001It is 6 o' to um view the recent tragedy. I think it appropriate that we now for a moment of silence in honor of leaders and guest Mitchell. None of these things are ever easy. I explain all Father, this is the day that you have made and regardless of what happens, we will rejoice and be glad in it. You are reminded of the depth of the riches, but of the knowledge and wisdom of God. How uncarchable are your executions and your ways past finding out. We never understood it. We never understand it all. But Father, we know you are in control. You're always in control. So we honor you this evening and we ask that you God Almighty preside over these meetings as you give us wisdom, give us understanding that decisions that are made
002for a walk of county for the teachers and for the students. We ask for your guidance and we need your guidance. So father each family is represented here today. I ask that you bless in a very special way. I ask you might open up the eyes of our understanding that we may see you clearly and maybe a little bit understand the reason for some things happening. So father we ask all of these things this evening and we trust you. your guides to trust you for your help. Your word says that you are indeed the very present help in a time of need. We trust that this thing in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
003which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. to the Georgia flag and to the principles for which it stands. Wisdom, justice, moderation, and courage. Thank you. We do need an approval of the agenda. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor. And now we have special recognitions, Mr. Rain. We do. So, we are thrilled to have a number of special recognitions this evening. Um, we're going to start off uh with one of our departments. And just to kind of give everybody an idea, we typically once we talk a little bit about you, we'll have you come up here, stand in front of the board. They'd love to congratulate you. And then we'll get a picture uh with you and the board. So, so you'll know
004what that's going to look like as we move forward. Before we get to our students, we're going to start off with a group of folks who just went underwent a an evaluation process, a review. Uh, and I just wanted to read a couple of things that were said uh in the um review that we have. We have to have an exit interview. We did that today. And this is our school food service department. If you guys know, uh, I've been a proponent of always saying that the first person that our students see every day for most of our students are our bus drivers in our attendance. That's the first line of defense. The second group that they see every day are our folks in in food service. And so we talk about what that looks
005like and that smile and that that genuine hello and word of encouragement, how much that means to our kids. And so to go through this review, they look at everything from how they prepare the meals, what it tastes like, what it looks like, they're following the the right procurement to get all of the necessary. I mean, they go through everything right. It's a long process and they were very nervous about that this year. I'm just saying that now. They weren't really, but Michelle said they were. So, here's some of the here's some of the comments that were made by the team that came and visited. It's apparent that your school nutrition team do this every day. This is in reference to all staff knowing and following all regulations required by state and USDA. So the
006the context of that is they say that they'll get all these things written to them that they review and it looks great on paper and then when they get to the schools it's not necessarily what happened. And they said in this case everything that they had written in their plan happens every day in their school. So that that's that's a pretty large compliment. Food was great. Best we've had all year. That's pretty good. I mean, wouldn't you say that's a pretty good compliment? I would think so as well. Best you've had all year. You can't go anywhere in Walker County and get the deal for breakfast or lunch for an adult and the nutritional value and the taste that you can in our kitchen. And they do that every single day. So that was big.
007Great communication between all staff members. Happy faces and full plates. When I look out into the cafeteria, happy faces. That's important, right? Because when you're eating something you like and you enjoy, you're usually pretty happy. I know I am. When I sit down and start eating, I'm I got a smile on my face. Kitchens were very clean. That was the one comment that came up about Saddle Ridge. The lady said, "This is brand new school, so it it has to be clean. So, let's look at your health reports." Right? They do a health inspection twice a year. She said, "No, this is our 12th year." They say, "Oh my gosh, this doesn't look like 12-year-old school. It's so clean. They've had 100 scores every visit since they've been in operation." That's pretty amazing, right? So,
008when you go to any restaurant, I won't say a name because somebody in here might own one of those restaurants and I don't want to say, but if you look at the average health score for restaurants in Walker County, the reason they're so high is because our school scores scores are scoring 100s. So the average is brought up by some of those restaurants that are scoring in the 70s and 80s. Okay, you pick and choose where you want to eat, but if you want a really good meal in a clean environment that tastes great and is nutritious and is a good value, our kitchens are open twice a day. And then the one thing that I thought they best review of the year, best review of the year, multiple people, this one lady who is
