School Board Meeting March 13, 2023

001is 6 o'clock on March 13th and we're going to start our regularly planned school board meeting. So, Mr. Martin, if we could first rise and say the [Music] 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. And we'll take a moment of silence, please. All right, Mr. Martin, we'll turn it over to you, sir. All right, our first order of business is student recognition. This is probably one of the better parts of the Well, not probably. It is the best part of the of the meeting. We have our junior high quiz gold team here. Um, Mr. Brown and Miss Alitch. They did a great job this year. They, our students are backto back, is

002that correct? State champions two times. And our high school quiz ball team, they just qualified for state. It's after spring break. Not exactly sure when it's going to be. We're excited for what they'll do as well. But I'll go ahead and turn it over to Mr. Brown. All right, Mr. Brown. on camera. Yeah. Um we are so exceptionally proud of our students. Um and it's incredible to see these kiddos. Do we have a right here? Yeah. Um exceptional to see these kiddos being recognized both within the school and here at the school board meeting. Um they worked incredibly hard over the past two semesters um to get to this point. So, it's a beautiful And who are they? Tell us their names. Come on down this way. Want to make sure you guys are on

003camera. All right. You're the best. What's your name? Um, hi. I'm Ali. And what grade are you in? Eighth grade. Eighth grade. Okay. Um, my name's Hunter Dillings. I'm in uh freshman. My name's Ally Greg and I'm at seventh grade. I'm Adriana Edens and I'm in seventh grade. I'm Addison and I'm in seventh grade. Yes. We have kids from all three grades just fighting for it. It's incredible. They did not travel just to Farmington or up here. Y'all took a a journey all the way to was it DQ? Yeah, we went all the way down to Queen. That's your first state. It was quite the track. Awesome. Congratulations. Congratulations. What was your favorite part about it, guys? Um, probably winning. All right. Congratulations, guys. Really proud. You know, some other things that we've had going

004on this year um since we've got back from Christmas is track. Our boys track one indoor state. We're not able to recognize them yet. It'll probably be May because it seems like Monday night is track meet night and everything. Band has done an outstanding job. They just got back this weekend. Um, Superior Ratings and they are an Arkansas state sweep stakes band. Um, our culinary and performing arts. If you were able to go to Clue, it was outstanding from the production to the theater to the stage props to um the food service in between and everything. The kids did a great job. We had some student athletes in Special Olympics playing volleyball which was outstanding. and our choir and band. They are at an assessment. Choirs of assessment. Choirs at an assessment today. So students

005and we're doing some great things and our teachers and staff and students. It's always a great time to be in P Ridge, but when you see your kids doing well, it's even better. That's awesome. Okay, excuse me. Up next, if you guys want to leave Oh, you don't have to stay. You're more than welcome to stay for the whole meeting. Congratulations, guys. All right. Up next, we have our consent agenda, financial report, and approval of minutes. Are there any questions? Okay. With that, I'd like to make the recommendation that the consent agenda, financial report, and board minutes of the regular board meeting held on February 13, 2023, and the special hearings held on February 16 and March 9th, 2023 be approved as submitted. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion?

006All right. Motion by Adam. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Jessica. Any questions? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. All right. Up next, this isn't a an item that we make recommendations on yet, but we have the second reading of our board policies. Um, y'all can expect more to come with the legislative session with the learners act um being signed off on last week. Um, it will go into rules and rag and then we'll start on that. So before July 1, we will have multiple new policies and changes to policies coming in. Okay. And if we have questions, just email you or get with you. Yes. And we will send those out as soon as we get them. Um you know, our policy book is section one from board and governance to

007section 8 classified policies. It will be affecting everything. you will especially be affecting five and six which is your academic and community relations and all that stuff. Okay. Okay. Um next are action items. Um under item four you have approveou with assessment services. Um what we're running into is um we need more help um conducting assessments for our special ed 504 um whether that's testing referral process all that good stuff and also from a school psychology standpoint having more assessments done this will provide another layer of support for us and some additional help as our because our needs increase without having to bring someone in full-time. the smart pill. Do you have any? No, we just have had um this is the time of year where we get prek transition. So students with um that

008receive services in prek, we have to fully evaluate every single one of those as well as any move in and things like that. So this year we've already hit by the end of midFebruary, we had already surpassed by 15 or 20 the number of students that needed an evaluation the previous school year and we're just in February, March. So that uptick is increased. So, we are consulting out with um a service that we've used before in the past and consulted with to give some support for that cuz one person can't handle the full load. Any questions? So, assessment services, this isn't one of the companies we've used before. This is a new one. We have used Miss Lynch before. She's just moved or she and um I want to I misspoke. We have actually earlier

009in the year we um requested for a 0.25 25 position in this miss couch. We moved her to support in the classroom and help with testing, but the volume has just almost doubled if not close to tripling. So, this will be just a support on a consultant basis. That's And this is And Mr. This is for the remainder of this school year, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. So, what you're saying is we already have services. We're just expanding. Nothing new or a different service. Okay. Yes, ma'am. It's meeting those 90-day and 60-day and the 30-day timelines as presented by IDEIDA. And so the timelines are non-negotiable. So even if you have an uptick, you can't say, "Oh, give us 30 more days." That's fine. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. With that, I would like to make

010the recommendation that we approve theou with assessment services LLC. So we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? Motion. Motion by John. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Sarah. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Up next are out of state field trips. You know, they require board approval. Um the first group we have is our agricultural department. Um on March 29th and March 31st. Um they have some judging contest at Miami, I'm sorry, Miami, uh oh, sorry about that. Miami Oklahoma, not Miami, Miami, Oklahoma. and on April 6th um to Connor State College and um in Warner Oklahoma. Um these are day trips, not overnight and everything. It's just allowing them to go to those contests and everything and they need your approval. On the next page, our

011DECA program is an overnight field. It's not it's a trip. It's not a field trip, but to um for April 21 to 26 to Orlando, Florida to compete in the DECA international competition. that I believe that is something we have done for about the past 5 years or so. Um and everything. So it's an annual trip. Miss Young will be on there. Um when we go on overnight field trips, if there's a chaperon, they have to have background checks and all that stuff at the same level that our school employees do. So anyone who goes on that, they will be background checked to make sure that we are good to go. So just officers going on these trips? No sir. So on my first FFA trip, can you speak to both of them? Yeah. Which

012one are you are? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, on that Do you hear? Yeah. Go ahead. On that first trip for the FFA, those are um students that have prepared and qualified for those. So, they met regional and now they're kind of doing the next step up. Um as well as on the one state, that one is an entry level. So, those are something like the first two they've had to qualify. The second one is like an entry level competition in that area. On the next page, we are lucky enough to have um two state officers for DECA that representing the whole state, but they're P Ridge students that are going to that. That's a requirement of when we say yes, we will sponsor you, PE Pidge will sponsor you to be a state officer. And

013then we have uh I want to say three students that have qualified to compete as well as our officers have qualified to compete. So you have to at the DECA international comp competition you have to qualify at the state level top two in some categories top three and some categories go on and get an invitation to compete at ICDC with five students going to the trip I think that is correct just young yes that is correct but she always f we usually travel together with Alma school district that was Miss Young's uh mentor when she was going through her education so usually partner to save money if we can and things like that for travel, eating out and those kinds of expenses. So, um, their sponsors been a state representative for years and she's, you

014know, vetted by their school district and all. So, it makes a good, they make a good partner team. So, if your kids are over here, I'm watching, you know, just to help partner it out. And you mentioned chaprons. Would that be if parents came or Yes, if parents elect to go to that trip, they have to go through and apply through DECA International and things like that as well. So they would register as a just as a spectator I think is the right word and kind of pay their own way and just go if they choose to go. I don't believe we have any parents choosing to go from Pidge this year. I don't believe so. Okay. Anything else with that? I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve the out of state field

015trips as presented. All right. So we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? A motion. Motion by Adam. Do we have a second? I'll second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Um, next on the agenda is the 2324 academic calendar. I know Mr. Rainey has been working diligently with PPC to develop that. Mr. Remy, you want to talk about a little bit? We uh we spent quite a bit of time going through calendars and usually this is something that we like to do a little earlier in the in the year. We try to at the latest get it out by by February, but with the legislative session uh happening and all that, we were waiting on some some new laws to come out and they finally passed one and so we

