001County Board of Education board meeting is called to order. Notices for the meeting were properly posted and provided to those who requested direct notification. Let the record show all board members are present except for Miss Fugqua. We'll begin with a prayer led by Mr. Young followed by the pledge led by Dr. Mles. Let's pray. Most heavenly father come to you tonight asking you to lay your hand upon us as we conduct the business of our school system and that we will make sure that we're are looking in the light of all that the that is affected in the decisions that we make. We pray for our leaders in our schools and our central office and our local government and and uh in the big white house. We just pray that those people are looking towards
002you for guidance in your name. Amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Board, we have an agenda before us. Do I hear a motion? >> I'll offer. >> Kilgore offers a motion. Do I hear a second? >> Second. Dr. Herring offers a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Motion passes unanimously. We'll begin with the superintendent report. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've got speakers the room blue, but the can still hear you. >> Okay. All right. We've got some special guests with us um tonight, and I'm glad everyone's here. But um the National Space Club presentation of NBCT scholarship um to Dr. Britain Anderson. And Dr. Britain
003Anderson's been with us recently, but we're glad to have her back as well. Um this year, Dr. Anderson, an outstanding teacher at West Limestone High School, was selected as an NBCT scholarship recipient by the National Space Club. We previously recognized Dr. Anderson with the superintendent's commendation. Tonight, we are joined by Miss Liz Blinken. Glad to have you here with us, Liz, director of operations for the school's foundation, and Mr. Terry Ael with the National Space Club as they recognize Dr. Anderson. Miss Boyin. >> Thank you. >> The schools foundation in partnership with the committee of 100 and the national space club supports the raise your hand initiative. This initiative supports funding for teachers who aspire to acquire their national board certification. And this evening I have Terry Abel with me. N National Space Club. Their
004funding tonight supports our recognition. >> Well, first of all, thank you all for what you do. It's a pleasure to get to come out and say hello and and and recognize teachers and I just love what you guys are doing helping the education of the of our children in the future. Um I represent the National Space Club's education committee. Um we are blessed to be able to sew $250,000 into the North Alabama region this year and part of that is to recognize teachers that are doing such a good job. We partner with the schools foundation in doing so in identifying those teachers and evaluating candidates for which their national board certification is funded. Um and this was our very first year to expand beyond Madison City, Madison County, um Huntsville City to Limestone County. And
005so to be able to recognize Dr. Anderson and to and this community. Um we already work with you all in terms of scholarships at UNA, Athen State, Calhoun, um both Decar, Huntsville, UAH&M. And so it's just a pleasure to say thank you for what you do and congratulations to Dr. Anderson. >> Thank you for your support OF US. SO, on behalf of the schools foundation and national space club, we award this check to Dr. Britain Anderson for $2,000. >> Oh, you're ran it. >> Thank you. I couldn't see the cameras. Maybe the camera couldn't see me. >> Cameras prefer I don't see them. >> Congratulations. >> See that check? >> Yeah, it's a big one. >> It's a big ch. Don't do it. >> Never know. They might They might cash it. Who knows? So
006tonight we also have a superintendence accommodation for Michelle Richardson. Uh tonight I would like to recognize another outstanding employee of Limestone County Schools. Mrs. Michelle Richardson, school psychometrist. Miss Richardson was recently awarded the Thomas B. Ward School Psychologist of the year by the Alabama Associations of School Psychologists. The purpose of the award is to identify and recognize an outstanding school psychologist, psychiatrist, and to increase public awareness of the profession. This distinguished honor reflects her exceptional dedication, expertise, and unwavering commitment to supporting the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral success of every student she serves. Mrs. Richardson work exemplifies the highest standards of her profession. She consistently goes above and beyond to ensure students receive the individualized support they need to thrive. Her collaboration approach strengthens school teams, empowers families, and fosters a culture of care, equity,
007and inclusion across the district. As a valued member of our educational community, Mrs. Richardson represents the best of what it means to serve with compassion and excellence. We are grateful for her leadership, her professionalism, and her devotion to the well-being of our students. And I know that um you're very well respected um throughout our school system, and I've read a few of the comments um when the story came out about you receiving the award and I'm very proud of what you've done for our system and um just just glad you're so highly respected here. You control. As required by Alabama law, the public will be allowed to address the board relating to the aotment of public funds or any other matter related to the administration of public schools in Limestone County. Do we have anyone
008here tonight who's here to address the board? Then I get to read you a little more, Mr. Terry. >> Oh, yeah. Any individual desiring to speak shall stand and give his or her name and the group name, if any, that he or she represents. The presentation should be as brief as possible and in no event shall such address exceed 3 minutes. Speakers may take make statements about their particular concern with school operations and programs and shall observe appropriate decorum in doing so. The board will not hear comments regarding individual students or comments regarding school personnel or persons connected with the school system that are unrelated to the performance of their duties, not tied to official business of the board or merely an attack on someone's good name and character rather than their conduct or a
