001Okay, it's uh 6 o'clock starting our December board meeting. So, let's start with 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 liberty and justice for all. Now, a moment of silence, please. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right, Mr. Martin. All right. Welcome to the December meeting. It's hard to believe that we're already at December 9. Um, and we only have a couple weeks of school and we have another great holiday, but we've got, let's see, eight days of instruction left. So, we're going to make sure that those count. Um, first up on the agenda is our consent agenda, financial report, and board minutes. Any questions with that? Okay. With that, I'd like to
002make the recommendation to approve the consent agenda, financial report, board minutes of the regular board meeting held on November 18, 2024. All right. We have a recommendation. We have a motion. I'll make a motion. Mind second. A second. Ryan, all in favor? None opposed? Up next we have student achievement success and Miss Stein's out today and so Mr. Travis is filling in and he is going to share u some of the work that's being done at Pidge Junior High. Thank you guys. I appreciate the opportunity. Where do I need to stand? Does that matter? Um, what I'm going to do is go over each one of our campus goals for this year. And each one of these goals comes with some talking points about how we're working each day to to make sure we're working
003toward those goals throughout the year. Um, and you can see the first one is improve student achievement. And those talking points are listed there. We'll go through each slide if someone could bump me to the next slide. Thank you. Okay. Um improving student achievement. Our learning targets and success criteria are posted on 82% of walkthroughs. That's not only I think Miss Stein and I doing our walkthroughs, but also our district team that are coming through the walkthroughs. Um so that's some data uh feedback on that. all fall direct observations are complete. So, we've we've both completed all of our fall observations of the teachers in our building. Um, we're seeing a success in our planning, our instructional strategies, classroom management, and engagement. And then we've got MA testing coming up this week. Actually, the next
004four days in our building, we'll be doing MAP 2 as part of our finals in English and uh math the next four days. So, hoping to see some improvement in our math scores there. Yes, sir. The second goal on on our campus improvement plan is to focus to focus on our curriculum and content. And I think this is a daily weekly if not daily adjustments to our essential standards and instructional plans are being made as we go through our PLT teams and our weekly meetings. And then our PLT agendas are focused on teaching and learning. [Music] Sorry. Number three is implement a district line model of instruction. And this is some more walkthrough data that we've got from our district teams coming through along with this time not doing our daily walk through. 97% of
005the time students are interacting with the content being delivered. 97% of the time students and teachers are engaged in the learning. 94% of the time teachers are giving feedback to the students as part of of that uh activity in class. Um that this that feedback link there was from our faculty meeting we did today. So we had some uh feedback from learning walks that I shared with our teachers today in the faculty meeting. Our PD agendas have focused on training staff in in in the district instructional model components with modeling examples and practice. And our PLT agendas include discussion of instructional strategies each week. If I focus on that, thank you. I'm sorry, Tony. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, the student and parent feedback. Um, each month, Miss uh, Miss Stein is directing and leading
006a group of student chats where she gets pizza. I I'm in there as much as I can. very much. So, I try to get in that lunchroom where the students are a lot too. But, Miss Stein is leading those uh lunch chats with students. She's bringing in different students each month and talking with them, different grades. Um from the students in those meetings have been overwhelmingly positive. Um students love their teachers. That's something that they all talk about how much they enjoy their teachers and enjoy what they're doing. Um, one thing that that we've kind of learned listening to students, they don't like being on their Chromebooks as much. And I got a round of applause from our teachers today in our faculty meeting. Uh, they much prefer teacher interaction that being on the Chromebook
007a lot during the day. Um, our student council and house leaders uh taking ownership of student celebrations and pep rallies and our family group value lessons going on. Like if you were at our pep rally last Friday, um, our students led in the students of the month. they they announced that stuff, the teacher of the month um nominations. So, our student student council house leaders taking ownership of that and leading a lot of our celebration stuff. Um our parent advisory board feedback, we had our first one this past uh month. That's going to be an ongoing. We got more scheduled throughout where parents come in and met with uh the admin team about just, you know, anything. It was kind of an open conversation about things they're hearing and things that we're doing and very
