001We are live with the January regular school board meeting. If we could, we'll start with the pledge. I pledge algiance 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 follow that with a moment of silence. [Music] Amen. All right, Mr. Martin, we'll turn it over to you, sir. Well, first of all, happy school board appreciation month. Um, we appreciate everything y'all do. and other community does as well. Your gift bag in there. There are some books in there. I believe our primary, intermediate, and middle school are doing a one book, one school or one school, one book, however you say it. Um, and those are the books that everyone in the building are going
002to be reading. So, we thought that y'all could see that as one. And we tried to make it where it's like interested for you if you got kids involved in that building as well. But, thank you for all you do. Your work goes um y'all are public servants. Y'all are elected. Y'all are one of the few officials that get paid a grand total of zero for being here and we our kids can't thank you enough for everything that you do. Well, thank you very much for the gift. It's very thoughtful. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. First item we have is consent agenda and financial reports. Are there any questions or discussion points? Okay. With that, excuse me. I'd like to make the recommendation that we accept the consent agenda, financial report, and approval
003of and approval of board minutes um for the December 13th, 2022 meeting be approved as submitted. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? A motion. All right. Motion by Adam. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Jessica. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Okay. Up next, we have some action items. Um, first is approval of some custodial positions for starting this school year. Um, been working with Mr. Remy and we see the need. We have increased events, more kids, more traffic going through our buildings. So, we would love the opportunity to hire two more custodians to help us out in the evenings. Mr. Green. Yep. We uh we're seeing increased usage in our buildings, especially uh at night. And so we we'll clean a facility
004at 6:00, somebody comes in at 7 or 7:30 behind it, and then we've got to circle back and we need to clean it again for tomorrow. And so, uh, to keep our our building nice, uh, to keep them, uh, up to speed and to be prepared for for each learning day, we we feel like these two additional positions in the evening will help us uh, be prepared and continue to maintain facilities at a high level. And this is within the budget? Yes, ma'am. And this is as of January, not next school year. Correct. As of right now. Okay. These two we'll try to we'll try to hire and fill as quickly as possible so that we can we can get them to work. Okay. So, is that your recommendation? Yes, ma'am. To approve two custodial
005positions to begin January um to begin now. Okay. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? I'll make a 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 positions for next school year. We are growing. We have some um grade level fluctuations within our buildings. A perfect example is sixth grade is our largest grade level. Right now, they run anywhere between 220 and 230 kids depending on the day um and everything. And they're going into the junior high. And so with that, we would be asking for a math and science position at the junior high and a social studies literacy position at the junior high to help to help with that growth. Um, also one core
006teacher at our high school and and after we get through CAP conferencing and scheduling to determine where that core teacher is needed. Um does that make so that we're we're hiring based on the need of the students and the top two one are a visual and performing arts teacher um one visual performing arts teacher and one um one visual perform one visual arts teacher I'm sorry and one performing arts teacher um they will be based at the intermediate school but that will not be their entire schedule of their day. They will also be um helping with the junior high and high school um you know with band choir and that so that we can continue to grow those programs as well. Is this for 23 24? Yes sir. This is for 2324. And I was
007going to tell you I got a typo right there. I can't help myself when it we just flipped the calendars. Yeah. I have I've had to go back and redo everything that I've signed on checks and everything. I put 1622 starting out. Yeah. I won't do that again. But yes sir, the the neck B and C are for 23 and 24. So presently we share a visual arts teacher and performing art teacher between intermediate and middle school. And we are finding with our auxiliary rotations and the growth in those classes, we're not able to serve. It's very very tight. So we really need to split that off. And so that does give us some flexibility to support those junior high classes and the high school electives. art is every year we're having students that there's
008you know first requests have to pause and maybe take it when they get a little like say they want a 10th grader we can't fit them in we say you need to wait till your junior year just because we have so much request and not enough teaching spots so this will allow us to supplement some of that with 9th and 10th graders as well so it it's going to fit more I know they will be primarily housed at the intermediate school but this will allow for flexibility and rotations at those at the intermediate school at the middle school and then also be able to serve one or two spots at the junior high and high school depending on the need after course selection. So really well it says just the intermediate school multiaceted. So the
