001Testing 1 2. >> Mhm. >> of the Trussville City Board of Education, if you would join me in prayer and then we'll follow by the Pledge of Allegiance. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for many blessings. We thank you for the opportunity to gather this evening. Guide us as we're making our decisions that affect our young people. We ask that you remind us of the upcoming Memorial Day and what it stands for in our country. We ask you to continue to bless and protect our first responders, our military, and all of our teachers and faculty and staff. In Christ's name, amen. Attention, salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance 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.
002Thank you. If Miss Farmer, would you call the roll? Steve Ward. >> Here. Sherry Talbert. Present. Jason Daniel. Here. Kim DeShazo. Here. Cathy Brown. >> Here. >> [snorts] >> Thank you. Everyone has hopefully had an opportunity to look at the agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? I'll make it. I have a second. >> Second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Anyone objecting? No objections, the motion carries. I believe at this time, Dr. Martin, we have some recognitions. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. We've got several teams that we'd like to recognize and I'm going to mention a couple of two additions here to recognitions this evening. If we could have our mountain bike teams come in. Is this both I know we have high school and or we merging
003both teams together? Okay. Okay. Yeah. I I know we have some tryouts tonight. Is that right? That's what's taking some of our athletes cross country. Okay. Yeah. Taking some of our athletes out. Okay. All right. Good. Well, I I think that we're going to make a formal petition to the state that the mountain bike state championships for both the high school and middle school just be referred to as the Trussville Invitational. Does that sound like it would be appropriate? So, okay. I've I've got some highlights here. I'm going to read highlights for both high school and middle school teams. So, high school seventh state championship total, third consecutive state championship. They won five of their six races in the series, and they won the series over Oak Mountain by 710 points. For the middle school,
004this is their fourth consecutive state championship. And there's a note here, the middle school championship began 4 years ago. So, if you're doing the math at home, we've won every year. So, hence why we're going to petition the state that it just be referred to as the Trussville Invitational. Uh we have some individual winners, and I was going to ask you, Coach Britton, if you wouldn't mind introducing the athletes and then also just sharing a little bit of highlights. >> I'm actually going to ask our head Oh, okay. Leave you would do that. Introduce some of your athletes and then give us some highlights, if you would. Okay. We got a lot here. All right. Uh Thank you, Dr. Martin. Um so, like you said, this is our uh third consecutive year where we've gotten
005both middle school and high school state championship. Um we We 53 kids on the team. Uh over 20 coaches. We're a large machine. Takes a lot of a lot of hands to make this thing work. Um Rhonda Britton, team director. Um Christie Jones, team coordinator. Uh I can't uh Uh we've got a lot of coaches. We've got Oscar Munoz, we got Brad, we got Ron Zargo, we got Jason Odell. Um I believe that's all our coaches here now. Um we have a lot of kids up here. So, I'm going to in interest of time, I'll I'll spare you all of that. But, we have uh we have a list um online if you'd like to check it out. We've got Like I said, we've got 53 kids. We're the largest team in the league by
006by a lot. Um but, we've got a good culture here. We've got a good scene. We've uh we've done well. They work hard 6 months out of the year, and it shows. We practice three to four times a week. Um and uh yeah, so it's it's just been a it's been a great great season. Uh it wasn't handed to us by any means. Middle school really had a lot of a lot of competition this year. They were in a three-way tie for the most part all season with Tuscaloosa and Auburn. Uh they were actually in third place leading going into the into the season with two races left, and they dug in, and they fought hard, and came out on top. So, couldn't be prouder of these kids. Um so, thank you all for taking
007the time to recognize them. They do a lot of a lot of hard work, and it pays off. So, Thank you. >> [applause] >> So, this is as I Oh. I was going to say the back row, why don't you guys come to the front row? Yeah, and then move back. Yeah, there we go. 53 athletes and they got Good, good. And and and here's the deal. This This is a a pretty big privilege and opportunity for you to come to the Board of Education and be recognized as state champion. So, I'm going to ask you to do one thing for me. I want to know your name and your grade, okay? So, I'm going to start with you. I I know your name and I know your grade, but I'm going to start with
008you. So, you go first. My name is Gabe Mills and um I'm in the sixth grade. All right. Uh my name is Corbin Morrison and I'm in the fifth grade. I'm Louis Davis and I'm in the eighth grade. I'm Gray Ellison and I'm in the seventh grade. I'm Silas Saxton and I'm in the eighth grade. I'm Will Robertson sixth grade. I'm Max Burden and I'm in the fourth grade. I'm Brady Strange and I'm in the fifth grade. I'm Will Danielson and I'm in the sixth grade. I'm William Knighten ninth grade. I'm Will Robertson ninth I'm William Knighten ninth grade. I'm Caleb Warren ninth Uh I'm Steve Jones and I'm in the ninth grade. I'm Will Johnson freshman. I'm Noah Nelson freshman. Uh I'm Caleb Richardson freshman. I'm Logan Danielson ninth grade. I'm Caleb Warren freshman.