008enlightening for us to hear hear from some parents as we uh try to make changes going forward. Um positive feedback from positive parent contacts through our school status and this this keeps up with phone calls, texts or emails. The junior high has had 41,338 contacts with parents this year. Not a lot. I mean, most of those are probably texts and emails, a lot of phone calls, but but you get into the thousands, that's text and emails, but that's a lot of contact going back and forth between our teachers and our parents. And the last one, gathering staff feedback. Um, our main topics of conversation have been help and support with accommodations and expectations for students that have our the 504 or ELLL plans. Cell phone conversations are going on in our building a lot. I
009know it's going out for Mr. Markfeld's got got surveys going out and uh that's a heavy talk in our building about how moving forward what's the best way to handle those things and how best to use PD days. got one coming up uh actually two right before break and then when we come back how we're utilizing those to make sure we're filtering in a lot of this stuff that we talked about today in our PDS I got a question. Yes sir. So on the previous slide you talked about about gathering feedback from students and parents and you kind of gave a couple of the student examples. You mentioned you just started parent first. any themes coming out of that? One one of them that was interesting was I think the for the last year and
010a half we have given lunch detentions for tardies at the junior house. So if you're if you're tardy to class every third tardy you give we assign the lunch detention and because it's during the middle of the day we have we don't we wouldn't make a parent contact on that. It's just lunch detention. You're tardy. The kids understand it. The parents expressed to us that they would like to know when they got lunch detention for tardies. the parents that were there that day said, "We'd like to help on our end on that." So, we've started doing that on the on our list detentions for tardies. The Miss Lucas who tracks those, she sends a school status message saying, "Okay, your child has a tardy for or has a less detention for tardies." So, that's one
011thing that came out of it, but a lot of things like that. There was some cell phone talk that went on in it, but it's just a good way to and listen. Okay, good. Thanks. Question. So, you mentioned the students love the teachers, which I'm I'm glad to hear, and they don't love their Chromebooks so much. Were there any asks from the students? Anything that they wish they, you know, wish they could see more of or less of? Any changes? Nothing that I can I mean, that was the biggest one is is less Chromebook, more teacher interaction, more teacher engagement. Um, you know, everybody likes teachers that are captivating, dynamic. Yeah. You know, and that's what keeps a kid engaged. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I know Mr. Travis probably won't say it, but out of
012the 44,000 41,38 contacts were made, he's made his share of those. He he does an amazing job of of connecting with people and building relationships and everything. That's probably one of his his greatest strengths. I really appreciate the work Mr. Travis is doing and all of our faculty and staff at the at the junior high. That is a I almost say a trying age for for students and and for parents alike and everything. You know, we've got kids that are um especially if it's someone's first child going through. They're no longer an elementary student or a middle school student and they're they don't have full driving privileges and everything and growing up's hard. So, they do an amazing job of helping helping kids grow and supporting the families with that as well. Thank you, Tony.
013All right. Up next, we have Thank you. board to board transfers. And this is the first time in I think a year and a half we have none, but I'm still legally required to have it on the agenda, so it's there. Um, up next we have um the next two items are our requests to purchase items through um through a grant. A a year or so ago we we received a school safety grant. Um the state um dispersed about $50 million to district. Well, not everybody spent all their money until about $11 million came back. And so we were able to get approved for about $200,000 in um specifically in door hardware, two-way communication equipment um which is like handheld radios and intercom systems and and fencing. Um we have a couple of items that
014that um go above the bid that go into the bid threshold. We're bringing those to your attention. And this is in addition to the school safety grant money that you're hearing talked about um right now um in the media and everything they've generated. They've um they've set aside another $50 million to go out for and we we'll be going through that as well, but this isn't part of that. They had 11 million left over and we were more than happy to to oblige them and ask him for some money. So, um, our first one is door hardware. And I know that sounds a little it's doorork knobs. And, um, what we have, it has, um, at our high school, um, right now you can open in our schools, you can open up the door with
015a key from the outside and it and it remains unlocked. This will be kind of like a key that you have to a closet or whatnot where you can always get out from the inside, but you have to have a key to every time to get in from the outside. Um, it it keeps it does away with, you know, having to make sure the door is locked. If the door is closed, it is locked to the outside. So, uh, we're able to do that. Um, our lowest bid was Westy, which we were we were pleased with because that that's who we use for probably 90% of our buildings and everything. So, that came in the amount of $31,734. Are there any questions? No. Okay. With that, I'd like to make a recommendation to approve the
