001foreign good evening and welcome to the October 10th business meeting of the Rock Hill School Board local news media Outlets were notified of writing of the agenda for the meeting on October 7th 2022. if you will all please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by Amendment of Silence America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated first up tonight is the approval of the agenda as presented do I have a mission to approve it's cold do I have a second I think Miss Cherry was first uh any discussion bearing up all those in favor all a post merchant carries 7-0 so before we get started with recognitions uh it is amazing to see a room
002that is so filled with family and students and we are really really excited about today however I know that many of you may have other things that you are doing after this meeting so once we're through recognitions I'm going to take a pause in the meeting to make sure that those of you who may have dinner plans or homework and things like that to get to give you an opportunity to kind of exit and then we'll receive the meeting afterwards so with that I am going to turn it over to you yeah and again I'm excited about this this makes our day not that we don't like seeing parents I like seeing parents but it's the students that we're about so it's great to see so many smiling students uh Dr Dickey I'm going to
003turn it over to you and let's celebrate some things tonight here steam board members and our wonderful students and parents welcome and thank you so much for joining us because this is certainly a great celebration tonight we will be celebrating students who receive the max score on the SC ready Ela or math assessments or the SC pass assessments now that is no easy feat as our standards and assessments are very rigorous in the state of South Carolina and then when you think about last year and the amount of unprecedented absences quarantines and things that we had to deal with the fact that your students our students were still able to achieve this high honor is truly a testament to all of the stakeholders in Rock Hill schools so I along with many principals for my
004elementary and middle schools will be recognizing each of them we certainly want to capture this night so after your principal and your students are recognized if you'll just step right over here to the side Mr Sheffield is going to take pictures to make sure that we really celebrate and catch sure this momentous occasion so without further Ado I ask that our principals kind of come up in the order as arranged and we'll have our students to come up as well again thank you very much for being here tonight thank you we are delighted from Cherry Park Elementary to recognize two fine fine fine young men we have Raylan Anderson a fifth grader who scored a Max score in SC ready math and then Matthew funches who's currently a fourth grader who made a Max score
005in math as well and we think that's kind of neat because they learned all their math in Spanish so congratulations to these two guys hey guys we need you to come up so come on this way [Applause] good evening I'm Mr Roda from India Hook Elementary School and I am excited to recognize two of our students the first one is Samuel Lindsey who earned his max score on SC ready math and our second student is Kenley McKay who scored her Max score on her SC pass science congratulations to both these people foreign [Applause] Dixon principal at Leslie Elementary and first we'd like to recognize Mr Rylan Ware who is now currently a sixth grader at Castle Heights he scored a perfect score on the SC ready math and when he's in fifth grade rollin's mom
006was a teacher at our tomorrow I will tell you rollin's mom was a teacher at our school and I think he got those math genes uh honestly I'm sure Dad had something to do with it too our other our other student is Mr Malachi Smith come on Malachi Malachi is currently a fifth grader at Leslie last year as a fourth grader he scored a perfect score on the SC pass science test we also have to give credit to Dr Chisholm and Miss Cobb at the day Treatment Center who played an integral part in Malachi's success as well [Applause] good evening I'm Aaron Clark the principal at Mount Gallen elementary school and I have the pleasure of recognizing the following students for perfect scores on SC ready math Margaret Meg cope Logan Durling and Henry Golden
007come on down I also have the pleasure of recognizing Gavin rith for a perfect score on SC ready Ela and Meg Caitlin Hess and Zachary Miller scored perfect scores on scpass science and social studies and so I am yeah let's give it up for that [Applause] kiddos I'm thrilled to recognize you for this accomplishment you've or you've earned it however I'm even more proud of you for the skills you're developing and the young adults you're becoming congratulations [Applause] good evening I'm Kevin Hood principal of Mount Holly Elementary and I want to say parents are the first teachers of their children so thank you parents for preparing your children to this point right here and it also have to give credit to their if they went to 4K first grade second grade third grade and those
008teachers who prepared them also I am honored to recognize Jeremy quavado galon Jeremy if you would come on up foreign Jeremy had a perfect SC ready math score as a third grader last year he's in fourth grade this year and being new to Mount Holly I asked his third grade teacher to share a few words about Jeremy and his teacher from last year Miss Angelo said very quickly as soon as I met Jeremy I knew that he was going to be an exceptional student from day one he demonstrated leadership skills inside and outside the classroom he had a willingness and an eagerness to learn and participate in classroom discussions and it shows today congratulations Jeremy foreign good evening I'm Leslie Rouse principal at Northside Elementary School of the Arts and I'm honored to be here
009to recognize Odysseus calamaris he scored maximum on SC ready math and he is in fifth grade this year and not only is he exceptionally bright in math he is a pleasure for all of his teachers to teach and he is a friend to everyone at school thank you good evening she's making her way up and I want you to see her when I say her name all right so you're getting ready to look at dakaria rambert and this is Dakota Lambert come on up Dakota y'all can go ahead and clap she received a perfect score on SC ready math and we are very proud of daquaria because not only is she great with the score but she also shines in everything she does and in the way that she treats everyone that she comes across
010so we are very proud of dakaria at Oakdale good job girl hi I'm Nakia Barnes principal at Sunset Park Center for Accelerated studies and I would like to congratulate the following students for a perfect score on pass I'm sorry Essie ready first Harper sis [Applause] Harper had a perfect score on SC ready Ela Ela and I would also like to recognize the following students for a perfect SC pass science score Henry Ramos Larios Blake Reed [Applause] Samantha Rhodey and Captain Ridenour [Applause] congratulations boys and girls on your hard work [Applause] good evening my name is Cynthia Robinson and I am principal at Castle Heights middle school so we're moving up to the Middle School level now I would like to recognize Miss Cara Cooper Cara come on up Kara is an eighth grader in at
011Castle Heights but in the seventh grade she scored a perfect score on her eoa I also want to recognize Kara's um seventh grade teacher Ashley Kuhn who did a great job with Cara in that and also warned her parents if they would just wave and give a shout out the parents over there and also I want to recognize Mr Brent DeLuca Brent is a seventh grader at Castle Heights Brett is not Brett is here oh my God Brent was traveling and I didn't think he would make it back so yes Brent is back with us Brant was a sixth grader and he scored a perfect score in South Carolina past science and his math His science teacher last year was Mr mid top final form foreign good evening my name is Clayton moton I'm the
012proud principal of Dutchman Creek Middle School and I'm joined by my one of my administrators Ms Amber Mays and several of my teachers who are responsible for these fine young ladies and gentlemen who I'm getting ready to recognize uh teachers Warrior all right they were in the crowd somewhere but it's my pleasure to recognize um perfect scores on SC ready math Jackson Collins Colton Monk [Applause] some they're sick and Jacob Young [Applause] and for perfect scores and SC passed Jordan Derr [Applause] and Jace Morgan congratulations go Gators [Applause] good evening I'm Mark Marshall principal at Saluda Trail Middle School and uh I'm excited to be here tonight or this evening uh at Saluda Trail we have a saying we strive for excellence without making excuses so our students tonight that we're going to recognize have
013desperately been excellent within the classroom our first student is uh Sophia cardarelli and she has a max score on the SC ready math and she is in the seventh grade our second student is in the eighth grade and she has a max score on SC ready Ela Hannah Andrew husky [Applause] congratulations ladies [Applause] when there's noches good evening Kennedy Thompson a high Harper Daigle por favor I could do this in Spanish and they would understand every single word that's how awesome their education is in Sullivan let me share a couple things about Harper Daigle both of these young ladies I've known for a while Harper is one of the most dedicated students that I've ever met she strives to achieve the very best in all of her classes she is completely fluent in Spanish Harper