009known to be very picky across the state. No one likes to see her show up, right? You know how that you got one of those people you probably thinking of somebody right now that you go, "God, they're always so ill." Right? She's very thorough. She said, "Everything was perfect. I can't find anything wrong." That's pretty high compliment of 15 restaurants that are operational within our school district. And so I know Miss Coker who does a fantastic job and her team are just absolutely amazing. but she's going to come up here and talk a little bit more about this and recognize some folks and she's going to be the first to tell you they do all the heavy lifting and they do. They're in the schools. They're the ones doing this work every single day. She's
010got a great team. So, we just wanted to honor them tonight. So, Michelle, I'll have you come on up and talk a little more about school food service and the ones that you're going to recognize this evening. Uh, and I just wanted the board and the folks here tonight to hear what an amazing job they did in their review. And I think they're taking the rest of the week off. Is that what you said, Michelle? Uh, wait a minute. Not sure we got enough people to tell her that one. Maybe next week. We We'll talk about it next week. It was It was an amazing day. It's not to say that we still don't have more results to come in. And we have been targeted in one area that I'll talk to you about in
011just a little bit. But um the work in the school, the everyday work in the schools had absolutely nothing on them. And the three groups that are here from these schools today are the ones that we're going to recognize as well as my my people in the office that have been on the ground working with them each and every day. Um that's basically unheard of. It basically is. So we're very very very proud. we are able to share with them multiple things that the office has created to make life easier for our workers and they even asked for that to be sent to them so they could share with other people. So we have a lot a lot to brag about tonight and um but a lot of support from administration at each school and
012the help that they provided for us all the way through and what they do for on a daily basis. So we can't say it's all us. We have the support and the help of multiple people in this room and in all 15 of our schools. Um, how are these three schools chosen? North was chosen, Russell Middle was chosen and Shadow Ridge was chosen. You have to submit a book on each school and they ask you 100 questions and that scores out and then the ones with the highest score are the ones that are chosen. Saddle Ridge will be one probably that's chosen forever and ever and ever because of the multitude the K through eight also the launch program after school snack program where some will just single out and pull them all the time
013they have a choice to choose another school if they would like to but in this particular case they have chosen richford two fiveyear reviews back to back so we'll see what pans out on the next but the main thing as Mr. Dra said, "It's all about teamwork." And really, I can stand here and say, you could go to any one of our schools and hear exactly what we're doing. So, that's our goal each and every day. What we fix at one school should be the same at the other school. And why that's back to you. But, um, we take pride in everybody. We've initiated a release in the kitchen which has made a food help in our kitchens and also everybody that you're going to see tonight is helping with production methods by hearing information
014on our computers and just making our program a whole lot smoother and easier hopefully on our hands. So, we're going to introduce these for you and I'll start with Saddle Ridge. If I call your name, if somebody's not here, just help me. So, Jennifer Engel, manager at this is what their certificate says in regards to it has appreciation to them. We sincerely appreciate your unwavering support, hard work, and commitment to the Walter County School Nutrition Program. Your contributions and hard work has significantly contributed to the success of our students. Ashley Thompson, Carol Crower. I don't know. Britney go hand me. Christina Lewis was not able to be with us tonight and David Meyers. We'll move on to Saddle Ridge. We'll start with manager Melissa Pearson. And it was Melissa that had all 12 years hung
015on her bulletin board. And when she said, "How many 100 sets have you had?" She just simply turned and took them off the bulletin board. And she just had fun times flipping through them. It was a great K, Patricia Connley. Thank you, Amanda Garrett. Uh Michelle Knight, uh Megan Johnson is not here. So, Lauren Presley I don't think Tammy Hastings and Mariah Ball's coming, but she's going to be late, so we're going to hold on to her. North Fet Elementary will be Marvest Chain, and she is manager at North Sherry Wallen. [Music] Angela Flores, Shar Cington, and Nikia Helen. All right. And then in central office who cannot this cannot function without this group of people would be Paula Johnson, Samantha Parvin. Beth, [Music] Sophie, Karen Bur, and my two school workers who, believe it
016or not, are fully known have to do computers and staple and hole punch and put notebooks together and slap somebody in sleeves. And that would be Emily Monom and Madison Angel. And they've been with us all summer. They even work for spring break. This is our crew. This is only part of our crew. There are 12 other schools. How do we get the number of people that you see up here working off labor hours? And that's based on number of meals they serve. The more we serve, the more people we get. Please tell them thank you for what we do. Can we come together? We're going have to squat just a little bit and let our board members stand up. Can you see over? Michelle, come on. There you go. Okay, now I can see
017you. I'll make it really fast. Okay, right here on three. One, two, three. Let's get one more. One, two, three. Thank you so much. [Music] All right, our next group, thank you ladies and gentlemen for being here tonight. We appreciate you guys and what you do every day. Uh the next couple we're going to uh recognize will be our uh we have a local spelling bee every year. Uh the first principle of uh praise and sing praises of would be Miss Ensley who has uh graciously done this for a number of years and we laughingly talk about calling out those words and how much pressure is on you when you're up there doing that. So we want you to know how much we appreciate you. So we've got a little something for you. So if
