001Welcome. It's May 19th. This is a regular scheduled meeting of the Garden School District Board of Directors. We'll now call the meeting to order. Madam Secretary, can you establish we have a quorum present? Okay, with quorum present, we will be able to conduct business. Brother Andrew, would you lead us in a word of prayer? Dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity to be a part of the great school district. We thank you for each administrator, teacher, those that have invested their time into the school this last school year. We pray, Lord, that you would bless this meeting and the business that is done on the behalf of our kids and our community. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the
002republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We don't have any recommendation. Britney, do we have any? Okay. Do we have any public comments? We're going to push our executive session down to the end of the agenda. So, we'll our next we'll go to the bottom of the bottom of approval of the previous board minutes. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion, say aye. All in dissent, same sign. The motion fails. All right. Next item is our financial report. Anything special, Rhonda? I want to read something from the March trip from the One of the things is for those of us that we have a loan that's in escrow, they have to they cannot hold your escrow money. So, as soon
003as I get their tax bill, they have to pay it. So, probably that's what a lot of what we saw coming in. Uh like I was talking about all the stuff. So, that will help us out for the end of the year. Um we're doing We've done two payrolls this month, so you will have a lot bigger expenses this month. Um for now, yes. A lot's worth about the end of the year pretty quick. It's beautiful. Okay. Any questions? You want to move on with the approval of those financial report? I motion that we approve this financial report for April of 2026. I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion, say I. I. All in dissent, same sign. And that motion passed. Okay. Under the business,
004legal, and finance, consider the agenda Jody. All right. So, we took uh we took bids on the on the elementary addition today. Had very good participation. Um there 19 trades that that we took bids on. We average cost of four bids per trade. Some of them had, you know, five or six. Others may had three. Um so, very good participation. I'm very pleased with with the number of bids that we took. Um we cast a very large net on this one. Uh we advertised in the state paper. We also contacted some of the local paper around the surrounding counties. Advertised in that. Tried to get as many people interested in as we could. Um we sent bids out through our website building connected, which is the platform we use to uh to send out all
005the and them sent to us. Uh sent it out to 200 I guess 263 different subs to cover all 19 of those trades. Um and we got Um I think it was close to 70 bids. 70 75, somewhere around in there. Um so now it's just a matter of opening up tomorrow and then the fun starts for me of going through and scoping those those bidders out to make sure that we don't have a gap in the bids or that we don't have something doubled up with another trade. So uh like I said, very pleased with the with the participation um for this for this project. So Any concern on the time frame still? There's always concern. Just just because there's no magic involved with weather. Um you know, I mean, we may have a
006wet summer and right, that's going to throw us off. So um right now we're looking at tweaking schedule to see and I'll talk to subs as I'm as I'm scoping them out about time frames to see what they're thinking, how long it's going to take them to perform their trade. Um so the big thing that I'll have uh to worry about is lead time for for the steel. That's probably my biggest concern is how long is it going to take to get uh some of the steel joists that will support the the deck above the safe room area. Uh that won't stop us because we've got other parts of the building that we can be working on, but that's something that I'll have to to have some concern, you know, I'm I'm concerned about a
007little bit. So air units, those are always up in the air. Sometimes they can we can get them in 6 weeks, sometimes it might take, you know, 16. You know, so it's just a matter of uh getting those submittals in, getting them submitted to to Barry the design team and and uh uh see if they have any any hiccups with What about transformers for our office? Yeah, Kevin that that's another one of those that um depending on the I know I'm currently working on one now. Um if it if it's a pole transformer that we can use they have some readily available. Entergy does. If it has to be a pad transformer we need to sit back and have a discussion. Cuz we were told this was 6 months ago but there was a 52-week
008waiting time on on pad transformers. So um I don't think that's the case here. I don't think we have a pad it it's poles if I'm So right now but I mean that can all change if something happens somewhere they need to take all these pole transformers you know. We're we're at Entergy's mercy on that. So. I don't know where months down the line. This is a thought process that I'm working on. I I don't remember y'all versus the other contractors that we we listened to. Where were y'all planning on using y'alls as a storage yard facility? So the the plan was is the parking lot behind the far end. Yeah and and we we would use the far end of that for our job site trailer and any you know, workers parked over there.
009Um and you know, we would leave as much as I mean all that open Uh that we could. Is that going to be a fenced-in area? We'll have a fence around that, yes. Yeah, we'll have we'll have to just to keep people cuz eventually that's where we'll store you know, some of our material that is is back over there. So we'll want to keep it fenced in just just to keep people from traipsing through there. Well, that's kind of the concern with you know, I mean I don't know if you've been down here on a Friday night come fall where we're where we're building the school is a parking lot for football games and now we're going to now we're going to need all we can get, so I don't want the liability of y'all
010losing something or somebody taking something or No. No, I I Yeah, so I mean like I said, we'll take we'll take some construction fencing. You know, it's basically it's big chain link fence that that we'll put together. I always have to say this because if somebody wants in, they're going to get in, but we'll do what we'll do everything we can to you know, we'll lock it up in the evenings. Uh you know, we'll do everything we can to to keep keep people from wandering in. Just knows it. But I mean, we all we we're all curious about what's going on. Especially when you start construction, people get to wondering what what all is going on, so Same way we were around the job site. We'll have we'll have construction fencing around that to to
011help keep you know, the kids out. Cuz I've I've done enough work around schools that I mean, they're putting their nose up against the glass to see what's going on out front. I mean, it's it's fun actually to to see the kids as excited as they get to see the equipment and stuff going on, but but I mean, we have to we have to keep them from getting out there and getting hurt. That's kind of that was my concern with Friday nights coming on, you know, cuz we all going to be right in the middle of mass Yeah. front production. Yeah. Yeah, so we'll I mean, at that point we'll like I said, we'll have we'll have our fencing up and and we'll have everything locked up. You know, so And if we need to
012And if one of those look, if if there's something else if if anybody comes out there and say, "Hey, we're concerned about this, can we do something different?" By all means, we'll look into it, see what we got to do. We we want to make sure that this is is as safe as we can possibly make it to keep not only, you know, students, staff here, but the visitors that come to football games and stuff. We don't we don't want anybody you know, getting getting potentially getting hurt. I know we we talked about this earlier in the year. How many how many I guess when we took you How many how many I guess pro- uh projects are you going to be over this fall? Uh right now I'm finishing up a couple right now.
