001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This is school board appreciation month, and I want y'all to know how much we appreciate you. Oh. Yeah. Thank you. The ACE lab made these for y'all. That's what your knives are. And I'm going to tell you about these kids in the ACE lab. They have really stepped up. Anyone has had a lot of bad publicity in the press here lately, and the kids got tired of it. They called one of the TV stations and said, "Won't you come down here and report on something good? You know, come down here and report on our ACE program and what we do." And do you know
002one of the stations that accepted? That's good. That is good. So, uh I appreciate that. Now, we have some plaques for y'all. Mr. Cheek, the president. And Mr. Cheek, the vice president. Mr. Secretary. Can I have that for me? >> That's for you. Take my picture. >> [laughter] >> Now, we do have a lot of goodies in the kitchen. When we go into executive session, I would invite you to graze and I want y'all to know I've worked with good school boards and I've worked with bad ones, and y'all are a good one. And I appreciate every one of you. I appreciate every one of you. I appreciate you too. We're all of us good ones. I'm not going to call any names. >> [laughter] >> You talking about you, Joey? I know it. What
003did you say the ACE kids? Uh Don't want to do your job like that. They're they're a bunch of good kids. And I applaud them for contacting the media cuz I was about ready to do that myself. I think they're taking up for their Easter trip, too, aren't they? To the state. They may be. I'm not sure. They even got a little podcast on Spotify. Listen [clears throat] to it today. What do you want to do with the safety Well, I don't know how many of y'all listen to the radio during the course of the day, but we we did get some little decent publicity today. Okay. All right. New story was on the Second Baptist Church and got read all day long. So, it was it was positive. It takes a lot of positive
004to overcome all our negative stuff, so we need to follow up with this. Did you say the Second Baptist? Mhm. Second Baptist Church. What they did yesterday. Daryl Okay. Daryl and Gentry? >> Yeah, they had a They had a It was on the radio all day today. Do you know where brother Daryl's from? Do you know where he was raised? In Tucker. Trust me, he's come to my church all the time. Him and his sister. Mhm. I know it. That's where my He would be my daddy's family from. He was on our old school board, too. Uh what should we debate? Good evening. Uh Angie, you're up. Angie has some for the uh financials. I'm looking at conservatively ending in January with about 2 million in the bank. Um we met Wednesday with our monthly
005financial meeting with the state for our early intervention. We didn't meet last month and they said it wasn't a problem cuz that we were doing good, so. But, they told us Wednesday that they are going to ask the whoever's over them >> State Board of Education. >> Board of Education, at the end of this month to release us. It'll be good. So, they said that everything looks good. We've made great strides. We are physically sound at the moment. We still thinks we need to continue to do, but they are believe that we have it under control and will ask the State Board of Education to release us. Angie and I have been walking 3 ft off the ground over that because that that is a hard-fought battle. But, I asked them about if they thought
006we would be healthy enough to have a Christmas bonus next year. No Christmas bonus is a huge morale killer. And, they said, "Yes, just budget for it." And, I said, "Well, do you think a thousand dollars?" They said, "Budget for it. I think you'll be all right." [clears throat] So, so that's that's really good. And, Angie and I have worked so hard on that. We have said no to so many people. I know that they were just the original Scrooges, but that's kind of what it takes. Very few people have stayed in a hotel room this year for any reason. I'm going to the Superintendent's Symposium tomorrow and the next day, and I'm not going to stay in a hotel. So, you know, I try to set the good example. I'll make a motion to
007approve the consent agenda and financial statement. I'll make a motion and I second. Mr. Ty, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All seven of you. You want to go into executive session for personnel reasons? Yes, please. Executive session personnel. >> Number one. Uh you will find your school board training hours. This is their new format, and everybody's up to date and good. So, that's what this is right here. And which principal wants to go first? Tammy, thank you so much for bringing those goodies. It swept the board up really well. >> [laughter] >> Um January enrollment is at 327. At the bottom, I just included the January newsletter. There's a little note to parents you can read later if you want to. The 8th, we came back to school. The 15th, we had our first
008uh parent grandparent family breakfast, and we did uh breakfast and bingo, which I told you all about before. It was a big hit. Um they really loved it, and they got really competitive at playing that bingo, and we stayed about 45 minutes, and I really think they wanted to stay longer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. >> The 16th, report cards went home. The 23rd, we have um an awards assembly scheduled. The times are there. We'll look at those uh and the snow forecast to see if that needs to be adjusted any. The 23rd, we also had the fifth and sixth grade dance scheduled, but we have moved that to February 6th because the snow's supposed to come in a little bit earlier, and we wanted to