018you'll come up, thank you for what you do with us. Of course, we do a a B locally and then we also um the winners then can go on to the regional spelling be. And so we had our first and second place winners this year. We'll announce uh our our first place winner is Mr. Grayson Thomas. And I know Grayson's here. I uh asked him to be my u the person that looks over all of my correspondence now since he spells so well. And he turned me down. So, u he said use Grammarly. So, he has too many books to read. He doesn't have time for me. So, I appreciate that. So, we've got something for him. One winning our local be Grayson. So, congratulations. And then he also went on and represented the system
019and he actually placed seventh in the Georgia State regional be this year. Is that correct? [Applause] You stay right here. And we also have this for you. This will be Hey, there you go. I'm not sure how you're going to this one. Even better, right? That's a little more thickness. And then our second place winner is Mr. Now, Grace is from Saddle Ridge and Braxton Bell is here and he represents Rosville Elementary. Congratulations to you. We'll give you this and we'll also give you that as well. And you guys stand right there. And Miss Hinsley, if you have something to say about the spelling be, I love to hear what you have to say as well. I I do. This was a really special spelling bee. On January 17th, our 2025 Walker County Spelling Bee
020was held. We had 28 participants representing each of our Walker County elementary schools as well as middle schools and third through 8th grade. Wide range. At the end of the B, our first place winner will be the Walker County Spelling Bee Champion and move on to compete in the regional B held in Rome. Our top two spellers competed for 12 rounds with the last six rounds being an epic spell down between these two guys. They both displayed great sportsmanship. Our second place winner, Braxton Bale, is a fifth grader from Ros School. along with spelling. He enjoys the victim program at his school as well as reading, drawing, baseball, and basketball. And he was our alternate for the regional B. And Grayson Thomas represented Saddle Ridge. He's been there before. He's in sixth grade. And along
021with spelling, he's interested in robotics, chess, baseball, and FCLA. He competed in the region one spelling be on February 22nd at the Georgia Highlands Rome campus and had an amazing first place finish and was named region one champion. And then on March 21st at Georgia State, he competed in the state spelling be and finished impressive seventh place in the 10th round. So we're so proud of these guys. That is great performance under a lot of pressure. So we appreciate all this time. Okay. Okay. Right here on three. One, two, three. Let's get one more. One, two, three. And stay where you're at. I think I've got lots of phones behind me. Congratulations. Now, I think we'll move into a presentation that Justin has with our local chamber rep as well. We appreciate Allison being here
022tonight and we'll talk a little bit about star student and star teacher. Well, good evening. Good evening. I have the privilege of presenting the star student for Lefett High School in Ridgeland High School along with Miss Allison Ford, the president of the Walker County Chamber of Commerce. And so, uh, to start, uh, I'll just share with you a little bit about what the star student is. To obtain the STAR nomination, high school students must have the highest SAT score on any single test date of their senior year and be in the top 10% of their class based on grade point average. Students then get the opportunity to choose their star teacher for having had the most influence on their academic achievement. So tonight we'll get to recognize a student and a teacher at Ridgeland High
023School and a student and a teacher at Lefett High School. We'll start with Lefett High School. The star student is Miss Aniston Pierce and the teacher that she chose as her star teacher is Dr. Hardinger. If you two would go ahead and come up, please. So, this is what Aniston wrote about why she chose Doc Dr. Hardinger. Aniston shares that she chose Dr. Hardinger because of her stellar teaching tactics, especially with how individually involved she is with each of her students. Anistison states that these tactics have been one of the driving forces behind her rank at the top of her class. By being my teacher for the past three years, as well as my VEX robotics mentor for the past two, I have grown to know and love Dr. Hardinger. She has supported me through
024multiple math classes, helped me learn how to build an entire robot, and encouraged me to take the SAT. I enjoy her classes immensely and lots of my favorite memories are by her side whether it is in the robotics room or her classroom. My favorite memory with Dr. Hardinger is when the team had a post robotics tournament treat at Dairy Queen and laughed over ice cream and fries. Her influence in my life has driven me to pursue civil engineering at Georgia Tech. I wish to be an integral part of transforming America's urban landscape in the future. Miss Aniston Pierce. So you're going to figure out awesome. I heard that news today as well. Congratulations. Congratulations. We can do both of them. We'll do both of them. Yeah. The next student from Bridgeland High School that I'd
025like to recognize is Miss Kylie Thurman. And her star teacher that she chose is Dr. If y'all want to come on in. This is what Kylie had to say about Dr. I chose Dr. Kum is my star teacher because I love how she always pushes her students to become better students and always encourages us to work hard and ask for help if needed. And she goes out of her way to provide us with support as well as an additional math class for college credit. She truly cares about her students with what they are involved in and how they are doing inside and outside of her class. Miss Kylie Thurman And then we also get to present the county star student with a $500 check sponsored by the Walker County Chamber of Commerce. And this year's
