001We're ready. >> Uh we will now call this meeting to order at 12:32 p.m. We will start with a roll call for the record. Uh I am Vice Chair Hanzut and I am present. When I call your name, please indicate if you are present. Uh chair Dr. Sultan. Uh chair Dr. Hton is not present. Uh, board member Anderson is not present. Board member H. Hearnden, >> present. >> Uh, and board member Johnson Davis, >> present. >> Thank you. The first item on the agenda is executive session. Do I have a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing land, legal, and personnel matters? >> So move. Uh, board member uh, Johnson Davis makes a motion. Do I have a second? I'll >> second. Board member H. Hearnden seconds the motion. Any discussion?
002All those in favor? >> I. >> The motion carries unanimously. All right. Do I have a motion to exit executive session for the purpose purpose of discussing land, legal, and personnel matters where no votes were taken? >> Move. >> Board member Anderson makes the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Board member seconds a motion. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor? I votes I. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. We will now call this prework session to order at 2:36 p.m. Thank you for joining us today for our board of education pre-work session. Our board meeting cadence allows board members to prepare for upcoming regular meetings through pre-work session. These sessions are typically more casual and are primarily information gathering. No formal votes will be taken. We will will
003begin our pre-work session with our book study, modernday strategies for community engagement. How to effectively build bridges between lines. Okay, let's see. Each year the school board selects a book that will assist us in living out the duties and responsibilities of our school board governors. Today by chapter two, why bother doing community engagement? >> Is that my cube? Okay. Um, so, uh, I have to admit that as I read this book, um, I'm reading it with the community conversation around the ECLC in mind, right? That's just sort of the most immediate major piece of community engagement that that, uh, that we have in front of us and that we've been dealing with and that we've been getting feedback on how we could do better, frankly. Um, and so that that's kind of the construct of
004how I've thought through it as I'm reading the book. And and as we move down the line and each person engages, I do want to just go ahead and use the questions that were in the book. Right? So question one was, do you have a business case for community engagement? In that context, let's talk about it visa v ECLC. And then the second one was will or could save us time, money and or misunderstandings. Uh again preferentially visa v the ECLC but if you have other perspectives also throw those in there. Um was basically a two sentence single paragraph chapter. So there's not an enormous amount of of meat in this chapter. What I did want to uh engage on, I I think it does make a very strong case for why um doing community
005engagement. One of the things I'm interested in seeing throughout the rest of this book is I think we have to be careful to not make the assumption that community engagement means everyone will be brought along. she she leans a little bit into that as if as if these particular case examples that she uses >> uh brought the communities along that I actually I was involved in both of these um both the Pittsburgh uh conversation which she uses in this chapter and the Proctor Creek conversation that she used in the previous chapter and and one of the really important things to keep in mind was while those engagements were really critical to involve the community by no means at the end of the day was everyone happy. Um and I and I think we have to
006make sure that we're aware that community engagement does not mean unanimous consent on behalf of the community. There are going to be times that you engage members of the community where they're simply not going to come along. I mean a great example in our current experience with the ECLC uh I think this lesson there is still a contingent of individuals in the community that really want the space at Trinity to just be park there isn't a community engagement that is going to move those individuals to being in support of the school and that's okay the sense is okay but it it's not our role nor should it be our objective to explain it in such a way that we change all of their minds. All we can do is put the information out there and
007provide the opportunity for feedback. Um, in this case, uh, so a little bit of detail, a little bit of color on the case study in the Pittsburgh community here. The the real conflict that that happened in hindsight, it's it's kind of frustrating that it happened this way, but um, generally the art community that was supporting a lot of this and funding a lot of this had the index towards no censorship of the artist. The artist gets to do whatever the art um we create these opportunities to beautify communities through art and and we allow the artists to express themselves. And in this case, the mural really was I mean to sort of objectively speaking, I can very much understand why a a preacher or a pastor walking by that mural every day would be frustrated
008that you had a snake eating a person, a serpent eating a person in the middle of the community. I fully understand it, right? And so post facto because this got painted uh before any conversation happened with the community. We had to have this conversation and and the community was fairly unanimous around we would prefer not to have a serpent eating a human across the street from a church. Feels a little bit on the nose. Um but the the art donors were very much of the perspective of it's censorship if you take it that. Um and so that was actually a pretty raw conflict that happened between ultimately it went the community's way as one would expect it to. But um that that is an example where there wasn't a community engagement that was going to
009arrive at an answer that everybody loved. It it really was fairly binary. One group lost, one group won. You had to do the engagement to actually arrive at what was best for the community that lived with that piece of art. So with this perspective, I I think maybe we just go down the line or if we want to start with board member Anderson and talk about a couple of the questions that were in the book. >> Sure. So um like you I've been I'm gonna take this off. I'm not I'm not spreading anything. Thank you. Sorry. Um at least I hope not. Well, I mean I only know as much as say so sorry but um anyway here I am and excuse me for the distraction. So like I have also been reading these with
010a specific focus on the ECLC um if nothing else practically speaking our last community meeting and then the upcoming one on Monday. And I think I I agree h that um we are never going to necessarily satisfy everyone and logically we can but I do think that we can do things so that we do cultivate that goodwill. I think there's a mention in the book about the absence of goodwill when people aren't included. And so take the park space as just one example. I read through all the emails I could find because some people would email us with ECLC in the subject heading and in other cases people would email questions or concerns with a different subject matter and I tallied about 39 and I I saw one that specifically said the process that we
011used didn't allow us to give input and then I looked at our past participation so were the business case. I don't know what else we can do specific to the ECLC, but we still have the ECLC as one part of this bigger plan. And so, you know, one of the things I noticed is that the majority of participants for the August 21st tax session as well as the September 11th one of 2024 was largely CSV employees. And so I'd like to see, and maybe it's because I'm used to having to sell things, you know, as as a teacher, um, not everything that we're going to do in the classroom is necessarily something that students want to do, but there can be an appreciation of why we need to do this. And so I still feel
012strongly that we have an opportunity to not just let people speak but let people know that we have entertained these questions and here's the kind of robust information we can give you. So you are satisfied that we are considering X Y and Z. Um, and one thing I'm encouraged that we're now doing, I believe is a new, um, am I allowed to speak about this? The form that I believe the community is going to get in responding. Um, am I allowed to talk about it? I guess it's a little late for me to do it, but >> So, there are two things here. At the end of the day, as someone who um has spent almost three decades in education and spent about two decades going to board meetings, >> it's nice to know that
013I have a forum to speak, but it's more important for me to know that the um logical decisions are being made, not just the feeling ones, and that I can get clear information when I do that. So, in the year and eight months that I've been on the board, I think we've done six community meetings. And I love hearing from people. But I would love for us to also have a way to synthesize that information as a collective body versus each of us listens and then remembers what we heard and then moves with that memory of what we heard. And I believe one thing we're now getting to use at some point is this kind of database form where community members are able to submit questions, concerns, etc. >> Yes, that form is already on
014assembly um and board members have access to the dashboard to look at the information. So, >> okay. And then um the other thing I put here will community engagement save you time, money and misunderstanding. I think so on the mechanism district uses and have to use regarding the funding with TSA would be one example. Um so I think that can um save us time and misunderstandings. Thank you. Sure. member heard me I I don't know I think that people u feel like they have that engagement if something happens they disagree with think if you were to like measure good engagement my reading of this is the mural has to exist for there to be discussion about the engagement um We know those who have been on the board that postcoid was the largest turnover of
015superintendent in the state spiked >> massively. CO didn't make superintendent bad. It just made people really care about whether the schools were going to be open to take care of their kids. Um, and I bet that the engagement awards go to those communities that a lot of people the ECLC is not a controversy. I mean, I shared with some of you that that I was at a had a public gathering that was that was very social was approached by my count stopped at 50 like, hey, do we need to show up to say we support the ECLC? Do we need to show up and and like this? Do we need to? And I'm like, well, I mean, you should do what you want to. want you to be engaged, like they're not interested in being
016engaged because they don't feel like there's anything to fight. >> And I don't know what to do with that information. Um, it it's a really interesting observation, J, or board member H. Hearnden. Um, because it's 100% correct that the amount of engagement that the mural in Pittsburgh would have gotten prior to it being painted could be measured in single digits, right? like people would not have shown up or really cared. >> Yeah. >> They happened to paint what I think is probably the harshest thing you can legally paint across the street from a church. And so yeah, the community got very engaged immediately after that. And so it is it is I mean I I even referenced this in the last uh community meeting that that it wasn't until and this was always going to
