001foreign good morning everyone good to see you this morning good to have some students here with us this morning uh it's just a bright sunny day after the rain and so we're just happy to be here and we're glad that you're with us today so we want to begin with a moment of silence before we start so please join with me thank you and we are also going to have some really good recognitions this morning it is CTE week and and uh we are going to welcome Mr Ross white because he's got some really bright students that he's going to to tell us about today Good Morning Roswell director of the division of Career and Technical education it is Career and Technical Education Month and so we get to celebrate that all month long but
002we want to share a little bit with you all today so we do have some students that here in a second I'm going to share just a little bit about um their CTE pathway through high school and what it's done for them but before we do that I am going to just read the proclamation that Governor Sanders did sign for CTE month just for the awareness side of it so whereas Career and Technical education offers students the opportunity to gain the academic Technical and employability skills necessary for True career Readiness whereas students in Career and Technical education programs participate in authentic meaningful experiences that improve the quality of their education and increase student engagement and achievement whereas Career and Technical education provides students with career exploration opportunities earlier in their educational experience which enables them
003to make informed and beneficial decisions about their academic coursework as well as the pursuit of established programs of study and career Pathways whereas leaders from business and industry Nationwide report increasing challenges related to addressing the skills Gap and connecting with qualified professionals with available careers and critical and growing CTE related fields including Health Care energy Advanced manufacturing and information technology whereas Career Technical education prepares students for these and other fulfilling careers by offering integrated programs of study that link secondary and post-secondary education and lead to the attainment of Industry recognized credentials whereas ensuring that employers have access to a qualified Workforce is a crucial step in ensuring productivity among the business and industry communities as well as continued American economic growth and Global competitives and whereas a core pillar of my education reform plan Arkansas
004learns is Readiness placing a stronger emphasis on policies that prepare our kids for the workforce not a lifetime of government government dependency now there for US Air Huckabee Sanders governor of the state of Arkansas vibration authority of assuming the state of Arkansas do by here to Proclaim February as Career and Technical Education Month in the state of Arkansas so with that we will have four students like I said they're going to share just a little bit about their Pathways and then you are welcome to ask questions and we'll start with Mr Mason Flint who was just read this week actually elected our new Deca State president but Mason is a junior at Harbor High School in the Springdale school district and so Mason's gonna bring you some greetings good morning good morning welcome thank you
005my name is Mason flute and I began taking CTE classes my sophomore year I was enrolled in marketing business Enterprise and business law during my junior year which is my current year I've taken personal finance and I'm currently in business management through these courses I've discovered that the business field is where I want to be they've helped me understand the world we live in and how our economy operates I've also growned my confidence in public speaking networking with professionals and sharing my thoughts and ideas these classes have equipped me with the skills to become an Arkansas deck of State officer as well I have served as the vpa leadership for the past year and on Tuesday I was elected president of Arkansas DACA that guy has given me countless opportunities to put these skills I've
006learned in CTE classes to use Amy professionals who are eager to invest in me as a student and support my growth into a career I've gotten to go on many trips with indeca as well one of them being the international Career Development conference last year in Atlanta where I got to meet and network with so many students and professors all excited to support me it's listening users and professionals and connections that truly have enriched me as an individual and I can't express my gratitude for them enough thank you for letting me Center thank you that is wonderful [Applause] congratulations on on being an elected president that's a huge deal and uh congratulations next we'll have Roman Hart from Jonesboro High School and he is currently our FCCLA State president [Applause] good morning everyone my name
007is Roman Hart I'm a sophomore at Jonesborough high school and I'm here to share about CTE today so my CTE Journey started a little bit differently than most people's there was a scheduling error in eighth grade and that ended up in a fax class and I missed the deadline to switch out so I was stuck for the year but thankfully it was the best mistake of my life oh um I've had the opportunity to take multiple facts classes and I've learned about financial literacy food safety and nutrition and these are skills that all people need in life just to be productive humans and not everyone has because not everyone's been enrolled in CTE um CTE has helped me determine what I want to do in life like giving me the skills that I need to
008pursue further education and my ctso FCCLA has helped strengthen me in CTE because everything we do in FCCLA is an extension of what I've learned in my fax classroom I would like to thank all the CTE Educators especially Miss Edmonds my educator I would not be here without her today thank you that's wonderful God has a way of using mistakes to direct their path so so that is wonderful and congratulations also in your office next up we have Maggie McDonald from Magnolia High School and she has some unique experiences especially around the world of work based learning and the opportunities that exist there hello my name is Maggie McDonald I'm a senior at Magnolia High School I started my journey in CT in the seventh grade with an entered agriculture class I've focused mainly on
009the animal science pathway with an emphasis on agriculture business as well in these Pathways I've taken the following courses survey of Agriculture animal science advanced animal science these this year I'm currently enrolled in agriculture business throughout my whole High School career I've taken other CTE courses like survey of business this year I'm completing the coursework in our court in our work based learning program I have an incredible experience with our ctso FFA currently I'm the Magnolia FFA president through my through my experience at FFA I've traveled and competed at the National FFA convention twice as an 8th grader I was a national finalist for the Agri science fair with a project where I studied goat reproduction methods to see which proved the most successful this past October I was recognized on stage as a national
010finalist for my supervised agriculture experience in Goat production I've been showing livestock primarily sheeping oats most of my life the past five years have been through FFA it has afforded me many opportunities over the years I've shown Livestock in 10 states and at six different National shows this past year some of my accomplishments include the Arkansas youth expo Grand Champion Market goat weathered dope breeding you and Market lamb Arkansas State Fair Grand Champion Market goat breeding you and Market land the North American International livestock Exposition Reserve Champion doe and fourth overall Market lamp traveling throughout the country to exhibit my livestock has opened the doors to networking with others who have common interests yet from diverse backgrounds I've met people from all over the United States and communicated with these individuals to not only learn
011about their experiences but share my exciting experiences also as if raising livestock wasn't enough in February of 2020 we were preparing to kid out baby goats we sent blood to a lab in Montana to get our dose pregnancy tested the owner let my dad know that this would be our last set of blood she would be able to test he told me this and asked me to research another Testing Lab to send our blood to be to be tested I thought for a couple of days and then asked my dad what if I open the lab what's stopping me I pursued this I reached out to bioprint the company I am now certified under and the company I'm now certified under and discussed what it would take for me to own my own Testing Lab
012I use my premium sell money that I earned in the past years to buy my equipment covid-19 shut down the country about a week after my equipment came in I was able to spend my time researching and studying the process of running these tests I learned the step-by-step process through Zoom pulse I became a certified bioprint affiliate by passing the certification test with 100 accuracy wow over the past few years my business has grown to over 250 customers from 10 states my lab now has a permanent location at the triple seven Reproduction Center in Magnolia this is what my job is for our school's work based learning program since I can remember I've known I wanted to attend college and pursue a degree in animal science using the knowledge that I have gained through my
013CTE classes that led to my business ventures has only confirmed my interest in the animal science field with this experience along with my animal science and business coursework I have learned basic knowledge and skills that I use every day at M Square genetics and testing and I am certain I will use in my future career path I would like to thank my agriculture teacher Miss Elam she's provided an amazing learning environment where all her students had the opportunity for Hands-On experiences that lead to learning at the highest levels not only do we learn relevant content each day but she also leaves us wanting to know more my passion fruit and love for agriculture has only been Amplified with all the many things that I have learned in Miss Salem's class I can take the content
014that I learn in animal science and apply it to the many different aspects of animals on my farm Miss Elam was instrumental in helping me start my own business equipping me with the knowledge of animal reproduction so that I could run pregnancy tests on other animals I have chosen my future career path in animal science focusing on reproduction and nutrition because of the interesting things in that New Zealand has taught me she's an amazing teacher who is love and respected by all her students at Magnolia High School wow I don't I don't think impressive is a big enough word to describe what she just said that is awesome congratulations and then our final one is Miss Reese Owens from Whitehall High School and Reese has actually been in front of you all before she is
015um did you make it I can't remember now she's one of our national officers so she represents FCCLA on their national board and so we're going to share a little bit about her experience as well good morning um first I just want to say thank you for letting me come and stand before you today and just share my passion for FCS education but also for FCCLA and thank you Mr White for allowing me this opportunity um so like you said I'm Reese Owens and I'm currently a senior at Whitehall High School and when I graduate I will be a completer in the Education and Training pathway within FCS education so my journey started off when I was in seventh grade I took an intro to FCS class it was required for all seventh graders at
016my school and at first I was really unsure I was going through a really hard time I was looking for a place to belong and I really didn't have that so I walked into my FCS class very first day of seventh grade really nervous and there I found a home and that's something that I'm forever grateful for I've always been a straight A student and I valued my education and I didn't realize how much of a passion I would get from being an FCS class since then I've taken FCS I've taken Child Development and this year I'm an intro to education so I'm able to have an externship within a local elementary school and I've learned a lot of things I've learned that children like to give you their teeth so will fall and cry
017but I've also learned that children are the future I've learned that they have a passion for every single thing that they see and I've also learned that maybe elementary school education is not for me but that doesn't discredit every single FCS student who does find their passion in my class every single person except me is going into elementary school education although I'm not going into FCS education or elementary school education I'm going to the University of Arkansas and I plan to major in business CTE specifically FCS education has taught me Real World skills financial literacy and also it's just shown me that there's a way to make an impact on FCS education and ctsos and you don't have to have a degree in it and business is very Universal and I've learned that you have
018to have a balance of personal life business and also work so learning through this through my CTE classes has ultimately prepared me for my future as Mr White said I am the vice president of community service for FCCLA FCCLA has really strengthened my tie and what I want to do because I've gotten to see non-profit experience and being a national officer I serve on the board of directors I've gotten to see the background and what it really takes to run a nationally recognized ctso so with my plan in business I want to to a major in Business Administration with an emphasis in non-profit one day I hope to go and help my ctso let us help turn me into the woman I am standing here before you I'm so excited that FCCLA really pushes education
019we have over 50 competitive events that all tie into education and so it allows our members to see the value in what they do every day they go to school but not many students see the importance of what educators are trying to do not only teach them the standards but also teach them life teach them to be ready for whatever it is their future has to offer and so FCCLA along with these competitive events really allows students to see the importance of education but also see the importance of their future it wouldn't be for FCS and FCCLA I don't think I could stand before you today I'm very thankful for each and every opportunity I've gotten to travel and see how FCS Works in different states and I've gotten to see classrooms and ultimately I've
020gotten to see like I said how a ctso operates and so that's what I get to go into into my future and so thank you all just so much for the opportunity for not only myself for these other young people to come before you today and get to share our passions for CTE specifically for SCS and FCCLA thank you [Applause] congratulations I I have a feeling that we're going to hear more about reso in in the future that she gets her mind made up she's going forward so thank you I would agree um so with that we thank you for celebrating CTE month of course I can't come in front of you without giving you something so I have some lovely folders to make sure that you are fully aware of what we offer in
021career clinical education across the state of Arkansas obviously we have so many bright students that we would love to share and highlight but you know we missed law school last week too so I had the bag to find the board that I could get here this week and so to be able to ensure that we had a good representation but thank you all for their time and I think we'd love to have a picture with secretary Oliva and you miss Newton as well thank you thank you Ross for bringing them this is a great way to start our day [Applause] foreign that's why I studied okay we need to fill in the Gap over here because I'm your bedtime and I'll see you again get ready one two three got it cute oh that's exhausted
022hello um [Music] so much pictures there we go there you go that was a great great way to start the day awesome some some very uh in impressive students that um are great representatives for our state and CTE in the change that it can make in a student's life when they have those opportunities our next item on the agenda are changes to the to the agenda and we do have one item that we're going to pull this morning morning on the action agenda we're going to pull item for the counseling rules and we'll come back to those at a later date so we're pulling item four the counseling rules and we'll come back to those in the future all right so we're going to move on to the consent agenda that does any member have
023an item on the consent agenda that you would like to discuss or pull I have a question am I not to be pulled okay all right is anybody here from the finance side good morning uh I was just looking at the proposed the approvals for the proposed bonds issues and my question a couple of questions are the districts able to still hold special elections for issues or are they having to put them in either May or November uh they yes they are still able to the Honda application are scheduled to be voted on this month oh okay next Tuesday and another question I have this just from my own information where are the proposed yields uh where are their financial advisors projecting the the bond yields to be given this Market I'm just curious have
024you seen any of them I have not but I can I I guess I would think it'd probably be north of six I just and one of the um one of the comment I was going to make I hope the patrons of the Highland District I just want to say good luck to them on their request for looks like a is it a are they the one that's doing an eight mil increase yes eight and a half no 8.9 and is it 8.9 yeah it's big well good luck to them all right thank you okay thank you thank you man all right are there any other uh questions or discussions on the sin agenda I had one all right no you go okay um is this is it Miss James is she here hey there
025just seemed to be a lot of teacher licensure issues this month and I didn't know if you could speak to that and then I had a question on one specifically I'm not also asking for it to be pulled um but there was just a note in her file it was on the Pamela Morgan um so specifically there was an allegation she violated standard two and it says she violated District state or federal law is there any liability on the school at that point if she's violated um and I know there's not a lot of information in here so that's just I was just hoping for some clarity on that right that would be a separate a separate issue but she um it's my recollection there was a violation of District policy uh not that not