014is kind and caring and she shares her friendship with many which is one of the things that I completely love about that young lady Harper is part of the Rock Hill schools Country School Rock Hills School cross country team and participates in the academic challenge in math counts at Sullivan this young lady received a perfect score in SC ready Ela [Applause] Kennedy Thompson is one of the most outgoing students at Sullivan Middle School she can strike up a conversation with anyone anytime anywhere she strives academically she just pushes herself greatly she is one of the most open-minded kids at Sullivan Middle School these two young ladies strive the international Baccalaureate learning profile she always hurts helps her peers and she takes advantage of every single opportunity that she's given she's involved in band basketball academic
015challenge teams and once again she's also one of our most fluent Spanish speakers in the school this young lady received a perfect academic score in SC ready math congratulations ladies hmm all right uh chairman Miller Vice chairman Owens board members and Dr schmalsey I'm always so honored to come up and recognize our secondary uh teachers and students for all the amazing things that they do I will say that it's always such a gift to be able to work with young adults who graduate from our schools and just go out in the world and do terrific things and have such potential and who the students you'll meet tonight are a big group of those and so tonight I'm just introducing the College Board National recognition program awardees from Rock Hill our three Rock Hill high schools
016these students earned this recognition because of their academic achievements in school and outstanding performance on College Board exams including the PSAT and AP exams and so I'm going to have our representatives from the high schools come on up we have Mr Massey from Northwestern we have we have a represent oh we have Mr Buddy King from Rock Hill High School msk runions from South Point I'll let you all go in order greetings greetings from Northwestern High School I'm Hezekiah Massey proud principal of the Trojans at Northwestern High School this evening we are recognizing two students for their college board National recognition with within that program I have two students and I don't think either of them are here but I may have a set of parents that we can recognize because we all know that
017all of the hard work that the students do starts at home with those parents and so if they're here at this time or if the students made it both Alexandria Grant and Bridget Ballard who are being recognized for their National African-American recognition award under the College Board National recognition program if they could come up [Applause] foreign my name is Buddy King 10th grade administrator at Rock Hill High School and it is indeed a pleasure to be here on this afternoon this evening to acknowledge some of our hard-working Bearcats for their academic achievement in the classroom in the community the following students be recognized under the college board's National Rural and small town award recognition recognies Abigail Estep if she's here Christina Presley [Applause] Laura Dylan foreign [Applause] Payton Baldwin selfie app abdema we would also
018like to recognize students who completed who are recognized by the College Board under the national Hispanic recognition category Alejandra Garcia [Applause] Denise Sosa [Applause] under the national African-American recognition of the college boards program Sarah Wiley [Applause] the national African-American recognition and National Rural and small town award recipient is Gabrielle Bridges [Applause] as high school students we've heard and you all have heard of all the Great accomplishments at our elementary and middle school but I promise you at the high school love our kids I'm aiming for much higher Heights and these young men and ladies have put themselves amongst the best of the best and we're only looking for great things from them for the rest of their High School career and Beyond high school thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Kay runions I'm
019one of the assistant principals at South Point High School on behalf of Dr Williams the entire administrative team at South Point and all of our faculty staff congratulations and kudos to all of the recipients so far this evening South Point High School is excited to have three College Board National recognition students to honor if the following young students are here Carmela thousand Kiwanis Wilmore [Applause] and Tamara Stewart all three of these individuals are being recognized by the college board and their National recognition program under the national African-American recognition award so kudos to them and it has been so fun and exciting to watch them continue to grow at Southpoint [Applause] foreign missions um so what we're going to do at this point is we're going to give just a few minutes uh for those of
020you who would like to uh go somewhere else maybe have dinner homework and things like that and then we'll resume of course you're more than welcome to stay if you want to that's it oh please do it let's see here okay next up is uh citizens participation and we do have one person who has signed up that person will get three minutes to address the board um so I'm going to welcome up Mr Lonnie Harvey who is addressing the board and superintendent regarding student performance and he is representing himself oh good evening I wanted to take just a few moments I guess to apologize for the last time I spoke here and I do apologize uh uh to the NAACP for uh making a statement apparently that uh led me to believe that uh they
021were saying that uh you should you should resign and let it be known that I my name is Lonnie Harvey uh my wife and I have put two children through the school system here uh we are stakeholders and I strongly believe everything I said that you should resign that you're running fourth place in a four horse race okay your uh you know your the the finances are are in a mess uh teachers are leaving as it was all over the place but you have I don't think you've really recognized what are leading leaving you have taken away their dignity when you hand the way in which you handle the covet situation you have you paid absolutely no response no no recognition to them for their safety and well-being instead you cater to a small group
022of your political allies and so they have reason to be dissatisfied you they they look and see that you've sold one of your schools to one of your competitors that's absurd that is absolutely absurd hey you know that all all the meetings that you have that are secret you make decisions without involving parents or other stakeholders who are not may not be parents but are future parents but all of us are taxpayers we should be involved now after I spoke Elena made the made sure that she called the president of the Rock Hill branches NAACP as well as the state and just wanted to let you know that it doesn't matter who you call uh I will not be silenced I will not be shut up I will not be scared away okay now there
023are there are three people here who are running for office and there is a there is a group that are anti their their anti-diversity they are anti-semitic anti-lgbtq Plus they favor Banning books probably burning books as well they favor taking money from Sir your time is up the public schools your sir your time is up yes I know the public schools are putting through votes your time is up so the question is to you folks are any of the three of you sir your time is this group thank you for your participation sir your time is up thank you thank you for that uh moving on to the next uh agenda item uh next up is our consent action agenda um we have the minutes from the September 26th School Board business meeting to have
024a motion to approve thank you Miss Cole do I have a second thank you Ms Owens any discussions Bert none all those in favor all the posts Mission carries 7-08 next up is our action agenda we do not have any action agenda items today so what I'm going to do is move over to Communications and tonight uh we have two uh amazing young people who are here to speak to us it is Ashley Henson who is the South Point High School student body president and it is Tyler Perez who is the South Point High School Vice student body present and they are here to address us on a very very important topic and we are so thankful that you're here in voicing welcome thank you all right good evening my name is Ashley Henson I'm
025the student body president of South Point High School with me is Tyler Perez the student body vice president first I would like to say thank you to Ms Miller for allowing us and the school board and superintendent for allowing us to be here today over the past year I have noticed more struggles with mental health and my classmates than ever before this isn't just a problem in Rock Hill schools but across the U.S and even the world on the information sheets given you can read that one in six adolescents age 12 to 17 experience a mental health disorder each year these could include depression anxiety bipolar disorder and without the right help they could lead to suicide while not talked about often suicide is more common than we may realize within the past year I
026have lost two friends and one family member to Suicide I am just one of many people in Rock Hill that have been affected by this this growing issue has become so large that it is still the second leading cause of death in teenagers since 2012. I've realized that recognizing someone who is in need of help is very difficult that's why it has been my goal to spread suicide awareness to everyone in my community last year I started by creating an event at South Point that has made a change and has been looked forward to most this year by supporters I will now invite Tyler Perez to speak about the initiative created and the mark it has left on him hello everyone hi my name is Tyler Perez I'm the student body vice president at South