013About three is what I've got currently. Is that pretty normal? I've had four or five. You know, a lot of times it's it's kind of where I'm at now. I'm ramping some up and tail end of those and the start of another. So most time two to three is all that I'm like heavily working on at one time. But in six months from now there may come another job up that is suited for me that they may put me on, but I'm not going to have final drawings. I won't be starting I know that probably starting December or January of you know, so Good. Do what? >> I said thank you. Yeah, answering all Yeah, no, I mean of course it doesn't matter how many jobs I get, you know, the priority is to make
014sure that this job still goes, you know, smooth and we get everything. I can't I can't push one to the side just cuz I got another and there's not one more important than the other one to me. When I talk to my subs, the one I'm talking to them about that's the most important job. >> [laughter] >> So but but no, I I'll do everything I can and I've got a good support group back at the office. Um I don't know if you all remember Mark Solberg. He's the VP of operations. I mean I can go to him if I'm if I'm needing some assistance down here or on another job. I can go to him and he fully supports, you know, making sure that that we get things taken taken care of. Cuz I
015mean it's not only is it my reputation as a as a project manager with NAPHOLS, it's also NAPHOLS, you know, reputation. So we don't want y'all to meet with somebody from another district and be like, man, those NAPHOLS guys, they don't they don't follow through with what they promised. Right? That's that's my ultimate goal is to walk away from this one with everyone here and from in the community and school, they're extremely satisfied with what's what's been done. Thank you. Now, anything for French since they're here, too? Oh. So, are there any fine-tuning permitting or anything that we talked that y'all are having any problems with or anything? Um we're good. But, these aren't the back yet. No. No, our building permit stuff I That won't happen until after we get things finalized from a
016pricing standpoint. Um they will we'll We'll follow whatever the city needs for for building permit. Got you. As far as state stuff, everything the county is involved. Yeah, all the all the state permitting and and documentation everything The county is basically We're good. Any more questions? Nothing else. Next thing, salary schedule. And I attached the salary schedules in your packets. We haven't moved to change anything on the salary schedule with the exception of para pay. And at one point, they added different levels in for paras for different qualifications. And the way that our student population is changing, our needs for paras are changing as well because we have some students that are going to need one-on-one para. We have some students and it shifts constantly. And when we have people out, we also need to
017be prepared for the fact that we have paras that move into different positions that may not be their daily positions. So, the goal here was to get everybody up to that top level of para pay that we offer so that if we have to move people around, it's not a discrepancy in their salary. Do they need these paras to the on the off day, I mean do they go get them another job like during the summer? But they have that ability or do you >> They have that ability, yes. They have 4 days they have to do during the summer for us. Got you. In the summer as well? What days do you >> Yeah, 4 days. It's like you know how teachers have to do so many days during the summer, paras also. No,
018no, four four days that they have to do. My question was like, I don't really know how much you get as a sub driver for $15. I I can probably answer that. It's per route per day. So, that's just morning evening route 50 bucks. Because the the way the bus drivers are paid here, that's I was there. I can't I'm just saying you I know, that's why And also At this point a lot of our sub drivers are our coaches or other people that are already working with us. When was the last time you drove a route, Maro? You're you're back on the There are two years for the contract drivers, but then the sub driver it's $50 for the day. So, if you only do the morning it's 20 bucks. So if So if
019our coaches drive and they get they get an additional Yeah. If it's If it's one of those routes like that, yes. Like a true route but not to a Most of them that are going to the games that are driving are already going to the games. It's one of their games that they're going to. Yeah, if it's their sport. I just know that we were still going to get subbed. Just random. I don't know how it is now, but I used to sub for band and I mean not sub but drive field trips. Mhm. The band would pay you on top of what the school paid you. No, now that's a gift from the band right there is what that is. >> [laughter] >> That's a band gift. No. Don't tell say that out loud.
020No. That that's not something that comes from the central office. No. >> [laughter] >> But and right now we're lucky enough that we have Yes. And which we know that could change anytime, but right now we're good. So. And it all comes down to how many hours you roll with that, too. Yes. Yes, and he's doing the Quiz Bowl trip to Colorado. Well, his son's going on that Quiz Bowl trip to Colorado. >> [laughter] >> Questions, would y'all like to move on that? We've got a few that we will be losing and those are positions we're not going to rehire, so that's some of the shifting that's going to come in. Mhm. I I think that's well deserved. Y'all we have motion in a second. All in favor of that motion, say I. All in
021dissent, same sign. That motion passed. The wellness center policy is next and Wendy, even though she said there's nothing's changed, I told her to come and gauge all my questions. I did. I just wanted you here. The A Well, all of these are in the district. Everything is wellness committee. Uh Mr. Clark, I the ABE Um it also establishes rules for different things in the within the districts like fundraising and snacks and just different things like that. The language was adopted from the school board association, so it's a pretty standard policy. It has not changed in 3 years. Um next year it'll be up for its triennial assessment, so I don't think it's going to be changing next year, but um it may. Um but this is just something that we through the whole board.
