RHS School Board Meeting 03-11-25

001Good evening and welcome to the March 11th uh business meeting of the Rockill School Board. Local news media outlets were notified in writing of this agenda for the meeting on Saturday, March 8th, 2025. At this point, uh, if you will all join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. First up is the approval of the agenda. Do I have a measure to approve? Uh I believe Miss Harris with a second from Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Hearing not. All those in favor? Motion carries. 7. So, we're going to start off with our recognitions. And the first is the Rockill School's Elementary Honors Choir. And I'm going

002to welcome up Miss Kim Grant. [Music] There they are. Come on. Good evening. I'm Kim Grant and I'm the art specialist button. [Music] Yes. So, my name is Kim Grant and I'm the art specialist for Rock Hill Schools and it is my honor and privilege to introduce this group of uh teachers and students. This is our elementary or part of our elementary honors choir. This is a group of students that auditioned earlier in the year. These are fourth and fifth grade students from across the district. Um, this is part of our K to2 GT programming. So, this is a artistically gifted group of students. They auditioned in front of music teachers and secured their spot in this choir. Um, I want to introduce the director, co-director, and secretary. So, we have Miss Julia McCllum from

003Winthrop University. We have Susan Stewart who's a music teacher at Oakedale Elementary. Right. And then we have Miss Eningga Kerry who's the secretary of this group and she is at India Hook Elementary. So, just a couple of accolades about this group and why we're recognizing them tonight. They've performed in several venues this year, but the most prestigious of those is they went to the South Carolina Music Educator Associators Conference and performed. This is the first time in 40 30 40 years that they had an elementary choir perform. Um, and I hear that they wowed everyone. Um, and so we just really want to recognize this hardworking and talented group of students and the teachers for the hard work that they've done this year. So, thank you. [Applause] Hello. faces your parents get pictures. Hold on.

004I'll make sure they get out. Thank you. Next up is the Castle Heights Middle School's uh boys wrestling team. And I'm going to welcome up Miss Cynthia. Hello, Castle Heights. Good evening, Chair Miller, Vice Chair Hutchson, school board members, and Dr. Jones. Can you say it all? Sorry. I'll start over. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Miller, Vice Chair Hudson, schoolboard members, and Dr. Jones. Our hoodies say it all. We won it all. Um, I am here to present our wrestling team who are conference champions. Um, very proud of them. Our coaches will say a little more that you see that we're small in size, not like statue, but in numbers. But even with that, we won it all. So, I will welcome to the podium one of our coaches, Chris Dson. Thank you. That That

005wasn't very nice. Um I I just want to say thank you to the to the school board. Thank you for to all the parents. These kids have uh done a whole lot this year um and put in a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of effort. Um, we've been doing this for quite some time now and just to be recognized this way, we're very thankful and appreciative of that. Uh, Coach Taylor, um, yeah, me and H go way back and, uh, it it it's it's it's real nice to get this. Uh, I think the last time we won was seven years ago. Um, but just to get this recognition is is really nice. Uh, this is awesome for the kids that are getting us in the district because it means a lot

006to them. Um, more than anything, real quick, I just want to thank my coaching staff. These guys are great. Probably one of the best uh and most passionate coaching staff they in the district and I'm proud of them as well. Uh, my eighth graders, you're going on to big and better things. Just make sure you keep grinding the classroom in on the mat. Um, seventh graders, I tell you the same thing, but let's get ready to do it again next year. So, real quick, I just like to introduce the customers. Uh, Drail Barber, 80 lbs. Step up, DRA. Princeton Barber, 80 lbs. Grayson Greer 80 pounds. Oscar Pendetta is not here. Bridgewood 102. Joy Cross. Jose Gonzalez 120. Norvin Diaz 110. Christopher Sier is not here. Neo Tucker is not here. Luke Corley 135. Brilland

007Taffer Williams 135. Parker Marshall 145. Clint Wallace 158. Uh Michael Baggley 138. Jordan D 175. Ian Moore 205, Matthew Burges 205, and this is your 2425 conference champions. Thank you. [Applause] Well, we're incredibly proud of both kids and coaches. You can't sit. Thank you. [Applause] So, next up we are going to welcome the South Point High School Theater with uh Dakota Welcome. Okay. Hi. So informal. All right. Great. Uh, good evening. My name is Dakota Danato. I'm the director of theater at South Point High School. I apologize for my nasal things going happening. Um this is a group of some of our fabulous thespians that we have at South Point. Um this past February we were fortunate enough to go to Coastal Carolina University for the um Palmetto Dramatic Association and South Carolina International The

008Thesbian Society um festival. And we brought a whole bunch of different individual events um like solo musicals, duet musicals, set designs, costume design. So it covers the full gamut of backstage and onstage theater. Um we also brought our one act that we performed at South Point back in September, which is called Digging Up Desa. Um, at the competition, we were so fortunate that 13 of our 21 individual events received a superior, which is the highest distinction that you can earn, which gives those students an opportunity to go to nationals this summer and um, perform their pieces again for some feedback. Um, but in addition to that, one of our highest accolades that we have received and the for the first time ever in South Point High School history and possibly in the past like 10

009years I think in our district um we have been selected um our one act digging up DESA has been selected to go to the international thespian festival this summer in Indiana at Indiana University and we are representing the entire state of South Carolina without one act. [Applause] [Music] Um, so these are just some of our fabulous cast members and our crew members. Um, it really does take a village. The cast is only four people, but the crew is 14. So that's how many people it takes to put on a show of just four people. Um, I have I'm of course the director and I'm the adult, but we are proudly a studentr run program. every light, every set, every sound, everything you see, costumes are completely studentdesigned and created. Um, and it just truly is

010the biggest honor in the world for these students to be able to represent us this summer. So, we'll be bringing individual events and our one act and um, we're going to Indiana this summer and we'll be busting it there, leaving at 400 a.m. on an early morning in June. Um, and we're fundraising lots of money right now. So, we're really, really excited and um, thank you so much for having us here tonight. [Applause] Well, we're super proud and we know that you're going to do amazing things representing us and the entire state. Well, um please keep us updated as to how you do. Oh, parents. Can we get everybody? So, next up, I am going to introduce Miss Alicia Johnson, and she is going to is a new administrator to us. Good evening, Chair Miller,

011Vice Chair Hutchinson, board members, Dr. Jones, and community members. It is my pleasure to introduce Dr. David Consali, and to welcome him back to the Rockill School District. Dr. Galvi has been in education for over 23 years. He began teaching high school science in Maine with a diverse course load including biology, chemistry, environmental and marine sciences, technology, and research studies. He worked to institute a course for high school students to pursue research that included collaborations with universities and community organizations. He has also served as a leader for supporting technology integration in the classroom. Dr. Consi moved to South Carolina and taught science at the middle level and was the science department chair before being promoted to the role of steam coach and coordinator for Saluda Trail Middle School in South Point High School. He was

012nominated for teacher of the year and support professional of the year. Dr. Kalvi earned his doctorate in educational leadership and organizational innovation from Mary Mount University. It's important to note that his dissertation nominated for the 2023 Carnegie Project on the education doctorate dissertation of the year focused on the exploration of African-American parents influence on their children's STEM course and career choices. Outside of education, Dr. Gonali enjoys spending time with his family and pets while relaxing and tackling projects around the house. Currently he is working on the captive breeding of marine aquarium fish. Please join me in a warm welcome for Dr. David Consali. [Applause] Well, welcome back home. Thank you. Yes, I'll be brief. Um, thank you very much and I appreciate you the opportunity to be here and say I'm really looking forward to

013working with you all and all the great teachers and staff in the district as well as our students. Um, I can say it was kind of nice to jump out because it gives me some appreciation for all the good stuff happening in this district. I ask what role are you in? Oh, it's never said. Thank God. He's our our K our K12 science specialist. Thank you. Good day. But that was it. I appreciate it. So, next up is citizen participation. We do not have any tonight. Uh so moving on to consent action agenda. It contains two items. Uh first the meeting minutes from the February 25th school board business meeting and then the personal recommendations as approved or as uh provided on the executive session package. Do I have a motion to approve the consent