027Point High School however I am also a human being who has gone through many losses of loved ones due to mental health and it never gets easier mental health is very important to me not only mine but also my fellow classmates our daily motivation and desire to achieve greatness comes from our mind so we must keep it healthy in 2021 our student council became very aware of the losses in our community to suicide and to show our priority of our students mental health Ashley sparked the idea to dedicate a football game her dream quickly turned into reality by September 24th for the ceremony fans from both sides were encouraged to wear purple and blue and all fans were given ribbons such as this one to support suicide awareness for halftime the student council prepared an
028audio clip that explained ways to acknowledge struggles and mental health and at the end followed by Moana silence there is a balloon release to give a memorial to those who have lost this may seem very simple ceremony but it holds a lot of emotion we also have some regrets when people pass always thinking it wasn't enough time or I wish I did this or that but to me it may be others it was a chance to give that little extra effort to honors those who have lost so today we want to ask you to stand beside us and make this event recognized as an annual event for all Rocco high schools thank you and I will say having parents and families affected by Suicide think me and the student council for hosting this event it
029was such an honoring moment that I will never forget um on behalf of the South Point student council and Community thank you so much for this opportunity we hope you take this into consideration and for anyone who's watching this live stream or is in this room that may be fighting their mental health please get the help that you need the suicide hotline is 988 and is available 24 hours please know that you matter and you are not alone thank you thank you the topic that you speak about is something that touches this entire Community well this whole nation and over the last couple of months many of us have been unfortunately touched very personal on this top topic and mental health is clearly something that our community is struggling with and you know personally I
030think that anything that we can do to support and to do our part in prevention and awareness is something that we absolutely have to support so and I know that my entire board agrees with me and you so how do we do this yeah I first of all I love the courage I think any time that a student stands up and and is a voice for all you put your neck out there so thank you both for stepping up and and advocating for change I think that's the most important thing that you know as as adults we have voices but I think a student's voice in the education realm is heard more but it takes courage to do it so thank you for that courage I think this is the first of the start of
031this process the kickoff was beautiful I know you'd want it to be bigger and better and and it will grow that way but it's going to take a couple meetings to do that so we'll put a team together meet your team and see if we can make this annually throughout the district I love the idea yeah thank you so much for being here tonight so next up is presentations um and we're going to start off with a student performance data and I believe that it's Dr Dickey with uh others right yeah I was gonna say I think there's a whole team that's presenting this to us but her name is on the agenda so her name is on the agenda so I'm going to pick on her first we have the opportunity to celebrate such
032success with SC ready and SC pass but tonight we're going to share a more global view of how our district is performing so tonight will be the kickoff of several sessions where we talk in depth about our students about how they're performing as it relates to State assessments so tonight's presentation is dedicated to the SC ready assessment which assesses students in grades three through eight in ela and Mathematics as well as the SC pass assessment which assess the students in science in grades four and six as you get to know me a little bit better you'll know I love quotes I Believe In The Power of Words and affirmation so I wanted to start with a quote that actually was shared in one of our our cabinet coaching sessions and it kind of summarizes pretty
033much the direction that we're heading as an instruction Department um one of the things that is important to realize any sustainable success is making sure you're focusing on the right things you have the right people and the right seats and we've mentioned before and I know you've heard directly from Dr schmalsey what his three big initiatives or areas of focus are for this school year and some of them for years to come and those are that profession professional professional trusted professionalism the mtss and professional learning communities tonight we'll really lean into the work with plc's the professional learning communities as well as mtss because mtss captures every single student in our district what are we doing to meet their needs academically so data is very important but data without context isn't as powerful as it
034can be so the first slide that you see is just a historical look at Ela progress as measured by the SC radio assessment in our state so what you see before you is how South Carolina has performed as a whole from 2016 up until the last school year and so one of the things that we want to to draw upon is just what are those things that have historically happened and really how has the pandemic impacted us and I know everyone was impacted it certainly didn't do us any favors but if you look at us as a state our performance isn't drastically different six years ago than it is now so what we wanted to do is just just to compare Rock Hill schools with that so as you can see in looking at at
035our historical data it's remained pretty consistent as well so we kind of follow the trend um of South Carolina Performance um and with the exception of 2017 falling you know anywhere from three to five percentage points below the state's average next is our view of mathematics in the state of South Carolina so again similar Trend and that's the purpose of always having context with data because without it you can make assumptions that are not always accurate a easy assumption would be the pandemic is the result of our state test scores but as we can see as a state and as a district not necessarily so now did the pandemic um cause us to lose momentum sure but the pandemic also taught us perseverance and how to shift gears at the drop of a dime and
036switch to depth completely different modes of learning and how we deliver instructions so we had to be responsive to that so when you think about that profile of the South Carolina graduate perseverance is a big part of that but a big piece of that is that student learning what are we doing to meet the needs of our students so this is how we compare in Rock Hill with the state as a relates to math performance so again we had some improved performance overall as a district 2018-2019 but the last two years has been kind of somewhat commensurate with 2016 and 2017. so what we'll do is look in depth more by grade level to see what are those trends that we're noticing what are those things that we can change in terms of our instructional
037approach to Garner higher levels of students meeting the grade level expectations tonight we got the opportunity to see many students who are reaching those high levels just with their performance on state assessments as well as just their advocacy with the young lady that just spoke so how do we create that success with all students when within our district how do we set all students up for positive instructional learning and positive educational outcomes so I'm going to turn it over to Dr Barber and Jim Morrison Dr Barbara is our executive director of Elementary education so she's going to speak through that Elementary lens and Jen Morrison is our executive director of secondary education and she's going to speak speak through the middle school lens so Dr Barber and I are going to share some highlights that
038you already have in your board packet I do think you know as Dr Dickey said that you know despite the upheaval of the past two years we need to be very thankful to all of our teachers and all of our schools that worked very very hard during this time to overcome quite a number of obstacles to get students as far as they could and so what you see in the data from grade 3 through grade eight so this is where Essie ready covers the highest percentage of Rock Hill School students scoring meets or exceeds expectations we're in grades three through six and then I'm gonna turn it to my dark Barbara one thing to point out is that our students in grades three and four that met or exceeded um expectations was at or above
039the Statewide percentage and then you know in reading or in ela which covers writing as well um all grade levels across the district do reflect Improvement and have met or exceeded the pre-prandemic levels but I also re-emphasize what Dr Dickey is sharing that we know that in Rock Hill that is not our goal just to exceed what happened during our the pandemic but really move Beyond and and so I know the urgency of this board and the urgency of our schools around this and so we are very much looking forward to a year of moving in that direction I will say that Dr Barbara and I are going to share the strategies that the instruction department is utilizing this year after we talk about the data a little bit so as we look at math