022So, no changes in the last 3 years. What Do you still have good this policy? No. Okay. And what What before? I want to move on. The wellness center policy. I make the motion to accept the this policies. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in dissent, the same sign. That motion passed. All right. And our student accident insurance, which is something that we do every year. And Drew should always goes through all of what's available to us and and come up with the ones that have worked the best for us so far. And this is the same one we've been doing, isn't it? Yeah. The health special risk, that's the one that we've been using and it's It hasn't caused us any problems that
023I know of. Okay. If there are any questions, so this is in some particular book writing. Those are low numbers. That's how often school districts say out on Um, I know it's just 3,700 and we have it. That's the premium annual premium. >> That's That's the all it is for the whole year? That's actually really great. Well, if you look on I actually put our claims and loss on the ones that we had in my office. You like they don't follow that nature. I mean, all the reason I said that is that even if it's just hurt. Yes. We have to carry this. And actually then it was something like that. >> It's It's usually those freak accidents like you know, playing kickball on wet turf and Yes. breaking an ankle. Hopefully we had a
024kid kid break his nose at practice. In the past year, how many claims have we had, Jerusha? Uh, I think I put on there was 21 this year, but only seven of them filed Well, 21 injuries only seven filed insurance claims. Some parents don't file because they either have great insurance through their job or they have Medicaid that pays Medicaid for it. It pays those people the same. And so, they don't file on their insurance if they did that. Don't go to the secondary. They'll go to the if you go to the ER, they'll ask, "Where did this happen?" Yes. Sometimes they That's the reason I said we had something happen at practice about 8 years ago. An elderly person fell. They had What is it? Medicaid. And they made them I shouldn't say things.
025Yeah, probably doesn't. I don't know exactly You know, it works, but it sounds like I I know the insurance companies they're going to Yeah. They're going to try to get No, but They're going to get whoever is at fault. They're going to recoup as much as they can. They'll be the secondary. Yeah. Except in this case the fastest rate, really. Yes. For a school of size and I make a motion to I have a last minute question. Sorry. You go ahead. I don't want to get in the way. My only thing like I'm fine with this having that we have and it does say on there like we have Pee Wee Athletics as last year. We had this conversation the other day. I think it's two schools we're going to go talking about like we
026have Pee Wee kids that are not Garden students. So, are they covered or not covered? If they are part If our coach, our Pee Wee, whoever is in charge of Pee Wee Athletics is in charge and they are under that person's care on his team, her team, then they're covered. So, does it matter if they're really enrolled in a district or not then? I guess being enrolled on the team is the qualifier towards it. That's a good question. They always say that the people that they're covered, but they are they are probably assuming that they are our students. Can be but not another they might say yeah that we do cover them or they might say they don't cover kids who are not in it. I mean cuz we do have like home school kids
027or we have kids who Well, now our home school kids are covered under our catastrophic insurance. That's why they are enrolled in like the athletics class so that they But if they're Pee Wee Right. So, then are they really I mean nobody knows today. Because at Pee Wee they wouldn't be enrolled in the athletics class. That's what I know we have kids that come from Prescott Arkansas that that like are like probably still not older than anything that's supposed to be as I can find that out for certain. Cuz I would kind of probably I mean that was one of our things is decide about what do we do with Pee Wees? Does Pee Wee stay at the school or does it go somewhere else? So, I mean I'm perfectly fine with approving this and
028then whatever they tell us that probably is going to make the decision on what we do like for the athletic piece of it. So, Do you mind Do you mind researching that? Okay. Yeah, go ahead. No, on policies if you've done all the research on it the how many more students before it hits the next bracket of cost? Do you understand that? Like how does that impact? Is that not obvious? It's just what we do is you send it out and they give you a bid Right. >> based on the student teacher They did ask me like how many students and I don't remember the number on each one. One of them it actually calculated like per student. It does give you the cost per student. On the other one was a range of students
029and I don't remember how much it was something I don't remember what the range was for the next bracket. Yeah, is there some bracket? Oh, yeah. But they all ask like how many are in athletics, you know, and then how many are what grade are they on and then Have you had issues with anything like that with the Nothing like that has come up. Do they find it work with or kind of complicated? I've never heard anybody complain about it. And I've had a couple of students that they did not have a family insurance at all. And then they worked with the hospital to come up. It was a pain in the butt which I don't I don't see it after it leaves here so I don't know who who got the short straw on
030that but they do work with them. They don't have any insurance cuz this is really a secondary insurance but they will work with it. I'm sorry for interrupting. >> No, we're good. I'm sorry. Our brain's on this different subjects at once. I make a motion to accept this uh insurance policy. What I said was it was Yes. Second. All right, we'll have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say aye. Aye. All in percent the same time. That motion passed. This curriculum instructions school improvement plans. Good. Yeah, and we have every year, you know, we come up with improvement plans for each campus comes up with an improvement plan to focus on where they see their perceived deficiencies or weaknesses and come up with a plan for how those are going
031to be addressed. So, you have one for Cabe and you have one for high school and Miss Riley can tell you about the Cabe improvement plan and then Miss Hart can tell you about the high school improvement plan. Or I guess Miss Hart wants to go first. Short and sweet because our 2026 2027 improvement plan is um basically mirroring what we did this year. Um it's going to be like a comprehensive needs assessment um that's going to be um going to include our Atlas data. It's also going to include our classroom performances of our students and other information and indicators regarding student achievement. For our reading and literacy goals, um we are going to continue to work to develop our strong literacy skills um which was a focus this year as in years past. We're
