Board Meeting

001Okay, it is now 5:00 and I would like to call this meeting to order. We will begin tonight with our invocation by board member. [laughter] Let us bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, Lord God. We thank you for your presence. We thank you for your guidance. We thank you for your anointing. Lord God, we ask that you touch each and every heart in this room tonight. May our thoughts and our minds align as we do what's best for our faculty, our staff, and most importantly, our students. Lord God, we ask that you would give us all travel and grace as we depart this place. In your son's Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. We were going to be blessed tonight by little

002Smith. I said little. She's a seventh grader, but she hasn't quite made it. So, we'll continue. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. I was so impressed by her credentials. I'm a little disappointed she didn't make it since I'm the superintendent student advisory council. She's a seventh grader. She's a cheerleader and I don't know what else, [laughter] but we'll get to meet her one day. We are now ready for roll call and please let the record show that we are all present. Thank you very much. Now we need a motion to adopt the agenda for tonight's meeting. >> Um Madam Chair, I move that the agenda be

003adopted as presented. >> Thank you. Second. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion? None. Let's vote by show of hands. >> We all in consent. Now we need a motion to approve November 18th, 2025 minutes. >> I'll make a motion to approve the board meeting minutes from November 18th, 2025. >> Madam Chair, I second that motion. I have a motion and second. Is there any discussion? If not, we'll vote by show of hand. All in agreement. Thank you. Now we're ready for our final report. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Merry Christmas. >> Tonight I have the financial report for November 2025. If you'll please turn with me to the first page, you can see that with the completion of November 30th, 2025, we are 41.66% complete with

004the fiscal year. Total revenues at that time were 8,488,464. That is only 7.09% of your general fund budget. Just as a reminder, after the beginning of the calendar year, you will see those revenues significantly pick up when tax revenues start coming in. It will be later, as you all know, this year than normal, but rest assured they will come. >> Thank you. >> If you flip to the next page, expenditures as of November 30th, 2025 were 31,55,136. That is 38.33% of your general fund budget. So if you're following along with completion of the fiscal year, you can see that spending is in line. That's a good thing. The next page shows the general fund balance sheet as of November 30th, 2025. Total assets were 273,64,012 with total liabilities and fund equity equaling the same amount.

005The next page shows the changes in general fund equity. End of period general fund equity as of November 30th, 2025 was $271,440,867. The next page shows investments in all funds as of November 30th, 2025. Total investments were 260,231,82153 cent. The next eight pages represent the purchase order incumbrance report. These are open purchase orders through November 30th, 2025. Um these are bills that we have made the board liable for but they have not actually been paid >> for several different reasons. Um and that is a rotating number as you see each month. The next several pages represent your vendor activity report. These are cumulative $5,000 by vendor and these are for the month of November only and it is for checks that actually went out the door, cash activity that actually occurred. Are there any questions

006about the financial report? I don't have any. >> All right. Thank you, Miss Marchman. Now we need a motion to approve the November 2025 financial report. >> I make a motion to approve the November 25 financial report. >> Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there no any discussion? There's no discussion. Let's vote. A show of hands. >> Thank you very much. We're now ready for public participation. I'm a little nervous. Y'all bear with me. >> Good evening, Madam Chair. >> Good evening, >> Dr. William and the board. Um, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, seeing familiar faces makes it much easier. Looking around the room, I was like, I know the all these people and so we're all here for the same reason to take care of

007this district. So, my name is Megan Vanderbolt. I'm a parent in this district. I'm an ELA teacher at Burke County High School. I am also a proud graduate of Burke County High School, class of 2006. Um, needless to say, I am someone who deeply cares about both our students and the long-term health for um, Burke County Public School System. I'm here tonight for one specific reason and that is to respectfully ask the board to consider a revote on the new academic calendar that includes a third option. Um either our current calendar or reasonable compromise between the current and the proposed models. >> Excuse me. Would you slow down just a little bit? I'm missing a lot of what you're saying. >> Thank you for saying that. I even wrote in my notes, um, slow down.

008>> When you come to this level and present, we do need to hear. >> Yes, ma'am. Slow down even more. Okay. Yes, ma'am. >> A few weeks ago, that will help my nerves as well. So, thank you for requesting that. [laughter] >> A few weeks ago, stakeholders were asked to vote on two proposed calendars. The concern many of us share is that the current calendar, which is the one we have used successfully for the past three years, and the one that many families and staff members prefer, was not included in that option. Teachers, parents, and community members were told they would have a voice in choosing the calendar. Yet, an existing functioning model was removed from the consideration entirely. After reviewing the academic data that was shared by the district, I did not see evidence

009showing that the current calendar caused academic harm or a decline in performance. scores rise in some years and dip in others, but not in a way that points to the calendar as being the determining factor. Without clear evidence that supports our current schedule um that it's negatively impacting our students, it is difficult to understand why it was not remaining an option for stakeholders to consider in the vote. [clears throat] As someone who works directly with the student every day, I do want to make a point that the structure of the calendar matters, not just academically, but behaviorally and emotionally. Research on balance and year-round calendars combined with studies on burnout and recovery suggests that structuring the school year into shorter instructional cycles with built-in extended breaks can can reduce fatigue, support the progression of learning,

010and improve overall well-being for both students and teachers. What I see in my classroom aligns with this research. When students have regular opportunities to rest, behavior improves, engagement increases, and instructional time is protected. Long stretches without breaks may look productive on paper. I do understand that. Um, but in practice, they often lead to fatigue and burnout, which ultimately cost us valuable learning time as we're correcting behaviors, fights, the things that cause a distraction. Um, I also wanted to note that other districts in our region successfully operate with fall and winter breaks similar to Burke County um, schools currently have and um, what we're doing isn't unusual. Our schedule that we're on, as I was looking around, we have other counties that are also on the same schedule. Um, I'd like to mention also that a

011year- round calendar was not presented as an option. Research does show that a year- round calendar can reduce summer learning loss and support student well-being. And I understand that is not a model that's on the table tonight, but in the future, I do hope that we can consider a year-round model because of the research showing that it does improve student outcomes. So, to be clear, I'm not here to advocate for one calendar to be chosen this evening. I'm asking for a fair and transparent process. I believe stakeholders [clears throat] deserve the opportunity to vote on all viable options, including the current calendar or a reasonable compromised model. Before I conclude, I want the board to know that this request is not just coming from me alone. Teachers at other schools in the district along with

012parents, students, and community members organized a petition supporting the inclusion of a third calendar option that reflects our current calendar structure. The petition specifically calls for maintaining extended fall and winter breaks and parent conference days align with grading periods, which are elements that many stakeholders feel are beneficial for our district. In addition to the petition, I'm also submitting the Burke County Public Schools two-year calendar development poll results from October 9th, 2023, which reflects prior stakeholder feedback and further support um the need for a fair and inclusive voting process. I will be presenting these materials to you this evening. I share this not to apply pressure, but to demonstrate that there's thoughtful and meaningful support across our community for reopening the calendar vote include a third option. At the end of the day, we all share

013the same goal of supporting our students and preparing them for life outside of Burke County Public School System. To do that, I respectfully ask the board to discard the results of the previous votes and conduct a new vote that includes a third calendar option comparable to our current model. Um, allowing state holders a genuine opportunity to choose from all of the realistic options. I want to thank you for your time, your patience, because I know I'm shake you through your service and your continued commitment to our students and to everyone that works in the school system into our community as a whole. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> You can pass it to me and I'll make sure they'll get it. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay, we're ready to

014continue business. Okay, so all business uh last month we brought for you the um revised policy that Mr. Haidider submitted along with the procedures that would be used to um enforce that policy. And Miss Vietman asked for some additional time to research and that we would hold off until tonight on the policy. >> All right. So, I did some additional research over the um last couple of weeks. Um the law that goes into effect is asking for K to 8, which I fully support K to 8, but 9 to 12 is where I have an issue with. Um clearly with the law coming into effect of K to 8 I feel like the assembly when they put it together um they too saw that there was a difference in the high school versus your lower

015grades. They've left the 9 to 12 at the hands of the board. Um and we know our high schoolers aren't the same as our younger grades. So I completely support what we're looking for for the K to8 and the way that it's implemented. Um, I did have one or two tweaks I'd like to possibly look at and under the consequences for them. Um, but I'm would like for us to possibly table the or not table. Um, let's go ahead and implement the K to8 asis law. Give this a year and see how it does. Bring this back next year and see how it's um affected the schools. um tighten up things within the high school and then revisit implementing the policy for stricter um pol device policy at that time. >> Do we have any