009position they have taken. Mr. Terry, I don't know if everybody heard our speakers inside here aren't working, >> but if you speak in the microphone, they can hear you online. >> I think they can hear me. Okay. If anybody can't hear me, wants to hear me, I'll take the microphone, but not >> Well, they probably can't hear you online. >> Online online. >> Yeah, I will take the microphone. >> Yes. >> All right. So, thanks for the opportunity that the state has required us to be able to have this opportunity tonight, even though y'all are willing to do that at just about any board meeting. On behalf of AEA, you serve district 1, LCA, ESPO, and our members, I want to recognize and thank the board, the superintendent, and CSFO for your extra financial support
010of not only our members, but all of Limestone County School System employees during the October 21st board meeting. Teachers, support staff, and administrators often give way more to education financially than they receive. So when revenue is flowing, it is great that you, and the board, and superintendent will recommend to provide these extra one-time bonuses for employees. It is recognized, and it is appreciated. I can remember my third year of teaching, which has been several years ago, we had 9% pration, and there were several other years we experienced that awful state budgeting practice during the 80s and the '90s. Additionally, I remember that just a few years ago under two different superintendents, the Limestone County School System had some tough financial times, but educators pressed on for the betterment of the students, the school system, and
011so again, we want to thank you for your financial support in this one time bonus in December. With that being said, it's not going to be that easy. I would like for the board to begin discussions and consider investing in employees of county schools by considering fully funding the fourth personal leave day for all employees and begin a process to compensate teachers that cover a class during planning period when subs cannot be scheduled. At least consider the compensation for classroom teachers that have to give up their planning period more than one day per month. I believe these two items along with the onetime bonuses that have been passed in this time and in the past will continue building morale and dedication among employees. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Go in once. Mr.
012Cleveland. >> Yes. >> You're up. >> Okay. >> You want the microphone? >> Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't had a time to come before y'all and and if you remember when we sat down and talked about maybe pay raise incentives for drivers where we were 18 short at the time. What you did is working. We were fully staffed till 4 days worth of school. Then I lost four. I'm only seven down. I got two in the pipeline coming out tomorrow and three in January. So I want to thank you. It is working. But in transportation, if you talk to anybody across the state, they're down. They're worse than we are. Huntsville at one time was 30 down, Madison 22. So it creates a problem. So I also want to tell you we did a kind of
013experiment. I asked Dr. uh Shiras if I could u try double routes for two routes to see how that worked. So what we did that's four routes went into two. We transitioned those two stops instead of doortodoor. That has worked tremendously. I've had other drivers I can repurpose. I also have four more routes that have about 45 stops and 40 stops A.M. and PM. That's about an hour and a half. It's too long. If the in these condensed areas, I can go to stops there. We can make that about 40 minutes and possibly run two more double routes at the end of the year as these housing developments get bigger and bigger and bigger. The culveracks are the problem. They're smaller. They're really short and we can't get a 48 foot bus in there. I
014can, but there's cars there. And in the last three years, I probably spent about $10,000 on mailboxes and repairs. So, I'm trying not to do that. So, that is the truth. And it's not my driver's fault. Well, some of it is. Uh, some of them are not really does swing out a little bit when it does. >> It does. Well, aren't they? We have hit two brick ones and then you have to have the builder with the brickmason build it and those are about 78 800 bucks. So I guess I'm asking moving forward with these four routes, would you be okay if I can try this to see if this works better where I can repurpose drivers? That's what I'm asking you tonight and he can give me the answer. >> So this does save
015us. >> It does save us drivers. It does save us buses ultimately in East and Creekide. If it keeps getting as condensed and condensed, this is probably the way we're going to have to operate. But with that being said, you could operate with less drivers and less buses. Ultimately, in the future, instead of buying 11 buses, maybe it could be five, four, I don't know. So, we'll see how quick that turns around. Anybody got any questions? >> Mr. Cleveland is I I know that when you made that decision or proposal, you were thinking you had to be thinking about the safety of the kids. It's paramount. >> It is. Well, and the stop times what they do is your window to get picked up and dropped off is condensed. I can give a if we
016got 10 to 15 stops, I can give a 5m minute window when we think we're going to be there. But if it's an hour and a half if something happens, you got children standing outside possibly for 45 minutes. I'm trying to cut that down, too. And then also, I know that was it that brought up the um the device that that would track on the GPS. >> That is the next step. Yes, that is the next step that we have in place. I've got to talk with him about it, but I have all that ironed out. I don't know if we want to go step two or three, but I have that for you. >> And of course, where that would help would be, you know, parents would know where the bus is located. So,
017they wouldn't have if it was cold, for example, they would have to get out there. And >> phase two will give them updates. It gives them times. It gives them all that. They can track them. I mean, it's worth it for the money. It's It's minimal. It's like $49,000 a year for that safety aspect. >> Mr. Cleveland, we're saying we're trying something. Does that mean you're going to report back to us how this goes? >> I am. I am. That's why I'm here tonight to give you the two routes for one and propose four more. And hopefully maybe by March I can come back and say these are working too. And maybe we can combine two of those and repurpose two more drivers. >> I guess I'll say that, you know, you possibly could operate