009I'm Will Robertson freshman. I'm Aiden Kate I'm Louis Davis eighth grade. I'm Brady Strange seventh grade. I'm Corbin Morrison sixth I'm William Knighten sixth I'm Louis Davis and I'm in the fourth Okay. Coach, your hair color is a little different now than you visited with us last year. What was that sort of the deal? If you win another state title, you would go ahead and get out the the bleach, is that right? >> Correct. This is not my natural hair color. And I don't plan on keeping it for much longer. >> That's right. That's right. Okay, so this year okay. Guys, next year we've shaved a head, we've bleached a head. Coach Britton, maybe next year? What do we think? We want to get a picture here real quick. Let's do we got a couple
010of right here in the middle. If y'all will come down here. The ones back here, the you four, come down. And let's get right here so we can see. Y'all come down here. Right down here. Y'all can sit down with me. Yes, it got to be perfect. All right, so get in Thanks a lot, guys. Y'all will be out this back door. We're going to switch y'all this >> [applause] >> Out this back door. Yeah. Great job, guys. Great job. Thanks for coming. Great job. Thanks for being here. What's up, Luke? Luke, T, congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate it. Got it. Great job. Yeah. Good luck. Thank you. Yes. All right. Before we bring in our next folks, um I do want to mention that there's a pretty exciting rumor going around that if baseball
011and softball can win state titles that Mr. King and Lance Walker are going to bleach hair and beard. Is that correct? That's what I'm hearing. Okay. Whatever it takes to That's right. Team players. All right, Coach Johnson coming all up on up. How are you? Good to see you. All right. Huh? I'm out of it. I'm not doing that anymore. Yeah. Coach Johnson, this is sort of becoming a regular occurrence for you joining us here at the board with your athletes. So, we're excited you're here. Come on in, guys. I see some of your coaches, see some of your athletes. Had a stellar indoor season and then followed that up with a stellar outdoor season. Um why don't you tell us a little bit about the team and then we'll introduce the guys that you
012have here. Um probably introducing the best, most well-rounded team in Alabama. Um this group right here, we have pretty much everything. We got sprinters, we got jumpers, we got throwers, we got everything. And on this group right here, I think we have one senior. Is that it? That's up here right now? So, we'll be back here next year. I'm going ahead and put that in the Go ahead and let y'all know that right now. We'll be back up HERE NEXT YEAR. >> [applause] >> UH I GOT A LOT OF STORIES, BUT I'M NOT GOING TO bore you with any of those, but outdoor state was three-day competition. The first day, we performed well. The second day, we kind of it's kind of up and down, but then we got together on the third day. We
013was probably 40 or 50 points down. And the team rallied together. Girls and boys rallied together. The girls was in seventh place, and they end up coming in third place. The boys end up getting second place. So, we That's kind of team that we got. We're very resilient. We work hard. We're building a strong team culture here that's built around family. So, that's what we trying to build everything about. When we go out there to compete, it's about not letting my teammate down, not letting my brother down, not letting my sister down. So, that's our mindset every time we do something. So, I'll let y'all introduce each other. We'll start right here at the front. Uh Noah Jordan, >> [laughter] [applause] >> Two two things that I do want to mention, coach. Um you know,
014we we host um here a couple of big meets, but we host the meet, you know, in order to get to the state finals and um it's hard cuz you're you're trying to I had a chance to watch you're trying to coach, but at the same time run the meet with parents coming up to you and hey, where are the restrooms as you're trying to get your athletes ready to go. So, I mean, just impressed watching you have that double duty. With that said, the thing I appreciated most about that day and that weekend is how you honored coach David Dobbs. I thought that was a class act and I think it's worth mentioning here this evening. You honored not just our program and our school system and our city, but I feel like you
015honored the Dobbs family by doing that as well and we're very appreciative for that. So, thank you. All right. >> [snorts] >> Hey, coach. Good seeing you. >> [applause] >> I've done more than that, so they can say it. All right, I'm I'm I'm going to deviate from our agenda if that's okay with the Board of Education. Just real quick, I I noticed in the audience, um, we we have a little bit of golfing royalty and I'm not talking about Lance Walker. Um, let's see if Merritt Daniel would come up here. Come on up, Merritt. Merritt is a freshman this year, correct? And Merritt was the second place finisher in the state golf tournament this past weekend and I was going to ask Lance Walker if he would Everybody knows Lance played a little golf
016in his time. So, Lance, would you talk a little bit about Merritt Daniel? I think I'd like to, um, do a little housekeeping first. You know, there were several of us here at the office that wanted to go down to Mobile and support, uh, Merritt. So, you know, Dr. Martin and I were talking. He was like, "Hey, how about, you know, I'll go down on Monday and then you can go down Tuesday and we'll both watch Merritt." So, just to kind of get things straight. Now, Dr. Martin watched you on Monday. And what did you shoot on Monday? 73. Okay, 73 is good round. Then watched you on Tuesday. What did you shoot Tuesday? 69. Okay. And that concludes Lance Walker's remarks on Mary Daniel. So, like was there was there any like did he
017give you bad like club advice or just you know just >> [laughter] [gasps] >> No, in all seriousness like we talk about AAA excellence here and that's Mary Daniel. She is an exceptional student. She is a great golfer. She's a great teammate. She does everything at a an extremely high level. So, I feel like with her too like she's been playing varsity since 7th grade. So, I feel like she should be like you know graduating and she's so mature but I mean she's just halfway done. So, it's really it's really impressive to watch what she does you know to finish second place in all of 7A as a freshman is is unbelievable. So, we're really happy for her. It's well deserved. She works very hard in her game and in all areas of life and
