001Let's get started. We have a busy schedule today. I'm calling to I'm calling to order the um county public schools board retreat on January 10th, 2026. The time now is 8:06 a.m. Before we get started, I'm going to do a brief um roll call and I'm also going to read the ethic statement at that point and then we'll turn the platform over to our moderator, Mr. Doyle, and then we'll begin our um our our retreat. District one, Jasmine B. She's not here yet. District two, Mr. Mark Christmas. >> District three, Dr. Jesse Gory. >> District four, Miss Victoria Williams. >> District five, Dr. D. Hay. >> District six, Miss Mary Baker. >> District seven, Miss Sabrina Hill, not here yet. District 8, Miss Joy Telis Cooper, not here yet. and myself district 9. Let me
002read this brief ethic statement and then I will hand the platform over to Mr. Joy. In accordance with board policy BH, it is the duty of every board member to avoid both conflicts of interest and appearances of such conflicts. Does any board member have any known conflict of interest or appearance of such conflict with respect to any matter scheduled to come before the board at this meeting or appearing on our proposed agenda? If so, please identify the conflict or appearance of conflict and refrain from participation in the matter involved. Good morning everyone and Mr. Doyle, platform is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy New Year, everyone. You have a very full agenda. So, as your moderator, I'll skip any pregame speeches that I might have had. It's good to see everyone and hope everyone's ready
003to dive in. Lot lot of things going on today. Uh, I would like to pass the mic if I could to your superintendent, Dr. Anthony Smith, to get us going. >> Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, Miss Vice Chairwoman, members of the board, staff, and community. Um, thank you for being here this morning. I hope everyone had a phenomenal holiday season, and I [clears throat] hope everybody's ducking around this onslaught of the flu that's going around. Doesn't seem like I was as fortunate, but anyway, uh, first up on the agenda is, uh, Empower Schools organization. And, uh, I'd like for, uh, Dr. Colbert to uh introduce uh the organization and uh and and so they can get prepared for their presentation. Thank you. >> Good morning. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, vice chair,
004members of the board of communities. This morning, we have a presentation uh with partners from power schools. a whole lot that I had this uh conversation with our schools um started some months ago. Um I've had an opportunity to to travel and look at some of the innovative work that they've done with systems throughout this country. So I won't delay. I I bring members of the our team up to get us started. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh before we get started, my name is Arthy Chararma. I work at Redefined Ed Atlanta. I've had the pleasure of meeting many of you guys before um both as a group and individually. I oversee our policy and advocacy work at Requet. Um as I was getting ready for this presentation, uh Mr. Shaker asked me to
005start by answering a key question which is what is redefined ed role in this work. And so redefine ed exists to ensure that every student in metro has access to a high quality public education. That is our main agenda. Um, one of the things that has come up in conversation with uh, various members of the board and staff at CL County over the last year or two. Um, you just been what does innovation look like within the school district? And I'm sorry if I sound out of breath. I am pregnant and so sometimes just getting through things can uh, make me a little winded. Uh but I wanted to start by saying our work is here today is simply exploratory. We are asking you to learn about a potential innovative model that partners with several
006districts across the country uh to create highquality public education in traditional public school models. And so empower in our research came up as organization that has experience in turnaround. So taking schools that are low performing and helping implement innovation within them to make them higher performing and we wanted uh to share that with you. Our role at Redefine then is primarily that of a vendor and a partner. So our work here is you know to introduce the partnership and that if place county chose to engage further we would explore what financing that looks like. Um and one of the things that we're also interested in is as you guys engage with this work today, please ask lots of questions. We're also interested in potentially funding a visit to visit some of these high performing schools
007in other parts of the country with board and staff and other stakeholders that the district has relevant. So with that I will hand it over to empower [applause] everyone. Um, all right. So, as Arthur mentioned, this is strictly like exploratory. We just want to see like what Clayton County um what options we can provide for you all. So, we're not here to get you a specific school or a specific model. This is all just to explore your options. >> But before you get started, what school we >> Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get the introductions in a second and tell you who I am. So our time together, we'll go through some introductions in a second, the what, why, how behind innovation school partnerships, and then we'll go into discussion
008and some next steps. But even though discussion is at the end, feel free to chime in, ask questions, any thoughts um throughout the presentation. So we are empowered schools. Um we are a national nonprofit that mainly serves to um black and brown students where we um increase student outcomes. We do this in a couple of different ways. But before I get into those ways um even though the name schools is in our name, we are not a charter management organization. We do not run schools. We do not um government any of that sort. We really work alongside you all, district members, community teachers. We work alongside you all to look at what you all have in place and how to strengthen those um systems that you have. So we do that in a couple different
009ways. We have innovation schools, early college and career pathways, and innovation. So um today we'll go into the innovation schools. So, who we are? Um, we'll do some introductions in a second. Um, but to start us off, my name is Leslie Ramo. I am the manager here at Empower Schools. Um, I've been with Empower for about 2 and 1/2 years now. But before I came to Empower, I was a teacher um in Tampa Bay, Houston for a couple years. And then I transitioned to the Houston mayor's office for a couple years. and then I made my way here at Empower. Um, so something that Mr. Stranger mentioned is where did I graduate? I actually graduated from Jonesboro High School. So I'm actually here. Um, so even though most of my work is in Texas and
010I focus in Texas, um, it's been a cool circle moment to be back here and to be back in the district that I came from and to be here with you all. So yeah. Good morning. Uh my name is Malik Stewart. I'm a senior director with Empower Schools and I'm based in Fort Worth, Texas. Uh I've been with Empire since 2021. Prior to that, I work with uh some education nonprofits in Texas and work with the uh Department of Education in Delaware, managing what now is called TSI, CSI, but then it's called TG still. Um and also uh the school district where I manage the program uh parent engagement and also um preschool title preschool and thank you all for inviting us. Good morning. I know you all are eating so really excited to be
011here. Um Chris Rockchshire um from Dallas, Texas. Um been working with empower now uh since 2019. um and also serve on the board of the power schools and also assist them with um kind of talking about what this work looks like. Um because I remember moving from Detroit um to Fort Worth, Texas and they said, "Hey, Chris, you're going to do this thing called innovative school." I was like, "Okay, cool. What does that mean?" Right? They said, "You're going to work with a university that is actually going to partner with the district to work with schools directly in terms of academics, operations, staffing, and all of those things." I said, "Okay, that sounds really cool. How does that move forward?" Right? And so I got introduced, one of the organizations I got introduced to wasn't
012our school. And so just really excited to be here with you. Um, but as we get started, I know that you're eating. Um, but I will tell you um being uh from Dallas, being the son of a pastor and how that works. So feel free to talk back to me. I will ask you um questions and you can also ask us questions. But we're just really excited to be here. But what is interesting just to ground this, there was an article in the New York Times that talked about Rick Van Winkle, woke up from a 20 plus year sleep and when he walked around he saw people on cell phones and he saw cars that levitated and he saw buildings that didn't look like they did when he went to sleep and he didn't know
013where he was. But then he walked into a building and he saw a chalkboard and he saw roads and he said, "Ah, I'm in a school." And if you look at that, if you Google that article, they're talking about the same things we're talking about today. They're talking about learning gaps. They're talking about the difference between learning learning from different groups of children. They're talking about college attainment. And here we sit in January 2026 as my as my wife and I tease our children the jets in years. We don't get half flying cars. We got cars that kind of drive themselves. And we can walk into some buildings and some spaces and recognize that they look the same and feel the same that they did almost 20 years ago. And so when we think about
014this idea of innovation, just think about what that means because we're in an awesome space to live in the present and create the future with at the same time. And so in grounding us here we go. Um this young man I don't know has anyone heard of kid president before? So in 2010, this young man became a YouTube sensation and he basically was like this, if I was a president, this is what it would look like if the kids were presidents. But you all are here before the sun came up on a Saturday morning because you dream. And grown-ups who dream are the best kind of grown-ups. We get bogged down in budgets. We get bogged down with facilities. We get bogged down with staffing. We get bogged down with all the decisions. But at
015the end of the day, we are here because we dream. We fundamentally believe that all means all. We fundamentally believe that we can create the future. And so with starting us, we just wanted to ground ourselves in that to begin with. So now I'm going to mess with you a little bit. As you sit and talk and as you paint, everything is about perspective. Say perspective. It's about perspective. So, I look a certain way if I stand here. If I walk and you track me, I might look different over here. Hopefully, I still match. I think gray and blue matches a little bit, but I shifted. I changed my position. And therefore, your perspective changes. Everybody has a perspective. And that perspective comes from your experiences. That perspective comes from what you believe. That perspective
016comes from what you value. And so just to kind of get us started as you move throughout the day, just remember your perspective and account for it. And understand how your perspective may show up. So I'm going to show you something. What do you all see in this photo? There's no wrong answer. >> A young lady. a young lady. >> Say again. >> He said multiple ladies. I've seen >> I heard a bird. What else? So when you look at this, you might see an older woman where this is her head and this is her face and she's got a head come out this. You also might see a younger woman from the side profile. I've also had people say they look like a goat because of the feather. And so we think about where
017we sit. It's all ground in perspective. For some of you, it might have jumped out right away. Someone said, "I've seen this before, so I know they're too lazy." And so, as you sit here, think about your perspective. When you think about your district and your vision and your mission, there's a perspective that shaped this. There's a perspective that implements this. And so we start with why you exist and why we're here. But here's the thing that I would push everyone to begin just to think about today and even after we leave. What would we build if we weren't afraid to fail? What would we build if we weren't afraid to fail? What would it look like to live in what we built? What would kids say? What would kids do? What would they be
018doing? What would this look like if we built the dream in our mind? And so as you just think, sit and think with that. And so now we'll jump into some thesis. Has anyone ever heard of Simon Synynic? Simon Synynic wrote an amazing book called Start with the Why. And what Simon Syn said is that people don't care what you do. They care why you do it. Most people start with what they do and then back their way into the why. And what Simon says is actually start with why. Your why is your purpose, your cause, and your belief. Why do you exist? That why is not only motivating, that why is also a checking question. Are we being true to why we exist? And so another question I pose to you is think about
019why do we exist? Why are we here? Your how is how do you do? What are your values? What are your systems? What are your processes? How do you implement and move your why forward? Your what are your activities and then your results. So your why is your purpose, cause or belief. Your how are your values, your systems, your processes, your policies, your practices. and your what are your activities and your results. And so when we think about how we got with our why, why do we do what we do? There are typically three horizons. One of them, we just want to do things better. We want to speed up procurement. We want to shift how we hire. We want to shift how we onboard and support new teachers. We know it's like what does
020that look like? we want to optimize that. So there are some areas where you just want it to be better and so you might add a feature for it to be better. Other spaces you want to make things better but at the same time you want to try some things out because you know you need to change it but you don't know exactly what needs to change or how to do it. So you're running your system and you're also trying things and it's and you're iterating on those things and you're learning from those things and then you move to horizon bridge. We need to transform the core. So the first one how do we make it better? The second one how do we build a bridge to change? And then we're in the third horizon
021how do we actually change? you've actually done and what does that look like? And these horizons are not they're not linear. They are very messy. And there are some areas in academics, for example, in curriculum, you may just be in horizon 2 cuz you may be trying some things in your operations. You may be Herizon one with technology. You may be Verizon 3 and what that means for classrooms. And so as you think about that, this just gives you a frame. So I'll turn on my office. >> Can I ask you a question before you go? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Since you talked about the why >> Yes, ma'am. >> Why is it that when you all started your presentation, you all mentioned that you do this that uh you make an emphasis on this
022being for black and brown kids. You know, when people say that, I mean, I'm of course black and brown, but I think that we're all we're trying to educate our children. And that to me that's I'm I'm sometimes offended by that because I I don't I think that when we're teaching you know we're teaching children and I I guess it bothers me that we emphasize a certain group that sounds and if you talk about you said uh your example we were waking up and seeing things the way they were then to some degree that would be true because years ago Oh, he didn't uh educate us, which was discriminatory. But I just don't understand why I I hear that a lot. And may I don't know if it's to appeal to the audience because we're
023urban fisher, but we just we have all different races. And I think people should be a little bit more conscious because we're melting by and I think I think you're right. I think um we think about the work when we think about the work that we do a I agree all in all and so no matter where you come from no matter what you look like all but we also have noticed just in the work that work that we've been doing um and it has nothing to do with being necessarily specifically where we are the work that we've done what we have found is that there are learning gaps between black and brown children and non-black and brown children what we also have seen as we think about college and career attainment there are gaps
024between black and brown children and non-black and brown children. And what we have also seen even in districts that support um differentiation and different learning models and resources, not only does the gap still exist, but the system doesn't necessarily serve black and brown children versus non- black and brown children. And so a if if there was an unintentional consequence in making that we can help that. Um, one of the reasons we do focus on that is we do help folks think about what are the gaps. So, and and to your point in various contexts the gaps may be different. It may be that it's not necessarily correlated with skin. It may be a different part of tax in one part they're doing one way another partner's house doing another. And so, we just think about
025that's how we think about the part but we do all. >> Great question. Thank you for asking. Um, and to piggy back on that, we didn't tailor the mission for the audience. That's a great point. That's our mission and that's the communities we focus on as well as less resource communities. And so, um, when we started doing this work in the Springfield, Massachusetts, we had schools that, uh, we had an enabling policy. We had schools that needed help and they were in different parts of Springfield. And so there was an opportunity to bring those schools together as a group and look at operating them differently with a little bit more local control, local freedom at the building level, at the uh teacher level and also to drive uh types of uh types of set of
026models that actually the communities are asking for and that they want. And so what empowerment looks like what what we're thinking of when we talk about innovation partnership. Yeah, we don't manage schools. We don't run charter schools. We work with communities and we work with districts to rethink how schooling is done in a way that benefits what parents are asking for and what students need. We're talking about clusters of schools where there's some increased flexibility looking at educational models that have been working for proven or those that they want to test out and done in a way where there in exchange for that flexibility they have to be ambitious academic goals and that's one of the things that happened in Springfield and some of the work that you'll hear about later in Texas. Um, and
027we look at this through a community lens that has meet the needs of families have choices. I'm I'm a parent. I had choices. You as parents have choices. And so, one of the things that we know is that the public school structure is the regular choice for most parents there or you move there. And so, making sure that those choices are something that parents want to stay in that particular district. So what it is and what it isn't um it's not launching for innovation sake. So this is something like when I worked in the district the thought was hey what if we not community administrative office what if we act natural conversation launch an art school here we hold the community asking teachers we're making that decision on second floor and so what it is
028is like really talking with the community to find out what they need what they deserve what they want and what's going to be the likeliest success with the students in that community. Um it's also not like a focus on what was operating like anal conversation that Chris had not had. So it's not only to kind of taper around the edges. Um districts regardless of size know that change is need. They know that they have to differentiate either what they offer or how they operate. And what we're talking about is doing it in a way um that looks at what it's worked before and doing it in a schoolwide fashion. So I use schoolwide a little bit differently than title one. Title one, your title one school return to schoolwide plan, but this is really giving
029them beyond what the title one law is giving. You're giving them actually decision making power curriculum for what staffing role looks like the time and schedule and effort to turn around building to get um great outcomes and it's also only not for low performing schools. You're going to hear an example in San Antonio where it wasn't about performance overall, but it was about what's happening in the future and how do we respond to a change in future but it is a vehicle for TSI CSI. It is a vehicle for schools that are on a slide. And so you also hear examples about and so what may be a challenge this sounds great. What's what's the challenge? What's the track door to doing this? Um, you all know it's 12 month employees coordination. Somebody comes up
030with a new initiative, we're trying to figure out a way to fit that in with what you're currently doing. So, trying to find time that's uh specific or intentional and trying to negotiate that to make sure that you not only launch it well, but that it's sustained. I I think we were talking over dinner last night about certain things that we thought about when I worked in district. called great idea parents. We're going to bring all PD under one porter parent. We're going to drive it through the lens of reading by grade three and uh career career advancement. And it sound like a great idea, but folks were trying to figure out ways to shift operation. How do I work and take what I'm doing in special ed for my parents and put it under
031this group? How do I take what I'm going for my EL parents put on this group. It was uh on the surface it looked successful had pens and bags and stuff but implementation and sustaining it wasn't because there was an operational shift um that was required. So that can also be one of the challenges to doing innovator also new roles. Um you walk into roles or we you know you're the third grade leader you're doing great. So maybe I suggest that you apply for assistant principal ship. Maybe I suggest you apply for a principal ship. And you know the the paths the tribe there. It doesn't matter what state you come from. There's a path for directive in education. And this is talking about what if we change a whole not just like the reading
032specialists or the mass specters, but there's this need that the community said they had. We don't even have that yet. What would it look like for us to create that goal in a way that helps us hit certain outcomes? And then uncertainty whether or not the outcomes that we have are the ones we want. We are certain. We know school starts at a certain time, ends at a certain time. We know what progression looks like. We know what curriculum uh audit looks like. We know those things. It can be uncertain to do this. let's say not as a choice option or application option. We can do this as a zone attendance owned school. We're going to run a standard path for this particular community uncertainty. And so uncertainty can be one of the challenges to
033embracing an innovative school partnership. One of the things that we've seen and I'll run through this u I'm going to hand it to you. >> Okay. Thanks. Um is that policy is actually the starting point. um without enabling policy, usually these types of innovations or attempts really are taken around the edges. And so we provide four states and we can give examples of where the states and then the localities have have crafted policy in order to uh focus on innovation. One of the things for all of the states is increasing student outcomes. That's one of the themes regard Massachusetts, Indiana, Texas, Georgia. That's the theme. And then some of the features are doing something new. So in Massachusetts and Texas, there's a lot of focus on giving a little bit more freedom, flexibility for budget,
034schedule, curriculum, PD, and uh staff. Indiana a little bit the same. And also Georgia done somewhat the same. But the start we found has been the enabling policy is there. It leaves gives districts an opportunity to think about how do we how do we enact this? It's the same thing as I don't want to give you the opportunity then to launch into a reading specialist or math specialist before I say you have to improve reading. That's what the law says. How do we do this? We create reading positions. Can we create math positions? We do parent involvement. But you start thinking through because of the policy. How do you enact the policy? And so here's a snapshot of Georgia versus Texas. Um, currently within Georgia policy, there's flexibility for us to partner with, say, like
035an IG or a nonprofit. Schools would have flexibility on decision making and a potential stipen within that system. In Texas, our law is called Senate Bill 1882 and there's an incentive for schools to partner with providers to catch. IG could be industry and in some cases it's to avoid state takeover. There's also opportunities to do this um when other things are triggered. So you have a school that's not facing takeover but enrollment is you don't want to close the building. You want to reopen the building is something or things are just stagnant. You're not We have paid repet school which you've been segrated for about seven years. Things are just stagnant and that committee is now looking for other options. So it does provide a trigger to restart school and restart school with a proven
036model. Right now in Texas, restart heavily favors um districts using a STEM focus model. And then when if you are um under improvement for multiple years and you do this, you do get a two-year pause on your accountability. So that's for schools that are in a danger zone where they choose to do this. They get a pause. But part of that pause is also for academic outcomes. So let's say as an example, I was uh Clark Clark Atlanta. I partner with the school district and we propose something provided to the board. the board approved for the board to negotiate the official will negotiate with us the stringent academic outcomes that would like three to five years for annual reporting. So annually we have to report on academic finance and operations. Just one quick note um
037comparing Georgia to Texas is that in Georgia you have basically the option to take advantage of all of this freedom and flexibility at your own discretion as a district, right? The district gets to elect whether they are a charter system or a Swiss system and you can choose your waiverss. So essentially the the highest level message here is the examples that they're about to discuss are in Texas and those the legal backbone that you need in order to do that. The freedom and flexibility that the district needs to do that already exists in our legal system here in Georgia. Um it's just how you choose as a district to take advantage of those flexibilities. And so I'm going to hand it over to my colleague. But really what we see that quote Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts,