009person does the middle school take the person that we have now. Got it. How many positions do we currently have open for teaching overall out of all schools? Are there any open positions at all right now? Yes, we have a healthcare professions teacher at the high school that is open now. Uh we have a advertising and graphic design teacher at the high school that's advertised as listed, but we have recommendation for that this evening. Um that will then change if if approved an opportunity for a virtual position to be hired in a third grade math position that are presently. We also have a middle level social studies position at the middle school, but we're making a recommendation for hire for that tonight as well. So we after this evening we would have the medical professions
010virtual and the position at the intermediate school perma. So overall out of all the schools we'd have three positions that are currently open and then we're wanting to add in these five positions for next year for next school year. Right. Correct. So we won't we will most likely try to post for those in February and we begin going to recruiting fairs and um staffing fairs. We're going to go to UAPB. We're going to Missouri Southern. We're going to UFS. All those are coming out now. They're pretty much in February and March. So, Miss Taber and myself hit those pretty hard. So, it's nice to have these positions open when we start at those recruiting barriers now. Well, it's not just the positions, it's the factoring in pay. So, let's say we come back into these
011other three teachers that we we requested originally and we're needing them. Are we going to have make sure that we're going to have accurate and adequate funding for these other ones? Oh, you want me to answer that? Oh, right now we are funded on 2333 students for the 22 23 school year. Right now our enrollment is at 24 57 2460 somewhere in there. So that is a growth of about 130 140 students. We will be able to fund these financially. If we could not fund them financially, they would not be presented to you. Just want to make sure. Absolutely. And the positions that are vacant now, the people that are that open positions are because people have moved or other things like that. And so those positions salaries stop and then you pick up the
012rest of it for the remainder of the year. So even though we're hiring opens positions presently, they're already budgeted for the 22 23 school year. Right. And then with the growth that we're experiencing in town, we're also giving us some leeway to add mainstream teachers as we need them next school year. Correctly. Um yes ma'am. Okay. Um we are trying to you know usually we ask for uh next year's staff at February or March's board meeting. Good. We're wanting to be as aggressive as possible and the reason why is the the job you know the applicant market where where we're at in the teacher pipeline and it gives us as much opportunity as possible to find the best quality person that we can. Okay. So this isn't necessarily complete list. This is what we've noticed
013now and you're going to continue to work with the principles for February. Okay. All right. Um with any other questions with that, I'd like to make the recommendation that we approve the new faculty and staff positions for the 2324 school year as presented. All right. So, we have a recommendation. Do we have a motion? A motion. Adam, with the motion, do we have a second? Yeah. All of a second, apparently. Okay. Who do you want to put down? We'll put Jessica. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. All right. Up next on the agenda is our school choice resolution again for the typo for the 2324 school year. This is already in policy. Um 4.5F is already there. I felt that it was important to go ahead and get that um
014um updated and put into place for the 23 24 school year. With the growth that we are having in town, the amount of housing that's coming in um school choice um we're going to have to go over that more carefully over the next few years. And this will allow us to to this will set forth the policy that we're going to do. Um have have y'all had the opportunity to read through it and everything? It is basically, you know, applications before May one. What you'll get, um, what's it called? Oh, my mind just went went blank on me. Um, you will be accepted, but not guaranteed to vote that application process. We will have a board meeting in June and go through our numbers and make sure that we are not exceeding capacity to make
015sure that we can bring kids in on the numbers that we can. So, you'll get a provisional acceptance. Yes m pro provisional. Thank you call me. And um and it allows us to also have that if we will not bring school choice kids in if it requires us to hire additional positions within our within our district. And I want you to realize if you go over three kids with school choice to hire a new position that's about $25,000 that that brings in in funding. with that teacher may cause will cost at least 70 to 70 75,000 with benefits and everything and then sometimes it can when you get an older student it can multiply out into core subjects and everything. So we're not saying that we are not taking school choice but we're going to