026Walker County Star student goes to Miss Aniston Pierce. Thank you. Okay. Right here. I want to try this. Can you just There's like three people space between you. Sorry. One, two, three. Let's get one more. One, two, three, and stay where you're at and take your guess. Anybody else? Okay. Students, anything you guys would like to say at this point? Putting you right on the spot. Look at you both looking at me like No. Okay. Congratulations. [Applause] And kind of following in the high school line, we've had another award this year. It's a a first for us. Again, I say again because we've done this two years in a row, but this is one of two of 145 students across the state of Georgia, which is a big deal. And so, we want to make
027sure that we're honoring those folks as well. And so, I've asked Miss Staltz to come up uh and give a little bit of a background on Georgia Scholars and then our two recipients for this school year as well. So, Miss St. Um, Richard Woods recognized 145 outstanding students that were honored by Georgia that were uh given the Georgia scholars title. It's a prestige prestigious recognition that identifies students who go above and beyond in all aspects of life both within the school walls and in their community. Um, and he wishes you the best success in their futures and can't wait to see the impact that they make on our state and in our nation and our world. The Georgia Scholars carries an exemplary course load during their four years of high school, perform excellently in all
028courses, successfully participate in intercolastic events within their schools and communities, and assumed leadership roles and extracurricular activities sponsored by their school. Um, my understanding is the application is quite lengthy, probably not as much as MIT, but I'm sure it's up there. Um, and so we have two students that we want to recognize tonight. Regina's going to give you all a little bit of data. And then we made a map, too. Um because we we like to compare where we are, where we fall, what we're doing, um and keep encouraging kids. So, we have two that are we're going to recognize tonight. So, we'll call up Jesse Bradford and Jonas Wyrick. Welcome for They are also sporting, I think, their scholars jacket. So Jesse has this tie that goes with it, but these are part of
029the scholar program. Y'all step a little bit closer. Don't be scared of the audience. Yeah, Regina, if you want to cover the details, okay, so getting this award is really a big deal. Okay, there's definitely a lot that goes into it. Um, a Georgia scholar must meet the following criteria. Um, they have to earn a 3.75 GPA on an unweighted 4.0 scale, have a 31 or higher on the ACT, be registered to vote, compete in three or more interastic activities, hold two leadership positions in school sponsored events, and hold two leadership positions outside of school events. Okay. Every year the Department of Education recognizes students who meet this criteria. This year there are only 145 Georgia scholars. That's out of the entire state. Two of them of course are Lefet Ramblers. So we're very proud
030of uh Jesse and Jonas and their hard work. Um, of the four northwest Georgia counties, Dade, Walker, Chatuga, and Katusa, encompassing 10 schools, LHS, um, is the only one that has had, um, Georgia scholars, and we've had two for the past two years. So, we're really proud of that. Um, just some other statistics that are really kind of interesting. Um, in North Atlanta there are 26 counties and Carterville City has five scholars. Dalton City has four. And then in third place in that upper part of Georgia, Lefett of course has two. Um, if you take a look at the demographics, the amount of students that go to those schools are just so much more than the amount of students that we have going to Walker County School. So, I think this is something that we
031all can be very proud of. So congratulations is about faith and parents and so I'd like the parents and the families for both of you to stand at this time because they're proud to be here. All right. And then also in the back administration that continue to push them. Um Joel Warren is not here tonight. He's also part of the scholars. But uh Regina and Joel do an amazing job pushing out scholars. So ladies in the back if y'all come forward and then Regina for the picture. And and Jesse and Jonas, you guys college plans already settled or what are you looking at? So you guys tell us a little bit about what you're going to do next. I think you should pick up. I'm going to go to UG and get a degree in
032accounting and then go through UG's double dog program to be a lawyer. I'm planning on attending Georgia Tech for electrical engineering, a master's. Then you'll learn to fly plane so you can go to MIT to visit. [Music] Okay. Right here on three. One, two, three. Let's get one more. One, two, three. Jesse was one of the nine students that got accepted to UG this year. Thank you very much. So you can see that we have some amazing kids that we're working with, amazing teachers. So we love to give them that opportunity to be recognized. And this is the moment where, as you can see, there's not a buffet line opening up. It's a way to get out right now. So if you'd like to leave, this is your moment to exit the the stage left
033if you like. So thank you'all for coming tonight. you know, um, this is kind of off a little bit, but I would tell you my son's here. And the one thing he took when he met high school was Regina Parker's notebook with all her formulas, with all of her math notes with permission or without I mean obviously both of those teachers are phenomenal, but if you'll notice, Miss Haringer has been the teacher of choice for a couple years from high school. So, she has that ability to form those relationships that she's also so good in her content area and makes, you know, some people can be good in her area, but they can't teach it. She's got the gift to be able to do that and all of our teachers do that very well. She's