026that I am aware of off guard that it said that so that's just why I wanted to clarify right on that one not that I'm aware of the district policy okay a lot of teacher licensure issues yes it varies it depends on you know we have a very strict time frame for how long we have to resolve these cases and it kind of depends it comes and goes in numbers you know this month over six I think last month there were where he said it's going to vary from time to time depending on what's on our ethics subcommittee agenda Miss James I did have a comment I want to add since we're talking about those suitcases would you pass on to the to the uh board that I I really appreciate them uh adding in
027uh when a teacher is on suspension for uh drug or alcohol making sure that we have a a letter from a license health care professional before they go back in the classroom so I appreciate that very much that that's on all of the ones this month yeah I mean not I don't I would like to have a little bit of discussion I flagged five seven eight nine and ten as potential ones to pull to discuss or can we send to evidentiary hearings or if we are to go if we are if I pull it that means we're going to have the hearing here in front of us is that correct yes ma'am that is correct our roles do not do not send it back to our hearing the panel for dividend share of hearing it
028would have to go on the next available action agenda and we would have to have rationale from the board Regarding why those would go on the action okay foreign so it to me numbers um you know seven and nine are similar but different and the sanction to Me Maybe is not severe enough but I do agree with Miss Newton's sentiments um and then five seven and ten I had some Flags about to with just being the written repriment and I didn't know if any other board members had similar thoughts I had a question on seven about the written reprimand also uh whether it was appropriate since there was and I don't know how much we can say right now but uh uh and that's Pro yes okay yeah yeah um because we're not of public
029hearing I can't give you a whole lot of information you would have to let the educator come and it would have to move at the ethics subcommittee considered the entire file and they've had a lot more information than we have and this was the sanction that they found was appropriate in this situation is this the one that um they were going to go before the DHS and have that taken off their record and it was supposed to happen in January do you know any results from that no ma'am okay I do not know but I can tell you just general DHS process she would not be on the child maltreatment registry until we had the results of that of that she would have to essentially or the true finding would have to be upheld at
030her administrative period for her to be on the child maltreatment register and so she's not on the register right now so since that happened since that true finding hearing happened in January we still don't have any results from that I I'm not having so may I ask these cases especially the ones that are similar in nature was this the same plsb committee that heard these cases or were they were they composed of different people no these were all at the same maybe all six and on the agenda agenda um there were two that were set for evidentiary hearings but they ended up going ahead and accepting the recommendation but the remainder of the cases were they were heard of the same subcommittee meeting okay which would have been last month and seven I mean eight
031and nine I looked at the sanctioning Matrix that we used before one year suspension seems to be the minimum for those issues yes yeah has that I don't think we've had quite as many cases this past year so I can't recall if we've gone above that minimum more often um and I don't have the data on that with me but um yeah I think those also beg my I always have the greater frustration of if a teacher is potentially in possession of something how is that not a State Crime and if it's a State Crime then should there not be further litigation around that not a lawyer I'm not saying the right words but I don't know if any other board members Express concerns are worth yeah right and I'm limited in how much information
032I can give you right about and let me look at the information that you have in the in the pile or in your file I'm sorry I think mine used to talk with board members my greater concern typically is that a an individual might not change patterns of behavior and might just switch districts and the new District might not have the depth of information to support this person or to even flag these patterns of behavior and I know that you know it goes in the system right on these two if you agree if you approve the sanctions and we move forward they're licensed will be suspended right for one year followed by probation for one year and if they don't pay the fine that prolongs the suspension and also there will be there will be
033the letter required from the position so they're really kind of brief and after that point at whatever point that time because they're on probation that new District would be flagged they will be able to see that correct what about the written reprimands the written reprimands um is that something that those are not reflected in those are not reflected in nails in our educator licensure system but that statement board order is public but a district would find it potentially or potentially not depending on the disclosure of the education and probation is that flag denials yes ma'am after that probation is over is there a continued Flagger it is totally removed I mean if they have completed all of the terms of their probations and that flag would not be there any longer but we're still looking
034at one year of suspension and then one year of Probation Plus the letter from from the doctor okay so which ones um would the board like to or are there any that the board would like to uh to pull from the agenda and if we pull them then they're on our action agenda next month so the educator can be there is that correct yes ma'am and I'll one of you are pulling from the consent agenda okay so all right so if you would like to pull one from the agenda it will go on to our action agenda next month and you would need to supply a reason why you would like that item particular item pulled can I ask one more question sure going back to the question that Miss Newton asked on the DHS
035if it is if someone is flagged as having if if it comes back that DHS finds it positive that gets kicked back to you all is that correct that you're finding by DHS if we are aware that the decision of the true binding decision has been upheld and that person is placed on the child maltreatment registry they would not be able to pass a background check okay so she would not be able to go and work in another in another District without requesting a waiver through us okay if if her license was not up for Renewal though would she go through a background check if she was staying at the same district I mean I think that she would have to have a background check every every few years anyway but if she I believe
036every one year that I can double check that Mr steeney okay Harley series currently you know right if you go to a new district and you're back did I more than a year old you have to have a background check when you when you go to a different District it has been less than a year or you have to go through the process of background checks so if this person's DHS true finding was upheld we might not potentially see it here at the department for for three or four years we get a letter from DHS and then we send that if they're currently employed that they're ineligible okay okay the district okay okay does that help yes anything happens between the Queen then okay all right yes that's what I was looking for thank you
037all right so which items would you uh are there any items that the board would like to pull and put on consent for next month I think for the others I would just like to have a potentially after this meeting continuous discussion with plsb about whether our Saint our sanctions for certain actions are severe enough so that a person changes their pattern's behavior before they get back in front of the student s any other board members okay hearing no more discussion are we ready to approve the consent agenda I'll move for approval okay um motion by Mr Sutton to approve the consent agenda do we have a second a second second by Mr Henderson all in favor any opposed motion passes all right so we're going to thank you Miss James we're going to move
038on to our uh action agenda and the first item on our action agenda is the petition of the Ozark Mountain School District to close grades 7 through 12 at the Saint Jerome in Bruno Pike campuses Miss frina thank you Ms Newton the Ozark Mountain School District seeks to close grades 7 through 12 at two of its campuses St Joe and Bruno Pyatt and move those 7th to 12th grade students to its Western Grove campus all three of those schools those school campuses are isolated schools and the board the local board they voted not unanimously but the majority of the board voted to go ahead and move those because these are isolated schools these if it's not a unanimous decision the school district has to come before the state board and ask the State Board to
039allow it to partially close this school district or partially closing school campuses and the petition was filed in accordance with the law by the school district it contained those data required under Section 620 602b and the state board has the authority to approve or deny the petition but shall approve the petition only provides the closure to be in the best interest of the students in the school district as a whole okay if I may I would like to read the procedure placed it for for the hearing today all persons wishing to testify before the board shall be placed under oath by the chair that anyone who's not a lawyer the spokespersons for the petitioning School District shall have a total of 15 minutes to present the school district's remarks and of course this board can
040allow more time if needed the spokesperson for any individual group of citizens that opposes the petition then has 15 minutes to make remarks and likewise the board can allow more time if needed and then the spokesperson for the school district may have a five-minute rebuttal with more time if necessary the State Board then deliberates of course in public and either grants or denies the petition of the school district if it deems necessary the board can take it this matter under advisement and decide at a later date but of course anything would have to be done in a public meeting and if there are no questions at this point I would turn the floor over to the school district superintendent Jeff Lewis okay and asked that Dan please pull up the PowerPoint all right okay so
041would anyone that is planning on giving testimony or speaking to this item on the agenda would you please stand and raise your right hand to please do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you all right Mr Lewis good morning good morning foreign thank you for having us this morning and thank you for allowing me time to explain why this move is so important for our Ozark Mountain students we are here today to discuss the two reasons why combining our 712 students is so important my students our students deserve more than they are getting and even though we are not in fiscal distress yet my job as superintendent is to make sure that we don't get there at
042all number one reason though is my students they deserve everything that other students in this state are getting and I cannot work toward that if we cannot pool our resources put past rivalries behind us and do what is best for our kids academic integrity many of our elective classes and AP classes are offered virtually through virtual Arkansas and we all know how important computer science is the future of our students and other than the basic course we have to offer all the others virtually we can agree that during the pandemic not all students can learn this way and this is not the best way to educate the majority of our students we can also adjust our schedule to offer these classes and still have enough time to transport students back to their shuttle buses at
043Bruno Payette and St Joe one concerned raise was that the high school campus would be too big if all of our students end up on one campus currently that would total around 220 students I was a high school principal for 10 years at a campus of 220 and I can assure you that the small school environment and the great staff and student relationships will not be lost as I mentioned before if we can pool our resources we will plan to add the following classes and activities listed on this slide I wanted to apply for a startup Grant this year for family and consumer science I was unable to do that because I would not only need the equipment for three campuses but I would also need three teachers this is not feasible for us not
044now and not anytime in the future unless we can get our students together our student athletes have proven how success successful they can be when they're all on one team I believe that our CTE teams and programs like FFA and FBLA can also have that same success it's extremely difficult to compete when you only have a limited number of students on a campus like we currently have our CTE teachers do an amazing job but their hands are tied due to low numbers I want our students to sit here one day like these other awesome students we had earlier a growing problem in our schools right now is mental health combining our students will allow them to have more friends have better resources have more clubs and activities which leads to more fun and in turn
045a better whole child we know there will be challenges now during and after if this is approved I know a major concern is how will students from the other campuses be treated culture is our top Focus the combining of our athletic teams has helped with this but our plans are to develop a guiding Coalition of students from each campus this will help in the process of being an all-inclusive campus where everyone feels well we feel like we can make more academic progress not only with clubs and activities that I mentioned before but excuse me but by having all of our high school teachers on one campus we feel like our PLC process will become much stronger transportation is a concern and I will touch on more and more on that in just a moment I
046know stakeholders will be watching and I can promise you this is not going to fail we will make this an easy transition for our students I have already checked with Mr Eichelberger from the division of career and Tech and we can keep the FFA Charter name of the Bruno Payette School the Bruno Lincoln FFA chapter is the oldest and was the first school in Arkansas to have an AG Ed program and the first voag program west of the Mississippi River I know that is important and we plan to keep that name we also plan to have a lot of our district professional development on the Saint Joe campus I know there is a concern that there's going to be an economic impact from this even though I consider that to be a non-factor in this
047decision we will try to alleviate some of that concern by having District level PD in Saint Joe and purchase the food for the staff locally the farthest student to the Bruno excuse me Bruno Pat campus lives 24 miles away which is about 42 minutes close to Dodge City the farthest student from the St Joe campus lives about 13 miles which is 30 minutes away these do not take into the account the seven students we pick up near Silver Hill that live in Marshall depending on weather and traffic is approximately 15 to 20 minutes from each of these campuses to the Western Grove campus this should not be a concern for most because if a new campus were ever to be built it would still be a 15 to 20 commit 15 to 20 minute commute
048from each campus like currently our numbers have changed a little bit since this Slide the Bruno Pike campus has 75 Saint Joe 48 and Western Grove 100. so at the time I submitted this I checked this morning and these are the updated numbers 75 at Bruno payet 48 at St Joe and 100 at Western Grove I hear the question all the time why the rush as you can see our current enrollment is very low at each campus in grades 7 through 12. it is very difficult to meet standards offer more for our students with numbers this low Mr Hill will address this more in just a moment as I mentioned earlier I need to pull our resources to give our students more as you can see in the slide what it costs to educate a
049student at each campus this is based off of teacher salary and operating costs if I can combine grades 7 through 12 I can give our students more opportunities and make better use of taxpayer money in our district in other words I can make my district more efficient based off of the funding Matrix for a 500 student building we all know School District's number one source of funding is student enrollment as you see in the slide just in the last four years alone we have lost approximately 73 students from the time of consolidation until now our district has lost around 250 students this day this discussion has been coming for a long time a 73 student decline is over half a million dollars and we have to and we have had to make that up how
050have you done that you may ask we have made Cuts over the years but you can only cut so much and still meet standards as I mentioned before I want our students to have more not the minimum throughout our district we are overstaffed approximately by 13 certified Physicians and nine classified positions but currently I have to have those people to stay compliant I'd now like to turn this over to Mr Norman Hill who will talk more about our financials and long-term sustainability foreign Hill I'm a Financial Consultant right now I've been this is my 57th year in public education state of Arkansas for the last 17 I've done financial consultants for districts all over the state that are having Financial issues primarily those financial issues has to do with loss of students I spent 30