032going to um continue to use that Atlas data and disaggregate that data to find out um what implemented uh targeted instructions our students need. Um the good thing about Atlas is it breaks down each individual um section um specifically in ELA to give us good indicators on what specific um skills and strategies our students are lacking in. So, um this year we anticipate our Atlas uh test scores uh to show growth some growth. Um but we are going to continue um to increase the rigor and use targeted interventions by using specific strategies and actions. For our goal to increase reading proficiency, we're going to continue to use a targeted reading interventions based on what student scores were in the Atlas data and their classroom performance. Where for the goal of strengthening instructional practices, we're going
033to continue to utilize our high-quality instructional materials or HQIM and we are encouraging and mandating that our our teachers use it with fidelity because the more they use it, the more comfortable our students are at recognizing the content information and vocabulary. We're going to provide professional development to our teachers that is targeted for effective literacy instruction and um it will also increase their instructional practices and interventions skills. We're going to enhance writing skills. We found that that is one area that our campus as a whole is lacking in is the writing skills. So, we are going to incorporate writing across the across across all subject areas and use interdisciplinary writing strategies that and opportunities that can be used even in math. We can utilize those. For the provided enrichment and well-rounded learning opportunities, we are
034going to again integrate literacy in all content areas including our STEM content areas. Um and to promote a culture of literacy, we're going to continue to organize book clubs and encourage you know, engagement from our community and even our um our family members. Maybe family uh book club nights or things of that nature that would encourage our students to to share um reading and love of reading with their families. For our math focus, um we want to continue to enhance our math proficiency. Um we are going to use that do that through our teaching practices with targeted intervention for our students, um specifically those students who are struggling, and we are going to continue having um professional development for our teachers, which has been very successful this year. As as well as with ELA, um
035we are anticipating some growth, some very nice growth in our math department. And uh our students are are showing, you know, marked improvement. For our strategies that we're going to use for our goals to increase increase math proficiency, we're going to continue those targeted math interventions um based on our student data from our Atlas scores and our classroom um proficiency and assessments. We're going to monitor and adjust the instruction regularly. So, if our students are having a problem understanding a skill, we are going to make sure that we are reteaching that skill and um using interventions for them to understand that skill. We're going to provide um additional supports for those struggling students who need that. And for the goal of strengthening instructional practices, again, as with ELA, we're going to utilize that HQIM or
036high-quality instructional materials with fidelity. And we are going to provide that those structured uh interventions as like small group instruction at the ends of our class periods. Uh for the goal of enhancing problem-solving skills, we are going to use the problem-based learning opportunities through cross-curricular connections, and we're also going to use real-world math because our students um can make those connections with real real-world applications. And doing that, we are going to be partnering or try to partner with local businesses, which we have some great things on the horizon with that. And uh businesses and organizations um through our CTE program and their connections. And we've had meetings um for those businesses um such as GP and other businesses in our community to to strengthen those partnerships in that area. Do you have any questions? What
037related fields can you fit together with them? Uh I remember in the old days the Georgia ASVAB test >> Building? Yeah. Uh does Atlas have a built-in quality say you need that data to learn which is good at or have the ability they say, "Hey, looks like you could be strong in this area." Well, they have a section where they tell you uh where the student is lacking, but they also tell you where they're strong at, and they also give you um options or ideas to increase or advance their learning in those particular sections. That might would be really interesting to uh somebody who's getting close to graduating but had no clue as to what they were going to do, but it might give them some Right. Well, we do the um each each month
038we have an advisory time where Ms. Ledbetter, our counselor, does um little sessions with them that introduces them to different fields in the workforce, and they take a test aptitude test to see what where their interests may lead them and what they may be interested in. Perfect. Perfect. Does not without going over this completely again, all this sounds absolutely amazing. Sounds very productive. We're looking at improvement. Out out of everything as you you read it through, what are some major changes that we're seeing from last year to next year? Um some major changes are the implementation of using that HQIM with fidelity. Um we have really worked hard to be in those classrooms and encourage our teachers to use that HQIM, so our students are familiar with how the um Atlas is structured, and what
039we found out and what we know um from the data is once they're familiar with how the the questions are worded, um they can understand them better. So we've used increased vocabulary, which has helped our our students a lot. Um in our area, vocabulary is limited. And um so using that content vocabulary or in in the curriculum, they're understanding what it means. We still um have a little way to go as far as reading comprehension, but that's all over the state of Arkansas. Uh reading comprehension is low. Uh thanks to, you know, COVID with in the COVID years, it decreased dramatically. So we are uh still doing that focus, but um surprisingly, our math has really excelled, uh Uh, and we're really proud of that. Another question I had on there I've always questioned and
040I'm glad it probably came out on paper. Uh, let me see if I can find the word. Enhanced writing skills. How much of these How much of I know when I was in school it was all pencil and paper. How much of this is students day is pencil and paper versus a computer? Well, when you talk about writing it's not necessarily pencil and paper. It's writing to be able to um, form uh, coherent sentences and paragraphs and uh, papers that make complete thoughts. Mhm. So, in today's world paper and pencil is not usually a thing, but it's a known fact that when you write it you're remembering. So, You have to make the correction first. >> Yes. So, The computer is making your correction. Right. So, many of our teachers, especially our ELA teachers, uh,