018looking forward to the next 3 years watching all the things that she accomplishes. >> [applause] >> Hey Lance. I would get in the picture but she'd shoot a five over. So, I'm going to stand over here. And then and then one more if I could for recognitions. If our principals that are here this afternoon would come up to please Mr. King and Dr. Hamilton. Yes. Ms. Jay. Yep. Ms. Bruno. All right. I'm going to have you go right here in the middle if you would. Yes, thank you. Mr. Ingrosso. And Mr. Meads he asked if he could miss this evening and I said absolutely. He is taking care of the Meads Miracle Golf outing so that I can't think of a better excuse than to be supporting that cause. May 1st was National Principal Appreciation.
019We do a lot to honor you in October for the month but I did want to make sure that we took a minute and just appreciate showed appreciation for our principals and I I will say this visiting all the schools visiting all I think we have the best five principals in the state of Alabama. So we are very appreciative you our principals here in Trussville City Schools. >> [applause] >> Yes. You want to get let's go ahead and get a picture with you. Grab a picture real quick. >> [snorts] >> Before we continue I wanted to recognize our liaison from City Council Jamie Anderson the president of the City council. Good to have you with us. I believe we have our financial report and the audit report, I believe we have presentation. Thank you, Dr.
020Martin. Board members, I would like to add it he's not new to us, but he only comes once a year. This is Jason Hart with Carr Riggs and Ingram and they're the external auditors who come in each year to do our financial audit, our single compliance audit and so tonight he is presenting his report. And not that I want to start with humor, but I appreciated looking at it or watching or seeing all these athletes and I realized something with the track and the bike athletes in particular. And I speak for all accountants and probably Jim, if you see me or Jim running or hurdling something or on a bike, call the police because whatever is behind us is bad. So anyway, but that was a treat. But anyway, it just got me thinking it's
021like, man, I've come up that's not something accountants are usually used to. So it was nice seeing them, but I again, thank you, Jim and I'm just going to briefly go through and you have in front of you the financial statements that are September 30th, 2025 and I just want to touch on a few things. I promise we're not going to go through like we do every year page by page. It's just a few important things. But if you'll flip about four pages in, you'll see a letter from us. That is the audit opinion and each year I kind of go through that. It does a really good job of talking about a financial statement audit and we're issuing an unmodified opinion on the audit and that's that's certainly the opinion you want. It walks
022through a lot of the procedures we go through related to auditing. It goes through your responsibilities, our responsibilities, and you you know, you can read through that and it tells you a lot of information, but the primary main thing is you want that unmodified opinion. And that's what that's what you'll be getting. The other thing I wanted to point out is if you'll turn to page five and remembering last year I got into this, governmental accounting is very difficult and complex and there's a lot of different things to have to keep up with, but we primarily hang out in the fund arena. You'll hear Jim talk about general fund and when you're doing your budgeting, that's really the primary point, but you also have a a full accrual balance sheet. Now, on page five, um
023that's what this is and there's a couple of things I always point out and it's primarily the the net pension liability and your net other post employment benefit liability. Those are big numbers and they're big liabilities and there's nothing unique to Trustville. Every government in America has these things, but if you'll look about 3/4 of the way down, you'll see both of those. Pension liability is 57 million and the other post employment liability is 30 6 million. So, that other post employment benefit liability is really what you owe retiree medical premiums. So, that number, it actually jumped a good bit this past year. Um previously, it was a lot lower than that, but some assumptions changed. I always bring that up to point out it's nothing that's going to be due next year. This is
024a very long-term liability that will be paid off. I do bring that up though because over time, it may affect your annual required contributions to PEHP and to the RSA. So, I kind of point that out. That's something to look at year to year to kind of get an idea if it's getting too big, they may start raising those contribution levels, which could affect your budget. So, that's I kind of like to point that out, but the other good news is on page nine, back to that fund concept, your general fund is really obviously your most important fund and the state requires as you know to have a 30-day reserve in your fund balance for operations and I think you've got a little over 7 months. So certainly that's very healthy and it's healthy to
025the point that you're making very good transfers from your general fund to fund capital projects and you did that this year about $7 million. So that's another very good thing to have the capacity to go ahead and start funding those capital projects that'll be coming up down the road. So that's another good item and then if you turn way to the back, think on page 64 that there's a letter with a table and it's required communications that we we normally give to the board and I'm not going to go through each one, but it steps through certain things. The main thing in there is we didn't have any disagreements with anything with management or with Jim about accounting policies and it also goes through that inside of this document there's a lot of estimates of
026pensions again, OPEB, investments, a lot of things have, you know, they're they're based off certain estimates happening in a certain way over time and that discloses discloses those in the back. So and with that that's kind of all I have. I certainly appreciate Jim and his staff. Jim is outstanding. So I think y'all all know that and makes my job much much easier having Jim. So we certainly appreciate him and all that he does. So I'd like to like to thank him and his staff too, but I'll answer any questions that you might have um related to this huge 100-page document. So We appreciate it very much and Mr. Kirkland, as always, thank you for what you do along with your staff. It makes all the difference. It's very reassuring quite obviously. So thank you.