014action agenda? Thank you Mr. Burns and I second from Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Yes. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Dr. Johnson. Just want to make note that in the uh consent agenda for the uh recommendation for employees, uh you'll see my signature in there that indicates that I have vetted that uh with human resources. I have edited it with our uh assistant superintendent for uh business services and making sure that it's not we don't have any positions that's a significant impact upon the budget. So it has been cleared by both of those my question that does uh any further discussion then none. All those in favor all opposed motion carries 70 That brings us now to the action agenda. We do not have one tonight, nor do we have a communications agenda, but we do have

015uh a number of presentations. So, I am going to start off with welcoming up Dr. Tanya Belton, who is going to give you us an update on the annual federal programs. Greetings of this evening. My name is Tanya Belton. I'm the director of federal programs for Rock Hill Schools and I will share a couple of highlights with you this evening. Title one. The purpose of Title One is to provide all children significant opportunities to receive a fair and highquality education and to close educational achievement gaps. The district had a decrease of $316,584.80 80s for the 202425 school year. That's approximately a 7% decrease from last year. St. An's receives approximately $3,2651 and that's based on the number of students that would be identified as pupils in poverty and attend the title one schools in Rock

016Hill. The Palmetto School receives $43,200 based off of 32 students. Um the preliminary allocation that we receive is based off of our 135th day um attendance and that was on March the 25th, 2024. Each year we get our preliminary allocation in the spring and then in October that's when we receive our final allocation. Dr. you don't mind um just explaining to the public why we see a name of a private school. I know the board members need this information, but every year, you know, it may surprise the public why you see a private school under our federal allocations if you don't mind. So, each district that receives federal funds is required to provide equitable services to students that live in our attendance zone but attend a private school. So when you see title one and

017a private school receiving title one funds, the students in that school who are identified as a puper in poverty that will be in an attendance zone of one of our title one schools is eligible to receive the funding and you'll see it similarly when we get to title four. Thank you Dr. Bell. Just a little a quick question about that. We notice Okay, Tanya. Quick question about that. Um, we also noted on that list that none of our charter schools were listed on there. Um, because I think there's a common misn number that charter schools and private schools. They're not private schools. They're public schools and their money goes directly to them. So, we do have one charter school, the Palmetto School, but it is um supported by Rock Hill Schools. Our other charter schools

018that's in our attendance zone are still considered public schools. So, you are correct. they would receive their funding through the either the public charter um school district or what whichever organization they're part of. Thank you. But the Palmetto School is part of Rock Hill Schools. So that's why they receive funding. Our homeless students identified as McKenna Vento. Um we provide clothing and school supplies and other resources to support them. This last school year um our district identified 468 students as McKenna Bento. And then we also provide parent and engagement opportunities where we share knowledge with parents to empower them to advocate for their students and strategies so parents can support their children when out of school. our uh district set aides. Um the title one budget is split is shared between the schools. The um

019nine schools that you saw on the screen and the district allocation. So you will see we um support a title one literacy specialist, a math specialist and a title one coordinator and parent specialist and indirect funds. Our school expenditures that total was $3,56,0006 $3,56,675 which is about 77% of the title one budget. So most of our funds go directly to the schools support their um strategies to improve student achievement. Some of those are high interest and level books to support classroom libraries. Some of our schools purchased math manipulatives, software. Our schools have supported um our students also with tutors, additional tutors, um parent and engagement activities where they get instructional kits, um math nights, literacy in the loop, winter reading materials that they can use when we have our early release days or winter break

020or spring break. The next one is title one part D is commonly called neglected and delinquent. Our two facilities that receive these funds are on the screen. And title one part D neglected when is used when respect to a child youth or student who means an individual who has been committed to an institution other than a foster home or voluntarily placed under applicable state law due to abandonment, neglect or death of his or her parents. The term delinquent is when used with respect to a child, youth or student means an individual who resides in a public or private residential facility other than a foster home that is operated in the care of children and youth who have been adjudicated, delinquent or in need of supervision. So similarly to our traditional schools, our schools that receive

021NAD funds also support the students with additional personnel such as tutors, lab assistance. They purchase software, instructional resources like um high interest team, youth books, magazines, professional development, and career exploration. The goal is to help our students that are in these particular facilities be able to transition out if possible and become productive citizens in the community. Title three is for our multilingual students. The purpose of title three is to assist all English learners, including immigrant children and youth, to achieve at high levels and academic subjects so that all English learners can meet the same challenging state academic standards that all children are expected to meet. Our funds are used to partially support our multilingual specialists. She provides supports to our schools, our teachers, our administrators. She leads professional development. She participates in coaching cycles, which

022means she's goes to the classroom. She can observe the classroom, provide um support as needed. We also purchase instructional resources to help teachers, especially if we have newcomers at different grade levels. And newcomers typically mean that the student has been in our school system less than two years, and they need some additional support. So they may need some resources to help them acquire and gain that social language as they um acquire academic language. Title four is students supporting academic enrichment. Um the purpose of title 4 part A is to improve students academic achievement by increasing um the opportunities through well-rounded improve the use of technology in order to improve the academic achievement and digital literacy of all students and then also to provide safe and healthy um school conditions for our students. We get feedback

023every year through our district SIC meetings. There's a SIC meeting in the spring typically in May and then we also have a meeting in September. And then our students you we use members of our Rock Hill School student advisory. They also give us feedback on some of the activities and strategies we should look at some of the tools and resources um to support MTSS multi-tiered systems of support. Title four funds are used to purchase those resources to support gifted and talented professional learning opportunities. Um we buy steam resources especially if um at our two private schools St. An's participates in this particular project and Westminister Kataba Christian School participates in this project. One of our big opportunities with Title 4, every um the last three years, we've held a summer enrichment camp that targets middle

024school students and we incorporate the arts, science, technology, engineering, and math. In that opportunity, they have free transportation. They have opportunities to build robotic cars. Um one year they did the Microsoft um robotic hand. They've built um costumes. They've designed sets. They've incorporated graffiti art and made it academic and not you know criminal. So um they learned a lot in that opportunity. So I totally federal allocation is listed on the screen. Does anyone have any follow-up questions? I do have one. Um you mentioned that you in the spring allocation and we're all hearing that there may be potentially a lot of changes to federal funding coming into education uh from the federal level. Um do you have any indication of what this is going to look like uh at this point for Rockville schools and

025potentially where the impact would be or is it too early to have those conversations yet? at this time um we have when I say my colleague and I we've attended several meetings in Colombia um and they're asking us to move forward as normal at this time because we don't have any concrete um information about what the possibilities are. So we do have a meeting and when I say we Dr. Jones, Miss Jenkins, Miss Smith, Dr. Dicki and Miss Owens and I have a meeting scheduled in March to come up with some different scenarios just in case um funding is cut. Now, historically, our funding has been cut because remember it's based off of our um attendance. So, if our enrollment goes down, funding possibly goes down. But we always prepare either way um whether whatever

026is going on in DC. And another follow-up question, you mentioned that there were 468 children that fell under the Mckinnventto Act currently. Um, I know that there has been um some difference uh in local ordinances as far as uh um temporary housing um and and and um families who are living in uh temporary housing mainly hotels and motel and I know that you know some of the information out there is that we're going to have some of our kids impacted because of this. Um would that change the designation of McKinnavvento or are you Mckenneto? If you are permanently living in a hotel so to speak or you foresee a change there is specific criteria for a child to be identified as McKenna Vento. It's possible that our numbers will change um until um we get

027the actual enrollment. Um, now students are allowed to stay at their school of origin even if they have to move because they are doubling up or have to move to another location. So, it's possible that our students will still stay in our school, but we can get more information as we um I can reach out to our family outreach associates and get some more information for you. If you would just send an email to Dr. Jones and he will contact us. um with specifics. Fantastic. I'll do that. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Under the title three, the ML kids, exactly how many kids are there? So, our ML multilingual students for this particular year, we have over 1,400 students and they give us less than $100,000. Correct. Will you define what will you educate us

028on what is defined as an ML student? So for title three purposes, an ML student is a student whose first language is not English. So it's English in historically it was English to speakers of other languages. So for title three purposes, multilingual means a student whose first language or home language was not English. So they are learning English as well as their other content areas in our schools. So we have an ML teacher assigned to every school. Some of our depending on the enrollment numbers, a school may share an ML or multilingual teacher with another school. But now multilingual across the state has many definitions because we have students who are multilingual that were born in a home that speaks English and they also learning Spanish, French and Chinese. But for federal purposes under ESSA