040it's also important to highlight that mirroring that same pattern our students in grades three and four that exceeded or met the the expectation level was at or above 40 percent and at or above the Statewide average that's important to note because our third graders had never taken uh SC ready before so they still um we still had a larger percentage of those students scoring at the Statewide percentage we knew during the last two years that students were reading less and and that does continue to be a focus for us but math you can see that we did have in grades three through five scores do reflect some improvement toward meeting pre-pandemic levels we can see that our critical area is middle school and continues to be Middle School particularly in the eighth grade and we'll
041talk a little bit about how we're approaching that in a few minutes as we look at science keep in mind that only students in fourth grade and sixth grade take SC ready pass and as we look at those percentages students meeting or exceeding expectations was above 40 percent and the percentage of fourth graders who scored at the meet or exceeds level was equivalent to the Statewide percentage it's also important to note that our students in other grades this year are working on new science standards but students in grades fourth and six will continue to be assessed this current year on the old standards for one more year yeah so we know that and and I have been with this board for a good many years now and uh we know that doing the same thing
042over and over again is just Insanity so we know this and uh and we do have when talking with our principals with talking with our teachers and our families who are involved in schools this is an urgent matter and I do think that a lot of where we need to be is about focus focus on that student achievement and focus through the lens of professional learning communities through multi-tiered systems of support mtss and are the work and the professionalism of our teachers in classrooms and so a big focus and this this year is on enhancing that tier one core instruction for all students so tier one is the instruction that all students receive that every student in the classroom tier two is where they're elevated sort of to the next level of intervention as well
043as as tier three but we know that when you look at the data it's about all students it's not about this specific group or that specific group we need to talk about eighth grade math of course and we're putting some things in place there but our tier one core instruction is critical and it's about using the right pedagogy in the right Resources with every single student in our classes and uh and and it is about the talent and the art and the of the teacher in those classrooms as well but it is about great teaching and being very student-centered in that work the other uh the other thing that is new uh particularly for the Middle School level is we've always provided high quality instructional resources you all have approved textbooks you know throughout the
044years that we've worked together but our middle schools knowing what their students when teachers were struggling with they requested some very particular resources so we have instituted IXL math which is a math platform in all of our middle schools and it could just be used as drill and kill but that is not the the focus in our Middle Schools they're really focused on building that conceptual understanding of math because we know that is the problem in the eighth grade that our students are sort of remaining at a very basic concrete level of mathematical understanding and they need to get beyond that we think IXL will help with that we've also instituted common lit in all of our Ela classrooms at the middle school level which provides a lot with informational reading and then our other
045emphasis because we know reading also affects math is really focusing on Independent and volume reading both in elementary and middle school further for the first time even though mtss has been around for several years we're establishing a district ntss plan to provide that positive learning experience for all students and really stressing the processes that that go into that and I just I'm excited I want to congratulate Deb Greenwood and Dr Dickey for moving on that we've had multiple conversations about it and I'm excited about what mtss can happen can do in in our district the other thing probably one of the most key things is relaunching district-wide professional learning communities and this is very different than a meeting it is where teachers come together around common content and courses and students and they talk about
046they share strengths so in a school you have all teachers operating doing the best that they can for achievement of students and you'll have a successful teacher here successful teacher here successful teacher over here but sometimes it's very difficult for that success to spread and so having folks meet in a professional Learning Community is part of spreading that strength across all of our teaching force and the most one of the most important things about professional learning communities is ensuring that those conversations in those plc's is very very data informed most of the meetings should not be about um individual plans or things like that but really focused on data and using that data to know students and know groups and plan those important next steps all right we are also exploring ways to expand the
047identification of our gifted and talented students we are doing a lot of work with our K1 teachers using the Jacobs Ladder resources and increasing how they embed critical thinking into the units that they're already teaching we have a series that we're leading through K1 teachers we our principals engaged last school year in critical thinking games and we were able to purchase those games for all of our schools for them to use at the kindergarten and first grade level because we know that this starts that exposure to critical thinking starts in the early grades so we're excited about what we're doing our principles have been engaged in Reading research-based articles from the nagc the National Association of gifted children because we are beginning to build those bridges to explore new ways to identify more students in
048gifted and talented we are also supporting our school Leaders with implementing data practices our elementary schools kick off their quarter one data meetings this week and we'd love for you to join us in those anytime our schools do a benchmark at the end of the quarter our principals are engaged in quarter Benchmark reviews using the Mastery connect platform so we are leading data protocols with our school leaders so that in turn they then lead those with their plcs around those data practices we're also recognizing the need to continue to align instructional practices to the depth and rigor that the standard indicates our standards indicate a verb and we have to make sure we are teaching to the level and depth that that standard asks us to do so keeping in mind that pacing is another
049challenge especially in our Middle School making sure that we cover all of the standards that we're asked to cover in that quarter through Rutherford learning group we are engaging our school leaders in providing actionable feedback that affirms and validates the work that our teachers are doing in their classrooms through 30 second feedback and craft conversations and those have been so wonderful for our teachers we've had practical experiences getting into classrooms and giving feedback to our teachers and lastly we know that we have to monitor the student progress every single day and adjust our practices to meet students needs we are doing this as an instruction Department through personalized learning that the state offers many of our schools are engaged in that work and will continue to be thank you for that and we'll wrap up
050with Dr Dickey before Dr Dickey come let me just ask one question help me to understand what is the mtss multi-tiered systems of support so I'm gonna go for it so mtss so you always do a good job of asking about all the acronyms that are in education so thank you Miss Douglas so mtss is a big acronym but it is it's called multi-tiered systems of support so you you know how we've always had systems of support around Behavior so like PBIS was it what that was called and and then also around that academic support and oftentimes that was called RTI and I'm not sure what all these acronyms uh but um but uh our show I can look them up and um but mtss brings it all together because AF and it makes a
051lot of sense to do that as you know because oftentimes behavior and academics are very very much related and a lot of the issues that are involved are related and sometimes it's really hard to determine what exactly is the intervention that's going to switch a student on and so mtss is a system where schools have committees in that look at all the data having to do with behavior in both academics and they help make decisions decisions for individual students about what interventions and supports may help them they monitor those interventions to make sure that they work and if they don't work they try new things and they progress Monitor and the goal is to make sure every student gets what he or she needs to be successful in school does that does that help yeah