051years as superintendent in Arkansas in two years as a co-op director so I think I'm fairly familiar with schools and I enjoy working with schools trying to help them stay financially afloat last fall Mr Lewis call me I have worked for those Arc Mountain School Districts off and on for the past seven or eight years he called me at one you know if I had time to come in and look at the current situation in Ozark Mountain School District and when I looked at it helping uh make a report to the board and to the patrons and I went in and looked at it and after pulling the information together I met with the Ozark Mountain School District of Bruno Hyatt campus and the patrons that attended that meeting and went over what I found
052then later on I met with the patrons at the St Joel school and went over the findings and what we're looking at and you saw the figures that Mr Lewis presented he presented the figure just for the on campus students I want to present them figures for the entire District including virtual students because that's the only way you can look at the actual financial situation to see the impact in the fiscal year 21 total student population of 722. in all three schools in last year the total population of 592 that's the loss of 130 students one year as of October the one this year that had dropped to 571 which is a loss of 21 students so in the past two years Ozark Mountain School District has lost 21 percent of their student body across
053the district and we know that this affects the funding see just how drastic effect I went back this week getting ready for this meeting and I ran the first seven months of the financials of the fiscal distress funds for those Ark Mountain School District versus last year that's the most money Ozark Mountain started this year with 275 thousand dollars less money in their funds to cover the cost the first seven months of this go District the revenue is down one million three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars the first seven months the expenditures is down six thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars why is you losing so much revenue you're not increased expenditure they have to meet the standards regardless of the income they must meet the academic standard didn't do that they could not reduce
054that so the pending balance at the end of January versus last year is one day on one million five hundred and eighty one thousand dollars and anybody that knows figures knows that this cannot continue to do that now this year they will be able to operate I think in the black essentially because two years ago the legislature passed a new law which gave uh the cloud or excuse me which gave the isolated school districts declining enrollment month based on the 130 students that produced almost a half a million dollars this year this one-time money that will go away and also Ozark Mountain gets the isolated funding on all three school districts and that could be used for academics then we also the last two years plus next year we'll have a lot of ass or
055money which is federal money that we can use so by using those three pools of money I think they could maintain a balanced budget this year the declining enrollment go away the extra money is going to go away to isolated will go down but it will stay there because of loss of students so starting next year or at least year after next they're going to run a negative budget and there's no way in my opinion as a financial person to work in schools that if they do not make drastic changes that they're going to be able to survive financially in doing and by that one of the problems we have for all small schools whether it's Ozark Mountains or what if we have a funding Matrix that's funded based upon a 500 student body that's
056a perfect organ it's a funding in the state of Arkansas we have a standards that doesn't take in consideration funding they're academic and you must meet the academic standards for them you got 10 students or you got 10 000 students in doing that so the small Stow Districts The Matrix funding doesn't match the academic funding example called We're virtually talking about funding for 500 for if you looked at the number Saint Joe campus 48 students and my figures that produces funding for 1.92 students how many teachers lesson two teachers for that campus Bruno island has 74 that's 2.96 teachers Western Grove has 101 as of this week this week that's 4.4 teachers so in the three campuses we're funded eight point just let's say nine teachers but it takes 22 teachers to meet the standards
057so they've got 13 teachers that they had to pay that's not funded through the Matrix they have to have other sources like I said I think this year they can use the planning enrollment isolated money and ask for money to do that but when that money's gone there's no no other run schools primarily have local taxes and statements and local taxes doesn't go up without a tax increase and even if they raise it they couldn't raise enough Millions to offset plus they're losing and that I've watched the governor's conference yesterday and I was very pleased with her recommendation of going to fifty thousand per teacher and 15 let them on for classified we've needed that for a long time and I commend the governor and our legislature if they pass and fund that but if
058they do buy some fund that we need to realize for the Ozark Mountain School District they're going to fund on those three campuses only nine teachers but they need 22 so Ozark Mountain School District is going to have to come up with the raises for those 13 teachers somewhere else other than State funding and local taxes then they're also going to have to come up with the raises for the non-classified the only way you could lower those people is to really make the School District board class between the funding and the uh and the standards and to do that you must combine your students about five years ago they were having financial problems I went in and worked with them and then they had six goals they had a cave six and a seven twelve
059on each campus we combined those into a K-12 they went from six codes down to three scopes and now they're down as far as they could go on the number of stoves unless they bring them into one location and one more thing they do have three million dollars in the building fund that's been set aside to hopefully in the future build a central location that will contain K-12 students for all of them and that would give them a little over as of today 571 and that will bring the the standards and the Matrix closer together where they can survive so the way from a financial standpoint they've got to do something drastically to survive as an independent school district thank you all very much thank you Mr Hill all right is there anyone else from
060the district okay all right uh for the opposition uh we have Mr treat from the Cersei chamber welcome Mr treat well thank you very much I I want to thank secretary Oliva and yourself Miss Newton and the entire board for this opportunity to stand before you I'm Daryl treat I'm the executive director of the greater Searcy County Chamber of Commerce we cover the entire County we do economic development for the entire County we're the tourism Bureau for the entire County and I'm in my 11th year in this capacity and our Chamber of Commerce strongly asked this state board to keep the isolated K-12 St Joe's school intact as it is the St Joe K-12 school is the best public school in Searcy County and in the Ozark Mountain School District as released in the annual
061report card by the Arkansas Department of Education this is not a failing school the Chamber of Commerce in January just sponsored our eighth annual Searcy County Spelling Bee in Marshall and a SAM Joe student took first place and third place in our spelling bee the Saint Joe school does need a plan for the future but I believe it is way too early to talk about the consolidation of grades 7 to 12 to Western Grove our Chamber of Commerce was never approached by the Ozark Mountain School District to help the Saint Joe school with its enrollment or to collaborate as a community member to come up with ideas to help the school and I believe that is a step that must be taken now it's too early to talk consolidation without enlisting the help of the
062community including the Chamber of Commerce now we've taken our own initiative once we heard about the threat to our Saint Joe school and so we've gotten involved and we asked for a chance to help the school before any further talk of consolidation or closer actions and in fact a chamber member of ours in Marshall Simmons Bank has offered a hundred thousand dollars to the Saint Joe school to buy time so the stakeholders can find a solution to declining enrollment and the Chamber of Commerce that's my job is to bring new employment to the county and I'm currently working to bring two fairly large employers to Cersei County that if we succeeded it'd be about 200 additional jobs which should realize additional students to the St Joe school now Cersei County if you know where that
063is Buffalo National River Country is a highly desired destination for people to move to and since 2015 up to November 22 we've had a 12.3 percent increase in 9-1-1 addresses and that involves residential vacation homes businesses and Agriculture and right now in the southern part of the county we're deploying broadband and as the Broadband becomes more widespread more and more people will be moving up to the Buffalo River country to live they can work from home with high-speed internet consolidation and longer bus rides are just bad for students health due to less exercise and play time after school Searcy county has poor health outcomes already and the current plan will act against the health interests of the students consolidation of grades 7 to 12 also stands to cause a loss of jobs in Saint Joe
064that is detrimental to our businesses and takes badly needed economic stimulus out of our economy the fact is Cersei County last I saw is a persistent poverty County and the proposed action is just going to add more pain the way we see it uh to us and I think it's unfair to tax a poor County and then transport the jobs out of the county it's just not fair the vast majority of the Saint Joe electorate want to keep their school intact and increasingly expensive Transportation costs price poor people out of transportation and so I believe that schools should be located closer to a community not further away from the communities that fund them because for Rural Arkansas just quite frankly doesn't have much in the way of public transportation to allow parents to be involved
065in their children's education and to commute to school activities in my view consolidation is a 20th century every tool for 21st century realities now I read from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette from 12 January in it Governor Sanders said parents cannot be an afterthought in education and parents are the foundation of a child's success so let's give parents a greater role in education including the right to choose the school that's best for their child whether it's public private or parochial when we give parents a choice we give children a chance well I'm here to say that the Saint Joe parents unequivocally choose the Saint Joe K-12 the best school in searching search the county as what is best for their child's education and in fact secretary Oliva said families have a right to have a seat
066at the table and find a learning environment that works best for their children and for the needs of those families and so I'm just here to say that the parents of Saint Joe respectfully assert their right to Proclaim that the Saint Joe K-12 school is the learning environment that works best for their children and for the needs of their families and now I'll turn it over to Andy morning my name is Andy McCutchen I'm a resident of Saint Joe I'm speaking today on behalf of the patrons of the Bruno Payette and St Joe communities that oppose these petitions while these petitions strongly resemble the one Harmony Grove submitted last year requesting the closure of Sparkman High School Bruno Payette and St Joe are not Sparkman live instruction is not limited while there are sunglasses taken
067virtually on each campus the majority of classes are taught in person on site the only students that routinely travel from the West to the Western Grove campus are the basketball players cheerleaders and members of the currently formed band that go there for practice it's not very common for our students to transfer to Western Grove the few that did this year transferred back the following semester there have been some teacher turnover in the high schools but for the most part our staff's been with us for three or more years in areas where there have been shortfalls the district has done an effective job of bridging those gaps Bruno Payette and St Joe are not failing schools as a matter of fact St Joe routinely has the highest academic achievement scores in the district this past November
068they were recognized as a reward school for the Arkansas Department of Education St Joe finished in the category of top six to ten percent growth and graduation they were also recognized by the office for Education policy for academic Excellence High Ela growth Statewide and high Ela growth Northwest region Bruno Payette beat the state average in fifth and sixth grade math sixth and seventh grade stem and 10th grade ELA and as you've heard Ozark Mountain is comprised of three isolated schools and three different counties the majority of the roads our buses travel are unpaved County Roads each campus currently has one or more bus routes that take over an hour to complete Google Maps shows it takes approximately 16 minutes by Passenger car to travel from Bruno Payette and St Joe to the Western Grove campus
069exhibits I submitted are marked one and two that's a very optimistic time and it would have to be under ideal driving conditions with little or no traffic by bus travel time between campuses would more likely be around 20 to 25 minutes combine this with approximately five minutes or more for all the route buses to arrive drop off elementary students transfer high school students to another bus and as much as an additional hour of travel time may be added per day for some of our students this would put some of them riding a bus three hours a day 12 hours a week many parents are concerned this will have a negative effect on their children's Readiness to learn and their overall well-being from conversations with parents and meetings between the Bruno Payette and St Joe communities
070it's estimated that Ozark Mountain will lose between 80 and 100 K through 12 students next year if this proposal is approved as you can see we submitted 656 signatures on petitions opposing consolidating the high schools parents are considering options including homeschooling digital learning platforms not associated with Ozark Mountain or sending their children to neighboring school districts which are shown in exhibits three four and five those districts have many if not all of the extracurricular activities and advanced courses Ozark Mountain hopes to implement with the perceived savings from this proposal the loss of enrollment and Associated funding will likely lead to the Future closure of the elementary schools at Bruno payet and Saint Doom as well this will create a situation similar to what the state board pointed out in its denial of the Lead Hill
071annexation petition in March of 2012 which has shown in exhibit six I'll summarize the similarities they believe the annexation would have a future negative impact on the ability of Ozark Mountain to keep the Lead Hill Campus open that Lead Hill patrons would transfer their students to the Bergman School District and the Lead Hill patrons millage would be sent to Ozark Mountain while their students attended Bergman schools they also expressed a desire to review lead Hill's enrollment during the next school year and to have additional time to consider whether the proposed annexation was a viable option for Ozark Mountain and Lead Hill school districts or whether the State Board should review other appropriate actions at the December 15th meeting there were two other options available to the Ozark Mountain board option two was to delay the
072consolidation of the high schools until the 2024-25 school year and look for property for a new facility suitable for the current population makeup of the district option three was to continue with the current configuration of the district apply for funding with the state for a new K-12 facility in 2024 and look for a property for new facilities suitable for the current population makeup of the district when asked about the location of the new facility Mr Lewis made a comment to the effect Common Sense would dictate that it be built closer to the campus with the most students meaning Western Grove since there's another school meaning Valley Springs just five miles up the road if students were required to travel much farther than that we'd lose students to the closer School the promise of a new
073combined school has been talked about since Ozark Mountain School District was formed in 2004. you have about one minute left there's an attachment I I present to you that shows the location of what we would recommend it's uh probably the only location the district has a chance of getting Millions passed for the current debt millage is expiring in 2027. Searcy County and Marion County where Bruno buy and St Joe were located make up 73 percent of the voter base Ozark Mountain School District and generate about 80 percent of the annual millage if those two communities are disenfranchised the future for Ozark Mountain School District is not very good they lose this amount of students because of this and don't have the taxpayers behind them to pass into the millage then we may be back before
074you in a year or so for other closures I would ask that you deny these petitions and allow us to work with our school district to find alternative means of keeping our campuses open and moving forward with a new centrally located campus that is what's in the best interest of this District and our students as a whole thank you thank you the school district you have five minutes in September October and November I had Community meetings on each campus with a slideshow and why this is being considered we had FAQ handouts displayed an email for people to send emails to me with questions about this issue posted the email address of social media and fielded questions at all three meetings I even had Mr Hill speak at the Saint John meeting and to our local