016make sure that we are within our capacity benchmarks to make sure that we're doing what's right for the kids that currently go here. And this is this falls within Arkansas state law. Oh yes, ma'am. This is straight from Arkansas School Board Association. Okay. Straight from Arkansas code. Okay. We're just doing the resolution to make it official. Yeah. And on here it says by July 1st. That's kind of the cut off where we can notify people if we have you have to have your application in by May one and we will notify you by July 1. So you can decide for your kids. Okay. Any questions? Do we have that you have to have your application in by May one anywhere on here? Yes, it's on that very first dot or bullet point under the second
017bullet point. Yeah, it says applications will be accepted at that it Okay, there it is. May 1 or mark before May one. All right, I missed it. I guess my thumb was over May 1st. Sorry, guys. We time stamp them so that we take them in the order that they're received within the district and create a list. Miss Rose does that. So every student in X grade, it's the first one to apply, the second one to apply, the third one to apply. But if the first one applies has siblings, do their siblings to play as well. Okay. All right. And let's say we go over the amount. Let's say they we've got 12 kids that applied and three of them have siblings. How will this go into effect when we go to determine which kids
018that we can't accept? That's when you time stamp them and it's the first kid that shows up and they have let's say they have four siblings. All four of the siblings count. All right. Because they're all on one form. Yeah. They're timestamped on that same form. Got Yeah. And you know our Yeah. When we get into that with siblings, let's say a family applies and we have their first and third grade. We have two in first two spots available in first grade after we get through everything. And we have four available in third grade. And they were number three in second grade. I were number two. They met in one grade and they did not in the other. One kid would get accepted and the other one would not. Um, and it would just be
019up to the parent to decide. Yes, ma'am. And then that's the parent's choice. I don't know if I explained that correctly. I got you. You've got one only a few openings for first and second grade. Second, third and fourth may not have as many openings or may not have any openings. If you don't have any openings, we can accept the first grader, but we cannot accept the third and fourth gra. And it's going to look skewed too from K6 to 712 because you have more flexibility in 712 for requirements and teacher and case load size. So you might look like, oh, we can take in all these high school kids, but we can't take in the younger. That would be absolutely what will happen most likely to us, I would imagine. Yeah. And we have
020a neighboring school district that is going through the same problems that we have, and they're experiencing that where they are they are able to take in more secondary students than they are elementary students. So I have one more question. So people that are legitimately moving into our district and maybe are building a house here currently, that's completely different. Is there a deadline though to track the numbers of what that looks like in comparison? What we require with someone who is building a home here is we allow them to use their contract as their proof of residency. So they would not be school choice as long as they have a legitimate contract with the builder and they have you know with a construction loan or some people are fortunate enough not to have a construction loan
021but they have a contract and we can prove that we will let them go ahead and use that because that would not be school choice. they're going to be I just didn't know if there was a deadline of like July 1st that you have to It doesn't apply at all that way. Okay. Honestly, we would take someone right now for the remainder of the year if they brought Gotcha. I just I guess my question related to school choice was like tracking like let's say a family with four kids on August 10th decided to register but we were at capacity with school choice. Just kind of thinking that through. If you reside in district, no matter what decision was made on school choice, you're enrolled in school. Yeah. But it could push the numbers is what
022I was when we go over based off of standards, then we do have to hire without question. Gotcha. And then we would hire. Okay. Just for clarification because it kind of crosses over. So, and this is a sensitive subject. Yeah. And it's where we are in the district of growth. So, okay. Any other questions? With that, I would like to make the recommendation that we pass the school choice resolution for the 2324 school year 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 by John. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Excuse me. Up next, we have our student services report. Mr. Rainy. Um because you know December was a shorter month as far as uh number