029is the students whose first language was not English. But multilingual if you're around the state has many definitions and it represents many students in our school district. Is there a correlation between these students and test scores? No. Um there are some students that are struggling but as our data shows we have students that were born speaking English struggling also. Is that what you were asking Dr. Belton? I guess no answers. 25 years. You figured me out, right? So, what I what I'm asking is there's an assumption we have in our community that because these children do not speak English as a first language that they are pulling our test scores down. So, what I'm asking you is there a correlation that these students do better, do worse, do the same as naturally born English speaking

030students? So, we do have some students that need additional support, but they are making their academic growth like other students in the district. So, are they wearing our scores down? No, they are making growth like other students. Um, and our data shows that because the data that we've seen in the past did not single out a particular subgroup. Okay, I don't see any other questions. So, we say thank you to you, Dr. Bella, and um we'll look forward to updates. So, next up is a student behavior update for second quarter and I'm going to welcome up Dr. Diana Smith. Uh good evening to board chair Miller, um vice chair, board members, interim superintendent Dr. Jones, and to the listening audience. Um this evening I am going to be presenting insights into second quarter behaviors as

031documented in power school which is our student information system. But before I delve into the data, it is important to contextualize how inappropriate behaviors are addressed in schools. So included in this presentation will be a brief overview of school discipline as it relates to student behaviors followed by a breakdown of the top five referral categories um by grace grabban researchbased insights into the contributing factors for those referrals um and those behaviors. current district initiatives to address misbehavior and some key takeaways. I'd like to start with a story of three students and a teacher. These are fictional people, so any similarity to anyone that you know and love um is merely coincidental. We'll start with Sandy, student number one. Sandy has been raised to obey authority without question. She does not talk back to adults and

032follows rules strictly and sees no gray areas. She trusts that adults always act in her best interest and has been taught that children should be seen and not heard. If she disobys, consequences at home are swift and clear. Student number two is Danny. Danny has been taught that his voice matters. He believes in speaking up when someone when something feels unfair or doesn't make sense to him. He doesn't trust adults just because they're adults. He needs proof that their good intentions are of their good intentions and even remain skeptical even after receiving that proof. He is encouraged to ask questions but question the answers. And what some see as back talk with Danny, his parents see as self-expression. Student number three is Rizzo. Rizzo's parents work a lot. So Rizzo um spends a lot of

033time at home on her devices. Um the rules at Rizzo's homes are flexible, non-existent. She often comes to school hungry, tired. She's watching her siblings, her younger siblings, while her parents work. Rizzo lives in an environment where she often has to fend for herself to and she has to be strong and tough in order to survive. Rizzo's parents tried to teach her right from wrong, but busy schedules prevent them from providing the discipline and the structure that Rizzo needs. Therefore, her misbehavior often goes either unnoticed or unchecked. Now, imagine Sandy, Danny, and Rizzo, and 22 other students, each with different backgrounds and experiences, arriving in Miss McGee's classroom. And Miss McGee is tasked with maintaining order and enforcing a single standard of behavior for all students. Raised like Sandy, Miss McGee was a model student,

034always obedient, timely, respectful, rule following. Naturally, she can relate to Sandy and she expects the same behaviors from Sandy of her other students. However, Danny and Rizzo, who are also in her class, have different experiences. They don't fit that mold. So, that makes it harder for Miss McGee to manage and behavior manage their behaviors the same way. Now, zoom out to an entire school, 24 teachers, 500 students. Each of these teachers have their own backgrounds, exper experiences, and expectations and management styles. Some are strict, some are lenient, some allow talking during transitions, some demand silence. Yet all must enforce the same code of conduct while interpreting what is fair and what is effective discipline. And if you zoom out even further and you take think about school administrators, they're also shaped by their own experiences,

035but they must enforce classroom discipline while ensuring that it is applied effectively, fairly, and consistently. and within board policy and this is sometimes where it gets a little misunderstood. So the common belief is that a te a student has a behavior, a teacher writes a referral and then the administrator enforces a consequence, but it's a little bit more complex than that. Students have a right to what we call due process. Um that is a legal right that ensures that all of our students are treated fairly. This includes an investigation by administration um of the alleged infraction, notice of the infraction, and an opportunity for the students to be heard and to give their side of the story. And then from that information, the administrator has to make a decision on whether or not that infraction

036has violated the code of conduct and what consequence that student should get um based on the board policy. So once a referral is submitted to an administrator, the administrator's role changes. The administrator is no longer a collaborator with the teacher or partner with the teacher in classroom management. But that administrator now must become investigator, judge, and jury and then decide on a final decision about um the disciplinary action which aligns with board policy but may not um solely align with the teacher's expectations or the parents expectations. So when a teacher writes a referral for what they perceive as inappropriate behavior, the admin administrator must legally provide due process and step in as a neutral factfinder. So I say all of that to say that when we get into the data, you will see a lot

037of referrals for level one behaviors. Um level one behaviors are often subjective. And so for example, briefly I talked about earlier the student Danny who was taught to question authority and now Danny has a teacher like Miss McGee who expects unquestioned compliance. So think of the scenario where Miss McGee tells her class, "All right, turn your pages, turn your books to page 135." And then Danny asks, "Well, why do we have to do this? This book is outdated and this just the author's opinion." And so then the teacher responds, "Well, this book is um provides important context, so please just turn your books to page 135." And then Danny goes, "Well, yeah, but memorizing facts is is not useful. So why are we even doing this? Why can't we do something that matters?" So the

038teacher feeling disrespected then writes a referral, right? However, in the investigation, the due process investigation, the administrator finds that Danny's questioning was just about the relevance of the material, which is a valid concern. It doesn't mean that Miss McGee was wrong. It just shows that not all perceived misbehavior needs a formal discipline. And according to the code of conduct, questioning questioning the curriculum isn't punishable. It's not a punishable offense. So the student expresses himself um how that expression is perceived is different from one teacher to the next teacher to the next teacher based on their own experiences. So one teacher while Miss McGee sees Danny's comment as disrespectful, another teacher may see it as just Danny expressing himself, she moves on with the lesson and never writes a referral. So, I say all of that

039to say that as we review this data, it is important to note these things. Um, number one, teachers are required to document misbehavior and um and as they're doing that, please remember that some referrals do respect do reflect subjective perspectives. That's a mouthful. Some referrals do reflect subjective perspectives. our policies that we have in place, they are designed to minimize disruptions and they're being um they're being enforced consistently. That's what we want from our schools and our administrations. Um but most importantly, behind every number that you are about to see, just remember that these numbers represent real students that are sometimes like Sandy, they're sometimes like Danny, and some of them are like Rizzo. So when you look at the data, this is a district three-year second quarter comparison. This is the data that I

040sent to you all um in the hotline in February. And this is just a total number of infractions for all students throughout the district for the second quarter. It doesn't break it down into what their infractions are, but it does include truency. and truency has to be reported in our um in our student information system as a as a disciplinary infraction. And just for the record um and for clarity, truency is when a student misses three consecutive unexcused days of school or five non-consecutive um unexcused days of school. That that's considered showing. Um, so what I've done is I've broken the the total referrals down by um grades span and by the actual referrals that were written and I pulled out the top five for each grade um span for quarter two. So at the

041elementary level the top five referrals were for hitkick push defiance class disruptions inappropriate behaviors and major disruptions. um this was has been relatively consistent over the past three years because whenever I pull the data it is in three years so that we can address trends. So some of this is um is norm the some of these are normal behaviors for students at this developmental age. These are students that are from ages 5 to 10. Um typically at that age they're still um growing. they don't know how to solve their um resolve their situations immediately. They like to test boundaries. If you have an elementary age children, they child, they want to know what they can get away with. Um and if there's some benefit that they gain from whatever it is that they're doing, even

042if it's not a good thing, they're going to keep doing it. And so this is normal um for children of this age. Now, when we get to middle school, the top five referrals were for defiance, class disruptions, disrespect, hitkick push, and inappropriate behavior. And this too is um consistent among the last um three years. But one thing I do want you to take note of um which is a big win for our middle schools is that over the last three years the discipline um these disciplinary infractions have decreased by 14.3%. And so we're very proud of the middle schools and the work that they're doing to um to decrease these numbers for contributing factors for the middle schools. Um, you think about a middle school student, they desire more freedom. Um, they're experiencing hormonal changes

