001It's 6:30, April 15, 2025. This is a regular scheduled meeting of the Garden School District Board of Directors and I now call the meeting to order. Madam Secretary, can you establish we have a quorum present where the quorum present will be able to conduct business? Brother Andrew, could you lead us in a word of prayer? Yes. Dear heavenly father, we thank you uh for their privilege to be here today and do the business of this district. Thank you for each and everyone who's taken their time to serve the kids of this community. Pray that you would guide this meeting, that everything done here today would benefit those you've called us to minister to. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen. Please stand with me for the pledgece to the flag of the
002United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We've got our special recognition. Whoever wants to go first, we have some very special students we want to recognize. Um, I recognize uh the first one who's not here, Zach Smith Peters. Zach is uh very well-mannered. He works hard. Um, and I'm sure he has ball games and all the spring things going on right now. So, we we just want to recognize Zach and all of his hard work. He anytime I've talked to him, he's always very respectful. Um, anytime we're doing testing, he puts forwardly all of his effort. He He works really hard. So, we're very proud of Zach. The other one is here, Mr. Gavin. Boys, come on. Gavin is
003a positive positive student. He works hard. He is in kindergarten or what is it? What does Miss Charles call you? What what does she call you? Pre first graders. Pre first grade. So they are pre first graders. And I'm telling you, he is ready to be probably a second grader. He is very intelligent and smart and works really hard. And we're very proud of him. We don't have any staff recognitions at this time because we are working on um teacher of the year and staff of the year. So that's that's going through the process right now. All right, we've got two certified staff and one student we want to recognize. First up, we've got Miss Kristen Jester department and she does a phenomenal job across the board. She does anything that we ask her to
004do and she's always coming up with new ways to help reach our kids and take them over that life. So, she's fantastic. We're happy to Next up, we've got Mr. Jeremiah Hav is our seventh and eighth grade math and science teacher, and he has done a phenomenal job working with our kids, taking them to that next level on our Atlas scores. You can find him outside at sporting events. I mean, he's he's there for our kids, and that's what's important. Mr. And now our student recognition is Samantha Sanders. I personally haven't known Samantha for as long as everybody else may have and I'm sure a bunch of people can say a lot of things but this year just seeing her come into the high school setting seeing where she was at and watching her in
005the math class in particular from really struggling day one to here recently I'm walking through and I'm watching her solve one step twoep multi-step equations on the board and it's it's phenomenal. the progress she's made this year. Miss Hart couldn't be here, so she wanted to say she wanted to say two things. She says, "I'm truly excited about the direction we're heading in when it comes to the level of rigor and great little instruction being delivered in our classrooms. It's encouraging to see our students being challenged and supported in meaningful ways." And we are incredibly fortunate to have exceptional educators like Mr. Hatley and Miss Jester leading the way. Their commitment to our students success is evident and the remarkable growth shown on recent interim assessments is a direction that of their reflection of their
006hard work and dedication. She also wants to thank or take a moment to recognize really Samantha. Um she's a student has who has shown tremendous growth this year. Her progress is the result of her own determination and hard work and it's been inspiring to watch her push herself and rise to the challenge. Samantha is a great example of what can happen when students and teachers work together with purpose and high expectation. That is hard. But yeah, I think that's it. We now have some uh personnel items and we'll now go into executive session. All right, we've ended our executive session and we'll now call the meeting back to order. A motion that we approve the resignations that were presented. Second. We got a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I.
007All consent the same sign. That motion passed. The next item is the approval of the minutes from the previous meetings. A motion that we approve the minutes from the March 18th, 2025 and April 3rd, 2025 meetings as presented. We have a motion in a second. All in favor of that motion say I desent same sign. That motion pass. Uh financial report. Rhonda, is there anything special on contract? Is there any questions about the financial report? If if not, can we make a motion to approve? I move we approve the financial report as presented. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in consent, same sign. That motion passed. Okay. Under the business legal finances consent agenda. M the audit review. Rhonda, I'm going to go
008over the audit review. Um really the biggest thing is always like what's going on. Um and you can see that we had no significant Yeah. Thank you for your work on that. That certainly approve that. Make a motion with the Arkansas legislative joint audit. Second. All right, we have a motion in second. All in favor of that motion say I. All desent same time. That motion passed. Okay. Next thing is fencing project which is why I brought Miss Schaefer up here to talk about it. John, sorry. Um, so we received $60,621 from school unit from the AB for fencing at the middle school. We initially walked with Mitsy and Kendall and kind of drew off a bent project that we thought would come out to about that amount. Um, we had two bids for that
009project as we proposed it. Um, and we met committee with Rhonda Kendall and I to review the two bids and we the committee recommends that we go with the bids on right and war. Now, here's the kicker. The 500 is 37,30576 for the initial project. Um, so all and it's it's a kind of a weird situation because normally, you know, you're taking bids, you're want to go with the the lower amount, but we have 60,621 from the state that we can spend on this project. And obviously we have extensive vending needs in the district because that's priority one for the AD as far as safety. So there's two different board action items. The first one is to approve the bid from rightward to continue the thinking process at K Elementary School. And what that does