052okay thank you okay report that you have for the students that are lagging behind as she said I know it's a problem in high school where the behavior problems and stuff stem from you know not reading well so my question is how are we supporting those who have Elementary grade level reading skills that are in high school because you know it causes behavior problems and learning problems because they don't want others to know they don't read well and if you can't read you can understand what you're reading to take a test do we have the reading and literacy coaches available for them in high school we have uh so you always ask really good questions so thank you Miss Reed Cherry we do have at the middle school level we have reading interventionists at the
053high school level we have program coordinators that can help teachers meet the needs of their students but I'll say this our focus in the instruction Department this year because it's not if you you're looking at our data so you see the data it's not a small pocket of students it's a lot of students and so really the focus in our instruction department on just tier one instruction the instruction that all students receive is really about targeting what interventions can we provide as teachers in the regular classroom because there is a lot that can happen for students that may not already be happening in the regular classroom so for example small groups when you have groups of students who are not meeting the standard who are having reading difficulties a lot of that can be provided
054through small groups in the regular classroom for students beyond that 80 percent of students who really need that extra support we do at the middle school we have our reading interventionist that really then work on basic skills with students and they assess that with fontus and pinell and and then at the high school level we use map scores to identify students for um in English Essentials class and we have foundations of algebra and those are both courses that are designed to support students who have a lot of those gaps in their knowledge but really it is about making sure that all students because at this point we know that lots of students need lots of interventions that really have to happen across the board across classrooms so we are focused on that tier one instruction
055as well but those tier two intervention the interventions that I just described are also available does that make sense that makes sense but I know the the Gap is large the Gap is large so how can we target all of those students to still maintain the regular uh classroom day without so much Interruption because it is a huge gap between those who are graduating and going to college and those who are not and have not had the career path for ATC it is you know falling to the Wayside so yeah I'm going to invite Dr Dickey up in just a second but I do want to say just one thing so Dr Rutherford who's doing a lot of our support with administrators around how do you get in and really support teachers with feedback I
056think that's going to be really helpful but a point that he makes is that we have to know that with The Talented teachers that we have in our schools and our talented administrators all the answers are here we have all of the answers and so getting to those snarly issues of how do we deal when or how do we support when so many students have such big gaps that answer exists within our schools amongst our professionals and we have to trust that and but professional learning communities those teachers are focused on that group of students to come up with the strategies that really work for that group of students but then recognize thing also that this these are what this is what the data says and this is what we need to hear how we
057need to respond to it so Dr Dickey did you want to add to that on what I was going to lean into that's the power of the plc's because that's where you're really looking at data again data without context it's really easy to make assumptions I've taught this for 10 years I know the standards but if I am really looking at my students a student by student level and I am looking at data and not just one data source multiple data source and I'm meeting with the team to talk about this is what I'm noticing in class I had this percentage of students who met the objective this percentage who didn't working collectively helps us to work smarter and not harder if Dr Barbara or Miss Morrison are on my team I can lean to
058maybe something that they tried instructionally that I did not I could be a new teacher on the team I could be a teacher who's coming from an alternate career so that is where those power that power is in the plc's because plc's they have the perfect marriage to mtss so if we're meeting as a team we're talking about production we're talking about what's working and what's not we're making sure that our instruction matches the rigor as outlined in the standards then when we try those instructional practices and the data says that it's not working then we have to use that data to plan appropriate next steps so for some kids that may mean a quick re-teach then they have it for other kids I may be continuing to struggle which I think is the pocket
059of kids that you're referring to so that is when mtss will come into play because now I need to refer this student to a team who has maybe some expertise in reading or in math that go beyond what my realm of understanding or what my toolkit as a teacher holds at that time so that is where that multi-tiered system of support comes into play okay one of the things I've been here three months and one of the things that I can say unequivocally is we do I agree we have the talent in our classrooms in our leaderships with our parents and with our students and our data does not currently reflect the aptitude of our students so what are those things that we can change to make sure that it does better match um what
060they're capable of doing and it goes back to that Focus really streamlining our efforts Getting Back to Basics focusing on those High leverage instructional practices that will really Garner better results so that again goes back to the plc's those effective conversations where it's that true collaboration that true pooling of resources it's our instructional Department making sure that we are really providing that high quality support be it modeling lessons co-teaching assistant with planning providing that feedback making sure that we're doing our part as well so that collectively we're all working on the same things I think everyone has great intentions everyone wants our kids to do well I don't think there's a person in this District or Community who doesn't but if we don't align those efforts then we can all be rowing in a different
061direction and the boat is not moving forward so the goal is to make sure that we are aligning our efforts we are setting common goals so that we can move forward so this quote um just kind of sums that up that um if you focus a little bit not too much will happen but if you have that laser-like Focus we really can cut through and create some diamonds and that's exactly what we are charged to do and we will certainly be giving it our best effort so we thank you for your ongoing support for engaging just today we had rather for training we had our Board member Miss Miller there engaging in the work so just your engagement and presence means a lot to our teachers and to our leaders just to show that that
062support is coming from our school board is coming from our community it's coming from our department coming from parents that we're all working together to achieve those common goals any further questions yes to support our district I do see more Focus happening with all of the teaching and learning I had the opportunity to sit in on one of our literacy coaches Liz bridges over at Leslie and was very impressed with the way she was sharing the data and how to use that data and the strategies our teachers they have the talent the capabilities you're giving them the tools that they need but we've got so many students who are behind that need that extra help and our teachers have so much on their plates unfortunately teachers can't just teach anymore not that just teaching if
063there's anything wrong with that that's wonderful and I wish that's all they could do but with everything on their plates and trying to bring up students who are so far behind especially with a lot of our our third graders with Esser funding do we still have do we have money to bring in more tutors we had you know a nice pool there is it all being spent is there some other things that we can do to support our teachers and also you know even just getting more volunteers and mentors in the classroom if these students had someone to spend some time that they could read to one-on-one would definitely help but yeah the the problem that that I see and we've alluded to it a couple times uh I think Miss Cherry you brought this
064out first it's not just a handful of kids um so what we have to navigate is what's the best way to I don't say remediate but that's the word I'm looking for and yet keep the rigor in the classroom high enough where you're challenging everybody in the class we are looking at funding sources we're looking at different Avenues maybe even different classes you might see popping up that will help remediate but yet still drive rigor yeah so turn it over every leaf at this point we're not happy with his results there's some positive in that uh once you identify an issue now you know what to attack and we're going to attack it um plc's again if you go back to even my interview when I sat down and talked with you the first time
