001Welcome. This is a regular schedule 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? >> Yes, sir. We do. >> Okay. With a quorum present, we will be able to conduct business. Uh Robert, will you lead us in a word of prayer? >> May Father Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to come and serve uh school district. Lord, I ask you to be with us that we will make all decisions with wisdom. All these things I ask in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. >> We'll stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
002liberty and justice for all. Since it's just Stephanie or no public comment, >> we don't have any special recognitions or public comments. We do uh want to talk about our junior high quiz bowl. Miss Manny, >> figured we'd bump you up just in case you brought kids with you. that I was going to there's the one that was coming is um running late at baseball practice and the other ones are running track at the meet right now. So they're all overachieving overextended kids who are involved in everything but um you'll have the little in >> I don't know if they've got >> the breakdown of what we're talking about. Um >> page >> this is a group of kids who are eager to learn. They um do things on their own to learn. They are
003very very highly um competitive, academically, athletically, socially. They're like the whole package. And so they won their um tournament, the regionals this year and which beat out all the other 2A schools in our area. And then um we got third place in the state 2A competition for our hall. They divided. You can't have a state winner in junior high because of AAA rules. So they divide it into two hallways and we won third place in our division and I always have to put behind two private Catholic schools because I just don't think that's So anyway, but um we qualified for nationals again. Um we've gone to nationals twice before, once in 2017 and once in 2022. And um this will be the first year that they they have um disbanded the group that was hosting
004in New Orleans, which was a quick trip for us. And um so this year the the one that would fit the most people's schedules was the one that was located in Denver. So that's what I'm just coming to ask if we can get permission to travel to Denver. And um I think we usually um the first time we went, we took a school bus. Um Kevin Sims drove us. The second time we went, we rented a van and I think Ana drove her own personal car. And um so this time I think we're talking about taking the bus again. Um and so I do not have um fuel on there, but that's something that we usually fund raise for. Um >> and Dustin's working on his information trying to get all that worked out. Um,
005so the break the cost of the contest is $750 and then um you can see the rest of it there. Uh the the hotel room is the rate that we're getting from the competition rate from that hotel. And then um if we have a Airbnb or somewhere that we stay on our way to probably somewhere around Earl and then on our way back. I found a really cool Airbnb and it's the Wizard of Oz theme. >> It's in some weird little town in Oklahoma >> but it looks really cool and it's I think $500 a night. >> So I thought that was good. Anyway, I got projected there. It's the high projected. probably not going to cost that much because we'll do some things um instead of having the $50 a day for every kid
006everything, we'll probably do some like cook family dinner style stuff that we can save on that. Um but we have a a trivia night planned that we would love to have a lot of people bring their friends and compete for this trivia night. It's um I attended one for the call in Aradi. It was really fun. So, we would like to do that in April. And then we have some other ideas for um doing like a little calendar fundraiser and maybe selling nothing but cakes and stuff like that. So we're hoping that we can raise the money and I have a lot of good parents who are also involved and wanting to come and um have four it's me Sarah Boyce Dustin and then draw Henry might be able to as four uh employee chaperones
007that could go and then some other parents about four parents and then a couple others that are like they have to check with their work schedules and stuff like that. But um it sounds like it's going to be a good group, a good parent group and they say that they're going to win it and then in two weeks after we get back from that there's the national competition in Birmingham, Alabama and they say they're going to that. So maybe need to talk to you again after that. You're just asking for approval to travel. That's it. You're not asking for >> because it's out of state. >> Definitely. >> I'm not with >> You're not asking for approval for that amount of money. >> Um Well, we have some money in the GT budget that we
008can use for that. I mean, if there's money that y'all want to give us, we gladly take it. >> I didn't know if it was any >> I mean, if it come down to you did need a balance, would you be asking for that? You know, let's say after all the fundraising that y'all were able to do, if >> we've never we've never had to before money. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. >> Fund anywhere in the budget for something like this? >> No, each lots of different programs have their budgets and they use those budgets for different things. So, >> but um as far as the bus goes, how does the out of state travel with the buses where insurance wise? >> It it's covered. I mean, we have bus insurance for that reason. So, >> it's