027Yep. Yep. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Mhm. I got to give him a hard time. He's not even staying for my report. You're good. >> [laughter] >> It don't take long. Um uh I I would like to uh thank Carl Riggs and especially Jason, too. Over the years he I consider them as part of our team. Uh you know l- like Jason mentioned, sometimes we do come up against some complicated things and it's really nice to have a professional team such as Carl Riggs that that I can bounce ideas off of and and just you know, really set the direction for the the finance team and uh they're always great to work with and I I appreciate them and you know, um th- they keep us on our toes and but
028you know, that's what they're there for and uh they they do great work. Um your report says draft. Uh so, once um we do receive the finalized report in the next couple weeks, I will have that on our website for the public review uh just like we do every year. So, it it's required and it will be on our website. Um also in your packet, I have the monthly financial report for April. Uh the financial extract's been uploaded to the state and all necessary edits correct- corrected for the month. Uh bank accounts have been reconciled to the general ledger. Uh ad valorem revenues are at 83.2% of our budget uh compared to 88.47% this time last year. Um so, ad valorem revenues is coming in a little uh shy from last year. So, that's something
029that we're going to have to kind of keep an eye on uh and and we'll talk further in the next couple of months when we're doing budget. Um total expenditures and transfers out in the general fund are at 50.17% of the budget compared to 50.26% of the budget. Uh and all transactions appear to be of usual and routine manner and within the legal authorization of the board. Um and as always once board approved, the monthly financial report will be put on our website for public review. Thank you. I'll make a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none, the consent agenda is passed. Dr. Barnes, I believe you have some items in the Just a yeah, just a couple of items to highlight here. First and
030foremost, members of the board will see several contracts and agreements our our special education department under the leadership of Aaron Piper been hard at work providing us with services. So I just want to make sure that I highlighted those and I I appreciate the work that she's done just in and her team just in in making sure that we have all of the services that we need, but also the due diligence in making sure that the contracted amount for those services is competitive, if that makes sense. So that gives me the opportunity to highlight that department. We have a few facility use agreements before the board, one of which letter C as board members see there before them, one of the professional softball leagues wanting to use Bill Roberts softball stadium. So we have the
031Mets coming. Now we have a softball team coming. Um So somewhere on social media over the weekend just talking about I think it was one of the news outlets, uh our baseball Phil English Field being one of the best sites in the state. So, it's nice that not only do our athletes get to perform in these spaces, but they are very nice spaces for our athletes to perform in. And I think we're seeing a good product. A few change orders there before the Board of Education related to sea wing at the high school. The date, correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Kirkland, but the date December of 26 is when we anticipate that site being completed. Members of the board approved the first reading of the 26-27 student parent handbook, as well as the first
032reading of the responsible use of technology policy. We have before the board in consent agenda adoption and second second readings and adoption of those two documents, and those have been thoroughly vetted by board council. And then we have several field trips that our students will have an opportunity in the fall to partake in. So, that was consent agenda for the evening. Thank you. Just Gavin, just a quick question. Please. is our I guess our news photographer that we're contracting with. Yes. >> I only ask because I noticed that when I have a rising senior, they take but um there's a sitting fee but if you're not my question is if you come to the sitting time with a lot of the school, do you still have to pay the $45 sitting fee or do we
033I mean you might not know the answer to that. I I don't know offhand Mr. King and that's something we can we can get an answer to that and put that out. >> to not be in the their senior picture be taken be in the yearbook because they couldn't afford the sitting fee. Understand. Yep. Can that be something that we get an answer to? Yes. I get it if you want to take an extra picture with a different picture with a different outfit or whatever but Yeah. Just your cap and gown? Give me just a second. I'll I'll mention that. That may just be coming at a later date. I just didn't appreciate it that was the that was the deal. I just know that I want to sign up. Okay. Yeah. As long as