017be the case. It wasn't until we started talking about the capital and we started talking about the bonds and we started talking about the money that we got true engagement. Had we tried to do robust community engagement a year and a half ago, I don't think we would have gotten the people to show up on the ECLC to really talk about it. Um and and so it is a it's a really good point that you made like like there is a little bit of work that has to be done before the community is even productively able to engage. >> Can I follow up to that because I was thinking of the city charter and when I found out that we have a board member on that I went to the city's website and I noticed
018they were doing like a civic application. So besides the important entities in the city, the city was putting it out there for anyone who lives in the city to apply. And so I definitely appreciate the fact that money is always going to get people's attention. But I also think that we could engage sometimes in just that way too as opposed to saying, "Well, I think it's going to be that or it won't be that." So, I can see the money point, but you know, in hindsight, I wonder if we had put more out there and, you know, maybe we could say definitively, see, people weren't engaged until they found out about the money. >> Well, that that that was the the path process, right? I mean, and and as imperfect or whatever criticisms you may
019have of it, that was an effort to try to identify people in the community that could engage. And I should also point out the charter, it's still 60 or more percent of the people in that room are actually appointed as opposed to volunteer. >> My guess is, now I hope this isn't going to be the case, but if changes happen to the charter that end up being quite controversial, we're going to get 10x the amount of people in the community to engage than we currently have engaged, right? And that's kind of that again, that's just a little bit of the way. And it's not a criticism of the public. like you pay attention to the things that impact you and you don't know it impacts you until you're talking about money or until you're talking
020about something that changes for you. So, um I I think that's kind of the challenge that I am hoping uh she engages with a little bit later in the book is how do you effectively we're struggling with how do you uh drum up community support for something that the community is not yet worried about. I mean, that's why no one shows up and is like, I'm really happy with the outcome, but god, I hate the pack that we used to get here. I'd like to protest that. I feel like a lot of people >> really when they're 100% and they're just like, I just didn't like the democratic process that got here. >> Unlikely. >> No, no, no one's showing up. And that I mean, and that's how we like we do need I'm not
021saying we shouldn't be aware of it. I I think the good the only good part about these four paragraphs is like you should should ask yourself why you engage. And I think you engage in good faith. Do what you can. Make sure you're making the right decisions and and respond um when things do bubble, but you can't let the response distract you from the good work that you're doing distract you from the agenda that you have. It's why it's important for a school board to have things like the like the calendar, like, you know, hey, we're going to talk about uh we're going to talk about capital this month. we're going to talk about planning and we have to have those conversations because if we don't then four months I mean the one parent we
022talked about in public meeting it was like well we talked about the the vehicle fleet for 25 minutes at a meeting where ECLC was on the count that was us being responsive to what the community wanted us to be engaged in and the real answer was if the legal requirement of the leases were up so they renewed it didn't even require a board next issue let's move on but then people would have been very upset if we had said it that way there's a reason I don't speak and tell people because that's what's on my mind. I also want them to be heard. Um so I struggle >> question. >> Um I think I'm going to take the second question first which is how to uh will community engagement save misunderstandings and I think yes.
023I think maybe some of what we need to improve upon is level setting expectations with community members. Um, I think you can take feedback to a point, but maybe with large communities or even smaller communities, community engagement or engagement doesn't always mean that leaders are looking for a different or an alternative pathway. Um, I think another example completely unrelated to the ECLC, I can remember being a part of the a group of stakeholders that uh were involved with the planning of the new children's hospital. Um, now am I the CFO of the hospital? Am I the CMO of the hospital? Absolutely not. Um, but I am one of the physician leaders, but they were very clear about where I had input and where I had none. Um, there were points in time where they're where
024they engaged me and points in time where my emails did not get returned. >> Um, but I didn't I had that expectation upfront. They were very clear about when decisions got made and they were telling physicians, nurses, other leaders to warm them up to an idea and move them along. And then there were points in time where um the decisions were made to hire leaders. Um I think maybe that's where in our quest to build relationships with the broader community. Um maybe at some point we're we may getting feedback overload and then at that point in time the expectation is such that everybody's feedback feedback is going to be taken and the decision is going to be changed and that you would you would have no decision would get made if you took everybody's opinion
025into consideration. That's part of our job is to um make decisions and sometimes like you said at the beginning you're going to take everybody with some people with you and some people you simply will not. Um I think with I think that's some of where I think we can improve going forward with community engagement here is that I think we need to be clear about where we're we are at an impact decision points or we're looking for community feedback. We're here to clear up misunderstandings, clear up misperceptions. Um, and but we as a governing body have made a decision. Um, but we're not looking to have our minds changed. Um, and sometimes a decision may not be one that you agree with. Um, or it may be uncomfortable, but that is what we've done in
026a position of leadership. Otherwise, you'll get bombarded with opinions. And you also can only take feedback at certain points in the decision-making process. you cannot take them every five minutes. Um otherwise you'll get nothing done. Um and I also think um you know I was thinking with you know a lot of the emails that I get it also goes the other way. I think there are some points with some community members who are expecting feedback from us. Um they want data polls they want um you know information about this that and the third. you can name it. And they want it by a particular point in time. And we kind of set the expectation that people have access to higher level leaders at every point in time. And I personally think that's unreasonable. Um I
027can't pick up the phone and call Donna Highland and expect her to call me back. I have to go through administrative assistant and even then it may be a stretch. Um there's some pathways. Um, I wonder if some of these things could go through resolved CSD, like some of some folks who want extensive um, numbers. They want a lot of I feel like they a lot of this falls on the finance team. Um, they want a lot of numbers about the budget. Um, a lot of things that take Dr. Broom's time, but her job is to run an organization. It's to make sure folks get paid, bills get paid. I mean, while I feel like these concerns are valid, I think maybe our expectation should be that things get done in a timely fashion, but
028not that people stop what they're doing to answer emails, you know, but I think if we don't set that expectation, this is reasonable, we want to engage, we hear you, but this is the cap, this is what we're capable of, then that creates misunderstanding and that creates lack of trust and lack of people think that we we don't we're not listening. But I think maybe we need to do better of saying of setting boundaries and saying this is what we can do, this is what we can't, this is what we won't, and we're this is reasonable. Well, um I've seen this community over the past two years and two months around engagement and 30 emails truly the other issue not a lot. So to um board member H Hearnden's uh point of yes, there is
029engagement, but 30 emails when we know that we have 5,500 children currently enrolled. It's a lot of work and it takes away from all the other things. I say all the other things because the early new early childhood learning center is one initiative on the strategic plan where there are 16 listed where student success in all areas by this board's feedback was put to number one. And so I just want us to remember that community engagement draws all of our energy to engage. But at the same time, the number one purpose of the school system is to educate children. That's our number one purpose. That is our north star. That is keeping the main thing the main thing. And so when are happening, it's drawing away from that so that we can ultimately do that
030even better. >> Um I I I do want I mean I I I will say this that that all of the things in the strategic plan are not equal, right? I mean like so so I do understand why the community engages particularly hard on something that is you know tens of millions of dollars versus something that isn't right so I do understand that this is a thing that the community was always going to engage in this way on but but that I mean the the other points are are well taken I mean it is that it isn't as if we're facing a massive communitywide absolute resistance to doing this. There's a small number of people that still have accident questions that we just need to continue to engage on. Dr. Johnson, >> well, I would
031push back this a little bit on all of the things on the strategic >> I mean in a capital way. I'm sorry. I should be authentic about that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're all they're all extraordinarily important. Not all of them are going to be $70 million, >> right? But and I don't but I don't think that they have to be to for the community to engage in a certain level. >> And so to Dr. Whitaker's point, these are things that we did engage the community on in terms of our strategic plan. I I thought well >> and that would be my fit in this case that you know the the creation of the strategic plan and that that path that we took to finalize that. Um and so you know I would encourage the
032community to be engaged on all of those things. >> The other thing is I um I agree with um Dr. Bulkan's um comment about managing uh community expectations in terms of when we say input and feedback, we really need to be careful about how we use that language. And one of the things that stood out to me on page 21 is um the author said the private and public sector don't just activate community engagement because it's the morally right thing to do. They choose this communication methodology. um because it's most straightforward way to ensure the success of a project. And so that communication methodology that language stood out to me because communication can can take on different forms and look different ways and it doesn't just have to be the solicitation of input or feedback.