009covered out of state also. >> Yeah, it's going to cover it wherever it is on the road. >> And is a driver set aside for that? >> Dustin would be the driver. He has a a kid on this team, too. So, yeah. There more questions. Would y'all like to move on this? >> Make a motion that we approve the junior high quality in Denver, Colorado. >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. >> I. Descent at the same time. That motion pass. >> Thank you'all so much. I look forward to continue at trivia night. We'll have a time where you can um go headtohead with some of those kids and play if you're smarter than a quiz. >> Might just want to send
010our money, but [laughter] >> thank y'all so much. >> We have a pretty lengthy executive session. So, it will now retire. We finished our executive session. We'll now call the meeting back into order. I move we approve the personnel package as presented. >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in descent, same sign. That motion passed. The next item is uh approval of our previous board minutes. Commission that we approve the minute for the February 17th, 2026 boards of the >> We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. >> All in descent, same sign. That motion passed. The next item is our financial report. >> Rhonda, can you enlighten us anything? >> Finish audit. >>
011Okay. So, y'all should be giving your audit in the mail. I don't know how long it'll take. We did final at the conference end of February, I think. >> And I did you have to go online and do some certification with federal audit that I do that today and have that all submitted. So hopefully you should be getting your mail before long. If you have questions you have, come and see me. I'll be glad to see what I can do to answer those. It gets a little complicated. I'm not sure I can answer all of them, but bring it to me and I think we need to get out. So, um, that's probably the biggest thing going on in our world. >> The findings of legislative session, so I think we're all Cassie brought something
012to our attention the other day. U this is a blanket, not necessarily us question, but you might help us know, you know, our state does our audit and, you know, tells us good or bad, you know, what what they find. How is some of these districts like that, you know, they get audited too? >> Yeah. >> And we find, you know, some underhanded stuff left. How does that happen or how could that happen? >> You know, the thing about an audit is they don't go through everything. They strictly do um they do random selections. They come in with a list and it they their system kind of randomly pulls things to look at. Now, sometimes they will um I've had them Especially if you've had like a supplemental the the year before, they may come
013in and pull everything from one vendor. They may want to look at all of those from a vendor and we pull those before. Um, but mostly everything is very random and you and they will pick a month, but we never know which month they're going to pick it. It all 12 months are open, so it can be any month. look a lot deeper at those months, but you know, um it really is random and a lot of times if you do enough, you're going to get caught. And sometimes it's just pure luck. We have one auditor that I said has has has a nose for auditing and can find stuff. I, you know, see things that just doesn't look right. Um and she will dig and dig and dig. Um but it's really just a
014random audit. Now, um I personally from a personal perspective, I think legislative audit is more in tune to school law and probably can catch you more on the the cans and can'ts of that's not to say anything about um you know private auditors, but legislative are a little more into school law and so they really are um I feel like they do a really thorough job when they have gotten through. Sometimes you can do things and get by for a little while until you and you will eventually get caught through them. >> I appreciate your fiduciary responsibility. You keep us in line. >> Well, and that's why that that internal control that we talk about and I'm I'm going to tell you you we get probably push back in our office on it because it
015really does create a lot of extra work. So when you hear people complaining about some of the things we're having to make them double sign and triple sign, I mean our POS go through lots of eyes and that's that's what's that's what happens and that's why internal control is so important in your school district. If you've got your internal control set up good and you know anytime something happened, we're sitting back thinking what what could we have done? And especially if I hear something at another school district that's happened, I'm saying how could that have happened here and what could they have done to have prevented it? Now, that's not to say we always that thing they're not going to happen because they, you know, unfortunately there's a lot of people and we try to
016do everything we can to make sure that does not happen here. But, you know, it it's a lot of transactions that go through here and please we do try to stay on top of it. If you don't have a good internal control system, then things can really get by. But right now, a PO goes to the employee, it goes to the supervisor, it goes through me, and it goes through Miss Wolf, and then and it eventually gets into Miss McDonald's office. So, we have a lot of eyes trying to make sure that we're obeying all the laws and the way we should be. that we approve our financial report for February 2026. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in descent the same