041make sure that they have those writing exercises in their classroom. Uh, and moreover now a lot of the other core curriculum classes such as, you know, in science they do a lot of writing and um, social studies and history they do an abundance of reading and writing. So, they they started using more paper and pencils so they could write it and remember it. That's good. You say reading is one of the biggest helps in improving vocabulary. Mhm. You know, where you learn. Yes. Uh, reading but also exposure. Um, and that's where, you know, many people are lacking. So, if you're in a class and you talk about curriculum, if you don't use the word curriculum all the time our students are not going to know what it is. You can tell them this is the
042work that we're going to do. This is the work in the book. But if it's not curriculum Yeah, they don't understand it. They don't understand what it is. So, using that vocabulary and making those those real world connections really is really what helps. They like to make up their own vocabulary and that's the And they do. Yes, sir. It sounds very good. That's right. And that's another >> just text them the the test. No. Without using the vowels. Yeah. >> That's that's another thing that the CTE helps with because another area that our kids are struggling with reading is in technical reading. And when they are doing those CTE classes where there are technical terms that they have to use over and over, that's also an exposure to that vocabulary that's helping them, too. >>
043Yes, it's helping tremendously. Our our CTE program has has really helped with um showing some real improvement in some of our students who did not show improvement without using making those connect real world connections. So, it's it's working well. >> More hands-on. Yeah, those H2 pathways are really really Right now, when you think kind of kind of transition into the Well, we're going to start working in those H2 pathways starting in eighth grade. Eighth grade. Yes. Any other questions? Which Yes, I'm glad to hear the math speaking improvement. It was awesome. Well, it's similar to Mrs. Hart. A lot of our plan mirrors what we did this year, but there are some changes. And so, when we're looking at preliminary data, we're seeing a lot of growth with our students and we're excited about that.
044You know, any student student that's able to show 5, 10, 15 points of growth is wonderful. And what we see is they're just not quite making it to that bar that the state has set where the state considers mastery of grade level standards. That they're learning, they're getting there, they're showing a lot of capability with the content at that grade level, but they're not just reaching it to that rigor. And so, the biggest focus is like tier one. So, it doesn't detail it all here, but some things moving forward, of course, is looking at the curriculum and making sure that we're supporting our teachers as much as possible and implementing the curriculum at the rigor necessary in the tier one. Which, when I say tier one, that's every student. Every student's getting all that tier
045one instruction, that's what I mean. So, for fifth and sixth grade, one thing we're taking into consideration that we're going to be doing next year is the class periods are actually longer, so that they're going to have a bigger chunk of the tier one instruction with all their core teachers. So, we're excited about that. Makes it easier, of course, for the tier one, but it also makes it more doable for the teachers to tie in some small group instruction without falling behind on their pacing of the content. So, excited about that. Also, that the blocks for third and fourth grade, cuz they're separated a little bit differently than fifth and sixth grade, that instead of having different blocks throughout the day, it's kind of sporadic for the RTI to hit the small group instruction, that
046their small group instruction is actually going to be built into like the end of that block. And so, teachers don't have to teach home room and then wait till the end of the day to intervene on something that they realize their students missed. They'll be able to intervene on it while they still have those kids doing that same class period and not forget about it, or the kids don't Well, not the teachers, but the kids don't forget about it, that it's still fresh and the RTI and the interventions being provided is more in the moment when it's actually happening. So, any questions so far? It would it this is No, you good. Okay, I I did this pop thought just popped in my mind. At what grade level do we integrate, I guess you can
047say, the tier one student from the tier three and four students? The advanced placement classes, I guess you could say. So, Ms. Manning serves kids K-12. And K-2, Ms. Manning serves kids kind of whole group. She does whole group lessons. And then, she does it in the teacher's classroom with the students, and she'll do a lesson. And a lot of times, when she's in there, if it's not a lesson day, she's observing and she's just walking around and facilitating and working one-on-one with the students. In 3-6, it's where she's pulling out. That's I mean, we don't want to our tier our top tier kids to fall down cuz they're learning tier one stuff every day. No, yeah. Ms. Ms. Manning pulls out for 3-6. Yes. But, she won't pull out during like whole group core
048instruction. It's like during the small group, the one-on-one instruction. That way, they're not missing the core instruction of the standards. So, yes, sir. So, um for literacy and math and for science, we're going to be using more and it's detailed a little bit, but I'm just going to throw in some more information, having more of the data meetings where the teachers and content area's going to be able to sit down and grade level teams, so that they can see how their students are performing on the Atlas, but also other measures that they select together, so that they're meeting more frequently to look at how students are mastering the standards that they're teaching in action. So, want to make sure I don't miss anything. We are not adopting any new curriculum. We're using CKLA and phonics
049first for literacy, and we're using Sound Day for the tier three interventions. That's a pull-out service because of the structure of the lesson. For ESL, we're going to keep doing the pull-out lessons, but we're also going to provide more inclusion services also in the classroom. And when teachers go into the classroom to support students, it's not singling students out and they zone in and they only focus on one student. They kind of walk around because they don't want to make anybody Some kids like to be singled out, but most of them don't and they don't want to appear different than other other kids, so it provides support across the board. I want to make sure I didn't miss anything. A lot of notes. So, with us focusing on tier one, you know, um and our