016other discussion? >> I just like to ask were there any other school systems implementing the four I mean the 9 through 12? Um >> a question to me or >> No, I'm asking you. >> Yes, ma'am. So, um, and if you notice right after, I think it was the same week we had our last board meeting, there was a whole write up from the AAC, but it was in the I think it was agency >> in True Citizen, >> um, where they um, were talking about the different school systems that are now talking and the lawmakers are talking about going back adding 912 because that's really where the issue is. We don't have issues um, here with K8 because that's all that's what we've been enforcing the whole time. the issues we're having with the

017with the cell phones is at the high school level. So K8 is a a state requirement. 912 is where we're having the local issue. And so um hence why we requested that K12 >> are they um because a friend of mine said that they high school they were sending each other the answers to testing and they're not supposed to have those in the classroom. I understand. Um, so I didn't know what were some samples of misuse in our system. >> I don't know about the senate of answers, but it's usually the um recordings, the teachers constantly having to battle with kids having phones out and not being attended. And this whole policy, even the part that's passed by the state, um, was it was initially called a distractionfree policy. It's about eliminating distraction. It's not

018about punishing the kids, but removing those things that are distracting them from instruction. So that's the cell phone, that's the headphones, that's the the smartwatches, it's all of those things that are um distracting kids from instruction. >> So now Dr. Now, you asked, "Were there any other schools doing the full?" As I did my little research, I discovered that there are other schools have initiated the whole K through 12, Baldwin County, Liberty County, Decap County, and they seem to all have discovered that um it has a great effect of not having their cell phones. is proving that the performance is better and it's more than a distraction as one group said it's more than a distraction. It's the uh wellness and the health benefits of uh not using those phones. There's some key statistics out

019there on to on teen phone use says 95% of US teens now own or have access to a smartphone and things of that nature and um they spend at least 7 hours a day u not including school work and there's u uh more research from the anxious generation. I know sometimes we say research says what we want it to say but sometimes there are things that you you must look at the academic performance it's not just teachers saying phones are problem a problem school leaders see it too and that's the national center for education statistics there's cognitive capacity research shows that effect goes deeper than distraction university of Texas found that the year presence of a smartphone or other powered things powered off and face down reduces students working memory. Uh and again uh some

020key takeaways. It said a recent survey showed 92% of teachers support extending the ban the ban to high schools citing improved behavior and academic performance. And then um it says teachers have reported strong support with 92% backing an extension of the ban the high schools according to a survey of 3,000 educators by Georgia Southern universities. So that's not somebody far off from us or somebody close. And there are many other uh things that I have been able to pull up because I knew a little when you were talking, but I just sort of um wanted to see what other people were doing and whether other schools had included it in. And then I must say that one of the biggest drawbacks is um parents from uh seeing that K through 12. the the Georgia Department

021of Education, they have published a list of legislative priorities for the coming year that it includes and of course you going to like this raises for teachers and staff, free lunch for educators, and then expanding of cell phone bands to Georgia High School. Okay, so that's just my little bit of research that has helped me and we know that it is coming. It's coming. um and talking to friends who are administrators in other school system, they were willing to move forward because they said it's always a problem with the cell phone. Always a problem with the cell phone. So, um I think this board um considers a lot of things and we know that the law says K through8, but we want to make ourselves better. We don't want to continue with problems. So, I

022know that Jamie is proposing for one year. I don't know if we can go that long for one year because the legends are going to do it anyway. So, um I don't know. I just need to hear from each board member briefly, Madame Chair, if that's okay. >> Okay. There's one other thing that sort of um peak my interest and makes Well, I I am for just hitting everybody at one time. >> Okay. One of the things that uh convinced me was um that safety workshop we went to and the gentleman talked about cell phone usage if there was a crisis in schools and what happens uh and even police are concerned about it that if that ping goes off uh where children are calling parents and parents trying to call and find out information

023and how it interferes with the safety of students. students. Um so I'm thinking also safety as well as >> um other things of that nature. So I am yes >> I'm for moving forward um that is based on the research and based on we know that we need to consider some things uh as well. So I did some research as well and the research supports having through high school the mental health benefits of it increased attendance. Um my main concern is for students who may have anxiety or something of that nature. Ensuring that the parents advocate for their kids, get their IEP plans or whatever it is that's necessary if they have to have something like that and then for our teachers to follow it to ensure that every student has what they need. Mhm.

024>> Okay. That's that's something else that concerns me as well because everybody has to buy into it and we know that sometimes teachers are not consistent but rules are rules and everybody needs to be consistent with it. not only teachers, parents and everybody in order to get a complete buy in >> and I will say and I'm sure you all have seen that that there are exceptions like for kids who have to have it for medical reasons what Tony is talking about and I'm sure that that's her Jamie's concern as well. She didn't say it but I knew that uh she was thinking that as well um having heard from Mr. Lane. So, I am also for based off the research that I've done. Um, looked at it from a couple different perspectives. One being

025safety. Um, but I too remember the safety the SRO that spoke to us. >> Uh, one of the biggest issues in a uh in an event is misinformation. >> Um, and that that plays a lot into it. um to things coming out of the school that are not factual or not the one voice from the district um any issues with it causes a lot of issues with response emergency response in those events. Uh the second is discipline. Um I feel very strongly that cell phones play a big part in uh some of our issues. um texting, stirring the pot, planning, uh pictures, bullying, things like that. Um, very different from when I was in school, but I do believe that that's a big part of it. So, and [clears throat] then just the overall distraction

026of I'm going to be on my phone and not pay attention in class. So, I am I am wholeheartedly for K through 12. Any other discussion? With no other discussion, are we ready to vote that this um >> I make a motion that we Well, I did have one other question. I'm sorry. I was not able to go and see u any feedback that was given in S. Was there any feedback provided? >> Very little. and it was from one of them to the other [clears throat] >> and they did go back and add it to um parent square to put a link on parent square so that people would know >> to go back and look at s I was just going to the [clears throat] website clicking on the on the >> see

027we just proved your point guilty. >> Sorry for interrupting. I apologize. >> Okay, the motion has been made. It's been moved and second. So, we've had our discussion. So, let's vote. Okay. One, two, three, four to one. Okay. 441 against. Thank you. We'll let it be continued. New business, Miss Willis. I'll have the budget report uh from November and I'll be reading [clears throat] the results from that. So, our funded enrollment um is at 94. Um actual enrollment is at 91. And I just want to clarify some things with that. Um, when we're looking at the 91, we don't have openings on site. So, these are our homebased families. Um, where we have a few openings there. We have since filled those. So, we're back at 94. And what's happening now is that some of

028our on-site families are going to transition to homebased. Um, and that's for various reasons. It could be transportation. Um, we've had some where we had to contact about being chronically sick and how it affects our attendance, which could ultimately affect the grant funding. And so, would they like a better option of having someone to just come to their home instead of, you know, the child being um in an environment where their immune system just can't take being around other children, feel constantly sick. So, um, we're good. We're back at the 94 for the month of December. Um, our average daily attendance for the month has been at 86. The number on our waiting list is three. Our number of transitions right now of our three-year-olds that'll be transitioning to Head Start is at 11. Our

029number of pregnant women is at six. Health checks are up to date at 98%. Our shots are up to date at 100%. Monthly reportable center incidents at zero. Our number of children with disabilities is at 12. Staff training activities we have one. Parent involvement activities five. Our inind left to collect is at 25%. We've not entered the December in kind. So that'll bring that number um probably to close out. But right now it's at $170,000 657. And then we have our uh monthly financial receipts and that Walmart receipt is at zero because we're still waiting on an update for some cards um to be processed through finance. And then we have our budgeted year. So from January to December of 2025, that balance sits at $146,95026. And then we have our um expenditures just for

030the month of November. So the 1st through the 30th. And that total expenditure is going to be at $149,79169 for the uh year up to date. So January through November, total expenditures for that has been 1,623,52064. And then we have some incumbrances that's still lingering out there to be paid. And right now that's at $28,11910. And then I want I always give you guys a little jingle before I go, but three updates. We have a staff person that has experienced a fire which a lot of you are probably aware of and made the news and everything. Um the family has lost everything. >> So um Dr. Williams has an email with the updates of what the family needs as far as sizes um and other needs, but I also sent her a GoFundMe link today

