001e e e right e like to call this meeting to order we have an appr appropriate notice has been given duly called please stand for the pledge 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 withy and justice for all thank you I need an approval of the agenda and minutes from the December 19th 2024 meeting so moved second moved by Neil second by Jason all in favor unanimous thank you Miss Dewey yes um so this is a very fun month and if you'll look on your at your seats you have some goodies from each one of the buildings in our district and this was just a little thank you I know some were very personalized so that's a
002lot of fun too one of the guests I wanted to point out was if you'll look at the cutting boards that is from the CNC machine that was purchased uh with Grant funds and that you all were part of actually the approval of the purchase of that machine so pretty cool they did a lot of um and they also showed us that machine when we were there at our moon board meeting some of the things that they can do with that so they have a little bit of a um I don't want to call it a business there some entrepreneurs over there that um if you do need special gifts they will be glad to help you that's good to know yes so you could put like a recipe on there from your grandma yes
003they can do Grandma liby Baker they can do a lot of yeah Blake Shelton's autograph you could you could so so that is a little thank you from each of the buildings in our district um I'd like to share with you a couple of proclamations that sent to us over the past few days and the first one is from Jacob Aliva whereas the quality of Education continues to be a Cornerstone of our state's prosperity and a key driver in Arkansas's future successes and whereas education forms a foundation for the future of our children and the growth and advancement of our society as a whole and whereas Arkansas remains steadfast in its commitment to providing its more than 475,000 public school students with the highest quality education available and where asked the dedicated members of Arkansas
004School Board serve as the vital connection between the community and the classroom ensuring that the needs of student are met students are met at the interest of families are represented and whereas these public servants elected by their local communities tirelessly advocate for policies and practices that prioritize Student Success offering their time expertise and judgment without compensation and where asked the Arkansas Schoolboard Association and the Arkansas state board of education collaborate to support and guide the state's more than 1,500 locally elected school board members who make a critical contribution to education and whereas the month of January provides an opportunity to honor and express appreciation for Arkansas Schoolboard members recognizing the significant time energy and talent they invest in service to our schools and communities and that is the resolution from um Arkansas State Board of
005Education and Mr Oliva the second Proclamation actually the first uh is actually from Sarah Huckabee Sanders and it says almost the exact same thing but is from our governor so um personally I want to thank each one of you for your dedication and commitment to our district our students our staff and our community um you truly are appreciated um each one of you I roll little something down um I'll try um each one of you has the district the thank yous in front of you and I want to do a shout out tonight we had a First Security Bank called and they said we want to help you celebrate Schoolboard appreciation month and they have provided your dinner for tonight so um your community thanks you and we thank you for what you do for
006us very thank you very much thank you for security all right Miss Lawrence academic report good evening good evening even so we are going to um take a look at our middle of the Year data and I just want to um before we look at numbers I want to tell you we had a great trip um yesterday to Green Brier I was able to take a team of Administrators um from elementary all of the elementary principles went M rivet our dislexia coordinator went and Gwen Benton our special ed director went and we were able to just observe um a really great intervention process in their building it's a kp5 building so again it's a little different from how we're set up um the the former principal and I did an an administrative cohort together three
007years ago so she had told me about this and I've been wanting to see it for a long time so miss Dey um said hey get your group go take a look at it so we were there yesterday um we also saw four collaborative teams that work and it was just really exciting to watch their process we do a lot of things very um similar to them but they offered a few ideas that um the team is we're going to kind of debrief together and kind of see what what could work in our buildings you know we have some unique challenges the way our buildings are set up um so we're really excited about moving forward with some new ideas there um and the um just they were having some of the same struggles with
008data this year that we're having with the switch to Atlas and and yall know we've been a little bit um some buildings are doing this some buildings are doing that they're in the same boat um Mr roach was the one that went their kindergarten wall was pretty slim he was like oh they don't have any any either so we're working on that and what we do have for you tonight is just a glance I did kind of a snapshot of some highlights I did not um showcase every single report for middle of the year that would that would be pretty extensive but we do have some highlights for you um foro this these are reading updates this is going to be from our Hackler building grades three four and five our third graders showed an
00911% increase in at or above grade level performance so that means they're on or above third grade level um fourth grade decreased the number of students performing below grade level by 4% that's definitely a number you want to see going down um fifth grade decrease the number of students performing below grade level by 8% so those are are couple of highlights um is that from the beginning of the year sorry so yes so this is from their beginning of year scores so when they took it and they did take this right before Christmas and so an iel is new to Hackler this year so and if you want to go to the next slide for me um continuing with iel reading 58% of our third grade students are working on or above grade level um