038Indiana, South Carolina, some of the other places that have enablement policies as a mix of policy. They're thinking about how to enact it within the district and also in schools with some level of partnership. And then you're looking at really creating pipelines for students to go to different things. The main point also in Texas, it appears that the schools are neighborhood schools. So when they're making these decisions about buses and schools, they remain neighborhood school. I get a letter in the mail. I am going to this school. That is the school that I'm going to. I do not have choices to that school. That is my school. Uh and they but they are created schools that now are becoming uh schools that are inter that are interested in becoming schools of choice because they turn
039around. But they are neighborhood schools and those students have first priority. Um and so one of the examples that I want to start off with is Cass um and how they built a pipeline for their community. So one of the issues that pass in San Antonio, Texas, one of the issues that they were facing is that most of their students were half of their graduates were going um into postsecary or into the workforce. So they were sitting down thinking about what solution can they come up with. So instead of just you know adding on partners they invented the industry partners in their higher education um around them into the model. So as you will see here in early education and middle school they have schools where there are starting to gain interest of you know
040what is it that you want to go into once you get into high school because at high school it's kind of you know in the moment decision of what do I want to do after I graduate. So they're starting them early and then into high school and they have these choice schools of medical, tech, teach, STEM where they're all having access to college credit, industry recognized certificates and paid internships and pipelines and jobs. So one thing I do want to know is all these schools are tuition free and open to all students across the area. So they aren't um there isn't an enrollment process of you know I have to apply to the school can I get into the school all students have access to it. So all their partners are have a say in
041what um they're looking for especially with industry because you know you want to have industry at the table to know what they are looking for especially as the industry changes throughout the years you want to have them involved and then higher education partners where they're able to get college credit while they're in high school. And so another example, so one of the things that makes these schools different is that um so and I'll use this example in forward independent school district there are 144 schools. And so typically those 144 schools were managed centrally by forward by example. And so in this model um there are six campuses where they've partnered with Texas Wesley University and Texas Wesley University hire a team of people that were directly responsible for operating the school and they said in
042exchange for that we want you to help us do that but we also need you to hit certain performance targets. Our schools need to be V-rated schools by this time. Your teacher retention needs to improve. What we noticed in each one of the schools here that the leadership academy network had teacher retention was less than 40%. What we also noticed is that the majority of the teachers in terms of their experience was less than 3 years. What we know from the research is that the most important driver of learning is what happens between a teacher and student and what the capacity is for that teacher. And when you have 144 schools and you have six schools that need some extra attention, how do you do that? And so this was a way to really give
043some intentional focus with some intentional resources to schools that needed. And so what we did is we talked to those teachers and said, "What prevents you from coming here to higher teachers at other schools, the light populations? The teachers that were leaving? Why are you leaving?" And what's interesting is pay was last. They said culture. They said lack of resources. But what they also said was perception. We've been a lower performing campus. And so the stigma here is that we're low performing. And so people assume that great things are happening here when they are. We also don't have some of the partnerships that some of the schools across town have. And so as the university, what we did is we said, "Cool, one of the first things we're going to do is help to strengthen
044the teacher pipeline." And so we created a grow your own program where anyone with a bachelor's degree could obtain their certification for less than $2,000. and we paid. And so we literally met with every cl every attendance clerk, folks that were pair professionals, people that volunteered at the school and we had a cohort of folks that we worked through and we also provided them the opportunity to get a master's degree year too and we hired someone to walk alongside them for the next three years and so they got very focused. We changed the way the structure was of the school. So if I'm I'm a teacher in a leadership academy network school, I am partnered with the master teacher. I have a dedicated instructional coach. I have a dedicated assistant principal of instruction. And then
045I also have my principal that coaches me. And then I have someone from the Texas Wesley team that that's coaching. So every day I'm receiving sidebyside coaching. >> Yes, sir. So with those those persons that you have your certification they have to have a certain GPA. >> So we did so we were able and because and this was the what's great about the partner being the university. So we had some flexibility. So typically it's a 3.0. We were able to work with folks that at least had a 2.7. Uh we had some folks that did really well in the content that they were teaching. We were to get their waivers. Let's say they didn't have a 2.7. It was 245. >> It used to be a 2.0. It's not required. >> Yeah, it's required by
046the state. So now it's 2.0. >> And there are a couple people to your to your point. We had um three pair of professionals. They all have been on the campus for more than 10 years and they were outstanding. And so we actually paid for them to go to Taran County College to raise their GPA so that we can admit them to the program. And we supported them through that. We can do that as we we are focused on six schools every day. I'm waking up thinking about what does it mean to support six not 144, right? So what does that look like? And so we were able to do that. We're all successful. They weren't. Two of them now are master teachers. one of them is on the public system. Um, and so what
047we found is that 98% of the poor teachers were retained. What we also found is that within the system there was a promotion rate of over 85%. And this is with those six campus these six campuses and this is these are the ones that are in San Antonio. These are the ones that are in Fort Worth. So these are in Fort Worth, Texas. What is also interesting is that when we had instructional coach positions come over, we had a competition for that and we sent some folks back to organization that are doing very well just cases cuz I have like a million student. So what are you offering us? Cuz I think we have a few more slides. are you offering this to Clayton County as a model or what? Is that what we're and
048just before we got about 10 minutes till the heart stops there question? Yeah, that's that's why I'm asking the question. Is that right? >> So, what we're showing is just we're just showing different models that are that have been created across the country specifically using this context. What we're offering if you if it is something that you're interested in is what does it look like? What might it look like with your context? Is it are you offering that to us? We got the models cuz a lot of the stuff we're doing but is that what >> so we're offering further exploration is what we're offering is an invitation to learn more. So if you guys are interested in empower schools and what they're doing in Texas the invitation and offering is to learn more. That
049could look like visiting some of their schools in Texas. that could look like engaging in conversations with the empower team to understand what modeling and what this could look like in your specific scenario. So, it's really an invitation to learn more and to engage in a process of of co-creation of what this will look like. So in each of these scenarios, the district actually partnered with them through a contract to say like, "Hey, help me think through what this could look like based on our community, our district, our universities, our business infrastructure, what have you." And so the invit uh the invitation is to learn more first and then potentially if you're interested engage in more conversation. >> Does that help? >> Yeah, it does. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So just um coming off
050of what my colleague just mentioned a lot of things that you're saying we do we have relationships with our college Atlanta area tech um you know we reach out to our teachers we have an excellent professional development program uh we do have grow our own. So a lot of what you're saying we already have. So I'm trying to follow along what people offer that is unique and different from us because if we're really talking about nationwide why schools are underperforming that deals with social economical systemic system that prohibit that. And until we go to the core and the root of those issues, we're going to still have to continue to work towards what we are doing here in Payton County and that is ensuring a high quality education for all of our students. So all
051of these things that I'm hearing which are wonderful and great, we have great partnerships. We have stakeholders that are invested. We have faith-based organizations that come into our district and have adopted our school. What I find to be most of what we experience is homelessness. Not because parents are not working, but because they are undermployed. So, I'm looking at it from a perspective. If we're looking at homelessness, then our scholars are already 3 to 6 months of time and their learning ability. And then when you look at even not even just our scholars, but our our staff, people are not earning a living wage. So when you talk about retention, I think it's wonderful that for those teachers, it was not um finances, but here it is. And that's a reality because our teachers can't
052even live in Clayton County and work in Clayton County because of the housing market. So when we're getting to the core and really wanting to invest in a high quality education insurance that that educator that is in front of our student is whole because when adults are home or children are whole. So I I want us to really understand what it is that we're trying to do. If in fact education is our core business, we have to look at the whole child as one [clears throat] person. So I just want to say I I love the presentation. Um I did the concept. I saw that we follow a lot of what you do. I'm just concerned that if we really want [music] to make a change then we and I heard that y'all new policies
053and things of that nature. We need to be talking about educators earning a living wage coming out of college in college debt earning4 $50,000. >> So I've always felt this way and I stand on it as a board member. If we really want to make it different, then we need to advocate for our educators that they can make a minimum wage because what we pay our educators is what I pay my administrative assistance coming in with a high school diploma. So, I want to say thank you. I appreciate it. I loved it. I love the creativity and I want to say that I see it every day when I go into our schools and um and I think what and I I appreciate that that is to your point the conversations the conversations that we
054had um and that we're having what we learned during co is that if you made less than $70,000 your household and when you think about $70,000 most teachers so many, right? And so you didn't really get to the point where you were okay relative to about 110, right? And so there was a big gap. When you talk about policy, one of the things that we were able to advocate for, we're a part of, there's there's a much larger group is that we have the teacher incentive a lotment. And so that teacher incentive a lotment if I am a teacher in a high need school and I hit certain outcomes I can earn an additional 20 30% of the time. >> Have you ever asked how many teachers work two jobs? What we found so for
055example in this network and in the lead academy network one out of every two and what we also found is they actually work three and some of them picked up season >> and so if I'm a person and I'm working three jobs how do I show up as position >> correct one of the things that we did with the flexibilities is that we shifted um the salary bans because we had additional funding so before we could find the public dollars we had philanthropy in additional for us to provide every teacher with a $15 to $20,000 for being um that allowed us to kind of see our way and figure out what the policy was. The policy shifted midstream, but it didn't take effect to the following year. And so we went back to our philanthropic
056partners and they actually gave us money for homeless teachers. And so we were able to supplement that until the policy implementation went up because what we found we also had emergency funds for teachers like we do for families say hey my lights off or hey I have a fire or hey we would give them a grant to support their families. Um, we also work with part of our partners and part of our body education to work with parents in to help them upskill and rescale because then so figuring out what does it look like for everyone. I love that you're saying that and to me that's a good place to start leading when you come into these spaces because we're really talking about real issues for real family and if the family is suffering then
057what are people doing coming in and handling all these so thank you for that and I'm glad that you do that >> well I'm I'm glad you raised that point about the incentives because I think that's area in which we should be looking can put as a district and since the next person on our agenda I'm going say is the foundation back there would you all hear what you said where he said he put to the billing property partners to come up with some funds uh to help incentivize uh the teachers so that's we'll throw that curve all over there to get people back in the corner and uh hope that in our next presentation working towards that. I said that now board members maybe allow some closing remarks um to keep us on track.
058>> Great. >> I just have one other question because when we're looking at this um studies show that early childhood learning education is the foundation on that. Did y'all focus on any? I know we have an early childhood learning center that's opening up and we're building our foundation on our K1 initiatives and knowing that the outcome for our students will be better. Um, is that something that you guys? >> We did. So, what we did um the first year we just kind of saw our way and build the system. The second year we actually pre-K3. So initially the plan was to have 50 prek prek for we had 100 parents inside. So because we had the flexibility campuses um we actually served all those parents and so and to your point around having our partners.
059We didn't have public money to do that to start and so we were able to go to our partners. We went to the city went to the county to be able to do prek3 and prek4 um to ensure the students were school ready. uh but both academically and socially. And so what we find now cuz this was this is 2026. So now this is this was more than 5 years ago. There is a distinct difference in the kiddos that came through in prek3 versus the kids that didn't. Right? And what I will tell you I was a secondary administrator and then coming down to elementary and I learned a very clear difference. A kid that was used to being taught to versus being taught at. >> Right? a kid that's been taught at cannot talk
060back to you. A kid that's been taught too can have a conversation and so you can help them work through some things. And so we did do prek3 um for our students. And so what was interesting is we did prek3 and then the district adopted it districtwide and how they do prek3 at a level of scale that they didn't do before. They learned that from the school, >> right? >> When you talk about the um the finding funding and and you're emphasizing that sometimes it's a When it comes to public funding, which is public tax, >> do you guys do your organization assist in finding funding for the initiatives that the district comes up with? >> That's part of what Redefined Ed is kind of offering is some of the initial funding for that and
061some of the partnership um that could lead to other funding. And there are certain levers you can pull to access different levels of funding. So for example with the partnership between Paul College and Crowley ISD um you access local funding there is a big movement right now for HBC to get involved with K12. So if you partner with an HBC Bloomberg just put a $20 million fund to support that work. So when you think about how and so you're right, everything that we're doing exists in some form or fashion. It's how it's organized, how it's packaged, and how it's communicated. Um and it all and what that may have is that may have implications for how you're operationally structured, right? In terms of what it looks like, who oversees it, how it sits, where it
062sits, and who it sits under. Um that allows you to kind of pull and stitch those numbers together. What we also found is that when we did an audit of our positions, we were actually able to collapse some roles. So, for example, teacher assistant roles are hard to fill, right? Because it's low paying and people don't stay long. And so, we said, you know what? What if we collapse 10 of these and create and take that funding and actually fund X number of teachers? And so, there are creative ways to think about that, but you have to have a system to support that. >> Before you close, can you give us your why? Um my [clears throat] uh my second job out of college, I went to the University of Michigan. Proud University graduate. >>
063Oh Lord, I'm a Ohio State. My uh my my father was born in Springfield, Ohio. So I still um but I was recruited from Michigan. And at Michigan, we had a ton of at in all of the schools in the state of Michigan, the presidents had a bet of who could get the most valid victorians in the state on their campus. Every year they compete and the bet was whoever had the most validictorians had to give to a charity of their choice. So we had an unofficial rule that we just admitted to. I went to Ketering High School, east side of Detroit, and I had to look the validictorian in her eye until I could not admit her admission. And the reason I couldn't admit her admission is she had a 4.0. She had 15
064credits of dual credit. And back then, dual credit was not as big as it is now, but her ACT score was 16. And I said, "I cannot admit." And she looked me dead in the eye the way I'm looking at you. And she said, "I did everything they told me to. I showed up to Saturday school. I took these classes. I did things I didn't understand. And now you are telling me that I can go to my dream school. And what does that mean for me wanting to be a pharmacist?" That's why because we have kids that do what we tell them and then we have to look them in the eye and say it wasn't enough because we didn't build a proper system to support her. The last thing I'll leave you with, she
065had a 16. I'm talking to her in December of her senior year. You know the first time when she took ACT? >> September. So, had she taken with her grades that ACT March of her junior year, she could have taken it again June, she could have taken it again September. And because of her grades and her profile, all I needed was a 19 because I had support that I could give her. That's why when I think about the fact that for certain children, they actually have a 9% chance of enrolling and graduating from college. it's not okay and then we wonder why things struggle and so thinking about what it looks like and to your point the system will do exactly what the system was designed to do so we have to change the system
066and one of the things I appreciate about the way this work is being thought about how do we change the system and not become complicit in it even if we're just not paying attention thank you [applause] Our next item, Mr. Superintendent Chair, board is an update from the Clayton County Public Schools Foundation. And I think we have And while we're transitioning, I also want to mention that the uh school school district has bottles of water there for all our presenters. Please feel free to grab one if you need any. Okay. Uh, Mr. Superintendent, Dr. Smith, could you give us a brief brief introduction or just a hello? >> Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Uh, again, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, staff, and community. Uh, we're uh uh here today. I want
067to thank uh our uh chairman of the Clay County uh schools foundation board, Mr. Hilessi along with phenomenal uh board of directors that accompany him today. Uh he is going to give the board as we promised uh more information, more updates about the status and standing related to the work of the foundation. So, Mr. Jesse, turn it over to you, sir, and let us know whatever need or support you needed to do your presentation. >> Thank you so much. Um, first I want to thank um the the BOE um as well as all the faculties that make this possible. Um I know the the burden uh the challenge um and what you what you are having to carry. It's not an easy task, especially given that um this community by and large is underfunded and
068underserved and we know that and so really appreciate first your leadership, your guidance to navigate a lot of these difficult situations and our goal and our commitment uh has always been how can we help you lighten that in any way possible. Um and so for today what we'll do is uh we'll and our team is here as well. Uh we have members of our uh board of directors here. Uh we'll have our treasurer come up and provide um an overview of our financials. Um but our role for today is really to provide you uh a status of where we are from a foundation perspective around our goals uh where we are from overall financial health, what programs we're looking to fund, as well as um provide you an overview of where we are with the
069overall con center um operational updates if you will. And then we're going to have our operator come right after us and they'll provide additional context. We want to make sure we save some information for for them to be able to provide you an update. And I think finally, um, what I'm really hoping we can walk away today is have a good understanding of what it's going to take to run this congregation center and and walk away with a handshake of how we're going to be able to function. I want to on the front end I want to really um kind of put that out there. Um it's not only is it challenging to manage a center of this complexity uh but it has to be well funded and it requires significant funding to run an
070operation of that magnitude especially in your heart. So I am hoping before we we adjourn and and end the day after all these various meetings that we can have that that handshake and agree on how we're going to be able to sufficiently fund and support our ability collectively our ability to be able to run uh this convocation center effectively. So hopefully we'll have some time later today to be able to do that. We do have a a detailed cash flow uh multi-year cash flow statement that will allow us to highlight what it's going to cost operationally and what are some of the anticipated revenues and and there are going to be some healthy revenue but we just need to be prepared for year one. So I'm really hoping we can walk away with that handshake
071today. It's going to be one of my primary goals. Uh with that um starting off with our mission I think um by now most most of you understand it is you know we are the philanthropic arm um fostering the sustainable growth development and academic achievement of all of our students in Clayton County. That is our primary focus and why we exist. And that when I say we I mean the BOE the foundation and everyone that is um fully vested in in enriching the experience of our students. In terms of our um board makeup, our executive committee, myself as a chair, um we also have our um our vice chair, Mr. Johnson. Um we're we're really looking and and and excited for him to be able to come back and be active again. Um our miss
072has stepped in as our interim vice chair and help support all these critical programs. And then our treasurer uh Mr. Pastor D. And this is the makeup of our uh current board of directors. Um again, really um passionate, dedicated individuals that are actively uh supporting the mission and vision of the foundation as well as the district itself. Um a few exciting things that we'll talk about a little bit later is uh we have identified some really strong um strategic partners that will be coming in as board members and we've been thinking of uh critically around what are the expertise that we need um specifically around the convocation center. What kind of expertise um subject matter expertise and knowledge do we need to have on the team? Um, and we're also being really thoughtful about what
073kind of expertise do we need for fundraising because it's going to be important that we also find different ways to attract the right partners and continue to raise funds to be able to allow the foundation to be sustainable, but as well as um allowing us to be able to sufficiently fund some of the critical programs that we have envisioned. Um, we also want to think about um strategic partners in various industries and sectors. One of the things that I shared in the past and something I continue to share with our team is um if if we know we want our kids to have awareness of various different industries whether it's in the technology sector, legal sector, um in the engineering sector, medical, we have to have those experts and those board members as a part
074of the leadership team and that's going to be our way to continue to think about how do we attract those individuals and we have a few that we're actively talking about right now and I'm excited to be able to bring them before our board as Um and we also have been thinking about operationally um as we grow mature um what kind of um committees do we need to put in place. What you see on the left hand side are existing committees that have already been filled or that we're actively building. Of course we have the executive committee made up of myself, the vice chair um the treasurer as well as um indirectly um with the chief superintendent as well. We want to make sure that voice is a part of that executive committee. Um mission