031um that she can share with you all. And if you can donate or want to be a part of that um please do so. um she's been a great asset to us and her children are actually in our program so it affects everything all the way around. >> Um and then secondly, we had Bajel Realy to come in and donate Christmas gifts to all 94 of our children. Um took a little bit of burden off our parents that weren't able to maybe purchase things during the holiday season. Um and we've since partner with them now. So, every event we have going forward, um, they'll be covering a big cost of the things that we spend. So, we're happy about that. >> And then I gave you an update about a month or two ago about

032these Laurel rings, um, that I put in with University of Georgia for our staff to receive these. I wasn't able to get everybody, but I got all of my veteran staff a ring um, which these can cost an upward of $500 or more. Um, and two of the administrative staff, including myself, have received these. um they'll track our stress levels, oxygen levels, blood pressure, um sleeping issues, different things like that. So, we're hoping all staff will receive these and we can create better healthy people and healthy practices. >> And if [laughter] I'm trying to work on that for everybody, >> I've been uh begging Dr. B at universe. I'm like, how many more rings can you get? Um it's a lot of schools that just don't want to participate, but I I I I want

033everything free. Um and along with this, the staff that have these are receiving a sip and you just can't beat that. You know, you get free money every month. So, I'm going to work on it better because we all going through different things and it's a good tracking method. Um all the results come directly to your phone. So, very private. Um and it's coded by ID number so nothing is shared publicly. So, just to thank you for those updates and I have a little something to give you all. I heard that the uh power ball is at 1 billion. So, when I get more money, if I win, that's right. >> You guys get more. But for now, this is just a thank you. We want to give you all thank you. So, thank you.

034Happy holidays. So, Miss Lewis is not telling you all this, which I always keep. I was going there is decorated so beautifully with Christmas trees and things that her parents came in to help do. Thank you and decorated our entire a lot. >> Miss, would you like to introduce them to Miss So, I don't think many of you have met her. Thug. If you all haven't met Miss Sug, she's our um education coordinator. Um hired right before Miss Reed left. So, she's come in new uh trying to help our staff with their lesson planning, classroom observations, all the good things that we need. So, welcome, Miss. I don't think we have any questions, but we do need a motion. >> Question. >> Make a motion to approve the early head start report for um >>

035I second a motion. >> Okay, motion. Second. No questions. Let's vote. [laughter] Get in trouble by that. Okay, please continue. Dr. Williams, >> Mr. H. Yes, workers comp renewal that comes every December. And um we had uh several um responses, but the clear winner by I don't have it in front of me, but it's about you're about to see it by over $100,000 was Georgia Education Workers Compensation Trust, which is who we have been using now for some time. Um they came in at 206,000. The next closest one was 335. So it's a resounding low bid. So anyway, that is presented to you as the low bid for workers comp. As I say, they've been doing our [clears throat] workers comp for a while now and they give us good service. They've been pleased with

036them. We need a motion to accept the uh I'm just say the BBW proposal for GEWCT to continue. I shall move. >> Okay. It's been moved and second. >> It's been second. Any questions, concerns? If not, let's vote. All in favor? Thank you very much. So, um, last month I gave you the the c the calendars that we' be putting out for polls. I just want to kind of go back through that process. um calendars were based on the data that you see included here. >> Um [clears throat] there was a um we initi the current calendar that we're using was voted on in 2021 initially with the low breaks. In 2023, after having that calendar for a year and a half, we put another poll out there uh in 2023 and that data has

037been shared with you to see what people's opinions were after having used the calendar for a year and a half. Recently, we the first group that I took the information to was superintendent cabinet and I'll talk about these a little bit. Uh this also went through system level planning superintendent advisory council um the students uh superintendent advisory council also you'll see some student performance data and some attendance data that has been collected um since utilizing the calendar. So I'll start with this poll from 2023. This was after when we adopted this calendar in 2021. um about 64% of the respondents thought it was a good calendar. In 2023, after using the calendar for a year and a half, we sent out another poll and one of the questions, question number two was, "What is your

038preference of the length of fall and winter breaks?" And as you can see there, nearly 800 people responded uh to that to that poll. And 47.2% 2% of at that time like the weekl long fall winter breaks which also require a layer end to the school year. The other 53% either wanted shorter fall and or winter breaks. Um and then a small percentage had no preference but 47% is what uh the number of the percentage of people who felt like we should keep those breaks. Question three on that same poll was, "How important is it to you that uh student holidays align with the neighboring counties?" And you see that was about 50/50. [laughter] >> Um it really wasn't important >> essentially. Question six is where I put the most focus. That question was very

039open-ended. It asked um please provide any other information or suggestions that you would like for us to consider as we develop this calendar. So this is when we were getting ready to develop 2425 and 2526. And so you will see there um we had nine pages of comments >> and they vary from um people who wanted us to entertain um year round calendars to people who wanted us to go to four day weeks to people who liked it just the way it was where it was and to people who um felt like the long breaks were too much. So you saw a plethora of of data there and you have you have had that. So with the stakeholder groups um the first group that um I took the took this to or had to look

040at the data was superintendent's cabinet and superintendent's cabinet is about 16 people. Um it's basically the leaders here at the office central office leaders. um they got on September 8th um I got eight different calendars that was after taking all of the data the the information from the poll the information um that had been shared we put eight calendars around the room asked them to take sticky notes and go from calendar to calendar and put what they um thought was good about that calendar and what they didn't like about that calendar system level planning also did the exact same thing on September 18th That's about 33 people. That's superintendent, cabinet, plus maintenance, transportation, nurses, um security, early head start, um principles, everybody was involved in that meeting. So, the same process went around each calendar.

041What is it you like about this calendar? What you don't like? If you liked it, but there's something you would tweak about it. They put sticky notes on it. Superintendent's Advisory Council participated in the same process on September 17th and that's um about 16 people as teachers, parents, counselors, media specialists and I have one AP in that group. >> Um superintendent, student advisory council, we did not do that part. Um I'll tell you about the November uh 5th meeting. So after that um taken all of the data that was given on all the stickies I put it together in a chart shared it back out with the group what um came out of it. So on October 27th it was shared with superintendent's cabinet on October 30th with system level planning on November 5th with

042superintendent advisory and and student superintendent advisory and then I shared it with you all on November 18th at the last board meeting. Um [clears throat] so some of the calendar those eight calendars were tossed all together. They like nothing about it. So we threw them out. The others um we took the feedback and compiled. So I do realize that some people um like the long breaks and some don't. I have here for you the data that has been collected over the past five cycles that we've actually tested. The highlighted area there in gray is the very first year that we went to the long calendar 22 23. So I will go back to 22 just to say you'll notice that there's no data for 20 and 21. Remember in 2020 we shut schools down in

043March. So there was no data and 2020 2021 school year we had half on virtual and half present. So um the no data there. So that's why the jump, but you'll see where we were in 2019. You will see where we were the first year that um we went to the extended calendar. There was a slight increase in four of the five um schools. And then in 2024, that would have been our second year. Again, we saw a slight uptick in the scores. 2025, our most recent data, um you can see where we are. So, if you look over a three-year period, um you'll notice there that um and especially 2025 where there was a huge drop, but the scores even uh are nowhere near where they were um 2019 or 2022 for that matter

044with few exception. This is um the same data essentially broken out by ELA and math. And the highlighted area there in green is where you will see where we had our strongest scores. >> For elementary um ELA it was in 1819. For math it was 1718. Middle school 1819 as well as high school. for both math and ELA. Another um uh reason was given for the loan calendar was that it would improve student attendance. Um this is the attendance data for the last um uh several years and again you've heard me say about 1920 and 2021 um our attendance data has covered around 94%. So, what does that mean exactly? Average daily attendance. Um, if we're thinking about the 3,800 kids that we have, that's about 228 kids per day that are out of school.