010for the iel indicators so again we are kind of comparing data in different different places so we're we're working on seeing what's consistent 49% of fourth grade students are working honor above grade level and then 53% of fifth grade students are working on our above grade level and that is for reading and then our next slide we'll switch us to already math so these scores are going to be um for grades one through five so far for middle of the Year data in IR already math um first grade increase the number of students performing on or above grade level from 8% Boi from beginning of the year um to 26% middle of the year um we obviously still have work to do there but our numbers are climbing and that's this is going to be
011the heart January February March we know is where we see a lot of increase um in scores in the lower grades second grade increase the number of students performing on or above grade level from 11% and that on your um paper print outs it says 32% I had a few more students take the test between when we printed and when I when I did the slide tonight so 31% is what the number ended up being for our middle of the year total there um going on to um third grade they decreased this is already math still they decreased the number of students that were two or more grade levels below um that number at the beginning of the year was 34% they decreased that to 18% by middle of the Year looking again at third
012grade they increased the number of students on or above grade level from 7% at the beginning of the year to 22 and and we do really believe there's a lot of Summer slide when they're doing beginning of the year testing so that that number was was very low and then fourth grade decrease the number of students two or more grade levels below from 33% to 24% so that's obviously the direction you want to go um with that um fourth grade increased the number of students on or above grade level they were at 12% at the beginning of the year now they're at 32% fifth grade decreased the number of students to or more grade levels below from 34% to 20% um they had a that's a great um growth marker there and then fifth grade
013increased the number of students on our above grade level from 29% at the beginning of the year they're already seeing a 40% 46% number for middle of the year like I said this was taken around before Christmas so um okay Switching this is another another got work don't worry Lisa all a sudden I know it's just we have so much it's hard to it's hard to it's okay um Whittle it down um but for NWA map so just to kind of remind you we are no longer taking that great K5 so now that is a test that is six six and up six through 11 12th graders are not taking that um and not to go into too much detail but there are windows for taking this um the window is opening for junior high
014and high school soon the window was already open for Pinkston before Christmas so 54% of sixth grade students are scoring on or above the 50th percentile in literacy so what we are looking at that's a norm reference test so compared to all the sixth graders in the nation that have taken that test we have 54% of our students scoring at the 50th percenti or higher 45% of sixth grade students are scoring at or above the 50th percentile in math 47% of our seventh grade students are scoring at or above the 50 percentile in literacy and then 54% of our seventh grade students are scoring at or above the 50th percentile in math so we are of course we are going to be working on increasing those numbers but we um I mean we are trending
015in the right direction is what I would say um do I have one [Music] more no you don't okay so um just to kind of tell you what's up and coming we have another Atlas inter room coming up in uh three uh well it's 310 um we are not going to be able to do interims in grades K2 that that was not ready the state thought it would be ready for us and it's not and so with that being said we are moving forward with uh with getting dibles for K2 K2 only because there assessments that this State thought would be ready just have not quite come through so that's why we're in a little bit of limbo this year our teachers have been just really really patient and um just I can't brag on
016them enough this has been it's been a strange year for assessments there's just no other no other way this is what we would consider a pilot year and they're working out a lot of the the The Kinks with it um and so we we're still learning a lot but that's where we're going so we have some more NWA map coming up we have dibles coming up and we have some more Atlas inter room testing coming up and then we'll be moving into our sum of testing late spring so I'm slow with my questions back to that very first slide okay third grade showed 11% increase in at or above grade level performance fourth grade decreased the number of students performing below could that be stated that it had increased by 4% on on the fourth
017grade number or the third grade number well so there you increased above yes and then the next one is you decreased below so if they were stated the same way would this been an increase of 4% in the at or above level so the way the IR report reads it it's colorcoded and so there's categories yes but the distribution I would have to look at the distribution of the numbers to say if that was an exact 4% good question it may not be at or above but the it decreased by 4% so they came into the next category that's higher and so I would have to go honestly kind of student by student and see if that but that is mathematically yes that makes sense we it increased whether it's exactly 4% or not and
018they do have um one of the best reports and already if you're looking at it from this perspective um they do a comparison report so what you can do is it'll graph their f beginning of the year right up against their middle of the year and you can see that distribution those how those colors change by category so that that is really good and then you can take it into domains and you can see the domains they scored the highest in and the domains they were scoring the lowest in and so that's also really helpful for our teachers that's the information they dig a little bit deeper into for collaborative teams because they really are wan to see how the students are doing in the standards not just how they're doing on an overall composite