009make sure everybody was safe, so we postponed that um to February 6th. And then on the 29th, we'll have our second grade breakfast at 8:00. On the back, I included some pictures of our kindergarten breakfast, and then some of our first graders um just doing a few activities in class. And then some data for the elementary school. Um 62.7% of our students scored at or above their typical growth level in AR on the STAR test. And that's for this school year. So, 62.7%. They have taken 4,843 quizzes and passed 4,210. So, that's a total percentage passed of 87%. And then, our students have earned 2,521 AR points and they use those points in the AR store with the library to buy little goodies and treats that Mrs. Quinty keeps in there for them to to
010use their points for. So, we're proud of our students and their progress in AR. Any questions for the elementary? We have We have a plan for this inclement weather coming up? Um well, on elementary level, we know that we're definitely moving the dance for the awards assembly. Last I looked, the snow was supposed to come in Friday like at 9:00, but now it's been moved up till 6:00. If it stays that way, then we'll leave everything the same and then Dr. Hubble will be the deciding factor on the rest. Coach Mackie moved the McRory game, which was scheduled for Friday night to Thursday night so we could get that played. So, that's taken care of. All right. It will just have to sleep. All right. Hey Brittany, in your report, kind of catch them up
011on where we are on CTE. Okay. Um we have 264 students um at the high school. The December 18th was the band concert. The 19th was semester test makeup day. We also had our staff Christmas party. We played dirty Santa and had snacks and drinks for everyone. Uh December 22nd through January 7th was winter break and we started back on January 8th with the third nine weeks. Uh this semester we have 18 students enrolled in online courses through PCCUA and it was expanded to include juniors this semester so we have five juniors that signed up for online classes as well so they'll be getting college credit as well as high school credit. Um Do you have a goal there in number of what? Yeah. Just trying Just as many as we would like to have
012a lot more but they're still all new right now and it's online so if they're not really used to taking online classes then it's they need to probably do like a regular class first or something so That's completely a year or two issue. Yes. Yes. Well then like at PCCUA if you get your associates from there then you can get a transfer scholarship to like UAF Fayetteville and you pay the same tuition for us. Any UAF any I know it's UAF Fayetteville but I think it's any UAF. It is any. So they make partnerships with these colleges which is why I asked today credit. Yeah. Yeah. UASU UAM any UASU Yeah. Yeah. So probably get It's great for parents. Great. And then UAPB reached out to Dr. Hubble too about concurrent credit and trying to
013get a partnership set up with them as well. So I've got the email and I'm going to reach out to them this week. Uh January 16th report cards went home. I did leave that off of the news I apologize. Uh we administered the Star Reading and Star Math assessments to measure academic growth. Star Reading 34% of our students scored above the 40th percentile and then 40% of our students scored above the 40th percentile in Star Math. And like Dr. Hubble said the game Friday has moved to Thursday due to the winter weather. Tomorrow the army recruiters are coming to visit with students at lunch. And Thursday the B Pro Be Proud truck is supposed to be at the high school. Next Friday the 30th, the student council is hosting a blood drive so the bloodmobile
014will be in the parking lot. And then there's also an AR field trip that day and our recruitment and retention is at lunch. Um CTE update, I've been in contact with the Lonoke Business Academy and uh PCCUA at Stuttgart. They offer programs or different pathways than we actually offer in our business and ag classes, but we can gradually transfer over to those to where we can students can go like to PCCUA, get their CTE pathway I should say a completed CTE pathway. Let's get the current program. Um and then Lonoke has a couple of programs that we can go to, but we'll have to like I said gradually get kids involved in that cuz they're different programs or pathways than ours. But also I believe we would still have to offer the first level class
015here cuz there's three tiers in a CTE pathway. >> [cough] >> Excuse [clears throat] me. Um we would have to offer that level one class on campus or through virtual Arkansas. So I'm still working on getting all of that Okay. Now, when they get those certificates of completion, that helps our report card grade out, does it not? Yes. Absolutely. >> Okay. Yes. All right. Well, I'm excited about that. I think that could be a big deal for us. And I'm excited about our new uh officiating class we're going to implement next With those CTEs, And you say concurrent, those are dual credit classes, essentially college credit and >> get at PCCUA, it would be college credit plus um uh high school credit, but it would be like a uh like I said, they took accounting
