001Good evening and welcome to the August 26th school board business meeting. Local news media outlets were notified in writing of the agenda for this meeting on Friday, August 22nd. If you will please join me for the pledge of allegiance of >> 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, first up is the approval of the agenda. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> It's a move. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Nasel. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 70. So, next up is recognitions and I am
002going to welcome up um our team of educational leaders to introduce our new administrators. >> Good evening. I am Katie Barber and I serve as the executive director of elementary education and I am so excited to introduce to you Dr. Lindseay Ryder who will serve as our new director of instructional program effectiveness. Dr. writer comes to us from Vermont with 15 years in education serving in multiple roles including a teacher, an assistant principal, a district literacy coach, and a district NTSS coordinator. She holds a doctorate in curriculum, teaching, leading, learning, and leadership from Northeastern University. and with us in Rockill Schools. She will support MTSS as well as GT and other instructional programs K12. [Applause] Good evening school board in person as well as online guests. It is my honor to welcome back and aboard
003Miss Leah McKay who is our director of exceptional student education. Miss McKay comes most recently from the Clover School District where she served as an assistant principal at both the elementary and middle school levels and she's also returning home to Rock Hill where she served as a teacher, an administrator, and district special education compliance facilitator. So again, welcome back and the board. We're excited to have you. [Applause] >> Good evening, board. I'm Robert Ham, the proud principal of Richmond Drive Elementary School. And it is with great pride and privilege that I introduce our new assistant principal, Mr. Josh Boville. Mr. Boville, originally from Greenwood, South Carolina, earned both his bachelor's and master's degree from Coastal Carolina University. He was teacher of the year in York School District 1 before transitioning to the role of dean
004of student leadership at Old Point Elementary. Mr. Bowville is passionate about ensuring a high quality education for all students. Welcome to the drive. [Applause] >> Congratulations. >> My home church. That's where I grew up. Jump in like one big take one big step up. Thank you. Perfect. All right. Look at me. Three, two, one. One, two, three. Good one. All set. Thank you. Welcome. Give them all a round of applause. Next up is citizen participation. I do not believe we have any. Correct. That is correct. Moving on to the consent action agenda. We do have uh two items on here. Uh a uh we have the August 12th school board business meeting minutes followed by the personnel recommendations. Do I have a motion to approve the consent action agenda? It's a move. >> Thank you,
005Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. D. Any discussion? Very none. All those in favor? All post. The motion carries. 70. So then we're going to come down to the action agenda which contains the second reading of policy B. And as you may remember, um, this is a required change as suggested by the attorneys with the South Carolina School Boards Association. Um, are there any questions uh, regarding this policy? >> So, I would entertain a motion to approve. >> Uh, made I believe by Miss Harris and seconded by Miss Daniel. Thank you. Any discussion? Right now, all those in favor? All post motion car 70. We do not have any communications tonight. Uh which means that we are going to move on to presentations. And I am uh going
006to welcome Dr. Katie Barber, Dr. Tanya Belton, and Miss Alicia Johnson to talk about the 2025 summer programs. Welcome. Good evening, Chair Miller, Vice Chair Hutchinson. board members, Dr. Elder, and members of the community. I'm Alicia Johnson, executive director of secondary education. And this evening, I'm here to begin our presentation on summer programs that were available for middle and high school students. We held summer school at Northwestern High School for both middle and high school where we hosted 187 middle school students who completed 242 middle school courses. We hosted 161 high school students who completed 220 high school courses. Students paid $75 for the first course and $40 for a second course if needed. We also had 28 middle school teachers and 32 high school teachers move away um during June 9th through July the
0073. And a huge shout out to both of our coordinators. Christina Bedars, counselor at Northwestern High School. She was the coordinator for middle school and Miss Relisha Clark, former Northwestern High School English teacher. She was the coordinator for high school. Are there any questions? Okay, I'll turn it over to Dr. Barber. Good evening. I'm Katie Barber and I serve as the executive director of elementary education and I support summer reading camp each summer. The purpose of summer reading camp under act 114 is to support and improve literacy outcomes for our third grade students that are performing not reading proficiently. The legislation does mandate that all of our students that attend summer reading camp participate in curriculum that is informed by the science of reading. Under Act 114, students that are scoring does not meet expectations
008on our South Carolina Ready ELA assessment must be retained unless they meet a good cause exemption. It is noteworthy that historically summer reading camp has targeted our third grade students, but requirements are being phased in for our first and second grade students to be invited to summer reading camp in um summer's proceeding. Our target audience is designed for third grade students that are significantly behind grade level reading proficiency. And students are required to participate in 96 instructional hours, which does amount to 16 instructional days. We had 94 students that participated with us consistently and 15 staff members. Because funding is allocated to districts, there is no cost to students and we house our summer reading camp this summer at Richmond Drive Elementary. Miss Jamie Cochran, who serves as the AP at India Hook Elementary, was
009our director, and Mr. Derek Johnson, who serves as our dean of students at Richmond Drive, served as co-director. We had many partnerships that loved our staff and students. Well, those included the Rockill Schools Foundation, 100% Rockill, specifically funding grants from Williamson Flooring, Burns Chevrolet, Helena Miller, Comporium, and a former Rockill School District teacher. We also had support from the law offices of Montreal Belton, Transformation Church, several local authors, as well as the York County Department of Health. I would be remiss if we didn't show appreciation to our food service department who Richmond drive was a feeding site for our community. So therefore, breakfast and lunch was fed and provided to our students at no cost either as well as transportation was provided to all of our students at summer reading camp. The curriculum that we