045So, it's doing it. It's kind of remained um the same staff attendance. We were also told that if we went to that calendar that we would see a huge decrease in the number of days that staff missed because they would schedule appointments on the days out and etc etc. Again, this is the data over the last several years. Um 2122 that was the first full year back from COVID. So, we did expect there to be a few more absences that year, but essentially what has happened, you may see a day or so less than you did um even before we went to the calendar for teachers. Um if you think about 10.19 um days per teacher and we have over 300 teachers, that's about 3,000 days missed um per year if we're looking at the

04610. And then the pair of professionals about the same. We have about 150 PAR professionals, a little bit more um at 11.37 days um average per PARA. Again, that's another 3,500 um absences. And each one of those equates most of the times to a sub at either $125 a day or whatever it is that we pay. So, attendance has not increased with um with staff. I also say that um you know was if we give more breaks people will not miss miss as many days. On the Friday before Thanksgiving just as an example there were 34 school faculty members. This is not include custodians or lunchroom workers. These are teachers and parents. The Friday before Thanksgiving there were 34 members who took either all or part of the day for sick or personal leave. December

0471st, the first day back, another 25. And the following day on December 2nd, there were 30 people out. If I skip over to last week, for example, last Friday, that number had jumped to 45. It's typical of what we see on a Friday. This morning, the number was 30. So, we are not seeing the increase or the less days missed by staff that we expected to see moving to this calendar. And I'm just talking here about teachers and parents, but we also have the data for other classes of people as well. Um, so in this calendar that was sent out um and again it was built based on the results of the poll and the work done in the groups. One of the question asked um question number two I think it was what is

048your role in the school community? So you'll see that we had um right at 500 people 498 uh participate in this survey and 42% of the participants in this survey were actually um parents 42.4%. Um with the next largest group being students followed by school staff. Um, I'll also say that after sending the poll, I heard from a total of I'm talking about people who contacted me directly, a total of 10 people. Um, that was five teachers, two parents, a media specialist, a secretary, and a parent coordinator with questions about the calendar. um I sent data and offered more data if they so chose and only one person requested the additional data that this was based on. Um until today at 3:00 I received another um petition so to speak from a teacher who had

049gotten several people to sign that petition. That was today about 2 hours before this meeting. calendar results. Um you see the representation here. Um we had all grade levels pretty much represented. Remember this was not a uh choose one or the other. They could select all that apply. So the percentages of course are going to be larger than 100 because you have um parents with children in u multiple grade levels. And then you'll see here that the schools also were um proportionately represented with the schools with the larger um student body or student population having u more participation than those with less students. And so the final question on that survey was which calendar do you prefer? And these were the results with 52 uh.6% opting for calendar one and 47% opted for calendar two.

050So based on the data presented um I'm seeking approval to move forward with calendar options >> option one one or two >> um one one >> and since we received additional information which we didn't get a chance to look at we heard it um I madame chair propose that we take it to close session So, we can look at some of the other information and uh certainly consider the superintendent's recommendation, but additional information was submitted. Let's just look at it. >> I don't I don't think that's close session. >> You want us to to openly discuss it? That's what we >> I don't have I have no issue with taking more time to look at the data that was handed to us, but I'm I'm just saying it's not closed period. Okay. Well, I didn't

051want anybody to be hurt of feelings and that was what I was concerned about. Um, but I want to follow the procedure. >> That's important. So now I attend meetings in my district cuz I got four communities and in my district with the group that I met, you know, I always tell you guys that the parents are saying these kids are out of school too much and um who's going to feed these kids? And of course they're their children, so they have to feed them when they out. But um the concern was that they felt that the children needed to be in school more because they have to make arrangements for people to come in and take care of these children while they at work. Many of them are single parents and they holding down

052two jobs and they don't want these kids to be latch key kids home by themselves. They also mentioned to me that they get in trouble when they out of school too much. and they didn't like having to have worry about who am I going to get to take care of these kids to keep them from getting in trouble. Now, that was what was shared with me. Uh that they were willing, they did not say to me, I choose one or two. They said, I'll trust this school board because you're going to be held accountable for the data and the progress of these kids. And now this is what they shared with me. And I'm only representing district one. I can't speak for anybody else. Just district one. >> I would like the opportunity to look

053at what was presented to me. >> Presented with public anticipation. >> Okay. >> Concerns that I've got. I had a lot of people reach out in multiple avenues was um they don't like the weeklongs out but they don't feel like they're getting enough breaks with the current calendar. I know a lot of effort went into that but they didn't feel like they really had an option. We asked for feedback. They wanted options. We didn't really they didn't feel they got options and um that was a big concern that was brought forth to me. So what is it that you want to look at the the data from the petition or >> Yes. >> Do you have that >> because I believe what requested was that there be a a third option. I think that's what

054I heard. I'm not sure. She only gave her >> and so I propose this we'll continue with the meeting >> during close session we can make some coffees. Yes. >> To be able to come back. >> Let's move forward. >> That's what I was thinking. >> The next one on agenda. >> Okay. We're ready for superintendent reports. >> Yes. >> Okay. SGA Larry. We'll get right back. Gosh, I'm coming right back. [laughter] Sometimes this medication makes you think twice. That's the best way to say it. Well, good evening and merry almost Christmas everyone to come stand before you uh representing SGA elementary school and the many fine types of folks in that building. Um, a presentation tonight is going to go through a few things and as you expect it's heavy with data. So, buckle

055up, get ready and I will do my best to explain it for everyone in depth. So, there we go. Dr. Thank you, ma'am. >> Yes, please. Uh, yeah. Will you just kind of give us a minute to get Dr. Miles back? You can sing us a song. >> Thank you. >> He sings at church. You can give us [laughter] >> and he plays guitar. >> Yes. >> Family's musically and fun though. I'm the most fall on the worst slide, but that's all right. [laughter] >> That look pretty good. [laughter] Why don't everybody just stand up a minute? Just stand up. Shake your hand. >> Loosen up. say hypoc. No, it's one You cannot say that you have not been allowed to have fun at a board meeting. Stop being video. that freezes your brain. >>

056Of course not. [laughter] Yeah. So I can't She's not Okay, Josh, it's on you. >> We waited for you. John, thank you. Awesome. >> You're very welcome. >> I just start I'm ready to go. So, here we have our uh 2425 CCRPI score of last year. I'm going to put that on this PowerPoint because I'm proud of it. Uh but I do put it up there because we won't run from it. Um nothing we're proud of. It's not our normal performance. Uh and we don't take it lightly. I'm sure you guys know that. Uh it's not typically how things work there at SG. But I want you guys to know that we're working diligently to make sure that we have correct that. The biggest issue really was we just didn't meet those growth indicators we

057needed to meet in that earnest across the board in every area. So we'll move on now from that and we're good to go. Uh so what leading indicators do we have this year academically that lead us to guess where our weak areas are, where our strong areas are, and what are we doing to target those weak areas. That's what I'm going to spend the rest of the presentation on. So star reading. This year we changed our testing system as a county. We're not doing a cadence and growth measure test. We're doing star tests. So unfortunately what we don't have is a lot of longitudinal data to show how we've done in the past with star. I mean I do. I'll show you that but we don't in general have that. Um so I want to

058show you what we have here. This is our star reading data and this is the star test. We have two reading tests right now. We have a early literacy test which is for the younger kids. Uh most of those K2 kids when they get to a certain cut score 852 that they go from early literacy into the star test which is kind of the we'll say the big boy test or big girl test. Uh so some of the numbers are going to be low and some some of those K2 tests because they're in the middle of swapping between one and the other. So that's the story behind that. What I want to focus on this is the state benchmark data. These are our performance bands based on state guidelines or the state standards basically. And

059I will focus on three areas of this chart as fast as I can because we have about nine slides. That's all across the top. Uh in the fall test on the left, December tests are on the right. So we can see the comparisons. Uh and I believe they go in orders. First grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and then same thing. So, I'm going to start at the very top and look at the green bands which are our distinguished. [clears throat] In the fall, we had going across. I'm going to skip the first one which is first grade because we only have I think three or four kids test that. So, it's 100% whatever. So, in with the next group in second grade we had 8% in the green, 15% in third

060grade, 8% in fourth grade, and 3% in fifth grade. Skip all over the fall or the December side and our numbers look like this. 1986 and zero which showed us that um we had a drop in our distinguished from fall to winter in fourth grade and fifth grade. We had an increase in second grade. Uh drop to the bottom of the chart and let's look at some of the reds which the reds are they categorize it as beginning learners. Going across the bottom again, it looks like it's 25, 42, 36, 39 compared to in the winter when we ended up with those grade levels at 19, 29, 43, and 39. I know I just ramble up a whole lot of numbers, but what I'll tell you is the things that we're proud of would be

061that second grade and third grade group. We decreased the reds or the beginning learners. Fourth grade, we're not happy with. That's going to be kind of a ongoing thing. of notes. Uh we increased our beginning learners to 43% and fifth grade was at 39%. So it stayed the same. [clears throat] All that said, the last piece I get on this is when we combine the top two groups, which is our distinguished and proficient. Um second grade ended up at about 58% 27 39 and 30. When we do the test in the winter, we had second grade who took a drop in those two areas to 50. Third grade went to 38, fourth grade went to 26, which was a drop and fifth grade went to 36. So overall in our star rating test, what we