043as they go into adulthood. Um, their emotions are all over the place. They want to fit in. They want to be um be accepted by their peer groups and their friends and they sometimes struggle to um to resolve their conflicts peacefully. But one other thing that is common among middle schoolers is risktaking and making decisions. They're very impulsive. And so a lot of times if you know any middle schoolers, they will make decisions without thinking things totally through. And then the high schools um this was interesting as I um weeded out the data. The top five offenses for high school shifted shifted to tardies, class cutting, phone violations, defiance, and ID violations. And again, relatively consistent across the the last three years. Now, high school students have a need for dependence, for independence. Um, they

044like to make their own decisions and they are they are distracted by technologies. These are your um digital natives, as we call them. they've had the technology at their fingertips since they were babies. Um, teachers in the high school are doing an excellent job of tracking attendance and tardies. Um, particularly when you're talking about Carnegie units and so missing a lot of class being tardy to class, they can impact things like our graduation rate and our promotion rates. So teachers are very diligent in ensuring that um students are in class or documenting when they're not. Another thing I found as I um delved a little bit deeper into the data was that some of our high-profile offenses are the offenses that that get the most attention such as fighting, bullying, weapons, and drug possession. While

045there was a a slight increase in 23 24 this year um for the second quarter, all four of those areas are down significantly significantly. So that is also another win that um I want to point out for the district in terms of behaviors. I did a survey of administrators just to see if their thoughts kind of align with what I was seeing with the district. Um the administrators did find that student behaviors are pretty consistent um that they're seeing in the schools. Um they have also acknowledged that there are some challenging behaviors that have arisen but for the most part the behaviors are pretty much similar um to the ones that they've been seeing all along. And then the teachers in their um feedback they've provided stated that they do feel that they are equipped

046to handle the behaviors that we're seeing. um a lot of them would like to have some more skills um and some um resources, but they overwhelmingly said that they have what they need and they're able to collaborate with administrators to work with discipline issues. So, I know that we have a lot of questions and and we've had I think a a good amount of time to review the presentation. So, maybe if we could talk a little bit about slide 15 and then um I' I've got a question. It's killing me. I' I've got to ask you. This is exactly what's wrong with Rockfield schools is discipline. We're sitting here going around circles talking about Rizzo and and Michael or Danny or whatever their names are. But let's be honest, I have the top five habitual

047offenders from Northwestern right here. One has 42 refer referrals. One has 37, one has 28, one has 32, another has 25. That's 164 referrals between five kids. Why are is student services not bringing us recommendations to get the support to the teachers and administration to fix this problem? Because this right here is why we're losing kids. This is why they're choosing other options in the Rock Hill School District rather than us is because there's no accountability. There's no discipline. And as your your department should be bringing us recommendations to solve these problems to give the teachers the support they need. This right here is the problem. And until we get this addressed and quit talking about Danny and Rizzo and stuff because the real world really doesn't care. Once you enter the real world, you

048can't be late to work. You can't just not show up to work. You have to. There's guidelines. but giving excuses for everything and every every it's got to stop and it's got to be there's got to be uniform accountability and discipline across this district. Thank you. And um so Sandy, Danny, and Rizzo were fictional names, but they do represent real students. And so one of the things that when I think about discipline, we have different people that have different perspectives based on their backgrounds. And so to not acknowledge that students come from Are we getting them ready for the real world? Because it doesn't really matter. The real world doesn't care. Are we getting them ready for the real world? Is that by giving them excuses? Well, and so what one person calls excuses, another

049person may call resources. And so when you're dealing with children who are continuing to learn and grow, then we have to think about how to restore them. There are people that are not raised like some of us. And there are people that are coming to students that are coming to school that when they come in, they're coming in hungry. They're coming in sad. And so this is not to give them an excuse, but this is to say that we have to be in a position where we recognize that these are really relevant issues. Not everybody is going to come to school prepared to listen prepared and and as I said, you know, with Danny, a student like Danny, if he is being taught that he can come to school and he can speak his mind

050and he should be able to speak his mind and you have a teacher that does not view that the same way, then that dynamic is going to change a lot of what happens in the schools with between those two people. So your opinion that we should, you know, I guess, well, I don't want to speak for you because I don't want to say what your opinion is, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and we can't just assume that any student that comes into school should just be Do you think do you think justice by not enforcing discipline on them, right? No, I do not. I do think that discipline should be enforced. And as I was going to um get to on this slide, here are some dis initiatives that we

051do have in place to enforce discipline and to help parents to help students to help teachers get to where they need to be in terms of how to behave. But the administrators and the teachers cannot do it alone. There has to be a partnership between parents and between teachers. That is the piece that I see that's missing. A lot of times the parents have their own perspectives of what's going on in the schools. They have a perspective of what should be done in terms of discipline. And the way that teachers may administer discipline and administrators may have administered discipline may be totally different than the way that a parent may administer discipline. Bringing us recommendations to make everything more streamlined. So I was not asked to bring you all recommendations. I mean that's that's your

052job. Correct. If you need help with something. Well, that's that's that's one part of my job. So, if I've never seen any recommendations, if you would like, but you've never asked for that. And so, if the if the board would like a recommendation of how to streamline things, then all you have to do is let Dr. Jones know and then that information gets to my department and then we my department and then we work on that. But when I was given the charge to come and speak to the board, it was to provide insights into second quarter discipline. So, had I been told that you wanted some type of of other information, then I would have been happy to have question. The purpose for today is to get the data so that we can break

053it down and understand as a board. Um so, so you you are doing exactly what you were asked to. Thank you. Um I do have one question. you said in your presentation that things are being enforced consistently across the district. Um, as far as how discipline is being enforced at at the school was my understanding. Um, I'm getting a lot of feedback that that may not always be the case. Do you have data to back that up or is it just a common feeling? And I don't mean to come across as as distrusting of what you're saying. It's just what I'm hearing from school level staff is it's a little contraindicating what you say to that. I understand. And so um I go by what I receive in terms of in powers school when I

054get calls from administrators when they're asking questions about the data about what they should do in terms of disciplinary consequences I always refer them back to the board policy. And if they follow the board policy consistently, which they are charged to do, then we're going to get consistent results. But one thing that you have to remember is fair and same are not the same. So when you have a student that that does has a disciplinary infraction, giving one consequence to Helena and a different consequence to John may be fair. It may not be the same consequence, but it may be fair. you may have less disciplinary um infractions that the administrator is considering. John may have tons of them and so your consequences are not the same. But um primarily and overall when we go

055back to the district um the board policies and what is in place in terms of how to address discipline, we have created discipline matrixes that m matrices that the elementary schools have and the middle schools have that they use to try to ensure some of that fairness. But as I was stating earlier when I was going through the first part of my presentation and talking about the differences because people have different ideas about what is fair, what is right, what is just sometimes is it's hard to do the same the exact same thing that your counterparts would do. I have Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh Dr. Thank you for this information. I'm actually encouraged because I see the drop in middle school uh from 2023 to 2024. The offenses went down. I know middle school is

056like a very it's a it's icky time for kids because they're learning themselves. They're coming into themselves. What um factors do you think come into play with middle school in particular? That's maybe caused a decline in offenses and then after that I have a statement about high school. But uh don't don't all the middle schools have like deans aren't deans of students supposed to be helping with behavioral deans of deans of students are there. They are um working together um across the board to address different um init the middle school students are going through. Um we also have in the schools the um well with the one of the things I was going to talk about is the behavior of all the behavior alliance of South Carolina. And so a lot of our middle schools

057have worked with that program to start to look at the behaviors more consistently. The uh one of the things that that program does is it has an MTSS framework that's um only targets behaviors. And so within the MTSS framework, they're looking at the data of the students. They're looking at their behaviors and they're seeing how those behaviors impact um the academics and then um some of the things that they're doing with restorative practices as they are working with students as to why they're having the behaviors that they're having as opposed to just doing suspensions out of school, which we all know that just suspending a student out of school does not change behavior. So once the student comes back in school, using those restorative practices to try to help change the behavior. So looking at