016purchase of hardware from Wesie in the amount of $31,734. All right, we have recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll motion. Motion by Eric. Second. I'll second. Second by Mindy. All in favor? None opposed. Um, our next item is handheld radios. Um, we're continuing to upgrade our existing radios and expand our ability to have two-way communication not only in the classroom, you know, but outside of events and all that. Um, what this will do is it 40 radios 50 radios um to allow us to expand and everything. Um, one of the things that's a little odd with this is this is a proprietary system. So, it's we can't go out and get bids. In the past, we've never bought 50 radios at once. So, the bid has never been above 20,000. We usually buy 5
017to 10 each year to replace them and to add on to. So, there's only one bid because they're the sole proprietor of Kinwood radios within within our region and they own the communication towers that we have to use. And so, with that, you have to purchase through Smith 2A. Um, so are there any questions? Okay, with that, I'd like to make the recommendation to approve the purchase of handheld radio two-way in the amount of 41,900 $931.72. All right, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Second. I'll second. Second by Jessica. All in favor? None opposed. All right. Will be presenting the intercom system upgrades at next month's meeting. Um but you know with all this you know just don't fall off trees and everything to come by. You got
018to get approved for them. So the work that Mr. Randy Mr. Hand and Mel have done on this um you know it it allows us to make upgrades without getting into our district's budget which I'm very thankful for and appreciate both. Um up next um Mr. Rainy, let's go ahead and do the football field construction updates. Applause on on the athletic sponsorship to Mr. Are you good with that? Sure. Um, currently uh on the football field, we're pouring uh our our concrete curbing uh and and finishing uh runways. They started I believe last Thursday with concrete work. Finished up uh today. We expect to start uh they'll regrade the the football field and then they'll start laying I say laying the turf, but it's it's it's four layers. So, there's a a black kind of
019cloth mat that goes down, then a cushion, then another cloth mat, and then the actual turf. So, they'll start first uh cloth mat, we expect maybe late Wednesday or early Thursday morning uh and begin actually installing the turf uh this week. Uh we talked to them uh end of last week just to ask you know where do you all feel like we are progresswise because we feel like they're moving along you know quite well. Yes. And you know we haven't had you know any really rain delays or anything and set them back and everybody feels good about progress. So we think we're moving along right now. Uh we know we're going to get some delays once we get to the the track and all that just because of the time of year. But uh feel
020really good about about where we are. We've done the concrete pad for the grand stands, uh, all of the legs, and now the curving around, uh, the football field. So, we're in pretty good shape at this point. I just love that y'all found a way to keep weeds from growing. So, it's four layers. Is that the trick? Like buy flower beds with four layers. That might You should have got your mind. I should have remind me when is the estimated completion date? Oh gosh. It's uh June 4th, I believe, was the original estimation date, but we were able to we that was based off a December one start. We were able to start a little earlier, so maybe miday hopefully we'll be done. Okay. Yeah. And you know, it's looking good. We we are progressing.
021Um I do want to caution everyone that the track is a pavement based system underneath and it has to be so warm to delay pavement. I think it has to be 40° and rising to lay and then the track has to cure for so long before they can spray I'm going to call the over coat. I have no idea what that stuff's called. Spray the over coat for it. So it we we will see stall times but it looks like aren't we doing anything and we're simply waiting on your time. Sure. So we'll have that as well. But yeah, good stuff. I'm excited to have good and we're going to postpone on the sponsorship announcement until coach Greg gets here. I know he's at ball game duty. He's coming right now. Outstanding. Yeah. Right on
022time. All right. Hey, coach. We're going to do school choice and then we'll roll back to you. Okay. We'll take a second or maybe a second. Um, you know, this is our final reading of our school choice policies. Um, last month we gave them to you specifically 4.5 and there's six of them in total. Um, you know, we talked a little bit about some of the major changes that are coming. Um, first the definition capacity. The current definition is at 90%. The new definition changes to um whatever the maximum student teacher ratio is allowed by class, program, grade level and things like that. And the definition means we'll have to accept students from school choice unless we are at the maximum capacity in in a grade level or program or or um or whatever we
023we categorize it by. And then the application process is the next thing that's changing beginning July, I'm sorry, January 1. Um through May one, parents can um petition for school choice and the district has 15 days to tell them whether we can accept them or reject them. And there are two forms of acceptance. They can do it. We with immediate acceptance or acceptance in the um the parent can can decide to accept and enroll in the in the upcoming fall. um or you know through the rejection piece but the rejection piece has to be based on the standards on capacity and everything. Um it is bottom line is after spring break we will be accepting school choice applications and if we are under maximum capacity we will be required to offer enrollment this current school