016were waiting for for this school board meeting. Um originally they weren't going to let us uh begin school until August 21st. Then new legislation came out. we were able to push school back to starting August 14th. So, a little bit earlier start means a little bit earlier getting out. We don't have to go into June next year. So, we were kind of waiting. We didn't want to put out one calendar and then make a change and do all this stuff. So, uh PPC has worked through our personal policies committee has worked through this calendar. We presented two calendars to our our our staff uh calendar A and calendar B. The one that we're presenting tonight is uh calendar B to the the school board. I believe we had 116 of our our staff members uh

017vote for calendar B and 73 vote for calendar A. So about 61% preferred preferred uh this calendar and there's just some minor changes between the two, but this meets all of the uh uh regulations set forth by the state uh and and those types of things. It's it's fairly traditional with what we have done in the past, so there's some consistency to what we've done the last couple years. uh and that sort of thing, but there's just some minor um differences, but it's a it's a a calendar that we're excited to present to the board to our community. Are there any questions? Can you elaborate on some of the legislative changes that they were why we were waiting so long? Not so long, but Well, the the the original law said that you could start

018two weeks prior to Labor Day. And so when we looked at Labor Day on September 4th and we went two weeks prior, it was August 21st. And so we started August 21st, we we had worked on several calendars and most of them ended uh like the first week of June and nobody likes to go in June if you if you can help it. So uh when the legislature got together and they put an emergency clause, meaning usually when the legislature passes a law, it's effective July 1. Well, they put an emergency clause in because they knew schools were working on their calendars. Then it was effective immediately. And so, uh, once they did that, we were able to adjust our calendar. So, we were able to move everything up, you know, back a week. And

019it it helped us with with like winter break and some different times and and that sort of thing. And so, uh, with this one, we'll start August 14th. We'll get out right before Memorial Day, uh, on the 24th pending that we don't have any any winter weather or anything like that. But um other than that, it's fairly fairly similar to what we're used to. Yes, ma'am. Any other questions? With that, I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve the 2324 academic calendar as presented. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Second with John. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Um, give me just a second. Okay. Up next, we have approval of an additional nurse position

020as our student population increases. So, do the the amount of kids that need services and everything. Um, what we have right now is we have one dedicated nurse or healthc care pair professional on each campus. Um we are requesting that we have one more additional nurse added so that we can have basically a director of nursing to go around. We have student what are they personal care personal care pro yes ma personal care um um services for kids and our we need someone to oversee that to train people to make sure that that we're providing that. Um one of the great pieces of this is it is not paid out of general operating. We have ARMAC funding that can provide that. You want to talk about ARMAC funding for a second? ARMAC funding is a

021form of Medicaid funding that comes from the state of Arkansas and it's based on salaries of people that provide like health and wellness services to our students and it could be anybody. I'm included in that because I do the budget for those services. So, a portion of my salary counts towards that and so it's my salary and my benefits and we just get that money once a quarter. Yeah. And you're going to hear arch funding with playground equipment in just a second as well. But, um, what it is is Miss Litfield is our director of nursing right now and she's also our middle school nurse. She is spread very thin right now and not able to provide full-time services at the middle school because she's going into other buildings. This will allow us for her

022to go into other buildings and to work in those buildings when our regular nurse is is not there as well. So, it gives us coverage in there and everything else. So, it'll be e in my opinion it's excellent for our students and excellent for our district to have more coverage and more services offered to our students. Okay. So, what you're saying is the funding will make the salary more competitive to what like No, ma'am. Outwardly or I'm just trying to follow. No, ma'am. We're adding a position. So we have five right now. We will go to another six. The funding is it's it's not coming out of general operating. We're going to use ARM funding for it. So it's not affecting our general operating budget. It's what um that comes from what Miss Bernell and

023and and Dr. Basset do with um categorical funding and ARMAC funding and everything. So we're able to pay for it without it going coming out of operation. So it's just the salaries coming from that money. You're saying I just want to follow correctly. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Okay. With that, I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve an additional nurse position for the 2324 school year. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? Motion by Jessica. Do we have a second? Second by Adam. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, up next. No, no, no. We do this first. Okay. Sorry, I had to get a little organized. Um up next we have our school safety grant and district safety update. Um in June we um talk a little about talked not

024a little bit we talked a lot about school safety and everything. And sometimes people think that school safety is just door locks, windows and cameras. It's so much more than that. It's about making sure that we provide a safe and and respectful environment for everyone. That's our students, our staff, our faculty, parents and community. everyone that's up here. And to do that, we have to be very proactive in what we do. And you know, our goal is to be proactive on a daily basis and ensure our campuses are safe and meeting the needs of everyone. Um, we do this by providing a safe and respectful environment. And to accomplish this, it's imperative that we have multiple layers of support and have that layered approach to to not only address issues that are occurring, but also

025be proactive and dedicating services, programs, resources to help ensure that that we're safe up here. One of the things that we have right now is a school emergency school safety rules and school safety grants. Yes, that's correct. um in the fall. Um then Governor Hutcherson, they've allotted, I believe, $50 million for education for school safety. Well, they've given us our guidelines. Now, it took a little bit, but that's okay. Um we've received our guidance regarding the school safety grant. I've put this to the side of the agenda for everyone. Um we had to fill out a grant application. Um, one of the things that the school safety grant funds is they must be used to aid in implementing the recommendations of the school safety commission, the new Arkansas Learners Act, and providing a safe school

026environment for all students. We were we were um eligible for $183,25. Can't forget the $25. So, we're eligible for that. And it doesn't go as far as you think it does. In there, there there are three sets of priorities. Priority one, two, and three. we have to meet priority one before we can move to priority two in that grant. The main and we'll have a a recommendation for u purchase approval of purchase a little bit later on. But our main thing that we're going to work on is controlled access within our within our district. And that will basically allow us to take u the door keys the exterior door keys away from everyone. and you're going through that um twopoint verification where you scan your badge and punch your code in and it will allow

027us to um you know track is always a bad word but to track who's in and out of the building and to also limit who has access to the buildings we will be able to if um so and so little league baseball team signs up at the indoor for Monday May I know Monday May 10th is a day Monday May May 10th but it's 7:00 we can set it to where that that RF card is activated from 6:45 to 8:30 so that only have access during the time that they that they've scheduled for. It will allow us to keep our doors more secure and to also um limit access into our buildings. And the other thing that we're going to look at with the grant is window film. I believe we've all seen that where

028it keeps people from going through the front glasses and everything. It It's not bulletproof. Do not think that it's shatter resistant, but it keeps it keeps it delays entry into the building for someone who doesn't belong there who's trying to aggressively get in. And that will allow us more time. And I know we have new SRO's. We're going to talk about that. But we feel those are the two areas that we need to to help continue to provide even safer learning environment. Y'all got any questions? So, is the access control going to be for every door on the building? It is going to be for our high use. We could have some doors that are or fire exit related only and they're not. But like at the primary school, it's the front door out each

029wing, the primary, the loading dock out the back of the gym. At the intermediate, it's multiple. You know, how the campus is laid out. Middle school is a is cleaner like the primary school. It's at the end of each wing. Junior high, a lot of them. And high school only needs one or two. It's not as bad. I think there are a total of 38 doors. And we'll get into that in a minute when we get into the approval purchase over that. And what about the facility? The Oh yes, ma'am. It will be the facility as well. What we did was we took maps of all our our buildings. We highlighted where do we currently have control access and then where would we like to add it? We did it two different colors. Then we

030got it to all of our building administration and said, "Okay, look at this and is there anything that you need to add? Did we miss something?" Whatever. We got their feedback and then we got a proposal. And will these access codes be sharable? So, say Adam and I coach a basketball team together and I'm not going to be able to attend. Am I able to give it or is he going to have his own access code? Well, I'm going to want you to have your own card and your own code. Okay. Um, that's how we keep keep everything secure. If we find someone who's given their card and their code away, that card will be turned off. Okay. And the approval p process for getting a card, it will go through when you do a

031facilities use request. Um, if you already have a card, we'll activate it or whatever for that time period, but if you don't, we'll give you one. And they're cheap. You know, they're just little credit card size things. So, it's the goal is to get to get control of our exterior doors better and to basically ask for the exterior keys back. Um, the goal is to have this in before school starts next year and it'll take a while for us to get our keys back, but we will and it will provide a safer environment for for everyone. So, if you have a like a traditional key, is that going to still continue to work or is it going to set alarms off? What what happens in that situation? It will continue to work. Don't get me