019number so and that we watched them work on that at green bar yesterday how they were taking it down standard by standard so um and that's one reason map is still a good assessment because it takes every student standard by standard Atlas isn't got there yet so Miss Lawrence it's great to see these highlights these small victories these successes yeah um I'm assuming we're also identifying identifying challenges we are um that we're able to take back to the collabor teams and work out solutions to and get those up as well and that's another reason the K2 has has requested um a revisit with with Dibbles because that is they were they use these types of reports really to help with intervention and extension you know that we're really trying to grow our High kids as
020well as we're trying to grow our kids that are are a little bit below grade level so um you know it it is a lot of data I know it's very confusing that's why our teachers really need that clar 15 time because they can really actually make it worthwhile in the classroom I mean it's one thing to report the numbers but like what are we doing with it and that work does have to take place in the classroom so the teachers can kind of look at it and just um if they like if one teacher did better in an area than another teacher they can share okay this is what worked for me um they can even work with different kids you know we're trying to grow that philosophy our my kid is your kid
021your kid is my kid and if you did if you taught something better than I did why don't you take my kiddos that are struggling and help those kiddos and then I'll take the kiddos that need extension and I can do extension so we're we're kind of in that mentality it's just the logistics with um scheduling is is probably one of our bigger obstacles there but that's a that's a good point and the teachers are all working together and you know that's a weekly um at minimum I mean we say they meet all the time mhm I mean if you walk down the hallway and the kids are at recess and they're not on duty I mean they're This Is The Stuff they're talking about um they go to their principles they want more input
022they um yeah it's the data definitely drives a lot of discussion and it does strive decisions for what they need to be doing next for our kiddos so that's a lot any questions for Miss laurren that last slide middle of year data so um and I think most of this is an assessment problem than okay anything else but if you look at it that's a 9% change in math scores between six grade and seventh grade so it's one or 2% you don't think much of it but 9% you do okay and then the same thing with literacy except for it goes the other way where it's it's seven or eight% change there yeah that does become a jump I mean I will brag on on the seventh grade math at the beginning of the year
023that number was 43% they put it at 54 so so they have they've done a lot of work um trying to I mean though anything anytime you see a double digit any kind of growth in that it's you're kind of and you're also checking it to make sure it's okay right that also factor into the maturity level of the students at that age I mean that's significant um I mean it can yes for sure I think um again I'm not I mean beginning of the year we we've got to have it because we've got to kind of see what we're working with but they really do have a lot of um that getting them back in the routine and just that summer piece trying to get them back in that that is something that their
024beginning of your data sometimes is lower than what we think it should be based on where they ended the year before and so um once we kind of get them in the groove and we get that that schedule moving they kind of like you're saying the teachers are they understand their kids they know how to motivate them they they can get them working a little bit better sometimes by middle of the year but anyone else all right thank you Miss Lawrence you're so welcome Miss Harper financial report welcome and we ended December at 17,39 15726 questions anything that p no ma'am no to the next page our total revenues for December were 3,481 3352 and our total EXP expenditures for December was 3,760 76033 any questions from Miss Harper on that one I did have
025one question on uh declining enrollment yes how do how do we expense that that's they expense that that what do you me expense that well you get a Vue of 53,000 we have an expenditure of 108,000 we only re received half of it we haven't gotten it yet um so it's the middle of the of the school year we received half of it we'll get the other half by the end of the school okay so it's it's a reimbursable not but they give it to this is what the adjustment will be but you're going to get it into payments okay and we we actually talked about that you said expense that was was why did SP but no no okay and so that would have been just a fund transfer not a right that would
026have that declining enrollment fund would have been transferred to General or something like that for expenses no we have to put it in that fund okay so we have to expense the money there and and receive the money there they they want to see that at the state and they want to see it spent it's easy to spend they want to see that go yeah the yeah the 30 passenger bus is what we expense there oh got it thank you sorry and then our operating fund balance um for December was 10,628 $843 189 and that's your funds one two and four right on track any questions on that page we are a little bit up and got some pretty good news yesterday about some more Revenue than expected and some tax rebates we'll take all