016over there instead of here. It would be an accounting class, a college class. They would also get an elective credit here. >> And same thing with those technical education classes. >> Yes. Yes. Okay. Sweet. How do these star reading and everything since you were talking about how does that apply to the state scores? They well, I'll be honest with you. I am not real familiar with STAR. I'm just getting really involved >> Tammy, I think. Tammy is a lot more involved in that. I'm just I just got to start it in that. It's really two different things. Uh the STAR reading test is more of a vocabulary driven test where it's testing if they know how a word is used in a sentence, not as much their reading level, but it does give them a
017reading level. They just use that when they go to library and check out books. The goal of it really isn't compared to state testing. It's just to look at it as a piece of data to see if there's growth in a student. So, they don't really compare. It's just a good piece of data for us to look at to see if students are growing. What do you think the numbers would be? Good, average, what do you think? I think ours from the fall to winter testing, they tested earlier in the fall and then the winter testing, ours increased um [snorts] with over the 40th percentile. So, I would say yes. And that's an improvement, Yes. Your letter grade, that's what they're looking for, growth. They want somebody here here. So, you know, they want you
018moving up, you know. So, that growth is what they're looking for. Yes. Any questions for high school? Thank you, Britt. Appreciate it. >> [laughter] >> I'm going to have to talk to my Air Force recruiters and see if Oh, Brittney. Yes. Uh have you ever asked the Army recruiter about some of the Guardsmen being substitutes for us? They mentioned that the other day and I actually just said that this afternoon. I said I They said something to me. They came I guess it was our first or second day back cuz they came to talk to us. They were going to take juniors and seniors over to the Hazen There's a Army recruiter. Yeah, that. Um I don't know what it's called. They're going to We're going to take some over there. Um I think it's
019in March and they came and talked to us about that and uh they said something about seven and I was like, "You know, I'm probably really going to have to start calling them. So, they said they'd do that." >> Well, now I used them at Fordyce and they were good and they would get those boys in particular talking about the military and I'm here to tell you the Army's best thing to ever happen to my own son. >> They're coming tomorrow for lunch, so I plan on talking to them. So, yeah. Use them. They have There's authority with that uniform. >> Get two at the two at the table. Yeah, yeah, they do. That's right. Well, I I The Army was the big thing for him and I was really glad of it. Okay, uh
020we got the letter that's in your packet approving our this year's budget, so we're always glad when we get the stamp of approval from ADE on anything. Uh desegregation order update, Phil Bryant of uh BB&K was in contact with me. He needed some data to take court with him. Uh our next court appearance is up and Erica has compiled that data and sent to him today. Uh the February board meeting is when we will have Phil here and and he'll do his presentation and I'm sure we'll have a fairly large audience that night. We are having a D seg meeting every month at school now and we have replaced uh Trent Morgan with Fallon Klingman and we've asked Mr. uh Warriors. Is that right? >> Mr. Warriors, who is Hispanic and male, to be on
021the committee. And we're going to have a luncheon in here on uh January the 30th and discuss trying to get some of these MOUs finalized and some other things. Now, the mitigation plan that you've got the letter here, it it's uh disaster planning with the uh county. And I, of course, told them we would participate in that. It doesn't cost us anything, but certainly in the case of a disaster, the school would step up and do everything that they could. Now, I have been kind of toying with the idea of asking Whitney Moore to craft us a fraternization policy. I think that with what has happened to our school district this year, it would behoove us to have something in writing about teachers, single teachers in particular, having kids at their house for parties and
022so forth. Now, if you've got a teenager and you've got kids coming in to see your kid, that's different. They're coming to see your kid. They're not coming to see you. So, we're not we're not talking about that. But, I have this problem with younger teachers. They always want to be cool and if they're saying all they want to be, you know, really cool. And they don't need to be having kids in their homes. It's just trouble waiting to happen. And I think maybe we it's time for us to look at adding a fraternization policy. Uh they don't need to be going up town and buying their lunches for them every day and things like that. That just does not need to be. Uh they need to have that professional distance between the young and
023the student. And again with younger faculty members, that's very hard to instill in them. >> [clears throat] >> They just don't understand that that invisible line should exist. Does the state have a model policy on this? Uh I have been trying to call Lucas Harder and I cannot get him to answer his phone. But I'm trying to talk to him about that. We could probably find them, yeah. Yeah. >> If I could find a military D O D one, we can find them. Yeah, and there's I didn't even know that wasn't a rule. Well, it well, it actually should be automatic. Yeah, it you would think common sense, but you know, people are not long on common sense, I have found. Yeah, I can give you copies of fraternization rules. Yeah, the >> [laughter] >>
