001I left. Yeah. Oh yeah. Uhhuh. They're out of date the very next to the very next session. Well, and so now basically taking the back. It's funny. The guy that I work with, she that's respons. It's probably one of us. Okay. Good. I'll maybe break later. They made me change my password last week. I was like, I'm leaving, right? I really need a new password. And now it's not working. Do you need me to get an IT person? I I'm okay. As long Yeah, she's not here today. Are y'all good down this way? Are you all good this way? I can barely read this. Good morning. We are here to start our June State Board of Education meeting. I know that there's a lot of hardworking teachers, administrators, and students across the state who are
002happy to be on summer break. Um, but I know for most of those, they are already starting the work for next school year to get students ready to succeed. We will start with a moment of silence this morning. Thank you. It's always great to start the meeting with guests. Today we have some guests from Taiwan that the secretary or or Miss Salam are going to introduce to us. But we appreciate you all being here today and look forward to hearing more about our partnership. Good morning. Department for the division of elementary and secondary education. And I have a very distinguished honor to be with you all this morning as uh we present and our director is going to has joined me as well as we present anou to extend our partnership. So we would like
003to introduce. So we'll first decide the we'll first start with our Oh okay. Come on. Good morning everyone and the committee uh members uh secretary Oliva and all the uh participants for today's meeting. It is for me a great pleasure to be here. Uh I am Andrea Yan, Taiwan Ministry of Education's representative in southern US also director of education division in the Taipei Economic Cultural Office in Houston. So today I came with my boss and my colleagues here. Later on they will also talk a little bit and my purpose of being here is introducing to you all what theou is about. Actually back in the year 2006 uh the state great state of Arkansas console department of education signed the first with Taiwan. So 19 years ago we started the partnership and friendship and during
004these 19 years we have renewed for five times. So this time is going to be the sixth time of renewal and uh from my uh headquarter ministry of education they proposed to extend the duration from three years to five years and gratefully uh secretary Oliva accepted. So we have now the copy of theou ready to sign and uh talking about the content of theou it's very general. So we would like to collaborate in the econ uh educational areas with uh the great state of Arkansas in for example Taiwanese mening teaching and learning and also we would like to recruit uh teaching uh English faculty members or talent from the great state of Arkansas to visit Taiwan and also we encourage bilateral exchanges. For example, we invite uh educators, leaders to visit Taiwan as of the
005example for 2023. Later on, Dr. Jeff Coat will express and share his experience and also connect uh K to 16 institutions, schools to collaborate on cultural um technological uh and science and math uh area of collaboration. We look forward to more uh projects of collaboration and also we would like to uh have you consider uh to incorporate our TOEFL task the Chinese manding Taiwanese men mandering assessment to the seal of biliteracy assessment. This is a briefly what theou is going to be about. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. I know we love having things that our children can work towards. And so next we're going to have our superintendent, Jeff Coat. He's going to come up here and share some of his experiences. And so we love that. So I think we actually have
006a few pictures to show as well. Well, good morning and thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak with you today. Um, in November of 2023, I had the honor of serving as one of the uh, delegates from the United States. Uh, we had about 15 members from all across the country that went to Taiwan and spent some time there to really um, study the education system. This was a uh, this was uh, initiated by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. And so they're very much interested in building collaborations with uh with schools throughout the United States and particularly here in Arkansas. And so I did I did have just that honor to be there. And it was really interesting to see some of the differences that that um that happen in Taiwan versus
007here here in Arkansas. But it was also interesting to see some similarities as well. There's a lot of things that that look very much the same. Um, I do have some pictures here and we we may not have time to go through everything that I have here. I did share the slideshow um just to get a few pictures. So, just so you know, if you're going to fly to Taiwan, it's about a 14-hour trip. So, if if uh if you've got 14 hours to spare, then you can hop on a plane and fly over to I will say though, flying back is a little bit shorter because the jetream you're able to I guess they get into the jetream and you move a little faster. um did have some some delegates uh from the Ministry
008of Education that we were able to meet upon arrival. Um this is uh Taipei. Taipei is just a beautiful city and the tall building that you see there when that was constructed it was the tallest building in the world and it was it's Taipei 101 and you so it has 101 stories and you may think well why didn't they just stop at 100 and the reason they didn't stop in 100 is is it is built in their culture to to exceed beyond perfect to do the very best to go even higher and so instead of having 100 floors. Here we have Taipei 101. Interesting thing, uh, you know, you go to any school in Arkansas and it's lunchtime, the kids go to the cafeteria and they they pick up their meal and they they sit
009in the cafeteria together and then they go to recess afterwards. Well, in the schools that we visited, um, we didn't see a cafeteria. There's not a place, a gathering place where the students go. Instead, the students, they have a couple of students in the classroom that go to the to the kitchen area where they have prepared the meals. They get the meal for their class. They bring it back, set it up, and the students come through the line. Now, the students, most of the students that I saw, brought their own bowls and spoons. That's what they had in their backpacks. They were ready to go with their own um everything that they needed to have their meals. So, pretty interesting um that that's their classroom dynamic. And you can imagine that that builds a really
010unique family culture when you're with those people all day long, that group of people that you're with. So pretty interesting. One thing else that I'll note is um we talked about the school day in Taiwan versus a school day here in the United States. So many students arrive at school between 7:30 and 8. And then for the first 30 minutes of the day, the students clean the building. They clean the classrooms. They get everything ready for learning. and they help set up as much as they can to get ready for the day. Then they have school all day long, lunch, lunch included. At the end of the day, so it's around 3:30 or so, their day ends. And where we're a little bit different is in the United States, we have great emphasis on um
011on a lot of afterchool activities with sports and um the arts and lots of programs. Since education is so very important in Taiwan, many many students will go to what's called cram school. And that's almost like a a tutoring program. It's it's uh private institutions that are established. Many teachers that are that are part of the public schools and private schools also are part of the cram schools. So many students will spend hours at cram school every day. So their day won't end until 7 8 o'clock at night and then they go home and they do their homework from regular school. So great emphasis on education in Taiwan. We had the privilege of covering the entire um country. So we started at in the north um Taan and went to to um Cshu and made
012our way all the way down Tynan and Kawan was the was the furthest south we went. And so, uh, the country, just I don't know if you all, some of you may know this, the country is about a third of the size of Arkansas. So, it's not a huge country. And if I ask you, what is the population of Arkansas? Who knows the population of Arkansas? Three million. The population of Taiwan is 23 million. See, and you just thought that traffic was bad in Little Rock. So, it it is uh it's it's really a unique place. Um not a lot of homes with huge yards unless you live out really far. Um a lot of population in cities. So, it's a it's a really interesting country. And the way that you get places so fast
013is you ride this highspeed rail. This uh this is what they have from from north all the way to the south of the country. Goes about 217 miles an hour. And I can attest to the fact that you really don't feel the takeoff or the stop because it's a slow um slow trend up and down. So just a lot of cultural things that we were able to experience. Um it was really really cool. This is the Ministry of Education as well as all of the delegates had a dinner together at the end. Uh it was just such a privilege to be able to go. Um if you wondered what the mills looks like that's in this slide, too. So just a few other pictures. I didn't know we had that one in there. So that's
014that's in there as well. So bubble milk if or bubble tea if you drink bubble tea that actually came from Taiwan. Mochi if you know what mochi is a dessert. It's Taiwan Taiwan based. There's so many other things um pineapple cake pineapple cake Taiwan as well. So lots of great things um that are from Taiwan. Very very beautiful country. I always tell people that, you know, if you if you need to have a backup country, and I don't know if you if we need to have a backup country or not, you probably won't know until you need a backup country, but if you need a backup country, Taiwan is such a beautiful place and such a welcoming environment for Americans. You know, it's one of our strongest allies and they're are true friends to the
015American people and they were very courteous to us as a delegation and we could not um have enjoyed it more. Uh it was such a great experience and so encourage all of you if you have a chance to to go um any of this board. If you ever have a chance to go, I would encourage you to do so. But I do believe that this partnership is is is very important for our state as well as Taiwan. Um they have a a a goal right now in Taiwan to be bilingual by 2030. And so all of their kids, because you're probably thinking, well, how how was I able to go? I don't speak Mandarin. And that's true. Um almost everyone in Taiwan speaks English. They can speak English and the children are learning English in
016their classrooms. And so they have this very ambitious goal of 2030. And that's why they want to have American teachers spend time even in the summer or whenever going over to teach English. And we we met several um Americans that were in Taiwan teaching English just for a short stay. So I I do think that it's worthy. Taiwan continues to excel academically. They're one of the highest performing um countries in the world, always in the top five. And it is evident, you can see why that is when you see the education taking place in the country. So, it was truly an honor. I want to thank everyone that gave me the opportunity to to go and um I it was a privilege and I can't wait to get another chance to go back. Thank you,
017guys. I was so excited for for us to start in on this. I forgot to recognize our honored guest as well. So, accompanying director of uh education, which is Andrea Yang. She's also accompanied by the director general, Ivonne Sha. We have our console, uh, Josh Lynn, and then the coordinator of educational affairs, Alyssa Chung. And we're very excited to have them today. And I believe we have some remarks by Mr. Shane Broadway. I know you all have a lengthy agenda. Good morning. I'm Shane Broadway, uh, vice president university relations at the ASU system. But in terms of my history with theou that you're going to sign today, it dates back to actually when I was speaker of the house uh, two thou back in back to 2000 2001. I was actually, as Dr. Dr. Jeff
018Coat has the great fortune of going to Taiwan. I was actually supposed to go to Taiwan, but unfortunately 911 happened two weeks before we were supposed to leave. And so I never had the opportunity to go yet. Uh but so we're working on that. Uh but I've had the great fortune in my time in the legislature and then as director uh of the now the division of higher education uh to sign one of theus uh in terms of our relationship with our friends from Taiwan. And so a long relationship that we've had a very great relationship and I was the one doc Jeff Coat who reached out to Dr. Hernandez now will be Dr. Duncan uh to encourage a group of superintendants uh to go to Taiwan and so I'm glad that you took advantage
019of it. Who knew that two boys that grew up in Selen County would be involved in Taiwan? Uh you couldn't have couldn't have scripted that one. Uh so uh but we at at Arkansas State University are very proud of our relationship. they have provided a Mandarin Chinese teacher uh for us in exchange we provide the housing and a stipend and so it's been a great benefit for our students to be able to learn a language that is very important uh in the global economy uh right now and so we're very uh very fortunate to have the relationship and the friendship and I appreciate the state and governor and all of you uh for continuing the relationship with such a friendly adversary and our friends in Taiwan. So thank you for the opportunity Mr. secretary and
020board. Uh, appreciate all you do. I'll just say a few things and then we'll sign officially sign the memorandum of understanding, but thank you for the partnership and uh, Dr. Jeff Cove, I don't know if anybody mentioned, but he's a superintendent Van Beern. So, we appreciate you coming down and um, sharing why this is a big deal and it's important in the partnership with Arkansas State University. I know it's a win for our students and um I I'll let the board know that if if we get another delegation which they want to do to go visit and learn more about it, maybe we can have a volunteer from the board would like to participate and represent. So we'll we'll start taking we we'll start taking those nominations. We can make that happen. Sure. Uh director,
021as the board is coming down, would you like to say a few remarks? [Music] one of these trust. Sure. Um, your honors, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you so much. It's really um amazing also honored to witness the signature of theou which um stress and also show the partnership which stressed all the way back to 2006. In Mandarin we have a saying that the best return for a year is to grow rice which you have plenty and the best in Arkansas and the best return for um 10 years is to grow trees and the best return for 100 year is to educate people and we all understand the importance of education and that's the reason we want to strengthen the cooperation in this field and from um Dr. Jeff Cop and from his sharing we can
022know that Taiwan and America we have so much in common but we also have some differences and that makes us want to do exchanges to see the difference and for sharing and thank you so much for your continuous support and the signing of theou. Thank you so much. [Applause] And actually, Secretary, I believe there's a surprise for you. I I know. I just um prepare a token of gift. It's a set of teapot. As you can see, Taiwan is famous for its tea. And the teapot, the shape is a sky lantern, which means good luck and healthy. I hope you enjoy it. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe we can get the whole board and all of the delegation to come down for one quick picture as well if that's okay. I believe that would be beautiful.
023Thank you. She's fine. Yeah, two. economic opportunity. Economic opportunity No, she's we don't have any changes. Great. That was awesome. It's neat to It was neat to see those pictures and hear about Dr. Jeff Coat's experiences and think about hopefully other teachers and and students and administrators that could have those opportunities because I think when we see the world we just gain so much wisdom and perspective that can should be shared with our students. With that, I don't believe there are any changes to the agenda. So, we will get started with our action agenda. Item number one, we have Tanya Williams up here for the Arkansas Better Chance Program. Thank you. Get right to business after that lovely introduction to the morning. Um I am here I'm going to take you guys back to March.
024We talked about Arkansas Better Chance allocations and you all made approvals for the bulk of the programs back in March. Um we used a process that I described to you and I just want to describe it again. We worked with the local leads. If you'll remember that's part of the learns act that we um work with local leads that we get those set up across the state. We have 26 and we use data from the local leads that we have in our state covering all the counties. They did a child count back in October of last year and then in December followed up with a coordinated funding request. So in March the allocations that I brought to you because we have there aren't any new funds but we had taken action against programs that were
025not at full enrollment. So we had several hundred slots that we reallocated using that data. So since March, unfortunately, we've had some programs that have notified us that they um are relinquishing voluntarily the slots um that they currently have. Um there's a variety of reasons for that. Some is restructuring. One school district is closing some elementary buildings. So there are many reasons. We are certainly very saddened by that, but we use the same process to make these recommendations to you today. So, I'm going to start with that. And uh we have a few slides. I think if I can get it. Hang on, I'll go back. This is the number of centerbased slots with the amount per child and then the home visiting slots. And I know we've talked about home visiting. None of the
026uh reallocations um we have really converted all of those to centerbased any that were turned in. So, these are the numbers and the amount of funding. This is just a breakdown, a summary of what has happened, the action items that have happened. There were three programs that we brought to you in March that were going to be new programs. Uh, two were family childcare homes, one was a school district. All three of them declined, sadly. Um, one thing that we did differently this time is we called all of the programs that had requested to make sure they wanted to take these before I brought these today. Uh the reason that those were declined at least for one of them is that in the school district they are opening up a paying classroom which is very
027exciting too. That's not always done in school districts. So they just had a little different direction that they were going to go in. But this is just a summary um at the top of what has been converted or reallocated. We do have a couple of co-op uh changes and Dawson Co-op is relinquishing 80 of their slots to Benton School District at the request of the school district to operate their own program. That's a mutual agreement. And then Sheridan is moving slots to Dawson to administer on their behalf. So just a few little nuance changes there. Doesn't change the number of children, but this is just a breakdown of that and what's been reallocated. And then this is just a different visual to look at that the different groups. So to Queen Mina, how many slots
028they had and how many were adding in this request. So I will note that we do have some programs that are going to do infant toddler which is allowable in Arkansas better chance. So just point that out that the Queen Mina is going to be serving some infants and toddlers across I think four of their counties um in their respective service area. Um, and we these are programs that requested slots. They're programs where the data has they're only serving 0 to 40% of their population. And that's the reason we're asking for these to be reallocated to these programs. But you can kind of look at that again. These were either relinquished and uh it shows the new number for Fort Smith who is relinquishing a 100 slots. Um and then they did convert uh some
029to this is one place where there was some home visiting. They're converting some of their center base to home visiting. It's the only place where I've seen a change with center to home visiting this year. And then um and these this is the rest this is just across all the different programs and the number of slots and the number they will have at the bottom is what their total will be. And I'll stop there if you all have questions about this part of it. Again, we're just realloc It's about 179 slots that were relinquished or turned back that we're reallocating. Board members to my left. Questions? To my right. Questions? Question. Not at all. No, I promise it is really dumb. Um, can you remind me of the distinction between center and homebased? I mean,
030are these people that have signed up through the state and running? Yes. So, in in the law for Arkansas Better Chance, there are two options. You can do center-based programming, which would be a traditional classroom style setting. Um, or you can deliver it through home visiting, and that's a home visitor who goes into the home and works with the family and delivers either a home instruction program for preschool youngsters curriculum or parents as teachers. They're both nationally recognized curriculums. And are we just seeing a downward trend? We are seeing a downward trend, Miss Wood. We've seen that really over the last 20 years. It has continued because families need families are working and need center-based care generally speaking. I have a question on the co-ops when they are administrating the programs. Are those facilities at
031the co-ops or are they typically in the district and the co-op is running it? Typically in the school district and the co-op is operating it for the school. What why are some districts deciding to do that inhouse versus co-op? is that you know we don't always get down in the weeds of those details but what I can tell you I usually do ask questions about it um I think the Benton situation is the school superintendent who is going to that district who will be new has operated early childhood in his previous districts and wants to have manage it himself um and we see that a lot in districts where they may want to and then consequently we also see where some districts say I don't want to administer the co-op administers a pretty large program
032and we just like for them to handle that um so that they're not having to get into that early childhood space. So I I I think it's just a a difference for le in leadership possibly. Um chairman and then when you have those you said we're starting to see more of the birth to three. Is there any funding differences giving to the Okay. It's all the same. All the same. Yes, it is the same. the 5,1005 is what they get for a child, whether it's a child that's an infant or a preschool age child. Are there ability I know in in school districts specifically, school districts might open up classrooms for students who pay. Is there any part where districts will receive both funding and, you know, require some additional pay for a student or
033students that are coming can only receive state funding? So they could blend in a classroom students who pay with students who receive ABC funding. I see that. But they wouldn't charge the ABC that is actually if you're receiving ABC funding. This is the only funding you get for that child for the school day portion of that day. That is in the rule that they can't charge for items that would be considered part of that day. If the child went past the school day, like if they go to after hours care, they could charge them for after hours care beyond the school day. Does that help? Is there um are you going to talk about the summer awards? Yes, that's separate. I just wanted to get this one out of the way first. And then secondly,
034we have a request for summer um for children whose parents are working and need extended care beyond the school year. And I can go ahead and jump into that if you guys want me to. Okay. Miss Ken, did you have a comment? Well, do you are these two separate motions or do you want to or are they is it all the same? I guess because it's all ABC one motion. We do have two separate action items. Yes. Then do you want to wrap should we wrap the first one up first? First for these renewal grants and then the second one looks like it's the summer services and y'all know I have a comment. So um so much first of all compliments to Miss Williams and Miss and Miss Jeff everybody and her team for digging
035into the why. Um as as I've spoken about ABC funding as a partial funding it is a match where 6040. So the state will give 60% but you have to put in the other 40. Um, and we're learning um that it's not enough and districts uh often are the ones who can take advantage of this given their uh built-in structure. They already have sort of a oversight, the administration, they've got the buildings, they've got the lights turned on. So that 40% match is pretty is fairly easy um or easier I should say. Um so it is troublesome when districts are saying we don't want a part of this. So we are going to dig in this in the subcommittee. We're going to look into what um what they could uh what they what could have
036changed their minds. What did they need from us that we that this current system didn't provide? Um because as we know third grade reading levels are of utmost concern right now. And when districts are asking what can we do? Um my response is always don't wait till kindergarten. Get these kids at their brain building years aligned kindergarten with those early childhood. You'll know your kids before they come to you. You'll understand them. It's going to be a part of the community. So, um, I appreciate all the work. I'm excited about the coordinated funding efforts and seeing this play out. Um, and we will dig into the why and maybe later on I'll ask you to look at ABC in a different way and um, we'll do what we can to meet the needs of um,
037these providers. Thank you. If I could, Miss K, I might I might I hope I'm not putting you on the spot. Can you talk a little bit more about what that match is when you say 6040? Um because I think people think it's dollar per dollar match, but what what does it really look like for a school district to contribute to make maybe some of that inind contribution? I think that might help with clarification. I think and I think that's where my question was coming from. No, understanding of the pay structure. Interesting. um because um it is understood that 5,000 and some change is not nearly enough to cover care for a child, especially one with such low ratios, infant, toddler, early childhood um for the year. So, it is understood that when you are
038given this money, um you'll have to make up the difference with the understanding being it's probably going to be about 40% of what um the total cost would be. Now, unfortunately, the cost of care is often higher than what is funded for care. And so, um, you know, we all need more money, but but, um, when you're looking at lower ratios, consider that how many adults you have to hire, how many, um, salaries and sick days and substitutes when you might only have four children in a classroom versus in kindergarten where you've got 20 or larger in, um, larger rooms. So, um I does that clarify the other thing. Um and I'll let you fill it in because there is some interesting ways that school districts. Yeah, let me talk a little bit about the
039match itself. So, we we see where they might uh match with a teacher. They pay the teacher salary out of maybe a like title one funds or something that would be allowable or other ESSA funds or something like that. Um, space could be one that that's often, you know, compared to a community-based provider who may be renting or purchasing space. A school district sometimes inherently has space, but their space could be counted as in kind match. So, it it isn't always a dollar for-dollar match. It can be, you know, materials, training, things like that that the school district and pro even private providers can use. It just can be more challenging, I think, on the community-based side. Well, and we know that more and more school districts are facing lower enrollments. They have empty classrooms.