050students getting out their rigor, it's going to include a lot of modeling from the teachers. It's going to fall back to our own structure and our strategies and how we're implementing that curriculum. Our Our kids need a lot of modeling thinking out loud, you know, because they're getting the content, it's just not at the depth that we need it at. And so, it's a lot of the critical thinking and applying it to different scenarios and breaking it down and then being able to explain what they're doing and that's going to involve a lot of the teachers modeling that for them and then gradually giving them more independent practice doing it by themselves and that's going to be a process we focus on from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, that
051gradual more and more more release of responsibility to our students. That about sums it up for me unless you all have any additional questions. I think I can tell you do. I got a question that's not about the UN ERB. Where we Where our students fall behind, is that a linear value or is it increasingly as they get older I grade-wise? Like exponentially exponentially. And honestly for me I don't see it leaning either way. It depends on the student. It depends on the content. It depends on their strengths and weaknesses. Okay. So it it it varies. There's not a particular like she said there's not a particular pattern. Each Each kind of group of students each grade level kind of achieves differently. I don't know if you can see a difference between a child that
052is a sponge and then when they start knowing it all. You know what I mean? At a certain age, you know. Well at at the high school level specifically the eighth grade, ninth grade you'll have a child that's a sponge the first nine weeks, the second nine weeks they're not, the third nine weeks they're a sponge again, the fourth nine weeks they're not. It just It all depends. Each kid kind of differs on when that light bulb moment hits them most, you know what I mean? It just differs by kid. Some kids it's eight, some kids it's 12. One of my kids was reading one of my own children was reading completely fluently in first grade and then another one of my children it was fourth, fifth grade before they picked up a book on
053their own and started reading because they wanted to and not because I made them. And you know it has a lot to do with too learning styles. And so that's a good indication of for the teacher on what they can do to grab that student. That's why the professional development that I that I mentioned is so important because our teachers can go and look at instructional strategies and target it learning styles for each particular student because what you may teach what I may teach you in one class you may be a kinesthetic learner so you do by learn by doing hands-on activities. Someone else may be an auditory learner and they learn better by just listening to things. So, you may I may you may be in the same class period, but I may be
054giving you different instructional strategies during that whole class period. I don't know. I was just thinking about my own life. You know, my mom held me back in the sixth grade and I was like I thought my life was over. But when I come back and done it again, it's just like everything fit right in the place and Well, that has a lot to do with maturity, too. Well, that that's Um so, you know, that's that's what we do with with them coming over from the elementary schools to the high school level. Maturity plays a a huge role in in grade success. So, and you may see a difference after the first semester. They may click in and it may click on them that, you know, this is this is a different uh you know,
055environment that I'm going to have to turn my work in. I'm going to have to do my stuff. It We don't play. We don't have recess. Not that they play with We don't have a break in the after lunch that we have recess that we can run around and play. We go right back into you know, into learning. So, it it's a it's like a culture shock for a lot of them. And that's one of the things like you were talking about with in-class differentiation. When you get into those small group times, if you've got a group that needs a little extra support, you've got that time for them. The ones that are getting it and they're not having a problem with it, you give them an extension. Here's where I took it with you.
056I want you to take it further. So, that in-class differentiation is is important as anything. >> our data meetings, also, because we don't want to focus just on the students who are Right. You want to give the ones who are getting it something additional. I think so too. Retention in sixth grade is very hard and I've only done it a couple of times with students and so at the beginning of the year you could tell the students were miserable and very unhappy but we've never regretted it in May. In May we've seen a completely different student academically and emotionally and just so much better prepared for the future and um made friends everything everything just smoothed out by September October. They were rolling and it's it was such a celebration because when one year they
057wouldn't raise their hand or talk in class the next year they were actually the only one that have not have raised their hand and answered a question and a student who scored a level one and then the next year he's jumped up to a level three in math so it's really exciting for one kiddo so. So talking about retention so where does this fall on this map? I knew you were going to ask this. I'm prepared. So we had 14 students level one in third grade. Two of them we have committees decided we are going to exempt so far. Two of them will be retained so far. 10 of them will be retesting next week. So if they couldn't do that they get like a one retesting how does that They get one retest. It
058will it will consist of two tests for their literacy score their reading and the writing. Those 10 that we are retesting a lot of them have factors that would likely fall under exemptions but the school feels like this piece of data would be very beneficial moving forward to support exemption or to also support promotion whatever we decide as a committee. To make a decision. Have all the parents been notified of the meeting? Absolutely. Yeah. Yes all the parents have been. Because I know that was the big adjustment is of course you've been communicating through the year. We've been communicating through the year and so it wasn't like a shell shock Yeah. for any of them. Um and there's a lot of celebrations because a lot of the ones that we met with at the middle
059of the year their students made it to the level two and even um sur- far surpassed like just making the cut off. Um and I think that was the push and the realization that it was actually going to happen. It wasn't just a fairy tale or anything like that. But um you know we try to consider the child as a whole. And um every child is different and so we take it case by case with our students. Um and we always have a lot of measures to help us. We have classroom performance, we have grades, we have Atlas of course, Atlas being the number one. Um but we also consider parent input, teacher input, and stuff. So So how does that fall like with Ms. McDonald as well? Like is that the those kids like