034a she's a G. And MIT, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Just want to tell you all that. I don't know if you know how impressive that is. That's I don't even know what the percentage is. It's like the young man who got the 36 on his ACT and he was in the 0.2% of all students that that's pretty strong. So that is something to be proud of for that young lady and for our school system to know that we have a student who was accepted there. That's pretty amazing. So anyway, just that Miss Har, you're right. She's she's okay back to you, Mr. Rain. So, just a couple of things from Tuesday night. I've had the opportunity to go to spring bootstrap uh on Wednesday and Thursday. We had a great conference that had a lot
035to do with our uh updates on the session and some of the bills that are still awaiting signature uh of the governor, but a lot of things that they started prepping us for. Uh one of the main ones for us is going to be the cell phone ban from uh K8. So, that's that'll require policy for us. Uh and then to also look at what that looks like for 9 through 12. We haven't had, if you remember, you guys as a board asked for uh updates on discipline issues that involve phones and we've seen a huge reduction in that over the past couple of years. K8 will eliminate that other than the fact there are no kids in here that kids are bringing dummy phones and then they hang on to their real phone. So
036there's going to be issues with them already. most of them understand they can talk right here and text and check and things and so it's still going to be a little bit of a battle but we did have a lot of kids that were very happy that we took up cell phones going into classes this year so they could concentrate on learning so it's been a really good process but got a lot of good things I know Superintendent Woods is coming up for reelection again and he's about to make an announcement I think in May on whether or not he is going to continue to run I'm not a political person I'm not going to push for anybody I will say that the department of ed is completely different under his leadership for the past
037eight years. He has gone from compliance to service and they are at our beck and call anytime we need them. So that's been a really nice change for us. So I I do feel like he's done a really good job. We're hopeful that our next governor will be a friend of education just like Governor Kent has been. And so we'll look forward to see how that plays out. Uh, I mentioned to you guys about the potential of having a call budget work session and I gave you two offerings which would be next Tuesday the 29th or next Thursday which will be May the 1st. We just need to go ahead and solidify that at some point tonight. So before you leave, if you'll let me know which of those two dates will work the best.
038That will be at 6:00. It'll be right here in this room. Uh, we figure we're going to need about two hours to go through everything that we have so far. Rachel and I met today for several hours. uh we're getting really close to a point of giving you something uh that you can begin to react to. And our goal again this year is to have that approved during the June meeting so that we have a little bit of a a flexibility through the month of July as we're going into potential military. So that's kind of the goal at this point. Uh I mentioned the school food service exit conference. We had a question from a citizen about digital uh security. Uh, I gave you a copy of the response. Uh, we were very not vague,
039but I don't like to give out a lot of information. U, this came on the heels of a couple of things. Uh, we had a fishing email that that went to, it's very unusual. If Mr. Hart was here, he would share this with you tonight. Typically, a fishing email is random, right? It's sent to random people. We had a fishing email that came to every school bookkeeper. That's not a fishing email. That's a strategic email that was sent by someone and then it was followed up by a an email from a specific person. I'm not saying there's a connection. It just looked really strange, right? So, we're not going to share a lot of information about um the authentication that we're using, especially with our programming that involves social security numbers, personal identifying information. If
040you remember several months ago, P school had a breach. We were not affected by that breach. We were affected, but we didn't lose any information. No student information was given away. We feel like what we're currently doing is very strong. Now, we don't want to say that we're that strong and then risk, you know, some level of vulnerability. We're monitoring that constantly, but I wanted you to see the response that we gave. And then we're continuing to look into how that fishing email was that scripted, that pointed and purposeful, okay? And it was all people that handle money in our schools. So, that was a little concerning. So, we're still looking into that, but I wanted you guys to have that uh information. Testing week started. Uh Robin Der going back in her head right
041now. Um, so first day was good. I thought you'd give Robin a chance if you want to share with the first day and how things went today. Um, we tested in session one today 3,522 students. Um, we only had three issues um out of that total 3 through 8 that we had to reach out to DRC. So successful day one, but that goes back to our testing coordinators at each of the schools. We had our very first meeting first semester. So they have been working accommodations since then to ensure that every student had exactly um what they needed. I have already looked Easter 2026, if you're wondering, is April 2nd next year because I don't know who planned testing starting the Monday after Easter, but we had five broken arms today from Easter celebrations yesterday.