040What a way to solve that problem and develop the kids um that you're going to later have in your first and third grade classrooms. So, you know, if I believe every superintendent should be banging on the door going give me some of these kids. So, when we're when they're not, we'll um dig in and see what more they need. Thank you, Miss Le. Board members, other questions? John, can you talk to us about the process of a foster child or a displaced child and and what how long that takes to be served and how do they come through you or talk to us? No, that's a great question because we try to have coverage for that. You know, in and probably our relationship when we were at DHS made us really hyper aware of this,
041but children in foster care can happen overnight, as you may all be aware of. And so, when that happens in a community, a parent who's a foster parent may need early care and education. They're working parents, too. And so, we want to make available. And so the whole purpose of us putting that language in is to get those children in to prek, which is a a great option for them to get that high quality early childhood experience immediately or as quickly as possible. Um, and that's why we have that language in board member. It is just to get those children in. As soon as that program notifies us, hey, we have a foster family. We're going to approve that that child can be served. It might even go over their threshold of 20, but we
042want to get them in. And then if they lose a child they wouldn't replace and have 21 past that. But it is to get that child who really needs high quality early care and education based on a lot of research around trauma and just making sure they have stability and continuity. So that's the reason we have it there. Board members, other questions. Okay, then we'll leave the floor open for a motion here. This is on action item one, which is the renewal grants. So, I'll make a motion that we approve the update to the Arkansas Better Chance program renewal grants for the 2526 program year. Okay, there's a motion by Miss Keenir. Is there a second? A second by Miss Hunter. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes.
043And now we have item two, the remaining funds. Yes. So I will talk as as you may remember I also when I spoke to you in March talked about adjustments that we had made to programs who were not at full enrollment. So we have some remaining or projected remaining budget savings from that. Uh we did the project projection based on also that our PD or contractors would bill out there. So this is just what we project will be remaining. But during the summer, we assess programs and ask if there are any families that are going to need care. We have about almost 3,000 children whose families are continuing to work who need summer care beyond the school year. Um, when I first started over 20 years ago, we used ABC remaining funds. coming forward in
044time, we use some of our federal child care funds, but because we have a wait list on the federal child care side, now we can only serve those children that are already in, like maybe they have before and after care for ABC. So, we have those we have CCDF or childcare development slots that can pay for those children, but we do have children in ABC. And so, we're just requesting that we use this much of this year's remaining budget. And then we're asking to use from some contract reductions that we talked to you about I think in April um to use about half a million. This 852 would really help us cover June and the 500 or half a million will help us cover July just to get us through the summer for these uh
045children that are going to need extended care for their families to work. So we have a list of about 82 programs that are continuing. Many of those are community based. We do have some school districts, but a lot of our community based providers continue to serve children that do ABC if the families need that extended care. Board members questions to my left. Miss Hunter. Okay. So, whenever I read here on our agenda about the 500,000, you know, it mentions here that it's from the 2526 budget. So, that would be for starting July 1. So summer would go, you know, just thinking about the remaining funds for June really and then July one, we could use some of the savings from our reductions and contracts to continue to serve those children in July. Uh some of
046the programs will end at the end of July. I think some are going maybe into that first week of August, but most of them don't go right up to the school year, but some of our community based providers will go right up to the start of the school year. Thank you for reminding me. No, that's okay. That's okay. One of my compliments that we that this money was found because um blending and braiding and doing all the things with funds getting innovative is uh what you have to do when there's not enough. So I appreciate this. These kids are um in good hands because of you. Other board members questions. I did notice that the amounts are pretty small for per center. Is there rest rest rest rest rest rest rest rest rest rest rest
047rest restricted uses for these funds for the summer it is really just for them to carry you know that child through those summer months and think about it's a much smaller amount in the summer because it's a fewer you know fewer days but we do it based on their number projected days some of them may operate okay you know 30 to 45 days some may go the full 60 days so it's it's a little it's based on that so it's their per daily you calculation. That makes sense why there's variation between them two. Has there ever been a a sort of a study or an audit done of, you know, these are families that are already connected to programs that are already being done in the summer, but I can imagine if you pulled or
048looked at families across the state whose programs aren't going on in the summer, they too need that child care. Do we have any better understanding of how many families truly do want would use child care like that over the summer from 0 to 5? I would say we could start with the weight list that we currently have. I mean that's So you do have weight list. We do have weight list. Is that per center? It's actually just statewide. You know, so we have several hundred and that weight list will continue to build for child care assistance. Head Start's another example where it may end in the summer and I I think those some of those families I will tell you that even at ABC if you think about we serve almost 20,000 children in center
049base but only 3,000 are needing summer. A lot of families want you know a little less formal for them especially if they're transitioning to kindergartener or kindergarten this year. They want to have a less formal situation um for their child but this is how many you know needed it out of the 20,000. So, it starts to get a little smaller. So, I don't want to say everybody needs it. Uh, but we do know that the wait list is a predictor of how many families are requesting child care. Do you if you're on the wait list, does that mean your centers I mean it might be that your center just isn't open in the summer? No. And so, you're not on the wait list, but you still need care. Yeah. The wait list is because we
050have no funding to serve them. Okay. The center could serve them, but that we have no funding to serve them. Okay. Board members, any further questions? We will have the floor open for a motion on the ABC remaining funds allocations. So, I'll make a motion that we um approve the reallocation of Among the Right one. Yes. The reallocation of Arkansas Better Chance remaining funds for 2425 for the summer services. There's a motion by Miss Kener. Is there a second? Second. A second by Miss Rollins. All in favor say I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. I just want to point out I know the finance people may be in the room but I need to make sure 2526 is covered because they will come after me if I don't have approval from the board. So
051and just the agenda is incorrect or is it the documents? Well, I think we said 2425 the remaining funds. So we just No, it's it's okay. I just want to make sure they know we're good to cover and I don't give myself we need to amend or is that what was your motion? I'm uh I read the year 2425 as it states in the agenda but the funds are from 2425 to cover the 2526. Yeah, we have two years. We're talking about the remaining for 2425 and then using 2526. I just want to make sure fiscal year is July 1. It's clear. I say just let's restate that motion for clarification. So that perfect if that's okay. So I move that we um approve the reallocation of Arkansas Better Chance remaining funds. See, I think
052it's covered. I think I thought it was covered in the first one that we because we were talking about the 2526 program year and we have both the final proposal and then the summer services for July. Yeah. Yeah. If we're good, I'm good. I just want so because there's there's two different documents. I think we're covered and we have that on record. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you board members so much appreciate. Okay. Thank you. With that, we have a series of rules um Miss Smith to present to us. These first rules will be for out for public comment. Good morning. Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner. All right. We're going to start seeing administrative rules every month coming before the board. Um, today I'm going to show you some rules that are brand new that are
053going up for public comment. And then I'm going to show you some rules that you saw before the legislative session that kind of just got held up because session was going on, but we need to bring them back up and get them get them through. So, reminding you of the process. Um, first we release for comment, public comment by the state board. They go out for a comment peri period for 30 days and a notice. Then it comes back to this board for final approval. Um and then it goes to be reviewed by um ALC. If at any time during the public comment period there is a change to the rule that is considered substantive, it then goes back out again for public comment um and goes through that process again. All right. So new
054rules that are coming before you today. Um the first one is rules governing maternity leave. This is the first time this board has seen these rules. So, this is asking for a release to go out for public comment and to come back. During the last legislative session, we saw um two pieces of legislation that actually expand expanded Arkansas Learns. One, it guarantees that every teacher now has 12-week maternity leave or public educator or working in a public school district. So, every school district before they were getting to choose whether or not they did it. Now it's it's a requirement. Every school district will participate. Um it also does a reimbursement for 100% of the incurred cost during maternity leave. Um so that's very clear now what what the expectation is. It does allow leave to
055be extended the maternity leave to be extended for holidays within an academic school year. So if a Christmas break, Thanksgiving break would not count against the teachers maternity leave time and that would be extended. Um that was part of the piece of the legislation. So these are going out for their first public comment period. Um there is going to be a lot of guidance provided with these um once everything kind of gets nailed down and some examples um to make sure everyone is really clear on what counts and what doesn't count. They did it by the number of days. If you read the rules, it'll it'll talk about 83 I mean 84 days, which is the number of days in a 12-week period. So, I'm going to pause there and see if there's any questions.
056Was maternity to also include paternity leave? No. Not by the rules. Okay. Board members questions. This does still include um if you are adopting, if you have a foster child that's under the age of one. Um, so I mean there those components that are in there, too. Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and ask for a motion to approve the maternity leave to release for public comment. Instead of batching them like we've done sometimes, I'm just going to do one at a time today. Okay. So, unless there's any questions, there's a the floor will be open for a motion to approve the rules governing maternity leave cost sharing for public comment. I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I do have a question please. So on page three of the document it it says for purposes of
057this part an employee who has been disciplined for any leave abuse during the 12-month period prior to staff members request. So that was in legislation. Okay. So it's just as vague as that has been disciplined. Yes. Okay. And so in some of the guidance pieces, that's where we were trying to fill in like what is an example of that doc docu documentation or what would be needed. And that may be an area where we receive public comment on clarifications are needed. Thank you. Is this for the mother only? Yes, ma'am. Further questions, board members. Okay. and we'll have the floor open for a motion. I make a motion that we um release for public comment the rules governing maternity leave. I'll second. There's a motion by Miss Rollins, a second by Mr. Bragg. All in
058favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. So again, these will come back to you at some point. All right. The second one, rules governing public school choice. We had three different acts that amended legislation around public school choice. We also have in our state several different avenues for public school choice. So these rules get very lengthy um and at times confusing. Um one of the things that you'll see with legislation changes was it continues to empower parents regarding choice. It opened up intradist school choice. So if you're in a large district that has more than one school, it now allows um parents to choose to go to the another school within their resident district. So this has resident district transfers or choice and also out of school district um choices. It extended
059the deadline to June 1st. Prior it was May 1st. Um and it established the capacity definition at 95% for enrollment for schools. So if they have they can deny a student if they're at 95% capacity based on um school um classroom size rules. Is that 95% new? Was it 90 before or has it always been 95? What was it before? Morning. Excuse me. Courtney Solford. Um previously it was 90% for school choice and 95% for opportunity. And so now they've changed it so that they're consistent and it's 95 for both. Thank you. Is there any appeal beyond the 95? What was the question? Sorry. Is there any appeal beyond that 95%. So the the law does still allow a denial to be appealed to you all. Um, you can't overturn the decision if there was
060it's because of a timeline, but if you feel that it's in the best interest to make the district exceed that 95% then yes, that appeal is still allowed. Board members questions. Mr. Rollins, I know uh inner school transfers gets complicated with athletics. Does this clarify any of that? So, we don't address athletics in these rules um other than to say that if a student wants to be eligible that they have to complete the AAA required form. There was a law passed that addresses specific timelines that if they don't enroll in the new school district by I believe it's July 1 um in their 10th, 11th, or 12th grade year that they have to sit out a year. But because that's governed under a different law and it's not specific to school choice, we didn't include
061it in these rules. In fact, the Senate explicitly said that you are not to ask about what is it? Academic achievement, um, athletic or extracurricular ability, English proficiency level. There are some things that are written to disregard. Right. Right. And it also says in there, for example, like that they can't discriminate against a student or preclude them from um participating in those activities because of their school choice status. And while we didn't want to put the date requirement in there is to create to avoid creating that confusion because that that is not specific to school choice. It does affect school choice students, but the the fact of them being school choice or or um achievement level status, none of that should be taken into consideration. I have one more question and so this is u
062so I understand about the intra district transfers so does that also apply to students who are choicing in I mean do they then get to choose their school they can request that of course it's still the same as it was before whereas if the district says we don't have room at that school they can deny it um that would then enable the the parent and student to say well what about this other school so it is a choice request. Um, but it does not mean that they necessarily will get that school. Gota following along that I was I did not look at this last night. If it is a in district choice school, they don't have the appeal to the state board, do they? Yes, it's it's all included in their note. It still is.
063So e, so even if you're a resident in this district and I just want to choose another elementary school, if if the district denies it, then they could appeal that to you all. Do they appeal that first to their local board? Does the local board play any role in this? No, because it it is essentially the board that's making those decisions. Many boards delegate that to their superintendent to make the decision, but when the superintendent decides, he's acting on behalf of the board. So you would be reviewing the board's decision. Okay, board members, further questions. Yeah, that will get interesting. Are there I mean I assume the procedures will be the same for what we've done longstanding for intra district, but yes be the same procedures and those is there a timeline as to when
064that has to be done by? Um there is and it should be in the rule. Is it January one that they have to apply by still? Yeah. So it's Well, they can't apply before January one, but they have to apply by June 1. And so like between January and June, that's their open time. Correct. Okay. That used to be May, correct? That's correct. They switched from May one to June June one to give parents that additional time. And there is a timeline. Oh, wait. Here it is. Yeah. Um, they have 10 days excluding weekends and holidays after receiving notice to uh file their appeal with the division. So we would expect probably mo I mean the the school district has to notify them of their decision within 15 days of the application. So we could
065see appeals throughout the entire spring. Um but since they have until June 1, I would anticipate that the most of them that we see would be in June andor July. So we're going to go back to what we were doing a couple years ago where July was a terrible meeting. possible if we see a lot of denials that we could end up with a lot of hearings. Yes. Larger districts, I imagine, will be tricky. Have y'all received feedback yet from some of the larger districts on how they expect to handle this? No, I have not. I think local school districts right now are in the same boat we're in right now putting out the rules. I expect we're going to get a lot of public comment on these rules. Yeah. um that will help us
066decide what kind of guidance we need to be putting out, what kind of charts or graphs or like how does this look. Um the reality right now is we are in a time of choice. We are in a time of parents being able to choose and pick where their child goes to school, whether that's with a private school, charter school, or a public school. And we are shifting in our state the mindset of even our public schools and how that operates. And so this is there's going to be a learning curve around this, right? And um it'll probably be bumpier in the beginning, but I I feel like this will probably smooth out um especially as local districts are creating local policies that make more sense for them. Um you know, depending on other other
067states have open intradist policies right now. So there are going to be people looking at other states that say, "How do you do it over there?" Um our state is a very small state in terms of the number of schools within most of our districts. So you're really talking only about a handful of districts that have multiple schools. Most districts only have one high school. You'll have some that have two or three, but other than that, it's it's it's a pretty small. It gets into your elementary schools is where you have the larger number, right? So there's going to be some policy pieces there, and there's going to be times for this is time for our partners, Dr. Duncan and Aea to um pull together their folks to say, "How are you doing this in
068your district?" So there'll be some opportunity there. today. This is just a release to go out to begin receiving um the lots of comments I believe we're going to receive. Forgive me, I didn't read it in detail, but the um I didn't see remember seeing this, but the uh I know at least when I was in Little Art School District back in the 1900s, they had what was called a TNT, which is a transfer no transportation. So, within the district, they already allowed that choice, but you were giving up the transport. Tell me about that. here where transportation sorry where transportation falls because I think that's always a big topic. Yeah. So it kind of depends. Um if you are applying under opportunity school choice the law still provides that the district has to provide
069transportation up to a cost maximum of $400. Um however and you can do inter or intra district under opportunity or public school choice. If you're under public school choice under the law, there is no requirement that the district provide transportation. However, if you are doing intra district and your district has a policy whereas you provide transportation to students and this is where I think districts are going to be have to be very careful and work with their um policy drafter to make sure you can't discriminate against one of those students because of school choice. And so the law doesn't require you to provide transportation, but if you provide transportation to your other students, you're going to have to be very careful in not discriminating against a school choice student because of their um use of
070school choice. And so you may end up having to provide transportation. Um going to Stacy's point, I think this is where there's situations where districts are going to have to be very creative and really look at some of their existing bus routes and policies and things may not look the way that they did before. There may be some riding a bus from home to one school and then that school to another school. Um I think this is just a kind of a whole new area that we're going to have to navigate and figure out how it works best. Well, and I think that answers another question I had about including residential address in the list of things that could not be discriminated against. So that makes sense now. Thank you. I appreciate that. I have
071a question. Um, going back to the comments about the the culture is very pro- studentent, pro-choice. Um, and and I really believe that the board has demonstrated a a favoring students and parents choices. Uh, and and that's been going on for several years. I think that there there was a real shift maybe 10 years ago or so uh that started uh with regard to being critical of districts that denied students the opportunity to go wherever. Does the law So my question is, does the law authorize us to put in the rules punitive measures when choice applications are denied and overturned by this board so that districts would be disincentivized to deny just out of a well, let's just deny it and see what happens. Um because it, you know, talking about, you know, the references
072to, you know, July meetings are going to be bad. We're going to have lots of denial appeals and all this and that. Can can we can we put in the rules that, you know, if a if a family or a student is represented by an attorney that those attorney fees would have to be paid by the if if the denial is overturned? Is is that a possibility? We can look into that further. Um that's nothing that is explicitly stated in the law. Yes or no? I will say though that I I believe in my experience the denials that we have seen from districts has always been based on capacity. There's been an occasional few that where maybe something else was considered. And I think those are different situations. But when a district is is lawfully
073denying it based on capacity, your authority to overturn that doesn't mean that they necessarily did anything wrong or that would deserve punitive action. So certainly in those cases, I don't feel like punitive action would be necessary or even appropriate. However, in those cases where there might be a different example of denial based on disability, um that's something that we can look at. But also, as you know, that is a case of discrimination where that that parent and attorney could pursue that avenue in in a different avenue in district court in for lawful discrimination. Um but we can Yeah, fair enough. But that too is complicated and just another process that a parent has to go through to recover that. Uh just anything we can do to just get the message to districts that if kids
074want to come to your school or want to leave your school, the answer there should be a heavy burden to say no. That's that's what I think the message often is from this board. Whatever we can do to support that. If I could add a comment. So I this is like the number one question I get asked up in Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, and Fyville because that's our my home district. Every school is full. And so I have a hard time when they're like, "But it's school choice." But yet there's never going to be a choice because all the schools are full at 100% and over that all of the time. So that's why I'm like, I'm going to be staring at these July people that are saying, "Well, I wanted to go to that school
075or we went to that school and we moved, but we want to stay because it's our last year of elementary school." And then you got somebody else like I have a great example from last year. people were moving between Bentonville High and Bentonville West. It was his senior year. He played for Bentonville baseball the whole time and I don't remember how it she's like, "Can I petition to stay at Bentonville?" I'm like, "I I don't I mean, there's district transfers, but I don't know about the So, that's just what I foresee happening is there's all these one-offs of it's my last kids last year. We just moved here. XYZ just well in the opposite sense we've seen schools deny a student leaving their school district because their numbers are going down. They're like we can't
076lose another kid but if people are you know scraping to get out there's another issue. So thank you. Yeah and and that cap on a district being able to deny it because they're losing students that was taken out. So the the losing district uh and has no legal reason to say no. it would only be if the receiving district now is full. And I will say I think something we're working on looking at to to help address that is our student teacher ratios and max max room max capacity for uh classrooms. Um because many times it's well by adding one student to this class we're going to have to hire another teacher to stay within our ratios. If we can provide some flexibility on that in our rules, then maybe they could and would allow
077that one student to stay if it didn't cause them to have to um hire another teacher or come to the board and ask for a waiver of class size rules. Um so hopefully we can help alleviate and address some of those issues on our end so that we're not putting districts in that position of of having to tell that one student no because we're not talking about funding between districts when we're talking about changing schools because it's all in the same pot, right? It all still be going to the same district. Board members to my right. Any questions? Additional comments? I'm ready to make the motion. I'd like to move that we release the public school choice rules for public comment. There's a motion by Dr. Arnold. Is there a second? Second. There's a second
078by Mr. Wood. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Next, we have a do we have three sets of rules for final approval? Yes. Okay. This one is the rules governing child sexual abuse and human trafficking. This is one you've seen recently. This was a change um regarding the human trafficking rules require school school districts to implement a child sexual abuse and human trafficking prevention program provide training to teacher teachers and prevents school districts from providing instructions on certain topics before fifth grade. Um this was released for public comments recently. There were no public comment so there are no changes um to these rules. Um most everything in these rules is pretty identical to the law. So, I would ask for a motion to approve these for ALC.
079Board members to my right. Questions or comments? To my left, questions or comments? And I I did not there were no comments made in the public comment process. I'll make a motion to release to the ALC. There's a motion, Miss Woods, to approve the rules and release to ALC the rules governing child sexual abuse and human trafficking prevention. A second by Mr. Bragg. Questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. The next set of rules are what we would considered are called um first connections or part C rules. These were actually presented to the board by Miss Keener back in November 7th, 2024. Um, the changes in these rules really were about moving from the Department of Human Services over to the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Right? So,
080those were the biggest changes. Um, in terms of timeline and why it's taken so long, they were pretty hefty for one. um other early childhood rules were taking um preference of trying to get those through. And then in terms of just priority of all the rules going, this was one that was kind of a a lowhanging fruit. Um once it got to that point where it was approved to go out and the process started, we changed how they have to be the format that they have to be put in, which is the car format. So we've had to go back and put these rules in the car format that you currently see now. That's why it looks like the whole rule is new when it's not. All right, but that's that's why you see that
081formatting change. Um, so this the changes you see reflected are really about changing between the Department of Human Services over to the division. Um, and then just the lagging where we had the legislative session and so they've just kind of sat there and so now we're bringing them back up to you. They're in the correct format um and they're ready to be approved for um to go over to ALC. Okay, that makes sense because I was shocked that if it was all a new rule that there was no public comments received. Correct. Not correct. That was not the case. In fact, when it went out for public comment, it was even in in the I believe in the old format. Okay. Um and then so once it was approved and we were in that lagging
082time, they were like, "Wait, we've changed our format. You've got to go back and reformat it." Okay. And so that's what we've done. Appears red. Yes. Yes. It's not all new words. Okay. Yes. Board members questions to my right. to my left questions. Do you have anything? I will say that Secretary Oliva would say, "Quit talking if you think they're about to vote." I will say that I do believe there are there are um he hasn't given me a look yet, but I was feeling that his head was going to come up, right? So, keep your head down and I'll I'll say what I'm saying. I do feel like there there is going to be a need for additional changes to these rules at some point. This is still um new to our division, right?