060Those students with ACTs don't automatically qualify for an exemption and that was kind of eye-opening for parents because they just assumed, but it it takes like data. We have to have data of specific targeted literacy interventions and the progress students have made or, you know, the lack of progress that all helps us. So it comes about that I say like an IEP doesn't give you an exemption and failing doesn't give you an IEP. Or Correct. Could or could Correct. Okay. Correct. So some of these kids may not fall into your service category. Some of them don't. But a lot A lot do. So does that affect your kind of the we have the workload of We don't automatically follow We don't automatically evaluate them for special ed just because of their level one. Just because
061of an Atlas score. >> probably do have high levels of It's just one piece of an umbrella data. I would say that you know quite a few of these are definitely in the special ed program. But we have also had some in the special ed program who have that have passed their math their two Yes. Congratulations to our special ed students. They all made their two. Yeah, they got quite a few of these sophomores in there even a new arrival. If they got their two so it kind of goes both ways. Some of them made it, some of them didn't. Some of them you know we there's their they received the years of intervention that were necessary to receive an exemption and they're they're not good candidates to retest. So you know we've already made
062those decisions but the ones that are going to retake um we'll see if they can do it. So only on the retake obviously they come here. Is that like an individual like we have them all set up on different time schedules or they all show up at Based on test and modification if they have testing accommodations we follow those like group of eight or less or group of but um we're going to test as many in a group as we can. Some of them might be tested one-on-one just depending on when the parents are able to get them on to the campus. So we have a schedule set up for So we're going to do them. Obviously hope that the kids that need to move move on in life but then potentially we have 12
063kids who may stay in third grade and they will all be in this one teacher's class. Correct? Well, they'll have that one teacher but they won't all have her in that one class period. They'll be distributed. So like she'll be just for ELA or Yes, ma'am. Like that's the class that that she will have to be the core teacher on. Yes, ma'am. For ELA. Okay. So the So with like the additional of like peers that we have like a shift towards Miss McDonald and with that teacher or Not necessarily. It's again it goes back to individual students' needs and individual students' plans. Do you have any more questions? Well, I mean, I completely but does that completely, like, knowing this data, does that change, like, where we are on life like how many kids we
064have? Like, I mean, I guess that that's all up to next week. You won't know. Correct. >> True. Mhm. And a lot, not a lot, a few of them, they moved into our district like the end of March, beginning of April. That's true. That movement really is hard on them and you. It is. So, if So, if they retest, and let's say they retest and they're like super super close, and they were the one of the kids that moved in in March, do could they potentially get an exemption, or once they retest, you don't get an exemption? >> It depends on what other factors go into play. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you all. Faith. If you could do that for I don't know if we talked to the insurance guy, and he said our
065policy students. Okay. So, there you go. It's what I thought it would be covered because the premium is based on the number of enrollment. Okay. So, if they're home school, they are not covered. Okay. And that goes under the catastrophic What does it mean? Mhm. The catastrophic because that that's what we get 1/6 of funding for us to cover under that catastrophic. And yes, they're enrolled in the athletic class, so that does cover them. But the older ones But not the peewee Yeah, not the peewee ones, but the ones who are the older ones who are enrolled in the athletic class, it does cover. That's a good point. Does uh does our insurance umbrella over, let's say, another school while we have other kids? No, that would be their kids. >> They would fall on
066the third district. >> falls on them. Okay. I guess we I'm saying like a commercial liability. Right? Somebody falls and But I but our general our general liability >> yes. Yeah. All right. Yes, because that's specifically our student insurance. You need to approve the bonus. Good. You're one of them. Move to approve the improvement plan for the 2016-2017. Motion to approve the plan. The improvement plans. How we doing? You got to do it in one year. For both schools. Yes. Yeah, it's all under one action and item. Okay. Can we have a motion and a second? All in favor of that motion say I. All in the same seconds I. That motion is passed. A little bit of district data update. We don't have a huge amount, but Look at the way our high school
067This is all preliminary data. It's not final until all the testing windows are complete. But starting with high school this week. Okay. This is our 2025 data. Now, this was finalized and you've all seen this data. We've presented it several times. Comparison to this year. Maybe. There you go. Okay. Just let you look at it for a minute. I mean, there's you can see areas if you're looking at the two back-to-back. There there is growth. Um there's a lot of good things and a lot of things that we still need to work on. Um rolling into individual content areas, ELA, math, and science. I didn't I couldn't look at percentages or numbers. I just went with the numbers of students in each grade. Or the number of students that were tested overall. And there's a
068comparison of our level 1, 2, 3, and 4 for each year. And obviously, we want to see the level one number go down. Now, we did see some growth in the level one students for 7 through 10. And there's several factors that come into that. One of them being we had more students that came into the district who were tested. I believe we had 11 more students that were tested versus 2025. Um decrease in the level two. Slight decrease. There's still a good number of level two students. All the same with level three and level four where we gained two more. Uh we definitely want to see at least these bottom three increase a lot more. This is as a whole, right? Like Yeah, this is as a whole. Yeah. Same thing for math comparing
069the two years. Uh obviously you want the level ones to go down and we had that. And then we had a a good increase of students moves that level two, level three, uh and level four. We also had 18 more students that were tested this year versus 2025. You want me to slow down? All right. Into science, uh we did lose a lot of level two students here, but we didn't have a huge gain of level one students. It was a a lot bigger difference in the number of students tested. It was 135 compared to 121 and that goes with a bigger class. We've got a big ninth grade group who they don't take a science test their year. So, that does affect your numbers there. But, we still had an increase in the level