075and district program advancement. Um how do we ensure we have the right individuals that are passionate about establishing critical programs that support our students directly? Um grant and fundraising. Um again we want this to be a central focus of raising as much capital as we possibly can. Uh we have a team that are executive committee for the communication center management. knowing the nuances and complexities, we wanted to have individuals centrally focused on that. And then financial stewardship and ensuring we're we're putting the right audit procedures in place. And then on the right hand side, our consideration and next priorities that we want to ensure that we implement this year. Um the first and to me the most important is it's really hard to know what the customers want if they're not in the room. So
076voice of the customer focuses are really important. So we're uh we put together a charter for student advisory committee. We're looking to have them as a part of the foundation and a committee structure so they can be actively involved in the process. Share their feedback, share their thoughts, their ideas and this is going to be other ways to be able to also give them awareness on how the foundation runs opportunities for mentorship as well. And this can also um help us create a pipeline for internship opportunities that we're actually thinking about. This is an area that we should have solved many years ago. We want to make sure we do that now, especially with with the upcoming computation center. Teacher advisory committee. We know our teachers need a lot of support given that they are
077sometimes underfunded, sometimes underpaid, as was mentioned earlier. That is a focus for us as well, but we want them to be represented in a non- voting um um role, if you will, and we'll talk about that as part of our bylaws. Um we also want to have PR and external affairs as a as a committee. and then strategic partnership as well. So these are the various committees that we have established have filled or filling as well as committees that we want to put in place. In terms of our staff, um we're really lucky to have these two individuals. Um Toshika has been with us for several years now. Um and I'm happy to report that she's our senior manager for operations of the CCPS. And if we think about daytoday who has been really actively
078helping us run the organization um has really been taking that on um and Miss Packer was a phenomenal leader who's also been doing has was doing that and and since as we go through the transition's really helped us um step up and take a lot of those operational role and I really want to publicly thank her for her effort and supporting that. And then we have Michelanda Tucker as well as our strategic program manager uh working on various different initiatives and primarily focusing on the convocation as well. So as we think about um the foundation opportunities and goals there's a couple of things I want to highlight. One is we have to think about because there are other priorities that continue to possibly hijack the mission of digital foundation. We have to be intentional as
079we move forward. How do we continue to center our attention and focus around the students? So, we're actively thinking about redirecting our energy, our capital to be able to do that. Two, and this is based on feedback um that we've heard actively. How do we ensure we have better channel communication um with the BOE, with district members? How do we provide transparency? How do we provide consistency? We want to actively work on that. We tried different ways to be able to do that, but I think this is an opportunity for us to to truly resolve. And the best way to move forward together is to have that active channel of communication because there's a lot of nuances and we want to make sure we're we're speaking in truth in transparency and providing you the clarity
080that you're looking for. Third is um fundraising. Um this is a huge focus for us. We have various different uh engagements that we're looking at hiring fundraisers. We're actively working with Delta. they're they're willing to allow us to use one of the grant writers. Um really thankful for Angela to help us kind of spearhead that. But that's going to be another active u initiative of focus of ours for governance and ensuring that we maintain the the accounting um partners NGO um ICE Miller the the the national legal team that we have. The reason we hired all these organizations is to provide us governance and ensure we have the right audit internal audit procedures, the right accounting practices. These are large organizations that are reputable, respected and know and have the knowhow. So we want to
081make sure that we sustain that and we have been sustaining that and our goal is to figure out what else can we do to improve governance as well. Prioritizing board member engagement as well as the broader community. We have to figure out how do we pull our board members not just to show up once a month but they they are also active but how do we bring them closer to the work so that they can support it and help us drive those initiatives and execute them. And then just fostering better ways uh to support those key initiatives that align with the district mission and vision as well. Whatever we're doing, one, we have to be able to quickly answer is it directly improving our students and our teachers experience and then two, how does it
082align directly with our mission and vision and so that it doesn't deviate from where we need to go as a collective body as well. in terms of priorities to enrich our student experience. Uh for those of you who have had opportunities to speak with me, this is what I care about more than anything. [clears throat] This is it. This is what drives me. This is why I stay up late nights. This is why I drive power to drive. Um this is why I even some often times um during my working hour given my professional and the responsibilities that I carry as a as a sea level leader um this is the reason why I put this as a as a central focus for me to to help move and enrich our student experience. One is
083uh we know score can improve. I'm really excited about the partnership that we have um and are continuing to foster school. Um there are many individuals working on this. Dr. Hendricks, I really publicly want to thank you. Um and Dr. Smith as well for your support behind the scenes actively working with Conway Yates and and Dr. Ryan U B Ryan in in establishing this program. And I'm excited about how this is moving forward and we're going to put this as a focus for us. How do we continue to help push this forward whether it's behind the scene or or in collaboration? and how do we have a fundraising uh event specific to this? One of my goals for this year, just so you you also have clarity to that, is I want to have one
084of the largest gather only focus on one thing, raising as much money as we possibly can to fully fund literacy as a as a central focus because we understand how important that is. That is a leading indicator to what happens to our students. It's not just about their future, but it's also about others who could take advantage if they don't have this lockdown. We all we all know the incarceration rate. We all know how some of these systems move. This is an important leading indicator and we have to solve it and this year one of my goal is to ensure we have one of the largest gallas centrally focused just on this and we can raise enough funds to sufficiently fund this program. Second is we're actively still working with Dr. Lani and Linda Johnson
085um with the robotics program. Um what they're waiting on us to figure out how can we fund this and and and I'm hoping that we can get your support to be able to do that. Um the the golf tournament, I know this is something we've talked about in the past, but I think it's opportunity to close that gap and allow the foundation to continue to be actively supporting the golf tournament in collaboration and bring other um individuals that can support this. It's a it's a very successful program that raised a ton of money directly um impact providing scholarship for our students and this is something that the foundation has to continue uh be actively involved in focus group to hear from students and faculties. Uh I've talked to a few of the district leaders. This
086is another area that I really want to be able to accomplish this year in in my role. Um in addition to strategy continuous improvement, I also lead uh product development and research development for the company that I work for. And a lot of the innovation that we put forward comes from the focus groups that we have from our customers. We do it on a quarterly basis, on an annual basis through customer council. And I want to treat this the same exact way. We should have these focus groups with our student on a regular cadence with our teachers on a regular cadence to inform us on what those strategic initiatives are. We have to hear from them and I'm and I'm hoping that we can establish these focus groups very shortly. Internship opportunities. This is a
087huge element of not only giving them um ways to um to start very early in and establishing interpersonal skills, organizational skills, understanding financial acumen, just being a professional, enriching their resumes very early so that they can have this experience. And so we're looking to um establish that internship program. Uh the strategic partnership that we want to establish, we need more partners. There's a lot of large organizations that have moved to Atlanta. Technical um the the Googles of the world, Salesforce of the world, Microsoft, they're all here. They're creating large satellite offices. We need to attract those conglomerates to also come to this community and create those strategic partnership streamlining the the um uh grant submission process for the district. Uh we've already established that process. We want to walk through the faculty members so we
088can explain to them how it works. Um but we also need to do a lot of pre-planning so we understand exactly how these dollars are going to be aligned. And then strategic alignment and brainstorming sessions. Um something I want to be able to accomplish this year as well is have a multi-day or single day um strategy session. Uh we can have our own strategy session and board retreat and and build the strategies. But I think it's going to be even better if we collectively get in a room and really align on a multi-year 3 to 5 year strategic plan that the foundation can then put our arms around and execute according to those plan. And again going forward my goal regardless of what comes our way I'm constantly redirecting our focus to the students. We
089deviate from it out of honesty uh transparency. You'll always get that from me. There's a lot of whether it's politics, whether it's other strategic priorities, whether it's the computation center. These are really important things that we need to do without a doubt. But my goal has always been getting us reentered back to why we exist as a district, as a foundation, as individual leaders of our industry. So I I can assure you that is the constant thing that I'm pushing my team and everyone that I speak to. In terms of the um a few operational updates, I think these are important to provide you u from the last meeting that we had. Uh one is the u the search for the president ed uh of the uh foundation. I'm happy to report that uh we've
090identified some really really talented individuals. We um uh evaluated over 70 candidates. Um there some were recommended by by individuals uh but many of them came from various platforms two nonprofit platforms that we uploaded uh the job board for and then in particular LinkedIn. So we validated 70 plus candidates from that we identified 11 that are very experienced very seasoned and come with different both from an operational um scale management as well as a large uh and extensive um nonprofit philanthropic as well as fundraising experience. And from that group, we have five that we consider to be the top um candidates. Um and we'll be making a recommendation in the next uh by the end of next week is when we're looking to close out all those conversations and make a recommendation. And we want
091to make sure this body knows who we're recommending. And we're also going to allow our strategic partners, our principal donors, that they also have an insight because they've asked of this and it is fair of us to provide that. So our goal is to make that final recommendation determination by the end of this week. I'm really happy about the candidates that have come and I was not I was surprised to be honest in terms of um who these individuals are and the interests that they have uh to be able to u help us move into the next stage. fundraising strategy initiatives. We have various um activities we're working on. Our bylaws, we have updated our bylaws. It was provided several months ago that I do think it's important that we bring it uh before this
092body. And in updating that bylaw, we've been very thoughtful around receiving your feedback. And it took us months months of working uh and and Dr. Hendricks was involved as a part of voice to help us think about how do we structure the bylaws in a way that that allows us to scale our organization. So when we were developing this bylaw, it wasn't about what do we need to look like today. The bylaws were designed in terms of what do we want to look like 5 to 10 years from now and how do we allow that flexibility. So some some really great updates there and it does take a lot of your feedback and voices consideration. Um audit we have been talked to our accounting team um to bring an external um auditor to be able
093to do this. We receive feedback from our accounting team. We have to be careful in the way that we do this cuz these can be really expensive. But we are going to figure out a way to conduct an audit. Um and and and I can assure you of that. Um filling vacancies uh for board seats. Um as I mentioned earlier, uh we have three that we have identified that we will be bringing before the board, but we have several other candidates uh that we're going to be looking through as well. And then grant writing um engagement with Delta. Again, I want to publicly thank Angela. She's always constantly thinking about how do we raise money? how do we bring in capital to to allow us to uh fulfill those programs and initiatives that we need
094to support for our students? And so we're looking to partner with uh with the grant writing from Delta um to be able to bring that forward in addition to um hiring our own fundraisers. So I'm really excited about what that's going to look like. And I think this is just more of a just high level just so we all understand who are our key donors and strategic partners um with Delta, Dream Achievement, Housing Authority, Clan County. um you know the Chamber of Commerce uh Georgia Power Truist and and many others. These are [clears throat] great partners, long-standing partners that really are thoughtful and and providing us the necessary not only um insight, knowledge, but also capital that we need to be able to fulfill the programs that that we're initiating. >> I have a question.
095It seems like you're missing somebody on that slaughter >> for your partners. >> I don't see us on there. >> Oh, I see us as one body. But yes, we can add that there. >> I think you need to. >> Yeah, these are You're right. This is more of the external partners, but yes, we can definitely add that. >> To me, you're right. I can add that in there going forward >> for just so you can hear directly from me. I see us as a as one body. We're not just we're not just partners. When I say one body, I'm talking about we have one goal and one mission together, >> right? And I treat us as a singular family in two three two different rooms, right? We're in the same exact house. These are
096external partners that are helping us build that house, build the foundation, build the exterior. But we are in the same house together. And we have to act like that. We have to think like that going forward. I don't want us to be treated, yes, we do have some independence. That's absolutely true. But we are in the same house together. And that is how I see it. So when I when I say our partner, I'm talking about our partners, the foundation and the BOE's partner to fulfill and build this house that our students need to be in. In terms of the program model, I think many of you seen this, the four pillars, district support, community support, advocacy, and then finally the economic development. This is an area that I really do think we have a
097lot of work to do. Um, it's not just our students and our teachers that need us to to address the gaps. It's the broader plane county community that needs us to address this gap. If you look at the child well-being score, it is the low, one of the lowest across greater Atlanta. I look at that number all the time. That was the first metric I actually looked at before even deciding whether, you know, it's worth my time or all this energy to be able to to u to insert into this community. When I saw that score, I was motivated to figure out a way to address that. So, it's the broader community that also is looking to us and needs us to support them. [snorts] So, that economic development is going to be really important.
098In terms of financial update, we can have our treasurer come up and go through. I think most of you have the handout. um he'll talk about u just the general um P&L and then I can I'll cover uh the programs that we have been funding and supporting um from the capital that we receive. Mr. Mr. Chairman, uh if I could uh take a moment of personal privilege, uh when you did your introductions of the uh current, uh board of directors, uh I noticed that we have a uh a former board of director that with us today that I want to recognize publicly because I recommended this individual to join the board some years ago when we reestablished the uh organization and she fought zeal, intellect, integrity and energy to this board and even personal financial
099contributions and I just want to publicly thank her for her service and I refer to Dr. Marie Green. So thank YOU [applause] do that and and thank you for interrupting. That was a right uh moment and opportunity to do that and thank you for doing that and thank you doc Dr. green to you and your entire family cuz I know it takes your family support to be able to do the work that you've been u doing with the foundation and I know you're going to continue to do that um whether directly or indirectly I have full faith because of your name because of who you are and the foundation that you've established for this entire community. So thank you for for for in stepping in and sharing that because I agree and I'm happy that
100you were able to do that for us. >> Good morning everybody. Um, this is probably going to be the quickest sermon that I've ever preached. Um, so, uh, before we dive into the financials, uh, into, uh, Dr. Smith, Dr. Hendry, um, I I'm pleased to announce that all of our financials have been updated. Um, so we've done that. Uh in addition to uh updating all our financials and reconciling everything, um we're now able to create a financial forecast um that allows us to see ahead that allows us to see, you know, how do we do this? How do we, you know, raise more money here? And so we're building a financial forecast for the foundation, uh which I'm really excited about. And so we've been able to take the prior financial that we've updated and
101now build uh a financial forecast that we'll be able to share with you guys to show you just where we're going, what it looks like 3 and 1/2 years from now. Uh so we can better support our kids uh and better stand behind them. Um and diving into um our financial analysis. Um as you see just kind of where we stand um from 2022 until current. Uh this is kind of where we are. Uh short uh version uh is that we have about $2.4 million in assets and we have about a million dollars cash on hand. Um but the harsh reality is is that we want to fix our 24 and fix our 25. Uh so we don't want to see any red as we are evolving um into the future and so uh these
102are our financials. >> I have a question. >> Um from the meeting that we Hello everybody back there. Um from the meeting that we had this past week and it was the concern that Dr. Andrew and the team were discussing when you said you had a million dollars left over. That's a concern because you're saying that you have all these operating costs. Are you going to be able to sustain that? How are you going to be able to do that moving forward based on conversations that we the meeting that we had based on this what I'm seeing here? >> Yeah. So out of the 2.4 for um the million is what is um called it unrestricted that we can leverage towards this and the rest is already um earmarked for very specific um funds that
103we for example J is one of for example and this is a question that we um have been asking for support on and this is information that we have shared with um representative from the BOE many months ago that we do have this gap that we need to fill. So, we're looking for different ways to do that. And that's why I mentioned in the beginning, we're going to have to solve this together. In order for us to maintain the foundation, the million is fine. But for us to be able to maintain the foundation and all the expenditure that's needed for the convocation center, that's not possible. At least as it stands today. But what we need to do collectively is um because we all agree we have the right partner. We have very experienced partner
104as operators to be able to do this. They come with a great deal of experience. They have the knowhow. They have the expertise. And I think and I think that that works really well in our favor. Um the reputation and what they bring as a brand as well. But if we don't have the money um collectively the Wii, um we're not going to be able to sustain that. Now, yes, there are going to be some expected revenue that we're looking to bring in as a result of events that are already being planned and there's high level of confidence that they can be executed. And I think that works. That's great. But for the first quarter and a half, we're going to need about 2.4 2.5 million to stand up the operations. So, we need to
105be able to um garner the capital to do that. we've spoken to our uh bank and they have ways they can help us but we need the BOE support to make that happen. Uh or we need um some some additional capital from the BOE to be able to do that. There's a and I think it'd be good to highlight that in order to run any startup in order to run any new organization in order to run any scaled operations you have to have the necessary capital on the front end. Then we have to be able to establish that budget um and and fully fund that budget so that we can mitigate any potential risk. So we're going to need at minimum 2 and a half to $4 million to be safe, but $5 million to
106secure every single expenditure that we need to fund in year one cuz year one is going to be challenging and we have to be comfortable with that if we're going to embark in this process. Year two and year three, we'll have some significant revenue that will come in that will address not only those gaps and provide us the ROI, but will give us a cash positive c even a positive um um um revenue that's going to be coming in that will address all of our needs and be able to return that capital back to the district and so that we can fund the programs our teachers and our students need. But yes, so year one, we have to come up with the number. That's why I mentioned that earlier to move forward with honesty and
107transparency we have to secure that budget. >> Okay. >> First and as my colleague said, thank you so much for the three ones because they were very informative and we were able to kind of talk through some things on the 303s. Um, as I was saying in the 303s because I think I was the only one in that one, I had some concerns and some options. I was actually going to run into the convocation center conversation, but since it was brought up um being that I think you said six months of operating um funds that we have, one of my thoughts was number one, we have this big ticket item that we're paying for. Um, I think that we need to look at options. There's always different options out there. That's one of our um,
108sore spots for me is that we have that big ticket item. You did say some other things within your presentation that I like. Y'all are going to get more aggressive about fundraising. That's a that's a plus. Uh, bringing individuals to the table, grant writing, those are pluses. But I think too we need to not but because those are good. We also need to look at as I was saying yesterday the other options where can we cut can we find someone that can do the same job at a lower price point. So I did want to put that out there because I know that um some of the individuals were not >> one second. Go ahead and say >> um yes good morning everyone and thank you so much. Um, I did not have the privilege
109of doing a three on three um in conflict with my work schedule. Um, but there's a couple of things that I'd like to address and I want to say thank you and our um committee and those who work with our foundation. Um, I'm gravely concerned about all of the things. While I hear you have a great future plan, I want to say current and in the present. And in the present right now, we are looking at a deficit. Um, in the present right now, we're functioning without an ED. While it's great that you have done this and you have someone that you're projecting to do that, but when I think about a foundation, the ED is the beginning of it, as Miss Packer stayed in that role and did um, a great job in bringing
110us to this point. Um, when you talk about capital, the DOE did give the foundation capital, a substantial amount of capital. Um, I believe Miss Gory stated two million at one time, another million equaling $3 million. So, the capital was there. Um, where we are right now, we need to really pause and clean this up before we go forward. There's issues that came up about our foundation funding in 2022 where there was uncatategorized money spent of $800,000. It was never accounted. Hold on. >> No, I need to correct that. We didn't even have $800,000 in 2022. We only have 300. So the unate was >> I'm just a very small was presented to the BOE as a concern that needed to be looked at. If it's inaccurate, that's fine. But what I'm saying is if
111there was mishandling of the funds in 2022 and we are here in 2025, we need to make this right before we even offer this position as ED to anyone else. When we're talking about an operator with a cost of $70,000 per month, but we yet have no revenue, but yet we have overhead, that doesn't make it any sense. You cannot have expenditures higher than revenue and think you're going to have a balanced budget. That's not realistic. Yes, we have a great ideal for the congregation center. The vision is correct. The possibilities are endless. But until we correct this shift, we cannot go forward. It is a convocation by the BOE in collaboration with the foundation. The BOE our fundamental is core education. We can put the JA in here. We can put our career academy.