017sign. That motion passed. All right. Uh next item on our business legal finance consent agenda. We have the Tri Lake School Nutrition Consortium Memo of Understanding >> and that's Miss Millie. >> Millie, could you help us out on that? >> The group has been in the last year or two. Well, about 13 of us get together and we have a better speeding process and we get a lot better prices with that and we can talk to others and answer questions and really been Go ahead. >> You've been satisfied with the performance of >> that. Any questions or don't want to move on that school nutrition sort and >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. >> I. >> All in descent same sign. That motion
018pass. Okay. Under the curriculum instruction consent agenda. We have anything under our director report >> and we've got the district data update and we've got interim winter interim atlas data coming from CAB and from the high school. Okay. So, um we have our um winter interim. I'm not going to go through all of these. Um but with the state um in our math department at the high school we are even with the state average um through this uh winter interim for seventh grade, eighth grade and geometry. We are just slightly under uh two points um from the state average which is a good place to be right now for our algebra one students. for our uh our fall to winter growth. We saw some really good growth in our kids um from fall to winter
019interims. So, we feel like that we're on track and to make some great strides. Um we want to really focus on the level threes and the level fours. um which we saw a a huge decline in our level ones, which is a good thing because that means that they went into the level twos, threes, and we even had some jump from one to four. Um but um we had a couple do that, but we're really wanting to focus on our level threes and fours because our level ones are um those that uh are limited in their understanding of the standards. Our level twos are ones that have a basic understanding of the standards, but they're still not at grade level. Our level threes are students who are at grade level um and uh can function
020at grade level standards. Our level fours are the ones that are ex are exceeding um and can do above can function above our level standards and and go deeper into the content areas. Um, for our ELA, um, we are slightly under at three points of the state average for seventh grade. We're above the state average by one point for eighth grade. Um, below by one for ninth grade, and for our 10th grade, below by five, but it's still obtainable. um for their uh level threes and level fours in our ELA department. This um was some really good growth for our level threes and some really significant growth for our level fours in our ELA for across uh grades seven through 10. Um for our science um we are below by one point for the state
021average in seventh grade. Eighth grade we are even with state average and biology we are under by five points. We saw some um significant growth in the level fours for science um this time and um some pretty good growth for our eighth grade in um level threes. This was what we lost in level ones here. we gained almost equally in our level two. So that means that our kids are learning. They are they're growing in the in that um science. These are just the basic levels and the points that our students have to make to receive it. I uh what we're doing at the high school is we are focusing on um specifically on the days our makeup days that we're going in. We're focusing on their um their ELA summited blueprint. There's a blueprint
022that the state gives us that tells us um what standards state standards that are going to be on I want you to get open. Yeah. What will be on the on the test? So the the bolded standards the bolded standards are what are the the test will focus on uh the standards that will be focused on in the atlas test. So what we're doing at the high school we are taking the the information that we received from their interims and our teachers are breaking down that information. And this is a sample of what a student scores in this is ELA in the reading. So we know that this student is above mastery in these in this area the reading uh literary text they need some assistance and some help. So what we do what we're
023doing on that Friday those Fridays that we're making up it's our boot camp days basically. And so what we're doing is we're focusing on that um blueprint to find out the standards that we need to um hit and we have small group activities that utilize those standards and give that extra practice to students where they need to be. So our teachers are using that data from our winter interims to find out where our students need to be. uh we have 13 days um of instruction until our summitive tests. And so again, on these days, we're focusing on um we'll have another the Friday, April 10th, will be our day that we focus our boot camp focus. But all these other days, we are giving that uh explicit instruction and we're using those small groups to