075board I only received emails with questions from seven different people I received no more than 10 phone calls but now we have petitions with all these signatures the majority who have not been to a meeting and presented with the information of why from the district many of these are signed by the same person do not have kids living in our district do not live in our district send their kids to a different District or have used rental property addresses where were they when we had our meetings during those three Community meetings I felt the emotional aspect of this I empathize with each community and all three communities have had to give up something trust me when I say this has been extremely difficult and not what I set out to do but providing a better
076education for our students and making sure our district does not go into fiscal distress is what I was hired to do as superintendent what was good enough back in the day is not good enough now I want our students to have more I want them to know what the world has to offer and the many different opportunities that await them I've heard send them to Bruno Pyatt anywhere but Western Grove I've heard I'd rather The District closed completely than the kids go to Western Grove it is time to put past rivalries behind us and the dislike for one another to rest we all have to swallow some pride and do what is best for our students we have just finished our third year of combined athletic teams and have changed our mascot to the Ozark
077Mountain bears the Patriots Wildcats and warriors no longer exist we are bears now and I wish you could see how these student athletes interact it's amazing the resiliency of kids and how they have come together why can we not do that as adults thank you for your attention today and I respectfully ask that you approve our petition to move our students to one high school campus for the betterment of our students thank you Mr Lewis School District cabin we do have some public comment but the board would need to vote to allow public comment what's the pleasure of the board move to allow public comment okay do we have a motion by Mr wood to allow public comment second okay we have a second all in favor uh any opposed motion passes our first public
078comment is from Miss daughtery Patricia daughtery in for a public comment you will have three minutes hello my name is Patricia Doty and I'm a resident of Saint Joe I have attended all of the public meetings I've attended the school board meetings and I have spoken to many of the people in the community what I want to address is unanswered questions at our public meetings we heard Mr Lewis say that people weren't emailing or calling well we weren't getting answers face to face so one of the questions that we asked originally you've heard a lot about numbers so we asked what number would we have to be at in attendance to not close our school so you would think that if you're closing a school based on enrollment numbers you would know what the requirement
079was that's all we wanted to know we have not gotten that number so we approached it from a different direction we decided to see well how many would we lose is this going to be more detrimental if this happens so we asked well actually Mr Lewis asked us if we would like a survey done because we were trying to get that information so at the third public meeting Mr Lewis asked us would we like a survey done of the parents and we said yes as far as I know no survey has been done so those numbers aren't known either so to make the the decision based on numbers when you don't have the information in front of you it just seems like there were so many unanswered questions face to face in a meeting we
080didn't need to email we didn't need to call we spoke face to face another thing is if we're in financial hardship there is enhanced Transportation Community left table there is the hundred thousand dollars from Simmons Bank left on the table so how if I was running my householder business and I was in financial trouble those things wouldn't be left on the table so these are just questions that we have and all we really wanted was an extension of time to get the answers we needed to come up with some solutions to these problems because we agree there is a problem that needs to be solved so we asked for you to deny this petition give us more time and let us come up with a more suitable solution that will appeal to the taxpayers and
081the funders because we are going to have to pass that millage if we want a new school and if you have this many people opposed whether it's vacation rental owners or whether it's parents of students or whether it's business owners you're not going to pass that millage thank you Ms Stoney thank you all right I have a public comment from Megan Hill students at St Joe campus from the beginning of this process all that we have asked is that we are able to explore other options we've not been given that opportunity I as a parent have the choice of where my child goes to school and I know the education that they are currently receiving is a good education I know where my priorities are if my priorities were all these extra programs and things
082I have the choice to drive my children to another school if I wanted to move my child to the campus at Western Grove I could drive three or four miles farther in any direction and already have those programs in place I know the education that they are receiving is a good education I am confident in the community that supports that education my priority has been the school itself I chose that school because of the community and the support and I wish that I could stand before you right now and tell you what our plan is and how we're going to solve it I don't know the answers to those questions today but I do know that the community and the parents are involved and they want to help solve this problem they want to be
083a part of the solution to the problem and yes those signatures 636 signatures maybe they don't have children in the district right now but they still pay taxes in that county and they are involved in the education of our children so whether they have kids there or not they have a say we all have a say and we're parents we have the choice of the education that they receive my choice has been for my children to go to the Saint Joe campus because of the confidence I have in not only the education they receive but the community that backs that education so I hope that we get the time to explore those options and we're not opposed to working together I'm not there there's no bias there's no hard feelings I want to work together
084but I want to be able to be a part of that solution not forced into a solution that I don't agree with and that I don't see the benefits of thank you all right um with that we'll see if we have any questions from any board members either to the district or the opposition or to the department uh Miss Woods I guess I have two questions one that I just I wrote at the beginning and I guess it is to those that opposed this at what point does it make sense to close I don't know who wants to try anything to that foreign like I said those options that were presented to the board that they could have voted on both of those gave more time one was a year the others leave things and
085go straight to the new school we're not opposed to a new school but centrally located and equal to all three communities that's been the dream for the last 19 years but if we lose a hundred or more students from St John Bruno Fayette communities our numbers then I don't believe the state will support funding in the school we want that we do want to be the Bears when we lost our sports teams we supported them because they were our kids you know the first two years the basketball games were split between three campuses we all felt included we were equal we're all cheering our team this year those basketball games are held on one campus and it's not at Bruno Payette or St Joe that hurt okay that took part of our community's heart we
086still support those teams but when this came along and once again it was from Saint Joe and Bruno Payette but had to give something up that made people mad enough to leave the district some already have we can come together as adults and sit down and figure out what's the best interest of Art students not just right now but for years to come we don't know what the new legislation is going to look like so making a decision now where we release or we go back home and tell 13-15 students teachers good dedicated teachers we don't need you next year that could not divide us if something changes in this legislation that would allowed us to teach them because they will find jobs they're good teachers somebody's going to snatch them up that's what we're
087asking let us see what this gentleman right here and our new governor can do for public schools in Arkansas before we do something that could hurt us worse in the very near future thanks oh man I just have another question for Mr Hill um the lady that was speaking when she asked about the number and she said that was never it's you asked about what number would you need to get to I would just like to speak to that as to either why that wasn't addressed or if there if that was addressed and what that number might be just so that nobody leaves here today thinking we still don't have unanswered questions it's hard to predict a number when you've had um like Mr Hill mentioned before I'm sorry you're Mr Lewis my apologies no
088I mean you I'm sorry um that's okay um you know we've had Esser money that's that's really helped with um lots of different things we have some of the oldest buildings in the state we've been able to use that money for HVAC replacement we've been able to use that money for purchasing the buses and of course you know the 20 mandated and we've actually spent a lot more than that on loss of learning okay when that money goes away we won't be able to do those things but some of those costs are still going to be there now if we had a hundred more kids obviously we'd still be able to be able to function Mr Hill mentioned we get that loss of loss of student funding and it totaled around 416 thousand dollars this
089year approximately um apsrc is our district Treasurer we contract that out and we work together and it looks like that's about how much um Surplus will have at the end of the year all right well obviously that won't be there next year so you're talking about even spending or below and we know that everything is going up in cost so that's probably going to be deficit standard so to answer your question about why couldn't Supply exact number of students that's that's hard to say when we're we're losing all that money not losing but we won't have that as well it's not recurring income yeah it's not recurring and that's kind of the thing with with a hundred thousand dollars from Simmons Bank awesome gesture awesome gesture that's one time that's not every year and a
090hundred thousand dollars in a you know to any of us is a nice chunk of money a hundred thousand dollars in a school system that that's that's a wonderful gesture but in order to say we're going to put it in operating the help of salaries and that's that sort of thing that's that's really not much but but it's a great gesture and I'm you know honored that they would do that but you know we have a policy that says you know as far as accepting donations goes we can't do it what when it's not in the best interest of the school or it um offsets outlying expenditures and that sort of thing so we have to be careful on taking donations to say well we're going to let you use that to keep your doors
091open and I'm sure you have run the numbers but if we were to sit here you take out the Esser fund to take out the one-time donations has there been an analysis of how many students you would need Merit keeping it open well as you look at your taxes and you look at you know the recurring forms of income what is needed for the school right so like Mr Hill mentioned we have you know High School staff but the funding Matrix allows for nine so you have to have enough students to make up that 13 those 13 active teachers so you know you know by that by 7 400 7 500 and not to mention benefits that sort of thing you know the average cost of a teacher is between fifty and sixty thousand dollars
092of benefits and we know I think it's awesome and great there's things that Governor yesterday that we want that to go up and we all want that you know even small districts we want that even though it's going to be extremely hard but you know you throw in another 23 of benefits on top of that and that would uh I don't think any other questions Mr Henderson yes uh just for my clarification um I know you mentioned that emails was sent out and there were not any correspondence or replies and also it was mentioned that there was a meeting and there was no one in opposition uh present there what type of threshold or timeline uh was given are we are we talking about far as replies and correspondence so the email address I shared
093one at each community meeting that was called HS questions at omsd.k12.ar.us and I told Folks at our community meetings if you don't want to ask a question here send it to this email address and I'll answer it okay or call I made that very clear call email even come by until folks so all of those were against those seven or eight people that emailed those were all answered within two days um what's the second part I'm sorry presence in the actual meeting oh so there were people in opposition at all three meetings we had one um we started we went alphabetically started at Bruno Payette then went to Saint Joe and had the last one at Western Grove we rotate our local board meetings in the same way in the alphabetical order like that each
094month of your board how many people is there from each three from Bruno Payette two from Western Grove two from Saint Joe consolidation happened Bruno Payette had the most kids I believe at 3 25 and I'm probably off on this just a little bit but 325 at Bruno Payette around 250 at Western Grove and about 240 at Saint Joe so three three Bruno three at Western two from Saint Jeff three Bruno and then two at the other two games Mr Satan when did the consolidation occur 2005 or 2006 I can't remember the exact year on that that was when um majority of the Consolidated districts in that place anything else not yet okay look at Miss McPhatter she is online Mr mcfadre's did you have any questions I don't thank you okay all right uh
095Dr Moore so I won't ask too many but I have a few okay um I'm actually this is hard I know it's very hard for all involved and I know a beautiful country and a lot going on but you know one mile is not the same as a mile on the Delta where I live because there's so much and I know because of that it's just hard um and I so I appreciate your response and and how you're looking to work with this um but as I look at the numbers I'm actually very surprised that the district the district has to stay in three high schools for so long and um when we think about the opportunities that are afforded to students at high schools I'm just surprised so I want to get a little
096bit of better feel of each of the high schools and what opportunities are there how many teachers do you have at each high school and it sounds like students are doing virtual education is that correct and what what do those numbers look like as far as the virtual goes yes well we have I mean we share some teachers and then of course we share a science teacher we share an art teacher between two campuses so you know we do we do sharing as much as we can um and what's best for kids we shared a math teacher last year that wasn't good so we went ahead and hired a math teacher for each campus um so you know we're looking at six High School teachers on each campus and six to seven depending on how
097you know what you're sharing on the virtual classes um you know we we offer the electives you know we offer um boag and then we have business and then our third CTE is a criminal justice program and then we actually Bus kids to the North Arkansas Community College in Harrison to work on either college classes or some more technical classes so we're doing as much as we can in that area um you know my hope is that when we or my plan is if we can do this I can add the FCCLA like we talked about and um just adding more programs for kids if you notice our elementary numbers are are bigger at all three campuses than they are in the high school I'm not going to deny that what I hear from parents
098I mean I even hear this from parents that work there and have kids in this District that if you don't start having a few more offerings I feel like I need to take my child somewhere else I'm all about parent choice too I mean I have four kids of my own and I can't blame folks for saying you know you don't have this there I want to take my child somewhere else I understand that um so that that's a concern so some of the stuff that we offer virtually is is the the extra electives that that kids want to take AP classes for instance um like I mentioned before and I think we would all agree during the pandemic there was some learning going on and there was sometimes there was not and and we
099had to adjust and I think the right decision was made about holding folks accountable especially the elementary level for science of reading 30 minutes a day and that sort of thing so um you know virtual options are are there but is that what's best for kids not all no do you all use Virgil Arkansas at the high school level or another provider and then do you allow students to be full-time virtual we do yes do you have many that do that at the high school level uh we we have more in the high school level than we do elementary right now we're looking at I think our numbers are 34 last count total but the majority of those I think around 25 to 28 were actual high school students so our virtual numbers are dropping
100because we only have a small number in elementary you know one thing the pandemic did is more school districts gave that option of having a virtual program so the few of us a few that were doing it like ourselves that were able to pull some kids in from other places that's not easy to do now because a lot of District off of this option yeah when I looked at your enrollment over time it looked like you had a pretty big increase in 2020 is that is that because of the virtual years that's virtually is that primarily homeschool students or from other districts a mixture of both yes we had a large contingent of homeschool students from Northwest Arkansas that was prior to me I came in you know last year and then when the the