034there's an option for a free option, I'm good. I just I was curious about that. Yeah. So, Ms. King, that's something we might be able to get some more information on. Okay. Let everyone know. Okay, that's a good thought. Any other questions on consent? Okay, that's a good good thought. >> personnel. Dr. Martin, you have some items you'd like to point out. I do. I have a couple of personnel items here. The first of which is um retirements, and I've I've just highlighted a couple of these items. I I do have to share and and uh we're excited for her, sad for us. Krista Dement, counselor at Hewitt-Trussville Middle School, is going to be stepping into retirement as well as our facility dog, Bullet. So, yes, and and Bullet had a Aw. The the letter
035that Bullet wrote for retirement was wonderful. So, having a middle schooler, I know that he's very upset about that. So, so we have a retirement there. Have um three resignations before the board. We have uh resignation of supplement before the Board of Education. We do have two recommendations for non-renewal, uh recommendation for leave of absence. Board members have before them several employee extra services agreements. Um and then this is the month, members of the board, we've been working on these over the course of the last several months, but we do have several recommendations for reassignment and transfer, as well as recommendations for employment. Uh we have recommendations for contracts and then we have um one recommendation for acting administrator and then two recommendations for coaching and that makes up the personnel report for this evening.
036Very good. Do we have a motion to adopt personnel recommendations? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none, I believe all of this motion carries. Believe at this time we have election of board officers, Mr. Corbin. Thank you, Dr. Ward. It's the one time of year that I get to I get to talk, right? So it's kind of This is kind of fun for me. I feel like I'm the like the in the school play, I'm usually like the tree in the corner and I get a speaking part once a year, so We like our tree. >> It's kind [laughter] of nice. Uh not to not to be um not to not to be silly about something which is actually very important. Um
037state law provides that a city board of education will elect a president and a vice president at its first regular meeting in May. This is done pursuant to statute. Uh this is our first regular meeting in May, so we will need to proceed with the election of a president and vice president of the board. Uh Dr. Martin has asked that I preside over the election for these offices and I would ask that President uh Steve Ward designate Sandra Vernon to serve as clerk for election purposes. So be it. Okay. We will We will observe Robert's Rules of Order modified in conducting the elections. Uh nominations will be taken from the floor for both offices and when I say the floor, I mean the board members. Under Robert's Rules of Order, no second is required to
038make a nomination. Of course, the same person may be nominated for more than one office. Elections will be by roll call with a yes vote of a majority of the full board required to elect a candidate. Are there any questions before we begin taking nominations for president? If not, nominations are now in order for president. Do we have any nominations? I'd like to nominate Dr. Steve Ward for president for 2026 and 2027. It's a good year. Okay, Dr. Steve Ward is nominated for president. Are there further nominations for president? Hearing no further nominations, nominations for president will be closed. Uh the clerk will now call the roll for the vote on Dr. Ward for president with board members voting yes or no. Steve Ward? Yes. Sherry Talbert? Yes. Jason Daniel? Yes. Kim De Chazo? Yes.
039Kathy Brown? Yes. Congratulations [clears throat] to Dr. Ward for another term as president. Uh Thank you, Paige, for the vote and the confidence. Thank you. So, now that we've elected a president, nominations are now in order for vice president. Do we have any nominations? Yeah, I'd like to nominate Jason Daniel for vice president for the board. Okay. Uh Jason Daniel has been nominated for vice president. Are there further nominations for vice president? Uh hearing none, then nominations for vice president will be closed. Uh the clerk will now call the roll for the vote on Jason Daniel's for vice president with board members voting yes or no. Steve Ward? Yes. Sherry Talbert? Yes. Jason Daniel? Yes. Kim De Chazo? Yes. Kathy Brown? Yes. >> [clears throat] >> Uh Jason Daniel is is uh has been elected
040to vice president of board. Congratulations. So, this is the time of meeting where if there is a change in the in the office of president, we pass the gavel for the new president to to continue uh with the rest of the meeting. But, since Dr. Ward will be serving in that position for the for the next year, uh no such change will be required. Congratulations to BOTH OF YOU. >> [applause] >> AND THEN THE LAST THING UNDER ELECTION OF BOARD officers is just a confirmation that Dr. Martin will continue to to act as secretary of the board. That's uh in his contract and it's a statutory role as well. So, no action's required required for that. I believe that concludes that section. And I believe we have administrative reports and Payne Elementary presentation. All right.