024make sure that our kids have the support that they need. And that's all. Do we have any questions? >> Oh, I was just looking at that number, you know, that thousand 48. Is that some sort of multiplier? >> No, that so when they're taking the test, doing the testing, so they're reported category scale score. So that's a scale score that they receive. So this particular student in uh reading uh fundamentals and vocabulary. So they had a scale score of um 148. So ELA um I think this was the eighth grader. >> So it fall under the level two. >> Yeah. in that particular category. And then you can add those categories and they have some kind of formula that they divide it by and that will give them their final level with all those categories
025added up. Any other questions? >> It's good, Chris. >> Yes. Yes, it's good. But we're not finished. >> We still have work to do. We're going to grow. Well, and I'm going to I'm going to interrupt for a second because you know what I have to say. Um, we've talked about growth. Y'all know you have heard us talk about growth. We've talked about growth and we've talked about the graduation rate and I told y'all how difficult it is for us with that graduation rate and it's a lagging statistic. So, our last year's letter grade was based on the 2024 graduation rate which was 84% which the state was around 88%. So, everybody was still struggling with that COVID graduation rate. So 2025's graduation rate will be in our letter grade this year. And while I
026was perusing through LEA Insights the other day because I'm always looking for something, they have published our 25 graduation rates and our 2025 graduation rate was 97.78 and the state average was 90%. So there was some growth there too. We are very proud of that. Very proud. Very proud. We're working hard. All right, for CES, this is 36, 3, four, five, and six. We are very excited because we also saw a lot of growth. We've got a lot of growth. But again, like Miss Hart said, yes, we've seen a lot of growth, but now we've got to still move forward. We've got some things to work on. So this is our ELA for our state average. Third grade right at state average. Um fourth and fifth grade little bit under state average sixth grade two
027points above state average. So we want to see those pluses above that. These are our ELA fall to winter. This is uh we are very excited. 36% third graders moved out of level one. So, we are very excited about that. Um, lots of growth there. We want to see pluses on these threes and fours for sure. Uh, the fifth grade, you'll notice all the way across in every subject area that fifth grade is kind of our one that we're really focusing on. Um, in the level twos we had 10% decrease, but we had 5% increase in level ones, 5% increase in level three. So, it kind of kind of split there. So, that's something that we're looking at. The level fours, we had some positive growth in level fours. Very excited. Very excited for our
028third grade math. We are above the state average in third grade, just a little bit below fourth and fifth, above in sixth grade. So, I want everybody to look at third grade math. 59% of our students moved out of level one into level twos. That is amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Same thing. I mean, fourth and fifth grade, great growth. again sixth grade 39 that's 39% of students I think sixth grade had four students in level one in math it was like four or five only four or five level students in the whole sixth grade were level ones so that is uh very exciting very exciting lots of lots of positive 20% in sixth grade into level threes um and we've got some positive into level fours. So very excited. This is our science. Little bit below
029in the third, fourth and fifth grade. Above in sixth grade. >> Go back to that last slide. >> Oh, okay. Sorry. Did I move too fast? >> No, no, no. Just slow. This is our science, a little bit below, still very attainable. Sixth grade is above. So this is our all of moving out all that moving out of level ones. Um, I heard the kids talking in the hallway yesterday about the atlas and one kid said, this is a kid who I never even thought would pay attention to this, told another student talking to another student said, "I went from a level one to a level three in whatever subject area they were talking about." So, I was excited to hear the students be excited or even know that they had moved out of the
030level. So, that's what we want. We want the students to see their see their growth. It gets them excited about it. So, lots of positive growth in the level twos, level threes, level fours, sixth grade. 10% of students moved from moved into level fours. So, very excited. Do y'all have any questions about third through sixth? So where are we at on like third grade reading level if like what would be a like retention right in the >> Yes. >> like if that was our score at May or April what would where we >> do you have that number looking it up. >> We have met with all of the parents that we are the most of the students that we are most concerned about. We met with them before the winter in >> just to
031touch base and just to make sure they had all the most updated data, knew what interventions they were receiving. um right now and this is not taking into consideration exemptions those who qualify for exempt exemptions. Give me a second and I'll go. Yeah. >> So, what what we have looked at while she's looking that up is um we are also focusing on K1 and two and any students who are not meeting that level or on grade level. We're looking very seriously at who needs to be retained before they get to that third grade. because by the time they get to third grade, it's a lot more difficult to tell a third grader, we're having to retain you in third grade on their social side of things. So we're taking a very hard look at and