058the whole child rather than just absolutely okay that's good. Can the can the behavioral alliance be bundled into the high schools and and the comment that I was going to make about the high schools because I I hear what my colleague is saying um about what's happening at one school in particular. Um these are not dangerous offenses. That's correct. Let's let's be it's tardy. It's cutting class, which I'm sure all of us at this table at these tables have done at one point in our lives. I'm starting to work often, so it is what it is. Um, so this doesn't look dangerous when I'm looking at these numbers. Yes, the offenses have gone up in 2024, 2025, but these the bulk of it, the 50% of it is tardy and cutting class. Um, and then

059phone violations, which again, teenagers, they're going to do what they're going to do. Are there any um um op or anything that you guys are doing uh to mitigate the tardiness and the cutting class? Is it is it is it I'm looking at the broader picture like is it a transportation issue with kids being tardy in the morning or is it something that's happening in between classes? Is there something that we could do to kind of help these violations in some way? So ties do occur in the mornings. um you know, a lot of the high school students are driving to school and so you don't see as many at the elementary and middle school because they're driving and so some of the you know to Mr. Burns's point earlier trying to hold high school

060students more accountable for their actions. Um there is a mindset that if you're in high school and you want to graduate from high school, you would get to school on time and you would, you know, do what you need to do to graduate. But again, there are many things that could be happening between leaving the house and getting the school that's causing the tardies. Um to answer your question regarding the the initiatives that we're taking in schools, the um students who are tardy and the absences that you know as they add up students are given an opportunity to do makeup school to be able to make the time up um so that they could still earn the credits for graduation. um students all have IG sorry indiv individual graduation plans which are IGPS where these

061things come up when talking with the students and the parents in trying to mitigate but I will say that a lot of the absences the tardies and things like that a lot of this starts when children are young and they carry these behaviors over as they grow and so if you ever want to kind of look at the dropout rate and the you know students behavior in high school. If you look at those students in in elementary school, you see some of the same things. It's um calculated a little bit differently, but you can kind of see patterns looking back all the way to elementary school. And that's even the ones that like are driving. Yes. So, it's more. That's correct. Okay. All right. Um I did have also you mentioned uh due process um

062and that every student has an opportunity to have due process if they're um if the if the discipline if the action has already happened let's say a child is an incident happens on Friday child suspended on day they still have an opportunity to uh have due process and challenge the so the due process comes um before the child is suspended out of school. The d process should drive what the consequence is. So when the teacher makes a referral and the due process goes into place and the administrator starts to investigate and determines that this was a a behavioral infraction. Um that child is then possibly suspended or whatever the consequence is. Parents then at that time can say I want to challenge this. And so once that referral is given to the student or the

063discipline consequence is given to the student by the assistant principal then the parents can then appeal to the principal of the school. If the appeals to the principal of the school um this is not satisfactory to the parents then the parent can do a final appeal to my office. And so basically what I look at on those appeals are whether or not due process was followed, whether or not the infraction was actually occurred and whether or not the consequence falls within board policy as to whether or not the appeal um goes through. And a lot of times by the time that process plays out, the suspension is over. But certainly if there is a suspension that's on the record for the student that should not be there because it was an infraction that did not

064actually occur then we can go back and change the record. Um that that then becomes a verbal violation. Okay. So so if it's already happened and the parent didn't have an opportunity to ch So there there is a time frame for that. And so when when parents get the referral they have to they have three days to challenge it right. Okay. and and would they I'm asking and I'll talk to you offline about this but I'm asking for a reason. I'll ask you that offline for um a reason but I just want to go back and say I mean I hear again what my colleague is saying discipline is an issue at every district in every state in the country. Um but I mean it's I understand his concept and I do want to say

065this because there there is a conception that discipline is is horrible. Um, I don't like that conception, that perception because that's not what our data shows. And so sometimes when you hear um, what is it? A few loud squeaky wheels, then the squeaky wheel gets the oil. And so, while I'm not saying that it's perfect, it hasn't been perfect in any school district that I've that I've worked. Um certainly there are there's room for growth and I'm always open to suggestions um from board member Burns or anyone on things that we can do to help improve the discipline in our schools. Um I get the calls, he's getting the calls, you know, you all are getting the calls. So I get calls from parents all the time that are upset about how they believe their

066children are being treated at school or if they don't think that something is fair. And one of the points I made earlier that I want to reiterate is that when an administrator goes through due process, they have to look for the facts. At that point, they are now impartial and they can't make decisions based on a parent's u what a parent thinks should happen or what a teacher thinks should happen at that point. They have to do it based on the facts and whether or not student actually did the infraction that was um reported. I will say though that a fair amount of feedback that I'm individually getting is from staff members who are feeling like they're the policies are not being enforced um at some locations at the level they should be. Um and

067if we take a look at the current goals of the district and of the board, one of those is employee retention recruitment. Um, so I do think that taking a serious look at how we implement this is really crucial as we need to make sure that our staff is feeling supported in their roles. Um, because I I hear what you're saying as far as children coming with different backgrounds and different expectations coming from the home and yes, it starts at home. However, we also have a group of professionals that work in our building that deserve to have a working environment that is conducive to learning and that they have professional respect as they walk into their work environment and that is a balance. Um, and and right now I I am feeling um or I

068am hearing some feedback that not everybody feels that that's the case and I think that's where some of the concern is coming. That's I 100% agree. I um I know that classroom management um varies from teacher to teacher and so classroom management efforts um in the college curriculum there isn't anything on classroom management. We have, and this is not to to blame a certain group of teachers, but we do have teachers that come in from different pathways um that have not been given the opportunity to work on classroom management and classroom expectations should be high. I mean, we should expect our students to behave in a certain way. Um we can't ignore what they're bringing to the table. Um, so I am, as I said, I'm open to any suggestions, um, any charges that you

069want to give me to work towards improving this. Um, I can't promise that you'll stop getting phone calls or you'll stop having your your top five referral getters um, getting referrals. I mean, some students are going to go to school and they're going to misbehave. And then there are some students who go through this entire their entire school year um 12 years and never get a disciplinary a discipline referral. So we run the gamut of of both in our district. But anything that we can do certainly to help that and to improve the environment for our teachers is something that I would definitely to doing trying to work at. I just have a comment that um I think it kind of said but I know educator. I need to throw this perspective and this voice

070out there. Um, in education, we realize that we cannot control what happens outside of the school. We know that when students enter our school building that is where we have the lowest and we do feel that we should have boundaries and we should have expectations of students. We have academic expectations and we should have behavior expectations. No, they do not all come with the same knowledge. They don't all start at the same point. Yes, we have initiatives in place to put those supports in place for those needs. But at the same time, as an educator, when you are trying to meet the goals that are set out for you and you are trying to teach every student in your classroom, you need a supportive administration. You need a supportive district office to help you achieve

071that. Teachers will stay when they feel supported. And then the biggest thing for a teacher is behavior. They got the teaching as long as they can get past the behavior. I'd like to encourage more partnerships between parents and teachers. Um, when I was growing up, my my parents and and teachers were more partners than they were with me. And so, whatever back in the day, whatever the teacher said was the gospel and that then they worked together to ensure that we were getting what we needed. Um, unfortunately, that doesn't always happen these days. Um, I will say that I believe that there is a mistrust sometimes. um of teachers by parents um and vice versa. And so we do need everybody working together to address and to tackle this. Um my my presentation was not

072to sugarcoat anything that is going on in the district. It was just obviously to paint a picture of what we know um is being brought to the table by different students and different backgrounds. Um and so these are things that we definitely have to tackle it. So, I'm all for whatever it is you all would like for me to do to try to address this. Um, I have been working with um the academics and accountability on this matter as well. um having conversations with principles about what um act things that we can put in school to try to ensure that teachers are feeling supported and that students are being um safe feeling safe at school and that um the the behaviors can decrease. And we will remain hopeful that the efforts that we have in

073place will work and that anything that's not working that we're able to assess and revamp. Mr. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Um, I'm going to bounce around a little bit, but in your presentation, you gave us the type of this behavior. You gave us the number of incidents, and you gave us the percentage. Can you get me the number of students in elementary school, middle school, and high school that get referrals? If you have one referral that counts as one. If you have, you know, 30 referrals, that's a number two student. That's a second. Okay. I would like So, so you you would like to know the total number of students that are getting like if somebody has 50 referrals, that's one kid getting 50. One person gets a referral for a phone violation, you know,