042trampolines, motorcycles. So, we had to do emergency 504 plans this morning for testing because of course everyone was the dominant hand. So, uh in trying to type an essay with your left hand was not ideal this morning, but the teachers um in all the building school test coordinators, fantastic. I cannot talk about these guys and brag on him enough um for preparing for today to make it run smooth. So, one day down, four more to go, and then we'll move into into course at our high schools. But that's a little easier because we've already had that December testing for them and kind of had a run of that. But overall, fantastic job today. Cannot talk enough and brag about them enough. So, that's kind of the season we're in right now. So, we'll keep monitoring
043that and let you know how that continues to progress. Got an email from uh Jonathan Lasser. I think he's the um vice mayor of the city of Rosville about a piece of property. Kevin and Dr. Willerson and and Travis, you guys aren't going to know this, but we have a small piece of property in Rosville. Um we had it sold to a a new business coming in, found out that when we went to uh go through the process of selling it that it wasn't titled to the board of education, it was titled to economic development for some reason. So, we went back and did some history on it, found out that it truly was our property. And so, in the time it took us to get it changed back over to the board of education
044property, the city of Rosville changed the zoning on the property and so we couldn't sell it to the gentleman, which is crazy. Anyway, they've been doing some upkeep on that for a number of years because it was economic development property. So, they want to have a conversation about what that looks like going in the future. Mr. Glasser is just being the deliverer of the news, but Chris and I are actually meeting with him on Thursday. So, I'll let you know kind of where that goes. Um, you know, they asked us to when Mayor Harris was leaving, he asked us to give them that property. He remembered we cordially denied and didn't decide that was a good idea. So, I'm not sure if that will come up in the conversation, but definitely wanted you guys in
045the loop on that conversation. Um, you received a letter from the school council at Fairland Elementary, uh, asking some questions about, uh, code section 20-2-218, which is duty-free lunch. Um, Miss Holloway and I will be going through that, um, piece by piece to, uh, give a response from that. We're treating it just like an open record. I I think so. I think she sent that to all all of that. It was to it was from Liz Miss Topy is the person that came from. If you don't have it, let me know. I'll send you a copy of it. Yeah. So, um if you if you'll remember with our strategic waiverss, that is one of the code sections that was allowable to wave and we've waved that for since 200 since 2015. Um but we'll answer
046the the questions on there. Just wanted you guys to know we'll copy you all the response once we get that uh taken care of as well. Then the last thing I'll mention and I appreciate the board taking a moment to uh honor the two the student and the former student that we lost in the horrible accident last week. We continue to pray for uh Cooper as he's hopefully uh recovering and and doing better every day and and so we continue to lift those families up. There will be a memorial service Thursday night at 7 o'clock. Because of the predicted crowd and Wallace Wheelbanks not having the space, they asked us along with the family if they could use the gym days in. So, we're going to open that up to the family um Thursday night.
047I know several of you have expressed interest in coming. We'll have a place for you. We'll make it very discreet or out of the way. I don't want you guys to feel like you're out there in the front. I know you guys I don't feel that way either, and I I don't either. This is not about us, but I know that they will appreciate the fact that you guys are in attendance. So, if you can do that, great. If you'll meet us there in the office a few minutes early and then I'll make sure you know exactly where we're going to be seated that night. Um, and again, we just hate the whole situation happened and just continue to lift the families up. I'll keep them in our thoughts and prayers. Uh, other than that,
048unless you have questions about anything we talked about last week or anything that's come up this week, that's all I have. Uh, next, uh, Mr. Wallace, facilities. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Board members, uh, just a couple updates from last week. We went through the many construction projects we have going on. Want to give you an update on Lefayet High School. I I told you guys that we had that changing code for that safety apparatus for the boulder that we have to comply with now. And that price has come in around $6,800. So, um, not not as bad as we we were kind of expecting. So, um, we're going to direct bill that and, um, which means that we won't have to run that through the contract. It will save us a little bit of
049money. We have to pay a percentage that goes into the contract to a change order, but we come out the same pot. So, um, certain things like that, we can direct bill and stay under that threshold. We're we're good um, to take care of that. So knew y'all were interested in that. Um heat exchanger issue over there. Um it's the original heat exchanger and it was working fine. So there's no reason to to go through and and change it out. Now what we're running into because it has caused some problems is updating the plates. Has 167 plates and gaskets in it. So it's a pretty extensive uh piece of equipment to maintain and to to go in and rebuild. Um, so the the newer style won't work with the older system. So we're looking at
050some some options there. A new heat exchanger is over $65,000. So we're trying not to go that route, but um we got some ideas and working with some folks. We just want to make sure it's a vital piece to that plan system over there. We want to make sure we get it right. Um new ser room uh we we got some more finishing uh done in since we met last time. I wanted to mention that um the new tank has been set at Chap Valley. We are not starting any construction at Lefay Middle because of proximity of the building. Um the new tank out there is um set and they're working around getting the pump set and concrete work and a few other things, but um it is in place. It is a 10,000galon tank.