018with less employees for us, which we could be whole sooner. What would be the longest distance the kids had to walk if they we the state state allows three. We say two. We don't have any that are two. We try to keep it we I don't think we have any under a mile. We try to repurpose to get it close enough. But we're within the guidelines of everything we're doing right now. >> Three miles. >> The state Yeah. >> Okay. >> The state says three miles. >> Yeah. They allow it. But we don't do it. >> So you could let a first grader off and let them walk three miles. >> No. Uh-uh. >> That's why we're trying to have designated stops. And they're at the end of the culde-sac most of them. And you're
019talking about on short streets. >> And if we need to go around and get closer, we have we'll do anything we need to do and change. >> We were looking at less than a half. Well, >> the two that we did, I think they were >> less than a half. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> All right. >> That's much more reasonable. >> Thank you. >> Got a granddaughter. >> Gotcha. >> Good luck. >> Of course. Now we have Allison is going to talk about the state report card. Um those results were just released last week and um she's going to share some of those highlights um and give you some information about how our district is performing. >> Thank you. >> Like a good folder. you will open up to the very first page
020past the title page. You'll just see where it gives how our report cards are determined. So, you'll see on the left hand side it says schools with a grade 12. Um, all of our report cards have two overall indicators to determine school success. You have an academic indicators and you have school quality or student success indicators. So on a school with a grade 12, you can see their academic indicators are um academic achievement is 20% of their report card and that will be their AAP scores, their alternate AAP and ACT plus writing. It will also be um academic growth which is 25% of their report card, graduation rate. Graduation rate is not this class that just graduated in 25. It's done a year in the rear. So it is the class of 24 as well
021as progress in English language proficiency. That score is where a student will take the access test where it tests their English language and it will take their score from the previous year to from the 24 year to the 25 year to see if they made a year's worth of growth. Um the guideline for it this past year for the federal government was 80 58%. We wanted that's what if you got 58% of the students met their growth target, you got all of your points there on the report card. And then for the school quality or student success indicators, chronic absenteeism is 10% of the report card score and college and career readiness uh is also 10% and that's also on that class of 2024. For schools without a grade 12, you can see their academic
022achievement counts 40%. Again, that is their AAP scores in grades three through five and alternate AAP. Their academic growth is 40%. And then their progress in English language proficiency is at 5%. And then their only school quality or student success factor is their chronic absenteeism. Um, in our report cards, it only includes students that are called full academic year. Sometimes you may hear that called a FA student, full academic year, excuse me. That means they are in these scores here for the schools, that means they were at that school 85% of the year. If they were not enrolled at that school for 85% of the year, their score did not count for that school. Now, if they transferred from East Limestone to Ardmore and they were in our school system for 85% of the year,
023but neither school 85%, they wouldn't count for either school, but they would still count on our district report card. No group will count on the report card if it has less than 20 students when we're looking at subgroup data. And so you'll see that some schools will not have a progress in English language proficiency score because they do not have 20 ELEL students that had a matching score on the access. Uh and that if they do not have that then that particular 5% of that goes to academic growth. So you'll see some schools instead of academic growth counting 25% on a high school report card it'll count 30%. On an elementary report card the academic growth will be 45% if they did not have 20 EL students in those tested grade bands. So elementary would
024be 3 through five. Um on a high school campus it would be those EL students that take that access test in grade 6 8 and grade 11. Um, there's two different report cards tonight. We're going over the state report card. The state report card does not include EL students who have been in Alabama schools less than six years in the academic portion. So, their AAP score does not count unless they scored proficient in English this past spring on the access test. on the federal report card, if they've been in schools three or more years in the United States, their score counts. So that's why you'll see I did include the federal scores at the back of our packet tonight. And you'll see for some schools, you'll see there's a twopoint difference or three point difference
025based on their number of eel whether they counted or not on that report card. um academic achievement. The way we get those scores is if they scored they take our AAP and our ACT and we've gone over that data as we got that in some of it was as early as this past summer. But remember they're they're scored a one two three or four and we get so many points for that. So you get no points for a one. You get half a point for a two. You get one point if a child scores a three which is considered proficient. But if they score a four we get 1.25 25 points for that. For academic growth, they take every child that scored the same score the previous year. So, every child that scored a two
026and sixth grade math last year, and they look at them across the state, and they look how much they grew. And so, if they grew in the top 25%, they get a four in academic growth. If they grew from 51 to 75, they'll get a three for growth. If they were that 26 to 50, they would get a category of growth of two. And if they were in that lowest 25%, they would get a growth category of one. Um, so in growth, you get zero points for one, you get a half a point for a two in growth. We got a point for a three and you get one and a half points for a four. And I think as you will see tonight, our academic growth in our schools, our schools have done a