065you heard that word you heard PLC you heard mtss those weren't just catchphrases it's reality and we know research says you pump your resources into those activities that you Garner data as a focus then you get results um but it's it's an elephant there's no other way to say it it's one bite at a time and that's what we're trying to do and we would love to engage volunteers because all schools aren't created equally if you're a title one school then you have a little bit more flexibility and funding options versus a non-title one school when you look at elementary and middle schools they have at least some support as it relates to instructional support whereas the high school does not so really looking at how do we level the playing field how do we
066create that consistency continuity and that vertical alignment is really important but we certainly welcome anyone who would be willing to volunteer and engage as a reading buddy as just a peer buddy we all hands on deck is is definitely um the mindset we we have a lot of work to do we are certainly committed to this work and we know that we can create better results yes I know Kelly um Services we I've had multiple teachers one that taught here for 28 years and she said the onboarding process at Kelly Services was excruciating is there any way to streamline that and get those teachers in here to help out that is an HR question but if if I had to answer yeah um that's a great question and and I checked into this and a
067lot of those hurdles were corporate hurdles from Kelly Services the corporate side of Kelly so we have a meeting set up with them to navigate that because that's not how we want to be received so we have people that are willing to basically volunteer time to be honest um and yet they're not able to because they're jumping through so many Hoops so we're looking at a way to streamline that but that comes from corporate through us and I think they work for us so I think we're going to solve that yes and just trying to balance of making sure we have safe people with our students too so I get it it's she was here 28 years oh not we we welcome all retired teachers but I just mean that sometimes those systems that are
068in place are for the masses and not necessarily for and even just the process it's it's a cumbersome process that I think we can kind of expedite that system a little bit yeah um can we look at the math scores for eighth grade and that everything all the other scores across other grades had shown some improvement over last year so or at least level but that eighth grade math score compared to last year and then compared to the previous year she really dropped off it was such an outlier when you were looking at the data is that you know from a data stem I'm not necessarily a data person but you know an outlier sometimes you set aside um and and sort of discount it because it throws off the rest of the data or
069sometimes it's an indicator of something so is that an outlier or is that an indicator we're going to answer this twofold because I think it's great for me to answer because I don't have the context of being here last school year so I will tell you what assumptions I made based on the data math is very linear so when I think about the the two previous years and the format of instruction kids could have been virtual they could have been face to face they could have you know had higher absences than normal they their teachers could have had higher absences than normal so if they miss some prerequisite content let's say it's a fourth grade standard that is not taught in fifth and they won't see it again to six if something happened where that
070content wasn't delivered then it can certainly impact a student's ability to be able to access that more complex math so some of the assumptions I made like I said not having been here was in terms of that vertical alignment where they're missing pieces that may be instructionally did not our kids didn't get exposure to at all or enough exposure to do we as a department have the instructional resources in place to make sure that teachers if they come across a student who isn't meeting grade level expectations they know how to look back in terms in terms of standards and to see what that prerequisite knowledge could have been that they would have missed it makes we think about differentiation are we able to really differentiate pool kids in small group and use that data that
071of course is summative data so it's very hard because those kids are now in ninth grade so how can we better use our formative data so that we don't get that surprise at the end of the year we can make those instructional tweaks while we still have the students but I'll allow Miss Morrison to answer as well point out that our data research team is in the room because beta is so incredibly crucial to making these scores move in the direction that we want to so I just want to say thank you to both of you for being here tonight and for being part of this process and since while you're here yes and and I just want to share that when I think we introduced them just two weeks ago we did we did
072that they have already created to help us really look at where our students are performing based on the formative assessment that they just took at the beginning of the year and how we can help teachers to set goal goals and really to help students to empower them to really look at this is where you are this is the bar of where we're trying to get you this is the work that we have to engage in to get there together so some of the tools that um I know will be able to provide to administrators and teachers and students I think will play a critical role in helping us to make that really really strong growth but that's such a law large number that doesn't that doesn't meet but it's overwhelming overwhelmingly our eighth grade students
073are not at standard um so do we do you change the curriculum for eighth grade math just across the board to try to pick those students up and bring them up if not all the way to grade level at least you know approaching grade level we we definitely make sure that our instruction is aligned that's another assumption like is the instruction that is happening in classrooms every day doesn't match the rigor of the standards because when you look at those assessments they are multi-select there are multiple steps that you have to do Beyond third grade every single question is a pretty limpy word problem so is the disconnect the reading and the comprehending of what the question is asking is the disconnect maybe that that vertical alignment did not happen as it should do do
074we need to look at some of the curriculum resources that we have in place so I think all of those are things that we have to look at as a department to make sure that that core instruction is high quality because again when you look at our our overall achievement we have to fix the core we're not going to intervene our way out of um over roughly 60 percent of our students not meeting grade level standards so we really have to transform that core making sure that we're doing that in your face teaching we're doing those small groups we're really looking at data when we're assessing our kids and not a long assessment a quick exit ticket or an informal assessment to really make sure that we're understanding where the breakdown in learning is so
075that we can change what we're doing instructionally to make sure that we're reaching the masses I had been at Mount Gallant last week and sitting on on their instructional process and I noticed that the teachers were getting the students prepared and they were going through the lengthy word problems that that state had off you know give them the packet of resources but to them a lot of them did not apply to their students so they had to kind of change it to where it would better serve their group of students they couldn't use all of the resource information a lot of it was culturally you know inequitable it didn't apply to all of the students because of the way it was worded um so maybe looking at how the the questions are worded depending on
076the different cultural backgrounds of how they were raised because if I'm looking at a math problem dealing with hey how I counter on my horse and this this this is and another child looking at it as this is a basic accounting experience of how I get from point A to point B and the question is worded totally different like the Statewide it would be more for that child that knows how to count on a horse so how can you look at it to be more culturally relevant to all the students yeah that answer is twofold that's where that differentiation and Scaffolding instruction comes into play now in in terms of State assessments we can continue to give feedback to the state but you know we pretty much have to take the assessments that um the
077state is using so what we can do is look at what that bar is look at those question stems give our students examples that do match them culturally or that are relevant to them or that they can make those real world connections with but that's where that scaffolding of instruction and differentiation comes in because the bar is here and it is rigorous our state assessments are very rigorous compared to other states that I've worked in but unfortunately we can't change what the bar is so we have to create a scaffold so that everyone can reach that bar and that's another assumption we can make you know teachers have the the responsibility of meeting kids where they are and sometimes where they are is not close to that bar yet so we can't keep them at