032wrong, you have to have a key system in the door, but our goal is for everybody to turn their keys in. And so I'm sure I will we will find people up here who have gotten in through through a mechanical key. We'll ask for the key back politely. But when it comes to although there's going to be approval process going on to getting the card and scheduling your time is who how do you determine who's approved to get the card even if they go through the approval process? I Well, that's when you go that's just like when we issue out a key. Um let's say it's youth soft youth basketball. Well, we work with the youth the youth basketball director to the coaches have it. We go through all that and they're the only ones

033that are assigned it. Just because you come up to the school and ask for a card, you you don't you don't get one. You have to go through the approval process and you have to be approved for the space before you you can have access to a card. How do we ensure like the fire exits aren't propped open or anything? because I think it's great to secure the main doors, but is there an alarm that goes off because typically that is something that this will do is it will send us verification that or a text or a message that we have a door that is open. Okay. So, yes, ma'am, you are exactly correct. That is one thing that we deal with our our prop doors. U people do it unintentionally, but that is something

034that um your first rule of safety is to lock the door. It's no different than if you are in your parking in the parking lot with your car and you have something valuable in it. First line of defense is to lock the door. Right. Mr. Mark, when somebody leaves, do they have to scan out as well to let No, sir. It's So, we only know that they're in the building. Yes, sir. We can um again, I always use the indoor um the coach assigned to it or the school sponsor assigned to it would have the the code. It would come in. It would not. We would register that they have entered the building and scanned in if they had 25 kids on their roster, which they're we get a roster of their kids, but it

035doesn't verify that each who each kid is going in. Does that make sense? I just didn't know if last person has to scan and say we're we're shutting it down. No, sir. No, sir. And in order, this is just a dumb question, but in order to use our facilities, what percentage of the children have to be Pidge students? Kevin, you got I I believe right now we're at 50 50. I think so. And we're not perfect with that. I'll be the first one to admit. Um, this should also help us with a perfect example. I've had up to four or five teams wanting it to use the indoor at one time and they're all showing up and they're not going through our scheduling system because they have a key. This will eliminate that because we

036program who's in and who's out based on that on that and keep it. It's very uncomfortable for some of our community members to say, "I have the facility. You don't." So it and it's a safety issue as well. We have people in there that we're not 100% sure that they're they're supposed to be in there. Okay. Okay. Moving on. All right. And the next, you know, the school safety commission. That was the report that was um developed after they had one in 2018, the Yubaldi tragedy, um right before school let out in May. um they went back and um went through the went through the goals the the parts again and the general recommendations we're really not going to talk about much tonight. That is where they talk about where the state of Arkansas should

037do this. They should provide more funding. They should have a committee on this that affects Pidge School District but not at the point where mental health and prevention all the way to physical security does. And so what we'd like to do is share kind of where we are through these processes. And the first one is mental health and prevention and that is Miss Mark. So um when the October 122 report was le released um Mr. Ramy and the district and site safety committees have started to unpack the standards or unpack the you know the findings and the recommendations for lack of a better word. And a big piece of that like Mr. Martin said was mental health and prevention. and we were pleased to see that we already had a lot of the things in

038place and we just need to fine-tune some of the things that are growth areas for us. Um but just some of the things that were listed um as recommendations required pieces and we've gone above and beyond in some areas. In some areas we um need to grow. So it talked about the strategic placement of personnel to support mental health and prevention. Um, as you know, we have a licensed social worker, a family rehabilitation specialist, and we added last this for this school year a licensed school-based mental health therapist. So, we are actually running also while we're running the community medical clinic, we're also running a schoolbased mental health clinic. So, we're really above and beyond on targeted support with personnel pieces. Um, family rehab specialist is similar to a social worker. That's a degree specialized

039at Arkansas Tech. similar skills and u foundation as a social worker, family support needs um working with our um families that need help with their social services, getting registered with wick, Medicare, all those things. As well as our social workers play a big part in our family, all three of these um positions are in and out of every single campus. Our licensed um therapist, she was filled up within weeks of the doors opening, full case load. I know they are on the campuses providing support for teachers, families, and different things. You'll find them making calls to students who um maybe those older juniors and seniors who have wandered away from school. We need to heard back in, you know, students that are, you know, just making some choices. We need to work with school climate

040and culture and um assessing that annually with surveys. We've already been doing that for the last three years. We do a fall survey and a spring survey for staff, students, family, and community. And we take that feedback and we're measuring climate, culture, and effectiveness of our PLC's, our professional learning community. So, we had that in place. We look at that every year to make decisions. Um, the campuses have even gone above and beyond and tailored it to do their own to kind of get really into their own buildings as well. Um, as you know, we've implemented um the guide for life this fall, focusing this year on empathy as our um focus. We have implemented lessons K12 at each campus. They look a little different um on each, but the goal was once a month

041to be delivering those lessons focusing on empathy, that prevention piece, uh working with others, understanding the perspective of others and things like that. Is that a perfect practice for us? No. we have a lot of room to grow, but that's something our counselors have launched or either spearheading in most buildings and whether they're delivering the lesson or not, they're calibrating their staff. Um, we're spending that time weekly. Some of the lessons take more than one time, but the goal is one lesson a month to reach through that curriculum. Um, we've also been doing restorative and inclusive practices. We've been running an inclusive inclusive practices committee almost over a year. We meet about every month and a half, community members, to teacher members, um school staff coming together and just talking about those relev relevant issues.

042Um following along with a guide for life, those characteristics that we want for good students. Um we are investigating things that we can do better. Our last session we focused on name calling and labeling and that's been a big concern for us as a district, especially in our grades 5 through 10. it's been an area of concern. So, just ways that we can bring in support and, you know, think about that. Um, off of that has been a what we're excited about is restorative practices. Um, we've been working with our counselors and we've consulted with some outside school therapists just to get support on our restorative practices. So we know that discipline while is effective that sometimes that restorative piece actually retraining and understanding the why of my behavior can really make a difference. So

043we've been working and we've um piloted three different restorative practices specifically on those inclusive things like name calling labeling and some other things. We've been doing restorative practices for years with things like um tobacco, alcohol. While there's been classes at cessation, if you're caught vaping, you can reduce your disciplinary sentence by completing a cessation course. Trying to model on that, but it's really a new field to think about restorative practices with some other of those social emotional learning skills that we want students like that are presented in the guide for life. Um, we have been targeting too um as mentioned focusing on repetitive discipline. You know, students that have that repetitive discipline over and over. I'm student A and I just can't break this habit. You know, what are we doing? That is brought into

044that restorative lens as well. Um administrative protocols. Um the team has worked um Miss Taber worked diligently to pull together our administrative resources to give those administrators, for lack of a better word, tighter protocols and processes on how to handle different disciplinary pieces. And that delete leads right into behavior threat assessments and crisis support teams. That's a going to be a growth area for us as a district. We hadn't formalized that process and procedure to bring in a crisis assessment or a threat assessment. you know, as disciplinary actions or as behaviors were being exhibited, we now have implemented um in accordance with this act. Um a threat assessment which is conducted by either our licensed social worker who's also um licensed to practice mental health and our mental health therapist. They do an assessment piece

045and you know it's close to the moment before we ever release a student to go home once we've assured everybody is safe of course they'll do a thread assessment a screener that we developed um using standard based practices that we did as a team they'll work with that with the site administrator and then make the recommendation to the parents do we feel like they need more formal like an impatient assessment or a mobile assessment um things like that so we do that we try to determine through our best practice this that will lead us to using behavioral threat assessment and crisis teams. So, what do we do as a school? Now, this isn't necessarily Mr. Remy is going to talk about some other things when you're talking about um crisis moment where we have to

046lock down the building. This is kind of a combination of that, but addressing that mental health that could be harm to self or harm to others. So, we're assessing that piece, too. And then youth mental health first aid. That's a requirement the state put out. It's varied a little bit in the Learns Act, so we don't know what that's going to look like, but before the learns act, um, school resource officers and our school counselors were required by the end of the school year to complete the youth mental health first aid. So like I said, we had taken care of that requirement of course, but I would say our growth areas are working on those restorative inclusive practices and getting to our systematic administrative protocols and how to work with that from a team of