112We can have our graduations and that should not cost us an absorbent amount of money. That is about the students. That is for the students. And that is the reason that we're here. All of these other things that we need to do, it needs to be corrected. I have asked for a forensic audit. If that is not possible, then we need to come up with a clearcut way to get our finances in order um in order to go forward. When we're looking at this lease, this lease, we all voted no for this lease. Why? Because it doesn't have best interest at hand. Our council asked for documents over and over and over again for finances, projected revenue, uh projected ideas. It was never presented. We cannot support you adequately and stand in solidarity without the
113information we need to make an informed decision. Yes. I love how you look at us as one body and we should be. We should be standing together, but we can't stand if one person is not sharing all the information. You use the terminology transparency. I know we use that word, but are we really doing that? Because we wouldn't be here today without all the information to make an informed decision to stay with the foundation to move forward. And again, Miss Hill supports everything that we are doing, but we have to do it decent in order and we have to do it correctly because we represent this community as well as our students. So, I ask that if there's any information that our council is requesting, please get that to him in a timely manner so
114we can be better prepared when we come here. But I appreciate you what you do and all that everyone has done, but we cannot go forward in this capacity understanding that there's so many things that have not been corrected. Thank you. >> One second. Let me ask her question first so we can combine. >> Let him respond. >> And and thank you both for for sharing your feedback. Um I I I share your concerns. Um I I I I run large operations. ran global operations supporting 62 countries uh large scale teams of over 5600 employees. I I know the risk that's in front of us. I'm I'm very consciously aware of the financials that's needed and the nuances of running a complex organization. Make no mistake there, but I do want to correct a couple
115of things. In 2022, I was not a chair, right? I was I was and that's not an excuse by any means. Um but what we did since I became chair is bring in the talent and the resources and the capacity that we need working through the foundation working through Miss Packer to ensure we have the right governance and one of them was bringing in the accounting firm. We deliberated on who the right accounting firm. We selected NGO. And so they've done they went they went back and did a full financial report overview accounting of everything going back all the way I think to 2021 I believe. But I bet if not I I'll come back to you on the actual dates. They've done a full accounting of all of that and we can provide you
116that full report um because they did identify what was categorized and what was not categorized. But to correct though, 800,000 the only money that we were bringing in up until was until we got the seed funding was from mostly from the golf tournament and from what Delta and others were providing us. So our overall budget for the up until was 330,000. There's no way we would have an ad categorized amount of 800,000. I did share this report in September as well. So the uncatategorized amount in that year, I I can get you the exact number. I don't have it in front of me, but it was a small percentage of that even 330,000 and even a smaller percentage of the mult the million the 3 million up that we have today. And we can provide
117you what that is and our accounting team MGO is very reputable and their recommendation is that we don't need to do a full forensic audit especially when you're dealing with the 300,000 there. We can do some some audit if necessary. Um but I just want to make sure I got correct that it was not 800,000. It was really near that that whole part. Um and and in terms of transparency, I am I this is again my I'm all about communicating. I'm all about bringing in the right stakeholder groups. I'll give you a very simple example. When I got closer to trying to help and and and manage the convocation center um initiatives and priorities, my number one goal first was to identify who are the stakeholders, who are the stakeholders from the district, who are
118the stakeholders from the foundation, who are the stakeholders from external partners. And we've been establishing since I believe September a weekly meeting. And so when we talk about transparency where we are the BOE members did know, not everyone, but we have represent representation from the BOE in these meetings on a regular cadence, whether it's weekly, whether it's bi-weekly, whether it's emergency meetings, whether it was a full Saturday uh session that we had back in November to go through all of this in terms of the financials, the cash flow that was presented months ago. Now in terms of our inability to provide that to Mr. Clem, sure I could take accountable for that. However, the full financial report in terms of not only the cost as well as the in the cash inflow, the full spreadsheet
119was not was was recently provided to us. So the reason why I could not provide that full picture is because I didn't have a full picture ready at my hand. Now we didn't have it in presentation but the actual spreadsheet file to be able to provide we recently got that and as soon as we got that we did provide it to our legal team to see if it's possible to give it to the so as of um as of Sunday if you will of this week I have that multi-year three-year projection now there was some miscommunication when it was first sent which was um back in uh I think it was like December 18th what have you there was some missing um tabs what have you only year one, but then we went back and
120forth to get the full accounting of the three-year. So now we do have the three-year full picture on the operating cost on the projected revenue, the specific line item on where those revenues are coming, what does year one look like, year two, year three and beyond. So now we have that and I can share that spreadsheet if you want. But there was there were voices from the BOE in the room over the last four months that knew this. When I say transparency, I am a transparent leader. That that's how I operate. That's how I run. And to give you an example, when I when I ran an organization of 500 employees, I made it my job to talk to every single person in my team in [clears throat] that in that year. Oneonone, even if
121it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes. That's just how I operate. I have leadership meetings, the next level um also leadership meeting, quarterly and monthly uh uh business reviews, and I also do oneonone. I try [clears throat] to talk to every single person I can in my organization. That's how I meet. To me, communication is really important and I try to get that as quickly as I can. You can ask our staff. We have two weekly meetings given my busy uh working hours if you will. We have two weekly meetings just with our team in addition to the convocation center meetings and other strategic meetings as well. So I I am transparent as a leader, but I can only give the information. If we need others to be involved in the day-to-day weekly meetings from the BOE,
122we should add additional delegates. But we've shared all of this information. None of this was entitled. >> Yes. >> Can you uh go back to that other slide, please? Okay. Because I because this keeps being misinformation that is giving out as you can see. That's the information 2020 information was given to this board saying that there was some unaccounted funds. We uh we discussed that within our with the foundation and we understood and and uh reconcile we didn't have a problem. We've only had a problem because there was information that was leaked to the board and it was misinformation. But I want to go back to the point that what we actually have not we didn't vote not to approve the lease. We just voted on the fact that the last meeting we had we
123weren't going forward with the lease because we needed information. I'm going to say this. Uh in my opinion, we cannot we can't sit here and stall on this today. We're going to have to make a decision today one way or the other. We need to we got to go forward with the lease. We know what we have that building for. We know that initially our plan was you know we wanted to have the building for graduations so that we weren't paying somebody else. But we cannot continue to delay uh this les we we we're going to have to really have a hard conversation today over what is acceptable to the board and we're going to have to compromise or whatever. But I I I wanted to go back to make a in your you have
124mentioned that you all have come up with some candidates for the executive director and I wanted to put this idea out there. I've talked to some of the other board members, our board, and I personally feel like that the executive director should not be hired by the foundation. I think that the board should hire the executive director. The the executive director would still work for the day-to-day operations of the foundation. But because you're saying right now that uh you know you're going to need money or whatever for this the complication center to work, we really need to have eyes on what is happening with that money. And uh and that was a problem that we had when the executive director worked for you all and we did give you all $3 million and you all
125said that you're down to 1 million. And um I guess my problem with that [clears throat] is that if we gave you $3 million, then what we should be seeing is that the foundation has earned some money. I felt like it ought to be like you should have added to the amount of money that we gave. Now, one of the problems that I found was that with the executive director, we didn't know, and I know you're saying you're putting some things in place. People really didn't know how to get money from the foundation. I actually have money from my own event that's in your treasury. And when I asked for my own money from I was told by your executive director I couldn't have my own money and and I and we need somebody that's
126going to work for both organizations in a manner that is going to be beneficial because as you said we are we need to be working together and so we really do need to have some uh some conversation today. I don't know if we're going to be dealing with these reports or whatever, but today we got to make a decision. Are we going to go forward with this lease? And really, that's what I kind of feel like we ought to be discussing right now is what's in this lease because we keep going I don't understand and even with the bylaws, I just want to ask this question. when you all this the the foundation was formed because the board decided we need the foundation and the board is the person that put the bylaws for you
127all to to exist but as soon as when I put him on the foundation the executive director decided to change the bylaws I don't understand how the if it's if it's something that we formed I don't understand why you all are changing the bylaws seems like to me we ought to be the ones that have input on the bylaws. Now, maybe you know I guess Mr. Straker, he's our representative. He was sitting at the meeting where you ought to again because this is like I brought the what y'all had when I was on there and it's been changed again. really we should have had more input on uh what the bylaws are because you know you're supposed to be working uh in the capacity to help us. And you know, one of the things that
128we had talked about when you when we were changing it was about the term of the people that are on the board of directors and and those people are supposed to come off after so many years, which to me doesn't really make a lot of sense because if you like, for example, right now based on what we said when I was on the board, you all wouldn't still be members. And I I I don't see how we can be successful if we're continuingly moving [clears throat] people like every so many years. You know, you got to have some senior p people there. But I would like to see if we could I I'm not sure what else you have to say, but I wish we could just get get to the meat while we're here
129is that we need to um get into this lease agreement. and we're saying we're we're going to pause, but we've already done the RFP and we have an operator. And at this point, we can't decide that we're just going to stop and not let the people operate the building because if they if we could just get this settled and let the operators start working, then I don't I think that we won't, you know, we won't really have a problem. But there are some things that we don't know. Like for example, if you have, and I'm going to go back to the executive director, I feel like if it was not of the board, that would also alleviate a salary for you that would take us, you know, that would help you with some money. They're
130still going to, you know, be working and but we need that liaison. And I know some other school districts that have foundations and that person gets hired by the board, but they do work for you all because you still would have the autonomy over. We need to keep our eyes on, but we need to get into this lease and we need to so we can move on and decide, you know, because we have things that are coming >> address a couple of things. I want to make sure you >> part let me set it up. You can address what you need to address. At that point, we'll hear from Miss Bose. >> Absolutely. >> After we hear from Miss Los, we then will hear a follow-up question from Miss Cooper, Dr. tells Cooper a statement
131from Cooper and then we can deal with the lease issue. >> Perfect. >> Okay, >> thank you for that. Um, so one on the fundraising, we have raised more money and and again for me I'm a fair balanced armatic individual. Our Miss Cra did help us raise some additional funds, but these were restricted funds earmarked for very specific programs, not for operations um to finance the the foundation, if you will. So where we need additional support where we need to also redirect our attention is we need to raise money not just for restricted but also for unrestricted to run the operations. So we have raised significant money on the restricted side of the house. Um two um from a bylaws perspective um the BOE is involved. The last step of finalizing the bylaws is for
132the BOE to review, provide feedback and approve. As in addition to that, from the bylaws perspective, if I may, you were also involved when we were updating the bylaws. We had an an insane amount of meetings around this. It took a lot of effort and energy. We have four phases and I'll give Miss Packer some credit on this as well. A four-phase approach to be able to again I'm a fair balance leader right when when I see it I will call it as it is. But she did also help shepher that it wasn't her only leading this. It was a collective group. We had a committee then we had our board that reviewed it. There were some things we agreed with, others we didn't agree with. We had that we went back and forth and
133we finally voted on the bylaws that it stands today. I do agree with you. I was not in favor of uh allowing our legacy, you were in the room with me, of allowing our legacy board members to exit. I did not like that. I'm not for that. So, we also came up with an alternative way to allow our legacy board members to have um an advisory committee with a single vote and they will be there for life. Like I think long term, I don't think short term. I don't operate in a one-year window. I operate in a five, three, five, 10, and even within the Ethiopian community, I operate within a 20 to 30 year like long-term view. That's how I think about these things. And so, we did try to find ways to accommodate
134that. And then in terms of the limits, yes, that that was a concern. So, what we end up doing to satisfy that concern is we allow three-year two consecutive terms for board members. That's six years for board members to stay on and and be able to fulfill their duties. And for those that were legacy or individuals that where terms could have expired, we had a conversation in the and our board voted that we reset their time once these new bylaws were enacted. So they wouldn't just exit within one year, but we reset their terms. So there would be the ability to serve for another 3 years. And if they're legacy, they would be a part of the advisory committee. And if they don't want to continue, then through a voting mechanism, they would either exit
135on their own or through voting mechanism, it would be a vacancy. and we would bring in new board members. So, the goal has been to allow two consecutive three-year terms for board members to be a part of the uh foundation board. Um and then also they if they do want to return in the future so that we can continue to maintain that knowledge, we have also allowed an opportunity to for them to come back at a later time. So, so yes, I agree with you. These were tough challenges that we needed to navigate and and we wrestle through it. We try to be as thoughtful and strategic as we can and we try to make sure we have continuity with the board of terms as well. And in terms of your um and I love
136what you mentioned towards we have you're right we have to solve this. I don't want us to walk out of this room today not understanding and solving the lease agreement two not understanding and solving the capital needs. I mean it is the timeline is fast approaching. However we decide to do this we can scale this down we can scale this up. We can keep it as is. Um and again TRP is a phenomenal organization. They have the knowhow but we also have to be able to fund it. If if we collectively decide that's where we want to go. I have full faith and confidence they will be able to deliver on what they are projected to be able to deliver. But in order for us to do that we have to get the capital necessary
137to be able to do that. But if not we can scale this down if we have to as an alternative and find different mechanisms to do that. The other thing that I heard in this room which I 100% support is this building was designed for our students. >> That's what it was designed for. >> And we h that is literally what it's designed for. We have yes the discovery center, the learning center. But guess what? We also need a robotic center. We also need an engineer like other other centers within the building that we we haven't even thought about just yet. But at the same time, we also need this center to generate necessary revenue to be able to make sure that it is sustainable. Sustainable in in so that we can cover our expenses.
138Sustainable so that we can fund the critical programs. Uh sustainable so that we can close the budgetary gap. I understand there are budgetary gap. Just because I'm not in these meetings, I I I read I I I understand the challenges even this BOE and the district has. So we have significant budget budgetary challenges that we need to address. There's also other external political forces that are challenging the school system that are going to be removing funds from school systems. So we have to be creative and find different ways to raise millions of dollars if we want to bring this district back to life and make sure it's healthy and continues to grow. So we have to be able to balance all these things. the needs of our students. Yes, that should be the the priority,
139but we also need to be able to ensure that this generates enough income so that it can create the job opportunities, the internship that we need and close biscuit gaps as well. We have to do all these things, but we have to be thoughtful in the way we do it. >> M Wells, >> good morning. I have a few things um few questions, a few comments. I think my first question, how many vacant seats are on the foundation board? >> Currently, we have I believe >> two. Um, >> we have we have three vacancies. >> Let me be clear. There's no vacancy seats. I mean, >> the foundation board can be as big or small as the team desires. So there's no we we we established 18 and three are peeled off and we need
140to replace three. We can replace whomever has peeled off add to it or reduce it. So there's no set number >> and yeah and it's not like those vacancies are creating with the exception of the knowledge um the advocacy and support you comply. >> I just was asking how many you all have more context which I think says plenty um meaning if there's all these questions even about how many vacancies and numbers I think that's in the bylaws so it should be a clear simple answer three. Okay, my second question. Um, there was a slide in your presentation that said like what the core components are. I think that was great, but I want to know if I'm correct. Did I see one of those words was athletics >> in in the four pillars? >>
141Uh, let's see. I saw it. Let's see. >> No, must not have been there. Perhaps it was earlier. athletics. >> Okay, maybe it's in one of the documents in front of me. I just saw it, but wanted to know >> all the athletics teams that we were thinking about the athletics committee. >> It's listed in your presentation or in this handout and I believe it's in the presentation. So, I just wanted to hear more about the athletic component. >> Yeah. So, the athletics um team uh Dr. here, Mr. Smith, they they were um brought on um as a part of supporting the convocation center um initiatives to attract um sporting events um and and whether it be at the convocation center or whether it be at various schools. >> Could you repeat those names? >>
142Um Dr. Peter and Aaron Jer, Mr. Patrick Smith. >> Yes, >> they work at the foundation. [clears throat] >> Um they have been uh and this was approved by the foundation. um uh board as well and >> they have done contractual work with the foundation and their purpose as Mr. Sessi has has mentioned is to bring on athletic events that will bring in revenue. they've already begun that work uh and has been very successful uh in terms of uh having an impact uh as a matter of fact two in the middle of February we're looking to have our first tournament that I mentioned in a meeting not too long ago that is going to have an impact of $6.5 million on the local economy uh they've also secured contracts with the SDIC conference and HBU
143conference that will have a host all of their championship games that will bring in revenue uh that's that sails out the motel around the event. They're uh also working with Clay State University. They have their championship game and in conversation with the Atlanta Dream and also other conferences and also to uh have further high Georgia High School Association championship events uh which in terms of return on investment is pretty impressive considering um their short time. >> Great. So it sounds like we have um an athletic component that we are working in partnership with the foundation and the communication center and in that effort we have hired subcontractors to help us in this effort who get paid. Is that correct? >> Thank you. Um, my next question is, um, I think I think those were the
144gist of my questions and I'm ready to share some comments. Not only am I concerned, um I it sounds like there's so much concern here and there, but that at the end of the day, there's a body of people who say that's enough discussion. It's time to hurry up. We have to make a decision. And I just want it on the record here and in perpetuity that even if that is how this body and both seem to work, um I will make it my business to support you in the transparency of telling the public and everybody exactly what's happening. And when I say telling everybody exactly what's happening, um I heard a comment earlier about like we need eyes on this and that and the board should be here and there. Um but I think
145the only thing this body needs eyes on are our policies, our budget and our superintendent. That is our role as a board. And so I find that actually the crossover is part of the problem. So ideas like the board should hire the EG, the board should be more involved, it sounds worse and this is already bad. And the reason this is bad that I wanted to address is not personal obviously. I deeply appreciate all that you do for our scholars and community. Um, and I think you've hit some important points. Namely, you talked about thinking long term. 1, three, five years out. And I I see elements of that some places and I see that spirit missing other places. For example, it's great to have some proactivity now, but now we're in a relationship with
146an entity that we have expenses for. And [snorts] I find that decision not only shortsighted, but that is my main qual because you have said that you have a million dollars cash on hand and you need our support. And I know what that means, money. And our primary business is educating our scholars and making sure our staff has what they need to do that. And so I'm seeing some mission creep, which is the antithesis of what we wanted. Your mission should be your mission which is almost all the business of our kids and families that we can't center because we focus on where we focus and then ours should just be education and working in partnership with some of the points on your slide. So the foresight that we're proud of now I find could
147have been helpful earlier and even if people want to do what they want to do I intend to tell the public we're paying $70,000 in excess plus consulting contracts any number of things to make sure that things are happening without the income and I don't think that that is wise Not only is that not wise, it is um irresponsible of us to support or move forward in any other way. And I hear you also were saying, you know, I thought it was well said. You said voices from the board were involved and I thought that was cool. Passive voice, not active, meaning some, not all. And even then, I understand every board member doesn't need to be in the weeds that complicate things. But I just wanted to propose an opportunity to reflect on how
148much alignment there is between the belief that you're involving the board and the true actions of involving the board. And if you do want some lines of difference, I actually think that's great. But I think that they should be equitable. There shouldn't even be a board member from this board on your board. And [clears throat] if that board member is on your board, they shouldn't have voting duties. And I know that's part of what took so long with the bylaws. There was a lot of layers. Who needs what? Whose voices needs what. Um, and this feels not only irresponsible, but it feels like we're causing harm. And the way that the audit was also described was speculative and not clear. I heard things like, "We're figuring out a way to conduct an audit," which isn't
149um helping the transparency that we want. And even the the back and forth on the the the dollars and cents for oh we had 300 in this year but not that year. But if we gave you three million to start that's semantics. You know what we mean? Like how do we go three million or 2 million to the 300 and show us that like even if people aren't using the right vocabulary the little the number where you're like no we had yeah but you had more cuz you we all know you had more. Not a 2022 though. Like I was just specifically talking here about 2022. >> I'm less concerned again about the finite details and more about the fact that we have a story to tell >> and we can tell the story that
150we have less now than what we started with. And in that interim, not not has come in, but certainly too little. And so when we think about the sustainability of this work, you know, I still have all these unanswered questions with the lease. again do people it seems like um this is more performative than actual governance because it seems like folks have made a decision but I don't intend to hide the fact that this decision's already been made and I don't intend to hide from the constituents that this is an an unequal yoke investment um and I just I deeply as a proud alum I deeply support this foundation all the scholarships all the things we do and there's a right way to make the impact we want and I think that the crossing of
151lines has made it muddy and I think entering into a relationship that we know we cannot afford um is opposite of this stewardship. Um so I I have many unanswered questions. A lot of them are in the lease, which I know we can all talk about now, but even cost splitting, earning splitting, athletics is in your slides. Um, >> I think it's later in the update as a status. Oh, this was just >> Well, I've been taking notes, so I saw the word where and wrote it down so it's in there. But this exciting endeavor coming up in February, great. These two gentlemen who are subcontractors, I bet y'all brilliant people. There's no doubt about that. What I'm saying is I don't see here where the cost split is from an athletic event from um
152between the two. There's so many unanswered questions and it just feels irresponsible and I just plan to um vocalize that so that it doesn't seem like decisions are made in a shadow of darkness. >> Thank you for sharing that. >> Okay. So it is kind of like question statement. So, um, how much have y'all spent so far for the search for the ED? Because I know I hear some saying we should take the responsibility, but you're already into it. Nothing. >> We, you know, we >> we did our own >> Okay. The only cost was just the length that we have to have a business. How was that? >> Yeah. The total cost um to post the postings were about less than $1,000 between three um job postings. >> Perfect. Um, and this is for
153Miss Warian, and I guess we can kind of talk later. Please forgive me if I'm misstating what you said, but I think I heard you say there was some misinformation that was given to the board about some checks. Did you say? And then it was something about the lease has to be approved. We have to approve this list, which I disagree. We don't have to because when does this um lease end that we have now? is temporary >> end of October I believe it is the start of February >> the end of February okay so um on the 303s I had a suggestion and being that it ends at the end of February we're deeply pretty much is going to be in debt $70,000 what are our other options Can we put the RFP back