062have found based on those two tests, our fourth grade in particular is struggling in the state standards. That's where we are so far in the LA for reading. Flip the page. We'll go to the next slide. Same test, same grade levels. And what it's going to show us is how much our kids actually grew. Um, and so there's three areas. They can be called high, typical, or low growth. And what we just saw on that page kind of is mirrored here. Um, we have first grade who had high growth, but it was four kids again. Moving on. Uh, second grade ended up at 50 for high growth, 50%. Uh, my numbers. I can't read that. Third grade was 29, fourth grade was 15, and fifth grade was 46. The problem that shows up again if

063we look at the bottom in the low growth area. So going across the bottom with those light green we end up with 50% in low growth in that fourth grade group which again we said I've already said earlier that's a kind of an issue we're going to have to target work on fourth grade. So that's an alert for us for reading right now. The other grade levels seem to be tracking well seem to be following along the progression we want to go. All right. So that's our reading. Let's jump to math which will be the next slide. Uh the same chart, same comparisons. You got a fall, you got a winter. Now that you understand that, let's go across the top like we did last time and we'll talk about those green numbers and we'll

064talk about the positives across the top to begin with. This is first grade, second grade, third, fourth grade, and fifth grade in order. We ended up with 32, 15, 19, 22, and 24 in the fall. In the winter, that 32 went to a 42. We're proud of that for first grade. That 15 went to 28. We're proud of that. For second grade, >> the 19 went to 17. That's a drop in third grade math. >> 22 went to 11 in fourth grade math. That is another fourth grade issue. >> And 24 went to 30 in fifth grade math. We're proud of that. Drop it to the bottom. Let's look at the reds and see how we compare with our reds. Uh those numbers are 20, 25, 19, 17, 21. Compare that to the number of

065kids who were beginning learning in December. We reduced that 20 in first grade down to zero. Very proud of that. We reduced the 25 in second grade down to six. We're proud of that. We reduced the 19 in third grade down to 13. We're proud of that. We reduced the 17 and fourth grade down to 6%. We're proud of that part. That was that was good movement. And then in fifth grade 21 down to 15. We're proud of that. So overall, we take the third piece of this chart that we did in the early one is we're going to look at the two top areas, the distinguish and proficient. Add those together. Those are ones we like. So we went on the fall it was 56 55 50 and 45. In the winter I'm proud

066to say in math first grade made it all the way to 79. That is a huge jump. 79% of our kids. Second grade 72% we're proud of that. Third grade 62%. We're proud of that. I'm going to skip fourth grade. Fifth grade is 58%. We're proud of that. Now I go back to fourth grade. Fourth grade was 37%. And we are not very proud of that. So we've got some work as I said to work on fourth grade. You're aware of that to do that. We got one more chart to look at in the star math. Again, the same thing. This is the student growth piece that we've already talked about. Take those scores, put them in a growth path and make sure we're tracking the same data. We're as my former colleague Sam to

067triangulate the data. Shout out Sam. All right, moving on. Start with math growth. Uh we have typical uh high and low growth. The big issue is to save you some time. Our third grade has some low growth there. We're about 38% there. And fourth grade again is a low growth 44%. So those are two of the big areas that we're struggling with trying to work on. We're aware of that. We're going to be targeting that and working on that. The last star data I have there for this year will be our star CBM, which is what all of our grade levels state. It's kind of like our fluency test to see how well our kids are reading. It's kind of the best way to sum it up. Um, so in the same manner, fall test,

068winter test, first, second, third, fourth, fifth grade going across. Simply put, uh, I'm going to look at the green, which is the above and ad just the green. So we just speed this along. Uh, in the fall it was 54, 28, 50, 56, 52. In the winter or in December, we went from 54 to 71% being on grade level for fluency anyway. So, we're proud of that for first grade. The second grade went from 28 to 61%. We're super proud of that green there. Third grade reading on grade level went from 50 to 67%. We're proud of that. Fourth grade went from 56 and dropped to 40. We're marking that as an alert. And our fifth grade actually went from 52 to 47, which is backwards. We mark that as an alert area as well.

069So, with all that said, um, because I've been doing this for so long, and I've got a notebook here with every presentation I presented to the board members with a piece of data in there, I was able to pull up our star data from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and put it in a chart to show us where we look at with our 2025 so that we can just see what we're looking at. We don't have numbers on a piece of paper. So, I wanted to at least compare. It's not the best comparison, but it's better than nothing. So, what I did, if you'll notice these charts, these were presentations that I did in March to board members. So, those numbers for 15, 16, 16, 17, 17, 18 or March numbers, numbers that I'm putting up

070right here are December numbers. Think if we got a half a year left, if we're within a 0.5, which is a half a year's growth, I marked us as green. We can make that half year growth. If we're less or more than a five away, I marked as red. And I'm talking about the highest we had. So 0.5 from the highest. Comparing those for star rating [clears throat and cough] our grade level equivalent. So when you take the test, they tell you what grade level you're on basically. Um our first grade they're testing right now. That's second grade level in star grade equivalency. That's pretty good. And we look across [clears throat] the board. The highest we had ever was 2.2. We're well within a.5 for me. I'm happy with first grade. Second grade 2.3.

071I'm happy with that. We had a 2.8. It's the highest we've had. I'm happy. 3.4 for third grade. Uh, that's a five. I'm happy with that. I feel like we can make make that work. Guess what? We have problems. Fourth grade again. Uh, we have a 3.8. Now, to be fair, my highest third fourth grade average was a five, which is really high. So, that's a long gap, but it is what it is. I'm comparing the same properties. So, that's where we sit. And then fifth grade, a 4.5. I mean, that's pretty low. We're a long ways off of that. So, we've got some ideas of where we compare with our star from previous years. Whether they really correlate or not, I couldn't tell you, but something to look at. And then we'll do the

072same thing with star math and we can look at that and you see the idea. You see the numbers and you get the idea. First, second, third grade are green. We're within where we need to be. Fourth and fifth grade still tracks the same data that we said with all the other star pieces. So, all that said, what we tell us is the next page tells us the things that we were working on the first semester. Um those were things that we were working through with the district trying to make sure we're targeting hitting the things we need to do. We just had this test um December. We looked at the data. We found weak areas and pockets of where we need to strengthen. And so that's caused us to look at what our next

073initiatives are for second semester and they are looking like this. Uh if you flip that, we go to second semester or next um January 5th. We've got Rea coming in to work on GMAS um workshops for our teachers. Uh we're trying to get ahead of the game. Um second semester, our math and reading teachers going to focus on star standards reports um to target the weak areas. Uh we're going to kind of take third, fourth, and fifth grade, shift a little bit from the HM curriculum and actually take the same thing and put it in a GMASS format kind of sort of so we can cover those standards and getting ready for GMAS stuff. We're going to push accountability still. We've been working on that trying to do student accountability with conferences with teachers and

074things of that sort. Our Rhysa reading specialist has been working with our third grade teacher. She has been a great help to us. So second semester we're going to make that shift not just for third grade ELA share with third grade and fourth grade ELA. Uh data focus PLC's with admin. We're going to be in those admin meetings looking at those numbers and digging through that help make sure we're targeting where we need to be. Priority is going to be designated focus on student reading skills with feedback specific feedback for the weak areas of reading what things we need to target and their skills. Uh we're working up our academic after school program getting ready to start it in January. Continue using our ASL program to target needs and students for ELA and math. And

075our second through fifth grade are going to begin their vertical team planning to work on student fluency based is what we're working on try to increase fluency. That ladies and gentlemen is my presentation. >> Who was your reading specialist this year? >> Uh it's eps you know it's either Laura EPS. We got somebody I got three eps come in our building. Okay. >> Miss eps Amy Amy got something. >> I was going to ask you, but you answered the question. Are you satisfied with all of your schools? You answered that question. No, you're not. I was going to ask you, what were you going to do? You gave me your plan. You know, I was going to ask. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you Jesus. [clears throat] This is

076beautiful. Okay. Um, >> you need to make a video, babe. No, you're 25. I um Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening and good night. [laughter] Before I start, I start everything uh every I start this our model uh every morning. So, I do want everyone to repeat after me. I am curious. >> I am curious. >> I ask for help. >> I am resilient. >> I stay engaged. >> That makes me a good learner. that makes me a good governor. >> I am smart. >> I am capable. >> I can do hard things >> because I care. >> Every morning and again we we uh say this to our staff and our students and that's become a part of our learning culture at Winsville Primary School. >> I hear it every afternoon in my car.