047administrators and then bringing in that behavior and threat assessment and crisis team. So that's what we're doing under this portion of that 157 or so page October 1st report. So this is just one sl slice of that pie. Um but that's what we're doing under this category. Next question. So I think this is fantastic. Um from a a student perspective, I think this is this is great. What are we doing? And have we made aware because I know I went to one of the schoolboard trainings for safety. Are we making our staff and teachers aware that there are also supports out there for them from a mental health perspective? You want me to talk about that? It's up to you. Okay. Uh yes, ma'am. We are um even our insurance, you know, Blue Cross Blue,

048what's it called? Health. Yeah, sorry. Health advantage. Um they provide we we send information out on that. Um our student services department. It is here for students. You know, that's our primary, but we are also here to to service our faculty and staff as well. Our faculty and staff, they're they're human beings just like any anyone else. All families go through go through issues whether it's drug abuse or any other thing. U my my family's not my family's been affected by issues as well. Um so yes ma'am we're definitely here for our first our aware of the the things. Absolutely. Okay. Perfect. We also that in this report that's an interesting perspective because that's a newer flip you know thinking about the mental health and where do we play a role like in fitness and

049you know healthy strategies for teachers. Um we're getting ready to attend a training in April. There's about 10 of us going to Fagville for two days, not overnight obviously, but to and it's a it's a it's a whole it's a conference taking on the PLC, the education piece, and now working on the behavior side for students and adults. So, where does that fit to support our teachers? Where does that fit fit to support our new teachers as well as our students are exhibiting extreme behaviors and their needs? So, it's going to be I think an interesting way for us to add that lens that is a growth for us. Awesome. I think it's education as general and thinking about that. Perfect. And it's not also the the mental health, it's the physical health of our

050staff. You know, we have we we have gyms on site and basically, you know, it's providing access to that where they can come in and exercise and do that to keep not only their mental well-being going, but their physical well-being as well. Perfect. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, I'm glad that they have that. Um but when we're talking about the restorative on the behavioral issues of the students how what is the referral process like how is a student identified is it based on um a certain criteria or how do they get into that? I think it depends on the age in the building and and honestly what the need is students. So weekly if not bi-weekly all of our campus meet and student intervention teams and not only do they

051discuss academics they discuss behavior needs. So that could be a piece where the restorative practice is being led through that can also come as consequence of a discipline in action depending on the grade level and um what would be most effective. um our counselors, our five counselors in our building that's we meet as a PLC that we work together and Miss Thomas, she's called a career counselor. She meets with us too, but a little bit different lens, but we meet and that's a real shift in thinking like you know the Arkansas counseling standards is to add that restorative piece. So if you think about previously what we experienced was discipline, detention in schools, you know, all that and it didn't come with the why or the reteing of the behavior. So a a move to

052that restorative practice is something we follow almost at every school if you're looking at the matrix for that. But we also identify students that might be before they hit the discipline matrix that might need supports for different things as well. Yeah, that was my question. It's more like not let's be reactive but let's be more proactive on trying to get to the heart of the behavior is kind of what I'm hearing. Right. So you have two things. You have proactive which is like the guide for life teaching lessons and things like that. But the restorative typically has been for students who are exhibiting a behavior and instead of it being re it is reacting you're reacting to the behaviors are exhibiting and that school teams make those recommendations they handle them follow along also with

053the more significant pieces. Do you see what I'm saying? It's two different things. Um right it's not just every every child needs it. It's more like we've seen that there's a tendency to act out or something like that or bully or whatever the case may be. Gotcha. I think piece of it too comes from um that teacher team that's sitting on the interventions as well parent recommendations and things they might need help with at home as well kind of trauma support. What about the students that are on the other side of it and maybe have been bullied or aren't actually being like problematic but have suffered some sort of I'm just curious. we have support available on other side. So our referral system for those students is what I would is where my mind goes

054like how do how am I as a student who feels victimized or needs support how do I how do I access it is that what you're asking right just like what is that just so everyone so um typically you know Mr. Remy is going to talk about see something say. So there's a self-reporting. All of our counselors have a way for students to anon, you know, to connect with them without um knocking on their door. So they have either digital ways or leave a note, you know, different ways. And usually a referral process like that for someone that needs that support usually starts with our counselor with a teacher mentor. Um the junior high has done an excellent job of starting start starting their family groups that they meet with consistently and we're seeing some

055things come out of that. So that adult connection usually starts that and then as it evolves the counselor or the teacher mentor will you know as a teacher mentor I might make a recommendation counselor counselor might see okay you need extended services let me try to hook you up with either outside services because our inside services we're we're maxed out we can't see any more students on a consistent therapeutic basis so we try to gauge you know what services we can connect to okay yeah I was just curious because I know um students on both sides can be emotionally impacted. So, I'm just kind of hearing that look like and things that they don't um experience at school. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Any other questions? This is the one that it's probably a newer topic

056for us. Cyber security. making sure that our data is safe, our students information is safe, our faculty information is safe is is growing more and more important by the day. So this is Mr. Taylor's expertise. So he's going to talk to you a little bit. want to talk about a few efforts that we're doing to highlight some of the efforts that we're doing um to uh to increase our security. Uh cyber security I don't like that word cyber security um something to keep in mind with with cyber security um it's just like physical security from the perspective of when you security you increase uh you you lower your um access your convenience you know security goes up convenience goes down and he was scared to go down just like just like doors key to get

057through a door. And so sometimes it can be frustrating because you're trying our our goal has always been my focus has been to make sure that people have what they need in their job as easy as possible. and and I've always leaned toward the convenience side more so the security side. We've been really trying to pan and make it more toward the secure side. Sec is a binary. It's not are you secure not secure. It's it's it's a it's a a gate and you can never be completely secure. It's impossible. The same we can't do this building here, right? We can lock all the doors. make sure no one can get in, but if we can't get in to use it, what's what's the point? Um, let's talk about um what we're efforts we're doing

058in user education, protecting staff authentication, intrusion prevention and detection and and some of our turns that we worked on. Um, number one thing, you talk with anybody that has had any kind of breach, ransomware, any kind of an issue like that. The most n 90% of the time it came in through a user. It came in through someone clicking something, someone doing something uh accidental typically uh accidentally doing doing something uh that that they got their uh credentials compromised or they shared data that they shouldn't have shared. uh but the user is our is our first line of defense in trying to protect our school our data and our students data. So what we do we've done this for quite a long time. We have a a a company called Novaore um that any new

059employee automatically goes through um some security training. It's about 45 minute online online training they go through uh and talk about different some some people just aren't aware of the different ways that you can be tricked and uh taken taken advantage of uh in the digital realm. Um, and then what we No also does is about twice a week it sends out some fake fishing emails to try to trick trick our users into clicking something. And that can be frustrating frustrating from user perspective. They click on it because because they're they're actively trying to trick him into doing that. But we'd rather them fall for fall for a fake one and learn some learn some things about it and be more wary than to fall than a fall for something that's unreal. Um if they

060if they um click on one of those links uh they do automatically enroll in a little 15minute refresher course with no uh to go kind of refresh what what they're thinking on that. Um, we're also so in progress. Uh, we're working on uh, sorry this fall going to have a in-person training uh, during our during our our our back to school back to school PPD that we do and and try to talk more have more focus on data protection, not just um, more more the why. I'm going to talk about more why why we're doing what what we're doing. um more efforts that we're we're doing. Uh this is a little bit recent established there, but but uh we've taken some best practices out for some for computer uh for computer uh security. Uh and

061one of those is to remove admin access from everybody. So when I'm logged into a computer, I uh on my regular account, if I am careless and click on a link and I get Look it could happen to me too. Maybe someone's forward maybe even someone's forward me something to look to check it out and I'm trying to figure see whether it's real or not and maybe I click on it. Well well we've taken away all our admin access. So that account is compromised. We have been compromised admin administrator level to our systems. Uh our team logs on with a separate account to do that and we don't check email with that account to try to reduce any kind of issue with fishing. We also have software that nobody in our district, including me, has

062administrative access to their computers as well. We uh we're able to do that using some software that when if they need to install some software on their computer that pops up and they put a request in and we're able to approve that request remotely uh and then to let them install that software, do something that would normally require administrator level access. So, we that's been a big success to uh take that away. That's it's a hard to do. Uh it's it's hard for us to us to let people get people with the access they need sometimes. And that's that software has been very helpful. We're also working on um new antiirus software that does a better job of not just protecting against viruses, which really aren't our big concern anymore, but that does a better