154out there? Being that it wasn't done correctly, can we put [clears throat] it back out there? Go ahead and have that search going now and by the time it understand operators in here, that's fine with this public anyway. They could look at the video, but uh can we put it back out there? If they want to reapply, then [clears throat] hey, reapply, do whatever is necessary. But to make this right, self-correction, like I said yesterday, there has to be other companies out there that can do the same job. And I understand they have done a great job. They have a immaculate resume. Understand all of that. But to us and for us, is there another costefficient way that we can do that? That's um one of my statements for RFP. And then um board members
155on the board with Jas. I know she was saying that should we have even a board chair with no name on the board. I know Ben was against even having a board person on there from the beginning. However, I think we kind of the majority said at least have some representation there. Now, do I think they should have a vote? Absolutely no vote at all. But I do think that not so much going back to the drawing board, but we need to kind of like stop, focus, take a breath, see what is the best next step for us as accountants. We're one. We're working as one. What's the next best step to move forward to help? Because as we look, we saw the financials, six months, that's it. That's all you got. And then you're
156looking to come to us to ask for additional funding. What can we do to selfcorrect? Uh, excuse me. Let me say something before let me let me just make sure Miss Please give me one second. I am going to let you speak. >> Okay. >> When you're finished speaking, Miss Baker then will speak. That's all I wanted to say. >> Okay. Because this is what's bothering me. Since uh we got the got a little tag in here. We we're using the word irresponsible. You want you're you have a issue. You two have an issue about money that you don't have. You want to take a pause. You know what? It's irresponsible that we have a $200 million building sitting over there and we have people that come in here with all these questions and then
157you say you don't want the you know there's like because there's a board member a person representing the school district. You all like to talk about our responsibility for a budget. So if we're talking about being responsible for a budget and our money, we should have representation on that board, which is why we had representation. So you talk about being irresponsible. What is irresponsible is when board members and then you talked about uh there was a statement that Miss Bose made is that probably because there was a board member on the on their board, that's what took so long for them to do their bylaws. Okay. So if that's the case, they can't do what they need to do with that building that we're sitting over there because of this board right now because we
158have a few people here that have all these comments. You know, you like to take your little pot shots that uh we're rushing. Nobody is rushing to do this. We we had a meeting in June. That was six months ago. And you all came into the meeting. You hadn't read the RFP. You hadn't read the lease or anything. You came in unprepared. And that is what is holding us up because this board right here needs to be prepared. When people give you information, you need to read the information. When people have 303s, you need to come to the 303s. We're not doing our due diligence. So, we're holding up a process. And if somebody wants to go out and talk about uh if if this is over, go out here and tell the public that
159we're spending $7,000 a month, then you know what? Go out there and do it. And while you're out there telling what what we're trying to do to make that that building open up, then go out there and tell them how you're not informed, how you haven't done your due diligence, that when you come to the meetings, you haven't read everything that we need to read and and make an informed decision. Nobody's rushing anything here. There the uh there are people that are sitting around this table. We've read all of this stuff. And what we came in here to do today was to sit down with the foundation. We've been trying to have I've been asking for us to sit down and have a meeting with the foundation with the operators so we can just sit
160down and come up with a plan. So if we decide, you know, you talking about you don't have this money, but then you want to spend money to put a RFP back out there and just let the building sit empty. Now, who's going to uh the public is going to have a field day with that to say, "Oh, yeah." So, you need to tell me [clears throat] that y'all approve this big old building and now you're sitting up here holding it up because a few people have and have a problem and then, you know, and then you want to, you know, put your little shots. When I when I came on the foundation board, guess what? I didn't. I [clears throat] was just there to represent the board. I gave you all information then. I
161shared information with you. I tried to get you all to read stuff. You didn't read anything until somebody pushed information to you and then that's when you started to ask questions. You never It's It's so disheartening to me that you don't respect your colleagues, but you're quick to respond to any type of little rumor or innuendo. Then you want to come back and you want to attack your your colleague. Nobody We're not rushing. I think it's something that the majority of us are sitting here, we've read this, we want to move on. >> That's what we want to do. And we're trying to work in concert with him. When I when I came on that board, I didn't have a vote. I wasn't able to vote. A matter of fact, I didn't even realize that
162I wasn't when they were talking about they needed so many people for a quorum. I I'm like, "Here, we're here." They tell me, "Oh, you don't count in the courtroom." So, I was basically get information. So y'all can stop the little pot shots about uh what what was going on with the foundation. And if Ben doesn't want to be on on there, we decided as a board, if he doesn't want to be a member, that we can put somebody else on this board on there because one person is not stopping the show. What's stopping the show are misinformed board members that that are stopping the show. >> Maker. >> Okay. I I just need to get this moving. Okay. Um, what I found out on my 3003 is we cannot have get liability insurance without
163a contract. Am I not correct? >> Can't do it. Can't do it. Can't open it. Can't have junior achievement in there if we don't have the liability insurance. So the contract has to be done insurance. >> Yeah, they're separate. >> Insurance. >> They have its own lease directly with the district. So we've isolated the areas that are very specific to the student experience. So they're not impacted by but still we still have to get liability. we can't do without the contract. Yes. Two, we can't book more events if we don't get this up and running. We can't promote it. Um, if we don't have events, we don't have income, which then means we need to make more money out of our pocket to keep this going. State Farm Arena is booked for the soccer events,
164world soccer events coming up. That means we have an opportunity to get things that would have been at State Farm Arena here 10 minutes from them and get it going, which means more money in our pocket. So, I'm looking at this going, we need to be up. We need to be running. We need the money to keep this going so that we can be productive so we have less money coming out of our pocket. And for me, let's get it up. Let's get it rolling. Let's review it again in three months or six months if we need to and see if we're at where we need to be. Because I don't know about you, but this is new for me. I just had some crazy idea about not spending money >> outside my county and
165doing the best for my kids. Everything for me is a bonus. And we need to have this up and running. Y'all are talking about birth control when we're walking into labor and delivery. We cannot keep doing this. We can have that conversation after the baby's born. Um, I just want to indicate that our decision is based on counsel, legal counsel who holds a law degree, who we've asked to represent us and give us advice from that perspective. The advice that was given is the at least needed to be revised, looked at, and revisited. Waiting on information from the foundation before we can make an informed decision. Our ask is reasonable. Our ask is coming from council who we pay to represent us and lead us in the best possible way for the well-being of our
166district as a whole. This is not a personal thing. We all have read the lease. We are very affluent in all the documents that are presented to us and we speak from a factual perspective. So while there may be misinformation today I have heard none. So, I can give you one second. I do want to ask the information that's needed for the cash. You can pull it up. >> All right. One second. We're going to get to that in one second. Miss Bose, you have the last comment before we start talking about the lease. >> Thank you. >> Um, I will say as inflamed as this conversation is, it feels great to have one. There's not enough discourse as a collective and so when it gets heated, people like to rush it. And I'm glad
167at least the minutes we've had have been what they've been because I don't want any of us to have wrong takeaways. I don't want to pretend I know it all, but I also don't want any of us to think that there's only one right way to do anything. And I just want to repeat my motivations. My motivations are not only to make sure the foundation meets its mission and vision while the board meets its mission and vision and that there's separation enough to not have conflict of interest, but my mission is never anything to do with outside money. Like the point of a school district is never to earn revenue. And I recognize that some people We work hard mathematically across all our departments to make sure we're getting what we need. Whether it's counting
168our employees smart, counting our scholars smart, like I get that in some ways there's an economic element, but in a world with a global crumbling infrastructure, a lack of national leadership in our state, so many things seem out of control. This is something we have control over. And I could care less about the FIFA World Cup and the fact that they're up the street and we might miss 6.5 million when our government is not welcoming. There's plenty of people who are making different decisions about coming to America at this time. Anyway, >> that's a whole different >> and not only is it a whole different conversation that Thank you for raising, but now that it's been raised, that is something I feel like it's important to say. All these other ration fall short of the
169fact that at the end of the day, we've made a promise to pay money we don't have and now folks are going to be asking us for it. Again, let's move forward. Let's talk through it. People are going to do what they want. All I'm saying is the people should know this. And I don't think since we're all in the line of transparency that we should make sure that we're just at least being telling the whole story. >> Mr. Hold on. Hold on. >> I do have Mr. Chairman. Hold on. Please I have a I have a comment. >> I have I have a response to all of this. I want to implore you, sir, to please use whatever tools, whether you call it an audit, forensic, or otherwise, please have it. Please clear up
170any concerns about wrongdoing. Please identify [clears throat] who is benefiting from any wrongdoing. Who is it? >> WHERE'S HOLD ON. LET ME SAY HOLD ON. WHERE IS IT? Point them out. Let's get that cleared up. >> All right. Now, the $3 million that the board gave, the board gave $2 million out of its operating expenses. All right. In Philip Fund, a philanthropic source made a $1.2.5 million contribution. All of these things took place years ago. Meanwhile, expenses are occurring. Things are happening. All right. Now, let's get all that cleared up. Mr. Kadeshi, I want to say to you as the chairman, thank you, sir. Because if I were you, [clears throat] every time I came to that podium, the scrutiny that you put in that you're having to endure for not one red scent, I
171would have been told this by way to go to the ongoing uh organization that is enthusiastically waiting to support this organization. I would be running for cover with what I witness >> because all we do is spin out of control every time we come together. >> And at some point, the people in Fed, they built a a a a an event center and they're ready to roll already. We have a a board of education. We have a foundation board. We have a superintendent. We have three different legal entities. All looking like who's on third. >> And at some point, we have to have a majority number of these voting individuals that control the threshold of progress stand up and say enough's enough and let's move forward. >> And let's do that right now. right now.
172>> Clim, I would like you to address the lease. And at that point, I I want to let's let's get some rules here. Clim is going to talk about the lease. I'm then going to ask for each and every one of you individuals to make your comments or or pass on those comments. At the end of that, we will then decide whether we're going to vote on this and move on. >> Clinton, you have the platform. um in advising the members of the board. We have different viewpoints on our board. I wanted to give a draft for those who felt like we needed to move forward. Um but it's not to say this is up to you whether you think you should pause, whether you think you should move forward because the foundation is expressing
173reasons that a lease needs to be in place. I would say based on the concerning financial information, if you want to approve this lease, the only change I would make to this draft. I still haven't received the financial information. Uh but I think many of you have had a discussion about that. So I I can only go on what I know, what I've heard today. I would suggest you change the uh term to just a flat 60 or 90day ability to terminate by the school board. Um that's just because of where we are, because of the concerns. >> Could you repeat that please? >> Sure. So um as it's structured down the draft I presented under state law December 31st the board has to have a termination or rightation and the current structure is that
174there would be 180day we'll call it six months yeah six months um lead time for the board. So let's say the board has to vote in June to terminate later in December. Just given all this, I think that should be a shorter time and give more flexibility to the board. Uh, and I'm I'm tracking some of the things that board members were saying would want to proceed, but I think all nine board members and the foundation have expressed concerns about the financial situation going forward. So, that's the one thing that I would suggest um that you do. The rest of the draft represents um an ironed out lease that we worked on with the Indianapolis attorneys at Ice Miller and it covers a number of issues. Uh we sent you the draft last night. I
175think this is the document I sent you, but I'm not exactly sure. >> Okay. Um, and I won't walk you through all of those, but obviously the major terms would be um, you know, termination and what does that look like? And so I just gone over that one. Then the other item is the rent. Um, and it's it's a bit of an odd lease as as all you kind of have pointed out and that the asset is owned, but the tenant is looking for is looking to be funded. So, um, we have to have some way of calculating rent. And I had heard, uh, initially I think, uh, there may have been something in that probably wasn't right about the district getting 85% gross rent. Um, and and and that would be feasible. Um, and
176then more recently there was the concept of um facility >> 85% of the net. So once the expenses were paid, uh the school district would get 85% of that foundation to keep 15%. Uh then I heard that there might be discussion of a per user fee. Uh but we didn't really have that conversation with the attorneys. Um so I I just have gone ahead and put switched it around and just put 15% of gross. Um and that's really just a placeholder as I told you all last night. Um, I I kind of perceive that the best thing here, and I'm I'm really only talking to those who think we should not pause, right? I'm not telling everyone this. It's up to you. But if we do pause, I I do think the board should come
177and revisit this in 6 months or however many months you want. And and then if if some of these terms are just really difficult for the foundation and the operator or the board, um, you can iron those out. Um, but I'm really just trying to give a way forward to to you all who said you have a certain perspective on this. Um, uh, I do think, um, I can understand why there's needs to have a lease. I think there's been some discussion of that. I hope you all had a chance to discuss that in your in your meetings. Um the insurance [clears throat] question I I think um we did have that the the attorney was concerned about a gap in insurance and what that means is if they're only leasing part of the facility
178or most of it there's other parts. Um so I just got to put that issue to this. I understand Jay has insurance but we just addressed it as a reimbursement. Not sure that's the best way perhaps that could be six months. Um there's a number of other terms that I I won't uh I just don't think are major enough. They're in there. Uh we we just tried to get as close as we could with discussing with the attorneys for the foundation and um and and lay it out as best we could just to try to get something a resource for you to look at today. Mr. Chair, >> so is that what you just said? is that uh you keep saying I guess I missed the document last night. So what you just said is
179somewhere in writing. >> Yes. And and I notic yours that has all of that in >> I understand this is and I say it's it's mine. the um all the terms were agreed to except I would say for the and we just kind of parked on it. The two that I talked about the termination notice that's required and the base rent structure. Uh so I can't say those are those two were agreed and I consider those I'll call major and the long terms at least are major but all the rest were resolved agreed to. Um and then I in preparation for today and not having information I really just needed to give you guys a way to move forward for those you asking for that. So I guess if what I'm saying is if it's
180this document plus the 60 or 90day uh I'll call it 60 days. Um it should be a change in there if you want to proceed with it would be my thought. >> All right let's do let's do this. Mark, you you have anything to comment on on what PL has just presented to us? >> No, I I I agree with the 60 days because we don't have financial first and foremost. We don't get disapproved and we we had about graduation where our kids are graduation to the same and >> so what so what I hear you saying is that you want to move forward on a vote on this pending changes in which um Mr. Doyle has outlined. Mory go ahead. Yeah, I'm I'm ready to do that as well. But I wanted to say
181like as far as the foundation is concerned and this is what concerns me is that we keep going back and forth with these you know terms that your attorney is saying this that and the other and and the fact of the matter is is that you know the building is our building and I don't understand in the first place why we didn't just put our terms on here and I think if we had just sat down and written what our terms were we could be so much further along. Um because if we're talking about, you know, revenue, I think you all are kind of wasting money uh spending on attorneys and I'm I'm ready to move forward because if we don't have an operator and this is January, uh somebody needs to be running that
182building so that we have our graduation. >> Miss Williams, >> thank you. >> My question, what kind of financial you say that you waiting on? Was it this or is it something else you said you waiting on? >> Um well, with Okay, so that's a great question. The proposal we had is that the base initially would the base rent should be market based. Uh otherwise even if you're a nonprofit with so many connections and and I also want to acknowledge that the work that that you all are doing for free and giving your profession that is that is um I think not something that to my perception is being questioned. This is all just about structure and how this thing will work. Um but initially the discussion was that base rent uh market rent would
183not work for the foundation. They wanted a percentage of a percentage breakdown and you know net cost to know what that might look like for school board. You have to see projections and you have to see what might it cost to do this and what might be left over. And so that's why we said we're going to get projections. Um, other than some information provided data, I understand there's maybe other >> we're about to see a fullfledged view of the projections when we operate stand. >> In an ideal situation, I would not really ever want to you guys know I would want give me two weeks to look at this and you know something and break down and ask questions and give the board members the same courtesy. So, that's been missing in in this
184part, but this we are where we are. Um, that's why we needed that information. If you're going to tie the rent to um, you know, what uh, revenue is coming in, you would need that. Um, and so that's that's what led the request and and acknowledging it's good that the board is getting information that it's not gotten um, before this point to at least improve the the perspective on what we have. And I think there's going to be different viewpoints on that. Yeah, cuz I that was a question mark. >> So, I'm okay like we do we do need to move forward with something. I feel like the convent didn't just start with. >> We've been building this for a year. We've been having meetings and all we do just come to meetings and want
185to prolong the next meeting we don't get nothing done. Then the next meeting we don't get nothing done. I feel like if we do this 60 a day or whatever, we don't need to wait 60 days. We need to come back weekly until we get stuff ironed out. We can't keep waiting till the next meeting just to meet twice a month. If this something that we need to do that we all focused on and agree that it can make more money for the county to help with more resources, we need to be in this weekly or however long it takes in order to get stuff done. I just keep pushing off to the next lead to the next lead to the next person. You know, that's that's my take on this. >> I'm tired of
186stuff being pushed back. >> Dr. I'm ready to move on, but I just want to make a point to Miss B's statement about informing the community on the three ones. We had already discussed and Dr. is going to allude to that that we are going to um have a community setting where the community is informed of what's going on, the good, the bad, the indifferent to show the transparency considering that they've already voted for this, considering that they're asking the question so that everybody can maybe hear the same thing. Maybe they listen differently, but to hear the same thing that's being said so that we can show that we are being upfront with this community to show them where we are and show them where we project to be at even when we have the
187deficits in place. At least they will know. We're going to get the grommets. We get that all the time. Thanks to Clayton, moms and dads, we thank you for that. But however, we are going to move forward in that space. I agree. We do need to move forward and we do need to have some type of weekly meetings or whatever it may be that we set it up not monthly by weekly until we get something solidified. We take it piece by piece, baby. We need to get something solidified. looking forward for the sake of my children out here. [snorts and clears throat] They're asking questions as well in addition to all the other projects that we have going on. So, I think that we should go ahead and move forward. That's my stance. >> In
188fact, thank you, Dr. Hay. >> I'm ready to move forward. As I said, um I appreciate Clint talking about the 60day changes >> changes and then um and if we need to revisit this, make sure that we we revisit it. I don't know about you, but I'm new with this. You know, I don't know how all this looks, but I know that we're not going to make a dime if we don't get Don't say. >> Excellent. Miss um >> I'm very proud of our application today. Can't wait to use it. I don't want to never move forward, but I only want to move forward in the best interest of our district and children and taxpayers. So that doesn't seem like what we're doing, but again, I am one and I will be happy to support
189the direction that this board's [clears throat] end up going to. And informing the community, I appreciate um what D said. It is not at all if anyone was felt like that was offensive or a threat. That was >> probably how you should take it if you took it that way, but it's actually what we do as board members. Um, and I actually think, you know, this body is a good case study on why we always need SEAL in our classrooms and the ability to everybody make sure that we are communicating respectfully. Um, because when we talk about conflict of interest, I heard a comment earlier about like who point them out, who's doing what. Again, conflict of interest has many ways to be taken that. And again, if people are offended at hearing that, that
190might be for those people. But when I say conflict of interest, I just mean making sure that our staff is on staff duty and our foundation is on foundation duty. Um, and then the last thing I want to say is I look forward to joining everybody in support of informing the community. And I don't think that the way we're doing it is ideal, but it's a beautiful building. Our scholars and families deserve to benefit from it. Um and majority will will see that to prod >> um two questions. Claim, can you tell us when you were brought into the fold to help us to negotiate this lease and all other matters surrounding the convocation center? >> It would probably be difficult for me to give a date. I have not been involved in many of
191the convocation center matters um from from the beginning and I would have to be say several weeks ago on the lease um on this this particular lease. >> Well, can you can you tell us what is your role um as it pertains to the board? >> The fact that you were not involved. >> Well, I can I don't know why but um Um, I'm board attorney is what I can tell you. >> And as a board attorney, you represent the board of education. And is this something um typically you would have been involved with or in the past you pretty much know what we do and how we can best serve? >> Yeah, it's difficult for me to answer that um just because I mean there's another law firm that um has been involved although
192the law firm is representing found. >> What were you saying? There's another law firm. What? So, so there would be matters I wouldn't be involved in necessarily. Um, and >> for example, >> well, some of the land matters and easements and things like that that come for instance, >> but the lease is not anything to do with land matters. Is that correct? >> Um, it could be. It could be. Okay. But typically, you're involved in most of the things that happen with the do. Okay. And I heard mention of a temporary. Are you familiar with that or do you know anything about that? >> Okay. >> So, um I just I just wanted to answer her question and he got involved. >> His question was I got you involved with the with the foundation. [clears
193throat] You can almost stop me but I got you involved. Miss, can we finish? Remember before I when I was on the board, >> I was when I was on the board. So that's been since June of you were asking for my >> vote on. >> All right. So, um just wanting to add those questions for clarity because according to um attorney Clen Doyle, he is advising us that we need to be concerned about a lot a couple of matters he spoke of, but there were at least seven things that were brought to our attention. Um I like our board wholeheartedly agree that the convocation center of the beautiful Billians um the purpose the mission and the intent for it is definitely needed and warranted and I support it wholeheartedly. Um at this particular time
194the question on this table is whether or not I would be in agreement with this lease and based on >> well agreement with moving on with the current lease as it is written would be no based on legal counsel and based on the information that I've read, um, it just doesn't benefit the BOB are in the best interest of our district and our community. While I'm grateful that our community said yes, they said yes, understanding that we as elected officials would operate in the best interest of them or our children. And I don't think that that is displayed in our deal. >> Um, um, couple statements here. First and foremost, um um I I personally reached out to the Doyle firm as soon as this lease was prepared. It probably was 24 hours after the
195lease was was um um drafted that it was in attorney Doyle's in mind. Is that true or not? That is true. Attorney [clears throat] Doyle told me that in order to avoid conflict of interest from this point moving forward, everything that I I review and and draft will go to all nine individuals at the same time. Is that true, Dr. Mr. Do? Secondly, I and I need Highland to to confirm this. I said to to to the chair, I don't think Denmark should really be drafting this lease because of conflict of interest. I want the fir the the the firm in which the foundation is currently um um um currently contracted with. Is that correct? At that point, Denmark was removed from the negotiations of these lease and that attorney dealt directly with Mr. Doyle.