051Um and I remind you we went above ground uh for the compliance and EPDA um regulations to try to maintain it. it will be better in the long run. We were going to have to do something with the tanks who were in the ground over time. You just have to go in and maintain. It's much more difficult, more expensive to do so. And so that was the idea of going above ground. U have already to Mr. Breeden over there. We got some ideas um about how to make it look more part of, you know, the Eagle Nation, right? So we'll see. Um so we'll work through that. is white in color and so um it it stands out. I'll leave it at that. But um we we can um we can do some things for
052that and it's going to have a fence around it of course to protect it anyway. And so there's still a little bit more work to do out there, but they've been working hard on that and um that is in place. So uh next just update up at uh Richland High School with uh the Rosville Middle School combo turf field. So the dension pond, they got the road in um some check dams in place to get, you know, keep erosion down coming down the road and the in the ditches and runoff. And then today they got a lot of the map, the straw mat laid because we're expecting quite a bit of rain over the next few days. So um they got pretty much all of that done and the um in the detention pond. Of
053course, the biggest part there for the runoff catching anything up top where they have graded that is um fully in place and will be functioning properly. So, that is moving along. We had a really good week and a half or so um without much rain to allow them to get a lot done. We have run into a couple places with some adverse um alubial soils and so we do have to get that checked. environmental company that's up there checking regularly um if we hit anything like that and then coming up with a mitigation plan. So we run a couple places but really nothing bad. We are running into a little um rock here here and there as to be expected in the Walker Rock. Right. So, uh, we're dealing with that and, uh, we have
054had to change some water lines up there that we, uh, ran into to supply water to to the new facility and, um, we are going to have to put a meter in for that side of the line that we're running there. And so, couple things just adding on that that building and that facility, uh, there at Richmond High School has been added on a few times. And so, got to make sure we're doing that. We don't want to be taking water off something that's a fire line or something like that. So, we're going through that process. The last one for um the update on on the construction is we did have the bid open last Thursday for the launch college and career academy and we were pleasantly pleased with the bids. We only had two
055but uh came in under what we were expecting and so working out there's a couple of um of alternates that we had in the bid for different HDAC equipment and then things like their own uh different control systems and what we operate school district we don't own the building. So working with Northwest Georgia making sure you know this is workable for them too because while we're going to be occupying most of the space it still is going to run through their their campus. So we're working through some of those. Um but that came in um almost right out a million dollars less than what we expected. So that's a good thing. gives us some some opportunity to um to be able to make sure we get everything done that we need to do and then
056also start talking about now that we have someone who qualified to um in a selected bid bidder um start talking about timeline and working with those folks up there make sure it is um workable with what they're trying to do and um you know we're not really shut down up there for a period of time so we're going to it's going to be a work in progress as we're trying to keep that facility open and then work with G&TC all for a while because it's on their campus. So, that one's a little, you know, that that was a little bit of a juggling act, making sure everybody that it needs to be involved is involved. But, so far, they've been great to work with and the folks up at Launch have been very accommodating and
057um hopefully uh this will be something we can all be really proud of when it's finished and I love what Launch does and what opportunity it presents to our kids. So, um that's it for the construction updates that I had. The only other thing that I wanted to mention was if you want to ask any questions about or you want me to discuss at all on the item on the consent agenda that has to do with the CIC security um panic system that we we looking at asking for approval tonight. Uh I did send an email and I'm sorry it was lengthy and detailed, but there's there's a lot of themes, a lot of stuff to cover. I want to try to make sure I I gave you as much information as possible to look
058through, but I'll be glad to answer any questions about construction or that system or anything else under my perview at this time. And we typically don't add them midweek like that. The problem is installation. The window for installation to get this in place before teachers come back. We had to pull the trigger pretty quickly. That was that was going to be my question is what kind of a timeline are we looking at? Yeah. So the implementation is obviously some training and then some equipment to get in and then of course with this becoming law we're not the only ones that are after this right now. So they said a three three to four month implementation and so I'm actually going to have a conversation with him um once we get this sorted out and and