063job of detecting uh hacking behaviors and preventing hacking behaviors and intrusion. So that's um we're the early stages of that, but I think by some summertime we'll have that in place. Um one of the big things we're in progress right now is we're working to do multiffactor authentication. We're setting that up on all our uh um employee accounts um so that they basically have to have two two methods at the same time to get access to some access somewhere. It's kind of like happen to have two keys to get to a door. You're like not very convenient, right? if you had to have two keys and get in the door up here. But, uh, but we're we're working on rolling that out so that they have to have a password and they have to have

064another factor. Uh, the main one we're doing is installing a an app called Microsoft Authenticator on on cell phones that lets them use that as a as a as an additional key to access um their accounts. We'll be working on your guys' soon, too. Uh, haven't got rolled out that yet. Um, we had it set up for Google, but we've moved it over to the Microsoft side. Uh, so we'll work on that at some point. Y'all already do have it on the Google side. Um, also in progress is we're we're looking at um increasing our complexity requirements of passwords. The number one thing you can do to protect yourself with passwords is length. The longer it is, the more secure it is. Um e even you know yes it's good to have all symbols and

065charact characters and uh and capital and all that but link trumps complexity. Yeah link trump on there. So if by adding by adding like uh you can add a couple couple digits couple characters to that and have just as much complexity as addition point. So when a computer is trying to crack a password, you you can add you can add but if you're going from like 20 character to 21 characters, you can you can add 100 100 years to to a computer trying to trying to trying to hack that password. So having an eight character password, you might be able might be able to computer probably crack in five minutes. 12 character you might take 30 days and it it it's exponential up there. the length and we're we're we're not it's we're in progress.

066We're working on that. We're trying to make sure as we add these more secure methods here that we make sure people can still do their job and have access to what they need to have access to. So, it's a little slow roll on on both of these. We actually have to get some stuff on the map that we've got we've got I think it was was it 184 was it that Mark? I think so. About 184 so far that we've got enrolled in that uh uh what time we work on that um internal procedures we've also done oh I already told you about that separate administrator counsel staff we're working on uh we've done that already uh also we're working on updating our policies to make sure expectations uh make sure that our employees know

067their expectations as far as protecting their account protecting data uh so we want to want to work on that as That's all I got. Any questions? Any questions for Kelly? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. You know, it's it's this is just the world that we live in. Um right before Christmas, I sent all y'all a newspaper article from the Democrat Gazette about two districts who had who had ransomware issued to them because of their um security breaches and everything. So, it's it's serious business and protecting our kids data and our staff's data is is very important. So, um up next we have law enforcement security. I know we we worked on this a little bit last month. Um I'm so excited that next year we are moving from three SRO's to

068five. We will have one on every campus. Um, when you get into the recommendations of the school safety committee that was on this, this is recommendation number one for them under the section is to have an arm presence at all times on campus and for it to ideally be an SRO. Um, when we have that armed campus on on campus, um, an SRO is more than a, you know, just an armed presence. They're going to be able to help us proactively address issues, provide programs for each campus. I'm so excited at the at our younger grades, we're going to do bicycle safety. It's so important. Um we have kids that if you drive drive downtown and you have or drive through town and you haven't had a kid pull up in front of you, it

069happens. They don't look. And so um anywhere from, you know, vaping sessation, vaping issues to um relationship issues when you get older. Um they're going to be able to help us a lot. event security. Um, you know, just being able to have that an officer at each event and our summer activities is the other part that I'm very excited about. Um, I realized that the day that school let out this year, we've always taken it for granted that, you know, we have kids up here all the time in the summer. Well, that was a week after the Yaldi incident. I'm not sure how many kids we had at basketball camp that day, but it was a lot. I would say three 400 kids participating more kids you know leading so we're probably 500 people in

070district and so we need we need it for that as well are there any questions on the SRO's I know we went over that quite a bit last month okay I said it when did you say they'll be on campus what's the when are they going to the five when will they start they will start um I believe theou is going to be June 15th for the next count next year. Um the police department um Chief Han and mayor they are taking the taking the proposal before the city council I think next Thursday. Yes. Is is that correct? Next Thursday. Um they also have to hire two officers and and train and everything. So they'll be ready then. The summer activities part starts I think May what? I think May 25th, May 27th we will

071start that piece. The meeting's Tuesday. Oh, is it Tuesday? Oh, yeah. I think I have an inside source. Oh, Tuesday. I think I have to I might have to zoom into the meeting. So, yes, ma'am. Yeah. But you're saying by June 15th they'll be like trained and ready. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And for for when school starts next year, they'll be fully ready. Yes, ma'am. I thought you were fixing it correct now. Sorry. Yeah. And with with our SRO's um the SRO's have to go through training. It's it's identified by criminal justice institute state Arkansas a certain number of hours that they must complete. But also our building administrators and district administrators have also had training on uh roles and responsibilities of SRO's within the building. And so we can't have an SRO with within the

072building if the building administrator has not had the training. And so all of our all of our administrators and people on on in our buildings, they've all had the the exact same training. Okay. And so it's it's bound by state law, but working together to make sure that we're doing that. Sand out real quick. I failed to do it earlier. Thank you. Okay. So, if you've been in if you've been in our our buildings, and I know you all you all have, uh, but all of our classrooms, offices, um, areas where where where we congregate, they have, uh, these these signs and, um, we we got this idea last summer. On one side, it's our emergency procedures, just a quick reference for teachers, staff, whoever is in the room. And then on the other side

073is our our safety information. And so through all of this stuff, um what we're trying to do and and signs are just signs and posters are just posters, but what we're trying to do is to create a culture of safety. And that doesn't happen overnight. It's it's that slow drip day in uh day out process of of what you're trying uh trying to do. But you can see just for our our teachers and staff within their classroom if we have any kind of event something going on they we have these by the doors of every classroom and we did that strategically. So uh when you went into a room you know one room didn't have it over here the next room have it over there with this so that people were in attendance. The red

074side of it is what we do not share. Okay. because they're emergency side. They are internal to the process and procedures. The blue side we I don't I have extra copies in my office. I can go get them. Yes. Okay. If anybody wants Does anybody want to see the blue side? I actually have a copy. You have a copy? I have a copy. You have a copy? Yeah. All right, we're good then. The red side. The red side we just don't share. I would model it, but it's kind of hard to read. So, I just want to make sure everybody solid. And it's got a lot of Yeah, it's got a lot of information. I mean, it's got a lot of information on it from from mental health to bullying to tobacco and vaping. It's

075got all of our emergency contact information and different but u just as a quick reference for what we've got within the buildings. Uh but these are in every every room and every every space that we have. And so uh if anybody's got a need or a concern or a question, it's quick and it's handy. You don't have to go very far to find it. Um the other thing that we have in our in our buildings that we have started is our um uh anonymous reporting. And so we have these signs. This is our elementary version. And in our secondary version, uh these are in you know cafeterias, classrooms, hallways, restrooms, uh lobbies u um just about everywhere. And so um they've got a QR code. If you scan the QR code, it goes to u

076a site specific to us uh where you can anony anonymously report whether it's a threat to your uh self, a threat to the building, a threat to harm others, uh bullying, uh suspicious activity, uh any any number of things. Uh and that comes back to uh our different teams. And we've got several different teams at each building that that see stuff different ways. And so um uh we also have um along with anonymous reporting um within our you know because sometimes a student want won't want to go up there and you know have their phone out and scan the QR code and be seen and all that stuff. So we put it in the student bookmarks. So when they're on their Chromebooks, every child has a has a Chromebook. They can go right into their

077bookmarks. It's it's our we tip anonymous reporting or don't be silent anonymous reporting. they can click on that from from anywhere and it's a a private way to anonymously report, hey, we've got a safety concern, we've got a threat, we've got an issue, something going on. And so, uh, I think we're also adding it right on the front page of our our website. It's just it's taken us a day or two to get there. uh to be able to to to let you know our district and our administration know, hey, we've got an issue because u you know, the more the more eyes, the more ears, the more we hear, the better we can address issues and problems and things happening in our in our campus and that sort of thing. And so we've we've