023of student contact days. Uh our report's a little shorter than that that food service uh has a pending balance for the month of November. $498,366.66. And so, uh, even, you know, just being in in school a short, uh, amount of time, uh, in December, our our balance, uh, increased, uh, from our October report, which is which is good. Um, over the break, we did, uh, uh, have a couple inspections, uh, state state inspections that are required. Uh, we had all of our our vent hoods and our kitchens inspected, uh, for for fire suppression. Uh, Marmet came out and did those. uh noted any uh defects or concerns and uh we have u made those uh changes over the break and and we're up and running uh there. Uh and then uh we had our fire
024marshal uh Mr. Pal come out. We walked buildings. Uh he noted uh uh anything that was u of concern to him. Um very very minor stuff. Uh we had a couple I think exit signs that needed new batteries. So if the power went out, they would they would light up. I think we had two of them across the district. And so uh we've changed those out and we're we're up and running. Um and so we were able to get uh that stuff done. Um we do in transportation, we do have uh a couple of things uh coming up. Number one, both of them are tomorrow actually. Uh number one are we we did the the state inspections, physically inspecting our buses uh back in in November. And so, uh, the next piece of our our
025state inspections for transportation is they come on site and look at all of our drivers credentials and do they have, um, uh, have they had their their physical in the last two years? Have they been drug tested? Are they on our random screenings? Do we have, uh, you know, current CDL license form and all of those all of those things. And so, uh, we've got all our paperwork, you know, ready and we're ready for them to to come on site tomorrow and go through, uh, go through that that side of it. Um and so uh you know hopefully there won't be any issues there. We don't anticipate any. The other thing that we have is um uh our our third bus that we ordered almost what 20 months ago 2 months ago or something like
026that was October the previous year uh is is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. We're holding our breath. Um but uh hopefully at 9:00 we'll have uh our final bus uh that we ordered uh a long time ago uh on site and so we're excited to to have it add it to our fleet. Um it's taken a little while to get here. We'll still have to add uh you know some cameras and some some radios and things to it, but at least we'll have have the bus on site. So I know our transportation department, they're kind of all all smiles. They they've got a big bus coming. Um, big news for us over the winter break was water vapes, wasn't it? Yes, it was. It was a we we we thought we were going to have
027a little downtime over the break and we did not. Uh, we were we were up here uh quite a bit Christmas Eve, Christmas night, uh, day after Christmas, every day in between it seemed it seemed like, but we had uh, we had some water leaks across the district with those extremely cold temperatures. And, uh, I think our first one was at the junior high. And while we were cleaning up the junior high, we had one at the primary and uh so we we got those two taken care of uh on December 23rd and then the 24th we were doing some more clean up and we had one at the high school that we noticed and so we went over there and dealt with it and and uh uh then we had one in the storage
028room. We had one on Christmas night in the intermediate gym and and so we had taken uh preventative measures ahead of time. We we cranked up the heat in all buildings. You know, usually in the evenings, uh, we lower our our heat to save money and all that. Well, we didn't do that. Over the directly we knew the temperature is going to be bad. So, we had the heat up in all of the buildings. We we had it off what we called an occupied mode. We had removed ceiling tile so heat could get up into the the the ceiling cuz we have some water pipes that run through the ceiling in some of our buildings. Um, we had done all open cabinet doors, left water running, doing, you know, all of the things, but we
029just had some areas that with the with the temperatures, we just couldn't Yeah. And so, do you think it's sections that weren't uh where heat wasn't really getting to it too much or these smaller areas different the hallway at the junior high, the main hallway right outside the principal's kind of office area. Yeah. um um in the the high school arena. It was actually in our riser room. We have a heater in there. It just couldn't keep up with the cold temperatures and it's on the north wall. And so um we've got plans now. We you don't know till you know. And so we didn't know that the heater couldn't keep up with the temperatures that cold. We we do now. Um and so we'll we'll we'll work there. U we had a we had
030a storage room in within a classroom at the primary. The classroom has heat. The storage room doesn't. the door was closed and so it it the sprinkler had bust in there and so um just just some things like that that we we learned and so we'll be able to be prepared more as we we go. We had a team of what seemed like 10 or 12 just about every time we we we had an issue and they were on site immediately and we went we went to clean it up and fix it. And so we're working with teachers and staff currently on replacing items that you know we we have to make a quick decision. Can we salvage that or do you have to just throw it away? And so we we made those decisions.