083And that we are learning about how the program has been administered in the past. Um there are definitely areas that we've identified that we believe need to be addressed or changed or improvements made. However, we need to get some rules on the books. DHS has rescended their rules. So, we need to get the part C rules back where they need to be. Um and then we're going to continue to have conversations about these rules and things and changes that we think might need to occur to make this a better program. We're building a house. Licensing is the best. That's right. That's a Thank you, Mr. Thank you. So, I would ask for um a good vote. Well, in that I do have qu that makes me ask question. Yeah, it's an easy one. So, and
084I appreciate the fact that like it's new and continue to look at them like you do all rules, but is there like a cadence for the rule review? I mean like if you if we approve this and it you know goes through the whole process and gets a stamp and then next month you find out there's something that needs to be changed. Could we start it all over again? What would happen is we would make some changes. We would come back to this board. We would ask this board to release it for public comment and we would start all over again. Right. And isn't it up to us to set the agenda and ask for those things? Is that how that works? or what triggers aside from what triggers what triggers moral changes um outside
085of legal ch the statutes? Yeah. Um anytime that we're going to ch if we're going to ask for something to change that is currently in the rules and if we're going to change our practice or what's currently happening, we would need to come and ask for permission for that and that would start here. So either the department or the board itself could request their applications. Thanks. Thank you. And I would say that some good examples of that have been the push on our early childhood from licensing, right? That wasn't something that necessarily came from internal. That came from um you and um you know the governor's office saying we need to look at this, right? Um and this is something of changes and things we need to do it. There wasn't anything specifically about licensing
086and learns that caused this to make the overhaul that we did, but I think we're better for it now. Board members, any additional questions or comments? The floor will be open for a motion. Then make a motion to approve the amended rules to identify ADA as a regulatory authority for the programs DHS. And there's a motion to approve the rules. Is there a second? Second. A second by Miss. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. All right. The next set of rules is the rules governing dyslexia screening and interventions. These rules were brought to the board back in May 9th, 2024 and released for the first round of public comment. Um, we dyslexia has always been a big discussion and we anticipated that we would have lots
087of public comment which we did and we actually welcome it because we think it makes it makes the rules better as we go through the process. These rules were released not once but twice for public comment. Um, there were lots of changes in terms of trying to get our systems align. Um, we built in the new Atlas screener in which we were trying to pull in the dyslexia screening at the same time and be able to set a statewide cut of identifying a student for dyslexia. We think that's a good thing. All right, we're building but we're building that screening system. We have experts on our committees who are helping set those cuts. Um but instead of each individual school doing screeners and determining it's it's set now at the state level that t that
088says a kid needs more um screening or assessments based on how they did on the initial screener. So we feel like there's some things there from the change from the first time you saw this to the second time you've seen it. Um the yellow are changes that were made to public comments the first round. The blue are changes that were made to these rules from public comment the second round. So you can see anything that's in yellow in here was a response to a change from public comment. Blue much more reduced because I think we've got we got it right. Um some of the the the big things had to do with timelines. Um if you'll remember the first time that you saw these rules um I think Miss Woods you actually asked about this
089a couple times. I think we had that 15 day like it was 15 days for this and then it was like 10 days for this and then it was like and it made it confusing and a lot of the comments were around that. So we've clarified here to say learns requires screening within the first 30 days the day that you're screened if you are if it's indicated that you need additional assessments because then it pulls you in you have 30 days from that point to get your additional assessments for your conferences to be held and begin providing intervention. So it instead of having those individual days, it's 30 days here and then there's 30 days here and services should be provided if that's what's needed. So we're hoping that most kids that are identified are
090getting services starting November time frame. Yes. And you know when you think about the the initial part of school, I mean this puts it kind of close to when parent teacher conferences are happening. It puts it in line with our assessment rules for screening our students. Um so I think where previously we saw the weight gain we'd screen kids and then we would wait and we that philosophy of let them grow up a little bit. They're immature. They just need time. Um they just haven't been exposed. Um and maybe that's true for some kids, but we believe even if you haven't been exposed that you need intensive intervention earlier than later and it needs to start. So this kind of forces I mean at the latest for a student in K12, you should be receiving
091services by day 60 if you were screened according to the timelines. That would be the latest So, are older grades screened like through? Yes. So, if you are in grades um if you're above third grade um and you show a reading deficiency, then you should be being screened with your appropriate screener. Um and we have screeners built into the Atlas system. All right. But you can also begin providing services to student. If you have a student who's scoring in a level one in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, they're not on reading level and they need structured literacy intervention, right? And so the same foundational skills that are going to be used to instruct students with dyslexia are the same grounded fundamental skills you need to teach a child to read, but even through possibly high school.
092Yes. Yeah. And should be happening. And does it happen with fidelity right now, Mr. Bragg? No, I think it's very confusing and so hopefully being able to put in a state system where we have clear scores, better guidance, hopefully that's going to get tighter and cleaner. Board members questions to my left. I do have some questions. Yes, ma'am. And I will say when we have something I think it was 136 pages of public comment, it would have been nice to have more than 24 hours to review. So, I was scrambling last night to try to get an understanding of what those public comments are. Is there anything else in public comments that's outstanding that you all felt wasn't answered? Um, I believe that that legal followed up with Dr. Pride's team and they reviewed every
093public comment from the first round and the second round. Again, some of the um the latest public comments I think that we're we were getting answers to had to be were more around the assessment um because we're going to the statewide screener and the AI around that. And so the answers around that, making sure our assessment team um our vendors, our committee making sure we were all on the same page there. But as far as all the public comments being addressed and none, you answer them all in there. I feel like we I feel like they addressed all the ones that needed to be addressed. Okay. This is something that um let's see it's on page three and it's the definition of a dyslexia specialist. This is something I have a small understanding of but
094and I could totally be off here. So in a lot of districts right now for the dyslexia interventions are being done by teachers or pair of professionals who've done dyslexia training. Is that correct? And does this change that? This doesn't change. This follows what the law says. Okay. On page where it talks about dyslexia interventionist I think my page numbers may be different than yours. You said page three. Yes. Oh, dyslexia specialist. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. No. No. It does. To me, it does not change it. Okay. Is is there a difference between a dyslexia specialist and interventionist? Um, the interventionist a lot of times is not a certified teacher. Okay. That's Yeah, because you could have a tutor, a prepared professional. The specialist has a higher level. Okay. So the specialist it's just
095changing it it took away sort of a definition of of things and just said dyslexia as a whole. Yeah. So the endorsement of certification in dyslexia. Um so we took out the individual isolated skill sets. Okay. Because the programs that have to get certification in dyslexia it's named in there and then we have to identify and approve which of those programs it would be for you to qualify for that. Okay. And then this so then therefore an interventionist this doesn't change how districts are currently staffing interventions does it? No. Okay. It does not. Okay. Those are my questions. Board members additional questions. I know this represents a lot of work by your team over the past decade and a lot of work by school districts. Um and I know there's still a lot of work
096to be done. There is a new batch of students every year. Yep. To serve. Well, I'll make a motion, but I was also going to make a comment just based on the 136 pages. I think that shows in the state how big of a deal dyslexia is. For a lot of students, um, and so I'm just proud of us for moving forward with this. My favorite thing the secretary says is, I just want kids to learn to read. You know, it's been proven to reduce the number of dyslexia um, identifications is high quality early learning. There you go. We're just working all as a team here. So anyway, on that note, I will um motion to release the rules to the ACL. Yeah. Yep. That's where they'll head next. Yes. To the next level. There's
097a motion by Miss Woods to approve the rules. Is there a second? Second. There's a second by Miss Hunter. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have the high school course offerings. Good morning. Kimmy Pride, assistant commissioner of learning services and I am before you today. Arkansas public school districts and open enrollment charter schools are required to offer a minimum number of unique courses per the DESI rules governing standards for accreditation of Arkansas public schools and school districts. and um I want to just sort of give you a highle overview of some changes and additions for the unique courses that are required to be offered. So um and you should have the attachment in your uh agenda but in general
098one of the the changes we made is we wanted to make sure that we uh noted the accelerated courses options um for each of the core areas from math, science, um literacy and social studies. And those options include advanced placement, Cambridge ACE, international IB, international balorate and or concurrent courses. So you'll see there is an Astrich in every um of each of the core areas that denotes that they must offer accelerated learning offerings across those four C core areas. Um, and we do have a list of those courses in an additional document because it's just too lengthy to put them all on here. But there is an additional document that schools get that show all of the courses and we have a course code management system by which they can go and look at those
099courses and the appropriateness and the sequence of courses that students can take across accelerated learning. So that's also um a change and then also we have listed um the computer science courses and you can see all of them listed there. That's an addition. Before we we had a general statement about them and referenced them to the bigger list, but we've listed them all um this time. And also we've indicated again with a notation of an asterric that um the courses that are available for eighth grade and that's to your far right on the list as well. So you see that that's there. And then I would say you'll see a few changes in course names. For example, English one through four previously was grade 9, 10, 11, and 12. But with um the opportunities for
100students to accelerate, we didn't want we took those are the only ones that were listed by grade and we just changed that that name so that you would know the sequence that the courses needed to be taken in, but also that students had the opportunity to take take those when they were ready. Um and I would say that um pretty much sums up the changes. Everything else is pretty much the same as it was last year when you saw this. Board members to my left. Questions. Um, how does our secretary feel about this inventory of courses? So, a great question. I think this is really starting to line up with the vision that we see in access to make sure that we're not blocking courses and tying them to grade levels. when when students are
101ready for accelerated opportunities and that's one of the the biggest priorities that we have is we need to make sure that we can provide that and I' and I've said this kind of publicly a few times. I I feel like sometimes some of our um most neglected students in the state are our highest performing students because we're not letting them get access to high quality content and rigor when they're ready. We're waiting for them to achieve a certain grade level. So, um, th this is going to be comprehensive and we're actually working on building out more accelerated opportunities when we look at access implementation because we're going to be rewriting with this course code catalog a standard weight for some of these um courses whether it's concurrent credit or an honors course or an an
102AP course or an IB course. So this is a I think the first step towards implementation and moving it in the right direction and it's work that's going to continue to be ongoing as we're putting together our work groups and getting feedback from stakeholders. Um just just the simple things by saying like English one and not grade nine English is starting to change that mindset. And I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but semantics matter and this is helping to set that mindset that when kids are ready to earn high school credit, especially if they're in middle school, we need to open up those opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Oliva. Mr. If a school doesn't offer one of the courses and a student wants that course, does the school have any obligation to try
103to accommodate them either maybe through remote or so so this list is the minimum requirements that all schools are expected to offer. Okay. Each school has to offer. So yeah, so when we have more courses than this in our course catalog, but when you're looking at this, you can see English language arts, they have to offer three credits from the list below, right? they have to offer two from the list below. There are certain so this is like the minimum education that all schools have to provide students in the state and those courses are on this list. If a stu if a student wants to take a course though that their school's not offering um we do have like course choice that was coming available and that's more information about that's coming out. Um you
104do have virtual options a lot of times that schools will offer their students. Um, and again, as we're getting into this arena of more choice and creating better pathways, um, those are the conversations that we need to keep having. At the same time, we need to be having conversations about what courses do we not need to be offering. Okay? For example, we actually had AP courses that we offered in our state that no college in the state of Arkansas would give it credit for because they didn't have that. So, why are we paying for an a course that nobody in the state's going to give college credit for, right? So, we're going through and making sure that we're really looking at our courses, making sure that they're rigorous, making sure that they make sense, and
105making sure that there is a pathway developed for that course to take that kid past high school. So, this this was what would before been the 38, right? But we went well beyond 38 when we started requiring you had to have AP classes, right? Or you had to have your computer science classes. So, this is just we felt it was important to bring it to you with the changes around acceleration um because it's no longer just AP and we wanted to put that before you. We also thought it was important that you could see um the computer science courses listed, the ones that were indicated for eighth grade um and get your approval on that. I have some questions, but I want to check board members questions. So, previously was it that four AP courses
106were required? Is that still required or is it that you can do other Cambridge or other programs? So access in our legislation for access for acceleration, it opened up where you could offer other accelerated opportunities. Concurrent credit, IB, AP, AE, the Cambridge um piece. So it's opening it up. Beforehand it was only AP. Is concurrent credit included in that? Yes. So concurrent credit is included as a accelerated pathway? Yes. Do we have um any authority over those concurrent credit classes to understand how rigorous or not they are? So great question. So Dr. Warden, our commissioner of higher education is actually establishing a statewide training for educators who are going to be teaching those courses so that we make sure that we have alignment to the rigor of higher ed with making sure that this the
107standards or the matching high school course are met. So before where you had APSIS for AP which was the training okay advance advanced placement institute we're now going to be offering training over here to ensure that the rigor for higher ed is there this summer. Yeah this summer. I'd say concurrent credit is the only one of those programs that doesn't have a uniform assessment. Correct. Correct. There's not a uniform assessment. Okay. when we're talking about so English take for instance the ELA English one English two accelerated ELA offerings what are those accelerated ELA offerings and is that something that this board is approving now those offerings or will that be approved at a later date yes so English one through four would be what you you know you would have known as English nine would
108be English one two and 10 so forth but there are other there are other options that students can take at an accelerated um pace So, for example, they could take um challenging my memory here is um but I guess the way I read this here are they could take a seminar course. Um they could take um it could be an AP course. It could take it could be another course that and we have a guide for this. I just can't remember all of the English ones right now off the top of my head. But, uh we do have a a progression to show what are options that students can take at an accelerated price. I think it would have been helpful for us to see those accelerated offerings to prove this here. But the way
109I'm reading this is a district will no longer have to have to have English three or English four because it's an option. Well, they so they have to offer that and and for the majority of students, they're going to have those students in those courses. Those students that are ready though, they also could but it says like must offer two. So they could offer English public relations and English documents instead of English three and English four. Am I reading this wrong? No. Um, so what you're seeing is in terms of um what is required for and I guess we did that to divide in terms of the assessment piece. So um but also students once they get past that English 10, they also could have different options by which um they wouldn't have a state
110assessment that align directly to our our criteria for so we might have high schools that aren't aren't offering like what you would used to say was a junior English English three. And so these were courses that were brought to the state board previously. We created English 11 and 12 courses that that matched pathways. Okay? Right? So you had a STEM pathway. So when you're taking that English 11 course, it had a STEM emphasis. So you're reading more technical writing stuff. So So high schools could offer those courses in place of that English traditional English 11. All right. Um but English old English nine old English two which is now one two have to be offered to everyone because those are the alignments to the state assessment. All right. But as we're trying to create better
111pathways, while we're trying to create more meaningful coursework for students, you're starting to see some of those pathway course devel. [Music] Okay. I didn't sorry to go back and forth. I didn't fully understand how that was working. And so yeah, so I think with that, so speak to me a little bit about it used to be that you had to have 38 offered or required and this is saying 22. When did that change? No, no, these are courses that are required to be offered for students and uh this is not the same as the exact list for the graduation requirement. So there's a handout that shows you the number of student graduation requirements and what what is the student graduation requirement right now? So 22 credits that there are four ELA, three math, three science.
112You're challenging my memory. I have it here. Okay. But so this is that's that's a different set of things than and do we does our board approve the graduation requirements? I know local boards can go above and beyond that, right? So the graduation requirement is something that's set between the hire coordinating board and the state board. Right? So it's been set at 22 graduation credits for a long time. We have not brought any changes to this board around the 22 graduation requirements in recent years. What we have brought are changes around the last time you probably saw a controversial change to this list was when we removed journalism. Yes. Right. And that caused all kinds of drama. Right. So what you're seeing now in terms of what we've added to this list is the change
113around acceleration saying that you no longer have to have just AP, right? And then we also explicitly stated on here the computer science courses because there is an expectation in law that all schools are offering a computer science class. There's also an expectation in law that we indicate four of those courses that can be offered in eighth grade. Other than that, it is the same. And as far as the courses and standards, standards you guys have approved. So these English courses, the standards for English we've already brought to you guys and you've approved that. What we're showing you really is just here are the here are the courses that we require school districts that they have to have at least the required amounts off of this. And this is what we go by standards for
114accreditation for. So if a school district didn't offer the correct number of science courses, then they could be brought to this board for a standards for accreditation violation. And so we're wanting to make sure that you're aware of what courses are on there. But the only changes are really around the accelerated pathways with AP. Thank you. If if you look nationwide, 22 credits, we have high graduation rates, but we have a low bar for graduation with that 22 credits, would that have to be a law change or would that be a change by our board? Um, I think that would have to be I I'd have to look. Let me go back and look. And I know some districts go above and beyond that and they require more of their students. Um, but if you
115look at 22, I mean, that's less than six credits a year for students. And as we talk about seat time, that's a pretty low bar for our students. I think we should raise Great. I'll look forward to you all doing that. Um, but I but I also look forward to I think I think students I I think this is a minimum. I mean, I know it's a minimum is what we're saying, but I think we should up the minimum to some extent. I think students deserve more opportunities. And I I know like now that the world is open for virtual, students do have a lot of virtual options, but I think in person is important too. And so we thinking in the future, you know, should we push a little harder to require districts to
116offer more courses, more options for students? So I think the the answer to that question potentially is yes, right? I think that where we have to identify roadblocks on our side is one with lure. So if you have a science teacher or you have a math teacher and you're asking them to teach multi if you're a small district and we have to remember most of our districts in our our state are very very small and rural where they may only have one teacher who's teaching seventh grade math, eighth grade math, ninth grade math, tth grade math like so and so every time we put a requirement that you have to offer that course then you have to have a period in and someone doing it which is fine and I think that's where the virtual
117options sometimes come in and I think that's where we have to look at our licensing requirement and who can teach what courses. So, I would agree. It used to be that every student had to take one virtual course. Is that still on the law? No. Okay. And do we have any sort of requirements as to how many of these have to be in person versus virtual offerings? No. Okay. Do y'all do any sort of audit of that way to get an understanding of, you know, this school district is offering this percent of high school courses virtually versus in person? They report that in um their in the e school system. um the teacher of record and if the course is virtual or in person. And we do see some of our our districts and and
118some districts who have been in trouble and some who have not where they have a large offering of virtual courses, right? And so um it's about ensuring the quality and putting practices in place where virtual co courses are being offered um at a high standard and that kids are being successful in them and we have places where that's happening. Okay, I have two more sets of questions. I'm sorry it's my last day y'all. We'll have more questions for me. I'm not sure why you sat down and got off the hook. So, I know I mean we've talked about acceleration. A lot of middle school students might want to be taking the algebra 1 geometry, but that's not required for middle schools, junior highs to offer at the eighth grade level or is it? It's not
119required, but I will tell you since Secretary Oliva has arrived in our state, the numbers of kids who are graduating with associates degrees are continuing to rise. the expectation in the law for access with acceleration the guidance that's coming out from this department around that it's going to continue to to increase your team has done wonderful job of taking the academic standards for um ELA and math and backwards mapped them all the way to elementary school so that kids can be put on these accelerated pathway pieces and so you're going to have school districts who are going to automatically start putting those in place we're at the beginning we're having to change systems work to get acceleration in our state where it needs to be and that's where we're at right now. Well, there are
120two more pieces that I'm excited about. One is the standardization so that kids that are taking concurrent credit that they actually transfer to the next place is I know someone taking business law UACB and it is not accepted at UCA. So, they're stuck, right? And so, I'm so excited again that somebody paid attention is correcting that. And finally, the long-term goal being that the box that is checked by default is the advanced math course and you have to opt out of it as opposed to the way we're doing things now. But again, long-term goals. Another one I had written down was world languages. Um is that is there ever been a conversation about requiring high schools to offer four years of world of world languages instead of two? I know for accelerated students who are
121looking to go to colleges, colleges you see foreign language um you're going to start seeing that come up in our IB pathways, right? And so as school districts are starting to increase those opportunities, you're going to see those kind of courses being offered. At this point, most schools um if you have a student who's going on to year three or year four, a lot of them a lot of times are having to do a virtual ashum unless they have a teacher who can um continue that on. Yeah. But but I'd say overall I think like to your point as we get into the next phases maybe part of that conversation is what is that list of required accelerate courses out of middle school and then maybe even what does that look like at elementary school.
