night, leadership night. I'm going to come because I really want to see I think that's really great that you um provide that opportunity for parents to come after school to really, you know, have an impact and understand what their children are doing. So, thank you for that and I can't wait to see what you all do. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Thanks, Miss Daniel. >> I have some comments. >> Yes, Lacy. Um, small known fact, it was

132a small blip on my career. I was an Ebenezer Eagle for a short amount of time and I recognize many of the faces out there and [snorts] appreciate that you're still there. It's been several years since we were in that building together. Um, hold near and dear to my heart, Ebenezer, and the Monasurian School of Inquiry programs. I would like to commend the fact that you've developed the leadership portfolios and the student leadership nights. I think those fit handinand with your monor and your inquiry. And while we like to talk as teachers and staff about data, putting that data into the hands of your students and into their mouth so they can speak about their own data and what they need to do to move their own learning forward is very largely impactful and I'm

133sure you see that as teachers and hopefully your parents see that as well. You mentioned the advocacy that that puts in um makes available for your students and it creates lifelong learners that are able to seek out their own knowledge and um come to their own conclusions in the future. you're developing a skill early on that will impact them [snorts] as they move forward. I appreciate those efforts that you and your staff are making. Um, and like I've told the others, you'll move mountains when you move together and continue to stay together, stay the course and focus and you will see the results. I believe in you and I believe in Ebony, sir. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] You can start walking is just to say thank you all so very much. Seeing many

134of you bring back so many memories of my son who's now a senior in college learning to read in Miss Bale's first grade class at Ebenezer and Miss Hamilton, Miss Bell, um taking him to kindergarten and so thank you all so much and we just so wish you all well and whatever we can do as a board. I'm sure all of my colleagues agree, we're here for you all. Thank you all. Thank you. And you truly did give the benediction. Um, just want to follow up. I I've been out to your school a number of times and when you say innovative, truly your school is innovative and um, just kudos to you and I I have to give a shout out to my goddaughter that's out there because I know she's a former staff and

135for her to actually [clears throat] come back and not no longer be a part of your team, she's still a team. she's still a team member and I think that speaks volumes for you as a leader to have some of your former staff and parents and children here to support you. So that speaks volumes as as a principal. So thank you for the work that that you do and I look forward to coming out and visit you visiting you again. >> Thank you. Yes. >> Well, Dr. Leonard, I know that the enthusiasm and the passion and what you presented up here is the real deal. Cuz what many in the audience may not know is she had to put up with me for years as her PTA president. So I know she's like, "Yeah, yeah,

136[laughter] yeah." uh in at Admala. So I have worked alongside with her for many years and I know that there's no one that works so hard as she does to establish those parent connections um to put that work into building that community relationship that that successful schools has. So what you see up there is truly what's happening inside of the buildings. And uh you guys have an amazing leader. you're gonna be fine when you come back in a couple of months uh for whenever the next update is due. I know that we're going to hear more amazing updates and by then we've all had a chance to to tour you and other schools throughout the spring through the doors. Uh so all we say to you from the board perspective is let us know through

137the superintendent what we can do to help and uh just keep doing what you're doing. And with that I know that Dr. Elder would like to close us out on this topic. So, I'm going to turn it over to you. >> I would. And I'm sorry that we didn't have that I didn't get to do this when we had all three schools here. Same message for all three of you. Um, one, you have amazing principles. You have amazing teams. You have everything in place that you need to just soar because eagles soar. Once an eagle, always an eagle. Um, I was an eagle too at a different school in a different time. Um, that did a turnaround and it is hard work. Dr. Dr. Bell, to your point, um, but I'm going to tell you,

138you don't do it alone. Um, Miss Leonard, uh, Principal Brown, Principal Ham, you are not doing it alone. You have an entire staff. Every, you have everybody behind you. But you don't just have everybody in your building behind you. We, as an entire system, are behind you. From the board level to the superintendent to the district to the principal to teachers to the community, we are all behind you. My philosophy around school turnaround is if there is one school that has a designation, it is not that school's problem. It is the district's problem. We own it. We support you and we are behind you 1,000%. Thank you for your work. Thank you for showing up tonight. I can't wait to see how high you're going to fly. And then I'm going to turn it right

139back to you because it is time for report of the superintendent. >> I see her now. I didn't see her. She was hiding. >> Thank you all for being here tonight. >> All right. So, just a few reminders. As you know, our open houses are underway at all of our schools. They run through the end of the month. Um, please visit the website, see the dates as well as videos from our communications department highlighting each of our schools. Um, the goal is to encourage families to learn where they live and explore all of the options that Rockill has. Uh, we are currently recruiting for staff for the 2627 school year. Um, interested candidates should visit our website. We are holding a recruitment fair on Saturday, January 24th, 9 to noon at South Point High School.