077[laughter] >> Um so you know one of the things that u we have been blessed with I I love Dr. Law. um she really does know how to bring things into perspective for us. And um so anyway, so what you see on there is just our path to success because she really helped us to really unfold where we are uh where it comes to the culture and our building primary school. Um we're on this road and we've been doing that ever since I've been principal of the primary school and also then working on learning and that is the byproduct of all that culture and learning equals achievement. Um so let me start with that. You see right here uh like Mr. rightly said, um the scores uh for CCRPI are nowhere near where we want

078to be. Um I feel like this is a reset uh for us with having only half of our students uh to be at great level. Um and while we have been doing a lot of great things um at within the district, I think all of those things now are starting to actually uh become fruitful. Um you think about that our theme this year is together to grow. And when you put a seed in the ground, it doesn't necessarily give you what you need right then and there. It takes some time. And so I think right now with this reset, uh, we are posed to be able to trend in the right direction. Um, so you again, you can see, uh, just with our math and our ELA, again, I just call them dismal. Um, but

079when I tell you that, um, our school is very focused this year on our plan and intention to make sure that our students are successful, our staff is successful, uh, then we are in the right direction. And if you like football, if you are a little under 500 and still make the playoffs, you're doing all right. So, not to make light of it, but again, just to make uh know that we do have a plan to help grow our students in the right direction. And it's really it starts with the culture, right? So, our learn dispositions, it it starts with our teachers. Our teachers have been working to make sure they understand from an instructional standpoint where our students are and what makes a good learner. And this is part of our our what we

080call reset. And so the teachers went through um and asked what what is a good learner and looking at learning targets and success criteria but not just the semantics of it but what they're going to do in order to help our students to build that. This year we went very deep and we created goals attendance behavior and content mastery the ABCs. Okay. So for attendance you will see that a 94.3% ADA which is a daily attendance rate as Dr. Williams spoke to you all today about every um grade has that for behavior it's reducing down by 5% which is 124 referrals which we're way below that and then for content mastery you'll see that there's ELA and math ELA our whole schoolwide grade is 57% for ELA and then each kindergarten first and second grade

081also has one so kindergarten you'll see there in the little spar is 73% first grade is 489% excuse me 48% and then second grade is 48% % I got [clears throat] those mixed up. Math schoolwide, you have 51% proficiency, but again, kindergarten is 53, first grade is 52, and then 48 for second grade. So, why do we do this? We we made we everyone has to get in the game now. All right. So, we we didn't we didn't have uh goals like this like we did last year. Now, we have the ABCs. Let me fly through them real quick. So, when you look at this, we're always asking our students, asking our staff now, how are we training? So, we're constantly looking at our data even more specifically. And this is just an example of

082what we're doing each and every day to track our data. Um looking at our data again if the students are not in the seat then they can't be academically complete. All right. So again that is part of that content management because if they're not here then they can't learn and grow. So every single day we're al always tracking students to make sure that they're in the seats and if they're not then we're calling and making sure we work with Miss Payeyton. Hey get them here so that they can learn and grow. You look here a little bit of what Dr. William said because this was interesting if you look at it. Last year we had 39 of our staff members that were out 10 more days. Well, that impacts instruction. All right. So now this

083year through November, uh we've been tracking them every single every single month, making sure that our staff's here. Again, if they got the costs and all that stuff, definitely stay home. But we've been tracking it because that's impacting instruction. So we're making sure that they're here and when they're here, they're actually being impactful. Looking at behavior, I just real quick I show you that right now we're at 41 referrals. We are not going to hit our target, but I do feel we're not going to have 142 referrals. Uh even though, you know, again, lot got some kids with big feelings. Um but we're tracking that. We're making sure that our students and our staff get what they need as far as supports. We're not saying don't ride them up because when they do, we want

084to make sure we handle it. But everybody is is just teaching our students again how to be respectful, how to be responsible, how to be safe, and how to be successful. And that does again impact academics. So that's why again this is in this presentation looking at our content mastery. Let's just take a look at that a little bit. So again you got ELA and math. Looking at our composite. So I'm I giving you a five-year uh kind of a chart here as far as our end of the year composite as it relates to a cadence because we don't necessarily have uh end of the year uh test like GMASS but we do get third grade GMAS scores. That's why our scores um are attached with them and that's why they are together as needed.

085But you will see in the last two in each grade, kindergarten, first and second grade, I'm just giving you the beginning of the year and in the middle of the year where we're starting to trend up hotter. All right, kindergarten I would say is like average. They're they're kind of average out right now, but first grade and second grade, if you start from 2021 and going all the way up now, we're all trending in the right direction and that's where we're going to go. PreK is uh a whole ball of wax in and of itself. Um they don't have an assessment this year, but we did give our students an assessment that was teacher created. Um we're starting to track them because if we track them now, then we'll be able to see their readiness

086going into the kindergarten. So, we're making sure that we're tracking them and keeping them in the loop as well. And that's just some of those uh some of that information right there for you. All right. Now, here is the breakdown where you want to see. Um I'm happy to say that right now we are trending in the right direction. So just very clearly you see kindergarten let me just start with there green is proficiency or on grade level. All right so from beginning of the year to middle of the year you can see uh that we we have increased 14 points for students on grade level for us we are excited about that. All right and blue is on watch. So those kids I would call those bubble kids. All right again we've reduced that

087down because we boosted that up. And then yellow is intervention and red is urgent intervention. When you see that again for kindergarten, we've been able to decrease all of those areas because we're we're boosting that up. And I'll show you how we've been able to do that. First grade, the same thing. We've uh increased our students by 4%. Um and everything else has gone down. Minimal change, but again, any change is good. We want slow and steady progress. Looking at step rate as well. Again, in the green, we've been able also to get several more percent of of our students on grade level, and that's where we want to be. All right. Now, looking at the gray boxes, that's where the beginning of the year uh a cadence was last year. All right. So, that

088kind of gives you a little comparison. Um and we really were kind of scared like what is first grade going to do? Because first grade last year, the beginning of the year was only 33% proficiency. So, this year they're at 56%. That's why we're like, oh my gosh, they were they jumped. But what we've seen is that sometimes the summer slide um really affects students, right? Because they're not getting that consistent instruction. But we've been able to hold on. And that's another thing. Last year, uh, Acadians, they they bombed the in the winter. It it just they they were not able to hold on to what they retained from the teacher from beginning to middle. But this year, we a we were able to and also boost it up a little bit. All right. And

089again, I'm going to show you some of the consistent stuff that we've been doing to help uh raise these scores up. In math, we didn't have a mass printer last year, but we're happy with these numbers. Again, are we where we want to be? No. But we've been able to boost up. Again, green is proficient. So you look at every change from beginning fall to winter, we've been able to increase that and everything else has calmed down at least two points. Okay, you math. All right. Now, what are we doing to help with that? Now, we're looking more intently on the instructional framework looking at standards. All right. So, we're kind of shifting away from teachers just looking at HMH as a resource. We want them to look at the standards because the state is

090giving us new standards. This is a great opportunity for our teachers to now focus more intently on the standards and how those are impacting our students. So, we've done a lot more work with just standards review. So, we've taken the information and saying if if you've taught it and you've practiced it, how is it assessed? All right. So, you see there that some of this things where they're strong, fair, or weak, we're actually getting them to see because sometimes they say, "Well, Mr. child when we are um um testing in the HMH you know the module assessment sometimes that's not translating to the test that they have or even the benchmark so now we're taking a look at that alignment and that's going to help us to make better choices on ready teaching readiness but

091also just where they are in their learning and how it is impacting going from the test to the actual real test if that makes sense. >> Okay, we're trying to make sure that what we're saying we're we're actually teaching is actually coming out in the learning and we're not waiting until the end. and we're actually trying to make this uh work out full full force. So what does that look like more specifically that then that was just a working data sheet there this just gives you a little more information in our PLC's we're looking at data so specifically here where we're looking at the trend data when the t the students are taking that HMH reading assessment we're saying is that trending in the right direction with our benchmark right because they have to have