031We're working with we've already been in in contact with staff about reordering um and you know replacing anything that was damaged. And so we we've created some lists and we're working on that. Um and then uh we'll get it done. We talk we've had insurance already on site and so they've done their walk through taking their pictures and done their stuff. So we've got we've got the process started. It'll be much quicker than what we experienced with the the quad and all that. Um so that we can we can move forward. Um it was it was not as fun and restful as a break as we hoped for. Sure. But you know, um I can't tell you how much I appreciate heavy I'm sorry, Mr. James. James, um Shane, Steve, um Troy, um let's see,
032Tennis. Shirley was up here. Belinda Brewer, um up here, yes, Amanda. Um Kevin was up here with me. Um you know, an 8:00 p.m. Christmas night call. Um come up here. Please pass our appreciation along. that I mean that's I I felt awful but I can't tell you how the damage was minimal because of the work and the effort that that those ladies and gentlemen put in and without without them we we would have had a lot more damage. So we are truly appreciative of them. Absolutely. As are we. Yes. Great. Please pass that along. And if I missed anyone, I'm sorry. All right. Can I ask can I ask a quick question? How are we doing on the bus driver hiring? Is that cuz it seems like things are better. I didn't know if
033there was any update. Well, we we've worked at it and we've we've been able to hire some. Um we've had some coaches fill in when we've had some now that like football's not in season. We've got four of our football coaches that can drive. So, you know, well, offseason's really important to them, but we've been able to to steal one here or there. So, if we've had somebody out, we've been able to. But we we're still trying to bring bring some on. We we've got a couple that we'd like to hire to alleviate some stress from us, but we are doing much better as far as uh we haven't had to send out any any any emails or text saying this was late. And so uh uh and then you know part of it our
034our drivers show up to work every day and we haven't had sickness. We have had what we call life events, you know, that have taken some uh and so uh uh we're we're we're hanging in there. Okay. Well, good. I just wanted I I noticed cuz, you know, I have four children, so I'm getting lots of emails for a while and I haven't seen any, so it seemed like it was better. So, okay. Um up next are board hours. Um every year in January, we're required to report on board hours that you have that list in front of you. Um, new members are required to get um, returning members are are required to get six hours each year. New members are required to get nine within the first two. And so everybody's well within compliance.
035Um, we do have Miss Caul on here who has been recognized as a let me get this right. Sorry. Um, the certificate of boardsmanship where they have where she has completed 25 hours um, since 2018. And those hours have to be in new schoolboard institute ASBA the regional meeting two hours of anything in the following for finance governance legals and student legal student achievement and then 8 hours of additional ASBA electives. Um so then we have Mr. D who is right there behind her with 21. So again that's another thing on the school board appreciation. and they don't realize that it's more than just the meetings. It's also all the training that we do. So, thank you for doing that. And if you're interested, if you receive 500 hours of training, you you received a
036president's award. That's a lot of hours. Is there even many offered? I I don't know. I think that's over a lot. Okay. A lot. I was going to say within a lot of work within 30 years. Okay. Well, within 30 years of this academy, is there something below president? Yeah. I don't know that I'm going to be around in 30 years. I'm kind of old. Okay. Did you say vice like 250 hours of the vice vice president's award? The platinum award is 400 hours. The principal award is 200 hours and a master board member is 50 hours. Oh, I can get that one. Yes, that one might be doable. Yeah, 500's a That's a lot. That means like you got to be on the board by 21. Good night. Other than that, that's all I
037have for this, but I would request that we go into executive session. Absolutely. So, it is 6:28 and we will go into executive session now.