027tremendous job. We our students are growing at the top point of the state. Nearly every school you will see, we're in the top 25% of growth in our state and that's exciting. Um, we still have areas that of course we want to improve on, but our growth, we show that we are working continually on growth. Okay. The next page talks about the different federal support school identifications. So the state report card does not give these categorizations but the federal report card does and this is based on subgroups. We do not have any comprehensive support schools. We do have six that are targeted support and improvement and I will go over those as we look at each school. Our categories for that are usually students. this year are for students with disabilities and we have one
028school that students with limited English proficiency and that just means that that subgroup did not perform like they should have in comparison to the all student group. So there's too big of a gap there. And so when they compared it to all students at the lowest schools in the state um technically they were at the 75th percentile of their all student group. And so we do have some schools that are named targeted support and improvement. We will be working with those schools to help them look at those students, see where where their gaps are and what we can do to close those gaps. Um we this year do not have any additional targeted and support schools. So last year we still had three schools that were ATSI um which is a little bit more severe
029than TSI which was that category right above there. Um but we had three schools that moved off that this year. Cedar Hill moved off. Um Elmont Elementary moved off and Clemens moved off and that was all for students with disabilities. So that was very exciting to see that they came off of that ATSI list. And the last thing before we get into the scores is Creekide Primary since they are a K2 school, they get the score of their feeder pattern school. So they get the academic scores of Creekide Elementary except for chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism counts for their kindergarten through 2 grade. And in any school, it's all of your students. If you're a 612, it's 612. If you're a K5, it's K5 at your school. Chronic absenteeism is looked at for any student, regardless
030of reason. Could be all doctor's notes. If you were out 18 or more days, you count as chronically absent. And as you will see tonight, nearly every one of our schools has made great strides. And as a district, we've made great st strides um lowering our chronic absenteeism rate. So if you look at the first school there, you you can see that we have Ardmore High School. Um Armore High School did decrease their total report card score by two points. But if you look there, you can see I've included the pa past several years and then you can see that I broke it down into academic achievement and then I broke it down in reading and math. So we can look a little deeper to see what are our areas. If you look you can
031see they had growth in all areas of academic achievement. In reading and math for their growth academic growth they went up overall they went up but they definitely went up in reading down slightly in growth for math. Their graduation rate was up. Their CCS was also up. They did lose a little bit with chronic absenteeism. Their chronic absenteeism went up a little bit by uh 4.28, but this is also the first year that Ardmore has had an EL subgroup that counted on their report card. So, if you'll look at there at the EL proficiency, you'll see NA all the way across for those previous years. So that means that they had 20 students in those tested grade levels. That now gives them a subgroup population of students with EL proficiency. And that score right there
032to be able to get your five points for that score, you would have had to have a 58% there. And so uh really that and this is the first time that Armor's had an EL proficiency score. Okay. If you turn the page, you'll see Clemets High School. And as you can see, for the past several years, actually since about 2018, if we if I had enough room on my paper to include before 21, Clemens High School has been an ATSI school for students with disabilities. So, they did come off of ATSI. They are now currently TSI for students with disabilities and TSI for students with limited English proficiency. As you can see, their report card scores stayed the same. If you look though, you can see that they went up in academic achievement by four
033points overall, four nearly five points for reading and over three and a half points for math. Um, as you can see though, where an area where they decreased was in their academic growth. They increased their graduation rate. Their CCS went down. We did look to see what caused their CCR. They were college and career ready indicators. Part of it was that four students um or were in that graduating class were AAA and so those students did not have a college and career ready indicator. Um and there were some some other reasons that we did look into. Um their chronic absenteeism though they did a great job improving that last year. And then their EEL proficiency, they went up there, but still you can see we've got a long way to go to get to 58%
034for EL proficiency. Okay, East Limestone High School. As you can see, the previous three years they have been TSI and TSI is named every year, but you can see that they were TSI for students with disabilities. Um, and as you can see, they do not have a heading above that. So they were able to to u be able to move their students with disabilities to where they're no longer named at TSI school. So that's a great celebration. And as you can also see that they have a very high score on the report card. So we're very excited. They are our first high school with an A on the report card. And so also they were the school that had the most growth um across the district if you look at elementary or high school. So
035they grew five points um in one year's time. And so that was very exciting to see. If you look across, you can see their academic achievement. They grew in reading and math. They also look at that academic growth. Over 11 and a half points in academic growth compared to the previous year. So they actually had 100% in academic growth, which is um very exciting to see. Um their graduation rate was up slightly. Their CCRS was down slightly, but they made up enough in other areas. Chronic absenteeism was down. And then they still do not have a an EL group. They do not have 20 yet. So just a huge celebration for um the growth that we see for East Limestone Elmont High School. as you can see that they um have have had some TSI