033It could be to inform. And so that was something that just stood out to me that there are different ways Um the other thing that stood out to me was she used um the term culturally competent. >> Yeah. >> And I thought that that's important. And you know, particularly if you are trying to do something in a specific community, you're trying to address specific needs that there needs to be a level of cultural competency. And so I think that moving forward that's something that we should you know keep at the forefront of our minds as we are saying that we want to you know help close the achievement gra gap and we are you know putting this physically um to help give access to uh members of our community that we you know keep that
034in mind too and and ask ourselves what does that mean for us um as we continue with this Um, you know, I was I was just thinking about like the social contracts and like um you know, we like there's kind of a mutual owing I guess of like um the community has given us like their money and um responsibility of their children and that that there's an a moral imperative there, but there's also um a faith and a trust and that um like to Dr. Fton's point like we need to remind them of that faith and trust like hey we're operating with y'all in mind and it's important to keep reminding them of how what we're doing will achieve that. Um I also think um yeah y'all are taking this these lessons for the ECLC.
035um but and I are working on is engaging with um our student stakeholders and people in the district and we're we're trying to find creative ways to get them engaged because we know um probably young people are the hardest to engage right now. Um and so we're also thinking of ways like how can um kids are reactionary, how can we build like that investment beforehand so that we're actually like accurately representing them. That's where >> adults are pretty reactionary too. I just especially about money and children. >> Uh well, so that was it. Thank you very much. Oh my understand her hand up. >> Yeah, I think um I think what I've heard Dr. Sultan and um feel like I've heard this twice. I wonder if we can do a better job of communicating not
036just the topic of the community engagement meeting because they are different from the board meetings of public comment uh but also the function right so if we are my recollection of the March community meeting at faith was like hey we've got budget decisions to make and we need to know what your priorities are right which can be different from the community meeting that we had at okers where it um and I love that one because it seemed to be hey we're going to allow more time just for you to ask whatever you want right whether it's about books versus online or how you know schools are paying for things whatever and so I think sometimes we can clear up some of that if we're letting people know ahead of time not just the topic but
037where we are in the I'm thinking of the public comment feedback we've got as well um what's going on decisionmaking wise So this is more to give you information and find out what other information you want that is appropriate and possible to share versus this is what we need from you to actually do that. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you vice chair US. Next month I will facilitate chapter three which is titled with whom do you engage? Dr. Whitaker please introduce the next item. >> Thank you chair Sultan. I would like to call on Mrs. Amanda Lynch, chief of staff, to gather your input on future policy development for the use of electronic devices by students in light of new legislation and facility use policies in response to board requests. >>
038Good afternoon board chair Dr. Silton, vice chair, esteemed members of the board, student vice president, and superintendent Dr. Whitaker. Today I will facilitate a discussion with you regarding two different policy topics. First, we will discuss the development of policy JCAF, use of electronic devices by students. And second, we will identify content for inclusion in F, facilities expansion program policies. Continuing the conversation from last month's board retreat on policy priorities. We will start with policy JCD, use of electronic devices by students. Let me provide some context as to why we are introducing this policy for discussion. Now, JCDAF must be developed to meet the requirements of House Bill 340, also knownation act. This legislation requires local boards of education to adopt a policy that prohibits bell-to-bell access to personal electronic devices for students in grades K
039through 8. A policy is required to be in place by January 1st, 2026 and must go into effect by July 1st, 2020. While this legislative restriction for personal electronic devices applies only to grades K through 8, we already have some experience with limiting cell phone use here in CSC with our high school students. Decatur High School introduced a cell phone protocol implemented in the 2425 school year ahead of any state requirements. At DHS, there's not a bell-to-bell restriction. Instead, teachers collect cell phones at each class period, and students are allowed to use their devices between classes and during lunch. Overall, the implementation of the procedures at DHS has been successful, and the experiences and data from DHS can help inform the regulations and our procedures at our elementary schools and our middle school once policy
040JCDAF has been adopted. For example, you can see here some of the data from a DHS teacher survey administered twice last school year in September and in February. Teachers overwhelmingly reported a positive academic impact and students being more attentive in class. Qualitative data included observations that students are more collaborative and engaged. The data also shows a need for consistent enforcement throughout the school year and identified some opportunities to address other distractions. In this case, smartwatches, headphones, and even school issued devices. DHS students were also surveying. When compared to teachers, a smaller percentage of student respondents reported being more focused, more engaged, or less distracted in class. But importantly, some students did. Qualitative data were mixed with some students requesting access to their phone, give me back my phone, but others indicating that they felt relief
041at being forced off their phones during class. Administrators also monitored implementation of the protocols, recording a 97% compliance rate for teachers during their fall 2024 checkpoint. Instructional leaders also observed stronger instructional time and less disruption in class. The school reported 21 split referrals, 12 cell phone bands, and four students assigned to ISS in the first semester of implementation. While the data I just shared is specific to the high schools, it does provide some local context for today's discussion in developing the mandated policy for prohibiting bell-to-bell access to personal electronic devices in K in grades K through 8. Each of you has received a sample policy JCD produced by the Georgia School Boards Association or GSBA. It is in that folder at your seat. It is also attached to this agenda item in assembly. It provides
042a starting point for our discussion as we consider what you would like to see included in the CSC policy. On the screen, you will see some prompts that I hope will be helpful as I invite discussion and direction about what the board would like to see as we draft policy JCBA. Specifically, this might include what you like or what you might question about the GSBA sample policy. It also provides some areas that you may or may not want to address in policy such as electronic device use during off-site events, athletics, or while on the bus. Staff will use your feedback to inform a draft policy for first read next month. So, at this time, I welcome your discussion and direction for drafting policy JCDAF for city schools indicators. I think the first concern I have
043is um second paragraph while on school premises. That's just speaking as someone who has um seen it in the classroom and then as a parent. I just don't know how that's going to be um enforced. So my understanding from the high school is that it seems like this kind of approachable policy where the promotion is not on cell phones during class but students may have them on their person in between classes whereas if it's not on the premises at all then I mean every day it's like hey so and so. So a couple of things, one is the law for K8 prohibits access to those during the school day. So it is a belt >> different unless we decided to incorporate 912 into the policy as well. So it pro the law itself prohibits access
044to the devices. It doesn't mean it can't be on that access. It does say it's not permitted to access those personal electronic devices. >> So I mean I'm just putting it out there. I mean, it sounds like parents need to be as informed of this as the students because having the students not have it and their parents texting them is going to largely create more correct. So once the policy is adopted and that's part of you know it has to be in place by July then of course as or by January those J months. So then we also um of course will work on the regulation on the house side working with the schools um or regulation to determine exactly what it looks like to prohibit that access. >> So I'm sorry I think I
045misunderstood. >> I thought this was what GSBA crafted based on the law. It >> I realized that the law was effectively saying no cell phone from beginning of school day till end of school day. >> It is. And so that's why this sentence in GSBA says students in grades K through eight are not permitted to access you know while on the school premises during school hours because that's exactly what the law says. Yeah, it can be confusing. >> Whitaker have thoughts about um how the last sentence of the second paragraph any student found in violation of this policy andor its procedures during the school day shall be subject to progressive discipline consequences as outlined in the student code of conduct. So in the code of conduct to support this or will have to be modified.
046My thought is a third grader that gets caught with phone in hand and and I don't I don't want this to increase our discipline infractions or this to be used as some method to overly discipline children. >> Yeah, we will have to ensure the language is in there. Some of it is already in our code of conduct, but it's only more so thinking about it in the high school perspective, but we need to make sure that it's in place. K8 at the for the for the law. So the first step is the policy by January. Then once we have firm what your policy is, we will then have the regulation. and we will ensure the code of conduct that lines and then all of that is in preparation for the new school year next year.