070one that we don't want. Um and didn't have anything on the upper end go up. So, that's definitely something we focused on. Uh working to improve that. Now, Jared, they haven't pulled the highly mobile from those numbers, have they? >> I don't know. Okay. We I don't know when it'll be, but it'll once everything's finalized, these I mean these numbers should change uh a little bit and and we'll have a lot more breakdown of individual grades. But, >> I believe the next one is K. So for K, ours broken down into K2 and 36. K2, they gave us the data, then they took it away, and we just got it back last night. So we were very excited about it and a lot of the teachers got into it today. So this is last year's
071and the numbers compared to this year's. You look at the colors, you notice the bright yellow is smaller, that is what we want. For each one. Obviously, Jared and I did not communicate. I did percentages online, sorry. It's a little bit different. So for ELA, as again, this is very preliminary, so because the window has not closed till Friday. You look, level ones are negative and that's what you want. Level twos, a little bit negative, but you got positive on level threes and fours, so we are moving in the right direction on that. Here's for math. Negative on level ones. A little bit lower on negative twos, but if you look at level three and level four, level three in math, same as high school, our math scores have been very positive in overall. Oh,
072and in K2, we only have literacy and math, so we don't do science in there. So through sixth grade, this is the final for 2025. The yellow is smaller so far, so we are excited about that. Here is the breakdown. ELA less level ones, more level twos, level threes, few little uh small drop in level fours. Math big drop in level ones, that is what we want. Um more level twos, more level threes, more level fours, so we are very excited to see the to see the math growth. And then we have science. Less level ones, more level twos, level three went down a little bit, but um we've got some positive on the level fours. So. Any questions? Did y'all see the influx in personnel that the high school did or Like? As far
073as enrollment. Enrollment, we had we did. We've had several new student, I mean, there were quite a few. Yeah, in in these upper tested grades especially, there were several third, fourth grade, fifth, maybe even sixth and sixth grades that influenced some of these and one of our concerns is the third grade, we had several new third grade and they are our concern is that they are moving districts to try to keep from being retained and so that influences our numbers and because if they are trying to keep from being retained somewhere else, they're likely struggling academically. I like it's good numbers. It's good to see the progress >> We're excited. We're very excited. The kindergarten literacy numbers are really, really good right now. >> Kindergarten literacy, we are very excited, very excited about Well, if
074that kindergarten literacy, if they can keep building off of their numbers this year Kids in high school 5 6 years from now these kids will That's our goal and it's not been easy because of the the shifts we've had to make about how we teach kindergarten first grade. It's not just color color pages where you color words or color letters or whatever. It kindergarten is very strenuous. >> change quite a bit since you're saying Mhm. That on the instruction instruction. So like kindergarten standard a kindergarten standard might be um uh what is who is the author of the story? Each grade may have something about the author of the story where by the time you get to fifth and sixth and even high school you're comparing two stories by the same author and if we
075are not doing the teaching the correct standard in kindergarten by the time they get to fifth and sixth grade and into high school they're they're so far behind even with just one or two standards because each the way Arkansas has redone the standards each standard in the grade adds just a little bit more to a similar standard. There has been a push in preschool too to kind of raise the bar and all that. How does that work? >> Um yes, they do have um a science of reading curriculum that they use um in kinder sorry pre-K that they're having to they really want them to come to kindergarten knowing already knowing their letters because their first test in kindergarten will be what you practice what you practiced a few weeks ago is or a a
076months ago. How many of those letters they know. So, if K through second um A for second is one grade stronger than the other. Have you seen a trend there? As I know it varies. Like each class has their own personality. It does. It really It really varies. Um right now the strongest is probably I guess our lowest level ones, our lowest group of level ones were probably either kindergarten or first grade. Um second grade had a few more level ones than what we what we would like to see. Just because we know what's coming next. We are very excited about some of the progress we've seen in second grade, but there again we are it's been a big shift in the last few years and this second grade group is probably one of the
077last groups that we've been able to shift some things shift the way we do some things. That shift's probably in the middle of their K through 2nd grade. Correct. Yes, yes. Was high school number 7 through 12 or was that a 9 through 12 grade? 7 through 10. >> 7 through 10. And of course every occasionally you might have a junior who moved in somewhere that didn't have geometry and they'll have to do that, but as I said 7 through 10. Because they do this just by grade 7 through 9 and then like they have ninth grade ELA and 10th grade ELA, but then for the math they have an algebra one end of course, geometry end of course, and biology end of course. They don't have a ninth grade science end of course, but
078the kids this year who were eighth graders taking physical science even though it's a ninth grade class, they took the eighth grade science test. So, they don't have a test yet developed and I don't know that they will for physical science in ninth grade. So, there is a gap in that science testing from eighth grade to 10th grade. >> see that. Yeah. Next on the future business is certain next board meeting June 11th. Mhm. And now we'll go into our executive session. Uh y'all don't have to wait here if y'all don't want to do. All right. We finished with our executive session. We'll now call the meeting back into order. I make a motion that we approve the Purcell package as presented. Second the motion. Okay. We have motion and a second. All in favor
079of that motion say I. All in the same the same sign. That motion is passed. Motion that we adjourn. We have motion. We got to need a second. Second. All right. We got a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in the same the same sign. We are adjourned.