024military has that, yeah. Across the board, but uh we should school board association will start with the our regular higher organizations and see if they have one for us, but Yeah, I'll talk to Lucas, sure. That is the only regulation. Mhm. And and with Lucas, man, it's airtight. Yeah. But he he's just on another level for me. He's one of the smartest people I have ever come in contact with. Okay. D O D make it very clear about our Yeah, yeah. Uh Brian Main checked with the state for me and there are different rules for school districts using a van than there are with churches. You can't have more than nine passengers, the driver included, in a van. Or you have to trick it out with the lights, and you paint it yellow, and you
025it's got to look like a little bus. So, I don't know if we're back to the Suburban idea, or if y'all want to continue with the van idea. I really use a 15-passenger van, that's just me. Yeah. >> And they'll have [laughter] to carry how many? Nine max? Nine, including the driver. Well, they can't carry two back in the back. I mean, how many people can >> need one van, anyway. Yeah. >> Suburban can only carry about like seven. Yeah. Yeah. >> How many they typically carry? >> [clears throat] >> Well, in a school, you can't carry more than nine people in a van without tricking it out with all the school bus What's he transporting? Cheerleaders. Oh, going to cheer. Yeah. Uh uh East East conference of the year. >> Yeah. Yeah, that kind
026of >> Seven in there could be. And if we get the this worked out with CTE, we'll be transporting students to both places, and we might could use the van for that. I like the 15-passenger van, cuz you can use all the back for storage. That's true. Well, I've got Brian Maine looking. He's trying to find us a good deal somewhere. >> out the last three sets of seats, so there ain't but nine seats in there. Maybe so. Yeah, you could. Okay, just just wanted to mention that to y'all. And I I did not know that we got a pest control log, but but we have one, and there it is. And we're trying our best to cut out the mice and the roaches. Uh I had Jake come in here and change the trash
027cans every day, so we don't have food scraps in there. Uh Y'all will have those things when they have something to eat. And I would really rather they weren't eating the high school coffee machine. That would You know what I'm saying? Once they This is not Fort Myers. Once you cut these fields around here, there's hundreds and hundreds of these fields, and once them beans is gone, they go They come They go into Yeah. Yeah. That is true. You find them all You find them early. Yeah. I guess school cats aren't a good answer for this problem. Well, >> [laughter] >> I feed a bunch of stray cats, and I don't ever see mice in my place, so maybe so. You like cats around here? I don't like cats, but they do a really good
028job of You got to keep them in the country. You have to follow my side there so they cut them fields. That shop, I got to keep rat poison out there. Set up house in there like Oh, yeah. Okay, we need to pay Integrity. Yep. It It's like how you pronounce that? Integrity Solar? Yes. $9,081.78. I'll make a motion to approve Integrity 98 $9,081.78. Oh lord, this is crazy. I'll make a motion to second. Motion by Mr. Tiny, second. Oh, you didn't make a motion? No, no, I'm just trying to make a motion here. How much was the last bill? 15, wasn't it? Yeah, well, one was like 21, I think, and then what was the last one? It was like 15, now we're down to nine. Well, that's what Well, why is it going
029down? Is it because we had the meeting or what What do you want? I would have I don't know. I don't know. I thought we said you might save money with the solar, but I guess Well, that meeting was just cleared as mine. Exactly what they did. Didn't they say we could get All I know is we didn't get out of it. I know we We got to We got to pay it. We got to pay it. I guess we got to pay it. We got to pay it. On getting out of it, is there a way we can have We got school lawyers, right? Well, I said get a So, we can get a lawyer to figure out how to get out of it. Yes. And check and see if any other schools got
030out of it. I can do that. And what other schools has has this and they It does save us money on our utilities. They are. Yeah, it does save money on our utilities. For how much we're paying and everything? Mhm. Yeah, cuz I when we had uh I've looked even in the summer and I'm like comparing some of the buildings to my house and I'm like, "Whoa." Well, especially after last month. I mean, it's it does save us When the guy from Integrity last came, didn't he say that Energy would help us compute what we're saving? Yeah. That's what I was saying. Put it on paper. That's yeah, that's what we're That's what we wanted to see that meeting, but he didn't have the answers really. But we still like we get credits Yes. through