047>> And I guess I guess maybe to follow that up I think because we're talking about K to8 kids. I think K to8 I'm thinking okay these are first graders second graders progressive discipline consequences I don't know how that language sits with me. I think it should be enough that maybe it falls back on, you know, any student found in violation, uh, will be subject to the code of conduct and then maybe that leaves it on us to modify the code of conduct. Um, you know, otherwise I I I I don't know if I like the language in there that, you know, per chance a third grader who gets caught with a phone once, level one violation, caught twice, level two, and we're accelerating up and it's it's a phone violation. I I it it's
048in there now. So progressive discipline is terminology that is I will say traditional in education. So it's it's in there now. Um, typically our first, second, third graders aren't on their phones, but we do have third graders that walk to school and their parents want to know once they have arrived. And there is so that's why the how of this is going to be so important for our local context and community. Um, you know, we were talking specifically about the middle school Well, they come in some doors, but they experience the whole school day and then they leave out of different doors. So, what does that look like? There are a lot of hows that we need to work on once we establish the what, but that progressive discipline is really just the language that
049you use. >> I I would say that I I certainly wouldn't support us being stricter than the law. I mean, this is already it feels pretty pretty pretty strict. >> Um, I actually think what's been at the high school has worked pretty well for the high school. Uh, and so I mean, I know they're exempted from the law, but I I >> You're comfortable our policy being K8 right now? >> Yes. And the one thing that I would say when we start thinking about regulation to the extent that it is different at different school bands, it needs to be consistent across that school band. So it I what we I don't think we want Glenwood to be different from Winona Park to be different from Oakhurst. Like all K2 should operate the same way. Maybe
050at 35 we have different ways of managing it, but both Tally and Fave should be the same way, right? Like I think that that's pretty important and and and to the extent that we allow more flexibility as the students age, I think that's a reasonable thing to consider in the regulation. I would be loathed to put that level of detail into the policy and bind your hands that much. I think that that that leaving more or less leaving it as written because it comports to the law and then allowing the nuance to be done at the the regulation level is the right way to >> Okay. I had a question about the um I well I know you posed to us a question about should we address you know um extracurricular activities and trips like
051that. So is bail to bail does that consider if youth go on a field trip during a school day is that considered within the bail to bail. So there isility there the way this is written. So as I worked with legal I said you know obviously there are pretty strict requirements we have to prohibit it bellto bell we don't get any flexibility where are the places for the board to make flexible decisions and these were some of the areas that the law um didn't didn't prescribe necessarily so um during so I think even in here there's a sentence about like um yeah school activities such as trips athletic events extracurricular activities may be used in accordance with the appropriate use guidelines so again um kind of what you just described is is let's let that
052happen more at the kind of regulation and implementation level there. Did that answer your question though? >> Um well I guess then we don't need that this has already been addressed then I guess in terms of those three bullet points you know would we like to address in policy access and within we're just going to leave it at the local level. The question would be we more broad in the policy and then we address it more through the implementation the regulation. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because I can I can see a couple of scenarios where it's going to be very situation dependent. You know a field trip that comes back to the school maybe they can get to their devices at the school but a field trip that ends after the school is done. You
053added a significant amount of complexity and trying to get them back into this. I just I don't know that I would want to specify at this level that >> will students be able to have their phones at Tai Island. >> Yeah, exactly. >> That's why field trip that field trip piece is listed. I was thinking overnight field trips as well. Uh if your child is away from you overnight, um and they're in, you know, 3 through five, I you know, >> I would kind of want >> to say good night to >> you really don't. But >> yeah, maybe I'm just repeating what people have said. I don't see why we'd want to put that stuff in policy. um you know, my daughter plays middle school sports and hey mom, did you fill out the
054form so that I can drive back with you to a field trip is coming in late because of the bus. And I think also the recognition that so many of our students are growing up in situations in which the cell phone there is no landline. Um so yeah, I would not want to see that stuff specified in policy because I think there are valid reasons why kids need to have a phone. So, it sounds like we're fairly comfortable with kind of the language that GSDA put out, keeping it a little bit more broad. Um, so we will tweak that just a little bit and bring it to you for first read next month. Um, and go from there. Maybe go ahead. >> Maybe this is silly, but you know, I'm thinking it's like when we
055have a fire drill at school, they give a specified number of feet and I'm always like, "Do you know where it is?" They're like, "No." And then, you know, I show them like, "Hey, there's a football field. Look what we're doing." So perhaps this is more regulation or just information. I think it might be helpful given the fact that I would be one of those parents who's like I need you to text me and let me know you're that we let kids know where that line is of school premises if they do need to then text because hey I got the school okay I don't know if that matters but >> yeah I think I think it prohibits the belltoell access and what I'm hearing from the board is to prohibit it there. So like
056if I'm first getting to campus, hey, walk it in now and then I'm turning it in with, you know, kind of that regulation. >> Do we want to just codify in policy that 9 to 12 also is prohibited in a slightly different way than this? But that it is >> Yeah. But we are right. Like it is prohibited >> right now. Um it's not legally prohibited right now. DHS has protocols and procedures in place. >> No, no, no. I mean we we our policy as a school system whether or not it's been codified in policy our policy as a school system is that there yeah it's not anonymous policy I would think >> we don't have a policy but we are not allowing high schoolers to have access to their devices in the classroom >>
057practice at the school that they rolled out beginning last year it was more we called it a procedure or a protocol or practice. It is not codified in policy at all. >> Understood. And so that's the question that I'm asking. I would not recommend that 9 to 12 be as limited as it's stated here. I I would basically say if we put it in policy, we would say the high school whatever they get to do what they're currently doing. I don't know. I'm more or less asking this for the board. If the will of the board is then we don't mess with it. But >> I don't think we mess with it. I think based on that feedback it seems to be working. So I say leave 9 through 12 the way we have it
058and just address a law and cited K through eight >> because what's the I'm just asking what's the risk in >> I think you what I see as a teacher is we say one thing and then another thing happens and so the reality is as much as as a teacher I don't want those phones out because they're distracting and I don't want my daughter being distracted. The reality is whether you're communicating with college coaches, whether you're trying to arrange a doctor's appointment, students do need their phones for certain things. And so I think not creating another situation where staff now are drawn from instructional time to be overseeing the cell phone in a policy that limits it. It's just not needed. The the flip side of this is what we don't want is a a
059new principal at the high school to throw it out and just say, "Hey, we're not going to do it." Right? Like what we do like that that and so my suggestion is not to create a change in a policy that forces an alteration to the way the high school currently does it. >> So I I want to um share with you. So on August the 14th, I went to a critical issues forum at Henry with the cell cell phones and teams exploring policies and practices in Georgia. The legislator who drafted this initial legislation that pushed it through and it is now law was there. He spoke on a panel. A lot of what he talked about was whether or not this would come back again this year to address 9 through 12. So it's been
060a big topic of conversation in Georgia of yes, we have K8, but there is still conversation on whether or not 912 went in and if 912 would have gone into this legislation, would it have passed so easily? in this session because when you bring in 912, you bring in a a different developmental child that you are beginning to share, like you said, learn how to make your own doctor's appointments and do all of those. You're trying to help them become more independent. And so I will say based upon that conversation and that panel and the subsequent panels I think this will be a topic of the legislative session for this year again. So my thoughts is move forward right now with what we must do because what I want would not want us to try
061to do is to anticipate what is going to happen because that is going to more than likely be a potential conversation statewide. If we have what is working, I don't know if we need it just now. I'd say wait at least to see based upon what we're hearing from our lobbyists, what we're hearing from the dome gold dome for this legislative session. Let's just see where it's going before we try to codify a little too early because we we do know what we're already doing is working. That would just be my my thought knowing that none of us know what's going to happen. Yes. that may give us um a thing to lobby on, right? Like if we feel like we have something that is working, respects the maturity of the students, but also allows
062attention in class, we should probably be in front of folks at the Georgia time. >> Yeah. And so I'm fine if we wait, right? I I don't want to force something into policy that's going to be forced to change. >> Six months and we don't know this. We know we must do. >> Yeah. Um, I'm wondering and just because the number one complaint I do hear is less about like not being able to like go on Instagram or whatever, but about um like an emergency situation if they would be able to text their parents. Like that is the main anxiety. I was wondering if there's any interest in like sitting in something that ensures that phones aren't like locked away in a different room like are still like somewhat accessible. That's that's the part of
063why there is such a question and concern. So, if there is a true emergency matter of safety, as a student, I I really need you pay paying attention to me as the adult in the room trying to give you direction on what to do, not texting what would be potentially misinformation to convolute in a true crisis. And so that's one of the reasons and that did come up in that topic or in that forum because they did they had student voices there, they had adults there, um administrators and superintendent were there, um doctors and psychologists were there. I mean it was a true critical issue forum on student access to phones and what it means to be in the classroom. So I agree that students need to understand that in an emergency we do need
064we need your attention not this and that's one of the reasons why in K8 it was so easy to um get it approved through both houses. >> Um that makes a lot of sense. I also just wanted to clarify does access like could like no limited access even be like keep it in your backpack like is that still under >> that is um some counties have actually come forth and said that's how they're going to do it they're going to tell students to keep it away in their backpacks you can't take it out that would then be the violation but you're technically not accessing it >> and there are lots of different solutions oftent times those solutions come at a price >> um I think about the the strategic badge we have. Um when you
065start to talk about a solution, um I know members of our board talk about unfunded mandates. >> When the gold dome puts things in legislate legislation like this, it often times will create an expense >> comply >> to comply. And so panic alert system is a is an is a prime example but then at the same time what type of funding do we receive to ensure that we can comply with that comes as well. So all of those are the sorts of things that happen when you start to talk true compliance legislation. >> Anybody else have any other so she can move on to she has one facility. I just have two quick things. One, I see more smart watches now that um the school is implementing the cell phone. So, I'm not sure if
066that is something to recognize. And two, so then people will be giving comments um whenever it will get clear what the law is requiring because we might end up getting a lot of feedback asking us for stuff that we can't control. Yeah, that's that's a good let's be explicit when we're asking for feedback that this is the language of the loan. >> The language alone we have to do this and and that kind of thing. Yes. And um it's personal electronic devices for the K8. So that would include >> heard. Um I just want to offer a point of clarity to that point also about your question about consequences that is actually partially down >> methodology of banning bell access >> but that is also again up to the school as to what those are.