041Ms. Jane Rosser. Okay. I know it shocks everyone that we have a large group. And if y'all yes. So, we um first of all, thank you to the board and to Dr. Martin for allowing me to lead Payne Elementary this year. It has been phenomenal, full circle for me, obviously. Um came to Trussville a long time ago. My first position was coach's wife, and that's a real position. I'm just saying, coach's wife is a real position. And then got to serve as a teacher at Payne, and now to be back um as principal at Payne is just is tremendous. So, thank you to the board and Dr. Martin for having me be there. Um um blessed by just not only the group that's here. This is just a small portion of us, believe it or
042not. Um we have about 150 adults, keep 1,300 babies all under um our care, and we are very blessed to be able to do so, and I am very blessed by the team, not only this team that we work with, but by um the kiddos that walk in our doors and the families that work with them. So, our leadership team consists of two representatives from every grade level, and then two representatives from our exceptional education staff, and two representatives from our specials staff. They all couldn't be here tonight, which we would take up much more room, too, if everyone was here tonight. So, I just was going to go through the pictures, but as they come up, I'll let them speak um or introduce themselves to what they're going to speak to. So, just wanted
043to kind of go through that. I never know where to aim this thing. So, this is all the members of our leadership team, and then I'm going to turn it over to our team. The big button next to the green. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So, we're going to start I'm Kimberly Felts, and we're going to start with our school report card. Um and the title, of course, is growing stronger every year, and so you can see that the past 3 years we have grown and shown growth at Payne on our state report card. Um we certainly want to continue that trajectory. Um we've maintained high levels of academic achievement and growth. And we have um continued to reach um proficiency goals with our ELL students. And um to help address the chronic absenteeism, we have created
044[snorts] some incentives school wide um that some of our friends are going to talk about shortly, but, um, just know that our ultimate goal is to reach that elusive 100. So, we we hopefully we can, you know, make that a reality. So, Dr. Hall? I've three. Hello, my name is, excuse me. Let me go back a push. There we go. Hello, my name is Corey Hall. I'd like to talk to you today about what we believe at Payne. We believe that every child every chance, every day. Every child every chance, every day. Educators, staff, parents, and the community will work together to help students move forward on a positive path toward college and career readiness. It's not just a saying, it's what we truly believe. Um, we believe that all students can learn at high
045levels when given time, support, high expectations. Families and community partnerships strengthen student achievement. School culture is built on respect, responsibility, and relationships. Continuous improvement is driven by collaboration, reflection, and data. We're going to get into, um, how and what we believe in this presentation. And thank you. Okay, can y'all hear me? Let me lower it down just a little bit. We have truly truly had a wonderful year at Payne Elementary during the 2025-2026 school year. We have experienced achievement and meaningful growth in many many areas. And as Ms. Felts and Dr. Hall shared earlier, our students have continued to make academic gains while we have also strengthened the positive culture that supports every child, every family, and every member within our school community. And while we are proud of the progress that we've made during
046the 2025-2026 school year, we also recognize that continuous improvement requires intentional focus and commitment to growth. At Payne Elementary, that focus centers on the whole child. Our ASIP is built upon a focus of creating strong partnerships with families and community. It's a focus of providing a safe and equitable learning environment for every single student. And it's a focus of teaching our students the importance of developing integrity, responsibility, respect, and compassion for others. The following teams will give you a deeper explanation of the areas of focus for Payne Elementary. And before I leave, I just want to say, Payne Elementary, I am so appreciative of the chance to work with you guys. You guys are absolutely amazing, and I will always consider it such a blessing that I have had the opportunity to work beside you
047guys. Hey everyone, I'm Madison. Can Can I Is that fun? Okay. She's She I think she's the shortest of our group, so I think we should Y'all should be good now. I'm Madison Easton, I'm a special education teacher at Payne. Um and we're going to talk about our first um point of our ASIP, which is learning for all. So, um at Payne we want to ensure that every student receives what they need to be successful academically, no matter what that looks like. And so, a few ways that we want to do that is by increasing the literacy and numeracy proficiency by supporting our English language learners in their language development and their academic development and providing enrichment and high achieving high achieving students through through our teaching. So, our main objective is to increase student
048proficiency in ELA and math by 20% and our supporting objective is to ensure 100% of our English language learners are having academic progress and are on and maintaining that monitoring status. So, we have a few initiatives to work towards this goal. So, structured literacy and math routines our teachers are constantly looking at data. They are meeting in collaboration. They are meeting with our amazing reading and math coaches to look at data to analyze what gaps there are and how to fill in those gaps with their instruction. They're doing academic walk-throughs learning from other teachers. And so, we want to make sure that our literacy and math instruction is always tailored towards the gaps that we have to to be able to make those scores more proficient. We also want to make sure that we're providing