196Is that correct? What? I don't see where anything was done inappropriately at that point. All right. I believe that this lease is a work in progress. I'm going to say that word again. It is a work in progress. The attorney has just told us that we could move forward with the lease with the two concerns, the two major concerns that he had and we can revisit this back in 6 months which would enable us to do some things as we're moving towards that 6 months. Is that correct um attorney do? >> So my my vote is to move forward with this lease. Miss um telescoper. >> Okay. So, um I'm glad you said that. And besides the work in progress. So, I think I've kind of stated how I feel about the whole thing as
197far as the police and everything. I'm willing to do the work in progress, but at this time, I cannot go along with what we have here. I've always thought it was one-sided to us. Thank you, uh, attorney Clint, for stepping in and kind of looking through it and everything for us. But it even goes beyond just the lease and you know it's not really in our favor. What about the foundation? They just stood stood up here and gave us a whole presentation about how they only have pretty much six months worth of operating you know funds to even be able to sustain all of this which means >> Hyram what does that mean? You're coming where? >> We have to collectively solve that. I'm >> I'm No, no, no. I'm saying you're asking it was
1985 million yesterday, right? No. When did we have the meeting Friday? 5 million that you were going to come ask >> $5 million. I still I wholeheartedly still stand on and I know some of my [clears throat] board members had things to say. I still stand on there's other options and other ways to do this. If we start now in January, we can do what we need to do without a gap at the end of February. I stand on it. I am going to be fiscally responsible not only to our kids but to our community. I'm going to say it's a a no >> for me. >> All right. >> But if we want to work in red, >> so a couple of things before we move forward. Um I'm sorry. >> So is it
199is it 6 months or uh >> Right. six months to revisit, >> right? >> Revisit in about six. The notice of term termination will be about 60 days. >> So, here's how we move forward with this. First of all, >> I do have a question I have to ask. >> Go ahead. >> I understand we could make some concessions and put some temporary language in there, >> but the foundation could not move forward unless we figure out this light. It doesn't make sense for the foundation or for the district to move forward unless we figure out the dollars with the with the cash that we have on hand. The foundation could run a lot longer. But if the foundation is going to be paying, >> right? >> Month one is a million dollars. >> We
200will go through the numbers. Okay. >> Speak the truth. >> Okay. So month two is about 600,000. Sure. >> So, we got to we got to figure it's not about whether we should move forward or not. For me, we again, we have the right partners. They are very strategic. They know what they're doing. They can get this done. But that to me, that's not the concern. >> But it doesn't make sense to enter into a long-term agreement beyond theou until we figure out how we're going to pay for this. >> So, there are two ways to do it. Yes, there's two ways to do it. Okay. Option one is we need a release of capital. from the from the BOE or however we do it. Option two, we can get a line of credit until
201we can get um cash positive and the BOE can back it up. But in all sincerity, we have to figure out this money. It doesn't make sense. I will resign today if I have to. If we don't figure this out, I will I'm willing to put all my energy, everything that I have into this foundation because of the kids bar. And and what Dr. Smith said earlier, I'm willing to do that. Hold on a second. >> And I think we can manage this fiscally responsibly. However, it makes no sense to move forward if we don't have the capital. Like that's not even that's beyond this business. That it just makes no sense. So, we need to figure out two things. And I mean this sincerely, we have a lot of things we can do for
202our kids, a lot of ideas that we can implement. If we don't figure out this lease agreement the right way and we don't have this capital, what are we talking about? Hold on one second. One second. One second. I'm going to let Miss Forice speak first. Then I'm going to let Dr. Haney speak. Then I do want to hear from Dr. Smith. And the And the perspective that I need from you is you're hearing that need for money. Um I need you to give me an idea of what direction you think we should go in regards to would you be making a recommendation to the board toward that money. So, let's go with Miss. >> But this is more of a question because now I'm confused. >> And I mean, it's as if even somebody
203just threw out the number of $6 million over over the, >> you know, with the World Cup or whatever. >> How do you all We know you need capital. We understand that. But how do you think you're going to get any money if we just if we just say today, "Oh, no. We're not going to go until y'all give us some money." The whole point is to my understanding is in order for us to move forward, we need to have a lease so that the operator can get in the building and they can do what they need to do. We're about to have uh revenue from we have two events coming up. We have the uh the wrestling, we have the um the SIA tournament. So the so if we're going to make money, we
204can't make money until we open it up. So, so right now if you don't have you you have a million dollar we're doing let's just say we're doing if we're paying them $70,000 and and and we're trying to have something in the next two months or next three months that's $210,000 that you got to spend. >> That's just for men and compete. There is operation staff. There's licenses finished. Well, let me let me tell you why you shouldn't let them finish. Let me tell you why. Cuz we got to be real careful. We're going we're going we're riding a train that's going off the track right now. >> We we need to hear what she's saying because she she's making a lot of sense. What she's saying and correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Marie.
205She's saying that the lease is a move forward while we're doing work in progress figuring out their finances to that. I don't necessarily agree with your perspective on how we have to get that money. That's why I want to hear from Dr. Smith because Dr. in in talks that were not in here made made a comment to say, "Hey, we don't need $5 million upfront. We only need maybe three or four months worth of operating expense with hopes of the operator at that point being able to buffer some of the money." So, you're we're throwing up a number saying 5 billion. I don't pay my bill. I don't pay my utility bill for a year. I pay it month by month. So if I wanted any kind of relief on my utility bill, I get
206three months worth of it and I go while I'm working while I have these three months, I'm going to be busting my butt to sell insurance for the next for for the months to get the month that I'm in for the following months. So don't make it seem like you need $5 million check right now in order to operate. And that's why I wanted to hear Dr. No, I I I need to I need to answer. We can bring up the Excel file if you want. I need to address Hold on. I got to address that. When you run a business, you need to establish the budget for the year. The budget for operating cost. I'm not dismissing revenue. As I mentioned earlier, revenue is expected to come in. >> But you need a budget
207for the year to address up front. >> It's whether we have we have to have a guarantee. We operate. Let me finish. WE OPERATE SCHOOL. NO, LET ME FINISH. LET ME FINISH. LET ME FINISH. We operate a school based off of the anticipation of receiving taxes in November. Am I correct? We do not have that money in January. Finish your saving. >> So, okay. If we want to play if we want to do that, then we need $2.3 million for the first three months. >> All right. That's a lot less than 5 million. >> Yeah. That's assuming there's more revenue coming. >> And that's I was that's what I've been just trying to get. If we're not I mean just to me it's like you're just wasting time today. If we don't move forward and
208get the lease done so somebody can get in the building and and try to make somebody, we're just stuck. We right now we can't check because she >> Yeah, because I need to let the operator come up and say something. >> Yeah, I want to do that. >> Hold on. Let me You got to let me finish with the numbers, right? It doesn't make sense. >> We're talking about lease, but we're not like I understand what you're saying. You and I have had multiple conversations on this. We've seen these casual statements. This is not new. But I also have to be responsible as a as a business leader, as a foundation chair. You got to let me finish. I am trying to make this work. >> I'm the chair. I'm the CHAIR OF THIS. SO
209I I'M RUNNING. So when I'm when I want to make a statement, I'm [laughter] going to make that statement and then I'm going to give you back the platform because one of the things that we're not doing right now is we have not let the operators COME UP AND SHOW US PROJECTIONS SO THAT WE can see real NUMBERS AND THEN HAVE A [laughter] real discussion. That's what we have not done. Look, let me pull up the numbers. I am trying to move in the spirit of moving forward and I'm trying to give you ways to be able to move forward so that we can do this the right way. That is it. It's not I'm not trying to create a roadblock. What I'm saying is, okay, in month five, we're expected to bring in between
210300 to $470,000. That's revenue that's coming in that can help offset that. I agree with that. That's going to help us offset the cost and the expenses that are coming in. I there's no dispute on that. But in order to be able to get us there to ensure that we have everything that we possibly need to support the operators so there is no roadblocks they have everything they possibly need in order to perform that we have to be able to secure in the first quarter and a half in the first 5 months in the first four months $2.4 million that is one of savings and I want yes that is different than five but we have to look at that 2.4 for we also have to prepare what if in the event I have full
211confidence they're going to be able to deliver but in a risk mitigation in the event that the revenue does not come in at that level until month seven we have to have buffers I'm trying to do this in the most fiscally responsible way so that we can be planful so we have buffers in place so we don't have to worry about issues so that we can give them the autonomy the ability to make decisions so they don't have to wait for a vote to take place if we can secure that money guess what they have full autonomy to run without any obstruction. And that is all that I'm suggesting. In order for us to do that, we have to secure this. Let's find a way to do that together. It's not a roadblock. It is
212a real picture. >> All right. I want to close with um Dr. Smith. Hold on. You guys got to hold on. You guys got to hold on. I want Dr. Smith to speak about those finances and and and what I don't have a whole lot to add. Mr. uh has been pretty succinct about you know the cash flow and all of that. I think what we haven't emphasized enough is what happens in year two and three relative to come up to give us >> I think no emphasis has been placed on how quickly the board recoups that 5 million and as a matter of fact let's recoup the two million that they gave up by 12 as quickly as possible >> and on top of that how the board benefits tremendously from an influx of
213revenue that most school system can't boast about right >> those are the numbers that we need on my plate, right? That's why we're going to stop here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to stop here. >> We're going to take a 5m minute break. >> The operators are then going to come up before anybody says anything else. They are then going to do their presentation and they're going to show us the projections so that we can then make a a an educated um um decision regarding the lease. Because we cannot make that educated decision until you see the figures of year 1, year 2, and year three. We can't even have a discussion about money until we see it. >> I have right. Okay. 5 minute break. Get back at um
21411:15. No. No. I got Our next item of business is the converation center operations update. Uh Mr. Doc uh Dr. Smith, Mr. Superintendent, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. >> All right. It's all yours. >> Okay. Well, uh Mr. Chairman again, Mr. Vice Chairwoman, members of the board, staff, community. Uh, at this time, I'm so excited to hear uh as Mr. Destiny has pointed out what we consider a very capable organization uh what Dr. Simpson has investigated uh with his visits uh to the uh current operations that they've been so successful with. uh we all feel comfortable uh with these individuals leading us to a to a to a to a situation uh relative to that complication center that will be profitable uh for this entire community. So I I I I I'm
215so excited that they are here today to run through all the numbers so at some point this board can feel a degree of comfort uh as they make commitments moving forward. So thank you. So we'll turn it over at this point to the to the right production. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> We are thrilled to be here and some of you we have met and had an opportunity to share information with. Some of you we have not had that opportunity. I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to share information about who we are and why the right productions is the right choice to lead the activity of bringing the convocation center into full operation so that it delivers what it can deliver. not only for the community, not only for the school board, but
216for the families and for the young people. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to witness a historic event where the first mayor, first female mayor in 324 years was elected. And that was historic. But what brought me to tears was the presentation of the young people. What young people see as as an opportunity as a real viable forward motion that they can attain and that is in part what this congregation should attend to. The entertainment industry has been built on the backs and from the creativity of largely African-American people. [snorts] Yet the economic strength of that industry has not fall as it should through to the long-term building of wealth in our communities. Not just from performances on the stage and short-lived careers, whether they are in dance or music or athletics, but through what happens
217behind the stage. We build wealth. We build capacities. We build things that lead into finance and marketing and engineering and technical developments. These are the things that we believe the convocation center can bring fully into this community. We are embraced upon a historic opportunity. This does not happen. But while it might have started as a idea to save money and you all don't want to know how little we spend on graduation expenses cuz we do them. It started from a seed but it has grown in a tremendous way with tremendous potential through vision and faith and the opportunities that have come to all of us. We are all here together. The foundation invested time and energy. The board of education has invested and the right productions has invested. We have been involved and submitted the
218proposal to operate this a year ago and from that time on we have been ready to step forward and bring this to fruition. So, while we have a lot of information to share with you about what we do and why we do it and what we've done in other places, and I'm going to share with you just some of the the pieces, but I want to talk about the three missions that have come together here in this room. >> The mission of the board of education dealing with empowerment, creativity, and collaboration. the mission of the foundation that deals with sustainable growth and the mission of the right production. We talk about measurable results for in April there'll be 30 years that my company has been in business and in that 30 years 22 that we
219have been under contract with the city of Detroit and every month of every year for 22 years we have provided financial statements on a monthly basis, balance sheets and income statements. We have lived and worked under seven administrations which means that the scrutiny as you change political hats has been intense. We have sustained all of that. We have state contracts which means that we have been recording financially and dealing with licensing on a state basis for almost 30 years. We have sustained funding from the federal government and successfully gotten clean opinions on our audit statements. We have lived in a political environment which means that we know the level of scrutiny that the public demands and requires and we are ready to bring that expertise that experience to this effort to take on this my
220new mentor project that you have brought thus far to the piece. [cough and clears throat] So, >> we're in this together, folks. >> You've invested money, time, and so have our values going forward. We are independent company. We function across the country and I'm an executive from the national national independent venues association, Black Motors Collective. We do programming, we do concerts, we do gospel, we do speaking engagements. We have raised money for all kinds of things. These are our besties. But I want to take a moment because we have a young man here that was our first intern. Internships is fundamental to what we do. I am a mother and raising children and raising this community. I don't know how many people call me mom but internships our first internship was awarded to a young
221man. Oh, that's just my mother said. >> Um, internships and and giving back to our community and teaching what's next is paramount. And the other day when I was getting ready for this, I thought about our first intern. And I reached out to that young man over there. Stand up for a second. This young man was our first intern in our first year at the Reaper Frank that [applause] we looked at the picture for the presentation. I asked that young man if he had time to come by. He's now a fraternity brother. He's a father. He he he said now I'm going to come and help support you and he's going to step out in second to go uh watch your son come back. as a married man that I thought about having said we
222don't have that kind of time but thank you Wesley I'm proud of you oh excuse me he formerly works for ESPN and now you are the um with the Atlanta Hawks is that correct video marketing etc this is what we do I haven't asked him the impact that we had on the phrase that we did you know he is our very first intern we have had interns every years since then and taught them the business and they have gone on to do great things. That's something we're proud of. And I shout out my son who's stand up as well graduate as well lives lives in Stockbridge now and he was a me attorney but not just family but I didn't know that and I'm so proud of you Wesley and thank you. >> Real experience,
223real opportunities, real jobs. Your internship was in which department? It's been 22 years, but it is something different that we do. From production to finance to marketing, we do a collegebound piece where we get scholarships every year. That's from our budgets. And we don't give it to just to scholars who are at the 4.0. We give scholarships to every to students who are accepted in the college and who enter and who come and learn a little piece about what we value in our young people and how we are there to support them. So we do that every year. These are just some of the thank you letters from interns and that we've been involved in. We do voter registration because getting the community involved in the politics and the directing the future is important to
224us. We have raised money to help fund the rape kits that were backlogged. I don't know if that happened here in Atlanta, but it happened across the country where rape kits were sitting on shelves and not being funded. We used a concert with Erica BU to raise money to get those rape kits tested in Detroit and Michigan. We use what happens on the stage to impact our community. We do senior events there. The stage is an engine for social change and economic development. This team is one that we're ready to build. We have done RFPs and security, janitorial, food service, points of sales system, information technologies, EMS and medical, stage hands and labor, sponsorships and sales, digital switching, brand creations. We will go into some of this when you have time, but I know what
225you really want to know about the money. So, we're going to we're going to stick to the money and show you some of these things later. The revenue that this facility can generate is significant. Is the initial investment important? Absolutely is essential. But we're going. We've been in this business and we know how to get there. And we look forward to being able to work with you and to share information on a regular basis. Not just the financials, but the nuts and bolts of how this does impact this community. We're ready to do this. We are here because we want to do [snorts] this. We're here because we are passionate about doing this because what goes on the stage impacts your entire community. what you share with young people, what you enable them to experience
226as working members of the team cuz they work. Trust [snorts] me. I'm going to ask that we go into the financials now because we have the cash growth projections that I think. But before we do that, I want to also say that the revenue for the lease when you talk about rent, rent is one thing and revenue sharing is another. So we can look at those clearly. What we've talked about is clearly defining the rent structure in a way that is easily [snorts] auditable. financially trackable on a monthly basis because it's tied directly to every paid ticket that comes through that door. Makes it real simple. Whether it's ticket master or another ticket system, we get print outs of what tickets were sold for each event and the dollar figure is attached to each ticket.