078we've got uh some of this stuff going, but in regards to audits and emergencies um and operations on all that stuff. Um in our drills, we do uh fire drills monthly uh at each campus. We do tornado drills in in those specific months, September, January, and February. That's mandated by state law that we do our drills uh in those months. And then annually we must do a lockdown drill which is coming up at our campuses here in the month of in the month of March. And so uh we'll be we'll be conducting uh those uh we have uh when the commission came out they they originally did the the safety commission in 2018 and it was after a school shooting. They the governor Hutchinson at the time got the the first commission together. They came

079out with 30 recommendations for schools. Um after Yuvualdi, Governor Hutchinson, they reconvened uh back in October 2022, they upped it to 50, I think 52 recommendations for schools. Um and so we've begun kind of going through there and and what do we have in place, what are we kind of partially in place, and where are we fully in place? And uh so we've been we've been working through those things, but one of the things uh that they specifically came out with was uh security audits. And so we have been doing these in period schools for a number of years. Yes. Um but by law now we have to have our very first security audit done by August of 2024. And so our next one is scheduled for this coming fall. And uh so we'll do

080and and we'll we'll do it in August September. There's a a site called site assess uh that officer Fowler and myself uh went to a training uh on it. And so right now the legislature, they're writing the rules and the and the regs and what all must be included in in your assessment. Um, and the ones that we've done in the past are comprehensive. So we believe it'll be a pretty smooth transition for us from what we've what we've always done. Um, but we we've got to see their finalized rules before we before we move forward. But we'll we'll do a district audit u uh coming up in uh in August. We have a district and building safety teams. They meet monthly. uh to cover concerns, areas, things that we're we're rolling out. Uh we

081have the quick guides that that uh uh I showed you. And then uh every summer, our law enforcement uh works with Benton County uh police department. They work with our our fire department and other local organizations and we do active shooter training. Uh we did it at the junior high last year. This summer, I believe it's at the intermediate school. takes place in June over over a bad word but over dead period uh when nobody's in our buildings and so we know we can be uh safe and and kind of run. We do I think it was three days was it last year uh of training with those uh guys they put eight or nine different scenarios on uh and so uh we get a lot of of local people here to help with communication

082with familiarizing themselves with our buildings. uh where do we have things located at? And so that if we do have a critical incident, uh it's not the first time you've been here. And so uh we we do that each summer uh and work through that. Uh our SRO's, the recommendation from the council was to do a monthly uh safety check. We do them uh weekly. We have a form that we fill out that our SRO's complete as they walk their buildings. They actually uh safety check buildings daily, but we fill a form out weekly uh if that makes sense. And the recommendation from the state is monthly. And so uh we feel like we're ahead of the game there. But we use the their u the form when we complete it, uh that information goes

083back to our site safety teams. And so if they've noted, hey, we've got uh an issue here or an issue there, then the site can choose, you know, what's the best uh path to reme remedy that. Is it is it, you know, something that our maintenance team needs to look at? Is it something where we just need to put up some signage? Um, is it something where we just need to make sure we we station adults or whatever it it is? And so, u we conduct those uh weekly right now. Uh emergency operation plans uh we have in place and we we've had them in in in place. We go over those with our local fire department and police department uh annually. Uh we have them on every athletic facility both on-site and off-site. So

084like we use Big Sugar for golf. We have emergency operation plans for if we have a a student or we have an issue, where do we go and and what's our rally points and all of those things. And so we cover that annually with our our local because you know they have turnover too with with their personnel and things. So everybody knows you know if we have a broken leg at the at the football stadium and we've had this before. what gate are we going to and where do we need to meet the ambulance and who's who's the the the point of contact and who's phone making the phone calls and those things and so uh we cover all of those on all of our buildings and facilities uh and what we're doing and coach

085Clark updates all that u athletically uh every year and then um uh one of the other things that we've done is we have increased the number of AEDs in all of our buildings uh to allow for uh better access closer proximity you Some of our buildings are quite spread out and so uh we actually did an audit um last Friday of all of our buildings and and brought in an outside council to to look at, you know, where our ads are AEDs are located. Um and we went through all the buildings and and they were floored with with the progress that we've made and made one suggestion. And so, uh we were really pleased with with where we're at. And so, uh we've done all of those things from egencies and and audits and operations

086and that sort of thing. So, any any questions here? So, one um being hung up around the buildings and kids coming in and out from different areas or different not necessarily Peer Ridge students. Can they anonymously report things? So, yes ma'am they can. But when it goes to anonymous reporting it goes we've got a company that vets it. Okay. And so they look at it and vet and do different things and then they ship it on to us and they're trained to do so. Okay. And so to help cut down with false reports and different reports and if if a report came in that you know it's a student from a different school, we would take in that information and certainly get it to their administration so that they can handle and work through whatever

087it is that's going on there. Okay. You said there was one concern with the audit. What was that related to? Is it something pretty easily fixable or with the ads? They just said they asked that we add one location. Oh, okay. So, we've got we've got them in the gym at the high school, the arena. We have it on the first floor. We don't have one on the second floor and they didn't think it was wise to have somebody run down the stairs and run back up. So, we said we believe we can have one on the second floor and we we have one right down at the bottom of the stairs by by some restrooms. And so, that was the only suggestion that they that they made for. That's something that we have worked

088very diligently on. You know, we had an incident about four or five years ago, right? And um Yes, ma'am. We have three AEDs at our high school currently and so we'll add one and we'll have four. Okay. Anything here? Okay. Um intelligence and communications. Um, so the the thing that the uh the the school safety commission came out with was was multi-layered communication and not just having one way of of of communicating back and forth. And so uh we have several ways now that that we work through uh uh our communications and things, but um we have the catapult uh EMS system that we've just rolled out and begun. our our buildings have started using those. Even when we're doing fire drills and when we're doing our lockdown drills, they use those. It's it's an

089internal system uh that we can communicate with our our students and staff. We know and and our our our principles have been working through it. I think we it slow at first, didn't it? But we kind of we kind of like it right now. As we as we get better at it, we'll really like it. Um but we know very quickly uh when we did fire grills last month and we said, "Let's practice with a fire grill." So, we exited the building and then our teachers were able to uh somewhat quickly as we learned the system, but they were able to go, I've got these students with me. And so, we had uh rosters and we knew who was with who very quickly. We also knew who was in accounting for Is it via cell

090phones? Yes. So, how does that work at the the intermediate school where cell phone it's perfect. Okay. And so we and we practiced at every campus and we did so so that we would know, hey, where do we have holes and gaps and things that we need to address. Okay. And so we specifically did it to try to find out will it work, will it not, what issues might might happen. Perfect. And we specifically want people to use their cell phone because you can also use this device, a computer, Chromebook or whatever. But the problem is once you leave the building, if you're outside of the Wi-Fi range, you won't have access to it. And if we're evacuating the building for any type of reason, you need you need your cell service as well. Okay.

091So, we we have a way now for teachers to let us know immediately, uh, hey, I'm we're safe and we're we're okay. We're safe and we need help. We're, you know, whatever. We got some critical needs right now. And so, they can do it internally. U, they can do it, you know, text and phone and that sort of thing. And so, they're not on the phone talking while we might have a critical incident. and those things. And so we'll get better as catapult as we do it more often. And so we're we're at least doing it monthly with all of our drills um and those things. Um but it's been good. You know, we have we have staff that travel buildings and so if we've got an incident at the high school, we can now,

092you know, send them an alert and immediately they know not to go into the high school and do different things. And so, uh, uh, it's a way too for, uh, one of the recommendations is is a way to, uh, have a panic alert button or whatever. And so all of our staff with their phones, if they got something critical, we have a green, a yellow, and a red. And the red being most critical, like we need to lock down and stop now. And so they have the ability to to to alert us, and then we can take action from there. And so again, it's more eyes, you know, seeing and expanding our reach to make sure that we're safe and our students are safe and our and our faculty safe because we that's what we're

093trying to do with our our culture up here. Um the next thing we've got listed is our smart tag that we're we're rolling out for transportation. We're going to our our bus drivers have been working on their kind of iPad part of it here for for about about two months. Uh and then we're going to roll it out when we get back from spring break. We were going to do it originally this week, but we didn't want to start and take a week off and then kind of have to reset everybody. So, when we get back from spring break, our students will get their little badges. Uh they'll scan on the bus, they'll scan off the bus, but also it'll allow parents to know, hey, your child scanned on the bus at 3:00, they scanned