059you know get that nailed down a little bit more. Um of course when they're quoting it they're going to tell you they tell you four months they know there's no way it's going to take that long right because they want to tell you worst case scenario. So, um, but a month and or even three weeks right now could make a big difference because I know there's a lot of people jumping in line because this this part of Melissa's laws is coming into into provision for everybody. So, um, we we did, uh, choose Stigics as as our selection to put in front of you guys for for a number of reasons, but, um, you know, one thing that's big was, uh, Chikamaga City put it in just this school year. And so, we felt like with
060our EMAs and our dispatch and ELAS, we wanted to make sure they were working through one system that they were going to be familiar with, too. So that had something to do with it, but um it just seemed to fit what we needed and checked all the boxes for us. That was the main thing. And um I am familiar with it because I been with that system for seven years in Pickicket. And so um it's it does a great great job and I think the teachers once they adapt and learn will will be very very appreciative of having and all the staff members having that right there at their fingertips every day. Just another FYI, the safety money, the grant money that we've been receiving for the last several years, we got an additional 20
061plus,000 21,000 I think per school that was added to this year's budget. So, we we have till June of next year to spend it, but we were trying to figure out what what is the next step for us. And one of the things that we knew with Alyssa's law coming, that was one that we were going to be forced into doing. And so, this will take care of paying for that first year implementation. and we think it might actually come the second year as well out of this money. And then there that's a line item now that the governor has proposed to being a safety line item for school. So we're hoping that they'll sustain that even due to changing governors. We feel like that that will just because what happened in the state of
062Georgia that we were kind of immune to for a long time and then had a school shooting in Georgia. So So we feel like where we're getting the money is not, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's using the money that was set aside just for safety. And we've done such a really good job of providing safety equipment, technology, apparatus, whatever you want to call it. We were getting to the point, I know this sounds horrible to say, but what are we going to do next? And so this we knew was coming. This made sense to go ahead and move on it. Plus the installation, we wanted to make sure as teachers are coming back, they have those in place as they start the school year. So any questions? Okay. Thank you, Mr. W.
063Uh next we have our individual action items. First is our financial report. It's recommended that the WA County Board of Education approve the financial report for the month ending February 28th, 2025. Do we have a motion? A second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Uh, next we have it is recommended that the Walker County Board of Education approve this approximate believe $784,11 as quoted by Tub Udica and his Cox. This policy covers April 6, 2025 through April 6, 2026. Do we have a motion? Motion. A second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Next, it is recommended that the Walker County Board of Education approve the resolution declaring the results of the education special purpose local option sales tax east blocks election on March 18th, 2025. Do we have a motion? Motion. Second. Any
064discussion? All those in favor? Next we have our consent action items. We need a motion to approve. Do we have a motion? A second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Next we have new business. Mr. Middleton, is there anything you need to discuss? Mr. Richardson? No, ma'am. I'm good right now. Okay, Miss Harden. No, I do not. Mr. Willerson, and I have nothing. Next on the agenda is our public participation. Mr. Rain, we did have one individual sign up to address the board under our policy BCBI. Uh, under that Monday at 10:00 deadline, um, there was a little bit of miscommunication. I was just talking with Miss Staltz. This is a a a teacher at Le High School. It had to do with House Bill 340. I think it's the number on the the
065cell phone band and where we're going to look at the high schools. There's an auto response to the form that says you're on unless you get a call from us that says it's after 10:00 and then we explain and we put them on the next there was a level of miscommunication. I'll reach out to Mr. Harris and see if we can get him on the next uh meeting of the board if he still wants to address the board. So, it'll be uh in May instead of Okay. Uh, next we do have the need for executive session for multiple things. Janet, I'll just give you Do we have a motion? A second. All those in favor? We are in executive session. [Music] And a second. Oh. Oh, yeah. Don't let him go yet. Never mind. Just
066kidding. Just kidding. Okay, we have a recommendation personnel for certificated and uh lake coaches, substitute teachers, substitute nutrition workers. Do we have a motion? And a second. Second. All those in favor? Motion to adjurnn. I have a second.