010is just kind of solidify who we're working with on the project. And then the board action item right after that is approval from the board to expand the project. um to meet some of the fencing needs that we have and also to spend the money that we have allocated for that grant. How much difference between the rights and the Eminem bid? Um the rights was the 37,000 mm record 20. Okay, I'll see it now. 29 168. Yes. why the committee chose to go with bright was for one um the Eminem that may not be the scope of what they do. coming because this is considered a construction project. There were requirements that we had to do as far as the law and performance mod and some of that was not included in that and all
011of that is included in that evaluation sheet that you should have in there as far as what was included and what was not included. But then um the other kind of weird thing was that it was Kevin Carlton was false that they did but he doesn't have a commercial contracting license so he turned into partner Eminem record. So it was the the bid came from Eminem record but like the liability insurance was under Kevin Corl. So it was it was different and all the requirements from our proposal weren't included in this proposing. The only question I have is is there a clear and concise area this fence is going in because we don't have anything that shows us where the fence is going. Well, that's kind of what we think Kendall and I are going
012to have to meet and and expand the fence to meet the AD priorities. what they're what the state is wanting is for there to be one secure access point to the building. So, they're wanting the main entrance to be um the only place that people can go in or out. And what we Rhonda and I talked about doing was coming back in the in the May meeting with the new um project proposal and the new bid for rights fencing before the board so that you can approve that bid. So, would they complete this portion that we would approve tonight? It's going to be completely different. It's going to be bigger. Yeah, I'm confused. So, this bid kind of just gets them in the door and then they're going to finish. What this allows us to
013do is work with Spencing to expand the project and then we're going to come back before the board in May to finalize that. Finalize. What do you have an estimate of where you think around the elementary school over there would be inside that perimeter fencing that they would put up? So where we had the fence cutting off before was across the sidewalk meeting up to that elementary school fence by the cafeteria with the expansion. We're going to push it down further towards the gym. So that's why we're going to have to figure out how much further we can get over that way. And so did they start putting down the fence before the expansion? No, it it will all be done at the same time. Yes. And they they have clear understanding of where the
014fence goes. That's what we have to get back with them so that we they know where it would go. Now we've got to figure out where we can expand it and then they will know where it goes. I just asked because I just would want to make sure that um everyone understands the feel what it is for you know let let me ask you this. Would it be more appropriate to approve that we are going to go with right but not attach any money until y'all come up with that final figure cuz I mean I'm just thinking if you think we're on the hook for 37,000 for 70% of it then it would be to me easier to throw a bigger amount on this last part. Does that make Does that What I'm thinking is
015if you take the bid and accept it, then that seals in your contractor and and why you got a bid, then you're going to change order and expand your contract and with the next meeting. Does Wright know how much our grant money is for? Uh, I don't. They just know that it's for above 50,000 because the limit for 50,000 is what requires the contractor license and the sealed bids and all of that. And kind of the process that we're trying to do is to keep us from having to revertise and re ask, you know, request for bids and all of that. The other thing is the project has to be completely done by June 30th. Guaranteed that they could do it by June 30th. Yeah. I mean, you just see where I'm going with that.
016We was like, "You got it. Now give me a prize." I think we have to have money attached to it first. No, sure. Gotcha. I mean, that makes sense. Is there any more questions on that? You want have a motion to approve? I move we approve the bid right fencing and moors for $37,35.76. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All in descent same side. That motion passed. I move we approve our grant permission to expand the CES fencing project utilizing the selected contractor right fencing and more. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I. All consent same sign. That motion passed. Next it is board. We don't have any. Okay. Uh, next item of curriculum
017instruction consent agenda. Misty. Okay. This is going to be all of the curriculum that needs to be purchased for the coming year and that's Miss Jones has got all the information there for what we have and she's attached all the quotes for you. So the first one was what K2 uses for English, science, social studies for English. Um and then SATA is the English portion for first seven. Um imagine learning math is our K12 grades. McGra Hill social studies, we adopted that last year and so that is um grades 3 through 12. And then Edum is used in our AL motion that we approve that second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion say I desent same sign. That motion pass. Next item is director's report. [Music] Do you
018have data to present? No active data right now, but we do have testing at some of the testing started for the high school yesterday. We have completed ELA reading and the math portion and so far the kids come every day. They're motivated. They're excited. So, we have high hopes. We're staying with them every day this week. And then elementary will start next week. 36 next week. And then K2 screeners will be the following week with the prek screeners. Yes. Okay. No more questions for future business. Anybody have anything? If not, graduation. Yeah, graduation is May 16th at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. If those are going to be filled, they need to be if we're going to fill them, then they'll have to that needs to be done before that passes. I I talked to
019Ed McCoral today. He's still working on the whole resolution. Okay. He didn't say he said that not many districts have done that and so there's still lots of questions about what to do, how to do how to do it. So you might punch him up or get with Lucas and get him to support him if he can. Okay. And reach out to Lucas and have him reach out to Ed kind of give him some proddding. And I don't know, Cassie, you may know if there is a timeline that's attached to that if I don't think there's emergency claw. So, yeah, I didn't see one. So, yeah. So, it it appeared that it probably will like all pass and then um but then if we just don't work on filling it after a certain amount of
020time, then it will happen. So, which that's going to happen anyway. So, yeah. Any more questions? If not, we move to adjourn. Motion to second. All right. All in favor of that motion say I. All in descent same time they're done.