094off the bus at 4:05. And so, they'll know uh where they were and that sort of thing. Uh we've used it a couple times uh already. We've had uh uh some challenges or or things where, you know, hey, is this still on the bus or did we drop them off? and we can pull up and look and we've got a, you know, hey, these students are still on the bus and here's the students that got off the bus. And so we can very quickly know um uh who's who's where off and and all sorts of of things. And so we've we've trained our admin team, we've trained our building teams on on on their their side of it now. And so the next piece will be to train students and then and then our community,

095our parents and that sort of thing on what they'll see. Uh it'll also alert so you know when we have uh snowy days and we have rainy days you don't want your your child standing out at the curb waiting on the bus and so as the bus is approaching it uses our GPS stuff. It'll send a text say the bus is 10 minutes away so you know to start looking uh for the bus and that sort of thing and so that we can provide a safer environment and do all that stuff. And then the last piece that we put for communication was just the we tip which is which is you know this stuff that we're we're doing for uh uh our students and that sort of thing. Right now for communication we use uh

096radios that are that are tuned in. Uh we have them at all buildings. They're tuned in with our our local law enforcement. We have various channels so you can talk building to building. You can stay within your building. You can talk to transportation or you can talk to on security. You can talk to law enforcement and everybody. And so we're able to communicate that way. We're able to communicate via our intercoms and our phone systems. We're able to communicate uh via Catapult. And so we've got layered communication uh within within Catapult. Our SRO's and our emergency personnel. We've put them into the system as first responders so that we have something they get it immediately as well. So they know to be on site and do those things. and we've created some leads and some

097layers within those different groups so that we we don't have mass confusion. And so we've worked at uh pretty hard and it'll get better over time as we we continue to use the system and do those things if that makes sense. I did have a question about the smart tag. Is it going to be kind of like a key card or will similar will the kids be responsible like kindergarteners like keeping up with it? So like we'll attach it to their backpacks. Okay. So, I was just wondering like let's say a kid dropped it cuz sometimes kids are not great at keeping up with stuff. That will happen, you know, and then the end of the bus route it says Joey's on the bus and there's no Joey. We have we have two options. They

098can scan on and off and our bus drivers can and what they're doing right now is they're practic manually loading is what it's called. And so they can they can search the student and they know a lot of them, you know, because they ride their buses every day. So they can search the student, they can load them on and they can load them off. Okay. We prefer the badge because it's so much faster. You scan and you're on or scanning your off. Okay. As opposed to having to, you know, push some buttons and do some different things. But if a kid shows up, if a kid shows up without his badge, the driver will punch them in. Okay. And and they're on. And if they if it's laying on the bus floor, they'll they'll punch

099them out when they get off the bus. It would be my son that would get on the bus. So, I'm already thinking it will happen. We'll attach them. We're going to the original plan is to attach them to to backpacks because most of our kids have have backpacks. We do have lanyards and different things that they'll scan on and we've got a process in place where if we lose one we can replace and and do some other things. Okay. So, as they get off the bus, it'll be they're getting off the bus now. And we're also going to use this for, you know, field trips, athletic trips, all that. So, we can document who's on and off the bus. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, the last thing that that I have is just the physical

100security u of our buildings this year. We started kind of an initiative way back in in August. Uh we just called it our one thing and the the biggest deterrent that they found at at Yubaldi when they had their their school shooting was they had a door propped open and then inside the building they had two classroom doors that were just completely unlocked. And so, you know, when an intruder came in, they found the unlock for classrooms. And so, uh, our one thing, uh, this year has been locking up doors, exterior and interior doors. And so, uh, our our our SRO's, our building administration, our team, we've been working really hard at making sure that that exterior doors are locked. Um, to your point earlier, if we see a door propped open, we're taking whatever's

101propping it open, we take it. We have our maintenance team trained. We have our custodial staff trained. We have our admin team trained. We have uh our SRO's trained. And if we see anything propped, we we just we close it back and we take whatever is dropping it, we take it away. And then then we inform who we need to inform that, hey, this is this is not what we're doing. And so, uh, we've worked really hard. Uh, could we be better? Yes. Uh, but we've worked really hard at at making sure that we're locking doors. And the one thing we found is there hasn't been a, you know, We don't like to think of school shootings, but sometimes we have to. And there hasn't been um uh no one has breached a locked door.

102They haven't shot through a locked door or gone, you know, if a door is locked, they just go to the next one. If a door is locked, they just go to the next one. They don't generally take the time. And so, uh for us, we want to keep doors locked, especially when students and staff are present. uh that if we do have uh a critical incident or somebody that's you know wanted to be malicious that we uh we're providing a safe environment. So u we're we're trying to lock doors uh with the the the grant money here. We're going to uh extend our our electronic access or controlled access. Uh we have cameras all over our our campuses so that we've got a record of of what's going on. Uh we also have them on

103our buses. um at each of our our buildings. Uh the big one is is to have a a secure point of entry. And so we want all of our guests, we don't, you know, that that culture of safety. We don't want students, you know, somebody's outside popping a door open or staff popping a door open and we want all of our guests to go through the front entrance and that's where we vet them. That's where we use our visitor management system. Uh we go through and make sure that they're supposed to be on campus. They've got a reason to be on campus. They've got a a meeting or or something. uh and that we're secure and we know what's going on going on. And uh I think it was a couple years ago we we

104had a an SRO that u um was in just like regular fatigue clothes and a police officer that we just put in regular civilian clothes and said here walk through the building with and we'll we'll follow you with our our RSRO just to see if anybody stopped them. You know what I mean? And so he was able to walk two or three campuses and we noted who stopped him and who didn't. you know, like we looked at them and just walked on by and different things. And so, uh, that we could have conversations about here's what visitors should have, here's how they should be identified and here's what to do if you if you see somebody and they don't have these things and here's what to say. And so, uh, just that kind of continual

105culture of safety, uh, and those things. And so, uh, all of this stuff we have done, we've walked, uh, we have our our our fire department walked every building. They have three shifts. And so we did it with every shift that they have. Uh we went to all of our our our schools. We showed them where our our fire panels were, our riser rooms were. They know where our knockboxes are so that if we do have something, they can get in the building. We double checked to make sure all of their keys worked and they had access to every building so that our emergency personnel knows where everything is. We gave them maps of every building. We told them where we're going to put maps inside buildings so that if they show up and they

106don't have something because they're first responding, they know they can go here and get something. And so just for that culture and that that piece of making sure that if we do have something that our first responders and our people that are going to be on site first, know where to go. They're familiar with with our buildings and what's happening and uh we can address an issue quickly if that makes sense. Do we have a Grandmaster key system right now? We do. Yes, ma'am. But it is not at the grandmaster level where one key will open every campus. Okay. The one thing we started doing is when we built the high school is to get it off the current grandmaster system because well that's why we're trying to get all the keys back. Okay. We

107do we have one and it's a work in progress as we shift it from one start transitioning buildings over. Okay. Any other questions? You know, the work of safety isn't one person. Um, it is the continued effort of everyone up here from kids reporting, you know, things that they see to community reporting things that things that are going on to all 300 of our staff members and everything. It's the it's the collective effort of everyone that keeps everyone safe. And I can't thank everyone enough because we are in such a better place than we were four or five years ago with just the process and procedures that we put in place and we've continually added to that year in year out as we could to to make our buildings as safe as possible. No, we

108thank you guys. Thank you very much. I appreciate this update. We have one more slide, but it's not about that. Um um up next on the agenda is the purchase. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Now, Miss Mfield, I'm sorry. Tomorrow we have um the honor of hosting leadership bitten county. This the group I'm in their current cohort of leadership training. So, it's about 40 of us that are going through um a 16 series event. Last week, last um month we did agriculture. Next months we'll do commerce, we'll do um community finance and a whole series. But this month the focus is education. So we'll have um 40 business leaders from Benton County that um their work is associated with Benton County. It's um we apply through the process and it's through the Roger Loels Chambers of

109Commerce puts it on. And so that class, the 2023 class, will be coming on site and touring the intermediate school, the pantry, bright features, and then they'll do a flip to the high school community clinic and all the neat things going on. So, just to let you know that about 40 uh business leaders will be in our school district tomorrow from 1 to 4. Um, any questions on that? All right. Up next, we have playground equipment. This is something that is much needed at our primary school. This will be for the U playground that is south of the indoor north of the primary kind of in between around by the bus turnaround. Um Miss Bennett has been working diligently on this. They received a $10,000 private donation that was matched with another $30,000 donation. So