032a lot of conversations have already been had with parents in K1 and two of you know retention is a possibility due to classroom assessments, Atlas assessments all not just looking at the Atlas assessments but the teacher and classroom assessments as well. >> How's the rapport go with the parents on talking with them? Um, we've had some who did not take it well. We've had some who understand. We've had some who've come back and said where they didn't take it well at first, they've come back and said, you know, it might not be a bad idea. Overall, it's not been it's not been terrible for the younger grades. the the third graders. I think we have talked to them enough even since second grade that it's not they understand that it's kind of out of our
033hands at this point. >> One thing I have noticed on a couple of students in the younger grades when we started talking retention, they started doing better in class. They started doing some doing some work at home. they started the parents were like yeah we've been reading you know and so we're like that's what we wanted we wanted to put that urgency in the parents as well. I I had a question. You you said that you had some children say, "I moved from level one to how do they know that?" >> Uh the teachers are very o the teachers share with them. They give them their scores. They tell them what levels they're in. Um they have them track their goals, you know, hey, you're you are five points from a level three, you know,
034and they they have those conversations with the with the students. I would say Brooklyn brought something home that showed that skill. She was >> I was going to commend y'all for however you are telling them that they're going up, but she said the same thing. She said, "Look, Dad, I went from a this to this." >> Have this conversation. >> That's our That's our goal. >> High school kids coming into the office to ask for their code so they can get their swords. So, you know, they're all >> they're invested and that's keeping them in informed helps keep them invested and and it's not just it's not like, you know, the standardized tests we took, I scored in the 98th percentile. What did that mean? It it didn't mean anything really. This is this is
035giving them a sense of investment in what they're doing because it's telling them, yeah, these are the skills that you are doing really well at. Here's some things you can work on. So, >> and and we want them to know how many points they are from the next level because, you know, like you said in the past, you wanted to be in the 98th percentile. Right now, it's about growth. And we want the kids because not everybody is going to score a level four. They're just not. But we want them to know even if you're a level one at um one zero 12 1012, you can still grow you 10 points, you know. So having those conversations and teaching the students, hey, I'm moving forward. That's what we want. >> You have about 13 students
036right now. >> But but then you could have exemptions. >> Yes, we do. >> 13. >> Yeah, we have several in there who would go supporting services they receive qualify for exemptions. So if a child is retained like we're not doing an exemption per se when that child is retained but they have to be in a like a specific more specific classroom >> they have to have a master teacher >> and is going through that program. >> Yes. >> She's finished. And another exemption will be like she said with those at the younger grades, kindergarten, first, second, if they are retained at those grades, then that is an exemption for third grade retention because they've already been retained once. Is retention really going to benefit them? >> Yeah. And they get the opportunity from this
037summitative that they're going to take to retake the test after the window closes. So we have the opportunity with the specific kids that could possibly be retained from that summitive results. We can work with them for a short amount of time and then they can retake the test again like a one-on-one situation. So like >> those that are on that bubble if they're a few points could very easily >> so like in May they potentially like the end of April is this and sometime maybe in May or >> right the end of May first or middle June is the window for the retake test for those that did not pass. >> It's basically after school is out when the window opens because the window for the summitive ends May 22nd >> right >> then >>
038and then it'll open back up for that retake that possible. So part of that is, you know, for them to be able to retake that, they have to have targeted interventions before they can retake that. So we it would it would be a situation where they would have to come up basically during the summer and >> work with somebody pro likely me or Mr. >> But it's it is an opportunity for them still to >> to be able to get there. >> Yes. Do y'all strictly use the numbers for for that or do you factor in maturity, individual child maturity level? >> For the younger grades, the maturity has a lot to do with it. There there are a couple of younger students who did score a level two, but in the classroom, they're just