101rules changed about how virtual learning could work a lot of those parents chose not not to do that and see that that takes your budget on arrive and in that case though when you're looking at teachers currently if you were to consolidate the three high schools with with those staff be able to stay have you worked through that plan we would have a reduction in force policy um put in place that that would for classified and certified and that would go by what our asba policy is basically years in the service and then points for um additional certifications master's degree that sort of thing but we would follow our asba policies so yes we would we would have that reduction in force in both areas financially that that is why you would want to do
102this you know there's two pieces the academic piece and then the financial piece and obviously the financial piece we would have to cut back on salaries especially if the legislature does pass the minimum teacher salary increase do you feel that if the high schools were Consolidated the students at that newly Consolidated High School would get a better education because of the strength in numbers talk to me a little bit more about the academics I believe they would get a better education you're talking about you your class size would increase I mean I think we would all agree that smaller class sizes typically do better but I feel like when you put all the high school kids together and you start offering more morale increases I mean let's let's not forget about that that part of
103it you know their kids they want to have fun um you know when kids go to their their class reunions and stuff or when we go to our class reunions what do we talk about a lot of times we talk about the extra curricular things that we did and sometimes maybe a little Mischief that we might have got in in third grade or something like that but um so I I feel like if we can offer more programs activities clubs more electives I mean that that makes them want to be there if they want to be there they're going to perform better I mean we're that way in our jobs if we like our job we do pretty good at it if we don't we just kind of clock in clock out it's thinking about
104class size I can't even imagine when you have three high schools with smaller than 20 students in a Grade so I can't imagine the class sizes they're going to get that big in any case it's hard it's hard and this is not the first time our board has seen this issue and probably unfortunately won't be the last I'll stop there and let y'all have some questions but Mr Williams yeah I have a few questions um how many students are currently going to the Western Grove campus from Bruno Pyatt and St Joe every day as it currently what's happening we send um well some go for for different sports and then band but um you know Bruno Pious sent this is 7th through 12th grade since 17 basketball kids Saint Joseph's five cheer Bruno passins 3
105Saint Joe five baseball which was like you know we haven't started baseball yet but last year Bruno paella eight St Joe zero softball each campus sent five and in track each campus sent four so um our band kids right now we're saying we're sending I would I would guess around 15 total um now probably probably closer to 10. we just started band this year so we're trying to get them together so they can practice more and they played it a few ball games okay um I've heard from those who you know respectfully oppose this petition that the the district could lose upwards of a hundred students if this consolidation occurs though you know they'll be motivated to choose other options what are the other options the competition so to speak uh if the cut if
106the consolidation occurs where students from Bruno Payette or St Joe would choose a competitor why would they choose someone what are they are are there proximate competitors near either communities so that students would would choose Western Grove Valley Springs School District is um five miles up the road Saint Joe the Searcy County School District would be their next closest school that would be I think around 18 miles and then the Bruno piety campus their next closest school district I believe would be some kids yellow Summit some kids Bergman some kids Valley depending on where they're at and though from you know we share Sometimes some kids between yellow Summit and Bruno payet and it's about 25 minutes I can give you an exact mileage I'm just sure know how long it takes me to get
107there okay and that reminds me of a slide that was included in your presentation about bus times I think and and I want to understand what what was on there there was something that said 55 minutes was that can you can you explain for me briefly so that I can better understand what that was saying yes so maybe could we even pull that slide up in your PowerPoint presentation uh the slide that it was multi-colored and I don't know it was not on that one it was actually actually a separate document but if you go to the transportation slide you might be able to click on the link I embedded there it is so that would be the length of each bus route okay right there the the gold bottom right uh box for this
108up 55 minutes yeah 55 minutes so that would be the the longest student would have to ride so the first he could get to Western Grove excuse me to get to Western no that's Saint Joe so we've got them color coded there that's the Saint Joe okay Western grow and then Bruno payet so you would add 15 to 20 minutes and what we did I know there was a comment earlier about an extended day like the day you know we're adding more time to the student's day for them to get home what we've done if you if you can scroll down some more um and get to our bell schedule you have to meet 120 clock hours to have a credit for a class okay so we have went through if you'll keep going um
109if if there you go there's the bell schedule so you have to have 120 clock hours to have a credit for a class all right and what we've done is we've adjusted that bell schedule to get out of school um and the bus leave to go back to West uh to St John Bruno Payette lead Western Road by four o'clock so we've adjusted our bell schedule for them to get back to those those two campuses to get on their shuttle buses to go home so you're really not adding maybe but more than five minutes at the end of the day there you would add some time in the morning I'm not going to deny that because Bob they'd have to get there a little bit earlier than normal get on the bus to come to
110Western Grove so you would yes add some time there but the end of the day when we thought it would be better fit so they would not get home so late we adjusted our schedule so they could leave Western Grove by four o'clock get back to St Joe Bruno play at by 4 20ish get on another bus you know start start the routes and go from there so at least one student going to St Joe it currently has a 55-minute bus ride and we're looking at adding 15 to 20 minutes to his correct ride to school yes his or her okay that's that's difficult to digest and that and that's that's you know that that could be longer that could be shorter depending on who moves in who moves out you know that's that could
111be yeah uh someone might have been in the opposition mentioned the tax base and the population base of the school communities as a part of the whole school district can you speak to that in fact the numbers were pretty staggering I I and I don't remember I didn't write them down as it was said there's some something in the to the tune of 80 percent of the tax and or population base lives in the two communities that are being Consolidated yeah I believe he said 73 of the tax base 80 percent of the voters I believe is what he said um no I can't speak to that and I can't verify that um okay you know that that may be correct I go by our student population sure you know to me that's where our
112biggest source of funding comes in so that's that's the number I pay attention to the most um to refer back to the um you know people coming in and building rental properties rental properties that that doesn't help us that doesn't bring kids in we need kids um you know just like they mentioned about a couple businesses coming those businesses as far as I know are going to Marshall I mean that they Mark Searcy county has a school district and if business is open there I don't see unless people are moving living in the Saint Joe Western Grove front pilot area how that how that helps us like I said at our board meeting and someone had mentioned beautiful country up there and if I had a big track of land not sure I'd want to
113sell it either for businesses or for housing additions I'd probably want to pass it down to my kids so I I understand that but as far as speaking to the tax base sure um last thing academically looking at the three three campuses I looked at ready or exceeding in reading and at Bruno payet 27.8 percent are ready Are exceeding Western Grove 35.5 percent are redirect seating and in St Joe it's 47.4 so this this consolidation request would would close your most successful campus in at least as measured in Reading right so so my question and and 47.4 is pretty dang good even I know we have a you know small sample size here right but it's 12 better than well 10 better than the district average and it's it's almost 10 almost 10 percent better
114than the state average I'm concerned about that I I'll I can defer to Local School boards considerably but tell me have you identified what the successes are academically on the St Joe campus and what is your plan to preserve those successes if we approve the consolidation request right so um they do a great job there's no there's no denying that and um they they've got a great Intervention Program in place um that helps with that uh the the teachers there and the principal do a great job of that um the k6 is staying you know he even if I heard there was mentioned earlier of you know what happens later now we're going to close k6s well none of our campuses are big enough to move all k-6 and 712 in one place so that's
115not even really an option right now or anytime for that matter but to preserve what you're talking about I mean we still want to take those good practices that those teachers are using especially k-6 and we've actually already started that implementing some of those practices on the other two campuses and Elementary grades um you know no it where we do this you know I've got my reasons for it but where we do this if it was approved you would still have to have a reduction in force in the same teachers so it's not the walls that make the good test scores it's the teachers I agree with you but I'm concerned about a reduction in force policy that might Edge out the talent at St Joe's and prefer you know Talent at Bruno Pat that's
116only performing at half the clip that St Joe's is performing so how do how do how do you prioritize excellence among your teaching community well I think prioritizing Excellence is uh high on the list of priorities for educating a child um we're not going to have any of those teachers like Mr Hill said if we don't start making some drastic plans because I could be standing in front of you in a couple years and say we're on fiscal distress and I'm sorry um so as far as how we prioritize that I think we we take some of those pieces that those teachers have used and try to share them with our staff we're doing that in our PLC meetings right now we have grade level PLC meetings and we have subject-level PLC so we're trying
117to do those things now um and I'm not taking anything away from From Any teacher anywhere across the district I mentioned earlier we know that smaller class sizes sometimes it's easier to outperform the the classes that have have bigger schools um or bigger classes not always but sometimes so that I hope that answers your question I guess I just want to I just want it to be known that I have a concern following a rigid riff policy when we clearly have high performance on one campus that we're going to close if it's approved and if that if that policy were to promote you know individuals that may not have the same achievement in their classrooms that I'm concerned about that ultimately you'll be accountable to that and and your board will be accountable to that
118but um I'd like to add one thing um without going too much in detail I am taking some steps as superintendent to improve some areas um it takes a little bit of time um this is just my second year this issue right here has consumed obviously a lot of my time this past semester but there are steps being taken to improve academics at each of the other campuses I can't go into detail on that but I can assure you that that is happening okay um I think my first question is really more of a point of clarity and I think it is with Mr treat yes yeah so um it's been mentioned at least three times in this discussion about a donation yes by Simmons Bank to the community to buy some time I think
119to the St Joe school yeah so um I'd really like just to make a I work at Simmons Bank um and it is my understanding that it is not a donation of Simmons Bank they have a they had someone leave a substantial amount of money that's in the care of Simmons Bank Marshall and so they want that's it is designed to be used for education and and so that's what the head of Simmons Bank and Marshall would like to do with it is to help the Saint Joe school by time so that we can find solutions for the future okay all right thank you for that Clarity I think it's important for everyone to understand it's not a corporate donation for that for that purpose so um my next questions are to Mr Lewis so
120um and and if it was in the materials I apologize but you know when I think about you know kind of class sizes and I think about the theater impact and um so the K through 6 on each of these canvases are they continuing to grow or are they shrinking like the 7 through 12 are shrinking no they're they're maintaining they're they're staying pretty consistent um that that's not been you know the elementary as far as efficiency goes according to the funding Matrix is is better the high school is but it's still not um where it needs to be we've taken some steps to to try to help with that but the elementaries have basically um stay consistent and not there's not been a drop off so then what happens whenever you hit seventh grade
121and when he one percent of your population you know in that I mean where where do they go I think you know we kind of can I asked that question a little bit but why do they go and um you know what's different between the k-6 well part of that 20 21 like Mr Hill said was that large digital population that we had two years ago um you know I have called parents I don't call every parent that leaves with a semi-call some I don't have to call because they tell a reason um but a lot of the reasons I hear is more opportunities here more opportunities there I want to go play football or I want to play volleyball or you know so and so has uh you know this club or that club
122um that's that's what I hear I never hear that it's bad teachers or mad at the principal or mad at the coach or anything like that it's just that sort of thing you know another reason that we've had some people leave I believe is because these discussions have happened I'm not going to deny that we've had a few leave because of that but we've also had some folks leave because the majority of the work is in Harrison cash 330 a gallon they they move I mean that's that's just what they do um so that's that's the I I would probably put and that that's part of the goal of this is to get more stuff for our kids where we can at least level off stop the bleed at least we can have our kids
123stay with us once they get into seventh grade and give us an opportunity to give them the best education possible so you touched on you know one of the things I've written down is is the departure more Choice related or is it that families are simply leaving the community um do you have any no I think it's more choice I mean I think they're choosing to leave I don't think there's anything school choice the school-wise there's some school choice there is yeah we I actually um have some of those numbers number of students who have school choiced out 21-22 was 18 at Bruno Pi at seven at St Joe 22-23 so far ate at Bruno Payette and sixth Saint Joe and then my secretary texted me just a little bit ago we've had four more
124I believe she said do intent to homeschool Miss Psalm did you have any questions okay um I I do have a couple of questions that I want to ask one thing was you said you had students going to Western Grove for for athletics or some sort of extracurricular do you have any choosing to go to Winston Grove for academics we've had a few students transfer to the Western Grove campus I can't say strictly because academics I think it's more because their parents work North and then it's easier for them to pick them up because Western girls further north excuse me but I've not had any specifically say um you know we're going there because you have these because any class that we have we offer all three either okay in person or uh you know
125like I said we share a teacher and then like when our science teachers at one campus she Zooms in to the other campus and we have a pair in there okay I have one questions for the Department financial question good morning I know that y'all have a physical distress watch list that are districts that you keep an eye on when you see things going the wrong direction it is um Ozark Mountain on your watch list or on your radar in any way I don't believe so but I would have to check with that office okay so you don't know know okay what what what puts them on your radar um again I I don't work with that part of Finance okay I'm sorry okay Mr Lee thank you typically when you're monitoring the school district
126you're going to watch this it's when they're on restricted fund balance Falls below it threshold which is pretty much around five percent I think when a school district's under restricted fund balance possible that they would there would be concerns okay all right so maybe well I guess not Mr Rogers all right we'll just let that one go um one last question Mr Lewis you were talking about your board makeup and and I know the vote was 43 to bring 712 to to Western Grove so the majority of your board voted to do this but there were only two from Western Grove you said that represented that District so you had two others from Saint Saint Joe or Bruno Pyatt two from Western are you asking who voted for it yes yeah two from the two
127from Western Grove and two of the three from Bruno Payette okay all right so those are the ones that voted for it okay uh and it was a 43 vote um that was all of my questions that any board member have a follow-up question you would like to ask Dr Moore I've heard you mentioned that there's the future to build a new High School so with that in mind was there any consideration of closing just one of the two high schools for the next year and then you know the next one or you felt like it was better to best do all three at one time the by doing that you really wouldn't have from the financial aspect of it you really wouldn't have any cost savings because you still need the same amount of