110they have a total of around $45 to $50,000 in their playground fund which is outstanding. Um, but playground equipment is very expensive. Um, it seems like it wouldn't be and everybody thinks that a school should get a discount, but schools, churches, and municipalities are their customers, so there are no discounts. But, um, what we've brought before you today is a proposal. This is the piece of playground equipment. Miss Bennett, do you want to talk about it any or you want me to? It it doesn't matter. I mean, we're really excited about it. We did have um a donation and we are super thankful for that and thankful for the district and coming around and and offering to help us fulfill our need to put this playground out there. Right now all we have is the

111dome out on that playground and it's it's got a lot of open space that we would like to fill with something to keep them busy. This one holds 183 kids. So that's almost our entire grade level for each grade. And is this is playground inclusive to Yes, ma'am. It's ADA compliant. That's perfect. Yep. That's exactly I couldn't think of the abbreviations, the initials. So, tell me what the material is on those. Either the ropes or the the climbing. I think that's exactly what it is. Is a is a type of rope. I'm sure it's synthetic so it doesn't stretch and everything, but our goal is to have kids be as active as possible and everything. It will have I know this doesn't show it. It will have the border around it with the appropriate fall

112space so you won't get hurt and everything, you know, with the appropriate amount of mulch underneath it. And this pricing includes all of that as well. But the goal is to, you know, that's I know it doesn't look very big. It's a gigantic piece of equipment. Um, where the I'm going to call them the tires that are out there on it. We're digging all that will be dug up as soon as school's out and it will be in that kind of general area right inside that fence area. So, it will be outstanding for our kids. Um the price is they're expensive. Um the piece of equipment is right at about $80,000, but it's the installation, the tax, the freight, and everything. I know on there it says there's a discount applied if customer offload of

113the equipment. That's not happening, guys. That's um that's a little bit more than we can do. Um, as the past primary school principal who was cheap enough to think that we could install the current playground equipment, we did we thought we could do it in one day. It took us three weekends and a lot of work and it's it's you have to have a you have to have a special skill set and expertise to do that. It's it's a lot more. Did we have Sean yet? We have not. We have not. But it it was a lot more difficult than we gave it credit for. And so with that, um, there is a discount if we order before, um, I think the end of March. Um, I think it's about a 25% discount and everything.

114This is a tips, taps vendor, so it does not require competitive bidding. We looked at, I believe, four different pieces of equipment. It ranged from 87,000 to what, 150ish? About 150 and and whatnot. But this is we felt that this was a great piece of equipment that could have a lot of kids active and involved on it because that's what you want at recess. You want the kids actively involved and engaged and this will allow us to provide for our kids. So we've got 45 or 50,000 coming from there. Where's the rest of the funding? is the ARMAC funding that Miss Bernell can talk about a little bit that Yeah, the the ARMAC funding is the Arkansas Medicaid funding and the primary purpose of it is for health and wellness. So, nursing supplies and everything.

115So, I called the state to see if this qualified and it does because keeping those kids active will help wellness. Um, it might help with behavior situations because they're going to be active at recess. Perfect. Thank you. What is the expectancy on a playground like this? Like how long is it like a five or a 10 year? Right. Because you know like it looks mainly it's not wooden. It doesn't look like these will last I mean you we will have to replace the the ropes or or whatnot. But the structure itself they I think they have a 30. Okay. 40ear warranty. I mean they're three and four inch you know steel pipe that's a quarter inch thick. Um, the only way to truly hurt it would be to maliciously, right, cut it or something. Yes,

116ma'am. Is there a warranty if something did happen? Uh, yes, ma'am. I think on the on the actual structure itself, I can't remember the years, but it is. I'm just kind of It's multiple years because you got to remember they're non-moving parts, right, and things like that. Once it's installed, it it it should not fail. Okay. How often are there like a reertification process when inspections done on these? Well, that's part of our district, our safety audits. We inspect playgrounds and everything. Um, the mulch we refill every year and everything to make sure it has the right thickness or and everything to make sure that we're safe. We'll just I mean, we already have one at the intermediate school, the primary school. It's just adding one more playground. Any questions? We are We are excited

117and I know we have about 530 little kids that are excited about this as well and probably some teachers as well. Yeah. So with that, I would like to make the recommendation that we purchase playground equipment from Davis Playgrounds in the amount of $132,78347. All right. So we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? Motion by Jessica. Do we have a second? Second by Adam. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. All right. The primary school likes you. I actually can't wait to play on this. Oh, and you know, a good thing about it is we do not lock we do not lock our playgrounds. So during non-school hours, during the summer, families are welcome to go play on it and everything. So it it's good for our community as well. It's

118almost like another park inside the city for for people to use. Um the next is we talked a little bit about this is controlled access. Um I know Mr. Taylor's usually the one who who works on this and everything's done a great job, but what we've brought before you on the bid tab is for 38 doors for controlled access. Um it comes out to $150,59083. ADT is a cooperative purchasing or vendor. You do not have to have bibs, but on this we did and you can see that they are the um they are also the cheapest one. We go from 134,000 with ADT for 33 doors, which moves to 150 um for 38 doors. And then the next closest bit for 33 doors is 164,000 and change all the way up to 317,000 and change.

119And this will not come out of general operating. It will be a reimburseable from the state for the safety grant for the full amount. Yes, ma'am. We do we are not ready to bring the um safety film or glass to you yet. We're not we have a little bit more work to do on that. Okay. And then um is there going to be like a yearly fee with ABT? No, there's not a yearly one on that on that. So the the current one we use doesn't have a yearly license fee. Okay. Okay. I'm sort of glad Sarah on on on your pet sheet that they they had a quite a quite a high yearly fee. Yeah. I saw the one your subscription with the other. So I just wanted to make sure. Okay. And Mr.

120Taylor, correct me, but the system that they use is cor it currently works with what we're we already have. Yeah. We're we're really the reason ABC were able to be so much cheaper in my opinion is because they're expanding our existing system. Okay. or some of the other ones we're we're trying to overhaul that and so we're adding features to our existing system and also doors. This this gives us that uh uh door propped uh notification so that if we do have a door propped open then we get alert. Okay. Any other questions with that? I'd like to make the recommendation that we purchase u controlled access from ADT for 38 doors in an amount of $150,59083. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? Motion. Motion by Sarah. Do we

121have a second? Second by Jessica. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Next is personnel. All right. Do we see a need for executive session? Okay. Okay. We'll keep rolling. Yes, ma'am. Excuse me. Um, on resignations, these are all effective at the end of the 22 23 school year. Um, I'd like to make the recommendation that we accept the resignations of Taylor Jackson, Lana Basinger, Kristen Johnson, Dan Childress, and that is an athlete coaching only. He will remain here as a teacher. It's just the athletic piece of it. Um, Andrea Rickettts, Nicole Cole, Laura Draper, and Carol Griffin. And before y'all vote on that, Miss Rickettts has been here for 38 years. And she has decided to for her, she's going to retire and for her and Harvey to go do what they

122do. So, I can't tell you how much I appreciate Miss Rickettts and her dedication not only to P Ridge School District, but to P Ridge as a whole. Um, you know, she's a school here. Absolutely. Her her mom and dad ran the the web feeds feed and seed for years and years and years. Um, I can I can tell you 100% there will never be another Andrea Ricketts in P Ridge School District and she will be dearly missed. And I'm assuming we're gonna have a send off party, right? Oh, absolutely. Okay. We're not going to call it retirement. We'll just call it. Absolutely. All right. And to accept these with regret. All right. So, that's your recommendation. Correct. Yes, ma'am. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Motion

123by John. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Adam. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Next is hiring. Um, I'd like to make the recommendation that we hire Garland um, Titzworth for maintenance and Maria Gimenez for custodial services. Right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Sarah. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. All right. And next we have some transfers um to transfer C Douglas to seventh grade basketball and track and Mr. Rooney to um girl head ninth grade girls basketball. Okay. So we have a recommendation for these transfers. Do we have a motion? Motion by Adam. Do we have a second? I'll second. Any further discussion? Um, does that make

124us fully staff for girls basketball? No, ma'am. We still have one open. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. It will be technically for assist high school assistant coach. Okay. Kevin, is that right? Correct. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay, ma'am. That's all I have. Make a motion to journ. All right. I second it. All in favor? We're gone. Thanks, guys.