024year. One of my concerns with this as a growing district is for example, let's let's say we have 200 spots in second grade and we're at 198 right now. After Christmas, we have two we have three families apply for school choice. Well, the first three that get there, I I will legally have to allow them to enroll. we go up to maximum capacity and then we get into the game of is someone from who lives in moving into district enrolled and then that creates a standards issue for us. I know we're one of the fewer districts in the state who are who's having this issue. Not all districts are, but it's something that we're going to have to work with. Yeah. Any questions? And when it comes to the higher grades, like is it core
025classes that we have to have capacity in or all like or it just be one class? Well, that's where you get into if a program is full and they're wanting to enroll in that program, they may they may be able to enroll in the district but not enroll in that program because program. Um, yes, ma'am. It's a little trickier at the high at the high school level. It's it's very easy to make the example at the second grade level because it's a 25 to1 maximum ratio. Um our high school teachers they're and Miss Haber please they're at 150 max ratio for the day and we can't and we we can't have more than 30 kids in a classroom at a time as well. So most of our teachers they teach six six sections with one
026prep. So 150 divided by 6 isn't 30. No. So a lot of times they're not at maximum capacity in in a classroom, but at the same time they're still at their 150 cap. Does that make sense? And so I was just going to say how that's high school takes a little bit more diving into it's not as cut and dry as as elementary levels. But how does that affect our capacity for let's say we need we get to our maximum capacity in um school choice where everybody has to come in everybody's there but um how are classrooms doing? How are we going to need to add additional? It's not based off of classroom like the number of classrooms you have. It's based off of that staff you have. Okay. So, um, for example, our first
027grade hallway has 11 classrooms down it. That is a capacity for 275 first graders. If we if we max out each classroom, right now we have eight first grade classrooms, teach first grade teachers. That means we have a capacity based on this definition of 200. So, it's more of a hiring. Yes, ma'am. and the issue of hiring. Well, to be honest with you, it's very difficult to let's let's get right down to it with high school. It's very difficult to hire um science, math for subject areas at the high school level. Um it's even more difficult to hire that in January, February, and those time frames. So, yes, ma'am. I'm I'm a little concerned. It is very concerning. Yes, ma'am. We're a small school and I don't know how we're going to be able to
028take on this capacity in this new Yes, sir. Um, again, the thing that concerns me is, you know, we're not at capacity. It we're not maxing standards anywhere, but we have some areas where we're 95 96% capacity. And in the past, we've been, you know, we we're not allowing um school choice or board of board transfers. And this is just for January through May. Um, you would think school choice would happen year round, but it doesn't. It's just for January to May. June through December is still more transfer. So, you do have some flexibility um from June through December to make decisions at the local level to make a more informed decision at the local level. I'll try. I was trying to be nice about it. It does give us a little bit of worm,
029but my my main concern is the growth that we could experience right after Christmas break. And this new policy, it was written or read by attorneys. It's within the Arkansas policy straight from Arkansas School Board Association. We've been in contact with Mr. Lucas Carter there. Okay. and everything and and it perfect it's man it's the policy I get it and this is the final reading or we approving it today we're approving it today that's what I was the resolution that's on there it has the school year on there so when y'all approve this you'll be approving the capacity resolution that we will only reject people under certain Yeah so the capacity definition changes Mhm. Mhm. Whereas before it was space and headcount. It was space and headcount and now it's capacity is defined by by
030cohort. Mhm. Okay. So space is not a part of the equation anymore. It's a it's the number of staff that you have. It's actual um FTE load and this was learns part of learn. Yes sir. Okay. I think it was what last year year before we had a couple that we were able to not able to but we didn't take on right but had these rules been in effect back then we would have taken and what we've been doing with transfers is you know there's y'all approved some and we put some on waiting list we've had some on waiting list that have been able to to come in and everything and it gives us the opportunity to um to adjust for it as we need um with this I mean it's 15 days you got