140And early contracts will be offered. So, anybody and everybody that you know and anybody who's still watching, we want you. We want the best of the best. That's what our kids deserve. And now is the time. Come check out Rock Hill Schools. We are a district that you want to be a part of. Um, we are getting questions about the program options lottery. Registration for that lottery will open in midFebruary. Um, and we do have an email program options at rhmmail.org if you have questions. Um, upcoming dates, um, January 19th, no school for MLK day. January 27th is our next schoolboard meeting. A lot to look forward to, spoiler alert. Um, February 2nd, new student enrollment opens and that is for people who are new to Rockill Schools to the district. Uh just this morning

141as an aside, I got to visit on Charlotte today on the NBC station this morning to be able to promote Rock Hill Schools and promote our recruitment event. So thank you very much and uh appreciate your attention this evening. >> Thank you. >> So with that, I'm going to bring us down to other future business. >> Everything okay? No, I'm I'm getting a little delirious right now. >> She's talking out loud. >> I am. That's okay. Um, so uh a couple of things. Uh, first is uh the school board's uh association annual convention is February 19th through the 22nd. Um, you should have gotten a flyer mailed to your home regarding this. If you're interested in attending, please email Miss Gams. Okay. Um that's that. Uh secondly, um we've had some conversations about some things

142that we need to uh work on uh as a board. Uh we've heard conversations about the vision and mission and we start with that. There has been some general uh sort of feel that the second meeting of the month is there's a desire from this board to utilize that mostly as a work session to where we can get some of these things done. Is there any um we haven't set the agenda yet that will take place sometime later this week. There are some things that we're going to have to do just because of keeping business rolling. I know that you you know the budget report is one of them. There's a couple of other things that Dr. they have [snorts] for us that we may have to take action on. But is there a uh

143just getting feedback from the board? If we were to take part of that meeting, the bigger part of that meeting and make that into a work session to start that work on the vision and mission, is that something that this board is interested in doing in that format or would you rather call a separate meeting for [snorts] that? Someone If there's work that needs to be done, we could still do it during a work session. We could still gave in and go through the procedures and I'm fine to have part of that second meeting be a work session or all of it be a work session. >> Right. So, we'll work through that me and vice chair and and Dr. Albert and C, but you may see the structure of the agenda look a little

144different because of that. Uh, but that's number one. Um the other thing is tonight we've had a lot of conversations about uh obviously the budget uh and and what that process is going to look like. Last year's budget process was not typical for this school district or any school district because we were in the middle of leadership transition both in terms of superintendent as well as our uh finance uh department at that time. So with that said, uh we also are due for our next session uh for board uh sort of workmanship or or professional development together with Dr. Elder and uh uh Peter Gorman. So the question is would it make sense that we have that focus on what the budget process should look like and then start working through that as the next

145segment as that is our next big thing. Obviously, this is not going to be a process that's done in a day, but we can start off with the process and then start ironing out some of the maybe priorities or or whatever. [snorts] But if I throw out obviously we need to coordinate this with Dr. the schedule and everybody on the board and so forth. But, uh, over the next probably maybe four or five days, if you start getting some sort of feelers as to what your availability are and things like that, I think that's a good way of us to get started. Um, and then obviously there'll be supplemental discussions and work sessions and business meetings, uh, small groups, um, etc., etc., etc. But I think that we need to start with this is the

146process. This is what we are supposed to do. Here's the time frame. Here's what we know. And here is how this ties into mission, vision, goals, and all those things. And then we start talking about priorities. Does that make sense to everyone? If not, stop me right now and there. Okay. So, you'll see those emails, but it may be a couple of days because we got to coordinate [clears throat] with people. Okay. Anything else under other and future business? If not, uh I will entertain a motion to Thank you. Second, Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Var none. All those in favor? >> All opposed? Motion carries. 70.