010utilized was reading accelerator which is published by EPS learning and it is informed by the science of reading. Students took a diagnostic at the beginning of camp and this provided teachers the opportunity to know what their strengths were as well as their academic needs and literacy. At the end of camp, parents received a very, very informative family report that we were also able to provide to each student's home school. Of the 32 mandatory retention students, 25 of those students were pro promoted at the end of summer reading camp. This does show growth. NWA map was the assessment that we used to measure those 32 students progress at the end of camp. As you will see, the average RIT score was about eight points growth with some students that showed more than 11 points growth. If
011there are no further questions, I will send this over to Dr. Belton. >> Actually, I do have >> Yes, please. >> I have one. Will you repeat one more time? How many students were retained versus how many were promoted of the 94 students that attended? >> Yes, sir. We had 94 students that participated, but 32 of those students were mandatory retention students. Of those 32, 25 of those students were promoted. All of those 32 students do have literacy plans that support them this year to make sure we are >> all right. I have >> Yes, sir. >> a two-part question. There were 94 students who participated. How many total students were eligible to participate? >> Yes. So, we invited 175 students to participate with us. >> All right. So, we got 94 of the 175.
012Um, is there outreach going for those 175? What are we doing? And what happened? And I can't do the math that quickly. I think 83 students. What happened to those 83 students over the summer and when they returned to school year this year? So we are following them very closely. So at the end of spring math assessment and then again at SC ready assessment if those students were not mandatory retention some of those families opted to not participate in summer reading camp from that 175. >> Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tanya Belton. I'm the director of federal programs for Rocket Schools. Our next summer program was the multilingual newcomer camp. Each ML teacher at the middle school and at the elementary school were asked to recommend students to participate in this camp. We
013had 60 elementary students and 20 of our middle school students participate. The days for the elementary camp were June the 2nd through the 26th and our middle school camp was June the 9th through the 26th. It was four days each week at the elementary level. It was held at Richmond Drive by the um summer reading camp. And our middle level students were at Northwestern with the summer um school students. um not all students were able to participate. So, some other students were asked to um um attend if those slots were um available and we had interviews to fill the um teaching positions. Our district ML specialist, Heather Wilson, was the coordinator for the camp. We had three languages represented. Um Spanish was the most spoken language. We also had Poshto and Vietnamese represented in our
014camp. Um, our teachers at the K5 and first grade level, their progress monitoring tool was more of letter identification and sound. Our second and third grade progress monitoring tool was site words and recognition of recognizing vocabulary. Our fourth and fifth grade um began the sentence structure and then our middle school teachers introduced and gave additional practice also with sentence structure and adding um missing parts to the sentence so that they could write um paragraphs. The next camp that's also funded by our um student support and academic enrichment grant short name of it is title four was our summer enrichment camp. It was also held at Northwestern and the targeted audience was rising sixth through 9th grade students. We asked our um schools to send out communication to our families to invite our parents to sign
015up. They typically use like Blackboard phone calls or their newsletters to have the families sign up. Um, we had many, we had 108 students participate, but they didn't just participate one week, they participated more than one week. So, although we had 108 students participate, we filled 200 slots over those three weeks. Our summer camp, um, we want to thank the leadership and staff at Richmond Drive and at Northwestern for hosting us. We know that sometimes it's an inconvenience because they don't have full access to their buildings, but hey, Dr. Barber, Miss Alicia Johnson, and I would like to thank the staffs at Richmond Drive and at Northwestern for hosting us. We also would like to thank all of our teams um in the business services department, communications, human resources, and talent management, operations and safety,
016school innovation, student development, and school performance and accountability. These camps and summer programs would not occur without the school support of your team members. So, we really appreciate the support. Again, as Dr. Barbara said, we provide um meals. Um we provide transportation at the elementary and middle level so that it's an equitable opportunity for all families and students. Does anyone have any questions? >> I do a very similar question. There were 108 different students with 200 slots. Can you expound upon how many total slots that we have? And the reason I'm asking that question about both questions because I attended both of those that was the sidebar conversation we were having and it here there was some wonderful learning opportunities going on particularly at that steam camp at Northwestern and free to the public. So
017I can't imagine parents not taking advantage of it and frankly wish it had been available with my children were that age. So how many total slots did you have um at Northwest? So, we had 270 slots available. The challenge is because of funding restrictions, we are only able to offer the camp a certain part of the day. It's not a full day camp. So, that does hinder some families who may not be um be able to pick their child up at 1:00 or 1:30 and they may need full child care or full support throughout the day. So that was one of the challenges, but we did have 270 slots available and we had 200 slots filled over those three weeks. So that's 70 students that um 70 students we could have still served. >> Dr.