227It's clean. It's clear. It's trackable. It's public. It's easy. We don't want to get off into the weeds. >> So ju just as [clears throat] a point of clarity, what I'm hearing you say is that as we contemplate the term of rent in our lease today, you're saying that it should not be tied to revenue. It should be tied to a facility charge on the tickets in which we sell. So if you sell a 100,000 tickets for the year, whatever the cost is that's tacked on to that ticket would be Clayton County Public Schools rent. >> Period. >> Okay. >> It's simple and plain. Got >> Yep. And there was a question that was brought, excuse me, there was a question that was brought up about the timing and a sense of urgency. And one
228thing I want to make clear with and I forgot the board member's name, but she brought up why now, why we should need to proceed when it comes to the World Cup. This is not necessarily about the people that are coming into the country from an industry standpoint. The promoters such as ourselves, Black, Live Nation, ADG, they can't produce content in State Farm Arena because it's blacked out. So all the people, all the shows that go there during this whole next six, eight months, that time frame, World Cup, they don't have a home. If we now that do we can go in and get those clients from State Farm because they're blacked out. So it's not people necessarily come into the country. It's the shows that play there every year that the promoters. they don't
229have a home. We know the agents, we know the managers, everything. Let's bring those here to the complication center, you know. So, I want to make sure that that is the importance of moving in a timely fashion. So, that we should capture that because once we get it, we're not going to let it go. So, that's a short clip note version. We'll talk about that. But I want to make sure that that is clear about what's here and giving the people the opportunity that here shows from there. This is our CPA. How you doing? My name is Anthony Eric. uh Junior. I'm a certified public accountant uh operating out of North Carolina. Um I do have uh some history with Right Productions. Uh I served at one point as their uh contract chief financial officer
230uh and my own practice. Um and uh you know I want to to um take off my battle hat. Um and I'm I'm I've worked hard the the numbers that Kylo has shared with you all uh you know I was conduit that they are projections uh there is still very much a work in process uh you know I built a model that we can you know going forward slice and dice do different type of projections based on uh changing assumptions changing realities changing costs uh and the like. Um you know, it is based on the building. Uh your expenses, you have expenses that are based off the events. There's it's it's a big picture and and it's I'm going to try not to to kick you into the deep end of of the numbers. Uh
231you can let the numbers cool all you want to let any time. There are certain assumptions that we've made. Um those Start with risk with this. There is no financial risk that we're planning on taking uh with when producing events. Typically, that is you you have an an event, you've got to pay the artist and all that. All of that rests with the promoters. They will have the risk of that. So that is not something that uh unless the board or the school board wants to take on that's not built into the process. Um, >> yeah. >> I I I can't we produce them immediately, but >> Yeah. So, um, primary revenue sources rent from producers that are hosting events. They're the ones that are going to be paying the rent. large events, we're estimating
232roughly $60,000 for a large event. That's full house. Uh small events, uh you know, maybe 28,000. And these numbers will will change as as you know, we learn the market and what the market will bear. Uh and those are based off of, you know, average capacities, 4,800 to 8,000 seats, whatever the the the manifest ends up being. uh you know uh sporting events. We've mentioned uh facility fees that is uh you can think of as a a per person rent. You come to the facility for an event. There's there's a cost with that. Um it may be $5 per head and that is a facility fee. It has nothing to do with the promoters. That comes to your operational bottom line. um concessions. You got to feed people want to pay to eat. People want
233to drink when they go to events. Um there's a share of that net revenue. Again, it's going to be negotiated. Um per capita net range may be $5 to $15 ahead for everyone coming into the building. Um and that range will depend on whether you have alcohol available at the event or not. you know, you got a high school tournament, you maybe don't want to have alcohol there. That's, you know, that's policy decision for you all. Uh there's parking available. My understanding is that there's about 992 spaces uh that you can have paid parking per event. There are other revenue sources that are not included in this model. Um there are you know commission trade style shows uh there's a convenience fee that a ticketing agent goes through they collect that and it's a part
234of that online uh process of purchasing a ticket. It covers uh you know credit card fees and others and there's the opportunity to share that with the uh ticket the ticket master or whoever it is that is doing the tickets. uh merchandise revenue from the shows, a share of that. Um you have suites, there's opportunity for sweet revenue, uh name rights for the venue, sponsorship revenue. There are any number of sources that are not included in this basic model. Okay, so let's talk about overhead costs. You all have I've not seen it yet. Um, I mean, I've been down there a couple times. Haven't been able to make it to the actual venue, but you all have an 8,000 seat venue. Congratulations. That's beautiful. What are you going to do with it? You have it.
235It's it's it's we'll we'll we'll decide soon when once uh you have your certificate of occupancy, it's bought and paid for, right? That's some cost. Well, it's going to cost you something to have ready to do any type of a thing. And that's kind of what I want to talk about here. So, you you've got it. It's going to cost you something to have it. It's going to cost you something to have it. Um, you've got staffing costs and these are some of these are just some of the numbers, you know, of course will change as people are hired and stuff is negotiated, but you've got uh a manager operations, a general manager, accounting, assistant GM, executive assistants, and I didn't put all the numbers in here, production manager, marketing, clocks office, maintenance, guest services.
236There are a lot of staff jobs that go into having a venue ready for use and that's what you got to do. So that's that staffing about a million too. That might be low. That might be low but that's that's the starting point. It's going to cost you that for the first year in staffing. There are contracting services that kind of fall into that as well. Okay. [snorts] Uh there we go. Yeah. So, um I think I think my nephew got a a slide duplicated. Um but that's okay. Um there are other operational costs um that are going to be involved. There's also contracted costs. That's the the one that is missing for security. Um janitorial. Uh you name it. There are again a ton. Your uh utilities is on here. Um that number might
237be I don't know what it's going to cost for power and water and you know waste disposable for this venue. We can make some guesses but they're going to be there. There's marketing. Um part of the other slide uh had to do with uh branding. You know, you've got to brand this venue. So people know you're we're here, you know, it's it's public relations. Yeah. >> Let me ask a question as it relates to like janitorial opportunities and that kind of thing. Would there be any room for our employees to maybe serve in parttime for some of that work? I'll change that. >> Our job is to deliver the service and to make sure that we do that at the most cost effective manner possible. We did do an RFP for janitorial services and for
238security services and we have rates that we have identified with uh Chief Walker for security. We've not had that conversation regarding uh janitorial steps. So, we don't know what your hourly rates are. If they're competitive, um, then, you know, our job is to make sure that we get the job done. We have to provide janitorial services and security services as a pass through to Junior Achievement starting February 2nd. February 2nd, we have to have these services in place and we have to have the insurance coverages in place to make sure that everyone's risk is um is is protected. >> The reason why I asked the question is because it's a beautiful opportunity, if possible, for our employees to be able to do some extra work and get some extra money. U regardless of what job
239they do, you know more about it than I do. I've had experience because of my wife's work with the Mercedes-Benz stadium and know the operation of that a little bit and I know that they pull people from the community and they bring them in and those people are able to work. >> Absolutely. >> And so it'd be wonderful if we could enhance some of our employees by giving them some of those opportunities to work in some of those functions that you know better than I do. >> We'd love to continue that conversation and and explore what is possible and how and what race. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. That was more over answer than I would give it but um I hopeful um but yeah there this is these jobs are in this community that's
240where they're coming from all of them right there may be some some uh imports and transplants that that get utilized but the majority of the staff to operate this from this community and there again the opportunity for internships and the others. If we have a contract with a particular janitorial, they've got to hire employees from somewhere. So, hey, here's some experienced people that you can utilize. Add them to your add them to your payroll. Add them to your mix. You know, it's a community. It's a community effort. Okay. So, um, bottom line for overhead costs, the overhead cost is for this venue estimated is going to be about $5.3 million per year. That happens if you don't do a single thing but have the building ready for use. If all you do is uh 11
241graduations then and and that's the only thing that happens in this build building, that's what it's going to cost cuz you have it. Yeah. Okay. Um so just a little math uh where we're looking at for the first year projecting doing 48 events behind eightball on that. Okay there there's certain things that can't be done until contracts and contracts and contracts are ratified and signed up for. But that comes down to an overhead cost of approximately $110,000. That's just your overhead per event. As the and and we're going to assume that that number is going to stay relatively stacked over a 3-year period. As the number of events go up, the allocation of that overhead per event comes down. It comes down. All right? And think about that. There are also event specific costs. Okay,
242so we talked about the old game. There's going to be contracted staff for events, you know, production managers, front of house, you know, ushers, stage hands, uh, customer relations, security, janitorial. Again, all of these are community- based jobs. So some of that money, you know, is is going to be turned in the community, but that's per event. There are other other costs that are related to that. Utilities, supplies. I I didn't put all the numbers in. The bottom line for event expenses for 2026 baseball projected number of events it's going to be about $2 million. Let's keep that static. That number will be five 6 million 27 almost $8 million and 28. What happens is those event expenses are charged to the promoter with a markup. So there are costs that we bear, but those
243costs are passed on to the promoter to the event. So we talked about that that $43,000 per event. The promoter pays that plus 10% or whatever upcharge we we want to agree on. We think it's reasonable what the market will bear to cover those costs. So it's actually a revenue line, another revenue line. So let's talk about the operating revenue projections. 26 we've got the first year. All right. We're talking about uh rent from concerts. That's that $60,000 and $28,000 per event that is charged to the promoter. Okay. Um there are uh you know we don't have athletic events on there for the first year. We have concerts. There are co-pro events events where we may share with a promoter but there's a stop loss on that. You're not risking any money if you're giving
244them a cut on the on the rent and whatnot, but you're also taking a share of the revenue with no investment outlet. Um so uh the rent sure >> and that's why using the facility fee as the source of the rent to the BOE is important because if you're not charging a promoter rent you're still getting a per ticket revenue that is dedicated and identifiable that flows directly Uh we talked about uh concessions revenue. Um you know just rough numbers based off of anticipated attendance number and that per capita and a reasonable share. I think I'm using 40%. Uh at this point for these numbers uh again merchandising revenue, parking revenue based on those 992 spaces. Uh there's a net share if you do a co- promotion. Facility fees is down here. Again, that's that's
245at $5 ahead for all the attendees that are projected. You sell the ticket, that's a part of that fee and it goes straight to the bottom line. That doesn't go to promoters or anybody else. That goes straight to the bottom line. Uh so 1.8 million 1.3. So the operating revenue projection for the first year is about 4.2. It's about 4.2 million of revenue. Now if you remember the overhead cost that was at about five. So the end of the first year, you're looking at uh a loss. You're looking at a loss potentially, right? Uh with with the opportunities that are there with the the whole World Cup and State Farm being blacked out, those numbers could be much much better. They could be much much better. Uh so your operating expenses, your revenue first year,
246a net loss. Um you've got your your total event expenses. You'll see that comes down and and sorry for the the the number for you, but you got a 10% markup on those. So another $200,000 it comes to the bottom line. So the total available and you can set this up and this is on you all to decide how cash flow and revenue is distributed and allocated. Okay. So at the end of the end of one year one you got about a million dollar difference deficit. So that can be funded line of credit whatever it is. But that's where that's where we're looking. As you move on to year two and year three, okay, your per event cost comes down. Okay, your event cost, we said we're going to assume that was static going forward.
247Um, so when you decide you want to do an event that you're not charging rent for, what you want to call a free event, well, nothing is free. That's the only thing they need. There are costs either from overhead or from event costs that will be incurred for those events. as your other revenue increases and we're able to to really produce and get the number of of paid events up the cash flow can cover that you can make it in so where you can do some of those things you can do some sponsorship type things you know fundraising type events 12 square yeah we're making the space available you know this is kind of our contribution to it we're not going to charge you. It's it becomes a part of of that that charitable mission.
248So, where we are 2026, we're looking at 48 events or more. That's that's I'm starting 27 136 events. 184. That's what these numbers are based on. the numbers that Highland has, you know, with with a I gave him a a cash flow waterfall which breaks it down by month so you can see and track where you are the whole way through. You can do a budget to action. Okay. Um yeah, so this is a little bit of of ancillary information on where we are. We talked about the assumptions that we made. questions for larger group. >> I think you kind of skipped over when you did that. You need to go back to your other slide where you have the first year being a negative and then the second year you have a positive. So
249that's the stuff that needs to be pointed out and that you know when when you're doing a business I to be honest I didn't expect that we would even be with that. I thought it would be even worse because you know you got we're starting fresh and so to me if we're a minus a million dollars that's I'm fine with that cuz I thought it would be a whole lot more but then the next year you're looking at us being at a positive 7 million and the thing that I'm saying is that we're we're sitting up here haggling over this money about what we what somebody [snorts] needs. The fact of the matter is we're leasing this. The whole purpose for the uh was for us to turn it over to the foundation to run.
250Now, when we turn it over to the foundation, we know that as as we're open up a building, we're going to have to pay some money for the stuff to be in the building. We can't just say we're going to turn it up to the foundation and the foundation's got to come up with everything because that's the whole purpose of it. So, like I said, we're we keep haggling over this money and everything and I just he just need to move on cuz right now I'm I'm a as a little girl, my mama always would come and get me when it was a tornado warning and I'm looking at my weather app and like right now we got a whole weather situation here. We're under a tornado watch and we got power out in places
251around us. So, I'm I'm a little scared right now. So, you sitting here with all these windows. I >> I hope that the numbers didn't scare you. >> Is that more opportunity than >> Yep. >> Right. >> These are these are revenue opportunities that are not in the model. We talked about there there are other revenue streams out there. Right. So I would >> this this is something going forward. I mean all of them. So you know you got luxury suites you know sponsorships. I mean we mentioned this you know >> rental of sound and lights equipment. >> Yeah. Right. >> And so basically what you're saying is that anytime a number pops up on that it's going to take away from that deficit that we have. Absolutely. So, if we have a a um
252aggressive um um campaign at selling these these these products, it it's real possible that we can go down to 500,000. >> Is there any other questions, Miss BS? >> Hi. How y'all doing? >> Good. >> Thank you for your presentation. Um I actually don't have any questions. I just wanted to address something I heard earlier in case anybody is confused about um the the rhetoric up until now. This is exciting. We're all excited. We all want to start yesterday and any delay will encumber all of the things you're showing us. My point is any forprofit structure while I care is y'all's business as you've shown. Our business is nonprofit. So when I'm saying I could care less about the FIFA, the this, the that coming in, that doesn't mean as like a human, it means
253in this context with the hat I'm wearing, my job is to think about the fiscal health of our district. >> I'm really excited about all that's happening. And I also believe the strategy is right to think about how to take business um when there's blackout dates elsewhere. It's a great opportunity. All I'm saying is that's exactly why we have you, >> right? >> And so that cannot impede or even influence my thoughts because that's what y'all are for. So I just wanted to let you know we're all excited. We don't want you've got nobody here who doesn't want this space to open yesterday, especially for the sake of our scholars. I think the the slide that Miss Jesse just pointed to with the bottom that has the deficit, that's my business first. So, I see
254what you're showing and over a year it'll pay off. We know that. That's exciting. But I just I didn't want it to I don't want y'all leaving this space that you've got people in who either don't want or aren't excited about making sure this happens quickly. But also, um, we won't be prioritizing the same things you're prioritizing. And I think that's the point. >> Yeah. >> Well, um, um, to to be clear, um, you know, just from an industry standpoint, I just want to make sure everybody was clear of what's happening real time and the urgency of it. you know, like to have that opportunity just to get to the um $7 million shield of profit instead of and I want to say one thing about um our company and where we are and why
255we're trying to go. Um is we do business with integrity. >> I really, you know, I want to come up and I'm not going to say I'm going to go on the game brushes the roof. It could be. I don't know. better provide conservative numbers. But I know that give them the whit, you know, give them keys. When we get those keys, I'm able to go and get these, you know, get these days and get these shows here and get as best as we can through 2026, 2027. Everybody should be smiling, especially the children. You know, now what y'all do with the money is not on us. Our job is to get it in and turn it over so you guys can do all the programming and work with you all on the internships on
256our end as we do as a for-profit business. But we just need the tools and the belief to let us do our jobs. We are uniquely qualified. You know, we've been doing this for 20ome years. We know the agencies. We know the managers. We've done the shows. We have the track record. the mix between the students and the kids and different other >> to your point about the about what you just said about the money mentioned the fact that you know we are truly we're nonprofits and like you're saying the money that we're making is coming back to the district. Now, we just had a presentation from the other group just a moment ago, and one of the things that we talked about, they talked about things like incent, you know, stipens for teachers or
257whatever. We have a one of our problems is right now with our teachers shortage, meet our salary uh is is less than city of Atlanta. This is an opportunity for us to have some money to even to help with our, you know, to keep our people here that there are a lot of things the the early learning center. Uh we're doing we're we're the first uh district in the state [clears throat] of Georgia that has the early learning center probably in the United States. Uh my understanding is the city of Decator is actually going to have one pre uh the the uh 83 year olds. That's not money that's funded from the state. So, we're taking, you know, we're we're investing our own money, but that's also revenue there that we can use to fund
258positions at that particular facility. Whereas the other the the uh prek, first, kindergarten, first grade, we're going to get that money. But all of this money that we're that we would generate, we we're going to utilize it. So, we're not trying to just say we got all this big money. We're going to use the money to help our children. So, you know, that's that's basically what we're here to do. >> Miss Williams. >> So, hiring new generation staff is challenging. They want money, but they want experiences, right? They want to work in a space that they enjoy, that they feel positive about. One of the things that we do is we give discounts to to shows to employees. Excellent. >> It's a benefit. >> The little things that you do to make staff feel appreciated
259and part of what's going on. It's also part of what we do. It's it's an enrichment to the district employees residents to be able to do things here and they can't do other places. It's a benefit about being a part of this community. Uh, Miss Williams, >> I wanted to tell you about that too because like some of the teachers somebody asked parttime I worked for Lakewood for like five years and I love I love the time service and seeing new people and experiences. That's part of my little 33 job train. Is this the um the financial statement you were looking for or is it something else that you still miss? >> This this was exactly what you have a few questions. Okay. Um, who holds the liquor license? Does you guys you guys perfect?
260Thank you. next month. >> Number one, what is the sweet spot for an 8,000 seat venue? You know, I know State Farm Arena, we we probably all have a sense of what events go well there versus Mercedes Benz but what what is the sweet spot kind of from a market perspective and then last question were the free events like district's graduations county has 10 events were those factored in to these projections when we say we expect this number of events [clears throat] >> yeah I want to address the um the marketing when we first signed one of the First things we did was we pulled what the rent was to stay far and all of the other venues around and then we kind of set as an introductory price as a recommendation. Talk about that
261$65,000 for whole house rent and 28,000 for half. So that way we can scale and go after different events so that we dive into it some bigger events, larger events. So that way it's realistic you know about projection how many events in different categories that can actually get >> and the other question was >> but but I mean what um what like State Farm can get certain musical certain musical acts right >> that an 8,000 seat might not be able >> what are just just like a little bit on that what what you look for >> so we do a number of events in a 6,000 seat house, right? And we base our offers for talent based on what the per ticket revenue projections can be and so will promoters. But it's a sweet spot
262between the two because there are a number of acts that are in that window and some of them will want to do two nights, but it's [snorts] a more intimate house. So, there are different models that will be used for different shows. So, I can't tell you which shows exactly, but for example, right now, we already have 20 shows on sale in Detroit for next summer. We're ready to go. We're Yes. >> How many How many um events do you do approximately at the Franklin Theater on a yearly basis? >> About 40 50. >> And And what time span? >> Three months. So for three months you're doing 40 events in Detroit. So for three months you do 40 and over here you're saying that you have it hopefully you have a longer period of
263time and you're promising us 48 >> this year. this year and let me say this and then I want to take off this this venue's um uh we have a company called the black moment collectors right >> you know we got the new edition tour coming up we just did brand etc so we do tours as well so when we come to Atlanta one of the most challenging things is to find a venue indoors to be able to get the caliber and actually be able to produce This doesn't exist. It's very hard to get off. The fact that it's closed out, but it's very hard to get things there with the curtains between the curtain system and having another boom that's basically a little over half house of State Farm Arena. It's going to be
264really special. Look, I have promoters and stuff that the word is getting out the economy now trying to put on the dates for the fall and for next year right now, you know, cuz it's we're in the park. >> And a good example is at Trill where they only seat about 2,000 I guess. They got Leila H halfway in October London. I'm trying to get tickets now.$2.79 a piece and that's And I'm sure if they would have our [laughter] >> So I for clarification and understanding when we were looking at the projection it was a lot of information. It said shared revenue. >> Yes. >> Okay. So am I to understand that we paid a certain dollar amount right now. I think it's $70,000. But then any revenue that comes in you guys share the
265revenue. We paid you more for everything >> that was projected. I don't know how the shared revenue goes. Can somebody >> Yeah. So the the shared revenue is we we talked about uh RFPs that go out. So uh security is not a good a good example, but for concessions. We have a vendor that comes in. It's like, okay, we're going to take care of your food. All right. Uh they're going to sell it. There's a share of their revenue that comes to the venue. So when you say come to the venue that means the the foundation and the BOE or the foundation the BOE and the PRP >> at at at the on an event or an ongoing basis it comes to the entity. So it comes to the the board [cough] foundation >> you
266all are the ones that that get the bottom line. >> Okay. You all are the ones that get the bottom line. >> So, how the how does the company make their money? >> All of the revenue streams in the net fall through to the bottom line. Our agreement that we have proposed does call for a percentage of the net to flow through to the right productions. And that is where we make our money. >> So is that the I'm maybe you can help me. Is that the 15%? >> Well, I guess maybe what you're ask So I think it's say 70,000 a month for pre-opening services. Correct. >> Yes. >> And but that does that continue might be a question. Does that structure continue after opening or does it then come into you know percent?