092some kind of alignment kind of like what Mr. Brandon said we're looking at triangulation of data. So again, we're just we're looking at multiple sets of data to make sure that everything is kind of jaw and making sure they all make sense cuz if it's not then that's a problem. We want to go back and retool what we're doing. All right. So again this some of the stuff that we looked at. Now one of the things that I told you all right so we have schoolwide goals. We have grade level goals but now the teachers have their own individual goals. It's not evaluative but what we did is we came up with goals. And I don't want to give go to calculations that I wait within that. But just know that every teacher has at

093least three students that they are moving that they've identified that they're moving. So in this slide here, we have calculated all the students. So in kindergarten, we have four to three students that we've identified that we want them to move. How do we mean move? These are students in that bubble area because we know that the quickest way for acceleration to getting from one group to another is just those bubble kids that we often kind of miss. So, we've identified that for math and for ELA for each grade level. And every every teacher has that specific three or four kids. So, now when we talk to them, how we trending, how are those four kids doing? Right? I know the kids are very bottom, they're getting that support, but those kids in that bubble area,

094that's what's going to help us increase our scores and make sure our students get where they need to go. Right? That's the quickest back for like the snowball effect if you're trying to get out of debt. >> All right. um what other trackulation data are we looking at to make sure that our uh proficiency rate is going to be going in the right direction? We're looking at our walkthrough data. And one of the things that I saw here you all there's there's two things that we're looking at at the primary school is classroom discussions because we have found that if they talk to each other that is increasing a lot of the um you know the academic impact but also them just using a form of assessment like a whiteboard when they can so teachers

095go up there and see like y'all just put your hand up right quick. All right. Just put hand right. So if you had a whiteboard and I asked you to math question now I can see how many students have it right have it wrong right and I can quickly assess where they are well those are the form of assessments and so what we've seen is that when we go through the classrooms only about 54% of our teachers are doing that consistently well we were able to try correlate that with proficiency rates now look at that so right so we're hovering around 55% proficiency for our students so we're actively working on trying to increase our teachers utilizing classroom instruction in or formative assessments because if we can get that up now, we correlate that that's

096going to help with academic achievement. Okay, so that's the other thing that we're doing to help to be able to increase that. Another thing that we're doing that is uh new for us that is streamlined is win time and that's what I need. So students every morning from 8:15 to 8:35 for kindergarten and 8:15 to 8:45 first and second grade, they're getting acceleration. We don't believe in remediation anymore. It's all about accelerated learning. So students from the bubble down on top all the way to extreme kids are super bright. They're all getting something specific to them that they need in order to help drive that academic improvement every single day. We were doing it this week. Some some are like we got it's Christmas. I say yes. And you know what? The more structure you

097have, the better you're going to get. So it's important for us to remain consistent. And so even the last week of school, we're giving them that academic support that they need. And again, this is the reason why I think our score is going up because we're more focused on what we're doing. And again, not only our students, but our our staff is getting that support, too, right? When they're here and they're getting that learning. So, pair pros are learning how to do small groups, pair pros are learning how to um do guided reading, pair pros are learning how to do all these things because y'all bless us with all that those folks. We want to give them the training and make sure that they are being that uh support in the classroom when we are

098here. And all of that is just going to helping us grow in our ABCs, making sure that those students are using those database decision makers and making sure that we are driving them to be assessment capable at the end of the year. >> Well, you know, I was listening. I wanted to know what was happening with our bubble kids, whether they were being targeted. I heard that you are assessing everybody. You're making everybody accountable and you're satisfied that you're moving in the right direction. Yes. >> And you still have more to give. >> Yes. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> I was glad you didn't come here with those dip thongs and diraphs. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> What is the um in second grade in the morning for the bubble kids?

099Is that the that's the win? >> Yes. So they're the they're getting anything from 95% or they're getting riding. Some students are getting uh dis acceleration. They're learning a host of things. >> Okay. I can just say I've seen the I personally sorry have seen effects of improvement in my own. >> I want to say win time. We even got subs. We got subs when they come in if they know how to do some small stuff. We got subs coming in during win time too. So we again when the teachers out, we don't want to make that to be a barrier. Even our subs are helping out with doing that. having themselves because they're doing a good job too. So, >> Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Happy holidays. >> Happy

100holiday in advance. I am under the weather, but I really really wanted to be here, so I didn't send anyone from my team. >> Okay. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> Um, so we're going to go ahead and get started. I'm here representing Lake Elementary School. This is my first year as principal. So, as you see before you uh our data for 2025 CPRPI report, you all are already familiar with these numbers, but I just wanted to tell you for our content mastery, we're down five points. For our progress, we're down 16 points. For our closing the gaps, we're down 60 points. And for our readiness, we're down one point. And the reason why I wanted to bring that to your attention because we're working hard to improve our school. Okay. >> Yes. >> Our next

101slide. Equality is the goal and equity is the means of getting there. I felt like this quote really exemplified what we're trying to do at Blake Elementary School and what we should be doing in education as a whole. So our first slide is equality in education. what we're doing at Blakey Elementary School right now. So, in the area of ELA and reading uh as well as mathematics, we're trying to make sure that every single classroom is using the curriculum that was been provided by the district. We're trying to make sure that there's equality in every single classroom in the areas of ELA and mathematics. We're also making sure that students are receiving common assessments. Why is that important? is because we need to see in each classroom, are the students getting the same exact uh

102information and we want to make sure that if teachers are needing support, we're able to provide that support based on those common assessment data. In the area of science and social studies, this is completely new to Blake. We have implemented common assessments. They have never done that before. as well as implementing scale scores. And the reason why we put this in place because fifth grade science is very important to our CCRPI scores. And so we want to make sure that there's consistency across the board as to what we're actually doing in the building. So we're implementing common assessments in science and social studies. We're making sure that those teachers are planning planning effectively and making sure that those assessments are aligned to the standards that those students are receiving because in science and social studies,

103we want to have those same conversations that we're having in ELA and in math. So for all the content areas, we're having more datadriven discussions. We're having conversations about what we're actually seeing in the classrooms in real time. Intentional professional learning communities. So teachers and pair professionals, everyone who touch students, we're making sure that they receive the information so that they can go back and implement and not only implement, but that we're modeling and that we're going to start providing coaching so that we can see that things are more pervasive across the uh school. And lastly, intentional collaboration. um administrators are now a part of the content meetings because we want to hear the discussions that are going on and making sure that we're focused on student achievement. So here is one picture of data

104driven conversation and action. So the entire district has adopted the visible learning practice and so here you see us implementing it here at Blakeley Elementary School. And the reason why we we wanted to um show share this with you is because we're wanting you to see that we're taking the information and we're actually using it so that we can improve our practices in the classroom. We've had two visible learning walks within the building. One was in September, the other one was in November and then our next one is going to be in January. One of my assistant principal likes to say when we go into classrooms, the wall should teach. And so in our professional learning room, we want the exact same thing. So we gave you snapshots of what our professional learning room looks

105like. So we're tracking student supports and that's similar to what Mr. Charles was talking about with attendance. We're tracking um their academic data. We're tracking behavior data. We're tracking what they're doing with um visible learning. All of these things are going on in our professional learning room. So when you enter you can see that the wall is speaking. So we talked about equality. Now equity how are we going to get there? Um we have implemented this new um practice called brewing tracker. And brewing tracker is similar to what Mr. Charles was talking about when time what I need. So we wanted to make sure that every single student at Blake Elementary School receives what he or she needs. Now, I know you're looking at that number and it says 309 and we have over 700

106students. All 700 students are moving in the building between 810 and 8:40 to receive exactly what it is that they need. So, our high achieving students, they're not listed here, but I do want you to know what we're doing with them. We have implemented a reading block, a math block, and a STEM block for them. In fifth grade, we had so many students at the time, we also implemented a writing block. And what we wanted to do with them is for them to spend time with their teacher for an entire week to build those critical thinking skills. We want to make sure that our students are prepared for the rigor and not only just be proficient, but we're trying to increase our distinguished as well. So, we're giving them exactly what it is that they

107need in order for them to build that. So, here what you see before you, we're tracking 172 students in reading, 113 in math, and we are tracking 76 with behavior. Now, that doesn't mean we have 76 kids hanging from the ceiling. What that means is we're looking at all areas of behavior, social, emotional learning. We're looking at their well-being, helping them to uh focus on what it is that they're doing. We're having meetings with parents to ensure that our scholars are getting exactly what it is that they need. So for the area of academics, for the students um that are high achieving students, they may stay with their um growing tracker teacher for one week because that teacher is building those skills, building those critical math skills, building writing because we need it. They're building