122Um one of one of the I think neat pathways in like our diploma of merit is we recognize a seal of biiteracy as advanced credential on the high school diploma. So that may encourage some more school districts to offer more world languages, but should we be making sure that there is a pathway to complete a program, right? Where you're not just getting the introductory courses. So th those are we're not going to have all the answers now, but that that's the conversations we're having now with kind of reimagining expectations for students. I I think 22 graduation credits is low. I think we could have higher expectations for our students if we're going to prepare them to be successful. And what we call one of our three E is is making sure that there's a pathway
123to be employed, enlisted, or enrolled. What are those real expectations mean? And what does it mean for a student to be college and career ready when they graduate? So those are th those aren't conversations that just you finalize, right? That's just kind of the way of work that that is ongoing. And we got to start by building the expectation, supporting districts with shaping that mindset, but then continually engaging in this dialogue and this conversation. And I I think those are all great suggestions. Yeah. And I think you'd be hardressed to find any school in the any district in the state that this is all that that they only offer the minimum. Most are offering more. And going back to your foreign language, you can stack Spanish three, Spanish four, right? So if the school has
124to offer, they don't they have to have it in their schedule. Spanish one, Spanish two. If you have a kid who's ready for Spanish three, you can stack those courses and blend your kids together. So, there's opportunities for that. I think long term it will will be exciting. We know research says the sooner you start a foreign language, the better. And we think about Taiwan setting that goal that we could push elementary schools to start and there's many virtual options that are great for teaching second languages that I think we could push from there. Um, my last question, sorry, was around the computer science. Yeah. So, it's in law that a computer science course has to be offered in eighth grade. What But do you have to take it in eighth grade? What is the
125I think it's in law that for I may have to get Ross up here for this. It's that four courses have to be identified that can be offered in eighth grade for computer science. It was brought to my attention that computer science A is a very high level course and maybe shouldn't be in eighth grade. Is there been any conversations about why these one ones were selected? Move that up a little bit. So there is a requirement in law that we have to identify four courses that are available within the eighth grade. So when we really get into the list here and you have our full computer science list there. So that's every computer science course that we have. Um so our introduction to computer science is really our you know that entry level. Um
126but then we have had schools that have been doing computer science a like that's what their request has been. There is an AP computer science principles that you will see on here. um that is there as well. And this has been more built by the way the law was passed. Us to have appropriate courses for eighth graders becomes a little bit challenging too because if you're familiar with anytime I get up here and talk to you about it, we have pathways and we go to a level one, a level two, a level three. We build on skills and so we really have to identify the courses that have the most foundational skills. And AP computer science A and the principles both are kind of the most foundational that we can pull out where if we
127pull any of those other courses, the first course is going to be introduction to computer science. The second course then will be, you know, we get into these advanced databases, digital electronic, those all become a second or a third course. So they're not appropriate to be an eighth grade course. Okay? And so, but they're not required to take it in anytime you so they have to obviously take a course to graduate. Um, and the, you know, the period to be able to earn that can be in that window. Um, but we do have that opportunity for those that obviously this was kind of done before acceleration, but it does give that accelerated opportunity for a student who might want to go through a really robust computer science pathway in their school has those opportunities. They
128can get started a little bit earlier in that eighth grade window. Is there still at the middle school level, is there still some sort of requirement for a computer course? So, there's still the coding block requirement. Um, and so that is it varies based off district. We give them a lot of options. a lot of them embedded into what we call key code which is a mixture of keyboarding and then you know learning the fundamentals of keystrokes and then the coding block as well but they still do have a coding block requirement that has to be met in that middle school block and then my question was are any of these courses like an introductory into AI and where is AI fitting in into these courses or how we're approaching that. So all of our
129computer science programs have gone through a big revision this past year. Um, so in our CTE world, every three years we revisit all of our programs and look at all of our occupational codes and instructional codes to make sure they align with our post-secondary partners and align with industry. Um, so in that there has been some adjustments that there is obviously that in it. But at the same time, it is still I won't say so new, but there's so much to be learned that it there's not going to be one that's just specifically focused to, you know, artificial intelligence specifically. Yes, in many of these different groups you're going to see uh or say groups, different pathways, you're going to see um the conversation coming up in probably all of them in some of our
130standards. So you said you revisit them every three years. Does do the standards get changed every three years or is it just It varies. I mean it truly depends on this. Now I will say the the computer science standards for this year are the ones that have been updated. I mean it they hadn't really been reviewed since their inception for most part. So they have had some pretty big revisions. We went from nine pathways to four and that was a part of our full our full pathway revisions that we've talked with y'all about before um because we're going in the whole world of career technical education down from 63 to to 44 as well to make sure our alignment from SIP and sock codes with our post-secary to employment as well. Does that come to
131our board to approve or is that in so within the standards within career technical education? So I mean they are still something you that you were made aware of. We also go with the career education and workforce development board that's seen by a department of commerce as well with our standards. Okay. Can I jump in since I question just covered everything here. So when we're talking about AI because Bo and I were just sitting here talking about it is there ever when if we wanted to make an AI required course. I remember when Governor Hutchinson like laid down the law and he was like we're offering computer science. How does that process work? I'm gonna let some other people talk about that in regards to building one. I can tell you we were just sitting
132here talking about how we're behind the eightball in a lot of areas and so as we start looking to future courses when I leave here I'm going to go put it in chat GPT and ask us to make it a course and I'll be back to you tomorrow or I'll be back to you by 3 I can do it pretty you got to be careful because I was telling Bo that I was looking something up yesterday and it gave me a fake case and I was so glad that I went to source it cuz I was like I have never it was like so on point it didn't exist and chat GPT finally said oh I'm sorry I made a mistake I was like great so always fact check so so Actually, there is I
133believe there is a governor's task force on AI right now. We have two or three different groups here at the department who are working on AI um information and um just guidance for school districts. You're going to start seeing AI um in terms of like professional development and developing that. Um our team is in the the boat learning right now. Okay. And so those are things you're going to see. I think AI is not going to necessarily be a standalone. AI is going to be in everything that we do. You're going to start seeing it within your English language arts standards. You're going to start seeing it in your math classes. You're going to start seeing it in your graphic design. It's going to be everywhere. So, um, just your intro and understanding of what
134it is. Yes, you're going to start seeing standards pop up on that. I mean, that my my first grader and I are already having those conversations because we're seeing more generative content. And so, I think I mean, if y'all are thinking about that, that starts with elementary standards. Yeah. And it's about the be the being able to even like decipher what's real, what's not real, right? You know, um but it's g it's it's hitting everything. It's in every element right now. And it's and it's going faster than we're moving. I was going to say this for part of my report at the end, but she teed it up. So, um, not to hijack it or anything, but I think we need to be careful in um, our vision of AID, not just associated with the
135the computer science subject or it's good to hear you say that what you just said, Stacy, but also focus on training our teachers how to utilize AI for their jobs. And, uh, I think it's kind of a prescription for burnout if it's if it's learned to use effectively. There's tools out there and u I don't know what that looks like as far as professional development maybe a little bit like science uh science of reading reading professional development I don't think it needs to be one six-hour you know course in the summer and then forgot maybe we need to really think about okay uh the requirements of professional development in-depth professional development and what type of supports can we give the teachers through the school year to ensure that they're using those tools through the year
136to to benefit them and and and make their do their jobs more efficient. Yeah, that's good. Right now, folks are wrestling with the policies behind it, you know, with student work and teacher work and giving credits. I mean, there so there's a lot of policy being written right now around it and the guidance on that. So, I think those will be some interesting conversations and things for us to share with the board. Madam Chair, uh this conversation illustrates why we will miss you a great deal and clearly you're ready for another seven years. Well, you're sighting me up, but your meetings might be shorter. But I I I do I do think I did want to take the opportunity not to just look at those issues, but to just reiterate that um this is our
137minimum bar and that our minimum bar for graduation requirements are lower, too. And we want we want our students to succeed and the more opportunities they have in different areas, the better. So, if we can keep encouraging districts to offer more courses um and maybe at some point revisit the high school graduation requirements, Dr. Moore, uh, thank you for asking about five questions I was about to ask. No, seriously, uh, you know, um, I really appreciate you asking those tough questions because this is very important. I am a huge advocate of access and the launch of it. Commissioner Warren, him and his team has done a tremendous job. Um, to Mr. Bragg's point, asked earlier if the consideration far as virtual options and stuff like that. When we're looking at those road maps and when
138we're looking at the outreach, let's make sure that we're definitely looking at the big picture of rural schools, small school districts that do not have a lot of the resources. So, I don't know what that vision looks like, but if we have to partner in an insane way with two-year universities, trade schools, want to make sure that those conversations are being held and also those things are on the table. With that though, isn't there something in learns that requests a course at the high school that they have to be able to take it or offer it virtually? I make that up. Okay, we'll revisit that later. Hear what you said. That if a student if if there was one of these courses that a school district didn't offer, does a student have the ability to
139talk with the school to offer it to them virtually? So, that was the course choice. Yes. Aspects. And so there's guidance being written and rules around course choice that will come to this board. We've built a platform around that. So there's an opportunity for that. So there'll be more information coming. Okay. So just thinking about the opportunities and access for students. Okay. With that board members questions, comments. Okay. Floor will be open for a motion on the high school course offerings. I'd like to make a motion to approve all the high school required high school questions. A motion by Mr. Henderson. Is there a second? Second. A second by Mr. Brag. Are there any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. Looking at the agenda, let's go
140ahead and take a fivem minute break um before we start our next item number six. So, let's start back here at 11:05. We're good this way. Okay, we will start back to our action agenda. We have item number six, consideration of a recommendation by the PLSB. Miss Whitney James or Mr. Schultz will be going over procedures for us probably. Thank you very much. Thank Thank you, Madam Chair. Board. Um, just a brief reminder of the hearing procedures. Uh, review of a PLSB action is conducted pursuant to section 144 or 114 of the rules governing the code of ethics. This case, the educator is elected to appear and present oral arguments uh through their attorney. Uh so the educator or their attorney is given 10 minutes to present oral arguments. The PLSB attorney will also have
14110 minutes to present oral arguments. The chair may allow additional time for good cause shown. This hearing the state board is to consider the transcript, the pleadings of the oral arguments only. However, uh at the request of the chair of the state board, the educator and the professional license, the plsb investigator uh for the case may provide testimony. No other testimony should be heard. All testimony from the educator or the PLSB investigator shall be taken under oath. Thank you. So, we'll start with the oath for those who are planning to speak today. If you would stand up, please for those planning to speak. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. We start with the educator or attorney will have 10
142minutes to speak. Thank you, Dr. Moore. And I doubt seriously that uh I'll exhaust uh 10 minutes. Um Dr. Moore and uh other members of this board. My name is Cayenne Eddings. And I say this not because I was raised right by my mom and my daddy. uh my mother who was a a 49-year educator in Little Rock School District. Um and they always taught me to be polite in public. But I say this because one, I mean it, and two, it's the right thing to say. Um it is absolutely my pleasure to be here uh on behalf of uh DJ Mars. Um and you'll hear from from Mr. Mars. Um and Mr. Mars will tell you that, you know, something happened in the locker room at uh Quipman Junior High School back in May
1432024. And Mr. Mars won't beat around the bush. He'll tell you that and he'll concede that um as a head football coach during those football activities, he was the one in charge. and he's going to tell you that because as a leader and as a coach, he believes that leadership is comes from the top down. So, he um was the one who was responsible. Um and it's it's undeniable what happened because there's there's video there. Uh there's been uh testimony in the uh PLSB investigation of of some of those things that happened. And and Mr. Mars won't uh try to minimize what happened or the impact of what happened. Um because Mr. Mars is a leader of young men. Um and um those things happened under his leadership uh on his watch um back in
144May 2024 in that locker room. Um Mr. Mars accepted responsibility and did not appeal um the recommendation of the PLSB that his um license be placed on probation for two years and a $250 fine. Um however, Mr. Mars is eager to be here this morning, not to push back against uh the recommendation of the PLSB, but to respond to some of the allegations that were made about him uh before this board. um some of the um allegations that impuged his character before this board. Um and before now because as you know PLSB proceedings are confidential. Uh Mr. Mars has not had that opportunity and he relishes it in an opportunity. Um, I'm told by uh the investigators that this investigation was one of the most in-depth uh and all-encompassing investigations ever done by the PLSB.
145And I say that to say this. Um the allegations were investigated thoroughly. Um because the investigation um was in depth. Um because the rationale included uh in the investigation's conclusions uh were reasonable and to support the recommendation. Um, Mr. Mars encourages you, urges you to uh accept that res that recommendation because he has accepted responsibility for what's happened. Um, now Mr. Mars and I both recognize that there's value in u public discourse um related to uh issues of children and in schools in particular. There's absolutely value in that. Um, but there is no value in lodging false accusations uh against an educator uh particularly geared toward the aim of seeking a result um that you want when there's no basis in fact for it. Um Mr. Mr. Mars can tell his story much better than
146I can. So, at this point, I'll step aside and if you'd like to hear from Mr. Mars, um he's available. He's been sworn on and he's here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ed. We will take Miss James now to testify and then we will open up the floor for questions. Yes, ma'am. And I do have my investigator here who can be sworn in if you have any questions for her. Uh, in this case regarding Mr. Mars, the ethics subcommittee recommended probation of license for two years, a $250 fine, coursework, reading, and training with written reflections. The ethics subcommittee also recommended quarterly reports from the educator's supervisor, uh, which would come to the state board while on probation regarding how his professional practices are progressing. Uh, this case
147was initially on the consent agenda, uh, since Mr. Mars did accept the recommendation and the case was pulled for the review hearing today. The PLSB found that there is a prepoundonderance of the evidence that he violated standards 1, two, and three of the code of ethics and that he should receive the recommended sanction. And the ethics subcommittee gave a very detailed rationale for its decision which was provided in your folder. I'm happy to review that at any time with you or answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Miss James. With that, do do you or your team have any more comments that you want to make? Okay. So, with that, we'll open the floor up for questions. And these can be questions of the educator, the attorney, or the PSP or staff. So,
148let's see. I will start to my left with questions. have some questions. Mr. Win, uh, first and and primarily to coach Moers, I have I have some questions. If you'll step up here, the the allegations that the I think there were a few boys involved. I don't know exactly how to lump everything together, but I'm going to call them the the May 10 incidents. Okay. roughly the time that you were notified that two or three boys had been specifically harassed and bullied in the locker room and you you learned of that on approximately May 10th, 2024. Um, in those those uh the conduct that was revealed to you in that we we had allegations of Orbeez guns being brought into the locker room and shot at kids. We had allegations of a whip being used
149in the locker room uh on some kids. We had I think that that might have been in response to towel popping that was occurring in the locker room. We had kids claiming to be stuffed in lockers uh with balls being thrown at them while they were in there and what I would consider we had video evidence of organized fighting occurring where kids were bringing boxing gloves and having dukeouts in the locker room. We also had allegations of some really bad stuff, sexual nature assaults on kids where kids were humping other kids. Um, those are all very concerning. Um, and I have some concerns about the response to uh what happened after you learned of those things. But I I want to first focus on what did you know before May 10th that was occurring in
150the locker room. Were you aware of any bullying or conduct similar to hazing that was occurring in the locker room prior to May 10th, 2024? No. No, sir. And um my assistants were not either. Um no, like I said, no one had brought anything to us anytime we had an issue in the locker room. And there were times where I might have uh would have heard, you know, u someone getting loud or you hear, you know, something where they're not transitioning, getting ready to go back to school or getting to the field. Um where, you know, we would we would hear that and and call them out and address that and several people said that um to the allegations of of a lot of the things. Uh first of all, the the the the boxing
151glove issue was um I saw the video as well. It was I didn't know about it initially. It was sent in later. Um but that was from several years ago because we knew that by the shimls and by the outfit that they were wearing. Uh that was an issue that was found out. Um that student was turned over to the de of students and punished and from the football team when when that happened. That that was um like I said that that was an issue that was handled um and and found out very quickly from Okay. So I I don't really understand your answer then. It sounds like you're saying that the the boxing gloves video that we've was provided to us occurred long years before May 10th, 202. Yes. Our junior highers, like I
152said, they wear the black shims. Uh I say shimls, that's their workout top and bottom. Uh same thing with the the video with the locker room because I I looked into it, like I said, a lot over and over once once that I was made aware of it. When did you become aware of that of that box? after I had already done my investigation after May 10th. I'm sorry. The when did I become aware of of a situation with boxing gloves? A couple years ago when that happened a couple of years prior to May 10th, 2024. Yes, sir. That was different kids. Like I said, they they were th those kids that were the nightare. Of course, it was different kids. I understand. Yes, sir. They're going to progress. It was the same school. Yes,
153sir. But it it sounds to me then like bullying, fighting, organized fighting was occurring in the locker room prior to May 10th, 2024. And you knew about it? That was two years ago when they were in the seventh grade. Yes, sir. And it was handled. And I mean, okay. It it was it was extended like like I said, we we found the student who brought the gloves and removed them and turned it over to the D students for punishment. Then any other incidences other than boxing gloves prior to May 10th, 2024? No, sir. Okay. What about I' I would like to ask just a point of procedure in using student names. Um I'm trying to be very careful here. Students that I believe are no longer in the school had statements included in the record.
154and I would like to reference that. Is it appropriate for me to use the student's name? We had actually created um a cheat sheet with student numbers and names. It wasn't made part of this report. Um you might be able to give enough description that we could tell you which number it is. Sure. At the very end of the investigation report, uh, page four 451 is a transcript of an interview with a now former student. Um, would it be appropriate to reference that person by name? That person is S9. S9. Yes. Okay. And can I give his initials? I've got the cheat sheet here. Okay. I I can't confirm because I don't have the cheat sheet in front of me, but I'm going to just rely on what you said to refer to it as
155S9. So, there there was a student that that gave an interview that was transcribed in part of the record that and and I'm I apologize for frank language that's about to be used. Everyone has brought kids to the room and I kind of hate that, but we have to do what we have to do. a teaagging incident occurred. Are you aware of that? Uh, no sir. And the student that u we're talking about um I mean had accusations of things that happened in the high school locker room but never played on the high school team. They they were actually like removed from the team for grades by the parents and then the parents had a meeting to come back and came back for just a short time of the offseason and then left the program.