067So we don't have to suspend a student for using their phone, right? >> Class because that's the only time I rolled my eyes like you were so distracted in class. We're going to suspend you from class my mind. So whatever can happen as it's implemented to avoid that be great. >> All right. So I will bring that back um for first read next month which if approved then it would be open for public comment and we'll make sure it's clear on kind of the letter of the law there. All right. We do have one more topic for policy discussion during tonight's pre-work session. That's um policy code F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F which is facility expansion program policies were
068initially proposed on the annual policy calendar for the month of April. But last month, the board recognized that facilities priorities may need to be addressed earlier, especially in light of the ongoing work on the comprehensive capital improvement plan. In response, an environmental scan was done to identify F policies in place in comparison districts. Currently, CSC has only one S policy in place. Policy FDC, naming facilities. A desire to develop additional F policies came up during the August board retreat during the facilitated discussion around policy priorities. Through the discussion, policies FD, facilities long-range planning and FDB, long range needs determination, were identified as policies to potentially prioritize for development within the F policy category. Because these two policies emerge for development through the policy priority discussion of the board retreat. Because we have limited time here
069today, we are seeking any board input on the content or type of content you would like to see considered in initial drafts of at least SD and FDB. Note that existing policies from other districts are available at your seats as a resource and to help you generate ideas if needed. As an example of possible input, one idea was proposed during the retreat. This was include the annual capital update currently given to the board via practice into policy itself. So this would be similar to how the production of an annual budget book was put into policy. And so is that in fact something the board would like to have included in policy? And what else would you like us to build? Yes, Cy, pun intended, into facility policy. >> I'm still swallowing that one. Um, so
070I I do think both policies are necessary and I just have sort of a like instinctive reaction to the level of detail that Fulton County has had. Like it's that's just too you're getting to the number of students and that. So I I definitely lean much more towards the language from I think we see with Henry County or Marietta where it's just a little bit simp considerably simpler, more straightforward. Um the addition of language that I'd like to see in both of those examples is they they both give a list of like times or ways or the hows of what you're going to be considering. >> Are you talking about F? Are you talking about FD? Well, in this case, FDB, but I'm going to also get to FD. >> I just want to make
071sure the feedback is the same in here. >> Um, so it basically says the evaluation will be conducted to identify needed actions related to the following. And there's a list of six items, but I just I always feel these go better with a miscellaneous bucket like in the moment things that might be determined at that particular point in time that needs to be considered. Do you know what I mean? like like what what you'd hate to do is need to have it done but the policy not anticipate the reason why it was needed. So some sort of like responsive language like >> other issues >> considerations that are pertinent and deemed to be relevant to something along >> Exactly. Exactly. And that exact same piece of feedback by the way is goes with FD uh
072where Marietta has laid out that it would also be >> and other others. Yeah. >> Considered but not limited to >> exactly. Okay. Henry's kind of has some broad language. It doesn't talk about like number of students you need or how much you'll put down on a loan or a bond, but it kind of says that you have you must have a facilities plan. Um it has to have a facilities plan staff who sits on it, how often you review those things. Um you have to report out the team's findings to the board. The board has the opportunity to reject or approve those findings. So maybe something that kind of starts with that broadstroke sort of at least that you will have a plan. You will have to report it out and how often you
073will have to do so might be a good place to start because kind of what Fulton has I think a lot might be in the regulation like what's the cap for you know when we want to keep a school when do we consider school overcrowded those sorts of things that might we don't want to put that directly into policy. Fton random to me a little bit like they were trying to fix a problem they they had. Right. No. Yeah. >> I like the you, you know. Well, I'd like both Maretta and FDC and Yeah. I'm intrigued by there's a few dates in the APS one, but not dates everywhere. I don't know. So for example, they say like in September they'll announce whether they are looking into closing do some plans with APS. >> Give
074me Fton. What APS? >> Oh, I apologize. >> Um you you like that they put in >> I that whole section of time frame. Um I don't necessarily care for their time frame. I feel like it has a lot of specificity earlier and then the it does and then the time frame falls off. >> Is that something that we could consider as a part of the regulation and have it underneath a policy? >> I would kind of think it would be a policy that if I I would I would understand as a community and as a board when I would expect these sort of decisions to start and be announced and be made. >> Is it don't we do that with the BOE? Not the >> be that's >> the B does not say that
075we're gonna close a school. We will announce by X date now. >> But they but they do say that you will have a we do say when the capital plan is No. No. Okay. So, wait. I'm hearing what you're saying now. If we're going to announce a closure of the school, we have to have a certain amount of time that we announce it prior to that closure. >> Correct. second. So there's what I I don't love the detail like we do anything like the first part but the second part like in in September we'll the board would announce like looking into this we plan to have some community community forums to discuss and then no later than January form the result make a recommendation um I I I'm a fan of those those dates and
076just sort of a general action >> um instead of being specific about dates. Can we just talk about length of time? >> What's the difference between a date and length of time in a sense? >> Just just that that um you know you have to announce x number of months in advance of a closing, right? So that not necessarily a school calendar timeline but like you have to have x number of months prior to >> but or is this still just for James something because I agree with James I like the specificity for people to see and I think um maybe it's my um living you know most of my adult life by a school calendar school calendars do typically have dates so I agree with like you asking like if a school needs to
077be closed in like December for some reason. >> Yeah. >> Prevent us from doing that in theory. >> To do is not put a level of specificity into this policy that is going to inhibit our ability to move forward this year with plans that we may have. And I don't want to put something into policy that is going to inhibit our ability in future years to be able to make decisions that are that are necessary. I do understand the need for the desire to have windows of time, but uh uh I would just be cautious about putting that at a policy level um uh for those reasons. Can I ask so like what I'm reading from this is logically by December 30th because the January board meeting because now you're in the second semester you're
078starting to give all the things that happen in school districts. So now assuming there isn't some emergency crisis that would precipitate the closing of a building because of I don't know toxic stuff whatever then wouldn't there just be something written in that gives the recognition of an emergency that puts people at risk which is different from typical district Yeah, I think I think I'm going to be cautious about wanting to add a level of specificity that might compromise our ability to do what we want to do this year. That's fair. This is always something that we can revisit, >> right? >> I mean, you could put kind of take some feedback and based on what you said, we kind of have some ideas about the level of specificity. we can look at some different language
079and bring it back obviously for discussion so that we can I mean this is the whole point is to to get feedback on what it is that you'd like to see included and we'll take a swing at it and then have further discussion so that we can refine it and get it to the level where we're where we're where we're ready to move on it. >> Yeah. Another another alternative thought or way to approach it may be if we're uncomfortable with this level of specifics like you have to announce by this date you have to you know give it a deadline in order if you're going to talk about closing a school um will have >> yeah x months prior and then that gives you the wiggle room to adjust the timeline as needed. You
080could do the meetings here, the announcement here, blah blah blah, and shape them as you will. Um, because that is I mean I I agree the time that timeline's very organized, but it is very firm. Uh, but maybe if it was just one hard cut off, then you could adjust as well just as an alternative. >> Let me ask one other question and this is about the SD policy. So, um, I wondered about letter F. So, I'm looking at Maretta's plan. I'm looking at Henry County, you know, four times the amount of information. And I wonder if there notice Fton has a whole category devoted to building construction improvements by offsite organizations. um anything financial here. It's just the financial ability of the city in Maretta. >> Yeah. >> Henry County. Well, if there's anything