031to go to accept or reject and then they have 10 I the 15 days is to accept or reject then they have 10 school days which is 14 days basically on most on most weeks um to tell us whether they they're coming or not coming but if they're coming are they coming um right now within the 10day window or are they postponing that their enrollment until the fall. Yeah. So, well, I'm assuming if it's a rejection, then there's some process too for proving that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. If they are rejected by me, it does not come to you. It goes to Little Rock to the state board. And to be honest with you, unless I can prove that they're going to override your Yes, sir. We'll create if we reject them. Right now, it'
032be due to capacity. So, we'll create a provisional rejection. will go in July 1st, I believe it is, if they get a final rejection. Sure. Okay. All right. We're part of the approval process. They're just automatically approved. Like my point is if there's a 15-day window or do you foresee from January to May? Yeah. And increase the board meetings? No. No, sir. Okay. You're approving the policy and then I have to act with policy. Yeah. Great. Like we're approving policy, but we don't have a choice. Or do we have a choice? Personal choice. This is we're being informed. That's what I'm saying. Yes. You said it better than me. That's fine. That's fine. You didn't write this, right? All right. Take it away, Mr. I think we're good. Okay. With that, I'd like to make
033the recommendation to approve the school choice policies 4.5, 4.5 F, 4.5 F2, 4.5 F3, 4.5 F4, and 4.5 F as presented. All right, we have a recommendation to approve all the four fives. Do we do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. All right, motion by second. I'll second it. Second by Eric in favor. None opposed. All right, we have some exciting news. Um, we got Coach Cranky and I'll give it to you. I'll give you the abbreviated version real quick. I know you guys want to get out of here. Uh, thank you again for hiring me in March because there was a lot to do. One of those things was advertising. Um, we had a need to expand our advertising program and also redo a lot of the stuff around our buildings with
034advertising. I got a chance to meet Alan Cartner. This is Alan Carter Connor, excuse me, from uh Buick GMC, McCardy Daniel uh the specific group that we're working with. Uh also Todd McFerson, the GM, and then Elizabeth Schulz, CFO, uh marketing director. Marketing director. Okay. So, I've been working closely with them since roughly end of July, early August. Uh we had a couple of giveaways. You guys saw the car. Uh we've had them on our scoreboard. We've played commercials. you see them on our social media posts. Uh we're currently live streaming their ad too as well. So we're doing a lot with them. Uh we just signed a contract to put their logo on the field. Uh that will yield 10ear deal for 175,000 uh which will put into our department 175 per year which
035will help supplement our programs across the board and uh you know along with the others that's just going to be a great benefit for us. So we're excited. Allan did you want to say anything? No, we're uh I'm just excited to be part of the P Ridge community. It's a growing growing small town that's going to be a big much bigger town. Um uh as a part of the Bidenville Chamber of Commerce, there's a lot of talk in our chamber about reaching out to P Ridge and how we can put our arms around this community a lot more. And just from our dealership level, this this sponsorship is coming exclusively from our Buick GMC dealership, but all six of or all four of our dealerships, especially here in Bentonville, are are eager to to become
036more involved here in P Ridge and and be part of the community more. It's been a great relationship. I've worked with Allan side by side. You know, we've had the vehicles up and uh he's been great to work with and just looking forward to continue our relationship with him. Great. Awesome. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Exciting. I know seeing those vehicles my husband's like I need to get that was a Jeep last um you know for for coach Craig you know we did challenge him to work on generating revenue for our programs um it's no secret that our our football team plays 5A and our non football sports play 5A we don't know if that will be informed this April or in April of 27 seven when we play everything 5A and when
037we do that our travel will increase substantially and with that comes more expense and everything more kids and more programs um we're going to bring adding a sports program to you and next next board meeting so we're excited about that and everything but with growing programs growing kids comes the need to generate more revenue so Mr. Craig has done our coach Craig has done an outstanding job um leading our program. Great. Awesome. Awesome. Great job. Thank you. Yeah, it's exciting. Thank you. Um this time next I have personnel. Uh we're good. Yep. Okay. I'd like to make the recommendation that we accept the resation of Kristen Evans and Herman Trio Trio. Mr. Brett. Okay, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I make a motion. Motion by Ryan. Second. I'll second. Second by
038Jessica. All in favor? None opposed. Up next, we have employment. I'd like to make the recommendation that we offer employment to Kathy Elnor, Shelley Macar, David Deser Desarden, sorry, Moses Selenus, um, Porsche Paul, Ashley Sloum, and Kirk Ted. All right, we have a recommendation, a motion. No, Eric got it. I'll second. All in favor? None opposed. And lastly, I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve the transfer of Miss Amber Leatherwood from um intermediate instructional aid to middle school instructional aid. Okay. Recommendation. Do we have a motion? Make a motion. Motion Ryan. Second. Second. Second. Mindy. All in favor? Opposed. Mindy, I make a motion to adjourn. All right, we got a second. I'll second. Second by Jessica. All in favor. Here we go.