156I I I really I can't get into the weeds of whether the kid ever played a minute of high school football. No, I just mean what locker room he would been in as far as to say the things that that were said. um that that there was an incident at the school that happened with this student. Um but in the locker room, no sir. Did the teaagging situation occur in the locker room? No, sir. You don't believe so? No, sir. What about pictures being taken of a student on the commode and being shared? That was also at the school. Yes, sir. What does that mean at the school? That that happened at not in the fieldhouse. That was an incident that was that hand that happened in the boys's bathroom of the high school. A
157football player do did it right. I a football player was punished for spreading pictures of kids on the toilet, right? Yes. Well, he was removed from the team at at that point. I do believe so. Like he never came back. That's not what his story was. His story was not that he was removed from the team at that time. His story, if you're going to adopt his story, was that he was asked to stay on the team. That you told him you were going to throw him off the team. And when he said, "Okay," he didn't care. You said, "Wait, no, never mind. I can't throw you off the team. I need you." That that's not true. Well, that's his story. That that's his story, but that's not true. uh he was he was removed
158from the team and I had a meeting with his mother and and even because his was his stepdad at the time was a pee-wee coach and and they came in and and we met after he had been punished for this to try to work him back on the team for his benefit, not for the for the team. I mean, this was never a senior high football player. So, I mean, this is not something that I mean, our junior high program is developmental. So, like we're we're working with with kids to to and we work with parents still at that point to try to help them because he had been in trouble several other times and sometimes as a coach like having those kids in your program, you're able to just kind of develop that and
159work with them and try to get through to them in a different way that maybe a teacher may not. That's fine. Coach, my my problem is that the question really isn't his character. The question is what was the athletic department, the football administration's response to these types of activities occurring among football players. That's really the question as it relates to coach Mars in front of us here. It it's not really about what that student was going through and what may have troubled his life and all of that. So, it's really about what did you know and what did you do about it and when did you do these things? Um that same student in that interview said that the fighting with boxing gloves happened daily and the coaches didn't care. That that's not true. I
160go in that locker room before they leave. Like I have a strict locker room policy to the point where their helmets hang and and we go through there that's like the thing with the Orbeez gun that came up and it said that there were hundreds of bullet that that that's not true. We go in there every day. We have two loads of laundry that we said that you believed that it was true. Not because not because you couldn't not because you found evidence of it, but because so many kids said it happened that you believed it must have been true. That so many kids said that one was brought. Yes, sir. Not that kids were shot with it. That that was not what multiple kids. That's not what was said. That was embellished on later,
161I think, by by parents standing right here. when we interviewed kids and we talked to them, a kid did bring one, it was an Orbeez gun and then it turned into a BB gun and then it turned into hundreds of kids shot and and that wasn't true. And and and with with the bags that they bring in, a kid could bring one because they have bags and of clothes that they change into. Um, and we no longer allow that to happen in the locker room, but at the time they were in and out changing clothes, so a kid could bring one an Orbeez gun into a bag and have one there and without screaming and hollering and, you know, I mean, we're not in there while they take showers and change. So, the fact that
162the kids said that, I do believe that, but no, we didn't have multiple stories of kids running around getting shot. That that was simply added by parents later. Well, in a minute I will look. I think that that's a fine distinction that I'm not sure I readily accept that a kid brought an Orbeez gun, but it was never fired at anyone. That's kind of hard to believe, but I'll I'll review through. But as I'm not in there, I can only go off of what the kids that I interview tell me. But six or seven or eight of them said this happened. And I mean and this was said to the investigator paid for by your school district. This was in her report, the interviews with students. Half a dozen at least referenced the Orbee gun
163situation that that it was brought, not that it was fired and multiple kids were shot and there were hundreds of bullets or or Orbeez uh loads everywhere. That because that's what was the the initial allegation of it and that's in that report. It shows us that that's not true. All right. Uh I will I will look for that distinction in a minute. Um there seems to be in the conversation that you had that was transcribed with and I I don't remember which mother was involved. If it was uh Angie Edwards, I think I think it may have been the Stephanie White conversation. I'm not real sure, but I read the transcript of that. There seemed to be a bit of relief on your part that when the humping was occurring that kids had their clothes
164on. Were you relieved to learn that? I mean, no, sir. I I I was I was and have been concerned through all of this as far as as a football coach who's over that fieldhouse, like the safety of those kids is is is my responsibility. I appreciate you saying and so so as far as relief in that aspect I I don't I don't know that I mean that I I don't ever remember feeling relief for clo I I think the I don't know what you have like in the transcript of it several times you wanted to clarify whether anybody was naked or not. Absolutely. Because if a parent comes in and brings something to me, I want to have the full details. Uh especially when they go back and forth because the language that was
165being used in that by the mother kept suggesting that that it was so so me and Mr. Staxs who were in that meeting were were definitely asking those questions to clarify so that we could fully understand what happened. Yes, sir. Well, but relief I don't Okay. All right. It sounded to me like there was a strong emphasis on yours and Mr. stacks uh part to uh to make a strong differentiation between skin-to-skin humping versus clothed humping. And I am of the opinion that that's not much of a distinction. That the victim in that situation doesn't want it happening in either situation. And so the the emphasis on the fact that there were clothes on was rather problematic to me from yours and Mr. Stack's uh perspective when you were interviewing these mothers. You also have
166to appreciate that you have mothers who uh probably extremely emotional about what is happening to their kids. I know that this has been extremely bothering to me to even have to read all of this stuff as a state board member in Little Rock, a 100 miles away from the equipment schools. And I can only imagine what a mom or a dad would be dealing with as they were dealing with these facts um as it was going on. So I I am frustrated in the way that you know you kind of categorize the things they've said and I don't think it was categorization as much as it was that that if when a parent comes to you with a concern obviously as educators who deal with this parents are going to be emotional and and we
167understand that but it's it's our job to to try to understand the situation as much as possible just finding out about it in order to be able to to move forward with with punishments and change and and to really understand that situation because often times a lot of times when parents come and people are emotional they don't always tell the truth or they don't always or they embellish or they have only one side one account of it so I feel like it would be a lack of uh my responsibility if I would just to take a parent's word and what they said without without digging into it and really asking questions But we're all here because really bad stuff did really happen. Uh we're not here because this was a madeup story. In fact, in
168the summer after this occurred, four, five, six kids, I don't know the exact number, but some number of kids were convicted by a juvenile court of assault on these young boys. Is that right? Yes, sir. And they were sentenced to a year probation. Six months, I believe. Yes, sir. And I believe it was a year, but that's really neither here nor there. That occurred in July of uh 2024. I I'll get back to that. I don't want to get too far ahead. And I'm I apologize for having so many stones to turn over here, but who who was in charge of ensuring that Orbeez guns, whips were not brought into the locker room, that kids were not stuffed in lockers and had have balls thrown at them, that organized fighting with boxing gloves was not
169occurring, that t Well, I I'll refrain from that in the locker room, but nonetheless, a cult culture among the football team of of teaagging occurring and pictures of kids on the commode being shared amongst football me uh text messaging threads who was in charge of ensuring that this type of conduct didn't occur in the football program when they are in the football program it it is I have not mentioned a single thing that was not brought up by a football player being done while they were in football the the the the pictures on the toilet and that was he a football player at the time it happened? Yeah. Yes, sir. But I I can't be responsible I'm not responsible for them when they go home at the end of the day. This didn't happen at
170home or or when they are in between fourth and fifth period when I'm with a different football team. Like I understand that and I I do the best that I can as far as character uh and and team devotions and things that we do to try to build these kids character, but at the end of the day, some of them, especially when I just get them in seventh grade, I have them for an hour and a half a day like an English teacher does. Is an English teacher responsible for them doing those taking those pictures in the bathroom as well? It is shocking. I've never heard a football coach say, "I am not responsible for what my student athletes do when they're walking the halls between fourth and fifth grade, fourth and fifth period." I
171can't believe I'm I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it is about while they're account they're still accountable to me. Absolutely. And we have a great football culture. Every year we grow in numbers. We have more than we ever have. If we had a locker room that had these things that that was painted that happened all the time and it was daily abuse and and and as a picture that's been painted, we wouldn't have the most kids we've ever had in our program wanting to join our program, wanting to be in that locker room. And you've zeroed in on the commode pictures, but other than the commode picture and and potentially the teaagging incident, I don't know. I'd have to go back and review that student's statements. Everything else happened in the locker rooms. Orbeez,
172guns, whips, being stuffed in the lockers, fighting with uh boxing gloves, all that happened in the locker room. Who was responsible for ensuring that that stuff didn't occur? Yes. One of the stu and the students whose interview I'm referencing said it was going on for years. That that's that's not true. You said it was going on for years. You said it was going one incident that happened two years ago. Two years before May 10th, 2024. That was one incident that was that was found that was caught and handled. Coach Barnes, just let me underscore something that Mr. Wood is saying. Um that we're trying to say that your players and your teams need to be the best examples of culture and manhood, not the worst examples of culture and manhood. So on that note, these
173examples are are are important. Yes, sir. And the overall culture is very important because while the PLSB found that you didn't have prior knowledge of events occurring before May 10th, I find that extremely difficult to believe. Um, but let's talk about after May 10th and the response to finding out about the horrible things that were occurring in we'll call it that time frame. We've already talked about several boys were convicted in juvenile court and placed on either six or one year's probation. We disagree on what that was, but it doesn't really matter because you continued to allow some of at least one maybe more of the boys that were convicted by the juvenile court and put on at least six months probation to be on the football team. Did you not? The ones that were
174responsible for the Orbeez gun were removed from the football team. The I don't want to argue with you about which particular piece of conduct who did what. Yes, sir. Because honestly, it's kind of hard to read redacted transcripts and trace who did what. Um, but nonetheless, a a student who was convicted in juvenile court and placed on at least 6 months probation beginning in July 2024 was allowed to be on the Quipman Junior High football team in fall of 2024, was he not? In the fall of 2024, there were one one on the junior high team. Okay. two two with the victims of this bullying, right? Yes. So, you allowed perpetrators to be on the same team with victims. And that yes or no? Yes. Yes, sir. And that was against school district policy, wasn't
175it? No, sir. It was. Hang on just a second. If everyone will bear with me, I apologize. I'm going to pull up the page of the equipment just got it written down here. Why don't I open the floor and see if someone else wants to ask a question? You look that up. While you're doing research, may I ask a fundamental question? That's not Well, have there been more than one law firm representing you and the district in this? Was there a change of law firms from the beginning to now? Are you still with the same firm? I'm I'm I'm Yes, sir. I'm with the I've none that I There's been no change that I know of before. May I ask is the district paying for your attorney fees? Yes. to what price tag that I
176haven't been made aware of yet that I know. Um I mean with the the superintendent uh my boss the the school board fully supported me and shifting funds from protecting children to um or educating children I should say to defending you. Thank you. It's school district policy six. I I I call it school district policy. I don't exactly know. It was provided to us as equipment. Uh shoot I don't know. Hang on. Got to go back to the table of contents. It's provided to us under the title district policies and it is policy 6.1. A number 11 and this is with regard to guidelines for participation in school/extracurricular activities. Number 11 says, "Any student that is on court ordered probation, comma, inschool suspension, comma, out of school suspension, comma, or assigned to alternative school for
177disciplinary reasons, will not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities, comma, field trips, comma, or overnight activities." Mr. Wood, may I address that? Sure, please. With respect to um the application of this particular policy, um I was um asked by the administration of the equipment school district to uh look at this policy and and give some guidance regarding the interpretation of this policy. Um, and part of the advice that I part of this back in um, in the summer of 2024, I I can't recall the the the date, but it it I do I do know it was in summer last summer. Um, and part of the advice that I gave was that um, 6.1 and 6.1A um, have to be read um, together. Uh not only that that um I I I I
178told the administration that every policy in this handbook um has to be read in a manner in which they can be reconciled. Uh sort of like statutory construction as as you and I both are aware. Um you have to to read these policies in a manner in which they all make sense, right? So going to uh 6.1 um that that last line there and and I lifted this this line up in particular uh says that students not meeting expectations for either or both talking about uh academic or behavioral expectations may lose uh the privilege to participate for a specific period of time as determined by the principal. not by the football coach but by the principal. Um and then um it following that there are the guidelines and and I think that one of the
179guidelines that that that you're lifting up is uh 6.1 A11 where it talks about uh those um students who are on court order court order probations will not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities. field trips or overnight activities. Um it it it does say what it says. Um but my advice to the district uh at that time was that um 6.1 and 6.1A had to be read in unison along with uh several other uh provisions in this handbook that gave the principal uh discretion to deviate from um the I I guess the the discipline made it out for various uh infractions. um it gave the the administration discretion a whether they participate and if there's a decision that they didn't participate um the the the time frame that they that they were excluded
180from participation. Uh and I and I think that that's what happened in this case. Um and Mr. Mars can can can talk more freely about that than I could. Well, Mr. Enmings, I like you and you're a good lawyer. I do not agree that there is a inconsistency in the language between 6.1 and 6.8 11. Um 6. A11 if I if I'm citing it correct 6.1. A11 says that those students described will not be allowed to participate. that that does not sound to me like there is any equivocation or room for a principal to decide otherwise. But nonetheless, the PLSB decided that there was a violation of school policy. And I agree with the PLSB. I just I think we're here because I and maybe maybe others disagree with regard to the severity of the
181things that happened. Um, well, I only I only inserted myself into the conversation because uh I thought that I could speak more directly to your questions than uh Coach Mars because Coach Mars was not involved in um in those discussions that I had with the administration regarding um the interpretation of the he but he is the head football coach deciding who who's on the football team. Absolutely. I understand that. But my point is um at the end of the day I suspect what happened was that the administration relied on um the discussions that I had and conveyed that information to coach Mars which he then in turn relied on. You didn't advise them that they had to let the perpetrator be on the football team, did you? No. No. No. I I just the only
182thing I I didn't get involved in any the I don't know who the individuals are. The only thing we talked about was what this policy meant and how that policy ought to be interp inter interpreted um um in particular in relation to all other policies in the in the student handbook. Okay. So at at worst at at best the policy allowed discretion and at worst the policy did not and said he shouldn't have been on the football team. But at best it allowed discretion and you chose to let the perpetrator be on the football team with the victim. In fact, you had to go so far as to create a special practice schedule for the victim and the perpetrator. Correct. The practice schedule. Yes, sir. Because for the probate Yeah. Because you had a probation
183where the court had said that this perpetrator was not allowed to be around the victim. And so you set up a schedule that excluded the victim on certain days. He wasn't he under your schedule he wasn't supposed to come to school and practice with the football team because you needed the perpetrator to get better at football and practice with the team. Is that right? No sir. Prior to the court case which I had punished those involved for the foot in in terms of my my punishment with football and had removed those kids from to a separate locker room prior to that. uh just as I communicated with parents that that they would be they would be moved to a different locker room. Um after that with the order like the protection order that was that
184was issued from the court, we set up a rotation where different people would come because junior high, senior high without going into it was on a on a different rotation schedule. So, yes, sir. While they were allowed, um I I haven't kicked a kid off of the football team um outside with with uh someone saying it from my um my my my principal, my AD telling me that I had to. I do that because football's not the only thing that I teach these kids. And I if I don't have a kid and and and a couple of those kids, if they don't have football, they they might not they might not come to school. They're definitely not going to keep up with their grades and and allow. So So if they're doing something like this,
185while they are they had a punishment through the school, we turn we worked and and turned everything over that we had and they had their punishment through uh the the the court system. Even then, they were still punished from the team. They they they were not allowed to start. They were they were put in this they were they did not have perks of the team but they still were where I had access to them because oftentimes and you guys know that are in education when this happens there there's usually more to the story whether it's it's self-esteem or confidence and things like that and it's things that as as a football coach who who is around them more than a lot of other like I want to be able to find that and and fix
186that and make sure that that doesn't happen again and that they don't do that again and that they can learn from that like that. And I know that you have this this picture painted me that I'm not like that, but but but I can promise you that I am. And anybody that knows me or is in my program will tell you that. And and I'm not saying and I'm not disingenuous to what happened. I I I am I am mortified by it. And I've even talked with with parents up until they stopped communicating that. And I tried I mean I I I I hug their kids. I I apologize. And while it goes through with with at so many levels because it is ultimately as the head football coach, it is up to me and
187I'm not I'm not pushing that away. There if I just kick a kid to the curb who has made some some terrible mistakes and terrible decisions with they never they don't have a chance. Can I interrupt for just a second because I I hear exactly what you're saying and um I've struggled myself as an educator, as a parent with um when to um wrap it in your arms and when to bring about some really hard but appropriate consequences. Um, I think the reason you're standing here with us today is that the PLSB board and I think you can see that members of this board agree that this was a time that a true consequence was necessary to to help these kids develop that perhaps a consequence would have said more to them than you're on
188the team. My fear and one of the reasons that this was pulled is similarly there's a I don't have a picture painted of you. I've only listened to you. I've read what was handed to me. Um, but there are some things that you've said that are concerning that perhaps this consequence, this probation is not speaking to you in the same way that a lack of consequence didn't speak to those children. You mentioned that you have a great football culture. I think we all know that's it. It's it's not great or we wouldn't be standing here. That there's more work to be done. You mentioned that when that one incident happened two years ago, it was just a singular incident and that your locker room policies were great that you tell the kids where to hang
189their helmets. But if that one incident occurred, that was your first red flag to say, I got to look at the supervision. Something is not right. There's more happening than we know about and it's clear that didn't happen. That it was looked at as an isolated incident to where it built and we're standing here now. When this came about the locker room policies. It's clear I don't think your comment that they're great tells me you have not taken a true look at them, a true introspective look at what you could have done differently to protect these kids. So I'm coming down to the conclusion that perhaps an elevated consequence might to you and your district and your principal who I believe went against policy despite the interpretation of your lawyer to say when there is
190a red flag we have to stop and reflect and not ignore and move on and assume that won't happen again. Yes. Yes ma'am. And and just to speak to that when that did happen changes were made that was a period when we had uh seventh grade only and then prior to this year was the first time that we had put seven eight and nine all in the same period. So we we did we did make changes a lot of those changes as far as where they put their bags and stuff like that to keep things from from were were not feasible once we had seven 8 and 9 and that and that time frame and they went from the afternoon to the morning uh where they had already been at school to where like you
191know now they had come in and staggered in with car riders. There's a 25 minute window where kids were staggering in depending on their bus routes and things like that with junior high. So I I do I do take it very seriously. Um I I can promise you that. Um I I have I have I didn't need the probation to to make me take a step back and and and realize that when I say we had a great culture, I I'm not I'm not saying that it was perfect. I I'm not I'm not saying that there there's certain classes that are different and and there are areas that that need to be worked on. And when I found out about this on May 10th, like I I started to work on that, but but no
192one had come to me or any of my assistants or even their parents prior to this to let that be known about this group of kids who the the the core of it is is no longer in our program. and and to speak to the punishment that that I applied to them. They were still on the team where I had access to them, but but to not get the the gear, to not be in the locker room, to have to dress at a different facility across camp to and and that was something that was going to follow them all the way through high school. that was not something that I just put in for this one year like like so so that I did put a very serious consequence to to take things away from
193them to to to try to encourage that change and then still allow me to have access to them as well when you um separated the or staggered or or however the wording was for practices um which of the parties were in isolation away from the team. Was it the um perpetrators or the victims? The perpetrators. So, it was my understanding that a separate away from the team practice was created isolating those that did no harm. No, ma'am. That was an extra time that I stayed on days where they might miss u like as we had a rotation set in place and we I'd gone over that the any time that wasn't offered to the perpetrators where if they missed the sprints and the lifts in that practice we we finish at 10:00 they could come
194in at 10 once there was like a and they could work with me and and their position coach and kind of and and never really have to miss and get that made up while we're following that protection. Well, and my other concern with probation being the consequence here is um while the matrix of each is probation or or you know the defined consequence when you have a multitude of offenses. Um failure to report, failure to supervise, not following policy, you know, one after the other at some point the cumulative effect of that many should to a more severe consequence. And that's um sort of where I'm falling right now. Um I'm just shocked that um the string of decisions that were made that failed these kids. Mr. Brad, questions. I've got a a question about
195the policy, the dressing room policy. stated that there's a policy that you would not be in the in the dressing room. Was that a written or is that just procedure that over the years it was developed or why was what's the reasoning behind that? Um, we had an issue with, I guess, a district down the road where a principal uh was sitting in the locker room and um was accused of looking at children while they change and shower. Um, and and we were just told that while that that was happening and and kids will be changing to not be like present at that moment. Do you think that would change now? Um, or you see a need for a change in that policy? Well, I I think the way that we have made changes as
196far as the amount of kids that are in there and the and the waves that we send them and the time limits um and and cutting some of that time down where we hold them before so there's not as much staggering in. We always know how many kids are there and what kids are there. I I think uh still allows uh assistant coaches to be protected or me being in there and and still making sure that you know there's not a lot of clutter and noise and lockers there. There's fewer kids so we are closely monitoring a fewer amount of kids in an area and especially we know their locker number where their lockers are so you don't have a group of kids in a corner. It's more spread out. So, um I don't know.
197I'm not I don't get as far as the the school's policy changing on that. You know, I I I think we've we've made adjustments, but I'm not, you know, I don't that wouldn't be my call. There was also a question about location of your office, what you could hear from the locker room. I mean, are you able to hear a commotion or disturbances or Yes, sir. The the door is is is bolted open. Uh but we also with even with our office where we have uh we have a team meeting room in between also houses the locker room and our equipment room connects to that. So we always I mean even now we have coaches there or even at the edge like at the film room right there immediately on the door where they walk
198in. But nobody heard anything about the incident that happened on May 10th. Okay. Henderson. How does your coaching staff look? Are you fully full or are you short on staff members to help you know oppose the situation? Yeah, we uh we have we have a full staff. Um we have uh four assistants um that are on stipen and then um one of our coaches, he drives a bus so he comes in, you know, a little bit later. Uh but for the most part, we have our our the staff that we have is there. Yes, sir. Okay. As far as your staff, uh any of them hear of any of these instances as well? No, certain. They were they were interviewed multiple times by all four DHS counties and and all the investigations that had been
199done and I mean and even by me when we first found out about it and and no one knew anything. M. So how many students are in the locker room then at any given time? What what is nor I've not obviously been in a Yes, ma'am. At at this time, um, like I said, they staggered in depending when their buses, you know, some rode bus, some rode the car or car riders, so they would get dropped off. So, it it would it would vary depending on the times. Um, but if on the team there were 43, seven through 12 or 7 through 9, 7, 8, and nine. Um, so I mean at times I would say there there probably could have been, you know, 15 15 to 20 25 um, right about that 7:30 mark
200when several buses get there. And there's no adult supervision then in the locker room. Not inside the locker room. No, ma'am. Like I said, we have coaches who u like one coach will be on the field as kids were going out. Um, you know, we would have uh one coach in the the film room, the meeting room there, and then, you know, coaches, we would take their laundry in and out, like push that to the door. So, I mean, there's there's a there's a moving there's a moving rotation of coaches and then also the timer letting them know how much time until practice to make sure we're out there and we would give whistles and 10 minute and five minute calls for the kids who came in. So, it was just I mean, we had
201several coaches, I would say two to three in that was in that area when students are there. Did that change after this incident? Yes, ma'am. Uh we have uh groups that go we we there is no staggering come in. They go straight to the film room, our meeting room and sit down uh and then we send them in waves and we start with the older kids and and and work our way down and send them in waves and give them time time limits. So, and it's a very short amount of time. So, they will get in, get out. Like I said, when when you have that many kids in a locker room with football pads and helmets, those lockers are metal. They slam. They're putting that like there there's a lot of noise. So, just
202to make sure that, you know, even if it's something remotely lowkey like that, we have uh we have a coach right there at the door. Uh almost like I said there, I wish I had a diagram, but it goes in and kind of, you know, makes a little righthand turn in their kids right there. We have a coach right there before they go in. So, um, you know, and we monitor with smaller groups. Who helped you devise the plan after this incident? Uh, Mr. Saxs. And who's that? Uh, my athletic director and principal and principal. I think my concern is I'm sitting here wondering where is the principal? Where's the superintendent? Where is the support for you and this team when all this has happened? Was there a new safety plan that occurred? What? Are
203you talking about prior to finding out about this? No, after it happened. Oh, after the May 10th. I'd like to hear where the support for you was infrastructure. No, Mr. was was fully fully involved in that as as far as creating the the waves and identifying, you know, because he also helped me as we were interviewing the kids even to find out, you know, when this occurred and then setting up the putting all in the film room um and then sending them in waves like that was something me and Mr. sat down and we even, you know, again were reached out to other schools and seen some things, you know, tried to get ideas as far as as what what they did larger schools as we're growing. You know, we've normally been in the low
20420s in junior high and then you go to the 40s. So, so, so we've tried to reach out to some bigger schools as as we grow and and try to find ideas to to to make it more efficient and keep keep it safe and make sure that, you know, again, this something like this never happens. What did you do before this job? Before 2010, is it? I I was in college. I Okay. So, this was your first job? I worked at uh I worked in county special school district until 2017. from 2010 to 2017. Okay. Were you a football coach there as well? Yes, ma'am. Coach Mars, um could you comment on the testimony that was shared that um in your leadership toolkit would be retaliation or humiliation? Can you respond to those accusations? Yeah.
205Um I never I never retaliated. uh the the allegations that that you're referring to that were in there. Um when I talked about the way that we sent kids, we did we sent kids laugh like we sent kids in waves and I always started with ninth grade and worked our way down to seventh. That was just um it also helped them stagger because they go to breakfast after that. Um, so I I think there was one allegation that I punished a kid by making sure that they were late, but we have had multiple instances where either practice might have went long or something something could have happened and I emailed teachers. Uh, I checked tardy reports uh through our dean of students who runs those to make sure our kids are getting to class on
206time. Um, so that that that just wasn't true. It was just the way that we started with and then we did kids who took showers because some didn't take showers, some would change clothes and re so we would try to send those kids in first so they're in and they're out. Um, you know, and then some of it had to do with the locker number that they were in so we knew where they were in the locker room. Um, so so that uh as far as uh you know, we had one instance where there was there was a confusion with the schedule and um you know, a kid showed up on a certain day. Um, so you know, we didn't want them crossing paths. It was a senior high and a junior high who were,
207you know, on opposite ends of the schedule, but they would have been crossing paths at that time. So, uh, you know, we had an issue there. But if anything, we offered more opportunities because anytime there was a missed day, they could always come after hours with me to just to be able to to make up that one-on-one time where number one, I could I could kind of talk to them and fill them out um and make sure things were good and then let them sprint and let them get it get their lift and and not really miss out whereas the perpetrators are obviously missing out. Yeah. So, I don't fully understand all of the logistical changes that you made, but it seems pretty um involved and sounds like a number of you thought it out.