081>> so think about the systems in their central office when you think about the level of spec specificity that can be put in policy. So Marriottas is that size and that amount because that's what their central office capacity is. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Lynch, and thank you board members for the discussion. We look forward to seeing the use of electronic devices by students uh that policy next month in our work session. This will allow us to be in compliance for the January 1st adoption deadline. There being no further business, this this pre-work session is adjourned at 3:45 p.m. and we will go straight into work session. All right, we'll now call this work session to order at 3:45 p.m. Thank you for joining us today for our monthly work session. Dr. Whitaker, please
082introduce the first presentation. >> Thank you, Chair Sultan. I would like to call on Mr. Eston Melton, Chief of Safety and Technology Services. You almost get the new title every the presentation to provide an update on our interoperable data system. >> Good afternoon, board chair Dr. Sultan, vice chairs, esteemed members of the board, student representative Latra, and superintendent Dr. Whitaker. I'm happy to share with you an update on where we've been, where we're going with uh developing and sustaining interoperable data systems to support student outcomes and operational effectiveness. So interoperable data systems is one component of the organizational effectiveness and excellence strategic accelerator. Like all initiatives and programs shephered by the safety and technology services team, our work is in pursuit of student success in all areas. Before I was a tech nerd, I was
083a word nerd. So let's revisit our definition of interoperable data systems from last fall's presentation. uh data is information that exists in some repository whether it's attendance in infinite campus salaries and smart fusion public feedback from a stakeholder input form or test scores sitting in a vendor database interoperability is the notion that we can pull the data from these repository forces around students schools and programs and the systems refers to governance tools and processes that set parameters for and enable the use of data to support decision making to drive student outcomes. And for the next few minutes, I'll discuss CSD's governance tools and processes, progress, and future state. Let's start with governance. One major lift last year was establishing a data governance team facilitated by the director of data systems, Miss Gibson, composed of instructional
084leaders from the Wilson Center. Data governance team had several significant wins. One was documenting our data standards. This data standards documentation captures in writing to be succession ready such fundamentals as the district's varied sources of truth for students and operational data assessment system owners and draws connections between key data tools roles within those tools and job titles within the district. That framework is adapted from Emory University's data governance regimen defines and distinguishes between data trustees, stewards, custodians, and users. This team also provided specifications to identify our new stated state student data warehousing and visualization tool, educ, which I'll discuss more in a few moments. And the data governance team identified immediate training needs for district and school leaders to maximize clean data upon initial entry. and reduced the need for staff to do data cleanup
085in advance of state reporting windows. And as a direct result of that training, there was a 64% reduction in the number of student records with errors from the initial October 2024 to March 2025 student class submission windows and an 82% reduction in the number of records with errors from December 24, February 25 student record submission. This impressive performance highlights the interdependencies in school staff and their Wilson Center program and data support colleagues and the role of Wilson Center subject matter experts in delivering impactful highquality professional administrators, administrative assistants, registars and other data custodians in entering clean, accurate and compliant data in the first pass. This governance work continues into this year. Data governance team is expanding to include representation from our non-instructional colleagues in HR, finance, operations, and security. These voices will help further refine
086our data standards, documentation, and awareness. This year, the data governance team will also transition further from being descriptive of our environment to prescriptive how we work. for example, defining CSD's interoperability standards for evaluating and procuring new online tools. And of course, in the midst of this growth of this growth, members of the team and particularly Miss Gibson, our director of data systems, will continue to actively contribute to the level up highquality professional learning regimen that Miss Walker shared with you during her state of HR presentation last. Now in terms of tools, we opened last year with our first pair of public dashboards and public the third and midyear. They cover core district metrics such as milestones data, college and career readiness, performance index, time star results and enrollments. Miss Gibson's expertise allowed us to leverage
087a salaried employee consultant engagements and software licenses. Cost reduction we realized both last year and in this year's budget. We also took steps toward retiring Smart Fusion, our antiquated HR and finance tool by developing and publishing an in-depth request for proposal for its replacements. This year, we've continued our work with public dashboards, publishing our 2025 GMASS milestone scores alongside the press release rather than several weeks later. The collaboration between technology, finance, and HR on procuring a replacement to Smart Fusion is also proceeding. I will share unfortunately none of the responses to the RFP met our high standards. We're amending and readvertising it this month and the project team still anticipates bringing an ERP procurement recommendation to the board this winter. Um, and we're also excited that our friends at operations are eager to explore a
088computerized maintenance management system or CMMS meet their rapidly maturing needs to effectively manage day-to-day operations, support a regimen of preventative maintenance and plan more strategically for capital equipment life cycle. But our most exciting work around data tools last year and this year revolves around Educ. Educ Climber is an interactive system that integrates whole child data into a single platform with built-in tools for intervention tracking, collaboration, effective reporting and early warning. Um, driving system level improvements. Leaders can zoom in, I'm sorry, zoom out for multi-year whole district insights and rapid into the academic trajectory of even a single student. And although we'll continue to use Tableau to power our public dashboards for now, data governance team identified last year that the marketplace for student warehouse and biz tools had matured enough for us to go take
089another look at it. Having adopted several of Renaissance learning's tools, starting with the STAR universal screener, other tools to screen for signs of dyslexia and for intervention support, we click we quickly zeroed in on educ. We spent the spring and summer instantiating educ. And we're nearly done ingesting historical and current data into the system. Data includes attendance, paper, progress reporting, semester grades, assessment scores including but not limited to milestone, star, AP and IV, demographics including race, home language and gender, program participation including re-reduced price meal status, special education, gifted ELLL, um English language learners, section 504 support, um housing and secure students supported by the McKenna Vento program, Georgia MCSS tiers two and three and others. And a major integration we're also excited about is pulling in formative assessment data from a new tool called
090DNA which the teaching and learning team has been out. Our team and teaching and learning leadership recognized last year that the incumbent formative tool didn't meet our needs in terms of interoperability. Couldn't easily get our data out. We move to a more interoperable tool that will allow our systems to talk to one another. powerfully. One other thing we're ingesting today, literally today, Miss Gibson's working on it, um, and I've been watching the pictures come in, um, are our students portraits, um, allowing us to deliver on the baseball card view of a student. Principles will be able to create data walls and have dialogues to identify students not just by name and by need off of a spreadsheet, but putting a face to the name, putting a face to the need. It's a critical touchstone to
091connect data to the human child whose family trusts us to inspire and enable growth through meaningful and engaging learning experiences. Last year I showed you this picture of the Hank Aaron baseball card and today I can show you what it actually looks like. The image is not of an actual student nearly illustrative but the view is otherwise a snapshot of a single student from last year. And notice you see here scores for GMASS and STAR posted grades, demographic, behavior, and attendance data. The drop down on the right shows you just how far back we're working to pull data pre pandemic. Can't do it for everything, but where we can, we will. And that innocuous looking little student data, you know, link at the bottom left, um, is actually rather powerful. And this is the baseball
092card view of a kid. Clicking that student data button gives you the sports almanac chapter on that particular athlete um and their entire time here at city schools of educator. This month we're wrapping up data ingest and we'll begin training for district leadership. Building leader training begins in October. Teacher training will occur on our professional learning day when we return from New York's new New Year's break in January. Lastly, a few process updates for you. I've spoken about interoperability within CSD, but last year and this year have been and will be major years for interoperability between us and state. The Georgia Department of Education has invested significant resources to modernize many of its systems. Last year, they launched a new portal for educators to access resources, rolled out a new physical fitness assessment on the