128teachers and as far as as the you know the building goes like was mentioned before you know we're applying for partnership funding in 2024 if we get that then you have to pass a millage that would be the following year so let's just say you broke ground in 2025 you're still three years out according to the architect for a new either 712 or K-12 so that's five years away Mr Hill said we don't we don't have that time to wait on that so this is just a short term that's what I yeah you know I I understand the emotional part of this I I get it I mean I totally do um I've been a small school guy my entire life my first school that I ever worked at is closed now and it was
129DeVos Bluff love love that place um but but you you gotta you know things are changing and we we've gotta we've got to make some some decisions here to to short term so there is a long term and I I know that there's the threat or the the people say they won't vote for a military increase I get that but this this this has got to be done so we can get to that point so we can get everybody in a new building or either 712 or K-12 or whatever this is not a long-term thing if we can get that done running the three different are they each is it each K-12 campus so all K-12 students are in the same campus is that correct we'll say again I'm sorry each of the campuses it's
130okay to each is K-12 yes is it one building or do some have two buildings well one campus is basically all Under One Roof with their Ag Department separate the another campus I would say is probably has a ag out built the built the Ag Building is out the gym is out and then one campus the Saint Joe campus has several um you know we're all older schools and you know back in those days you just you built as you needed instead of all being under one roof so that's that's another reason we'd like to get Under One Roof it's safer for our kids too thank you Miss Newton yes Mr Patrick yes um if the State Board does approve your petition how are you planning to move forward with the community how will you
131help bring this community together to really accept all of this change I know it's been difficult so far but you're not there yet how what will you do do you have a plan moving forward um I'm gonna have a we have a transition plan um in place I'm excuse my notes um basically the first thing we'll do like I mentioned earlier would have a guiding Coalition of students from each campus um because we're really we want them to get together to give us some ideas of ways to make the culture better and and think and tell us some things that we might not be thinking about I think Educators miss out sometimes by not asking kids what's what's wrong in a school or what could be better so we want to do that we'll have
132some summer meetings with our parents and our students from all three High School kids parents everybody to start the process of here's what the day would look like the transportation piece we would have student orientation days we would send out videos either through social media or remind through those to those parents that could not make it and basically what we would do is we would remove all things Western Grove warriors on the western Grove campus and it would all be Ozark Mountain High School Bears I think that would be I'd mention the culture piece earlier that's going to be one of the top priorities for us and I think by taking down everything Western Grove and putting up Ozark Mountain High School that would help with that okay how about your business community how are
133they feeling about all of the change that you're bringing forward I'm sorry did you say how the students feeling about it oh your business Community oh business Community well um I know that some of the businesses are against that we we're small communities with not a lot of business a lot of our folks work in Harrison um or or go south to Marshall um that and the local businesses have been against it a lot of those are gas station type food places and I think there's a concern of them losing business okay by losing teachers no schools so how will you work with them to really heal everyone how will you work with them to heal them how you work with the communities this whole process has not been perfect and I I'm you know
134had I do if I did it again there's things I would change obviously um but I feel like reaching out to them um you know we're we're pushing so hard for career type Pathways now I would really like to even if it's not just about the consolidation effort and saying I'm sorry this had to happen please support us I'd like to have those conversations also of hey what can we do to better educate our kids that they become better employees for you so it'll be kind of a two-way street there to to knock out both efforts okay all right thank you I I um did uh I think they've got somebody from Finance here to maybe answering my question on physical distress Maybe I don't know if they're listening to me or not okay they're
135they're working Miss frina thank you Miss Newton um Celia is checking but we do not think that Ozark Mountains on any kind of a pre-fiscal distress watch okay and could she maybe speak in Juneau what makes a district go on the watch did she have be able to do that I don't know if she can for unfortunately a lot of our finance people are on the road today okay who handle those types okay all right that's fine no problem thank you um one other question Mr Lewis thinking about you know everything that we do is a a board is we we try to always make a a decision based on what is best for these students okay in in thinking about that uh talk to me a little bit about the difference in what a
136student's education would would look like next year keeping the three separate high schools versus having the one high school what would be the difference for the individual students if kept three instead of having one right what what cuts would you make what would you be able to add talk to me a little bit about that well again we're giving them what the state says we have to give them okay but I think we'd all agree that I mean we saw these four students earlier come up here and talk you know that that's not the bare minimum I mean I know you'd have to have um you know your CTE classes I get that but we don't have FCCLA you know they're missing out on some opportunities that we could give them if we're if we're
137running more efficient um you know I I we started band this year you know we're busting them there to to practice band and I'm proud of that I mean they played it four games this year we said to start small but there I've got kids asking about choir you know why do we not have a choir well it's you know you got to have more than one or two kids to have a choir most times it's not a duet um but but the there's just going to be more for them if I can get them all together so if they're not and they're still if they're their current locations and we start deficit spending I mean what's that going to look like now we're going to have to have teachers you know one math teacher
138teaching virtually to the other kids okay and again some kids can do that that's they can but if you start having to cut more staff and cut more programs I mean I don't know that we can't go okay and and do what's best for kids okay so so that was my question if there would have to be staff Cuts or more virtual uh in order to make the standards yes we keep a current decline in enrollment and um races which we all want to happen um we'll be in trouble okay any more discussion from the board massage do you have any staff members that are currently with their licensed teaching in the 712 to 712 level as well as the k6 level are there any teaching across those two that would be impacted if the
139712s were closed yeah our special ed um obviously we're blessed in that area really good ones art PE specials um but most most of our k6 are just k-6 some some teacher 4-6 English and then another teacher teacher will teach the math and at one campus they don't rotate like that so it's it's a kind of a different makeup in each area but we don't have any staff that I can't believe that fall back from seventh grade below as far as Support classes and electives go and that was the second part of my question is concerning special education will you have the staff to support it especially at those core content levels at the high school the inclusive practices changes that will be yes and we actually have started that some this year um so
140it actually would probably be a little easier if we had all of our high school kids to for the inclusion process um you know that's something we've worked hard on this year as everybody has or should have so we feel confident in that area we do um hope to if this is approved start a life skills classroom that I think would benefit our some of our some of our students appreciate it thank you okay uh discussion or from the board on the matter all right I'll open the floor for discussion so I'm sitting here and part of it feels premature on the one hand because they're not failing and they're not in fiscal distress on the flip side we often see schools that are failing in a fiscal distress and we're like why didn't you
141raise the horn three years ago that's the conundrum that I'm in right now okay other discussion I would like to acknowledge the difficult nature of the question but at the same time defer the appropriate amount to the local board and the decision they made and the superintendent having been on a local board I know that the hardest decision you ever make is closing School um and I come from experience in Little Rock where the communities we were impacting were neighborhoods as opposed to entire literally entire communities so I know that it is a heavy decision that they've made it's hard I know that they will be accountable to the people who fund the school district and vote for leadership and their community and they've stuck their neck out and said that they believe that this
142is in the best interest of the students they've they've made a rather compelling argument I have voiced my concerns about academics and I also know that that will be weighing heavily on them as they make decisions that the last thing they want to do is regress academically because of a decision like this have to trust them to to make good decisions should they not they'll be accountable to the local people and at some point they may even be accountable to us for making decisions that don't support the academics but I I am compelled at this point to to support the decision of of the local board any other discussion when I am sorry no I was I was just going to Echo that and that when I look sort of dig down into the district
143further students are missing a lot of opportunities we see the average ACT is 17. our state average is 19. students aren't taking AP exams and quite frankly I could see how when you have you know three high schools with 40 students each it's hard to really robustly offer those and so whatever decision we made I do want to charge the districts of really doubling down and looking how can they provide more and more opportunities for students because every student deserves whatever path they are on it seems like we it seemed to your point it seems like we've seen this before when when you have K through 12. campuses within one with several campuses within one District seems like it's not a good formula to me unless they're real big um I was just going to
144also Echo something that Jeff said I am certainly for small districts I came from small districts I was on the board that took in a couple of other districts I know the impact of schools leaving their communities the one thing different here though is that you're still going to have k-6 and it's not like you know the the schools are gone foreign you do have that emotional on the left hand on the right hand I mean running schools fiscally um correct is extremely important otherwise it puts everybody in the district in peril so I'm I'm as much as I would like to say we you know every community in this country should have its own district and and the community Gets behind it and and what have you or it's on school campuses in this
145case because the numbers seem to Bear out that consolidation of the 7 through 12 would be better I think it would it would be a great compromise if there was a new building built for all of 7 through 12 and it happened to be you know on the campuses of um I've lost my train of thought of what Saint Joe Jesus uh I think that would be great um but I I would also probably uh support the the request to close uh the 712 based on the decision of local board any other discussion if we are ready for a motion all right I'll do it okay I I move that we approve the petition from the school district to consolidate the campuses okay we have a motion from Mr wood to approve the mission of
146the Ozark Mountain School District to transfer the students to the Western Grove campus for 7 12. yes ma'am for clarity the it's not it's not a consolidation necessarily A consolidation that's a term of art it's just to move the 712 grade 712 from Bruno Pyatt and St Joe to Western Grove and pretty much your motion was fine but I want just for pure Clarity wanted to make that point is that what you mean 100 yes all right all right so we have a motion by Mr wood to transfer the students in grades 712 from Saint Joe and Bruno Pyatt to the Western Grove campus do we have a second I will second that okay second about Mr Sutton we'll do a roll call um Mr Oliva you are our secretary so there should be a
147form that's somewhere in there and all of your paperwork stuff oh uh you can start here okay so we'll do a roll call we'll start with Vice chair Dr Moore I know I think Miss Kathy mcfetridge is online so I don't know yes Miss Patrick my vote is yes Mr Henderson yes and I think I saw Dr Hill online um I don't think he's made it yeah okay Mr Sutton yes Miss Woods yes Miss Hunter Mr wood yes okay so motion passes the students from Saint Joe and Bruno pie will transfer to the Western Grove not Western yeah that's right Western Grove campus so we wish you the very best and I ask you to keep the all the students of your District in mind as you go through this transition process and if there's
148anything that we can do to help you during the transition please don't hesitate to call on us all right how about we take a five minute break and then we will come back to the rest of our agenda the first time and the average teacher salary went up approximately 950 dollars for open enrollment Charters the per pupil expenditure went up eighteen hundred dollars an average teacher salary went up 150 dollars and finally the report contains rankings at the back of the report rankings by selected items such as per pupil expenditures average daily attendance ADM FTE and classroom teacher salary so it's a lot it's a lot of data I realize but a lot of researchers use this this data for various purposes okay we'll see if we have any questions from the board anyone have
149a question on the annual statistical report Dr Moore I and I came in a second later this includes federal funds including Esser funds is that correct yes it does okay I joked this morning with Jeff that I usually give a sermon when this comes out every year because I think it has so much information that oftentimes get overlooked I think that ranked by pure per people expenditures is very enlightening and it's quite interesting to see the large increases because of that as their funds and I worry about that Cliff when those funds run out I know that's something you all are talking to districts about and they're looking at but it's quite shocking I also in pulling up the data I mean looking at the districts under State Control we're looking at Earl and marble
150Lane at nineteen thousand dollars per kid as well above the state but I know a lot of that is from that Federal fund that just talking here in here but I think it a lot of times people especially when we're talking after the capitol they forget that these a lot of these decisions are made locally future salary and other things and they need to dig into to the finances to understand what's going on and we're looking at Little Rock about 16 000 per Kid last year spent where is that money going springdale's at 11 000 and they have much higher teacher salaries we all know this in here but these are hard conversations to have and the more data we have the better and this is a great set of data to start those conversations
151with yeah I'll fail I'll try one of those okay all right all right any other questions from board members okay we do need a motion to approve the report have a motion by Dr Moore seconded by Mr Henderson to approve the report all in favor in your post motion passes um thank you mrrier our next is final approval of rules growing in home schools MS brino thank you Miss Newton Lori farino in December the board approved the rules for public comment release after governor's office approval we released them for 30 days had a public comment hearing we only received one public comment and that was in support of the rules it just said that they supported the rules has written because all it does is incorporates acts 623 of 2021 into our current rules so
152at this point we're asking you all to please give us your final approval of these rules okay are there any questions okay we're ready for a motion I'll move to have a motion by Miss Woods to approve the rules governing home schools our second seconded by Dr Moore all in favor any opposed thank you Miss Farina all right we pulled item four so we're moving on to item five uh Educational Service Cooperative evaluations arsc hey this is Stacy Stacy Smith Deputy Commissioner so Arkansas River Co-op evaluations attached in their narrative summary they've got an Excellence rating that did a nice job many of you have actually been to that Co-op before actually visited the explore Academy so it was a great visit but it had a good team with us there but you have any
153questions happy to answer them any questions on the Arkansas River Co-op this is the one that's in Pine Bluff Dr Moy I did yeah I haven't asked this before they had it's they have a 134 staff members do you all have a sizing model for co-ops they actually have some grants for team digital across the state that actually from service and work with members all across the state okay and they also is that would that be that's is that virtual Arkansas or that's different so they have some personality they have more team digital okay they also have um the largest hippie program in the state they actually cover like four or five different I noticed that they're like a huge I wrote down they had 41 hippie staff members so they've got several staff members