018Elder, as we get into the spring of next year, can we revisit this? Because again, just going out there and seeing those children involved and building robots and all those things, maybe there's something from our level that we can do to make this more accessible to more families because I just seemed like this awesome opportunity for families. And I would hate that we had 270 slots, but we only filled 200 of them, which means there was 70 slots out there that children in our community could have or should have taken advantage of. Thank you. Good job. >> I did have one question. The um the multilingual learners newcomer camp that was also camp newcomers camp, excuse me. That was also funded by grant money as well, >> right? Our student support and academic enrichment grant.
019>> Student supported academic enrichment enrichment >> grant grant. Okay. >> Which is still federal dollars. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you to all of you. Appreciate that. Next up is the report of the superintendent. I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. Ellen. Thank you, Chairwoman Miller. Uh, members of the board, I have just a few announcements um to share this evening. Um, first, since we last met, we have launched two higher education partnerships. Um, we have an incredible dual dual enrollment program with Winthre University um that has 28 students enrolled in business and leadership. Um, these students will earn 36 hours of college credit. They spend their mornings on campus and the afternoons back at their high schools. This is an incredible groundbreaking and innovative opportunity in our state. In addition, we
020launched our middle college with York Tech with 20 students. All 20 students will graduate in 2027 with both a high school diploma and an associates degree. We are thrilled about both of these programs and what they mean for the future of our students. And they are right in line with our mission or our goal to ensure that every student graduates with a diploma that is a certified guarantee that they are ready to pursue any path they choose. Couple more announcements. Um Rock Hill Schools and Winthre Athletics is partnering in a program that will directly benefit our middle schools. The athletics department has is sponsoring all five middle schools and providing tickets to sporting events for recognition for both students and staff. And so we thank Winthre for that opportunity. Our safety and security department has
021shared that we had um 16,470 hours of volunteers last year which is valued at $574,000 900 572 um directly in support of our schools. And so thank you to all of our volunteers. I'm also excited to let you know that we have scheduled six superintendent roundts for parents and caregivers of current Rockhill students. Um that information is going out via Blackboard. We hope to have a great turnout at those. This is a part of the 100 day plan that I presented two weeks ago that was approved. In addition, I'll be hosting roundts at every school for all school staff in every role in every school as well as district offices so that I can hear from all of our employees, all of our parents and caregivers. I will also have one for community for community
022members who are not parents of students currently enrolled um so that I can continue that listening and learning that we discussed two weeks ago. And with that, um the last note I have is that our next board meeting is scheduled for September 9th at 6 PM. It will streamed be streamed live on our website and replays as always will be available afterwards. Any questions board members? >> No, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. >> We do not have an executive session tonight. Um so subsequently we don't have any action coming out of it. Um we do have one item under the other and future business. Back in May, uh the board elected to do an ad hoc special committee uh regarding the calendar um to serve the purpose of coming up with recommendations um regarding the
023process. So, I'm going to turn it over to the board members serving on that, which would be uh Vice Chair Autinson and Miss Daniel. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh this is uh Vice Chair Henderson. This is me. We all know who we are. Excuse me. Um I just would like to read the memo that we have crafted for you and Dr. Elder. Um, in the interest of obtaining our Rock Hill Schools community's feedback on the 2627 school calendar, we are asking that a calendar advisory committee be formed to obtain as much feedback as possible from appropriate parties per policy BDF. Our goal is to ensure the design and implementation of our school calendar is managed by the superintendent and her staff. We are seeking to schedule a meeting per policy BDE with Dr. Elder,
024Dr. Dicki and Mrs. Monday to achieve the following framework on how academic calendars are created. Policy IC process for identifying relevant stakeholders a process for identifying ways to inform stakeholders and collect feedback. Consideration of a district advisory committee in the future policy BDF timeline for calendar creation and scheduling updates. At the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Elder and Miss Monday, oh I apologize, will present the feedback to the board and will proceed with the calendar advisory committee. All meetings and feedback are to be concluded by October 17, 2025 with a final vote by the board on October 28, 2025. If any additional information is needed, please reach out to Jennifer Hutchinson and Lacy Daniel. Are there any questions? I don't believe so. So essentially, Dr. Elder, we are returning this uh timeline and creation of
025this calendar to you and your staff. We trust that you will create a calendar that will work for the Rock Hill community and we are excited to see what you will do. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I should also mention that uh between now and the next board meeting, the board will hold a work session or a strategic retreat or board retreat, I think is the official term uh tomorrow uh to uh work further. Um but there will be no action taken at that meeting as it is a retreat meeting. So with that, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. Second. >> Thank you, Dr. Bel. And I believe I have a second from Mr. Nos. Is that correct? >> Right. >> Uh all those in favor. All opposed. Motion
026carries. Seven. It is 626.