027it's not in there yet it'll you'll see it next month you'll see it next month activity funds ending balance for the month of December was $666,000 199 busy fall all right any questions for Miss Harper thank you thank you ma'am thank you very much student enrollment report okay we are at um 3 3,770 students which is 11 up from last month and I found it very interesting I think I've talked to you'all before about watching Trends over the years if you go back to the januaries of past we have um de had had have had declining enrollment from December to January we are actually up so for the past 1 2 3 4 years we have gone down after Christmas as far as number of students and we gained 11 kids and we lost a
028few too so um pretty excited about that net gain of kiddos just because we've got teachers and seats and we want students to be here very good student transfers one in and zero out and I was talking to um Miss Crawford who helps us with transfers and for January that's that's a pretty good thing stay right there you just said you told me one in and zero out that's correct that's correct yeah one in zero out that's correct but still that's okay January like I said to be net 11 up 11 is is a good thing and not how we traditionally it's cuz that Christmas break was so long that get them out maybe but um in school we're any school we're glad to have them and absolutely board training hours Miss dwey yes ma'am
029each of you has a copy of your hours your training hours on your table um as you know those um you'll also have a cumulative total at the end some of you have reached a milestone if you want to turn to the back you can see um but we will be that won't be till December that they'll acknowledge you have gotten there I believe Mr SMY you have reached Platinum is that correct pinnacle pinnacle he is Pinnacle one up from Platinum pinnac um Mr booth and Miss Morgan I believe you've reached a milestone as well so um this board right now has 1,290 hours and three4 of an hour how many of those are NE a lot are Neals how many you got Neil Neil has 518 oh my goodness 518 hours so wow yes
030lots lots of hours think I can make up 144 hours in four months that'd be a lot of hours Lisa be a lot of hours but you could do it you could do it a lot of training so anyway I got lots of good stuff as far as training guyses and um that's beautiful you all have are all in compliance good job team okay board uh well let's do facility projects update with Mr Knight all right so last time I was here um we talked about how we were waiting on cafeteria tables to arrive over Christmas break I want you know they all came in they're put together they're there you should really go look at them they look amazing I think all the High School faculty and kids are very appreciative of it um
031when I was um signing that PO the other day it got me thinking about how many times I I had signed a PO lately for that high school cafeteria so I kind of threw those numbers together for you and just to show you that um while it happened over a year and a half we dropped 235,000 or invested $235,000 in the cafeteria so in just in the cafeteria like the same cafeteria it really do and the tiles were't ugly it' be beautiful so yeah I think guys guys painted it over Summers and then the floors look good it does look really good looks like a home place the roofs fill up with snow okay wet no sagging no kids were dunking if that's what you're asking thank you for your guys the team really worked
032about that was one of the best that they have done and that sounds like it was really good practice for maybe here in a week or so Monday the rain Sunday I don't know we'll see I'm more worried about it getting so cold yes but we didn't have any of those problems either so um and then uh I think the last kind of board thing that we have done that we're waiting on as the new smoke detectors in that high school um there's tentatively February 4th we take by two or three days cool you have any questions no but I will say the kids are very appreciative of the cafeteria you don't realize how bad it was until you hear them say wow it's I mean they're comfortable when they get excited over a cafeteria
033table that means that was kind of bad that's pretty sad yes yeah but they but they are so good for them yes thank you thank you Mr Knight thanks Chris all right we will now move into board action items Miss Lawrence welcome back request to approve PD purchase over $20,000 okay um so for the background our district is continuing the work of professional learning communities on all of our campuses solution tree is a premier professional development provider for this process for our rationale in order to effectively continue the implementation of the professional Learning Community collaboration process on each campus in our district team members and administration need continued training and support the needed support is available on site with a familiar consultant this will assist our teachers and administrators as we continue the implementation of
034the PLC work throughout our district the funds for this expense are from the state's recent professional learning Grant the funds from this grant must be used to directly support the implementation of Arkansas learns through professional learning communities the district was approved for $132,450 64 cents to be used to support professional development in regards to professional learning communities for the recommendation I would like to recommend the approval of $26,000 from our professional Learning Community grant for four additional days of on-site coaching for professional learning communities and curriculum and instruction coaching for the spring semester of 2025 and summer 2025 school year for training provided by solution trade practitioners um and this will be with one practitioner that we already been working four days I move the board approve the recommendation second motion by Neil a second
035by Daniel any discussion just a comment or to I think you know as long as we can intervene with a kid before they get too far behind and this this supports that um you know correction real time is better than letting them get so far behind way way back there in the fog so to speak so those efforts are appreciate and we have built a good relationship with the consultant that is coming she's been working with our administrators and she's met a lot of our teachers oh good like her was this the same one I was here in the fall yes her second year to be she'll be here three days next week and that's from the last approval that you you did and three days again all right all in favor unanimous thank you