108those skills. So they get to stay with that teacher for a week and then they rotate to their next content area. But for our other babies who need more acceleration, we have two to four segments throughout the week. And I'll tell you what we do with that last segment. So we provide for our tier students at the tier 2 level, we have two days uh for reading or math or both depending on what that student needs. Same thing for our tier three, we move from two segments to five segments. So there are some students who are needing five segments of reading and five segments of math. And that's when our interventionists come in. We try to make sure they get all of their segments during that 8:10 to 8:40 time and then we bring in

109our interventionist to help support those students who need more segments. So there's one day left and that's Friday. And so we want to make sure that we cover behavior as well. So we have one day set aside on Fridays where teachers uh allow students to do their social emotional learning module or they reinforce our PBIS expectations. So that's where they're getting that and that is pervasive schoolwide. And then for those students who need more encouragement, we have our counselors who are there to support them. We also have our um our attendance team who focus in on those 30 students and we bring in our speech therapist to bring you. So here's our day of third grade reading. It's already laid out for you, so I'm not going to take up too much of your time,

110but we already knew that third grade reading was going to be the area of focus for us. So um we did a little bit of shifting in third grade and based on this data we're going to do some more things second semester. So um for reading third grade our distinguished decreased proficient decreased developing decreased we need some help. So, we're going to look at some things um in reference to what students are receiving during that learning tracker time, those two to four segments, and how is that correlating in the in the classroom, third grade math, they're much better at math. So we've increased in uh distinguished, we've increased in proficient, we've increased in developing, and as you can tell, our beginning learner has decreased in the area of math of third grade. Fourth grade, we're

111doing okay. Um, our distinguish decreased, but our proficient increased. So we know where those students went. >> We just have to work on getting them back to distinguish. developing increase which also means fourth grade reading the beginning learner decrease. Fourth grade math we also had a decrease in distinguish increase in proficient. So we know where those students are developing increase and beginning learner decrease. Fifth grade, we had an increase in fifth grade reading and distinguished, a decrease in proficient. That's a great thing. We know where those students went. Developing increase and beginning learner decrease. And fifth grade math, we had a decrease in distinguish, but an increase in proficient. We had an increase in developing and a decrease in beginning. So we know exactly where those students are. So to tell you some other things

112that we're doing at Blakey Elementary School, we have increased our social media presence, not because we want a pat on the back, but because we want to bridge the gap between home and school. So we want to be more transparent with our families and put the information out there so that they can get it in real time. [clears throat] What you see before you, the first two uh posts are instructional practices that we call teachers doing in the classroom. The reason why we like to um post teachers or post students in teachers classrooms is because we want our teachers to build that collective teacher efficacy and understand that if this teacher can do it, then I can do it as well. So, we're trying to increase our teacher and build their capacity as they're learning

113how to work together. And the very last post you will see is me. Um, we have implemented Get to Scoop with Dr. Luke. We're doing them quarterly. Second semester, we're looking at taking Get to Scoop with Dr. Luke into the community instead of asking them to come into the building. >> I attended the first one. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And it was well done. It was very warm and and the parents were receptive and Jamie was there with her little babies and u it was it was enjoyable while I was there. Couldn't make it the second one but yes ma'am again trying to improve our commun communication with all stakeholders. We have implemented what's brewing weekly that is for Blake Elementary exclusively and then what's brewing weekly for parents. So there's a week and a

114glance for on both newsletters. There's a week at a glance on both newsletters and they pretty much mirror each other. And the reason being is because staff said that there were too many emails going out. That's fine. So we give them everything they need Sunday at 6:00. There's an email that goes out to the entire staff Sunday at 6 o'clock p.m. And then there's a parent square message that goes out to parents at 6 o'clock on Sunday every single week. >> It's religious. >> And you see the active use of parents where we're trying to shift the mindset of um our people here at Blakeley Elementary School because they're used to using class dojo or any other means of communicating with parents. But the district is really uh focused on parent parent square and that's

115the way that we want all of our educators to uh follow. We want them to use parent square. So second semester our um hopes will be we're going to diminish any other platform. We're going strictly to parent square garnering feedback from community stakeholders. We've had parent surveys given out to parents. We've done surveys in the building with staff just trying to make sure that we are providing exactly what it is that they need in order for us to move our students forward. Um we are and this is part of our next steps creating and administering a mock student survey. Um they receive a survey every year from the state department but we want to make sure that the students are well aware of what that survey is going to look like. Not that we're coaching

116them but our students are still young. So getting them to understand exactly what it is that the state is looking for and have those open conversations with them. >> We're all students. I stand before you as Dr. Mia Luke. However, I'm still a student. I feel as if once we think that we have arrived, we have hit a plateau and it makes it difficult for us to move forward. So we t we have Dr. Law who is our core wind consultant. I sit in there with the teachers as they are learning because as they are learning I'm not thinking at the classroom level. I'm thinking at the school level. How are we going to make this pervasive in each and every classroom? How are we going to make this in a where it gets down

117to the student level so that we can improve our student achievement? We're also um bringing in our MTSS interventionist. We're bringing in our activity teachers. We're bringing in our um media specialists. Dr. law is going to touch everybody because we're all >> and we're all in this together. So in addition to us coming together as teachers and and interventionists, we also are providing the same professional learning for our pair professionals. They're sitting in those classrooms. We don't need them to sit in the classrooms. We need them to be touching students as well. we need them to help us um increase our student achievement. So while Dr. Law is not able to give them the same session that we're receiving, I have an assistant principal who has worked with Dr. Law um for a year or

118so, she will take the information and she gives it to the pe professional so everybody is speaking the same language. Developing future leaders. I am born and raised right here. I'm a product of the district. I believe in the system. I taught here for 12 years and now I stand before you as a principal. So, it works. And so, in an effort to move student achievement, we're also developing teacher leaders before you. You see three of our teacher leaders. We're trying to build capacity in the classrooms because it's not just going to be able to come from the administrators. They are more receptive from their peers. Next steps for blatant, we're adjusting our student placement with Ruin Tracker you see here in the picture. That is exactly what they're doing. They're looking at data. Um,

119this occurred on Friday. This picture was taken on Friday. And I don't know if you can see clearly, but Miss Richardson is holding a let's party sign in her hand because on tomorrow all the students who move bands when we were talking about distinguished, proficient, developing, and beginning, they're partying tomorrow because we want them to know that we see you and your hard work, it has not gone unnoticed. So that's what they're doing. They're looking at the student data and they're writing notes to the students because that that's going to be their pass to the party. We're creating time and setting expectations for intentional planning. I think my staff, they're tired of hearing intentional from me, but everything that we're going to do at Blakeley is going to be intentional. We are building upon an

120assessment plan. This is new. While the district already has a plan, we want to see what that plan is going to look like for black. We're incorporating a true math intervention. So, teachers have been teaching um during brewing tracker what they feel like their students need, but we have to close the gap with those basic skills. We have students in the building who are still struggling with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. So, we're going to be targeting those areas with a more specific intervention. I've already stated we're creating a mock survey launch connecting with careers. So during this presentation you heard me talk about all stakeholders except community members. And so at Blakeley that is something that we want to add on. Yes, we have a career fair but we want to start peing students

121interest at an early age so that they will be prepared when they go to the middle school with those CTA classes. And lastly, bees expectations for instruction with teachers and staff. They're going to be our target group. Great job. >> I heard it all. I see where your leadership is impacting the students, the teachers, all those that are involved. You're satisfied with what you're doing, aren't you? >> When I see the numbers change, [laughter] >> I will be. >> You got a plan. You're working on it. >> You're working on the babies who have not met yet where they need to be. You're making sure that everybody's being accounted. Thank you very much. [clears throat] >> We heard three great reports. >> Yes, great reports where all principles seem to be leading new >> and

122they're so well spoken that Yes, very much so. That matters. >> All righty. Where are we now? >> Okay. always. M that's full. Okay. At this time, we're going to um move into our executive session and then we'll come back out. Um do I have a motion? >> I move to start to discuss. We're going to discuss personnel and um >> whatever we need to discuss then we'll come back down. >> We have a motion. >> Yes. I move. >> Okay. Second. >> A second. >> I think we're ready. Let's move. >> Thank you. Merry Christmas. Enjoy and be safe. Merry Christmas everybody.