031Energy. That's You don't really see money. You see credits [music] through Energy. As I understand it, as time goes on, you see bigger savings. You don't see a lot on the front end. Now, and I may not understand that correctly. Okay. I may not understand it all perfect. >> [laughter] >> I thought we need to pay our electric bill, and then they need to pay us for what electricity is generated by our solar panels. That's not how it was set up. Well, the credit If they even if they apply the credit to the account, all right, I'd be okay with that. I just want to know the number. The number is what we're Yeah, right it is. Energy, could you Do Do you know if we ever get the solar panels paid for? I mean,
032are you basically paying for the solar panels or Yes. Are you having to just continually buy the electricity? When Dollar Scott set that deal up, I have no idea of how that was set up, but for my understanding, we are leasing them to a certain point, right? I don't know that we So, we're going to be We're leasing the solar panels and paying for the electricity. The The leasing is This bill like we don't pay a separate lease payment. Like this this this kind of all included in that. So, we don't have a separate payment for the lease, but I wasn't part of the meetings or anything with that, so I don't know. >> Could you get with energy and see if they could come and explain? I don't know if energy will. Well, I
033think that's what in committee guys said it was energy can help you with the saving too. The thing is this bill and what we pay on electricity supposed to be less than what we pay if we just pay on electricity. I don't I just like to see the data. I know, I mean call them. Okay. I'd like to get home before 9:00. Okay. I'll make a motion to I need a second. I'll second. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Anybody opposed? Vote by the opposed. 7-0. I need to ask y'all to approve the quote for the legal liability insurance. We don't have it on the agenda because we have to dog them for this. Oh, is it in their packet? Eight. Okay, all right. Good. You've got the quote there. It's estimated
034annual premium is $7,248.90 and for our liability outside of Arkansas and I don't really know that we would have that problem very often, but it's $541.05. I'll make a motion to approve the legal liability insurance. I'll make a motion. Motion by Mr. Jones, need a second. Second. Second. By Mr. Chris Carnell, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. And I recommend that we pay our block city renewal $6,000. Need a second. Second. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Now, we need to suspend the rules and I've got two more bills here. We need to We need to suspend the rules to take up the uh price for greenway equipment. >> A greenway equipment bill and Uh paying off the uh short bus. Paying off the bus today and getting
035this one to make a motion to suspend the rules to take up these two matters. I'll make a motion by Mr. Adams and second. Any more discussion on this matter? Say aye. Aye. No? Seven to zero. Okay, you all approved this bill at Greenways for uh $5,083.81. So, we got the bill and it was more than that. So, I need to ask you to approve this. It would be uh an additional $352.08 for total of $5,435.89. This is for the work on Someone make a motion? So moved. Motion by Mr. Adams and second. Second. Any more discussion on this matter? All those in favor say aye. Aye. No? Seven to zero. Angela, I'm going to let you talk with them about paying off this bus. Last year, we had to buy a new bus for
036special ed. It's being paid for out of 6B, so we get totally reimbursed for it. Um Just one of the reasons why I wanted to go ahead and pay it off early to save interest. We would save over $3,000 in interest by paying it off a year early, but the way the finance for the sped work with with the federal works is if you have that payment, you have to budget all of it so you earmark it for the next year and it kind of messes your budget up because then you've got this big chunk of money you're not using. So, we have the cash flow to pay it off. So, I we just want to go ahead and pay it off and then that way it will get turned around and get that money
037next month. And it's $88,961.59. So, they will reimburse us for that bill? Yes, it's totally reimbursed because we use that for sped on the If we pay it off, we save $3,000 in interest. >> And it's already budgeted. It's in the budget for that total amount. You want to make a motion to approve the purchase price of 88 $88,961.59? That's the first time I heard you agree with me. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Okay. Uh I recommend that we accept the resignation of Mr. Hayes. Uh he turned that in on January the 9th. Uh I'll make the recommendation that we uh give Coach Mount the assistant basketball stopping for junior and senior high and extend his contract for 10 days. Yes, this is for boys. Okay. Now, Brittany Robinson is the sole principal of the high
038school right now. So, we need to give her a 240-day contract retro to November the 18th when Trent Morgan resigned. It would uh increase her index. That would just be until the end of this year. Uh no, she is not. She is not. Y'all sweets must have really done something hurt. They did. >> [laughter] >> I got a motion to add an additional 2 years to Dr. Hubble's contract to make it a total of 3 years. I second. Thank you all. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. Well, I love the England School District. I know we've had our ups and downs this year, but this is a warm, welcoming community, and it is my honor to be your superintendent. I want to make a motion to adjourn. I make that motion. Thank you.