049professional development for teachers that is going to strengthen their teaching strengthen their their craft. We understand that when professional development is meaningful and is something that is going to help improve the teachers ability to to reach those students at that goes right alongside our student improvement. The way that we're going to monitor that those proficiency levels are through all of our standardized testing. So, ACAP data, AIMSweb data, Exact Path, report card reports, and ACCESS data. The outcomes that we think will come from this initiative is improved overall student learning. Our second and third grade students that are on um those looking at those reading scores scoring um at or above that reading cut score um decreased retention retention rates um improved proficiency with ACAP scores with AIMSweb scores. Um we want to see fewer tier
050three interventions with this increased um literacy and math proficiency, improved English language learner growth and their exit rates from being uh needing those um ELL services and enhanced teacher um instructional capacity. So that is our learning for all section. Hey guys, I'm Beth Blank, fourth grade teacher. Glad to be here. >> And I'm Leslie Rogers, um one of the music teachers. So um we have done a great job, I think, this past year at Payne ensuring that the students are engaged in learning, um the families are involved, and our community and our stakeholders are also um involved. And some of the ways that we've done that this year, and I know we're going to continue, is with the several and several visits from wonderful James Spann. Um he's come several times, bless his heart. The
051fifth grade musical Aladdin, which was great. The wax museum, several author visits, and the Rotary Readers. Okay. And then I'm going to click to the next one. Um another thing that we would talked about was engagement levels on our website and social media. That was one of the our objectives. And we have um over 3,000 people that are following our school website. We've done some stakeholder surveys, um culture surveys were sent out to parents, teachers, and students, and I know Miss G collected all those, and she shared that with us. All right. Next, I'm going to talk about expected outcomes. And this to increase awareness of school activities and initiatives. All our activities and initiatives are shared on social media Facebook page, and Dominique Parker does a really good job of that. She always is
052posting things for parents to see. Classroom newsletters are shared with parents. The PTO newsletter is also shared. We have the Payne Parent Press, which is a monthly video newsletter from Miss G, and then also the Husky Pup Press, which is our enrich newspaper that our kids are doing. That they I think that's new this year, right? Yeah, that's a new thing. We've improved >> more so going forward. Yeah, they're going to they're going to expand on that. We have improved communication to reach across stakeholders. Again, we've got that website and social media. We have higher participation rates in school events. We had our musical performance here at the board, and I would say we probably had about 95% participation rate with our Aladdin kids that came. We just had our kindergarten program getting down with
053Mama Goose, and I I estimated 99%, which I I feel like with that and the first grade program that we had about that many there, cuz we couldn't fit them all in the high school stage. So, I felt like the whole kindergarten was there. We had our second annual Valentine's Dance, and they sold out I think pretty quickly. We had the Fairytale Ball. I would say Miss Finley said about 95% of the parents attended that. Our Fall Festival every year it it increases with more and more people visit that. Awards Day, we've been having that all this past week, and I think we've had at least probably 90% or more parents show up. We had Deck the Halls, which is new this year, where we had the Christmas trees and Christmas decorations in the hallways.
054So, we had many, many parents and community members there, and we had one of the biggest book fairs in the history of Payne Elementary. I think that's the most we've ever made. We've increased our overall student attendance. We have We have the wall, of course, with the different kids on there else in the office. We have the Mario coins going on right now, and then we also had some other attendance challenges going on in March and April. And we encourage or Miss G encourages kids every day on the daily announcements to remind them. We have stronger school and family community partnerships. We had Beth, that was yours, the famous African-American project that you did in fourth grade. So, we had visitors from the community. Our choir sings every year at the Christmas tree lighting, which
055is something we really enjoy. And we have some kids, I think maybe tomorrow going to Amber X again. So, and the Veterans Day program is always a big one every year. We have tons and tons of parents and community members coming to that. Also, enhanced student support. We've got PST, MTSS, SRIP, SRIPS. I can't ever say it right. Yeah. You can You can tell I'm the music teacher. >> [laughter] >> We have tons of small group instruction, tutoring. We have summer camps this summer with math and ELA. So, we have all kinds of good things going on in our school. Thank you. Okay. I'm [music] Andrea Barker, third grade teacher, and Oh, we are positive. Sorry. >> It's okay. Okay. So, um positive school culture is the heart of everything we do at Payne Elementary
056School. Through activities that promote our bark values, which are behavior, accountability, respect, and kindness. We're building a school where students feel supported, connected, and excited to learn. At the same time, we are creating opportunities for staff collaboration and encouragement, because when teachers feel valued, students thrive. Our goal is to continue strengthening relationships, improving attendance, and making Payne Elementary School a place where everyone feels like they're a part of one pack. And now, this is Andrea Butterfield, and she's going to explain to you about how she uses the bark bucks to ignite excitement in her classroom. >> [laughter] >> Absolutely. I'm Andrea Butterfield. I teach fifth grade. I'm going to click the slide over right here. Um so, Yes, I'm going to talk to you about bark cards. So, as I stated, I'm fifth grade, and