036in the past and this year they are named a TSI school for students with disabilities. As you can see their report card score did slightly u go down but if you look at academic achievement their academic achievement went up. So we're excited to see academic achievement went up. um their overall academic growth went down but you can see that they did have academic growth in math and that has been an area of focus u for the district especially in secondary for math graduation rate was up CCS was up as well nearly nearly five points up there chronic absenteeism was down so that's always a great thing to see um their e proficiency though they lost some points there on the e proficiency on that access test. And so, um, that's an area that I've already
037been meeting with them. They've been wanting to know and things that we can, uh, work on there to to try to increase that. Tener High School increased one point on their state report card and they are also a TSI school for students with disabilities. Um, as you can see, they went up one point on their report card. They were down slightly on their academic achievement and down on their academic growth. Their graduation rate was up. Their CCS was up as well. Chronic absenteeism was a big focus last year. As you can see, they reduced that um by 6.7. So, that was a great thing to see there. Um and as you can kind of look across there, you can see over the last four years, they have really changed their chronic absenteeism. If you look
038in 21 from 36 to last year 14. So that that's a huge change um for Tanner to make sure those students are in school um more days. Um EL proficiency um did increase from the previous year but it's still as I said you know 58% is what that score should be but it was up for the school 11.39 which was exciting to see. West Limestone High School. Um, no. Uh, as you can see, they're up two points for their overall score. So, if you look in the last from two years ago, they've really had is that a nine nine point increase over the last two years. So, that's a great job there. As you can see, their academic achievement, they had great growth in academic achievement. Went slightly down in their academic growth. The previous
039year they'd had 100. So this year it was 99.5. So slightly a decrease there, but not really enough that it changed the number of points that they got there. Graduation rate was up. CCS was up. Chronic absenteeism was a little bit higher, but it wasn't even a point difference there. And EL proficiency um also went down about nine points there. Um, Alabama Connections, this is their state report card. So, as you can see, they had an increase of three points on their state report card. Uh, they went down slightly in academic achievement, but went up in reading, but went down in math. Their academic growth was down slightly, except it was up in reading, but down um a greater percentage in math. Their graduation rate was down slightly, but look at the improvement in their
040college and career ready indicators. That was a huge focus for them for that class of 2024 and it's continued to be a focus to make sure that the students that are graduating now it's a requirement um for them and so it is a big push and you can see they increased there by 35%. um from the previous year. Um chronic absenteeism is always a great one for them. And then their e proficiency, they went up four points there. Um one thing I wanted to talk about, I did notice, you know, they did um one of the things that they're doing for their math. They're their reading and their math coaches meet with our elementary math and reading and math coaches. Um they've been attending some lesson studies that we've been doing where a math lesson
041the whole block is being demonstrated and our teachers get to go and we've also invited their coaches to go and now their coaches are actually inviting some of our math coaches to actually do virtual walkthroughs to look through their virtual math lessons just so we are trying to share ideas back and forth. Okay, that covers all of our high schools. So, now we'll move to our elementary schools. And so, we'll start with Blue Springs. Um, Blue Springs is a uh TSI school for students with disabilities for the 2425 report card. Um, as you can see, their report card score overall went down slightly. They went down in academic achievement and growth. Um, their chronic absenteeism did increase by just slightly over a point. Um, one thing that also really affected their report card, this is
042the first time in years that they've had an EEL um, subgroup population that EEL proficiency. And so typically those points would have gone up there to to that growth category on their previous report cards. Cedar Hill Elementary. You can see that for years they've been ATSI and as you can see they have removed that ATSI. Technically they actually do a report card. It's never published but that's how they determine and for each subgroup and so we've been keeping an eye on all of our schools and what our subgroup report card is. So we worked on that this summer when we had leadership academy. Um I showed them how to figure their subgroup report cards. And so that's things that we look at to continue. And Cedar Hill has done a great job of making sure
043that that subgroup of students with disabilities has continued to improve their scores every year. And as you can see, it has paid off because they are no longer identified as any type of support school with students with disabilities. They did go up a point on their report card. You can see they went up in all areas for academic achievement. Um academic growth, they got 100% even though it's not a full 100% in reading when it's averaged out. um they wound up getting the full by the time they do some of our schools actually if they could get over 100 they would because they have so many kids that scored fours for growth that they maybe their percentage there was actually 112 but it of course it caps it at 100 um and that is the