093same infrastructure, and completely rebuilt the state technology inventory tool. All three of these met with major challenges at launch, but that's not entirely unexpected given that the DOE has over a 100 school districts, slightly different setups between each and every one of us. Um, and they prioritize minimizing the readiness workloads on the districts. CSD, we're glad the report successfully met all of the integration deadlines ahead of schedule. We've rolled with the bugs as DOE staff continued to stamp them out. But we have a big change coming to us this year. Before any of the uh that they launched last year began, DOE began working on modernizing how districts send our data to them. Um now we in education and technology, we love our clever acronyms and weird names. This new state reporting system is called
094state reporting system. Um it's built on a data exchange protocol called EDFI. Um and the vision for this the vision is to move away from these discrete chunks of time when we're sending information to the state to a persistent connection. Um, and that notion of a persistent connection really underlines the importance of what I had shared before about our data going in cleanly, correctly, and compliantly the first time in order for us to be successful. that foundation of data governance is absolutely um we're already transmitting some elements of student record via the state reporting system and we anticipate a parallel transmission cycle student class in March both using new system and the incumbent file exchange and although we are transmitting some data now through SRS the new system does not yet have feature parity with
095the system it will ultimately place. We are anxiously optimistic that these feature gaps, which critically help us identify errors or inconsistent inconsistencies in our records, will emerge in short order. And we anticipate further challenges as the entire state undertakes this major transition over the next 12 to 18 months. Fortunately, we have district leadership that values our work around data governance. And we have excellent Wilson Center leaders who are in this work and working on this work to support schools and our maturing data governance and data culture. We think those things will help us weather these challenges. Um, of note, there is no timeline yet for transitioning FTE to the state reporting system. FTE as you know is the cycle that determines our QBE funding. So I hope you all share my enthusiasm for the progress
096delivered and upcoming on data governance tools uh and processes. If there's a core theme I hope to leave you with it's this. You've heard us talk about interoperability for a while now. I've I've chuckled at this lecture before said it is the center of the dingo card for my boss. Whitaker has even said too. But I hope what you also hear is that interoperability is also interdependence. Governance tools and processes. They don't just live in a silo. They're all manifestations of visionary leadership such as not only from director Gibson, but by many of the directors and coordinators who are on that governance team. um and diligent work um executed by talented caring experts in schools and in the central office across the org charts striving to take care of kids in a deliberate strategic sustainable
097way. Thank you as always for letting me share very nerdy things with you and I'm happy to take your questions. >> I I love this. Um on slide 12 I just clarify a few things. >> Remember that's the overlay the overlay version. So that's the one with the sample student. >> Got it. >> And so this is ultimately something that a teacher or a parent could see when it's up and running. >> We don't have um parents visibility into this roadmap yet. The best place for a parent to go and d see most of this information is through the parent portal. >> Okay. >> But our teachers will have access to the students who are rostered to them just their kids and on their roster. Um >> building leaders will be able to see all
098the kids in their school. Okay. So then what's the difference between like star math fall, winter, spring and then mathematics? >> Uh mathematics is is their posted degree >> and part of Thank you for asking the question. It's a really good question. Part of rolling this out for our building leaders and for our teachers will them to know kind of what that shorthand label translates into. And then just one other thing is I think the gray those gray lines are not indication of like meaning proficiency. They're just part of the building process. >> Uh that is where I deliberately react to the actually there's an actual kid. The best way to get you an illustration was just to one and scribble out the important information. But I'm sorry if that >> what what um what
099led to the RFP having to be pulled and what did we change in order to uh be successful this time? There was so we got four responses in and as we reviewed them we had enough red flags across each and every one of them that we didn't have the confidence that they could do the work that we do. um and they were particular to each vendor but in the aggregate and working in collaboration with some outside experts former CFO for a very large school district these folks are not not ready for us. Um but seeing some of those gaps is an opportunity for us to go be a little bit more we're going to try to be more explicit and anyone who submitted the first time is welcome to resubmit. Um, and we're also going
100to take advantage of some of the networks that again our consultants and our staff have to perhaps more broadly advertise it. It's possible that one of the confounding challenges was just timing of issue in the RF. >> Yep. So we have made strides in interoperable data system governance and we are on a precipice with that edgy climber that we will reshape the conversations that are occurring in our professional learning communities and I'm certain all of the board members will be happy when the new ERP is in place as it has implications for budget variance. Thank you, Mr. Melton. I noticed that the public dashboard was available when we released our milestone scores last month, and I look forward to a repeat of that process when CCRPI is available this winter. Please introduce the next item.
101Thank you, Sheriff Sultan. I would like to call on Mr. Jarvis Adams, chief operations officer, to provide the annual capital plan. >> Yes. I can do it. Good afternoon board chair Dr. Sen vice chair of esteemed board members student representative voter and superintendent Dr. I'm Jarvis Adams, chief operations officer. Today I will present to the school to I will present city schools of the cater capital annual capital plan. Our work is anchored in strategic accelerator number four operational efficiency and excellence. The goal here is to provide safe, reliable learning environments, deliver discipline on scope, schedule, and cost, and with clear accountability to the board and to our community. Tonight's update tells a clear story. What has been completed from the 2227 city schools educator local facilities plan? what remains outstanding and what's new and near
102priority. Um sorry these the priorities for this plan include HVAC systems, flooring and other interior finishes, plumbing, electrical systems and compliance with American Disabilities Act. The funding frame relies on east blocks through 2027 and on the capital on the state capital outlay program where scopes are eligible items such as synthetic turf are not eligible for state capital outlay and therefore for transparency we have included an we have included an addendum of planned and completed projects to date. It is a living register that will update as bids are awarded and as work is closed out. By June 2027, we will complete a full cross work crosswalk of all pertinent work against current inspections and against the facility conditions assessment so that every project line clearly shows the scope, status, cost and related assessment or inspection item
103that it results. for clarity of terms. Fly is a voter approved 1 cent sales tax that funds capital projects. State capital outlay is Georgia Georgia school facilities funding program that reimbures eligible scopes of work with required local participation. The facilities condition the facilities condition assessment is an independent system by system review that establishes a baseline and helps us prioritize work. This chart comes from the 2022 2023 facilities condition assessment and it is a snapshot in time. Each bar shows a school's facilities condition index at that time. The facilities condition index compares the estimated cost to correct identified deficiencies to the current replacement value of a facility and is and is expressed as a percentage. The best way to read this is to understand a higher index indicator indicates a larger backlog of needs. A lower
104indic index indicates fuel needs. The index is a planning tool, not a safety rate. We use it to prioritize investments, phase projects, and measure progress as work is completed. In Beacon Hill Middle School, approximately 80% of the roof was replaced and rooftop HVAC units were replaced, reducing the corrective backlog, but we expect a lower index for Beacon Hill in the upcoming 2027 facility condition assessment. And that's what that red arrow represents. At Oak Elementary and Claremont Elementary, we installed a new roof, drain lines, and conducted plumbing modifications that lower identified deficiencies and will be reflected as a lower index in the next assessment. Educator High School. Several capital items have been addressed. The main building roof was replaced. The purchase of commercial food equipment for the cafeteria and an updated culinary arts lab were completed.
105Exterior lights were replaced. HVAC systems were upgraded to rooftop units, better known as RTUs, and three DIN air conditioning units were added. The principal suite was renovated. Basement gym lights were replaced. The performing arts center theater seating was replaced and the water heater was replaced. Collectively, these improvements decrease the corrective needs and should lower the index for the high school at the next assessment. At Winona Park, mechanical and plumbing reliability work has been performed, including the cooling tower, heat pumps, and the the sewer lift pump. These items address core systems that drive the index and are expected to lower the index in the 2027 reassessment. The takeaway is that although this slide shows the baseline, the completed and in progress work is designed to move these bars down when we return with the 2027 budget.