078that level that's where we differentiate to meet them where they are but then we have to scaffold to make sure that they get exposure to what those end of the year assessments will look like because they are very rigorous they're multifaceted they're multi-steps and so we really have to unpack those standards really teach through it and small group instruction differentiation those PLC meetings where you're designing those assessments so that our kids get lots and lots of practice with them so by the time the end of the year comes it's not this big surprise and they're not kind of Blown Away with the expectations of the assessment did you look like you have another question I have a lot of questions yeah running through my mind because I'm concerned with our State ranking yes and that
079truly truly bothers me with our State ranking and compared to just Fort meal right across the bridge I agree and I think you touched on another point of everyone engaging with the data personally when I met with our department for the first meeting as of July 5th this is my data so I interpreted I personalize it as though I taught every single kid and garnered those results so I think everyone has to engage in the data on a very personal level and take responsibility of how our individual roles what we can do in those roles to help Garner better results so one of the things that we can do is align our efforts making sure that we all have the same goal and that we're working together collectively to reach those goals but the conversations
080and plcs really really reacting based on what the data says because if I'm a teacher and I notice that my kid could do this skill but because of their exposure or lack of exposure they didn't understand the question then that teaches me what I need to do instructionally or what I need to tweak or what I need to incorporate so that they do see the connections and they are able to perform well on many types of assessments I thought that that I got it where they work to make it more balanced for all the students and they were very concerned that you know this is out of the realm of this student so we need to merge and do that I was very impressed with how they were doing it but you know it's a
081big concern for all of our schools for our entire District so how do we use plc's like Miss Morrison said to to spread the good things that are happening those strong instructional practices that do Garner great results how do we help all of our teachers to look at data and engage with it that way and to adjust instructional practices to make sure we're best meeting the needs of our students so as we look forward to this year and then looking at this data again next year what would be a realistic expectation for this board as we get this data next year of course we would love all students to 100 of our students to to meet or exceed standards that's not a realistic expectation so from a board standpoint what should be a realistic expectation
082a year from now or two years from now one of one of the as a leader in a PLC you're supposed to establish like that Championship Vision so I um when I share the championship vision for our department with principals and with our team members the the data is where it is so you you're exactly right so do we want all kids a hundred percent of our students to be able to meet grade level proficiency yes that is our ultimate goal but realistically if we have roughly I'll say 40 percent of our students there then by next year for for it to be a hundred percent is not a realistic goal what I think is very attainable is for us to to be a District that Garners the highest level of growth meaning meeting our
083kids where they are right at this moment and moving them and growing them as much as we possibly can I think if we do that at a minimum we will be able to exceed State averages I don't think there's anything average about our schools about our students about our administrators and our goal is to make sure our data really reflects that because I've seen some wonderful things in just my short time here and I think us focusing on growth and that means every single person in this District if I'm a principal then I've set my padep goals based on growth and our instruction Department all of our support is based on that growth so when we go into a building not only we are we supporting the goals that we've set for ourselves but we
084are supporting the goals of principles which in turn supports the growth of students so that's where that alignment um comes in of making sure that we all have that laser light focus on the right things do we have the best instructional resources and support in place are we implementing the most high leverage instructional practices are we working collectively to work smarter and not harder are we responding based on what the data says and I think if we really look at every student and meet them where they are and try to maximize their growth because really we need all of our kids growing Beyond a year if we're ever going to close the gap they have to be growing Beyond a year so we really have to know what their strengths are what their weaknesses are
085and we have to make sure that our instructional practices are pushing them and you kind of mentioned that the responsibility of teachers that's where that Collective efficacy comes into play that's where we're meeting and we're talking about kids and we're flexibly grouping them okay let's look at our entire grade level if I'm an 8th grade math teacher we have this cohort of students who are already there look at the number of students who had the max score so we don't want to hold them back either we need to be maximizing the growth for every single student and the only way you do that is to look at each student on an individual basis and then plan a course of instructional action that will help them to grow as much as possible come on up I
086was getting Nancy over there so I apologize um I don't really I don't want to step on the presentation of course but um my partner and I are excited to be working to to be helping with all of these efforts and we've already gotten some fantastic stuff as Dr Dickey mentioned in place that we're going to be rolling out to the instructional team on Friday we would love to come back and roll that out to you all as well to show you all a little snippet of what we're doing but basically um the new accountability model that will be coming out next year from the state department gives us realistic goals for growth to not only keep kids where they are which is kind of essentially what we kind of do you know but it's
087to kind of stretch them a little further and that's a Statewide thing of course it's not just you know it's not a Rock Hill thing but it sets realistic goals so that students by the time they hit eighth grade they will actually be at meets expectations okay so at the end of one year if a student does not meets expectations they may not actually climb out of does not meets but they are making progress towards doing that so that by the time they hit eighth grade they will in fact hit the meets expectations range so that they will be you know well suited for high school and Beyond so I think the state has done a fantastic job of creating this like I said I'd love to roll that out to you but what we've
088done is we've taken the targets that are try to follow me for a second here spring 22 okay SC ready scores we know those for every child okay we can make predictions as to where they should be if they're going to meet meet this progress excuse me if they're going to make the progress so that by eighth grade they will be it meets expectations we know where they should be at the end of each grade level okay we're setting those targets but knowing what their SC ready score should be this spring doesn't do anything for us that's not something actionable that we can work with so my colleague and I we we did an equity percentile linking study okay which basically says if you're in the 57th percentile on SC ready and you're on the
08957th percentile and map we're going to say that those are the same okay we're just cross walking it over to map and map is an assessment we can give any time we're ready okay so that'll give our teachers a map Target for their students to meet by the end of the school year and it'll also give them opportunities throughout the year as they give this give the assessment again to see is the child on track to actually make that growth so that by the time SC ready comes around we will know Johnny is going to make it Susie maybe not but she's getting really close okay we'll know that throughout the year because we have taken these SE ready targets and have switched them over to map targets so it's I'm a data nerd I'm
090a math nerd I geek out over this stuff that's the reason why I was getting antsy over there as I was listening but but it's going to be real powerful stuff for our teachers the teachers will get a roster that shows exactly where every child needs to be going by the end of the year and that right there can be a game changer for us because we've got something actionable that we can work with and then you know just progress monitoring making sure that what we're doing is actually working for our students if it's not working you know Monitor and adjust okay that's what we do so by the end of the year we will get the results that we're looking for so I expect that you know y'all we will see the gains that
091we're hoping to see next year just by taking this data and doing what we can with it you know keeping an eye on it but we'd love to come back and show you a little bit about that and I get too data nerdy about it but to show you a little bit so that you can get a better understanding of really what we're looking at here thank you any additional questions we can talk anytime Mr chair awesome well thank you so much thank you so next up uh we have the instructional materials adoption CTE phase one and Jen Morrison pte is Career and Technical education so these are the courses that are offered over at ATC and so we're this is just the presentation we'll have uh the I'll request the approval at our next