044the case here with Cedar Hill um their chronic absenteeism was very close the same was about a half point higher than it was the previous year and they currently do not have an E subgroup. Creekide Elementary um continued to maintain a a very solid A. They did go down a point, but that's still a very solid A. And as you can see, academic achievement, they were slightly down overall, but they were up for reading, slightly down for math. Um their academic growth again is at 100%, which is wonderful. They lowered their chronic absenteeism rate again. Um, that was the probably I believe that's the lowest chronic absenteeism rate in our district. Um, and they currently do not have a EL group. Um, I really thought it was pretty amazing that they continue to have such
045a strong number because I think that we hire at that last year, you know, we hired math coaches for all of our schools. We also hired some additional positions and I think she lost three or four of her teachers to PE to advancing positions in our district and for them to continue to maintain that good solid A I thought was very impressive for them to continue the work that they've been doing. >> Creek Side Primary of course if you look theirs is this their score stayed the same. All of these scores at the top except for chronic absenteeism is their scores from Creekide Elementary. And but as you can see, look what they do with their chronic absenteeism. They lowered it by over 6%. And so that was very exciting to see that Creekide Primary
046was able to lower that chronic absenteeism. Elkmont Elementary. You can see that they were an ATSI school for years with students with disabilities. And as you can see, this year they've moved off of ATSI, which is the more serious one, to TSI with students with disabilities. U and as you can see, they did increase their report card score by two points. Uh great academic achievement, they grew in every area. Um great growth overall. um great growth in reading slightly down a little bit in math. They lowered their chronic absenteeism rate by a little bit and their EEL proficiency. I'm so proud that they were able to get their full five points because they had over that 58% um proficiency. 50 over 58% of their students hit that target. So, Johnson Elementary um also maintained an
047A for the second year in a row. And you can see that was um a decrease by one point, but they still maintained an A. Their academic achievement went down, but their academic growth stayed the same at 100% academic growth. They also lowered their chronic absenteeism. And this year, last year they had an EL subgroup. This year, they did not have that 20 students. Sugar Creek um Elementary this year is a TSI for students with disabilities. They did um go down by one point. Um academic achievement um was down slightly, but they did have growth in reading there. Um their academic growth was down slightly. Chronic absenteeism though, they they knocked five points off of that. So that was exciting to see that they were able to work on that chronic absenteeism. And then if
048you look at their EL proficiency, um they went up greatly. They went up by nearly eight points there. And so they got their full five points for EL proficiency. Tanner Elementary School, as you can see, they went up four points. This was the highest amount that any elementary school um improved. And so it was great to see um the improvement in the work that they did. And as you can see there is no classification um there with Tanner Elementary. Their academic achievement went up. It was slightly down in reading but up overall and a a great growth there in math. Um also their academic growth was up overall. Slightly down when you look at reading but look at that academic growth there in math over 13 13 and a half%. So that's um very exciting
049for Tanner Elementary. And if you look at that chronic absenteeism, nearly knocked it in half there. So 8.2 points better than the previous year. So that's great, especially if you kind of look from, you know, four years ago 22 down to 8.56 chronic absenteeism rate. So, I know that was been a big focus there and making sure parents are aware of of of chronic absenteeism and how important it is to be at school. So, that was exciting. Also, if you look at their EL proficiency rate there, uh 71.43, well above the 58%. So, they got their five points there. And so, that was um very exciting to celebrate that with with them. Okay, the next page is going over the entire district. So, looking at our district state report card and so you can see
050overall this includes all of our schools including our virtual school Alabama connections. And as you can see, uh we are up two points overall. Um academic achievement, we were up overall. We were up in reading but slightly down a little over a tenth of a point in math. academic growth. We were down slightly but up in reading, down in math. Our graduation rate increased. Our CCS increase. Remember that big increase from Alabama connections? That really caused a lot of that increase there. Um chronic absenteeism, we were able to lower that for the district and our EL proficiency actually went down. This is going to be an area of focus for me and my department as well as the federal programs department um and for our school improvement coordinator that that was hired. We are going
051to continue to work to see what is going to work for our EL students. Um currently I can tell you that our EL teachers have 70 to 80 on their case load. And when you compare that to how many a special ed teacher would have on their case load, it is sometimes three. That's probably at least three times as many as you would have on a special education teachers case load. And so th there those are going to be some things that we're looking at. I think also making sure our general ed teachers are very aware very well aware of what's on the access test um so we know how maybe we need to be wording things and and things to expose them to. We've also looked at possibly doing an access testing team just
052so we can go in there and do the testing at a quicker rate um versus it taking several months and sometimes that that means the students are not getting all their services during that time because their teachers are spending a lot of time testing. So we're trying to look at different things. I've looked at report card scores all over to see who's doing a better job than we are for EL and want to talk to those districts and see. So after report cards came out. So we do have plans to work on that. I knew that you would want to know how our brick and mortar schools did. So I took all the scores out of Alabama connections. So I wanted you to be able to see that again we would have been an 87.