267Can I can I put you put a hold on that question because Hilum is going to close up and he's going to talk specifically about that that fee that they that they have. >> Okay. >> Now, >> okay. But >> no, I mean >> it does continue in >> there's a number of opportunities and we like to make sure we are as effective and professional in delivering all the way through. It's about the relationships. the same way you love going to the your other job and you know you see those experiences. We want that same white blood treatment for every single person that comes through the door as well as every single brand that believes hey this is where I want to show up and be in front of this audience or bring this special
268event for uh brand awareness or whatever their goals might be. >> Just from the name right where are we at on that process? So still actively working on that. Um there have been multiple conversations um with various entities actively working with with a few as well. We haven't secured any yet there's just ongoing conversations with various we make progress we'll check >> because that would generate revenue. >> Yes. Uhhuh. So the naming rights for the big the big naming rights of the building, right? That is a very detailed negotiation and uh due diligence process. Companies make multi-million dollar budget determinations usually when they're doing their next year budget. Right? So, the budgets for 2026 were completed by major corporations in 2025 and were largely put to bed by October, but we weren't contracted to even
269begin this process until September October. Right. I understand. I thought that was something that your foundation was working on which our previous executive director was in negotiation and conversation about that. So I was speaking to the point from the foundation's position because that would have generated revenue but I don't know whether that process was interrupted because the executive director was let go or we were still going forward with you being in the same role that she once occupied. That was my question. Step out of that conversation, but we're working probably until 27. >> Yes. To answer her question, the foundation contracted a company to do the name rights in 2024. And they didn't do their job. they ended up subcontracting that out to somebody else which also ended up costing some additional money from the
270foundation. So he that was the uh Mr. the high firm that was supposed to have done the magnet right >> and Mary wants money back we want our money back director wasn't doing that she somebody else was supposed to do it and they didn't do it >> so most of those conversations did not go any and I want to make something clear I am not the executive director I'm a volunteer I don't get paid I've never asked for payment I'm an I'm a volunteer chair that have been paying into this community and and using my normal working hours, nights, and weekends. I am not the executive director, nor am I the president in this role. I just want to make that clear. I'm not occupying that space. I am dedicating my time to ensure to
271run this organization effectively and to ensure we continue to focus on what's important. That needs to be very clear. >> No, I'm And I mean, I wouldn't um I wouldn't have let my EV go until I had a replacement. But that's just me coming from was the foundation. >> You don't have to clarify. I do have to clarify. >> I appreciate you for your volunteer work. >> Yes. And and and it wasn't a single person's decision. That was the foundation's decision. And also, I know Mr. mentioned my lawyer earlier. I know that's not what you intended. That is a foundation's lawyer. We got to be on the same track. So to continue with the conversation around >> really quickly, could you tell me what the percentage is that the team uh the TR team% >>
272well 20% operate our operation they would be funding the funders I'm just saying that's helped and then the second set up. >> The second setup. >> I'm sorry. >> I'm just taken back by your your aggressive attitude towards >> I'm not being aggressive, but I also have to be on the point. >> I also need to state my concern. [cough] That's all that it is. I'm being aggressive. >> So the sec the next set of revenue sharing is around the different revenue line items. uh whether it's concessions, parking lot, ticket sales and rental originally started off with individual line item uh two of them were net uh the parking lot and concession and then the the rental and the ticket sales was a part of growth and so after having multiple conversations again through a
273common understanding what we agreed to is that that would only be a part of net total net of those um revenues that are coming in after expenses that paid for and instead of line item level uh and make more businesses because this isn't just a single concert. This is actually continuing to run entire operations but it would be a flat rate and that was again um feedback from industry experts um from Tony Smalls and his teams and etc. And so we came to um originally was a much higher amount and where we are today as of the last set of conversations we had recently we landed on 25%. So that is where we are in terms of um the you know revenue uh sharing model and then net of that if you consider that to
274be an expense which in theory can be the remaining balance is what the foundation and the the school the school district would use for either running the operations or obviously the most important is funding these events and programs that we need to put in place. So those are the models that we kind of worked out. Again it took a lot of hard work to get there. I mean obviously they they they have to run a business. They have to be profitable. So we have to honor that. But we also have to protect the money that's coming in so that we can invest in the right place. What's amazing about the model that we're looking at is in year two, especially in year three. Um it's a win investment for this community as well. It's not
275just um the cost that we're paying. They're looking to provide internship opportunities. They're looking mentioned in the past about scholarships. So they are going to be able to invest back, ensure that we have employment and economic development opportunities within the district as well. So those are the ways that we're looking to um to honor or to get us to a win-win scenario where we may not get everything we want, but it becomes a healthy relationship where everyone is getting enough to be able to satisfy all of our customers. again making sure that the number of customers our student teachers because based on the projections we've seen as we continue to ensure that we we we realize that it can cover a lot of the budgetary challenges and help us offset uh some of the salary
276gaps our kids are facing and all these amazing programs that we want to implement it will be able to give us the avenue to be able to put that in place. So now with all of that being said, in order to be able to accomplish that and get us to where we need to be, we have to figure out what price before we leave today, how can we secure the necessary capital? You all saw year one is expected to be anywhere between 800 to a million and the rest. And I I think again as business leaders as you all have obviously you know how to manage P&L especially for a startup for an organization of that scale we should anticipate and expect that right we shouldn't set any false expectations or what have you. So
277we have to be comfortable with that. So we're asking for your help um again collectively we're all agreeing to move forward together to make this happen. these three entities and these three bodies. I understand that we may need, you know, the first three months, but I really do think we should mitigate as much risk as we possibly can and consider a full year so that we can prevent any um challenges or roadblocks. But we do need the ability to to to generate that capital. There are two ways to do that. the the capital that we have today, cash on hand, if we just focus that on just the foundation itself, we will have plenty of capital to continue to run it while we do the fundraising necessary, whether restricted and unrestricted to be able to
278continue to cover our overhead, which is our existing staff. However, if we're going to have to do that plus cover the overhead to to run this operation as quickly as we're thinking about doing, we have to have this additional capital. Now we can agree whether that's three million. We can agree whether that's two and a half, whether that's five. I prefer the more the better because again it will speed our ability to give them the necessary comment that they're looking for. And the two ways to do that is we would need to see funding from the BOE or we would need a line of credit back by the BOE um given the relationship that Truis has in this community and the investment that this community is making to Truis and the billions of dollars of
279assets that they're helping us manage. They're willing to help us and back up but the foundation alone cannot carry that. We don't have the necessary assets. we have good financial um u over the last you know several years uh but we will need the backing of the BOE in order to secure that and that's going to happen no matter what decisions we make if we reduce the scale and cost optimize we're still going to need something and so my ask today is I don't know if it's a form of vote or what have you but we need that ability that decision made today in addition to the lease agreement we have to walk out with both of those if we don't it's just going to prevent us from being able to move. We can sign
280the lease all we want, which I think will be great because it will allow us to unlock certain things, but it will not allow us to go beyond a month. If you see the month one or month two projections, that's a heavy cost. We don't even have enough capital to be able to absorb that. So, we're going to need help on on figure out how to we'll have that discussion. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, >> and I want to apologize. I'm so sorry. I did not mean to I hope you understand my my nature. I'm not an aggressive individual. That is not white. That is not how my mother raised me. That is not how I treat people. I am very calm normally. Um I have a certain way of of handling myself.
281Um but there has to be time from time and it wasn't directly to you. This is just a lot of things that I've also heard come my way cuz I want to make sure this is known to. There's been a lot of things that's been said about me personally that I don't understand where this comes from. If you literally sit down with me, have lunch with me, have dinner with me, just even have a conversation, you will know my future. I am a very forgiving, very understanding, compassionate person. That is how I move. That is how I treat my team. That is how I raise my kids is through empathy. So I did not, it's not an aggressive there has to be moments for me to also release that. If I continue to hold on
282to it, it's not healthy. So it was not direct. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. So, now we have three other items that we have to do. One, now that you've heard the projections, and you also, I hope, are clear on the first item that um attorney Doyle brought up, which was the rent. It is very clear that the rent is going to be the facility charge that is on a ticket. So, however many tickets they bring in, we will get a portion of that facility fee that I believe will satisfy the term of rent. Am I correct? >> All right. Go ahead. You want to say something? >> I just want to thank You're welcome. >> We've come here today, all of us, in good faith and good spirit to work. >> Absolutely.
283to solve this so that we can move forward and bring full life to this building. We're here ready to do it starting today. Please allow us to move forward and bring the vision and the investment that you've already made to life. >> Thank you. Um, Victoria, I'm going to take you and then I wine today. >> I got a question about the ticket sales. >> Okay. >> Is the um how look how they look forward to coming back to us? Will that be like a a yearly thing like once a year? And then what about events that don't have Georgia [clears throat] High School events? the tickets event or that's different because it's going through. Um, what we do with the facility fee is although the ticket might be sold in January, if the event
284doesn't play until March, you would get that payment for that >> fee in April because if for any reason that event got cancelled and that ticket had to be refunded, then that revenue would not be there. So, we we paid the facility fee against pays tickets for an event that actually plays. So, it's it's >> we'll get it throughout the year. >> You get monthly >> monthly along with your financial uh reports >> for a free event. If it's if it's a free event and there's no ticket charge, then there is no revenue from that >> under a free event. So for I'm sorry >> the Georgia high school convention that was in the pre-event or how that >> contract was done prior to our involvement and while I think there may be some ticket
285associated with the three events that are already contracted there was no discussion about a facility fee on those events and also there was not a expense projection >> against those events to fee a fee that's associated with Dr. Cincinnati medical situation could tend to >> look [cough] give more details and we'll do get that to the board about just what that um those events that we know they're on the books like the first one is the wrestling tournament. Yes. >> About what the rest what the GS GHSA uses potential and and the expenses bounced off of that and all that he'll get to the board. So anytime you got to do >> but it will moving forward. >> It will moving forward. Absolutely. >> Question what's considered the >> to sorry >> what is considered
286the unrestricted funds like what is it restricted for like he has some of the funds that's restricted and some that's unrestricted. >> All the restricted for example the unrestricted is the the seed money to us. Yeah. >> Got two million that's restricted. So what is a one point? Uh no. So we have one unrestricted or 1.2 million that's unrestricted and then the rest is restricted for scholarships for JAS for scholarships. Okay. >> And if we was to do the you saying if you get a loan and do the backing how that loan get paid back through you through us. How's that loan get paid back? If y'all do a loan and we backing the loan how we get the loan >> that's a great question. >> Right. I I would expect the foundation to pay
287that. >> Would you be doing the loan? Uh would the foundation be doing the loan? >> That's what I'm hearing. >> He only mentioned it, I think, as an option. >> That's an option. >> I know. I mean, I'm asking question. What does that look like? >> Just so we we can do the math. The foundation cannot pay back that loan. We would need >> the real generated over the next few years. >> Yeah. The foundation the the bill would help us. We would need to co-pay it. We have to sit down top water, right? Um we need to know what the terms are. We need to know what the monthly obligations are on paying back that loan and we would ask for support from the VA to help us get in order to secure
288that. We have to have a back from the feedback. So y'all can't qualify for the loan on your own. >> Yeah. Well, as I said, I don't know if my >> I asked y it was going to be revenue generated over the next few years. >> One question. My last one was about the attorney. Y'all have an attorney and we have an attorney. >> Why we have two attorney? Doesn't it seem like we competing versus saying that we're one? Cuz y attorney fighting for more money for y'all versus more money coming back to it's a level of independence. Again, that's something this another thing we haven't done. I don't know why or how we can get there. [snorts] We've never sat down as a body and say how do we want to walk? How do
289we want to operate for a long period of time there's a level of independence in order to remove and can clarify along in this to have that level of independence we do have to have those preparations so that there is a competition. Um so that's why at least the current legal structure set up in that kind of way um because these are in essence on our nation is a separate entity. It's not um directly like reporting in essence to the to the school if you will to the district. So that's why we've always had our own accounting otherwise we should share the same accounting we should share the same CFO and I think that can get a little high over with no money coming in. That's why I'm thinking like you have so much stuff
290and nothing coming in. Now we have you don't have any money. >> Well, the reason we have that is because we've been tasked to do these things. We we're being asked to help, you know, stand up the operation, get us a free opening that has to be paid somehow. >> No, I'm talking about the other stuff like the like you said, you pay for the like attorney all the paid we don't have any money coming into it. >> That's from the 3 million scheme that was given to us. So, we've been a draw down from that. >> Okay. Now we receive funding that was given to us to one you know transform the the organization to how >> oh no going forward how it's going to be paid well the revenue will be generated from
291the communication center other fundraising events that we need to hosting that's how we're going to be able to to self sustain but in order to self sustain you have to have you know this initial that's not coming for about a year is what I'm trying to figure out >> well and I think like right Now the follow up to her point uh if we can you know at least get this time starting off with the list. Now you mentioned the revenue as I said before and I maybe I'm wrong with this perspective in order for you us to get started. My expectation really wasn't that you all had to kind of come up with the money anyway. I just feel that you know what we need to that we had to hire somebody to start
292it up anyway to get the RFP that went you know that's the company so we are going to have to give some money to get it started up but to her point like you Ben just said you are the one to go and negotiate you going to have your attorney we going to have our attorney and then they're going to have attorney. What I don't understand with that is because the revenue really is coming to us. I'm not understanding why at that point we sit down that we kind of the one that has all the cards. Why are we still fighting with you all? I just think that we could should be able to sit down and come up with an agreeable amount of money that we're, you know, revenue sharing that we're going to
293have without having to pay somebody else. I can see if they whatever y'all negotiated with this lease. Yes. But it's like it's hard. We got all the marbles and and you know we're and we're gonna help you. Why are we haggling over >> and unfortunately I see your point but unfortunately their attorney already um um began the review of the agreement which TRP submitted to us. So I would ask um Quinn from a legal perspective once an attorney starts something it's very difficult for you to come behind you and get involved with they're all valid questions. I think the two things that are very new that the board has received in the last few minutes on the restructuring of the uh per ticket fee rent and that there is a major cash infusion request that's
294on the table. I don't know if you you all expected that. I did not expect that. >> That's very surprising. >> Um, but I think we just we've got the information now. You should have to decide today on that whatever you feel the appropriate time is because there's going to be more questions that you have as you think through these things and then there'll be time to make. >> But my point is this. At this point, if we're a partnership with the foundation, then it shouldn't be we then we should be trying to come to an agreement with they're with the people that are working for us with an agreement >> on the law review. >> It shouldn't be three sets of attorneys. That's that's what I'm saying. >> I agree. I think again just
295stepping back, the reason it's set up that way is because we never sat down as a body and said, "What's our plan? how are we going to pass it? And I I couldn't afford to know this responsibility to just wait. So, we had to get moving. We had to get things started because you did give us funding. So, I felt like it was our responsibility to get things moving forward. Now, again, we need to sit down as a body and still agree not just on this, but in my mind, many other conversations on how do we want to show up together as a unified body. Again, I'll reiterate what I said earlier. We're in the same house. Our students are coming to that house. We don't have to separate houses, right? And so let's figure
296out whether it's a good session to be able to get some decision around. >> Let me ask this last question regarding uh since we're going to be opening. Now we paid Mr. High Tower's company. They were supposed to do the opening. And when I and when we had that conversation because you know everybody wants to take credit for these buildings being such and such remember I made it very clear to you that it is the board's building. So they were supposed to be uh having a conversation with us about opening where are we with that because I haven't heard any that's not a that really is not a foundation. I mean I asked the board and the foundation can come together but they were supposed to have a conversation with us. >> So we moved
297that we moved that responsibility TRP is going to help. How do we help that? >> But I mean even though whoever is going to help, you know, everybody's real good at doing stuff for us and then we we get we come to the table later and just got to stand there and kind of grin and bear. >> We need some input on what is happening. It's our building and we need to know uh uh you know how we're going to do this opening >> and we have had these conversations in our we have a weekly meeting every Thursday that we've had since September to talk about all of this being there and others are Dr. has been on that one in the [snorts] other conversations Dr. since as a delegate that has been asked as
298a part of all those meetings and I have been asking the team to plan for that a couple things one the media day that we need to have but before we do that getting the JA go live and opening ceremony followed by those media days and have tours and sponsors um and then Dr. retirement and then we need to collectively live on the big grand opening. So we're planning for that but we need to sit down again. I feel like information is not beingated. So we need to have our own separate whether it is a status update or whether you need a new like we have a status um deck that we normally provide with all the milestones. We need to have more channel communication. What I'm learning is we're not talking enough and some
299of these things can be very clearly u addressed. Again, the opening that's four three different dates. That's a very 20-minute conversation. What is the date? Who's going to do what? And who are the people that we need to invite? >> Okay. But my question again is he paid Mr. High's company and I was told that he's doing marketing. Are we going to get that deliverable? Yes. Since they were supposed to be the ones that did the naming rights and they didn't do it. >> So, we'll ask Miss Shelanda, Mr. are going to send you all the materials that they have provided and that has been submitted >> okay >> to individuals that are part of this conversation I don't know how else I can say that >> Mr. to us as it relates to the
300opening of the building. There are multiple openings. >> Yes. >> First is the JA opening. The children will be in on February second, but that's also a time that they've scheduled to do their opening possibly if Senator Waro is still coming and if Eden, the CEO of Delta Airlines, is still coming. There's another overall complication. And I hear Miss Gori saying we can't get it twisted that building still belongs to the district and the district needs to be responsible for that open which is supposed to happen according to Dr. Simpson and team in April. >> Right. So that's according to Dr. Simpson and Ronnie which is a totally different >> correct open. So >> and Dr. Lee has been helping us. >> Yeah Dr. is involved. But we're making sure that it's the district's opening
301of the total thing since it belongs to >> Yeah. And that but see what he's just saying. I mean, I don't know. Maybe some of the other people around the table know about this. >> Well, I just found out >> we don't know any of this and somebody needs to tell us some stuff about what happened with this bill. >> So, what we did with JA is we brought everybody together that has something to do with it so that we could talk about it. And that's when that came out. The same thing need to be done holistically. >> So, that's what I mean. We've had that Thursday meeting which includes every stakeholder. >> I know, but that's fair. You're right. Okay. So, you're going to have to help me answer this because I don't know
302how well we're going to circle. Who would you like going forward? Just give me names. Who are the stake? I work by stakeholders. >> Here you go. >> We have everyone else. >> You know, in my role as the senior chief, I'll take that on and make sure that the board understands too because I just got involved with JA. So I only know about the April date because we had our first meeting last week. I didn't know it either. So now if you'll let me get involved with you and Dr. Simmon get all the people who are supposed to be in it and then we can get the board the information in real time. >> Perfect. So we'll do that and then would you also like some kind of report out and what cadence would
303you like that report out? >> Well, let's let's figure that out when we meet and then we can make sure that it fits. We know what the board. >> That's perfect. We'll add Dr. Hendrickx and Dr. Simpson will be in those meetings um every Thursday going forward >> for the opening of the convocation center. I would like to kind of help direct that on behalf of the superintendent of the board because it is their building what you're being told everybody's claim building >> everybody. I went all the way up here. I stop convenient [laughter] items that we have to discuss in the executive in the executive session. So let's take a 5m minute break and everybody meet let's take a five minute break and and um meet at the um warrants conference room. All right.
304So, at this point, I want to make a motion that I want I need a motion for. All right. I got a motion. Personnel >> I got I got a motion by Miss Mary Baker with us. >> No, I'm looking for back. Okay. I got a motion from Miss Baker and seconded by Miss um Miss Telis Cooper. Can I get a vote? >> All right, I'll see everybody in five minutes in the board um conference room.