154there um so there's they also have like an early parent program that has staff members that's completely funded differently okay so while it's a large number not a lot of not all that's funded that had other grants that also fund those programs and other Revenue sources which which Co-op is the largest you know um the largest Co-op will probably be um I would say archboard Northwest Arkansas or guy Fender one of those is where they have and we're talking about the number of staff so when you get to Arch Ford virtual Arkansas is really hosted there so that is our digital State School virtual school and so most of the employees in the state at one point they you had those virtual employees divided up into three different co-ops you had CTE down at one
155Co-op you had Career and Technical at another and then you had the course subjects that are toward those have all been moved to archboard so that kind of in place it looks like the number of people but those virtual teachers actually serve the entire state and there's a large grant that comes from the Department for that program did that help yeah I mean trying to understand the Staffing models I understood is difficult because of all the different things that member of the staff that's at the co-op that is directly funded by the department for work in that region for example we fund three literacy Specialists there we find probably two math Specialists and a science Specialists so that comes from a grant fund from the department and so their goals specific goals written for those
156employees to do in their region around those topics so when we develop our professional development and learning Services they train those specialists in the co-op and then they deliver that PD okay thank you any other questions Mr Sutton I was just going to this is probably a stupid question but Mr Sutton a stupid question come on come on how are the co-ops folks you're getting into a whole nother thing so um I'm happy to pull that information together for you and bring that back to you they have a set amount of money that comes from this day but then they have other Revenue sources too and every cough is different so I'm happy to give you their individual financial report earlier this year if you'll remember this summer I gave you their annual reports and
157in that annual report they actually had to put their budget in there yeah so I'll be happy to pull those back up and send them to you so there's several different revenue streams yeah one of which I assumed was every District that's a member of that college some districts pay a Consortium fee to be a member of their Co-op right some paid by PD when they attend so it's different each place thank you okay all right thank you all right go ahead is is there objective data to illustrate the effectiveness of the co-ops Beyond you know survey results so you know attendance but like Effectiveness impact in our grants okay so for example um in the literacy grants we put in there specifically that they have to support the level four and five schools they
158have to put in their Grant the data sources and show improvement from that they have to do it for math hours math Specialists literacy Specialists and Sciences Specialists here at the department monitor those grants for those specific positions to monitor progress for those pieces now when you start talking about larger things like the hippie program so the funding for that where they're getting that funding from a different Source they would have metrics for that system you're asking me in general for the region how effective they have been that would be their local boards plotting the information or asking those questions with their superintendents okay why why would that not be a question that observed at the state level so the rubric for their evaluation is very clear-cut it's actually in our rules and so it
159is held too tightly and so what I observed them on and what we did the evaluation as a team I mean all the way down to the evaluation committee is determined by rule has to have someone from higher ed has to have someone from a local business has to have a teacher has to have an administrator has to have I mean there's just somebody from Desi I mean there is a nine member committee that's made up of different different folks there we follow a very tight rubric for that evaluation process part of that is them showing their metrics to us and telling us about their programs and successes that they've had and like one of the rubric pieces is about meeting above standards for accreditation and so they have to show in their evaluation how
160they're assisting districts in meeting that or going above okay and so during the evaluations we would interview up to 30 to 45 people depending on the co-op and the number of districts that they serve we set up multiple group interviews where the committee members actually interviewed different superintendents interview teachers Co-op people were not in the meetings during those interviews you know we have a significant amount of data available to the department can could it be tracked down to the granular level of the the interventionists that the co-op employees to go into schools and you know the amount of time spent with students versus so they actually increase so I don't know about the performance I do know that the co-ops do keep up with the amount of time that their Specialists are at their different
161schools and they actually meet with their school superintendents to show this is how often our like this was the cost analysis of how we've benefited or assisted in your school district and so one of our co-ops literally they have a log for all of their Specialists and they meet on that log every week about where have you been what have you done what were the outcomes and so in-house they're doing those pieces okay can they improve yeah yeah they can and that's my question my questions aren't meant critically I just uh you know obviously reading is an important focus and reforms around how we address literacy our our Forefront and we we invest a lot of money in the co-ops and I can't imagine a more important outcome from them than students reading better and
162so to be able to see them demonstrate we work with X number of students and those students you know grew X percentage in our time with them they're not directly so I get what you're saying though and so while they're not directly working with students they're directly working with teachers okay but we do need to be tracking our teacher data and who they're coaching directly coaching with yes so that is one of the things that our staff is constantly working on with our Specialists who are out in the field is making sure that they have the appropriate techniques to actually get results from teachers and how they're keeping up with their data to determine whether or not they're being effective Dr Pride from learning Services has actually launched a whole new initiative on improving our
163coaching strategies within our state around high quality and construction materials and how to use that material to improve reading instruction so that's another piece and we are way off topic I'm sorry really I don't think so I think that's kind of very important yeah I mean there's a huge and I'd love to sit down with you and kind of go over some of those pizza points anytime I think it's important for the public too not just a private conversation me and you get a I mean talking about you know Public's money that we invest in in all of these outreaches and the effectiveness is the ultimate question and I I'm interested in learning that but I know other people you know are interested in learning that as well well and every one of these co-ops
164is unique every one of them offers some of the similar services and then have some very unique services that are unique only to them for example this particular evaluation really highlights the Alternative Learning pieces within the Pine Bluff Community the the arch the Arkansas River Co-op has several ales that they run for the community and they have a really big Community Partnership piece there those of you that saw the explored Academy that's based off of the Nola or Star Academy out of New Orleans that was extremely successful and actually replicating that in several other areas they've had other districts from around the state travel there to see that so I mean part of those are starting pilot programs and and them overseeing and being you know the effectiveness of it and the administrator and the
165teachers at that explore Academy are Co-op employees I just want to say just from the teacher Viewpoint how valuable the co-ops are especially to the rural districts you know they provide so many services that that you you saw when we were talking about western or Ozark Mountain you know it's difficult for them to provide for for students but it's also sometimes difficult to provide things for teachers things that teachers need in co-ops come through so many times and provide those professional development to provide the coaching support uh provide networking opportunities with you know sometimes you're the only only you know we we talk about in plc's lots of time Singleton's you know being the music or the art or whatever but when you get it sometimes in a small District you may be the only
166literacy teacher you know or the only uh a math teacher and they also need those opportunity to network and learn from others and so I I don't want to ever understated how valuable co-ops are to to districts and how important their support is to to districts yeah I will say through out their statements have been the most powerful about the support from the co-ops the larger districts do not rely on the co-ops that's the way the smaller school districts do yes yes all right anything else discussion wise okay we need a belt to approve this evaluation do we have a motion okay we have a motion for Miss Hunter to approve the evaluation for Arkansas River Co-op second second by Mr Sutton all in favor any opposed all right that is are there any new
167business items to discuss all right Miss uh Gina is the lunch here do you know it is here okay so we're we're gonna stop here because we're to the reports I think this will be a good opportunity because Miss Sharon needs to get her things together and we'll stop here and we'll uh go to lunch and then we'll come back after lunch for reports all right okay all right uh let's see it is about 10 till so I think we could get back by 12 30. we'll shoot for 12 30. we're not always on time but we'll do our best foreign almost ready to get started waiting on Dan here in just a second all right Dan is ready so we are ready to start with our reports um as we start our reports um
168I had a couple of things that that I I wanted to share uh first I want to thank Miss Mundell she is sending us out every day media information about what's going on and helping me stay aware of what's going on and I know it's a lot of work for her but I am very appreciative uh even though it's just a little short blurb it really helps keep keeping up with what's going on so thank you for doing that I feel much better about our job when we're informed and so that that's been very helpful so thank you for doing that uh I don't miss Smith I know you're here also but one of the things that I saw was Pine Bluff had their first school board meeting and elected officers and had a positive
169response from the community and I just wanted to get up and and and and and and and and it was a long time coming and I know you and your team worked very hard to get us there and I know the Palm Bluff Community is appreciative of it and I wanted to express our thanks as a board for all that you did to get us to this point I know we've got a ways to go yet that progress is progress and we need to celebrate it so thank you for doing that and um the last thing I want to share was Miss Wally invited me this week to a meeting with the PLC cohort for there in their last last year of being part of the initiative and um it was very informative I I
170got to listen to some of the celebrations and and what I really liked about the piece that I was able to listen to because they're moving out of the um a loss for the words it's not initiative but um the project they're moving out of the project and going to go out on their own and they talked about sustainability and uh some of the things that they were successful at and some of the things that that they were concerned about but uh to me the overall thing that I think I I was most impressed by was the districts that are a part of the district-wide where they are bringing a team to the district and and it's coming from not from the individual school but it's coming from the district and the district is supporting
171the the work and the teachers are recognizing it's the right work and because they have the support of the district it's going to be more likely to be sustained and so so um uh they they surveys that they were some one of the schools they've done a survey and and the teachers were all along saying it's the right work we want to continue so so um I I thank you Missy for inviting me to that and uh I know I didn't say all that exactly right but uh it it's it's a good job and thank you for all that you're doing there uh does any other board member have something that you want to share today um Miss Newton I do this is Kathy all right um last month I was invited to um sit
172with the child health advisory committee at their meeting and just talked to them about what is going on and they're wanting to really visit with us about how their recommendations can really make an impact on our children the one thing I suggested that we do is and they thought this was a great idea is to have one of us come to their meetings and then report back monthly or every couple of months on what they're working on and what they're thinking about so I have been in member of that committee for years and if you would like to appoint someone I would certainly put my name in the Hat but I also suggested that they come and give us a report on out on the health of our children in Arkansas and I think it's
173been a while since we've seen a report like that I think that would be really helpful Jerry Clark Ada Ade is a member of that committee as well and she could give more details and they're very interested in working with Stacy Smith and Stacy's has a new initiative called Arkansas Thrive which they would like to go ahead and be partners on that and that's working with 15 Behavior Specialists supporting our schools and supporting positive proactive behaviors so um just wanted to share that with with you and the state board and they're very active let's see the chair is Mike Motley I believe yes and he is with Akai so it's really a committee of different health professionals that have volunteered our time and really work hard trying to make a difference in our children's health
174lives well thank you Mr Patrick and if you would like to continue representing us there I think the board would be very happy with you doing that and also might be good with Gina and and maybe figure out a process for for report and work for that okay that would be great okay all right thank you thank you glad to hear that all right thank you any other board members Mr Henderson Miss Newton uh especially by being CTE month you know I'd like to share it last month I had the opportunity to receive an invitation uh by Ross white him and his team Miss Dr McMurray met with them about you know creating further opportunities for students with special education and rehabilitation services just another component of some of the things we're trying to do
175here in the state to ensure that we continue to fight the skills Gap a meeting went exceptionally well I think there will be more to come I know the Career and Technical is where your heart is and so we appreciate your work in that area and I would bet that the people of the department will will twist your arm and get you to help some along in those areas too so thank you any others all right Miss Psalm had to leave she told us last month about the honor that she was given and they are actually having a meeting today and I think President Clinton was supposed to be here and so she had to leave early to go to that so we don't have an HOA report this month but we do have a
176commissioner's report so welcome Mr Oliva we this is your first Report with us and we're honored that you're here and I know you haven't been busy these last few weeks at all you just kind of been twiddling your thumbs along but we we're we're thinking that things are going to get exciting the next few weeks so thank you chair I I guess my report should be I have no updates first I I want to say thank you again for the opportunity to join an incredible team and even the folks here in this room I I think the board should know that everybody in this agency across the entire Spectrum has been so uh above and beyond for making sure we're doing what's right for kids instead of for success and this these folks work day
177and night and weekend and they don't sleep because they want to know what we can do to help improve learning throughout the state and their passion and commitment is truly contagious so kudos to this board and to the folks in this Agency for the work that they do I do have some updates we've definitely been busy since the last time we we've met we've hit the ground running and what I think is probably the most exciting time to work in education in this great state of Arkansas because we're working with all of the stakeholders across the Spectrum from school district administrators to teachers to students to parents legislative delegation to to really start rolling up our sleeves and saying how can we improve learning through this through the state how can we build on the
178Investments that we've made how can we make sure that teachers who have the greatest impact on the outcomes the students have the resources that they need in order to be successful so we've we and the team have definitely been hitting the ground listening and talking to folks across the state because we want to get this right but it but I I'd like to start just kind of recognizing um the the students that director white brought in around CTE because when we when we start looking at why do we do what we do that that's the reason why we do what we do because we know when we work hard and and get all the inputs in the right place those are the outputs that we want to see in every single student in the state