074that's one, but they don't ever get another referral. I I'm just curious the number of students in middle, elementary, and high school that get referrals. I can I can get that. Thank you. Um I think I just fundamentally disagree with you on your examples of perspectives. I think every single person in this room has a unique perspective. We all might have things that are similar and might have things that are different, but everybody has a different perspective. And it sounded like to me that you were blaming classroom management and specifically on the teachers in your examples when you were saying that this student has this life experience where he is able to freely express himself and this student, you know, is not. But yet it made it sound like it was a teacher issue that

075a teacher would have a classroom management style that would allow a disruptive student just to be disruptive. But when I I I don't think that's an issue with our teachers. I think our teachers generally have very simple classroom management styles where you know you're not allowed to get up out of your seat without permission. You know this in middle school you're not allowed to get up out of your seat without permission. You're not allowed to speak unless you raise your hand and you're called on. You're not allowed to leave the space at your desk. I mean, it's it's keep it simple. And I think our teachers do that, but is I don't know. Are you mean are you is it a teacher issue or is it an administration issue? No, that that was not my

076intent. Um, if you recall um in the presentation, I only presented one teacher, that was Miss and M. he just happened to be very structured in her classroom management. Um we have many teachers that have many different styles and so they're they that's not to say that they allow um disrespect or that they allow disorder. That's to say that their perception of disrespect and disorder may be different from another teachers. And and that is where I think that I disagree with you fundamentally is it is a choice of every student that walks into the into our schools whether or not to follow the rules. If the rules are presented clearly and concisely, it is up to that student to follow the rules. If I go into a geometry classroom and the teacher has one set

077of rules, I have to follow those rules. If I go into an IB classroom with a totally different classroom management style, I have to follow those rules. And if I'm in, it doesn't matter what the class, it is, it is a choice whether or not to follow the rules. And if we allow students to opt out of following the rules because of their perspective, that's a real problem. And and that is not supporting our teachers. And so, um, to answer that, if if my rules are different. And I and I totally get what you're saying and I understand what you're saying. I actually agree with that. Um students have to learn and they do learn this as they get older. Um when I'm in one person's class, I can behave one way. When I'm in

078another person's class, I can behave a different way. And that's why you have some students that may get a referral for something in your class that may not get a referral for that exact same incident in somebody else's class is because of how the classrooms are set up. And so again, if the teacher does not see the question that's being asked um as disrespect or in a disrespectful way, then that student is not going to be disciplined for that. And so the student does have to kind of be a chameleon. Say, okay, when I go from this class to the next class, I have I have to change, right? And that and I think that's what Mr. Burns is referring to is life. You you have to follow the rules in the situation that you

079find yourself in. And that is that is the biggest complaint that I get from teachers is that they're managing their classrooms but when they have a problem they are not being supported and the rules are not being applied. Yes. May I may I ask a question because obviously I mean we I think we all own this board. We're all people who follow rules in society and able to work and have been successful in our respective careers. but someone who sat as a principal and I guess this is where we as a board need to figure out what our philosophy is here in this district and I know we have been calling for a retreat we've been calling for an opportunity for those of us particularly who are newly elected have been asking for do we

080sit down and define what our philosophy is because just to give you a perspective Pete I I agree 100% with 100% of what you've said where I just always struggled as a principal And Dr. Jones also served as a principal and I don't know whether this was a struggle for you. Um, and Pete, I know you serve as a leader in the military. Once the once the rules are given, Pete, you and I, we were in court together yesterday. We have judges. We have two people who come in front of a judge. One gets one sentence, another one gets another sentence for the exact same charge. My client is mess is upset because they got a harsher penalty than yours, guy. But that judge is making decisions based on the information that's in front of

081them. That's what principles are faced with. Exactly what you and I are faced with every day, Pete. And I think that's what Dr. Smith is saying that when a teacher sends that kid out of the classroom, that now becomes the principal's responsibility who's looking at a totality of the information, some of which the teacher won't have. And so I guess what our what we need to know is what is our philosophy as a district that we can then give to student services and give to principles because I'm not sure that if if the principal is serving as the judge, jury, and the executioner in some point and you know to some teachers it's if you don't expel this kid or kick this kid out of school then you have not supported me. And Miss Hutcherson

082and I were at a community meeting last week and there were a couple of people who went off in this community meeting about disciplining the schools and we listened. We heard them out and we left. And and I'm not saying they're not valid. I just don't know how to respond to it because you know if I don't do exactly what you're asking me to do, then I'm not being supportive when that may not be the case. So what my question to you is, you know, do we need are there some policies that need to change that will give principles more leeway to do things? What is the answer? Is this MTSS process we have working? Um what what is the answer? I mean, what do we do? Do we expel every kid out of school?

083Is that what we're asking? I mean, what is ultimately a teacher who doesn't feel supported? What do they want? Because my understanding and I'll just make this the last point. One of the challenges that I'm having that I feel is what I've been told that we don't have a continuing continuum of discipline options. They got one or two options. It's in school suspension, out of school suspension, alternative to school expulsion. The days of lunch detention are gone. The days of work detail are gone. the day all those continuum of options that we had when I served as a principal they don't have here in Rockill schools for whatever reason and so is that the answer that we need to have more options require teachers to do honestly tell administrators or somebody so I don't want

084to go on and on so I asked a couple of questions in there if and I'm asking my colleagues what is the answer I I just and I just want to respond real quick I think I don't want to repeat second I think you and I on on the board are the only and Lacy is also the three of us have served in right public schools and I know from my experience that was a teacher that's me teacher I learned from my experience that when I was a seventh grade science teacher that I probably wrote 50 referrals the first semester and like nothing ever happened because it was my fault because I couldn't manage my classroom and I had a team of of teachers and coach Tate helped me and you know and that was

085the other thing I want to bring up our dean of students I thought deans of students that we had in our schools were the same de of students that I had at Charlotte Mech that taught me how to run my classroom so that I didn't have any referrals the second semester so I think and when we have an experienced teacher that writes a referral I think we just want a like a a real response and I don't want to speak for the teachers I something has to happen you can'tign ignore it and you can't ignore your emails and you can't just let it just pile up and not respond. Well, that's different. I thought they were doullling out consequences and the teachers were not pleased with the consequence. What you're saying is it doesn't even

086get dealt with. Yes. That's different. That's very different. So to to kind of wrap it up or or summarize, I think what we're feeling and what you're hearing from board is it's it's passion because we care. Um combined with the fact that we know that we have some gaps in academic achievement that we have to address as a district and we know that discipline and the recruitment and retention of our educators are closely connected to that. So not looking the discipline data knowing that there are some concerns. Um that's not going to help our academics you know that so that's where the conversation is coming from. I think at this point um there's two two parts of this process. Um one of that is that you and in your department coming up with some ideas

087of recommendations that you think would be beneficial for the board to consider. The other part is yes, we are doing a retreat. Obviously, we have had um some really intense past couple of weeks. Um Sutinson and I are reviewing a couple of proposals and we are going to pitch a couple of days here, you know, but to be quite honest, we just have not had the bandwidth in the past week because um the next presentation that you're going to hear about, our focus has been on that and then we will focus on the retreat, but that is coming um and that will be part of that process as well. So, Yes, I want to let you close it off. Thank you so much. And and I certainly as the interim superintendent receive what is said,

088our expectations are high for students to behave. Uh our stu um and and many times when they come to Dr. Smith's office, uh parents come many times with the students and all this, we hear, "I don't know what to do or they're in crisis." And and and we'll work through that. But we need to make sure that we are certainly supporting at the school level. I feel our principles, administrators, and I think what you said, Mr. Nosel, when you said the choice and the misbehavior where they spend a lot of time is how can we continue to support our students in making the right choice. Uh, one of our virtual teachers was on the other morning and was actually behind me and was literally jumping in with every student and the administrator was to say,

089"Are you going to have a good day? What choices are you going to make? Are you going to make sure that you do that?" Um, I'll never forget Kia Frasier uh over at Rollins and Row when when she was at also at at Rock Hill High School that every day those students that were encounters, they met at the flag pole and she said, "What do you need to do today? What needs to happen?" So, our our administrators um even have seen Keith Wils go out and do lessons in elementary school uh to go out and do small groups. Does more need to be done? Absolutely. Because it's constant work, but also saying our efforts in in really trying to say how can climate and culture help with the students in the school with climate and