039not quite there or they were a younger student. We have some who were just barely five when they started school. So maturity, socially, it would benefit them to be retained. And we don't always use that, but that is a that is a thing we look at. >> Sure. >> All right. >> You ready, Rodney? >> You ready to work? True. >> Absolutely. >> So, you guys had some great questions and and you know, I believe Miss Penszer helped answer as many as she could about the test itself and some of our kids have to go through and the timing of being able to say a sound and how fast they have to do it and so forth. So, we thought it would be a great idea to have um one of you guys take a
040test and just a few questions and we have got our um school board president that's going to participate in this test. He's gonna willingly. >> Are you smarter than us? >> Just to kind of give you an idea, um atlas.org, anybody can get on it. um parents, whoever, and they can go to the students and families section. And of course, this is how you access the family portal. You can go through there, but you can also have your child take a test or you can take a test. You can choose the grade level um and go through the steps. So, anyone can do this. Um so, we're going to continue as a guest. That's how you get in there. And you get to select your grade. and we're going to do kindergarten. >> And then
041you select your test, which we're going to go here to the K3 training. And we're going to do sound. Oh, sorry. >> No, sorry. Oh, too quick. >> Um, we're going to do sound symbol. >> Look, close that tab and go to the next one. for our board now. >> There you go. >> All right. I promise you I'm not setting you up. [laughter] >> Well, we talked about different options, but you know, I knew mommy would play. >> Before we begin, let's make sure your microphone is working. When the microphone turns green, tell me your name. Ready? >> Rodney. Rodney. >> Perfect. Let's get started. Good job. >> So, we're going to begin our test. >> Let's try saying the sounds letters make. I will a letter, you will say the sound the letter
042makes. You don't need to click any buttons. Let me show you how it works. >> No. >> Okay, now it's your turn. >> When you see a letter, say the sound the letter makes. Click the arrow to start. Well, >> let's try saying the sounds letters make. I will show you a letter. You will say the sound the letter makes. >> You don't need to click any buttons. Let me show you how it works. Okay, now it's your turn. When you see a letter, say the sound the letter makes. Click the arrow to start. >> Remember to say the sound that the letter makes. Ready? Here we go. >> A. >> See how bad that is? [snorts] >> [laughter] >> We're going to give you a break and we're going to just stop you. >>
043So, see, you've gotten you still have so many more to go. But do you see how fast that is? Now, we're talking about kindergarten. >> So, they've got to be quick. You've got to be able to speak loud enough or sound loud enough. And what do you think a common mistake is here when kids get in here and start taking this >> saying the letter as >> correct >> saying the letter instead of the sound because it's real easy to get into when you see the letter you want to just say that letter. So that's tough. So we wanted you guys to see that. Thank you so much for being a good sport. >> They have any kind of speech issue >> accent. It's a computer. is computer graded, >> right? >> So, >> do
044the students have earphones on with this? >> They do. They have they have earphones and >> so can they hear themselves >> connected and they can't hear themselves? I don't >> I mean that's kind of strange. You're making a sound that you can't hear yourself make the sound that you have there. >> Yeah. >> And there's not an indicator for them they've done anything correct or incorrect. >> It just keeps going. >> Yep. Did do did did does it have the the stars at the bottom as well for them? >> Yes, it had Yes. Everything that screen looked exactly like what they see. But it doesn't really mean that that the star doesn't mean it just means that you can mean you're going to the next one. Yep. >> However many like I said it
045doesn't give them any indicator that they have said it correctly or that they have said it incorrectly. me that is what that is what isn't >> at the beginning letter >> but at this last one we just took in the summitives they do all 26 uppercase lowerase and sound so they do it three times >> basically >> or just the letters >> three I had to think for a minute what does You say [laughter] >> then I thought Xerox [laughter] pretty much all we've got our future business >> future business you know spring break it's >> next week we have almost made it >> then our next board meeting will be April 21st There's not any question construction. >> Uh we're still waiting for the state approval, but I don't know if anybody noticed that
046NAB Holtz did come out and they took down the awning that was crushed. They came out and cut it down for us and hauled it off. That was that was actually the question I come in with was how's the cleanup and the insurance going on the >> that um that has been done and the masonry guy has come down to look at all of the stuff around the u AC units and Justin sees and Evan have been out to examine all of the units and are trying to get a list together of the ones that can be repaired and the ones that have to be replaced. So we're we're rolling through it. All right. All in favor of that motion say I.