208But my question is more around did your messaging to your team change after this? And beyond that, did the messaging to the students as a whole? I because this is I'm sure has tremendous ripple effect through the whole student body and into the community. So can you just talk about how that might have changed how you encourage students to talk to one another and treat one another? Yes. Yes ma'am. And we we we went through a lot of this was also something that I you know even consulted with other other coaches and and did things even actually the One of the best ideas that I got was from a from a parent. Um, you know, and and how we we you can have rules for this. If you do this, you're punished for this. But,
209you know, really talking about from the other side of how it makes a kid feel who might, you know, who might get bullied or even just their opportunity to lead those kids. And since then, we started programs where we have kids that that they write down their goals and their They're spiritual, they're personal, and then we pair them with a kid, an older kid and a younger kid together to talk about how they can support each other in that. That that was one thing that we adopted and and we're doing it right now this summer to to try to connect that and make them feel closer to make so um you like I said, being at at a smaller school, we do have some times where we have junior high and senior high uh uh
210together for some summer things. They're never all in the same location, but we bring them in and try to connect that gap 7 to 12 and let some of our older kids who are great kids, who do things right, who've been in the program and understand and be an example to some of those younger kids because one of my fears was that since if this happened and I and I realized the risk of taking a kid who has committed these acts and allowing them to stay in the program, there is a risk that they will could leave a mark on the program. So that was part of the reason for removing them from any positive activities, moving them from the taking them from the weight room to where you know the time that they have
211is on the field and then with us and try and try to build that up and change it. So I want to make sure that it stopped with them and it wasn't something that repeated and became a norm because that's a risk I realized that I was taking by letting these certain kids back into the program. I I I fully realize that and I feel like me and my staff and along with the help of Mr. Tax have have done a good job of spending a lot more time and a lot more focus on that. I I even said um throughout in my last interview that like we're going to we're going to shave 10 to 15 minutes off of practice every single day. not only to make sure we can be more efficient in
212and out of the locker room, but to but to also make sure that we can speak to these things and that they can hear not just me, but my assistant coaches and and and even some kids who have already graduated talk about the importance of just the safety and how we treat and and the legacy that we leave and and I've tried to I've probably I felt like I did that, but I I don't think I didn't do a great enough job. I you know, and I felt like When I said I wasn't responsible for, I did not mean it as I I just can't if I can't be there with them with my eye and my thumb on them. Like there are going to be kids who who who go a and and I
213always take responsibility for and and it hurts. I I lose a lot of sleep over these kids. Um and if you think it's because I want to win football games, that's not it. Honestly, I ain't won that many football games. I haven't. I I don't I don't hang my hat on wins and losses. Did I when I was younger? Sure. But but my my biggest pride is is like hopefully a lot of coaches say is is that the kids become and if I can take a kid who made some terrible decisions as a ninth grader and and in some way that never happens again and they can come back and walk down the sideline or maybe they don't even play football anymore, but maybe they learned some lessons and they moved on and they come
214back with their wife and their kids in a job. Like like I know it's a coaching cliche but but honestly that's that's where I'm at. my I have a seventh grade son who's in that locker room. So like I I understand that you where parents come from with that and and I don't ever want parents to not trust me with their kids. Um, and even through all of this, I felt like the changes that we made, some of the of the kids who were victed in our program throughout like sta stayed with us. And I took a little pride in that that we're we're going to do a good job to make sure this kid goes through and plays football and and is safe and has a positive experience to where we can, again, this
215doesn't become the norm, but at the same time, this doesn't become something that even labels them. And and and I I mean that's that that's that's just that's probably the biggest changes that that we have tried to push to make. So just to follow on that, I mean, so you you you thought in your judgment that it was a better messaging to the the victims, the student body, the whole community to keep the perpetrators in the program and not have them suffer consequences. They they suffered consequences. Well, but as far as they they not being, like I said, not being in the locker room, not having any benefits of the team other than practice and work, I mean, like one of the kids that that that came back because some did not that they were
216not they weren't I mean, for the first several weeks didn't play. They there was and and and talent what what the message was sent to the team that if you don't want to have the gear that the team has and you don't want to have that the the locker room ability and the nice locker and the ability to compete for a spot to to to play you're meanwhile the victims that were on the team played every single Thursday night and started so it wasn't there wasn't punishment with playing time other than to the perpetrators and that was again the the benefits that you get from being from a team weren't taken away from them. They were on the team so that I could have access to them. I'm going to have to interrupt and and
217let the record reflect that we have some shocked looks on some mother's faces at your statement that the victims got to play every Thursday night. They Well, there's at least a protest to that statement whether we have I don't know who's telling the truth. games we I mean well it's not in the record so I don't know that that's substantiated their play time should have never been at risk so that's a moot point um I think our point collectively what we're trying to say is my gosh what would it have taken for any child to forfeit their own privilege to play this game because that's what happened they made decisions and they gave up that right by policy by a court ordered and I am so sorry that your leadership failed you in their guidance
218because they we're telling you we fully believe allowing those children to join on the field less than a quarter of a year after such appalling incidents occurred was not a strong enough consequence and it sent the wrong message to those boys to the victims to the entire community. Bottom line, again, I don't know what it would have taken otherwise. I know Miss Woods, I just want to make a comment and I may ask either Miss James or the investigator if we could swear her in. This was a failure, but it was not all you. Unfortunately, you're the one here today that we have to talk about, but every level at Whitman has a responsibility in this. We have a matrix here that we go through. I understand where probation came from because the failure to
219report all of the district policy failures, those are all in the probation category. But on our back page, we have the potential mitigating and aggravating factors that we have to consider. And in the aggravating side, we have to consider was there severe was there a moderate to severe level of negative impact on students? Yes, we had a whole law created around locker rooms because of this incident. We had mothers who stood here in November and sat through our entire day's worth of meetings that did not apply to them so that they could have three minutes to get nine people's attention because nobody at their school was paying attention. We're having to talk about is there evidence of prior similar behavior. I believe Mr. Wood confirmed there was. Did the actions constitute child maltreatment? No. Was
220a criminal offense involved? Yes. Did it have a severe impact on community? Yes. Did it have a severe level of impact on the district funds? Not necessarily. Was there multiple violations? And did they occur over a period of years? The majority of these aggravating factors are yes. And so we have to sit here and struggle with is probation two years, five years, 10 years, I don't know, appropriate. And so that's my comment. I just want you to understand where we're sitting here is not to just rail on you and say you're a terrible person and you did a bad job. But we have been appointed to this board to uphold standards. And for somebody who's been teaching since 2010 and coaching, I would have assumed there would have been a different outcome because to Miss
221Kenir's point, what did a kid have to do for you to be like, you're not on the team this year? You will come to practice. you will sit here and you will learn something from that. So that's my comment. I Oh, I was gonna ask Miss James, could we talk to the investigator or is there a way that we can get an assessment of like why they landed on probation and didn't escalate it? I don't know who's the appropriate person to ask that. Everything that the ethics subcommittee considered is spelled out in Yes, ma'am. You probably knew I was going to say that. Yes, ma'am. Our job is just to put everything together and we did have a quorum that day. We had all five members of our Well, we always have a quorum, but
222we had a full uh subcommittee that day that that reviewed this and spent quite a bit of time. Of course, you're free to do whatever uh you feel is is best. Um But yes, ma'am. All of the mitigators and aggravators are spelled out in in the rationale. Yes, ma'am. Okay. May Sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say, do they ever typically go above the matrix? If there are enough aggravating factors, they do. I will tell you, we have never had a case. All cases are different. We've never had a case with that since I've been with the PLSB that is this exact fact scenario. And I think the reason that they went with probation because it was because of all of the mitigators. So they were kind of balancing balancing that out,
223but everything is in the rationale. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Miss James, do you mind to stay? I think there might be other questions. I have some of you, Miss Keener. Yeah, I just had one quick question. I understand um as we dig into these cases and digging into the PLSV process and that kind of thing. Um the members of the subcommittee were was it the people that are were appointed or was it their proxies? because they are allowed to name a proxy. Correct. It the members of the ethics subcommittee are all members of our full board which are approved by the state board. Does that make sense? I'm not under I I don't understand the um proxy question. Well, yeah, I guess that and I may be well and I'll jump in. Is there So, this
224case only went through the one process ethics subcommittee. Those are all full board members. Yes, ma'am. So to go so sometimes you go through two processes. The second process is called the evidentiary hearing. Evidentiary hearing. That did not occur. Yes. Yes ma'am. I thought I understood. Yeah. Okay. That did not occur here. No ma'am. What triggers evidentary hearing? The educator would have to request an evidentiary hearing and in this case he accepted the recommended sanction. So we went straight to consent. Okay. Yes ma'am. So there's that. When you have the full board and five individuals, is it just the five individuals who are most available at that time? No, ma'am. It is a group of five that the full board elects. We have to have two administrators, two classroom teachers and one from some other
225representation which we have a dean of a higher education uh program. Okay. Yes. The sanctioning guidelines those are not law. Correct. They are promulgated as part of the rules. Yes, ma'am. So they're part of the rules that we approved at some point in time but they're not in law. They would have the same effect because they're part of the rules. However, they are guidelines. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Does anyone else on the board have questions of Miss James or Miss Banker, the investigator? Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Board members, other questions or comments at this point in time? I I do have some more that I'd like to bring up. Um, specifically in a little while ago, you said that the investigation that was done by the attorney hired by the school district to investigate all
226of this did not find anything with regard to anyone actually shooting the Orbee guns. But her report says that student C said there had been players holding others down, humping them, hitting them in the legs with a whip, and shooting gel blasters at them. That's according to her report that she found that student C said that he had been shot with the Orbee gun. Um I also am frustrated at your response not just not just the culture that existed prior to May 10th. Not just the response with regard to these victims and these perpetrators in the wake of May 10th, but then when the moms came here to complain because in their opinion, they were not heard by the local school district. Your response to that was to sue the moms for defamation. And I
227find that entirely inappropriate for moms to come here and and explain all of the bad things that happened. And you might disagree with this or that, or you might say that this one thing was slightly embellished, or this or that. But I believe that there are other instances as the record alludes to and I don't have the specific page number but the record alludes to other parents that did not want to come forward and tell the story of what was happening to their kids in equipment. And I believe that this lawsuit against the moms, which you've now dismissed, you got a warning from the judge that this case was in trouble and you voluntarily dismissed it, but with the right to refile it against them later. Um, I believe that this was an effort to
228make sure that everybody else kept their mouth shut. Don't come forward and talk about these things. I'll sue you, too. I think that the culture in this football program was has been terrible for years and is really bad even in the wake of some very heinous things coming to light. And Mr. Mars, I I I personally can cannot imagine how we would continue to allow you to be a teacher in an Arkansas public school given this record in front of us that has been going on for years and what has happened since then. I am just one of nine. Um, but I I would support a revocation of the license based on what we have in front of us. Board members, questions of either party, additional comments to my right. I've struggled with this, too.
229I mean, I've I've read all the information. Um, there have been extensive investigations. Um, I kind of look at it almost like a a replay umpire calling somebody out at first base. The other coach objects wants a replay. There has to be a a good bit of evidence to overturn the original call. And I to me the PLSB has done investigation, outside investigations, internal investigations, and I know this is extremely emotional issue. Something bad happened. There were some fall downs in the system. Um, but I I don't know that a revocation revocation of of a license is is necessarily justified. Um, I I don't know if probation is is enough, but I don't know that anything past that is going to make Mr. Mars a better coach or a better person. Um, I just don't
230know that ending a a career what happened because there's other people involved. Uh, there's some institutional issues. I think part of it was a policy to me about the the locker room, you know, not being visited. Uh, you know, I think that's a fall down. Uh, you you have accepted responsibility. there were steps taken uh you know to address the individuals. Uh there could be some disagreement on on how severe those steps were but uh I just don't know that revocation of licenses is uh justified in this this instance. So I would agree with you. I'm not sure that replication is the answer here. I think that there is to Miss Wood's point, there is failure kind of up and down the ranks here. It's not all on you. Um in the same way that
231you went through the mitigating factors um you know there are I'm sorry the aggravating factors you know I reading back through the mitigating factors and there are few if any mitigating factors. So, you know, I'm not sure um you know, how the conclusion of probation came, but there is middle ground between revocation and probation and that is suspension. So, um I think that is that's what it is kind of going through my mind right now. I would encourage you and rest of my colleagues here to you know think about that and you know what would be an appropriate But I I do think that there is I think the most important message here is the failure up and down up and down the ranks in that in that school district. Yeah, I'd like to underscore
232that as a former school superintendent, you know, I just have to cast out images in my head of how all this looked, but truly there's dysfunction in the district, whether it's superintendent, principal, athletic director, coaching staff. I mean, there's just this US them mentality and uh circle the wagons. um rely on the passage of time, downplay, uh color the story. It's just not full extreme ownership. And I think those two words alone in the be from the beginning I know what the attorney said that you're willing to take responsibility but it's been muted quite a bit by the push back or the the the uh um opposing arguments that I don't think there is extreme ownership and that's what I think we'd like to get the district's attention to say not making you the scapegoat
233necessarily because of their um involvement in this as Well, but to say, "Hey, everybody, wake up. This isn't how you do school. This isn't how you do football." Um, I I I was amused by the fact that you even said, "Well, when the kids at school, it's not my job." Well, the fieldhouse is part of the school. I'm always fighting this with coaches to say, you know, you're not a silo. You're not independent of the school. You are the school and you need to be leading the school. And so, this uh compartmentalization wasn't in your favor as well. So, I know you've been scolded enough, but man, this is a bad situation that could have been repaired or made not so bad a lot sooner. I'm gonna ask Miss James to come up. Thank you.
234And can you walk us through, we've done this before, but there's three different motions to make sure board members remember what this looks like. motions. The second one is whe typically There's a probationary following that proceed to that and remove some things or add some things that might be the best way to handle that. Those are the three motions. Thank you board members. As you think about that and any Additional questions or comments that come to mind? Anyone? Well, I mean I'll move to motion that there was a violation of the code of ethics. We can get that part. Which which standards? So one, two, and three. Sorry. Number seven was also listed by the LSB. Yes. All those. Yes. Thank you. They actually found not a preponderance on that one. Right. because it was
235one it was 1 A 1 B 1 A was confirmed 2 A was confirmed and 2 B and then 3A and then seven was not. So I'm going to move to find that the code of ethics was violated as to standards 1 A, 2 A, 2B, and 3A. Okay. So there's a motion by Miss Woods that there is a violation of the code of ethics. Is there a second to that? Second. Any questions or comments? All in favor say I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Motion number two is in regard to the sanction. Any questions or comments before that are welcome though too. I just want to make sure. So we have probation, a written reprimand, suspension, and then and revocation are the four possibilities. Yes, ma'am. Ethics train. Sure. I have a I have a
236question. Is it Is it possible to I'm not even I don't even know where I am on this issue. I I I really struggle with this, but is it possible to simply take away his ability to be a coach, but allow him to continue to be a teacher? Yes, sir. with um I have a question for you as well. Yes ma'am. Suppose we um with probation to whom is he accountable? So who could say he violated the probation? Who could say he crossed a line out prior to it ever coming to PLSB? If well the the probation is actually enforced and monitored by us. So it wouldn't there wouldn't be anything that the district the district would have to provide the quarterly reports to you and you would have to accept those and he would
237remain on probation until every single piece is met and all of the reports have been approved. If there were anything else filed, then the ethics subcommittee can and likely would increase the sanction if anything else occurred. Okay. Yes, ma'am. I hope that answers your question. So, in other words, per quarter, we can gauge whether there's increased ownership of this culture building. Yes, sir. Okay. Now, probation falls off of a license publicly, right? After it's completed, it will be public in ALS and it will be on the website forever on his license or just until it's complete. Until it's completed. We don't leave a probation forever. For example, a law license if you have a probate. It's like on there for people to see forever. So that that's what I'm asking. So does a written reprimand
238stay on there? A written reprimand is not in ALS and that would come down from the website eventually. Uh revocations stay on. Okay. Yes. We we you should be able to look at someone's license and ALS and tell if they're in good standing or what the current Yes, ma'am. We would have, of course, in our office and in the department, we would be able to tell how many violations someone has had and see the history all the way back. So, we do keep that internally, but publicly. I'm just thinking like a future employer, if they were to go up and see in five years, if probation's fallen off, they would never see anything, right? if the probation has. But I believe a lot of employers will ask if you've ever had an ethics violation and
239he wouldn't be able to answer truthfully no board members. Anyone else has a question comments? Miss Jameson, just to be clear, the current recommendation is two years probation and it does require a supervisor to give a report and the educator. Yes, ma'am. Those reports come to the board because this came to a full hearing, they would have to come back to the board. Okay. I actually didn't realize that. So, it's when our board has heard it is when the reports come to us. If it stays at the PLSB level, we don't see their reflections. Our ethics subcommittee would approve those. Yes, ma'am. It really depends on who orders them. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for that clarification. Board members, any other questions? I I gotta be honest, the quarterly reports from the supervisor is
240laughable considering we also have lumped them in as part of the problem. So, I'm just going to point that out. I'll I'll make a motion just to have something concrete to talk about on the table. Um because otherwise we just sit here and wait on someone else to talk and whatever. Um, and I I hear other board members and I I try to be reasonable. I'm I'm gonna uh move that his license be suspended for one year and and no fine. Yes. Followed by a two-year probation. After the one-year suspension, would you also like the recommended trainings, quarterly reports, written reflections, all of those items? Trainings. Yes. reportly reports. I sure yes. Okay. Might as well. We can laugh at them if we find them laughable, but nonetheless, we can receive. Would you like the
241fine as well? You may have already I'm not a fan of fines. Board me. So, is that your motion? That's my motion. There's a motion on the floor. Are you still wanting the supervisor reports? Yes, you are. Perhaps that supervisor changes. An unnamed direct. I'll second it. So, there's a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? Miss Kir. So, there's a motion by Mr. Wood, a second by Miss Kenir, and could you restate the motion, Mr. Wood, just so we have it on record. Yes. A one-year suspension of his license, two years probation following the suspension. Quarterly report quarterly reports from Mr. Mars during his probation and training. All the recommended trainings and reading from the other. Gotcha. 5. Okay, the motion's on the floor. Any questions or comments? Okay, all in favor say
242I. I. All oppose. No. Motion passes. Our last motion is a motion for the rationale for the decision. Yes, ma'am. The board may accept the rationale or modify the one presented by the PLSB. I'll make a motion and correct me if I get it wrong. Okay? Correct me when I get it wrong. Um, I move that we accept the rationale and add the lack of mitigating factors and that the board finds a proponance of evidence of several aggravating factors. How's that? So, there's a motion by Miss Kener with the rationale. Is there a second to that? I'll second. A second by Miss Woods. Any questions? Comments? Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? A motion passes. Thank you. Okay. And I do want to say my appreciation to you and to the PLSB
243board. This is the worst part of the job. So I cannot imagine being on that board and doing it all the time. So, I appreciate your work and your the due diligence of all the stuff we had to read. So, thank you. I will tell you Sarah Banker worked very hard on this case and she's she does a wonderful job. Thank you. Thank you. And actually, I'm going to take a point of privilege to make a comment. It came to my attention this week that House Bill 1941 passed during the session. I was not aware of it when it was going through the session. And that bill takes away the right for the state board to hear PLSB cases. So PLC cases were no longer coming from the state board. I um in reflecting on
244my seven years in this job, I I I it is very difficult to be in front of educators. It's very difficult to have these hearings. Um things happen unfortunately, but I think it's our job as a board to have a high standard for all individuals in front of our educators. So I was disappointed that this law went through because our board is the one consistent body over the years that have seen cases. We are the only one where the same group of people are seeing the consequences the sanctions that are going out to individuals. If you go if I pulled up my law book this week, the state board has a list of powers and duties and our one of our powers and duties is to provide license to teachers. We, you know, push that
245power to the agency, but at the end of the day, it is our duty to provide general supervision of public schools, including issuing licenses. And so, I was very disappointed that this law went through without any discourse to our board. I know we've had many conversations over my seven years up here about how do we best glean information for LSP, how do we work with each other, maybe some changes along the way. Um, I've not seen those changes and now here we are with that being gone. So, I will be gone. But I hope that we all as a body continue to push for high expectations for all individuals. We have 30,000 amazing teachers. We have amazing people who make mistakes and things happen. Um, but that this process while it's very draining of us,