090culture in making the best decisions possible for the day. Uh and and we we've used variety from PBIS our leader in me program uh that we see where students are setting up goals and many of them are setting their goals for behavior. This is not defense because bottom line if a teacher feels that he or she is not being supported and has a significant interruption in the class then we need to respond and and we need to support I feel our administrators uh look to do that but if it's a problem how can they get that support needed if I feel like I'm not being supported or or I'm feeling I I don't have uh in teaching and and working with a student that support then how can we collectively find out get that support

091and help because we're all in this together. You know, bottom line is we should make sure that that that that our data and the way we respond is about order. It's about student expectations uh that it's a safe classroom and teachers can teach. Dr. Jones, can we get some kind of I think I'm still confused on what the definition of support is because what support means for student A may not mean the same for for teacher A may not mean the same for teacher B as it relates to discipline. So I don't know if there's some type of survey or something but I do agree we need to support our staff and I do agree if no followup is happening that's unacceptable. So, is this support means that something happened and I just didn't agree

092with the consequence or the support mean nothing is happening when I write a kid up on dealing with this? What would that be? That was what I was going to ask you to ask for. There was a survey that could be done for the not the top five going beyond the ones that uh may seem the the the bad or forward behaviors. There's a way we can survey teachers and find out exactly what supports they need when those difficult incidents happen with fighting with the larger kids high school kids like how we can feed that information. Is there a way we can find that and get some feedback from the teachers? We definitely want to support the teachers. Absolutely. But I know they're looking at the whole child and they're trying to figure out like

093Dr. Phil said teacher A and teacher B might not look at it the same way. So that's ask I have two Dr. And as a followup to that as if we are going to survey our staff specifically as we are asking them to basically answer the question are you feeling supported by your administrator. Um it is crucial that we do that in a way where it can be anonymous uh to where we actually get true data because we don't want to put people in a position where it's awkward. Um if if there are some things that needs to they're actually I'm sorry. It actually is a teacher forum survey. We can look at those questions and and I'm sure somewhere in there we see discipline, but we could go back in and look and drill

094down um and and and do some questions. We also have a survey with our uh teachers that we provide with um deans and what the impact there is with those students. So absolutely we have the tools to do that and again just making sure that they are truly anonymous so that it's not the right you know are you a third grade teacher and then what's your gender and there is only one male on the third grade team so everybody knows who answered that question that way that kind of thing you know again I think that that will give folks an opportunity to give true feedback that will hopefully aid in the process so anyway uh we look forward forward asks for Mr. Ask for the numbers total number of students total numbers of students as

095well and that can be you know provided to Dr. Jones and he can provide it to the remainder of the board drill down as a drill down of the data of the the bad infection the super bad infections and I think that Dr. about those requests. Thank you. Was about what the process looked like. Um I think it would be helpful for board if we got to see what those matrixes look like. Um just so we have a better understanding of what that process looks like because I I don't I the newer board members certainly haven't seen them and I can't remember if we did either. I think that that would be something that would just be interesting for us to kind of um their internal documents and so um um Dr. Barber on the

096elementary and um well I work directly with the um assistant principles at the middle schools to develop their documents. Fantastic. Well, then we say thank you and um we will hear more. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So, next up we have um an update regarding the superintendent search. Um and I put my name on it. Um, as most of the community may know, this this this segment is really uh a presentation that is designed for our stakeholders, both internal and external. Um, but rather than having me summarize what has transpired in the past week or so, I figured it would make more sense to bring uh the expert that we have hired over Zoom to give a brief uh kind of lead into what you will see transpire in the community over the coming

097months. Uh so what the board did is last week uh we voted to um hire a professional search firm uh Zeal and uh to that is going to aid us uh in the search for our next permanent superintendent of Brock Hill Schools. So over Zoom today um I have uh uh Jeff Melandis who or Dr. Melandis who is our head search person. So I am going to turn it over to you Jeff. Thank you. Um I think I just need um host ability host sharing ability. Yes, Mr. Rice, will you fantastic? Thank you. Yes, sir. Awesome. So, um, once again, thank you. My name is Jeff. I'm the CEO of education group. Um, there's other folks on our team, but just to stay with us, I just brief update and hopefully answer question that you

098may have. So, this is essentially the board members. One of the main um priorities was to establish a date for hiring. I'm not sure but to identify the next superintendent as June is the Monday. I think that's a board meeting Tuesday meeting and so we've been working backwards to create a timeline that we believe with this and still search. So um we started March 8th announcement basically just on LinkedIn on our website. Um I put a uh post communications with William communications director. We've establish some processes that we're going to be following to collaborate with the district on communication. We're going to do a formal announcement which is going to go on the national search uh websites like AASA on March 20th which is 30 days um before the uh the application deadline. So, we're

099going to start that officially on March 2nd. Uh between March 25th and March 29th, our team is going to be in Rockel and we're going to have a pretty comprehensive schedule of events and meeting opportunities. I'm going to go into some more depth on that moment. Um on April 8th, we had talked a little bit about in our presentation about the development of leadership profile that's going to serve two purposes. Number one, it's going to be created with input from your community uh for what the types of policies you want to see next will be. So, it'll be used to attract candidates to your specific district and it'll also be used as a um metric to measure which candidates fulfill those uh those needs. So, it's going to be to track the qualified candidates on

100April 20th at 11:59 the will close and then we will begin a process of um screening candidates. Candidate screening is going to be ongoing. Um but we're going to dedicate that time and then we're going to present a slate to the board um in your early May 13 will be the time that we set aside to facilitate interviews with the board. We are also going to have a process of the community will get a chance to meet the top finals. Um and so then the board will have the opportunity to get feedback from the community and we'll deliberate on that feedback in making ultimate decision and then there's a few weeks between that period and uh it comes back to us to do due diligence checks you know investigation background and so um really excited

101people making this time. If I just go to the next slide, I'm gonna um just show you a little bit more about this because I know it is really critical for us to hear from your community and all of your stakeholders what is important to you. And so we're going to do that in three ways. The first way is through what we described last time, which is thought exchange. Thought exchange is a is a pretty innovative in my opinion. um tool that we can use uh rather than just a a survey with questions you respond to. It presents an opened question and respondents can do this on a computer. They can do it on their phones. Everybody will be invited. This will be something that we'll have open for several weeks probably actually about 10

102days. Um and it's very engaging. Uh and we believe it's going to give us some rich from anybody that wish to participate. Um the other way is inerson interviews and photos. You can see on the screen these are the people that we have in a preliminary discussion with the board president have um identified as folks that we really want to make sure we hear from. Um we want to hear from everybody but we want to specifically reach out to these people make sure that their voices are are heard. I believe potentially work most closely with the superintendent, most closely with the school district. So, um you'll see we have the senior leadership, building administrators, all certified and not certified staff, student leaders, NWA, NWC, uh the top of the nation. We're going to meet them

103on our reservation and then we're going to have three town hall meetings which are going to be held most likely in the high schools uh over the course of two days. morning and afternoon and I think in another meeting on Saturday. Um, and it's going to be open, but we're really hoping to get anybody that get a chance to participate in one of these inerson interviews or photo shoots to come to our town hall meeting. In addition to all the uh interviews and photo shoots, we're also going to offer them virtually. So, you'll see a little aster on a few of these. This is just that we might not be able to capture um for instance all the certified staff for the inperson meeting because their schedules may not allow it personal circumstances may not

104allow it but that doesn't mean we don't want to really have an engagement uh an opportunity to engage them. So we're going to do a virtual session as well. Um I'm working with I've sent some communication out to uh Dr. Jones and to the assistant superintendent for HR and uh we are hopefully going to be as collaborative as possible, work around their schedules. We're really here to engage you, to listen to you, and we want to make sure that we um we get to hear from as many as possible. In addition, we're going to have some of those town hall meetings as well. Uh that's going to be virtual so that people can participate. We'll probably use our thought exchange platform in both the inerson and and the virtual potentially. We're going to try that