053Um if it w if we were just looking at our brick and mortar schools that would have been an increase for academic achievement would have been up. Our academic growth would still been down that 2100s of a point. Our graduation rate was up. Our CCRS was down by a point. Our chronic absenteeism was down a little over a point and a half. And our EL proficiency was down 3,500s. Um, you know, our brick and mortar schools maintain an 87. Um, and you know, we we know that we've got to continue to to look and work on our EL proficiency. The last page is just the federal report card. So you can kind of see what our federal report card looks like. As I told you earlier, those count EL students if they've been in US
054schools for 3 years. There's another thing that you would notice about this report card. Our report card, if you pull up the actual scores, we would actually have scored an 80.31. Um, but because districtwide we did not make 95% of the students in the tested grade levels were not tested, it causes you to lose 2% of your score. And so that made us have a score of 78 or we would have had an 80.31. Um, all of our schools this past year made the 95% except Alabama Connections and they're putting many things in place. They're having to test kids all over the state and so they're doing many more sites um so parents aren't having to travel as far. I can tell you they already do numerous things to try to get people to the
055sites. They give gas cards for parents to come. They they've done several things, but I can assure you they have put future plans in place to help get that number to the 95%. It also when we get to their score, you'll see that their score is also reduced by 2%. Um, and so you can just see I just thought you might would like to see how the federal score compares to their state score. If you're a school that does not have a very big EL population, your score usually stays the same. If you do have a high EEL group, sometimes your score will be reflected that because you've got students with only three years experience in the English language that their test counts. And research shows that it takes at least 7 years for them
056to become fluent um in the English language. Um they really say 7 to 10 years. And so just thought y'all might would like to see those just to see how those differed from our state scores. Any questions? any question. >> Okay, >> I'm about to call Miss >> You have a question? >> I don't have a question. Just just a brief comment that I wanted to include for the record. I want to extend my congratulations to the East Law High School principal reaching that A ranking uh in the state and I just I think this is great achievement for the faculty and staff and u I cannot thank them all enough for their involvement in reaching this reality and knowing that it benefits a student. Everything they're doing is benefiting the students and the students
057are the real winners of this accomplishment. They really are. And I'm grateful to represent such a committed staff and committed faculty in this district. And I just I'm so thankful for their achievement. Want to throw that out to Mr. Chair. >> Good. Miss Hubard, >> my turn. >> You're up. >> Okay. I handed y'all um we're looking at September. So we're at the end of the fiscal year. So what have we done? We have successfully got all the state packet was to the state department on November the 1st. Our I signed off and docy signed our shra signed off. So it was everything is there. The team our team accountant has 15 different districts she has to check. So when she gets ours reviewed and back to me with edits or anything then they will
058finalize those. but it it was there on time. So, we're going to look and we're going to see how we ended the year. If you look at the general fund, you can see that our local revenue was up, we collected 115% of what we thought we were going to collect. And why is that? So, here's that. If you look when we went when at the end of the year I went back and I allocated and confirmed the additional lawsuit sales tax penny and when I went back and looked at those numbers and calculated it we got another $3.3 million in local sales tax and that's that's a portion of that number. Um we get to offset some of our general fund expenses with our PSF funds that's in that sits in our debt service fund.