036Miss lawence Miss Dewey request to approve superintendent sale of property yes so the district has a parcel of land and Galia um the property has been reverted back to the district due to abandonment after it was donated in 198 9 to the Gia Community Club this property is located off of Highway 101 in Gia um per policy 713 the superintendent May submit a request to the board of directors for authorization to sell Surplus real property once the board of directors is authorize the sale of the property the superintendent or designated individuals may sell that as the need arises um superintendent or design should be responsible for getting determination of objective fair market value of surplus real property District uh will strive to dispose of surplus items in or at at or near their fair market
037value um the real property can be listed with a real estate broker and the superintendent May contract on behalf of the district to pay the usual and customary sales commission property and Gia is considered at this point Surplus real property and is no longer useful to the district um there is a picture of the Surplus real property Wolly ho well not exactly not quite no um I'd like to recommend the approval for the superintendent to pursue the sale of the district's property in Gia for fair market value plus all costs associated with the sale make a motion we approve the recommendation as presented second I have a motion by Jason second by Molly any discussion yes sir you do sell it how much do you expect so far so Val we're looking at a bidding
038process for this possibly um I would like to tell the board that although you are giving me permission to move ahead my plan at this point is to move ahead with the bidding process but I want to bring the sale before you I want you to approve the sale in Open Session and have all the facts so that there's no question and everything's very good transparent and and folks know what's going on right so that is my plan at this point but I feel like I need your permission to even move forward in the process per the policy right and although we could I could finish it I just would rather bring it to you all very good thank you any further discussion all in favor unanimous thank you we move now to board discussion
039I don't have anything nothing other than thank you thank you for all these beautiful beautiful gifts it's nice to be appreciated thank you anybody else new what you got nothing no unusual isn't it it is it's kind of quiet in here tonight all right superintendent update so it's already been done but I want to do it again a huge shout out to our maintenance department um our we were ready to go to school pretty much Saturday afternoon I was watching them clear Nelson wils those guys and gal they they worked hard and got it ready for us um transportation department with snow routes you know that's a switch and and they did great we had no problems um and our families just being patient you know bad weather decisions are when you have to work
040and your kids aren't you don't know if your kids are going to school or not and might have to do snow routes so the times of the buses you just we just thankful for uh the patience as we worked through that there is no school on Monday for Martin Lu King day so um this office will be open and most of the school offices will be open but teachers and students will not be at school on Tuesday January 21st at 5:30 work session here to discuss facilities and future needs um a timeline of of how things work as far as um building projects go with our facilities division from the Department this will count as four training hours U Miss Jones is able to provide those as training hours so you will get hours for
041that night of course that is open to the public um on Thursday January 30th I have um been in contact with the Oakland Church of Christ on 62 east past Walmart is that 62 East yes towards the lake um towards Lake Norfork um at 5:00 I'm going to host a drop in there in one of their big rooms in the back that'll be a a direct something out that direction we haven't gone that way yet with our drop in with dwi's on the road so I'll be there that night starting at 5: at 6 um I'll do a brief overview if anybody's there for of the Strategic plan and I'd love for one of you all to join me so first come first serve y'all let me know um if you're dying to go to
042Oakland um Church of Christ on Thursday January 30th at 5: so just let me know and like I said first one gets it or I'll start begging um asba conference law conference confence if you're interested that's on February the 7th they do have a virtual option just let me know and we'll get you registered I think Miss Molly is going to go ahead and go down um and then another reminder your statement of financial interest is due the end of January I know several of you have um either come up here to get things notorized or ask us to mail it in or drop it off and and I actually miss Kelly really helps a lot yes she does Mak getting those taken care of for all of us so um if you need anything
043concerning that I know some of you have talked to and I'm getting getting we're going to look and see what we can find so thanks again happy board appreciation month thank you for your service to our staff our students our teachers and our community appreciate yall thank you all right anybody have anything to add to that no oh Mr I do have a quick question yes sir um filing the filing period for the upcoming do we know those dates looked online and I didn't see them I didn't see that the calendar had been published do you happen the clerk's office has all of that I am I can't tell I don't want to say the exact dates because I don't know them I know the election is May February 2th I believe there's a timeline
044on the district Facebook that list those dates a there's a wonderful site and in my update tomorrow um that site will be on there again through asba and it has all the dates all the information that folks need um if they're interested um and what it what it means to be a board member you know a lot of a lot of tips and tricks but um that is on our Facebook right now and it will be in the video tomorrow so folks can reference it there okay we will adjourn for executive session to discuss Personnel employment retirements and transfers thank you