179and I think what was exciting to me from hearing these students speak is they use some of these terms that are becoming kind of buzzwords in education that we're actually trying to codify a policy and what we're doing but to them it was just part of their natural vernacular and they all mentioned terms like work based learning that they're on different Pathways they're learning life skills that they're going to carry over to other sins these are students that are saying these kind of terms and I thought that was really important to recognize but all four of them every single one of them they thank their teacher yes so I when we look at the investment that we're making in the work that we're doing it's about seeing those inputs create those outputs in these students
180by making the right Investments so I think this is the most exciting time I can think of an education especially for the state because we have leadership from Governor Sanders who stood on the capitol steps when she was inaugurated and said that she's going to be known as the education governor and that our students are going to do better our schools are going to do better and we're going to do whatever it takes to to make it right so she has set some strong bold visions we've already from day one started working towards those bold Visions so I want to report some of the things that that we've been working on what we've done and I've actually in the first week that I officially started was able to visit some of the schools in the
181Delta area where we we know there's a great need and I was able to walk the Halls talk to the students talk to the teachers because I need to build kind of my background knowledge as if we're going through and having these deep conversations to to have a better understanding of what's happening and and the team here has been great for helping me meet folks I got to visit the the school for the deaf and blind and spend some time meeting some of some of our most fragile students as well as a lot of other stakeholders throughout the state but since day one when we're looking at implementing some strategies and best practices for improving learning Governor Sanders ran on what was called the learns acronym and and I think most of us have a
182little bit of an idea of what that means but it's probably worth just kind of going through what each of those acronyms stand for because each letter stands for a different initiative and when you look at learns the L is about improving literacy and literacy can cover many different spectrums but a lot of the ideas and initiatives that we're seeing those Investments is really toward early literacy and building those foundational skills on our students when we look at the E for empowerment making sure families have high quality Choice opportunities that they're empowered to make decisions that they know what works for best for their for their families and for their children we know they get accountability you know how do we hold ourselves accountable we heard questions about return on investment and we heard about
183schools um being held accountable fiscally and academically and Performing there's opportunities for us to have different conversations when we talk about readiness um that can range the entire Spectrum from Readiness to to be a student in kindergarten or Readiness to enter the workforce like these these Scholars I'll call them young scholars that were in front of us today with earning credentials of value to be ready to be successful in life that end in networking is is making sure every student in every school is a high quality access to broadband and internet and in resources that we know are so valuable and then ultimately we as adults we need to keep Kids Safe in improving safety and some of those initiatives is really that blueprint and I like to refer to that as a blueprint for
184implementing this Vision that if we can get those pieces right we know we're going to see the outcomes that the state deserves so from day one we've started seeing some executive orders getting signed to support the work around the learns initiatives and then even as recent as yesterday some historic announcements uh that that are intention on working with legislature to help support and codify what it means to do through these executive orders and through this learns initiative so to date I think it's important to know that the governor has signed 15 executive orders that 10 of which have a direct correlation to education that we're monitoring and and I think we'll probably have to update this because I believe there's another one signed today that's going to have an impact on education I think it
185was signed about an hour ago so we're going to be up to 11 executive orders that's keeping our team busy but we know it's it's it's the right work and and these executive orders range on a bunch of different topics but I'll just kind of highlighting um ones they're gonna have an impact on us is a hiring and promotion free so we're looking at Cost efficiencies as an agency and and where we're inputting our investments um there was an Executor on reducing government rules and regulations and kind of making sure we're streamlining and support districts and not adding unintentional layers of bureaucracy that could prohibit resources from getting to students that need them in a timely manner there's a Prohibition or executive order on indoctrination and critical race Theory to not be taught in our
186schools from a from a K-12 perspective an executive order about protecting the state and information Communications technology from influence of adversarial foreign governments such as making sure that we're not using Tick Tock or supporting other people that might take our data and share it in a in a manner that may be harmful to students and families an executive order that removed or eliminated which which believed to be culturally and sensitive words around the term Latino for Latinos and latinx and making sure that we're using appropriate terminology there's an executive order that repealed a lot of the covid regulations and restrictions that some of the schools are still navigating through and then um probably the biggest one there was an Executor that prioritized that learns initiative so when we outlined those different kind of components and
187learns there's some requirements in these executive orders which has really test our agency to do a deep dive in in finding out where are we kind of as a State of the State with um Readiness for early learning where where are the providers where are the needs how are they performing looking at are there ways to improve our accountability system are there ways to get a snapshot of where teachers are and the resources they need with making sure they're using the science of reading in every classroom and they're trained to support that implementing some best practices around school safety so a lot of these um executive orders have pretty hard deadlines so when I tell you this team has been hitting the ground running um we're happy to say that we we have a strategy
188we have a game plan we're going to meet all of these deadlines on in fact our goal is to meet them pretty early so we we're hoping that as we go through this we can keep the board up to date on the progress we're seeing in fact uh our technology folks in-house are working on building a dashboard where we can have a One-Stop shop for all of this work and and be clear and transparent with all the information and uh we're on track to roll that out in accordance with our timeline so that Discord is up to date but parents Community stakeholders educators are up to date as well so when when we look at kind of that blueprint with the learns um Governor Sanders announced yesterday kind of the impact of some of the
189policy that we're going to try to put in place to make sure that our agency has the tools that school districts have the tools to implement it and some of the highlights that were discussed yesterday is is really doubling down on our investment of recruiting retaining and recognizing teachers and and when we talk about making sure that we know that teachers have the greatest impact on in the outcomes of student learning the reality is is people going into the to what I consider to be the best profession of all professions those numbers are going down so we we need to elevate and make going into teaching a respectable the respectable career and decision that it deserves to be in in build on that profession so part of that vision is to raisin is the minimum
190base salary which right now when I say is around 36 000 a year for Teacher up to fifty thousand dollars a year for Teacher which is a significant and historic investment in making sure that we're recognizing recruiting or retaining the best teachers that we can knowing that uh some teachers that may be there need to be recognized as well so making sure they get at least a two thousand dollar increase on their salary looking at opportunities for teachers to apply that have high impact or evidence of student performance where they're going to be able to apply for additional conversation up on top of that and and to try to get more people into the profession looking at different loan forgiveness programs where we can make College attainable and affordable for going into this profession and
191giving back to to the students a lot about parent parent rights creating opportunities for parents to have different choices in the the schools or the curriculum or learning environments that are available to them so part of that would be expanding and building on right now our state has a scholarship program called because succeeds but how can we expand and build on some of those best practices so we're talking about building out a program called the Arkansas Freedom fund which is really going to be phase in and prioritize students that are in low performing schools that are in DNS schools for those parents that want to choose another opportunity that they would have some resources that they can tap into and find an educational environment that meets their needs the best talked about in addition to
192recruiting or retaining teachers but investing in their learning in their profession Statewide deploying 120 reading coaches that'll work in some of our schools that are struggling the most to make sure those teachers are trained in the science of reading they're implementing best practices based on evidence-based practices that we know going to have a positive impact on students and they have the right curriculums and the right supports additionally the proposal has opportunities for families to apply for tutoring grants up to 500 so that they know if they have a struggling learner that we can give them dollars whether they're getting tutored at the school or or in in the community that these resources aren't a barrier to building on that Foundation of learning another part of this announcement and it it kind of fitting with current
193technical Education Month is that recognizing that not every student is on a college or university bound path in a high school diploma option where our agency and a lot of this is going to come to this board for rulemaking is creating a career ready diploma option for students that that monitoring credentials of value or we like to use state or stackable credentials as they're going through navigating their their past through life so we've been really busy putting pen to paper and working to see if we can get this blueprint in into a place where it'll it'll be codified through the legislature and uh I I can assure every single one of you that this is great work it's the right work but it's also going to be really busy for us here because there's going
194to be a lot of rules and decisions made about how do we Implement a lot of these best practices to make sure that the right guard rails around there in in the research they're going or they're intended to go so in the last couple weeks I've been really busy working with the legislature I've done a lot of committee presentations in both the house and the Senate and getting out throughout the state I want to continue to meet the superintendents and principals and teachers throughout the state and talking to students even by the next update we talked about some of the proclamations that have been released this month and the Career Tech technical education I think was properly highlighted today but there were some other proclamations that the governor signed that we shared with districts and
195stakeholders around Black History Month in Arkansas parental Choice week I'm learning a lot about ice in the state of Arkansas so working with districts as they had to navigate through some severe weather last week and and we've been trying to Monitor and keep track of of which districts were having the most impact making sure that that they're able to continue learning in the best manner that they can and um as we've kind of gone through this process there's there's some bills that have been signed you recognize Kim a little bit earlier but my hope is to make sure that we're given that I'm able to and the team here is given the board access to us in the in the information that you need so that you can be informed along the way and I
196I know we're getting some of the systems in place we're going to keep building on those systems and and keep improving in this work so that as a united front we know we're making the decisions that are best for students and families and we're going to see we're going to see evidence of this great work that we're doing in the very near future so I'll pause there to see if there's we'll see I I would bet that you have a few questions coming uh we'll start over here with these guys I've been real quiet we'll see if they've got any questions that makes me nervous they're a little quiet questions not yet not yet I don't really have a question but I do have a comment I'm really exceptionally happy at the focus really being
197put on Workforce correct Career Technical education obviously that's my line of profession and I I'm really excited behind it because I feel it's very important we saw we saw the results of that this morning how life-changing it can be for for students for sure can we hear questions comments oh yeah just a comment I mean I am this is exciting times and I am super excited that you are helping lead the charge in these really Paradigm shifting times and I think that we will we are on the right track and with you know success and actually I guess it never answers but success along the way yeah any other questions on this side Miss Patrick or Miss Woods neither one of you have a question or comment just a comment about my community I'm feeling
198a lot of you know excitement about the new energy being focused on education so yeah I think people are on board and they're excited and just kind of waiting to hear what what's coming forward so thank you for that Miss witch I know you're driving no yeah nothing from me I just kind of echo the sentiments of everyone else but it's exciting and a fun time to be a part of the department all right all right Mr wood y the incentive portion of the teacher salary proposal is that focused on um understaffed subject matters or is that focused on understaffed Geographic locations state so excellent question in I think what you're going to find is going to be a combination of both and and we're still working with the legislature to iron out some of
199those details in fact I had conversations this morning around that specific notion that there may need to be a little bit more references to make sure we're attracting high impact teachers to lower performance schools and make sure that that they feel valued or represented and want to stay there and um we're we're gonna we're gonna still kind of mail through those details I think that's a great idea I think it's you're asking the right questions we're going to take that feedback back because we've been having some conversations about maybe we needed to hear some of this or look at some of this a little bit differently so yeah you know just just before you arrived we had to tackle the hard decision related to the Marvel Elaine school district and the information we learned about
200the lack of teachers in the area to feel the needs was overwhelming I don't really know a better way to say it and so you know having a focus that gives a little more incentive for individuals to to invest whatever part of their career in in those places that for whatever reason are somewhat unattractive I guess generally speaking I hope I hope that's the case also special education I don't want to miss an opportunity to advocate for investment in special education salaries because I know I know everyone knows but crisis of attracting teachers into that is significant thank you I think my question would have to do with the tutoring and again thinking rural districts sometimes in in a rural districts there's not a a tutoring program or or tutoring available would would any of
201any is there any talk about in those areas coming in and maybe somehow I know they're using those types of Monies to to develop some sort of I don't know if it would be a private entity or or something through the public school making and tutoring either after school or summer whatever available for for those students yes I think that's some of the intention is how can we provide these resources but be as flexible as we can some of this is going to be rule making on how we allocate this but I think the intent is and there's a reality that there may not be a private tutting company or a factor so can can we incentivize some of the teachers that we know have a positive impact to stay after school and make sure
202they're compensated appropriately okay to do the work because a lot of them are doing it now already yeah and they're not even being compensated so how do we more structuralize and recognize the work they're doing okay well I think that you know that the sport is is student focused and anything that's going to make uh a child's life better whether academically mentally physically whatever we we are totally behind that we want to what's best for students and and we will support you in the work they just just let us know what we need to do all right any other questions or comments all right um let's bring out do we have any public comment no public comment Mr Sutton would you like to say anything yes ma'am it's my pleasure to move to adjourn all
203right Mr Henderson do you have a second over there all right all in favor we are adjourned thank y'all so much for being here it um it's only one o'clock so you'll have an early afternoon and the thank you department for your hard work we appreciate y'all too so y'all have a good afternoon