246I know we've talked about having separate meetings for these that would have been beneficial as opposed to just taking it away. But this process is important that it's transparent, people are accountable for actions whether mistakes or not and doing that in front of a public body is important and not behind a closed door at a PLSB case. Certainly there are things that should be stay behind closed doors. We could have revamped our state board procedures to do that instead of just taking it away. But that that's my final words on this. I will encourage you all to work with the agency and the bill SB to see if any anything else can be done. um before this just goes all behind the closed door and in the future I mean my my understanding is if
247I'm a complaintant I won't know what occurs until it's on that individual's license and so perhaps as y'all think about putting rules to this you can think about that perspective too as to how we continue again to hold and communicate high expectations for individuals I have a follow-up question with that given the shift Um after today these things are available freedom of information act correct to anybody that um requests them. Um given the new law is that still going to be true? Will there still be transparency to the public? I may have to have some support from legal on this please. We put our heads together. I'm not 100% sure the answer to that question. Of course, the law doesn't go effect till August. So, we will get back to the answer. I can probably
248look it up here while you're on your lunch break. Well, and here's another procedure question that I'm just showing that ignorance here, but I understand the law goes into effect in August, but oftent times the rules have to be written and approved and gone through the process first. Is that the case here as well? Like, will the rules for this law come to us for release for public comment, all that? Yes, all rules come to you regardless of of prior to the law going into effect. Yeah, help us help me on the timeline there. I don't know about the rules will come to you but that does not delay implementation of the law. So when the law goes into effect on August 5th that is the law. Okay with that let's go ahead and conclude
249our action agenda and go to our consent agenda. On our consent agenda, we have a number of issues. Are there any consent agenda items that board members would like to discuss or pull? I will note that we had a number of revocations. Yep. And you know, we have 30,000 amazing teachers in the state or whatever the number is. And unfortunately, I think we had five revocations this month. If you look at it, there's really only 150 to 200 so cases that our board generally hears over the years. So, we're talking a very small number of of individuals that have have done things that require sanctions. Um, and and it does take up more of our time, but again, I will argue that that it is necessary so that we know that our students are being
250protected in this state. Um, but I did see in these cases, I think the PLSB hopefully heard our messaging loud and clear as to what what what actions can be allowed and they went ahead and did revocation when in years past they might not have done that or I've seen them not do that. Um, with that, board members, any items want to be pulled to ask questions or discuss. You need a motion to approve. I actually I have a question, but I'm looking at Sorry. As I usually do, let's be honest. Okay. Item number five. It is from the charter authorizing panel, the Arkansas Virtual Academy. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Yes, ma'am. So, I I know there's been a lot of conversation again about high expectations for schools. So, I was surprised that the charter
251authorizing panel did expand a school that have unfortunately low letter grades in years past. in years past they've had D and F letter grades. I don't know much about the school. This is not a personal thing. It's just a was there a conversation about that standard setting and what that looks like to allow a school to grow? Yes, ma'am. There was quite a bit quite a bit of discussion at that point. Uh to your point, they have in the past have very low grades. With the new letter grade system, the new accountability system, all their schools actually raised up a letter grade. So, they were actually C's and a B. I think they still had a D. So we saw we saw great improvement in the school functioning as a whole as well as num
252more and more students u participating in that program. Okay. So good. Thank you. Okay. Sorry if board members any other questions on the then floor will be a motion. The floor will be open for a motion on the consent agenda. Move to approve the consent agenda. Motion by Miss Hunter to approve. Is there a second? A second. Second by Mr. Bragg. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes. Thank you. With that, we want to take a break. What do you What do y'all Do you all want to take a break, do lunch, take a five minute break, and knock out reports? What's the will of the board? Finish. Finish. Okay. Let's do that. Let's Let's Can we do a break? Let's do five minutes and then we'll finish. If that's the restroom I had
253it all. We have two individuals signed up for public comments. We will do public comment and then we have a number of reports today. Uh public comments. You all both have been here before. It is a three minute period. Uh three minutes per individual. And I first have Mr. Julius Wright signed up. Um, and then Miss Charlene, right? But if you wanted to change the order, that is okay, too. Welcome back. Three minutes. We missed you. Good afternoon. concerned and a former member of the education committee. former Arkansas Comprehensive Testing Assessment Accountability Program previous year released test items on the Arkansas Department of Education website to allow all students teachers equal access to prepare for the achievement gap was being narrowed. But in June 2015, the actire assessment replaced the parks assessment in one month
254after June 15. The actire assessment replaced in according to this teachers and students had access to publish midyear and summitive assessment material to prepare for the parks assessment in which they would be accessed. The Arkansas Department of Education Accountability Department never published release test items on the state website for the act aspire assessment. The department had at least two summitive alignment studies and only certain educators had the opportunity to view the act aspire assessment from 2015 until 2023. The test bank for the act aspire was not given to to prepare a formative assessment. Teachers never saw release items for ACT Aspire assessment. But yet the data from 2015 until 2023 was used to justify the need for the add summitive assessment and learns legislation. It was very disheartening in January 2025 in the Arkansas Department
255Gazette published that 174 schools in the state were awarded nearly $7 million for scores and academic growth on the Atlas assessment in 2024. And so we say in closing, we are requesting that the accountability department postrelease Atlas summitive assessment that we're using in the Atlas summitative alignment studies on the state district website to allow equal access to all teachers to prepare for all students for their Atlas summitive assessment. all students for their success and their district will have an equal opportunity to receive state awards for their scores in academic growth. Thank you for allowing me to have public comments. Thank you, Mr. Wright. Miss Charlene Wright, good afternoon. And I am glad to be back. Good afternoon, Arkansas State Board members, Secretary Oliva, Chairperson Dr. Moore, and all others. Thank you for allowing me to
256make comments, which is a continuation of an injustice that the Pine Bluff School District suffered in September 2023. Our district was denied an election of all seven board members. In July of 2025, board member Jeff Woods made remarks that he felt that you should have an emergency meeting and allow the Pine School District a single election of all seven board members. Dr. Moore made the remark that it would only take three. No motion was made and again in November of 2024, our district was denied the opportunity of a single election of all seven board members when a local school district elected three and our district was given an opportunity of one and appointed limited board member ran unopposed due to her initial appointment when the limited board member resigned. Recent 2025 legislation, House Bill 89,
257Senate Bill 90, as well as Senate Bill addresses that an entire school board of the directors is required to be elected during the first school board vote election after a school district returns from state to local control, affirming the act 633 that Helena West Helena, Palaski County Special, and Little Rock School District elected all seven board of directors in a single election. But yet, Pima School District was denied an election of all seven, stating continuity despite the law requiring a democratically elected board. In May of 2025, the PI at the Pimlo school board's meeting, it was made known the intentions of the appointed limited board and the superintendent is to have an election of four board members in the spring of 2026. Again, we are asking that you have an emergency board meeting to correct
258this miscarriage of justice that has been placed on the Pinela School District to allow the Pima School District an election of all seven board members. according to act 633 and Senate Bill 1724 in the spring of 2026. Again, in election of all seven board members in the spring of 2026, we thank you for allowing me to have comments as a Pineluff School District stakeholder and a former member of the education committee of the Pineluff unit of the NAACP. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but all were given a single election. And then like I spoke to one of the board members. I know that we sounded like a broken record, but when I heard about the recent legislation, it confirmed what we've been saying since 2023, 24, and 25. Please have an
259emergency board member meeting to correct this injustice of the Pine Bluff School District. Thank you, Miss Wright. I believe that was all signed up for public comment today. Thank you. We will move on to reports. Any board members have anything they want to report this month? I have one exciting thing. We um implemented a grant in early childhood. Within 24 hours, I had over 300 emails in my inbox of excited people. Um last I looked it was,200. Um that's why if you emailed me in the last month, I probably didn't see it. Apologies. I did figure out how to pin Miss Mary's to the top. So hers come to the top. So if you need something, maybe go through her. Um we're super excited about that. And um the process by which we're going through
260is so in lines with the Learns Act and all the goals we're moving forward. Um it's going to go through the local leads first and their um plans that they developed with their community in line with the law. Um those that meet those uh criteria based on um improving their access, quality, and workforce will then come to the subcommittee and we're excited to look at them today and see what falls in line with that plan. and then um it'll go to people with um that are a lot smarter than me and make sure that they're in line with all the federal and state requirements and all that. So, we're pumped. Thank you. That's awesome. Can I just say one thing? I had a great conversation with the principal at uh Harmony Grove High School in
261Camden, Jeff Mock, following our last board meeting. Um I I you know publicly I don't think there's any question that ever every now and then we are uh tough on alternative calendar schools. Um he called me to describe what they do at Harmony Grove which was actually pretty impressive. They do it to exceed the minimum number of days and hours that are required of school districts. Um it he described uh the way they use the the flex days to do extra intervention in uh the areas that students need extra focus. And it was just really it it was a a momentary breath of fresh air with regard to a a school district using the alternative calendar uh that they do to improve, you know, student focus, go above and beyond. And I say it publicly
262just to thank him for the phone call, but then also to recommend to the department to to contact Harmony Grove and talk to him about what they're doing. And uh I was impressed. So that's great. I think the word out there is that our board has a very high expectations and everything and I would hope that even more superintendents would be happy to share when they are exceeding what what should be done and going above and beyond for students. board members before Miss McCassen, Mr. McCasslin goes. And now, is this your last board? It is, especially if I break this mic. Uh, yes, it is my last one. And um, Gi, the incoming 2025 teacher of the year, is here with us. But, um, I was speaking with her earlier and a few of you,
263Ken, I told you it's a it's a unique position and one of those positions that, uh, just as you kind of getting a a feel that, okay, I understand what I'm supposed to be doing and how I'm supposed to be doing and and then and then you see the finish line. And so, it moves super fast, but it's such a blessing to have this past year. And that's kind of what I decided for my June report is just kind of look back over not just this past year because it is a long process. I was announced in October 2023. And um I love the way Arkansas does it though because it is a long process but it's a process that not only prepares the teacher of the year but also the district of how they're
264going to handle that next year. And uh just a really cool cool thing to look back on. And we'll start with October 2023. Um, I've told this story before. I'll give you the quick version this time is um, we're all gathered up in the studio because we've been told that a school's going to come by and they want to watch us work. And, uh, so we're getting ready to, uh, put our show together, produce our live show. And, um, our kids are anxious wondering why they're late or the other school's late and they keep asking me that. I say, I don't know. And then all of a sudden, here comes Governor Sanders and Secretary Oliva with a mob of press behind them. And uh it was just really really cool. A little bit different than
265they've done in the past because it had always been a big school rally. Uh this made it even more special because it was so intimate with my students. They're the ones that I'm even in this position to begin with. And then u and then my students were able to go on to produce a produce a newscast right there for for the uh governor and secretary as well. And then uh fast forward CTE day at the cap. Uh that was in February the following year. I'm still teaching right now, but uh or at this moment, but we still got to come up here to Little Rock and it was really one of um my last big events I got to do with my students as a teacher during that year. But uh funny story there is
266um you see uh Kinley there with the microphone interviewing Governor Sanders. She out of nowhere just comes up to me, grabs a mic, says I'm going to interview the governor. We're like, hold on. But uh you see who's running the camera there and uh funny tidbit there. We get back to the queen that next day Riley's in there editing. She's like, "Coach, there's no audio for the governor." I'm like, "Well, who was shooting?" She's like, "Sary Oliva." And of course, I I answered like I should have. I said, "Well, obviously you didn't coach him up enough." I mean, so whose fault is it? Is it his fault or is it your fault? But, uh, fun day there. And then, uh, just looking back on the CCSSO, um, experiences, um, just a a magnificent event. Uh,
267Jeannie got to experience Google out there in San Francisco just this last month. And I was explaining to her what grows out of those opportunities is the relationships that you uh, that you form within your cohort. And then you're going to form relationships in your mini cohort, within your cohort. And uh I've got six teachers from across the country that I talk to on a daily basis just within a group text. And of course it'll get serious, but it's also, you know, fun. You get to vent a little bit, but u it's the way the network works is a lot of times they might not be able to help you, but the people within their network are they're going to go find answers for you. And uh really excited for Genie to be able to
268look forward to that. Um amazing experiences. Space camp's coming up next month for her. Space out of all those space camp was one of our most favorite because the teachers really got to be kids again. Although the college football national championship and then Washington week was great. Um the White House state dinner which we'll look at here in a second. But Senator Boseman, we um shout out to our congressional leaders because they're always willing to meet with our teachers of the year and uh that's not the case in every state. And uh Senator Boseman gave me 30 minutes just oneonone. And uh this is the first time I've met Senator Boseman. So I sit down and I start trying to tell him who I am and tell him my story, our story at DQTV. And
269and he and he kind of redirects the conversation very quickly and he wants to talk about the Razerbacks. I go with it, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, "All right, he must not really care about what we're doing back there." You know, the doubt is in there. But at the end of the conversation, he says, "Well, come over here. I want to show you something and tell you something." And that is a sum. He read my name into the congressional record and our story into the congressional record the day before. Everything that I was prepared to tell him about me and our program. He had just told the halls of the Senate or the halls of Congress read on the Senate floors the day before. So really a special moment. Uh Capri
270will understand what I'm talking about there. We did the same thing for her. And just shout out to Senator Boseman. Uh I felt horrible for thinking that he might doubt caring about me. He reaffirmed it by the end of that meeting which was just a a great uh a great day. And try not to turn the slideshow off. There we go. And then at the end of that week to be able to go with two of my students into the White House. This wasn't just a tour of the White House. This was a 4-hour uh state dinner at the White House. And uh I mean it was already going to be special uh to be able to take my wife and then to be able to take Ashley and Deonte. Just a really a really
271neat moment. And then my tour here starts uh July 1st or the first meeting uh as a member of the state board was in July. A very special day. Capri uh gave me a little emblem to put on my I don't have it today. Capri, I'm sorry, but I know where it's at. But uh I I put that in there just as an opportunity to say thank you to you all because it puts the teacher of the year in Arkansas puts them at the table and that's easy said it's a lot harder done. This is one place where we are at the table but we're also heard and we're listen to and you guys have asked my opinions and uh it's a really special special treat for Arkansas and Caprio and I have mentioned before
272Arkansas has one of the best teacher of the year programs because that is not is not a lot of big states, but a really special moment. But also what it does is a lot of times there there's a disconnect from the classroom to the board on a district level and then from the classroom to the boardroom on the state level and it's been such a learning experience for me as a teacher and I wish all teachers could see what I have learned on this journey which is not just here on the board but everybody here at Desi u all the trips I've made across the state everywhere there are people so committed and uh to making learning better for students across the state. And uh to see the the depth of work that you guys
273put in to uh your positions up here and and your commitment to improving learning across the state is really special. I wish all teachers could experience what I've what I've experienced over the last year being on this board. And then uh the speaking tour starts and Arkansas does it uh in a funny way too. your your your very first keynote speech is the speech at the governor's mansion. So, uh there's no working it working into it, but the good thing about that is uh they're all none of them are as hard as that one to follow up. If you can handle the governor's mansion, you can handle all of them. And then uh Jeanie special day uh came was October of last year. And just being able to be on the opposite side of that
274and to to be able to surprise her was awesome. To see how how much those kids love her is was really cool. And the really one of the coolest parts for me about that whole process was watching Jeie teach in her classroom because um it wasn't it wasn't uh you know all the smoke and mirrors. It was what she does every day. And you could tell by the reactions in her students. I'm so excited for her to be following in my footsteps. Uh she's a teacher. She's a hard-nosed teacher. Uh she's a lot better teacher than I am. And uh it's like what I was telling her. I was like, "You'll make this position. Everybody makes it their own." And uh all all Jeannie needs to be is Genie and the teacher that she is.
275So I'm looking forward to that. Um you'll see the picture on the right. We did the gator. I believe the secretary has told this story. You see the big laugh from the governor there. That is about the time that I'm telling her. I don't know what how much good this is doing for your re-election process, but uh really really a fun day there. And then McGee um put McGee in there because McGee, this was the blue ribbon day at McGee Elementary. McGee Elementary is a school that is facing the same challenges that so many of our rural schools across the state face. Um but they're they're they're a perfect example of of what you can overcome when you look challenges as as obstacles, not barriers. And then you look within yourself uh within your community
276for your own solutions. Um McGee is one of several schools and communities I went to over this past year that face those same challenges. What was the same about all of all of those places I stopped where the challenges might look a little different, but the solutions to overcoming those challenges were the same. There were schools and districts that their walls weren't a separator. uh they had opened their walls and their classrooms to parents to the community uh community leaders to industry. It's where all the stakeholders are involved in the learning process and um I I believe that uh belief is growing through the state. I think it needs to speed up in places but hopefully it's what we're all working towards across the state. Try to skip forward. There we go. And Can you
277back up just a few, Kim? Um, put a map up there just to show you. I went all across trade. I tried to hit all of the regions the best I could. But, um, just like I said, everywhere I went, some of those schools are facing the same challenges. The solutions all looked very similar though. If there's a veil on that, can you advance it one? There we go. We'll go closing talks. No, seriously, um PSL, uh the PSL tour has been awesome. I have one more module to go to at the end of this month, which is in June. And u just some closing thoughts for me is u you know, this past year has forced me look to look a little deeper into my own educational journey as far as my journey into
278teaching and how I got there. Uh part of that uh digging deeper made me realize that uh my uh my path into education and a teacher actually started back in 1977 with my mother and her senior year and that's when she found out that I would be coming along. But uh luckily for her, luckily for me uh she had enough people in her life and teachers in her life and family in her life that uh didn't let her think that that could be a detour from chasing the dreams that she had. and found a support system. And uh there's a lot more to that story that uh I'm going to share in July at the at the AD summit. I'll be the keynote speaker there. And that's just the start of the first chapter. Hopefully
279you can be there uh and enjoy the rest of those chapters of that story. But uh just a really a neat opportunity for me to really dig deep self reflection and looking forward to sharing it. And what's next? What's next is get back on the honeydew list. make up for that and spend time with some grandkids and just thank you so much. It's been a transformational year for me and uh I hope I've um carried the torch in a way that Capri has and all the teachers of the year in the past have and that and then get Genie ready to roll. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you so much. That it's the highlight of every meeting to hear from you and those before you. Um what you're learning, what you're seeing, what you're doing. I
280always like to say that y'all are the eyes and ears and the hands and feet of our board and and sharing both the work that we're doing, but more importantly, the work that's going on out there that we get to see because we can't be all over the state like apparently you are this year. Thank you. Um so just truly thank you so much for what you've done um here for us but more importantly back home and for kids across the state as well. Can I ask some you know Bo we have to have meetings like this every now and then where it sucks really bad and we deal with the worst situations seem to come in front of us too often. But you are a fantastic example of the best in the profession and
281it's an honor to have you to have all the teachers of the year up here with us and remind us of just how good the cream of the crop really is in this state. You're really good. Thank you very much. [Applause] The queen the queen is lucky to have you. I have a feeling they won't have you too much longer. You got you got big things in your future and that's not to minimize DQ. I love DQ but but you've you've got you've got great opportunities in your future. I look forward to what you do and watching you from here. Thank you very Yeah. So I'll I'll also add on to sentiments. you've been just a wonderful ambassador for this profession and for our state. And uh I I know we all hold you in
282high regard, but so do all the students and families out there um as well. And one of the I think the greatest attributes about Bo is the word no is not in his vocabulary. And um anytime we ask and it could be at the last minute, it could be at midnight, you could say, "Bo, I need you here at 3:00 in the morning." and he would be there and he's he's that passionate about what he brings for our state. And um as we kind of go forward and journey and welcome Miss Will Coxin, I hope you don't lose that phone number and not forget how to say uh no, but you will always do whatever we want, but you will you'll move anything out of the way. There's nothing we can't ask you to do
283that you say no to. So, thank you for that. Thank you. So, I have a few quick updates before uh we wrap up. The first update I'd like to provide is just kind of a an annual overview of where we are with Arkansas Leadership Academy and and highlight some of the things in the report. As we know, uh the greatest impact that we can have on improving student learning is as teachers like Bo standing in front of our students each and every single day. The second greatest impact is the leaders leading our schools. So, at this time, I'd like to ask uh Bradley Weber, I think he's going to come up and and share a few few highlights who oversees the program. Thank you for that, Secretary Olivia, Dr. Moore. Thank you to the board.