105out, but really We're going to get rich data from this process. Um, this is our search team. Once again, we're really honored to be part of this. We have set up a um specific email address rockill.com. And on our website, we have uh right now we have a uh a posting the the immediate vacancy posting uh that is on our website uh at-p.comroill. Again, that's going to be also a place where applicants are going to go to find the leadership profile which click on that link to come back and they can also download the application which is not will be. Thank you, Jeff. And one um other additional thing is as the community knows, we publish a board brief uh the day after any regularly scheduled board meeting that contains sort of the overall information

106of what transpired during the board brief. So during this search period um we are carving out a segment for Zal and Jeff and his team so that they can keep um updating the community uh through that board brief and the board brief is accessed by anybody who is in some ways registered with Rockl schools whether you're a staff member or a parent or um it's also available on our website and uh like Jeff mentioned uh he is working together with our communications team uh to set up that segment of the website for um um the um um for the search. Um so any questions from board? Uh I know that you are also getting weekly updates um and through this process. So um if not we say thank you to Jeff and team and uh

107we will hear from you at the end of the week. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. You too. Okay. Uh we're going to turn it over to uh Dr. Jones, your report of the superintendent. Thank you so much and and good evening again. Just a few brief announcements that Rockill Schools will be closed for student and staff for a holiday on Friday. Uh that will be this Friday, March 14th, 2025. Uh schools will be closed to for students on Monday as our teachers have the chance to have time working in their room each work day. Uh we're currently hiring for the 2526 school year. Uh please visit touchheartstee.org for more information. And our next board meeting is scheduled uh for March 25th at six o'clock p.m. where we uh will live stream. uh under

108the superintendent report there's an update on special programs and I just want to take a few minutes tonight just to share uh in particular with our programs and decisions that we have been making regarding what we plan to offer in 25 uh year 25 26 as well as decisions on um on programs um and and I just want to take the opportunity to express my sincere appreciation and patience and understanding shown by our board, our employees, our parents, and the community over the past several months. Throughout this period, the school district has worked to address the district's budget in a manner that best supports the optimal organizational structure, personnel, and the educational programs for our students. As your interim superintendent, one of my first responsibilities in coming into the role February 1st was to pause

109the budget process to thoroughly verify the financials through a comprehensive analysis. I'm pleased to report this task has been completed successfully and the findings may be presented at an upcoming meeting at the board's discretion. Remember that our budget this year is balanced and the work is for the upcoming school year. In the parallel with the budget review and its completion, our leadership team has dedicated significant time and effort toward revising the district's organizational chart. We're in the final stages of revising this chart to ensure it aligns with our goals and available resources while still making sure that we maintain the integrity of our programs and services for our employees, especially our teachers and our students and families. Regarding our special programs, we're taking a comprehensive approach in analyzing all available options within the context of

110current budget realities. We have heard through board meetings and through others that our programs to support student are important. But we also are looking of course at the realities of enrollment declines, the loss of ESRE funding, inflationary factors, as well as the awareness of just making sure that we're able to respond if any decisions of the federal government do impact us in the near future. Our priority has been to preserve the most meaningful components of the programs, balancing the need for the budget reductions while minimizing the impact on our staff and students and keeping a clear focus on retaining uh as many employees as possible as well as safeguarding employee compensation to the greatest extent feasibility. So our priority is to complete this work by the end of this week. in the coming week following

111the board uh certainly can uh call a meeting if that's decided then our team and I we will stand to assist to um present the findings of the budget analysis share recommendations for the reductions of the district deficit and seek approval for revised district office organizational chart. Uh by finalizing these decisions after this week, we then will remain on track to meet our deadlines for staff placement and key employment decisions that have to take place. As your interim superintendent, I just want to assure you in in gratitude as well as understanding that I have taken this work seriously. My goal has been to understand the full scope of what needs to be accomplished during my brief tenure in this role and to make well-considered recommendations for the future. I'm fully committed I'm fully committed to

112bringing uh assisting bringing this work to closure and moving forward with the recommendations uh and executing related duties so that our certified employee contracts will be be released in accordance with state law. And finally, again, I just want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the board, to all of our staff and employees, and to the parents and students of Rock Hill Schools for your continued patience and support during this challenging process. As we aim to close this chapter and move forward, I look forward to the ongoing work that will continue to benefit our students and our community. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jones. Um, and um I know that several board members say but uh before we go any further I heard that um the work will be done uh for uh recommendation um at

113the conclusion of this week. So what I am going to do tonight and um possibly tomorrow morning is um have conversations with each individual board member making sure that we have a scheduled for a called meeting for the purpose of um reviewing um were uh receiving the report on the financial uh that Dr. Burns which Dr. Burns I promoted you that Dr. Burns uh um uh proposed um a month or so ago in conjunction with that recommendation from you Dr. Jones. So as far as community goes um I'm going to make sure that we have that date as soon as possible and hopefully I can get that into the board brief tomorrow as well. So, just wanted to kind of lay that out there. I don't know if there's anything else anybody wants to say.

114Thank you, Dr. Jones, for your report and um for your work and dedication. I know you've been um I can't even probably count up the hours you've worked throughout the week and over over month. So, thank you for that. Just for clarity because I know we have a lot of um viewers watching. Can you define special programs so parents understand what special programs are? Programs that we have considered look virtual academy our mental health therapist um our day treatment program looking at parent smart those programs that that are not required by law that we offer in Rock Hill schools but yet we have to meet the needs of our students. So those are when I'm talking special programs that's in consideration, right? But then we say thank you. Um I'm sorry. I don't want to

115jump. Dr. Jones, I just wanted to say thank you. You have you have taken over a huge task and I can't thank you enough for getting us through this this time period. and I know you were planning on retiring and we kind of made it tough for you, but um thank you so much. Well, thank you so much and and I thank our team. I want to thank um in particular human resources and business services. Uh they have been around the table with us and then of course anytime I needed our our leadership of other departments, they're coming to the table. So, thank you for saying that, Mr. Burns. Dr. Jones, I want to echo this. Um, I I'll admit I'll confess I've been one of the impatient board members. And so, thank you for

116um my early morning emails want to speed this process up because I think it's very important for us to be transparent with the community, for us to give the community some answers regarding their children, regarding their employment, regarding their schools, all those things. And so, um, and you've talked me off the ledge and I appreciate that. and you told me you needed another week or two to get things done. You have honored what you've said. So, I want to I privately sent emails, but I want to publicly thank you um for what you've done and bringing this to fruition. And I give our commitment to our community that they're going to have some answers and we'll have some closures. We know that everybody won't walk away happy. I don't know what your recommendations will be

117but we know we are not in a position where we can please everybody but the fact that I have seen um your behind the scenes work. We all had small group we saw the work that you were doing and it is appreciative and I believe that you are the expert in this room now on our budget on our special programming on the needs of our district and I will respect that. So thank you. Thank you Dr. Bel. Echo whatever Dr. result in your set. Um, so in the interest of time, I'm not going to repeat the same thing. Um, so again, I am going to swiftly get us to get a date so that we can get that communicated. Um, hopefully, like I said, Dr. So with that said, um, we do have an executive

118session. Um, it's for the purpose, uh, to discussion as needed to aid superintendent search firm including contractual preferences. Um, So with that said, do I have a motion to adjourn the open session and enter the executive executive session for that? So any discussions? Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Burns. Uh any discussion? They're not all those Good evening and welcome back. Um we have a meeting in executive session for the purpose of discussion needed uh to aid the superintendent search firm including contractual preferences. So at this point I have um we'll entertain a motion to adjourn the executive session and reconvene the open session. Thank you Mr. Burns. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Daniel. Any discussion? Very not. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries. Um do

119we have any action coming out of executive session? Do not. Uh any other future business? Madam Chair. Yes. I said about two meetings ago that I would like to maybe see in a hotline the teacher evaluations of their school administration. Uh I also like to see the teacher turnover by school and the student retention by school. Okay, perfect. Um what was that first one? Do you have that written down, sir? a couple about two years ago that we would get the teacher evaluations of their school administrators and it was just curious to see which teacher which which administrators that were it coincided with teacher retention. Okay. I'd like to see that again. Haven't seen in two years. Okay. Um and for the community um I will announce the date for the call meeting um probably

120by tomorrow afternoon and it will go out in the board. So with that, if we have nothing else, uh I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Miss Harris. And I believe I have a second from me. Any discussion? Hearing now. All those in favor? All motion carries. 70.