092meeting but we are requesting that you all we will be request requesting that you approve the instructional resource adoptions as listed below but I have one correction I have a correction for several areas Agricultural Science and Technology electricity discovering computer science game design and marketing you'll see that there are a number of titles listed under those teachers still need to make those selections so I'm going to remove those from the list and those will be the ones that we use for phase two with our career and Technology education resource adoptions so all of the others are on here that have one or two and those will be the ones that I bring next time for approval but thank you great so that concludes our presentations and next up is report of the superintendent that would
093be you Spotlight comes down yes um first thing I want to talk about is is the Rutherford series um chairman chairperson Miller you're my guinea pig um this round I want to expose all of you as board members to this process I wanted to see if it if it made even sense to do this and the feedback I got was yes this is something that we need to see so we'll be playing small group stuff to get you involved we have dates set in the future for Rutherford so you'll be part of that process it'll be a little nerve-wracking for you because you'll be participating so you'll be providing feedback you'll be providing your opinion on what you saw in the classroom when it came to instruction and that's a healthy thing I think you
094should be part of that that is what we do after all so um two of you at a time will be jumping into this process um be careful not to take over the classroom if you're used to teaching uh that that's one thing as observers that's always hard to do so you'll be getting more information on that the end of the first grading period is October 14th so report cards will be sent home on October 24th so those dates are online we'll have half day for students on the 14th of October followed by the weekend and then no school for students on Monday October 17th and that is a professional learning day for our staff on half days this is a reminder Elementary will dismiss at 11 15. middle schools will be let out at
09511 45 and high school students will be dismissed at 12 15. half day Pre-K programs at ATC and Central and evanport will not have class full day CCDC classes dismissed at 10 30. on half days again these are reminders this is all online for those that need to find this information I was happy to see that we had some students talk about mental health so I'm going to reiterate some of the things but Rock Hill schools Mental Health Resource hotline is available 24 7 for all community members 803-324-7464 and I was delighted to see some of you at the NAMI Walk an amazing activity to kind of just break down some of the stigma when it comes to mental health the statistics I don't know if you took a good look at the sheet that
096Ashley handed out and and Tyler alluded to as well staggering when you look at just the suicide statistics on page two um is alarming but even more so things that we don't talk about are those um that have attempted and once you go through that that series of the mental illness and the checkpoints and Tyler alluded to it we always question ourselves what can we do more what can we do I think this is the start of that process is to have discussions about it and put it in the open I don't know why we're ashamed to talk about things like this but all of us at at these tables have been affected within the last year and so it's time to get our heads out of the sand and so I'm glad that we
097have students that are stepping up so I'll get off my soapbox can you picture yourself as part of our team well right now you have a chance to join us and visit touchhearts teach.com I hope you heard that before touchardteach.com and explore some opportunities on that note I will say I had an unbelievable meeting with a young gentleman who is in education he is doing a student teaching in the area and I consistently heard amazing reports about him unfortunately he is not student teaching in our district in winthroposcienceos but fortunately I had about a 45 minute meeting with him and I considered him a five-star recruit and I'm doing everything I can to make sure that we get this young man a contract and it looks pretty good so I say that for you because
098we are the number one recruiters all of us in this room are recruiters to our district and when you can attract a young African-American male to stand up and say I want to be a role model for our entire community I want to get a contract in his hand as soon as I can so that that's good news our next school board meeting is scheduled for October 24th at 6 pm and obviously it will be streamed and it'll be available for Replay for us though we will start earlier at 4 30 if you remember for the United Way poverty simulation that I think will be an eye-opener for all of us so that's all I have so that brings us to other and future business uh the only thing I have is if you are
099planning on going to the sesba conference or during the weekend of December 5th and 6th please email Chris gammons at your earliest convenience so that she can get us booked you should have gotten uh some emails on that and you should probably have gotten a postcard in the mail as well and maybe Robin has something to share further or no no but either way just let let Miss gammons know if you're planning on going anything else for the betterment of the group yes ma'am I'm mentoring programs I know I've asked this numerous times and it has been put out that you know organizations that wanted to participate without schools they had to fill out um form and so whatever to be vetted I would like an update on which groups we have and how are
100they available to all the different schools um the second thing I've been getting a lot of concerns still about kids coming to school hungry and I want to know how can we address this because you know become hungry you're going to have learning problems and disciplinary problems and I know we offer free and reduced lunch in some of our schools but the problem is it's standing beyond that to schools that don't have those programs or if they do have those programs you know the ones that have been embarrassed probably not to fill out the form and some did not know the deadline of when the forms had to be completed so my question is how can we address this issue can we put out breakfast items that can be there um something I would like
101to go back to free Malachi and free breakfast but I know that was out of the question before with the budget but how can we work on this problem yeah we are looking at that and I know some other school districts kind of got creative with this a couple years ago um we simply using state provided items such as peanut butter and wheat bread and you might be thinking well what is why is that such a big deal well these school districts allowed kids to be in the cafeteria at certain times and they had plenty of peanut butter and plenty of wheat bread and as far as nutritional value that was pretty high nutritional value but you could do that throughout the day as well so we're going to entertain looking at things like that
102if that we can provide those items I'm not just saying peanut butter and wheat bread but things that have higher nutritional value than maybe some other items and I think on the mentorship program I think that's something that we all would love some information on so maybe put that under presentations for the next meeting right and and I'm getting the nod from Lindsay we we have put this out and we're still waiting for some schools to give us the complete list okay um we have most of those am I accurate to say most of those and we're still waiting on some of those but we'll be providing that to you well because I do think you know Miss Korea has a very good point that if we do it as a presentation in the board
103meeting it can also encourage the public to get involved with these organizations the more the merrier so to speak so if depending on when you get the data maybe next meeting if not the meeting after right okay if we don't have anything else for the betterment of the group we do have an executive session today for two purposes contractual matter and property material and a strategic plan conversation so with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn the Open Session and enter the executive session for those matters thank you Miss Cole do I have a second um Miss Cherry any discussion bearing on all those in favor all opposed motion carries 7-0 thank you foreign good evening and welcome back to the October 10th uh School Board business meeting we have a meeting in the
104executive session for the purpose of contractual matters and uh strategic plan so at this point I will entertain a motion to adjourn the executive session and open uh or reconvene the Open Session thank you Miss Owens do I have a second thank you Miss Cole any discussion right now all those in favor follow post merchant care 7-0 do we have any action coming out of the executive session nope very none I will entertain a mission to adjourn thank you Mr faulkenberry and I believe I have a second from Mr Burns is that correct thank you sorry he wants to spend the night so he's not second yourself any discussion bearing up all this in favor motion Gary 7-0 and adjourned it is 8 40. 47.