059So, we could move over 3.9 in our expenses over there. Um, not including our additional local sales tax uh from that lawsuit penny. It was our local revenue was up 1.4 million. So, I wanted to see why. And over half of that, more than half of that was our property tax increased. And we weren't expecting a property tax increase this year and we saw one. We have other state money. Well, let me tell you this. Let me go tell you this and then we'll come back to that. When I got to the end of the year, one month fund balance is 12.3 million. So, I moved over. If you look at the other financing uses, you can see the actual column is 20.1. So, a portion of that is our debt service payments that have
060to go over to the debt service fund. But the other 12.9 million was money that we could transfer over to our capital projects fund that we exceeded our three months fund balance by. >> So that total was 12.9. If you look on the F3B on the second page, capital projects, I got permission from my team accountant this year to be instead of having to move revenue like I've had to do in the past, she let me just show it as a transfer out of the general fund from our local revenue money to the capital projects fund. So there's $ 122.96 million that we were able to move over to capital projects in addition to the $6 million in sales tax that we had put there during the year. If you look in the capital projects
061fund, you'll see that there's 6.377 million in local sources. 6 million of that is the sales is sales tax that we put there. 177,000 of that is interest that we get on our money that sits inside of the capital projects fund and 200,000 of that was from a local grant that um the folks in Elkmont wrote for us to help cover the playground that we put at Elmont Elementary. So that money came in to help cover the surfacing and the shade at Elmont. And the top line is the state sources the 15.49 49 that is made up of the advancement of technology funds that goes into the capital projects that we budget there and then the remaining of that was the lieutenant governor's grant that Dr. Shar got that we received. So that's where all
062that money is made up from. So, if we look back at our general fund, we still have, it looks as if we have a little over 3 months down there at 41.1 million. And that's because there was 3.24 million of advancement of technology funds that's sitting inside the general fund we have to spend in FY26. And we had about $685,000 in other state funds that we received during the year that carry over to 26. So, I have to leave that money there. So that's why you see there's a little more sitting there than three months fund balance. And if you look, I did I put my local revenue analysis in there for you guys. We received 3.2 million in money market interest. The last in September, we got $336,000 in money market interest. So that's
063another 3.2 2 million that helps go to the capital projects fund that we don't when we move the 12 million over. Part of it is the from the money market interest that we're able to move that over. So, do y'all have any questions? I know that's a lot of information in a short amount of time. >> I'm going to ask a question. 15.4 4 million under actual and capital projects. You said that was budgeted. >> Yeah, it's sitting it's sitting under the budget. And where that came budgeted from, part of it came in in the budget amendment because they announced that advancement in the technology money later and we don't find out about the lieutenant governor's grant until after we do our original budget. So that is actual what we knew about what we budgeted
064in the budget amendment. Okay. Let that sit right there. But, you know, I want to make about 40 comments on it. >> Have you got any >> any other questions, comments from the board? Hearing none, we have a consent agenda before us. I hear a motion. Mr. Mr. Hillyard offers a motion. Do I hear a second? >> That's you, Brandon. Who said that? >> I just said I got to abain from item 6 A3, please. >> Let's get to uh discussion and and and abstain there. I need a second. >> I'll second. >> Mr. Young seconds. Dr. Herring. >> Yeah, I need to abain from item 63. >> Any other discussion? I also I need to abstain from items 6A 1 and two. >> Anybody voting on anything on this hearing? No more discussion. All
065those in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Item seven, discussion. Approval of personnel actions. Do I hear a motion? >> Mr. Young offers a motion. Do I hear a second? Dr. Herring seconds. Any discussion? >> I need to abain from 7D6. Dr. Hardy is abstaining from 7D6. >> Anyone else? Hearing no more discussion. All those in favor. Motion passes unanimously if Dr. Herring is for it. Did you vote for it? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Motion P. I didn't I did not. Item eight. I know y'all. Who Who said eight out there? Was it you? All right. I hadn't marked those two. So, discussion approve early release of So, this is why you were fired up a lot. Discussion approval early release of December 2025 paychecks. Do I hear a motion? Mr. Harriet offers a motion.
066Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> Miss Kilgore second. Any discussion? It does have to last until the end of January. Just >> just making sure that's clear. Yeah. Yeah. >> Hearing none. All those in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Item nine, nomination for election of board chairman for 2025 2026. >> I'll make a motion to nominate Miss Kilgore. >> Miss Kilgore. Are here any other nominations? I have a motion to close. >> Motion to close. Second, Mr. Seconds. All those in favor? Congratulations. Motion passes unanimously. Item 10, nomination selection of board vice chairman for 2526. >> I'd like to nominate Miss Fqua. >> Mr. Young, nominate Fuqua. Miss Fugqua looks angry about it. >> Yes. >> That's what you get for hesitating. >> Any other nominations? >> I make a motion to close the
067nomination. >> Motion to close nominations. Second by Mr. Hillyard. All those in favor? Congratulations, Miss Fuqua. Would you like to vote opposed? >> No. Passed unanimously. Congratulations to the new board officers. Uh, item 11, adjournment. Do I hear a motion? >> I offer. >> Miss offered the motion enthusiastically. Miss Kilgore seconded. All those in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you everybody.