057so when we started at the beginning of the year talking about passing out bark bucks and doing a bark card at the end of the week, I was honestly a little bit nervous. You know, fifth graders, they're older, they're too cool for school. I didn't know how much on board that they would get. However, I have been blown away by the excitement that these kids get every Friday. Uh we make it a big deal. We do drum rolls. I shake the box, and then, I mean, I legit I do a drawing. I I do not do a pre-selected drawing. I do a drawing, and they just absolutely love it. I mean, it's 2:00. It's It's bark card time. So, that has been such a joy to have in the classroom, uh especially on Friday afternoon
058when we're exhausted, we're ready to go home, but it gives them something else to look forward to. So, that's been huge. Um another thing that we've done to just create our positive culture is uh our teacher monthly hangouts. I And so this has given us just a little bit of an opportunity. I think I have a couple of pictures on the next slide. Maybe or maybe we've already passed it. We have some pictures all throughout the slideshow. Um but of our our monthly teacher hangouts. So there's our fifth grade one right there at Wild Goose Gardens. Just hanging out, spending time as adults. You know, it's it's all hands on deck focus during the school day on the kids, but it's a lot of fun to just be able to hang out and get to
059know each other outside of teaching our kids. So that has been huge for me. You're two at pain, but you're 15 in the career and I've just It's been a breath of fresh air. So I hand it over to Ms. Faust. >> [laughter] >> Okay, yes, I'm Hannah Faust. I'm also a fifth grade with Andrea. So how we're going to kind of measure this increase of happiness with our staff. I don't know what else to say that. And also positive culture with our students as well is we've done the surveys that Ms. Faust has sent out for us. The Bart Bucks have been great as Andrea is talking about. I love that Ms. Faust has done that. It really gets the kids excited and motivated for having positive behavior at school. Of course looking at
060Bloom and Power School discipline, how is Power all the rights going there? Teacher retention of course. Assessments, our PLTs, everything that we do. Also a big one positive parent contact contact. So of course you reach out when a student is behaving, but you we also want to increase the positive contact as well cuz that just helps the parents, you know, feel like we care about the kid not just when they're, you know, reaching out when they're in trouble, but also just creating that whole positive environment. I think that's it. There. And then yeah, lots of pictures, Bart cards, fifth graders at a leadership rally, and some some other fun things we've done. So, it's been a great year. I know leadership rally. >> [laughter] >> Thank y'all so much. One more got it. It's you.
061Did I go too far? There we go. All right. So, I get to explain the why behind all of this. So, throughout the year, our professional learning has been intentional, and that's coming from teacher needs and student needs as well. Um we've used self-assessments like our PLPs. The students have given us their feedback as well through some um Google assessments that Miss Gia has shared with us. And we identified areas where we feel like we need support and the students need support to improve the student outcomes and to improve our school culture for the faculty and staff as well. So, as a result of this, our professional development has focused on areas such as positive classroom environments, behavior and de-escalation strategies, trauma-informed practices, instructional collaboration where we've worked with our team, and then vertical planning
062as well. Uh intervention planning, engagement strategies, and specialized supports for our diverse learners such as our EL students and our GATE students, our gifted students as well. We have been able to directly apply these developments, these strategies within our classrooms through targeted interventions, enrichment opportunities, positive behavior systems with the bark cart, and more intentional instructional practices. And most importantly, the impact has been evident in our students through increased engagement, stronger behavioral supports, differentiated instruction, and more responsive learning environments designed to meet the needs of all of our learners. So, that's were our our four goals and how we met those four goals. I told them you're just basically presenting our evidence. So, all is well, but again, I'm very appreciative of this staff, this team, and all the others that worked on this to make
063this plan such a success and we did have a wonderful successful year and looking forward to another successful year next year. Thank you guys. Thank you all. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> WE APPRECIATE YOUR PRESENTATION AND YOUR hard work and it shows off and quite obviously in the results. So, thank you again. Questions? Comments? Presentation. No, thank you so much. Thank you. And is our uh officially we want to welcome and affirm Sherry Talbert as our new school board member. So, again, if you would join me in giving her a ROUND OF APPLAUSE. >> [applause] >> THERE THERE WAS ONE ITEM here um that I wanted to I know uh celebrating Ms. Talbert coming on the Board of Education, we also have another individual who will be joining the Trussville team um and that is
064Rebecca Rogers who will be assistant principal at Payne, correct? Yes, so I just want to make sure that I introduced her. If you're following inside of baseball, that is a transaction took place, Payne to Cahaba, correct? Okay, so we have one AP moving to Cahaba and then we have Miss Rogers joining us as well. So, welcome. Yes. Welcome. Good to have YOU WITH US. >> [applause] >> WE DO NOT HAVE ANYONE SIGNED UP FOR public participation, so do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. All in favor, please stand and have a wonderful Memorial Day. Thank you.