284I just want to point out Bo is a phenomenal Arkansas Leadership Academy presenter for us in ALA Reef. So, Jeanie got big shoes to fill whenever it comes to uh sharing your tips and tricks with with our leadership academy participants. Um just a few quick updates about the leadership academy. I tell you first um to the secretary's point, we believe that every child in the state of Arkansas deserves to have an excellent education. We know that a lot of that comes to the teacher in the room and the person leading that building. And so the Arkansas Leadership Academy serves as the premier leadership hub for professional development, support, and equipping tools for Arkansas school leaders. Um, a quick history, if you're not familiar with the program, it came about in 1991. Um, so we've been
285around for a little bit, but the master principal program that really worked to support um, lead principles was adopted in 2003. And then the current partnership um, started in 2021. And so it is a partnership on behalf of the Arkansas Department of Education and the state board um between the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, Arkansas State University, and Editas um the outreach arm of the University of Oklahoma. Um we had a couple of points of emphasis um starting with that 2021 operation. The first was to expand access. Whenever we looked at prior years, we saw that there were some condensed pockets of participation. We'll talk about that here in a second, but happy to say um that as of today, every county in the state of Arkansas is represented in ALA work. Um second was
286to expand transparency. It's why we get to come and give you updates um each and every year. We're going to talk about three different program years. The one that concluded, you have the full um annual evaluation from that year, year three, um provided to you, but then also we just wrapped up yesterday um year four of programming and we're getting ready for year five. The next is to expand participation. This year we served 430 u participants in live face toface events and then an additional 400 in live and on demand professional development online uh which was double the participant count prior to that and then to streamline personnel. We do that with three full-time employees and then we may borrow and steal another six people from our partner organizations who come alongside um to help
287us provide that support. These are the programs that exist um across the state and all the ones around the outside happen face to face in cohort settings. To Bose's point earlier, those those networks that you build, those relationships that you have with the people in the room are absolutely indispensable. So everything from our teacher leader program that's a part of the DESI career continuum and and allows for teacher leaders to go through and and attain lead professional lensure on their teaching license all the way through master principal and then executive leader which works with building leaders and district leaders to build capacity. All those happen in face-to-face training and then ALA reach is our live and on demand platform um where we highlight highlevel practices from Arkansas educators. Charmaine Evans runs that program is constant
288contact um with educators across Arkansas trying to find out where innovation is happening, where high student outcomes are happening, who's beating the odds. Um we we rolled down that OEP list to find where are places where where building leaders in Arkansas educators are doing things um for students in a way that maybe we can replicate across the state. So, in terms of participation, like I said, we just wrapped up um year four yesterday with that count. We served over 800 educators this year. The exciting part is whenever I sent data to Carly, we were at 560 applications for our in-person programs for next year. As of this morning, sitting in row two, we're at 639 applications. Um, that application has been open for a month and a half. Um, and so just in terms of
289what we've been able to provide, um, we looked to eclipse that thousand mark next year whenever we think about who we get to serve online as well. Um the other part of that that I would point out is it's taken us a while to build that platform, right? To be able to crawl into each and every part of the state to say, "Hey, here's a free opportunity for you to come and learn um how to be a high quality leader whether you're in a classroom role, an instructional leadership role, a building role, or a district role." Um and so originally u whenever we wrote the RFP back in 2020 2021, we projected that we might be able to events um roughly 450 people that come on board. Now we've got um over 600 that we
290get to serve in um in those cohort settings and then an additional 400 online. So whenever we think about that reach, we are at about 78% of school districts and charter networks represented across all counties and co-op areas in the state of Arkansas. And this is the part that I'm really excited about because when we came last year to do our annual report, uh, Secretary Lee was said, "Hey, this is all great and all, but where's the data that says it's working?" And so, uh, we brought some friends with us this year, um, Natalie Dixon serves as a part of our third party evaluator team. And so we challenged our evaluators with that data with that data track and said, "Hey, we want to know we want to be able to show um that the
291board's getting their money's worth when it comes to the Arkansas Leadership Academy." And so whenever they put pinned to paper um and went to do the calculation, our phase three um graduating principles came in to our program um at a 79.9, which is right under the the state average whenever it came to added growth scores for students when they left us two years later. Um they were at an 82.32 above that state average. Rather, break that down. What does that really mean? It means they came in at the 46th percentile. So just under um state average, they left 15 points higher at the 63rd percent or the Yeah, the 63rd percentile. And so whenever we talk about value added growth is kind of our measure. I tell our principles all the time, I don't really
292care about your achievement scores. I want to know that you're growing kids. And so that's a part of their yearly application process is here are the tools and resources that we've used to grow kids. And the fact that um when superintendents ask me why should I send the principal to work with you in the leadership academy, I say uh here's the data. Give me three years and on average we can grow a school by about 15% top points. And they're like done. Here they here you go. Um and they're quick to sign up. And so we were excited to to see those numbers and they reflect in the fact that I got to send out 53 new principal acceptances last week for next year's phase one cohort. Whenever we talk about what does that turn
293into designation wise coming into this year we had 38 lead professional teachers um and another 150 portfolios that are in process. People ask me, Bradley, why is there a big jump in that number? And that is because the timeline is getting real close to when you have to have that lead professional or master teacher designation in order to have a resident teacher with you or serve as a mentor. Uh over the last couple years, we've been able to designate and bring five principles to you. We did two site visits this spring. U they are in the process of being scored. I hope to bring those two people to you very, very soon. um with an additional three scheduled site visits for this fall and an additional 11 principles that have eligible grow scores for for
294master principal designation. The other thing that we always talk about is those different corners of the state that operate differently. And so we've included in there for you two kind of case studies um that represent each side of the state. Justin Wanchard up in Gentry and then uh Raphael Smith who's over at Steuart Elementary in Forest City. Um and really the way that they were able to students whenever it came to free free and reduced lunch outcomes. Um we asked them starting in phase one to commit to an action research project that they're going to do and track the impacts of their work and their leadership in their building. Um and both of those gentlemen committed to to tracking reduced lunch outcomes and over the course of their time in the program compared to what
295was happening prior in their buildings. Um we saw math growth jump at Gentry High School by 9.15 points. ELA growth jumped by 3.8 and then um for city with Rafa math growth up by almost 12 points and ELA growth up by almost nine points. I always just like to throw this in there because everybody likes to talk about money. 10% of your recognition rewards funding went to ALA schools. Um so just about um $740,000 worth of schools led by ALA participants last year. We also do and task Natalie and her team with some uh qualitative findings. And so one of the questions that we always ask is how their instructional leadership has improved over their time with us in the program. Um I'm proud to report that across all of our cohort groups that meet
296face to face um all those came back in the nar above. Still not satisfactory for us. You can see there are additions up there. U teacher leader was up 12%. Master principal up 5%. Instructional leader up 4% over the prior year. We still want to close those gaps between 91 and 100. Right. Um I don't have a building 101 from Taipei, but we're trying to get there. If we can put if we can put an antenna on these numbers, we're going to try to. Um we also want to know about district perception. And so we ask district level leaders, what's your perception of people who are um participating in Arkansas leadership academy programs and has it improved your district's performance? Um and again across the board um 94s and above whenever it comes to district
297perception and districts willing to send participants to Arkansas Leadership Academy programming. One of the pieces that I'm most proud of is um our funding from the state grant is $1.4 million a year. Um, and we're able to pull off those results um, with a little bit left over at the end of the year um, because you're only paying for three full-time employees where Barman is steal and everybody else. But really, it is that partnership um, that helps us do the work whenever we're going out and partnering with schools um, and some of our business and community partners to make that work. You can see in terms of um, the spending that we do have up there, the biggest part of that is consultants coaches and guidance. And really what that is is our principles who
298have been through master principal, our leaders who are or our teacher leaders who are designated lead professionals. Those kinds of people come back and serve as coaches for us. They serve as mentors for us. They host site visits for us so that those current year participants can go be on those sites where those high leverage practices are happening. Um and so we do provide them a coaching stipen to to come back and mentor other people. They five year roster for us. So once you graduate with us, you have five years of service um to to come back and coach, mentor, and provide support to the upcoming participants. We've already begun the work. We know that the department has been hard at work in terms of making some recommendations around that day one ready report and
299new leadership um components. And so our team's already at work in terms of aligning and making sure that we continue to carry out the work of the department whenever it comes to making competencies a part of ALA infrastructure and then I won't read these all to you but um our third party evaluator also continues to provide recommendations based on their data gathering and their qualitative research and so our responses to those are outlined for you as well. The biggest one that I would tell you is that um each year we continue to be asked um hey I've got five teachers who need to come to teacher leader, but I'd love to send three more. Um, this year, for the third year in a row, we will offer an additional cohort. We've grown that program each
300year. We're already up to 280 people. Um, which I would love to accept all of them, but I need a bigger location. And so, that's the email I got to send earlier this week is, uh, yes, you're in. I don't know where we're going to meet yet because we need a bigger space in order to accommodate everybody. And so, uh, it's great to be able to send that information out, uh, especially whenever I think back to when we started four years ago, um, calling districts and saying, "Hey, wouldn't you love an opportunity for your teachers to participate?" Um, and now those coming out of the woodwork. And so, I want to say a big thank you. Uh, Secretary Leval wandered into one of our master principal sessions. Um, he didn't know he was going to
301end up on the agenda, but he ended up on the agenda anyway. M RS has been on a school site visit. Like I said, we've had ALA presentations from other folks. And so an open invitation for you um as board members to come and either participate in our sessions um or to to be a guest speaker, a guest presenter to to lean on the leadership work and the advocacy work that you've done um the way that it impacts school communities. Talk about the role of early childhood uh in building strong foundations. That's the the coolest part about being in the room is every part of the state's represented and every great band um is represented as well. And so on behalf of myself, our team, I've got Gina Williams who's in our instructional leader program
302from our evaluation team, Scott Smith, executive director at APSRC. They've been tremendous supports in making the work happen. And so I want to tell them thank you publicly in front of you um and just tell you that that we know the hard work of leading schools um is never easy but the best part of the work that we get to do is in building capacity right um making sure that we translate not silo leadership but collective leadership and so that ability to to take risk innovate and do new things um we believe is what's getting the academic results that we are so I appreciate the opportunity Board members questions questions. Thank you. I think Oh, no. I was just saying so I think Kathy and I when when did the RFP go through that the
303state board approved to change the provider for the So we just wrapped up year four of service. So it was delivered in 2020 and then operation again in 2021. Okay. And was it a a fiveyear cycle? Yeah. So it's a fiveyear cycle. Um So, it's that $ 1.4 million allocation for five years. And so, we're heading into year five of that and then we'll be back to request some continued support to grow the work and and provide high level leadership to Arkansas. Okay. I think Miss Wood, you might have been a part of that process then. Okay. Yeah. Because that that was at the time a really big shift going from a longtime provider and thinking through what would be next. And so it's been neat to watch how y'all have um put your own
304stamp on what one what it should look like. Um but as we all know the importance of leaders and how vital it is. I was glad to see you have an East Arkansas principle. Yes. And the thing and you I'm always advocating for our part of the state um that we need strong leaders and any support that you all and others can give them. The best phone call I had last week was um with West Memphis. and their assistant principal contingency to instructional leader next year to get some uh horizontal alignment across that group. Um but also to support the work that's happening there vertically. So those are the kind of phone calls I get really excited about. Um I tell people all the time I have more fun than I should at my job.
305That's great. Well, thank you for coming in today and presenting and thank you Bradley and I saw that Scott Smith snuck in the back so we appreciate him and both of you always having an open ear and willingness to kind of grow programs and make sure we're doing what's best for students across the state. So, we appreciate both of you. Thank you. One couple more things I want to do an update on. I'm going to ask Stacy to do about a twominut update on uh where we are with Bllyville School District. If you remember, we had a board meeting in the Bllyville school community about two weeks ago and moved them from I think it was level four to level five intensive support. So, there's been boots on the ground for the last two weeks.
306I think it's important for this board to be informed of kind of some of the key decisions that have been made moving forward or updated at least. And I can go longer than two minutes because I snuck out snuck out and ate some cantaloupe. No, I'm gonna be quick. Um, yeah, we've had boots on the ground this the last two weeks. Sheila Whitlo and her team have been there non-stop around the hour. I mean, they're living there right now um doing the work. Um, yesterday we announced a new interim superintendent for the transition time. That's Dr. Brent Miller. He works for Sheila. He's on our team. He's been in Bllyville this whole last year. So, we released an intent for um for folks to notify us if they had an intent to apply for a
307transformation contract. We released that the Friday after our board meeting in Blightville. We had eight different providers submit an intent to apply. We've released to them the uh everything in the proposal that they need to return to us. That is due Monday the 16th. All right. So, it's quick. Um but those that are that are in this world, they've been watching um and are aware and they're eager. So, and they're from instate and out of state. Yeah, we have instate and we have out of state proposals that are being put together. So, next week we'll review those, score those by rubric. We plan on doing similar to what we did in Marvel Elaine where we pull community people to be a part of the review process and interviewing and then that recommendation of a transformation
308contract would come um back to this board in the end because they are in level five um support. Um some of the big pieces that Sheila and her team while they've been in Bllyville um they are going through all vendor contracts currently. We've actually went ahead and terminated some of the contracts. For example, there was a janitorial contract that was almost $800,000. If you remember in my report, we were talking about per student cost. Um, that was one area that was really, really large. We have terminated that contract. We felt like there were some problems there and they weren't and they weren't cleaning schools. Yeah. Let's forget about the fact of how much the contract was. The number one complaint we heard from teachers and faculty is that the schools buildings are not clean. The
309buildings were not clean. So Sheila's been having those conversations. We've got people um working there going through their employee contracts were confusing. There was a very unclear salary schedule in the hearing. We talked about stipens being stacked. They were and they were done in ways that made no sense. Um and unilaterally at times and at times we can't even show that there was board approval of those. So we have redone the salary schedule. We are rewriting job descriptions and we're Sheila and her team are having onetoone conversations with people um about what their job is, about the expectation and about where the salary pieces are going to be. So all of that will go through our board process with Secretary Aliva and we'll get all those structures in place. So our plan is to be
310able to hand off when we have a transformational contract that will create a transition plan with whoever in in the end wins um the bid. Okay? whether that is fast and they can do it come August or whether that's they can do it come January or what does that look like right that'll be something that's negotiated out um Sheila's team is down there setting expectations putting in standard operating procedures there were none um going through every board packet looking for items that have been approved or not approved um but the big thing and and and I just said that is the onetoone communication um even just in terms of us announcing who the interim superintendent is. We've been able to communicate that with the community. We were able to email parents. We were able to
311email the staff. Secretary Aliva and I traveled to Bllyville last week and met with different groups of individuals in the school district. Um Mr. Henderson has been involved in those meetings. He's also met with um Miss Whitlo. Um our goal is to bring in the community to this. This is an opportunity to transform not only this school but this community. and when we get the school right, it will have a positive impact on the community. So, lots of great work. Um, if the OCSS team is watching, keep working hard, guys. We got we got lots of work to do, but we appreciate what they do. So, thank you. I'll take any questions if you have any. I was wondering if when we were there, I was approached by an employee that said, "Are we going
312to have contracts? We don't have contracts." And I said, "I can't answer that, but I know number one concern is the students." And at that point there were no students registered for the next year. Have they? So they they're they're working on all of that right now. Um contracts they've taken care of with teachers. Um they've had Melissa's team has been in there um four different times this past year. I think we have everybody on a lensure pathway at this point. Um we've had to negotiate some contract terms with um outside groups coming in for like cafeteria or maintenance or custodial work with outside groups that we're working on. So, we're tightening all those pieces up. That's great. I I tell you one thing I think that is is encouraging and Miss Smith talked a
313little bit how we we were able to go back and there's been people there every day and we actually went back and met with everybody. We met with every employee that was still working and I'm really excited for the three principles that have been designated to lead the three different schools, elementary, middle, high school campus. and some of them are are going to be brand new, but they are um they are in it for the right reasons. They are going to put students first and they're going to be wonderful partners throughout this transition. So, there's a there's a nice horizon in the future for Blackville. I feel very good about that. Yeah. Yeah. I would 100% agree. Board members, any additional questions or comments? Last thing I want to do is um it's kind of
314a the the ending of a tenure like we talked about Bo his last meeting but we also took two wonderful board members who it's their last meeting and it's hard to believe that your seven-year journey um when you sign up for that actually has an end day in it. So, um, we want to take a minute and thank you for your years of service and the impact you've had across the state of Arkansas for improving student learning. And I'm going to start by showing a little video here if you can indulge me. We're super super thrilled. U Miss Petridge and Dr. Moore were just sworn in over at the state supreme court by Justice Wyn and we are uh really thrilled uh that that they are here. We hope you like this room. You're going
315to be here a lot over the next seven years. Um, teachers call every I'll make a motion to approve. Governor's office approval. Catching waves of bright education. It's an inide. We're stepping on data and dreams that growing mind overflow. Want Wi-Fi in the rules? A laptop for every home's [Music] going to shine. Um, it's been a great morning so far for us. We got to visit the um Arkansas State Child Development Center. [Music] Morning everyone. Welcome to the December State Board of Education meeting. Second. We have lots of seconds. So, I think it may be a unanimous vote here in a minute. We have [Music] Miss Petridge, Dr. more. [Applause] So, I know I've only been on the tail end of your tenure, but sincerely true of the two of the most special people that
316I've ever worked with in over 25 years of education. And um you've embraced me and and pushed me and challenged and made me better. And um I will appreciate you for that. And um just like I told Bo that he can't change his phone number, I've already have mental assignments of your next two big projects. So this will not be the last time that we speak. So we wanted to just honor you guys for your time and so you're going to get this this clock. But Bo for for teacher of the year again, your enthusiasm. Um I just appreciate how you jumped into the role and you embraced this opportunity and you didn't miss out on anything, right? even challenging yourself to jump into the leadership cohort that you're in right now. That again just
317shows your extra mile. Thank you. So, appreciate that. Sarah, I remember the room third floor on Bside um 2014. I'm new to the department. You come walking in as a governor's liaison. Um it's been a Yeah. Yeah. So, we started here together and so just watching you grow, asking tough questions, holding us accountable, pushing us to continue. Appreciate that and always learning from you. And Miss Rollins, the word that comes to mind when I think of you is just class. You're just classy. Um, you're what we aspire as women to be in a a field of of folks that are in like competitive jobs and having to make tough decisions and having to deliver messages. I I think when I was yelling red flag in Bllyville, I wasn't classy. I've never seen you not be.
318And so that's just what comes to mind when I think about you and how you handle tough situations and when things are just really going, you just always hold that bar for us. So I I want to thank you personally just for being that kind of example for me. So thank you. So thank you for your time. Had you not stepped up in Bllyville, I would have not been in class. Don't stand up next time. I want to see that. That's beautiful. Get a copy of that song. Well, I I I just wanted to say to Kathy, it has been such a joy to get to know you and work with you these years. You're amazing. I I don't want to say this because of agism, but you have been on a board, a school
319board almost my entire life. Oh my. And you know, and I I think sometimes I wish I had this job later in life so I could be you and have that wisdom and perspective, but the impact that you had on Springdale, the impact that you've had now on the state and the wisdom that you brought from all your time and your work in Springdale to here is just immeasurable. Um, I truly truly have so appreciate you and our time that we got to be together during these seven years. It's amazing and I admired you so much and your depth of knowledge and you're able to ask those tough questions, those really hard questions. And I'm sitting here thinking, you are too. I say the same thing about you. So, but it's I've learned a lot
320from them as well. It's been amazing. It's been, you know, it's been a volunteer career for me. If I can say, I started when my son was in first grade in 1983. I was elected to the school board in 1991. And never did I think I could be a home room, let alone a PTA president, a state PTA president, a president of the ASBA, and get appointed to the state board of education. I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that this would be a path for me and yet I always wanted to be a teacher. So, I got to be part of the education system for a long time and truly anor [Applause] I'll say, you know, appointments that a governor makes probably they're they're sticking their neck out there every
321now and then, and they they wonder what is this person going to do? And this person is going to last longer than my term in the governorship. Um, I can only imagine that the two of you have made Governor Hutchinson proud for the way you have carried yourself on this board and um, represented Arkansas, regular Aransens, but most importantly students. The student focus that y'all have helped bring to this board has been tremendous. And you both leave, I told you privately, you both leave enormous shoes and uh, there will be a hole here. We will do our We will we will carry on but we will miss tremendously and the leadership that y'all have provided us. Well, I want to challenge Sarah. She is going to be really interested to see what you do to
322continue. Well, my focus this summer is helping my first grader read. But but I think back when I got appointed looking at the pictures, he was three months old. And not the work of so many individuals in this department and statewide that school looks different for my first grader right now than it would have seven years ago because of so much hard work here and across the state. And I am, you know, the best part of this job are the people and the people we've met, we've been with up here and the people in the agency and the people across the state um that work so hard to see success for students. It's hard to follow those comments. You know, I've been with you too, I want to say a really long time, but seemed
323like it just lasted few seconds. And uh I've learned a lot from the both of you and I'm really going to miss you and um got to figure out who's gonna ask some of those very tough questions. But uh wish both of you much luck on your new journey and your new beginning because I don't believe in endings. I believe in beginnings. I'll make a final comment. Um I feel like it's the end of an era because y'all are the last two that were here when I joined the board and so after y'all like during co um and so it has been my greatest honor to get to serve with the two of you. So Jeff's right. There's going to be huge shoes to fill and I don't presume today I will ever be able
324to remotely fill those shoes, Sarah. So thank you for leading as well. I remember watching Sarah walk through the halls of the legislature and uh never really had any personal interaction with her until we got on the board here and just both of you have just felt felt, you know, so privileged to to serve with you and just sit and observe. You know, we learn a lot. by just sitting and watching and I appreciate what you've contributed to both of Yeah. Okay, I'll do that. Okay. Yeah. I I just don't have words. Um you ladies have been incredible inspiration to me. You have set the bar so high. Um we'll do our best to meet it. Um but I I think you know words just can't express but so I'll just say thank you. So
325um I suspect that you two will continue to track um our work and what we're doing which is really exciting because um now I can call you and talk action items. So when I was going over the agenda, I'd often think, I wonder what Kathy's reaction would be, or I wonder what Sarah's questions, I wonder if Sarah would ask this, you know, and now I could just go, hey, what do you think? So, um, I appreciate your dedication and your hard work. And it's remarkable because the two of you bring, um, a level of patience and grace to this role that, um, I don't think, uh, can be matched. So, we'll miss you dearly. Thank you both. and you'll hear from me. As I mentioned earlier, I've only been on the board for seven months,
326and I wish I had known you for seven years, truly. And uh that's why I wanted you to be members of the pencil club as we christened it this morning. And then finally, you know, they say finish strong. My goodness, I've never seen a person ask so many questions on their final meeting as if it was their, you know, in the middle of their third year. Um, so you are full on and Kathy accepting the baton to take on Bllytheville and the issues there on your next to the last meeting. I mean, that's the pedal to the metal and so thank you for showing us how to go all the way and finish strong. I think we're leaving a tremendous and I admire all of you so much. I think this is really strong and
327I think all of you should be for your work and the questions that you ask to work and the high standards that you all are setting to reach to students across and teachers across the state. So, as we can get one final photo, I'm gonna just have one more ask so that we can memorialize this moment. You can bring a little one more photo down. Rolex. Sounds so nice. two and three. [Music]