106Beacon Hill Middle School is prioritized for renovations and HVAC modifications with state capital outlay participation and slots were required. Submitted scopes include completing roof repairs, targeted flooring work, HVAC upgrades. Additional building needs include the baseboards around the flooring, a domestic water pump replacement, and the only item funded entirely with local dollars with the returfing of the dust fold the plate area breed love management will pull the permit in the next week or two. Uh once the per permit is issued, we will solicit competitive quotes and select a vendor that provides the best value. These projects directly address systems that drive the index and are expected to lower Beacon Hills index in the 2027 assessment. OKur Elementary is prioritized for renovations and HVAC modifications. The state capital outlay participation anticipated and slots providing the low focus
107is a buildingwide flooring renewal session. >> Thank you. Including restrooms, controls and commissions to improve reliability, comfort, and energy performance along with the HVAC modification scope. These investments reduce identified deficiencies and are designed to lower OKur Oak index in the 2027 test. Since the spring of 2025, we have completed interior paint refreshes at Claremont Elementary, Oak, Glenwood, and Winona Park, install new roofs at Claremont at Oakhurst, place auditorium seating, and overhaul the weight room at Decar High School and completed and in the best distance bait with restoration at the Kentucky Street Transportation Nutrition Depot. Please schedule all major and noisy work for fall break, Thanksgiving break, winter break, winter holiday break, spring break, and summer break. The school is in session. Intrusive work is restricted to after hours, evenings, and weekends coordinated for safety and
108access. This month there are 21 HVAC rooftop units replacement um taking place at College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center during the fall break. We are utilizing contractors for HVAC preventive maintenance at Decada High School and Beacon Hill to protective reliability on our largest campuses. We are shifting from reactive fixes to preventive preventive and transparent operations. The director of facilities planning and operations for own pro own program and project oversight and key performance indicators. Coordinate preventive maintenance schedules and automate automated work orders by asset. Maintain the asset registry with quick response code histories. En sure quotes and purchase orders are attached to each job and project and publish spend by school dashboards with documentation for state capital outlay reimbursement. We're also evaluating the computerized maintenance management system to strengthen project management, capital planning, preventive maintenance, asset
109tracking, work orders, dashboards, and reimbursement documentation. We're meeting with vendors now and would update the board on our direction before bringing any form of agreement, I mean any form of recommendation into action. This concludes the capital plan update. Thank you for your continued support. I now open the floor to questions. >> I just ask one clarifying question. >> Yes, >> that I'm looking at slide six to another. So, um, this is for, I believe, O'Hurst and it says capital outlay funding 487899 subject to Georgia DOE approval because that am I correct in saying that effectively Georgia DOE if it approves this will fund that. >> Okay. Okay. Um, and that's it for now. Thank you. I appreciate >> just to follow up on that. The reason we don't do that for a number of the
110the K2 schools on the north side is they don't meet the DOE thresholds. >> So capital outlay that is correct. So we need to have you know we need at least 200 students >> okay to re be eligible for for state reimbursement. Got it. Um, then I was going to ask, so I'm really pleased to see us moving from uh emergency to preventative maintenance. >> Um, are do we carry insurance for some of these facilities for some of the emergency repairs? I'm thinking about like roof damage and storms or things of that nature or is it all sort of a capital outlet? No, we do carry insurance through GSBA >> and so the claim that we have right now is that a best ast over at street office. >> Okay. And so >> we missed
111it on a tree falling on Westchester early on when I joined. >> Okay. >> But as I continue to go and learn more about risk management and how to manage um manage incidents that happen. >> Yeah. So that the reason why I was asking is I know the data systems we're putting in place, ticket management systems, things like that should have builtin prompts for, you know, this is able to be reimbured through insurance. I just want to make sure we're optimizing capital spend. If we're paying for the insurance, we should be using it. >> Yes. For through a true CMS, we will be able to modernize a lot of our data and recordkeeping. um you know when the tree fell at Westchester that was in the midst of that transition that we have at our
112at that leadership level. >> Actually I do have one other question. Yes, >> just going back to slide four. >> So this was the facility condition index um as of FY 2023 >> and it moved from like smaller bar to larger bar longer bar and the longer bar means more needed, right? Yes. >> And then the red arrow is effectively saying this is how much we've spent or what we've done to improve the condition of the facility using that fund since 2023 for Claremont and Beacon and the other ones with >> Yes. So essentially roofing was a big problem for some of those schools. So replacing those roofs definitely moved that index. >> Thank you. I want to reiterate that we will have a third-party conduct the facility condition assessment before we build the next
113facility plan for 2027 2032. That sounds so far away. Also, the plan will be one that is bought before you as a board just as a capital outlay is on the consent agenda for tonight. These are practices that should happen by a school system. Thank you, Mr. Adams, for your leadership. >> Thank you, Mr. Adams. Um, as a Beacon Hill parent, I'm all too familiar with that dust bowl. I just want you I think that was my child's single pain point on the principal advisory council was that dust bowl. But I look forward to the progress made on all projects mentioned. Dr. Whitaker, please introduce the next presentation. Thank you, Chair Sultan. Mr. Jarvis Adams, team operations officer, will remain for the next item. At the board's request, we will provide monthly updates on the
114new early childhood learning center and Decar High School expansion plan. The update is not to be confused with the capital plan or the facilities plan. Those were the plans that were part of the previous presentation. This comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of our district is the all indicator strategic plan and specifically strategic accelerator organizational effectiveness and excellence is what this presentation will provide. >> Thank you. Good evening. Well, good afternoon again board chair Dr. consultant, vice chairs, senior board members, student representative Fra and Superintendent Dr. Whitaker. I'm still Jarvis Adams providing updates on the new ETLC indicator high school expansion. As you know, our work is aligned with the allin Decada strategic plan which emphasizes the emphasis on strategic accelerator number four, operational efficiency and excellence. The goal is to deliver safe, reliable, and
115student centered learning environments with discipline on scope and with transparent accountability to the board and and our community. Updates on the new ECL team. We are proceeding with the singlestory design on the current site plan. We are still targeting a December groundbreaking. Our procurement strategy remains very disciplined and we are holding to a guaranteed maximum price target under $22 million with cost sav costsaving alternatives prioritized to save within budget. Current pricing also carries $150,000 solar allowance identified during 50% design development. The Cater High School campus update. We have collected furniture, fixture, and equipment assessments from program specialists and teachers to inform our early schematic design. This is our calendar of the next four months. These are our key and near-term near-term milestones. Yesterday, September 8th, we were happy that Parish received a final scope and
116best set transmit to Parish Construction. Today, we began receiving early preliminary study um findings of the traffic study. We'll be able to provide a slight update on that. Um we're still dealing with angle and parallel parking decision making along the bike path on on this week, September 12th. We're excited that the land of service permit will be submitted and the traffic study will be complete. September 29th, the guaranteed maximum price package will be sent out by Parish Construction. And on October 8th, the guaranteed maximum price documents will be delivered to the city schools educated team. Meaning on October 14th during the board meeting, the GMP will be um presented to the board of education. On October 30th, a building permit will be submitted to the city city of Decada. In December, we will maintain the
117groundbreaking date and we're also hired hire from other tracks. We have the DOE final doctors will be submitted after October 30th. We will also begin registering for lead 4 uh V4 certification and target a May 2027 certification submit. Um and we will complete the early learning license application by December 2025 certificate occupancy target for May 2027 leaving us 60 and furniture. Key features include a storefront facade, an overall building limit under the 400 ft street parking and reduced on-site parking. The design modification is directly address concerns raised by the city of Decater and avoid the need for any barristers. Our parking discussion is still in the early stages with the city of Decar. We will evaluate safety operations bicycle facility integration and cost. We will not advance a specific geometry into super drawing or the
118land disturbance permit until that discussion concludes. Early traffic findings indicate onsite queuing is sufficient. The project bid is well below typical comparison. We will continue to coordinate details that support safety cost and schedule. Our directive is a holding no keeping the GMP under $22 million through targeted refinements. Current focus items include confirming street parking, optimizing the cafeteria and the wing lo office wing location, refining storefront treatment on West Trinity, and limiting sight signage to one monument sign. For the play area, we will integrate an eastern continental theme inspired by the rare corridor through Decada. The educational concept highlights that the rainfall on one side ultimately flows to the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side to the Gulf of Mexico, creating a playbased learning experience within the approved budget and schedule. Our immediate next steps
119will continue coordination with the city of Decar on the angle versus angle versus parallel parking question. Once a selection is made, we will carry that selected approach into the civil set and the land of service permit. We will issue an updated milestone schedule tied to future board meeting updates. We will present traffic findings and the parking approach during October's board update. We'll also continue lead version 4 registration, license preparation and staffing and opening planning allowing approximately 60 days pre-opening for license for Decator High School. We are validating Decada High School spaces against current educational standards and following teacher and program and fixture input into our early thematic design. From a fiscal standpoint, holding the Early Childhood Learning Center guaranteed maximum price under $22 million helps reserve capacity for future Decator High School work. That concludes
120the Early Childhood Learning Center and Decar High School expansion update. Thank you for your time and engagement. I will pause here and welcome any questions. Um, one, thank you for um, entitling this ECLC and high school because I feel like a lot of the questions I get are just specific to ECLC. And while I know we all learned in June that each project is interdependent, I I found that it can be confusing at times. So, thank you so much. on slide four. What does um and then another thing I think I've learned through this entire process is the um civic and city education that people are getting because there's so many different entities and there's this permitting process and this application process. So what exactly in the November 2025 at the top is the permit
121feedback from the city. >> Oh, all right. So, we're going to submit a a per building permit in October. And part of that process, the city won't give an immediate yes or no. They're going to give some feedback, some things for us to consider, some things that they would like to see. And so, we're going to take that feedback and we're going to work through that feedback to get to the yes. Just to be specific, things like erosion management and runoff and how you're going to stage stuff at the site. It's not feedback of should this be built or not built. It's these are the things we need to see you control over the construction to make sure that okay just make sure the public understands. >> Right. Right. >> And so that um last
122question is referring I think to slide six the one with the design. Okay, that one. >> Sorry, slide five. Sorry. So, just want to make sure I'm clear here. So, there's the new public facing entry and that's a new feature since the August board meeting. >> Yes. >> Okay. And you know what I remember at the August board meeting is hearing how um I think the chair and vice chair, you know, kind of met with city um commissioners and city didn't have um enough input or there's a concern here. So that specific modification is demonstration of adapting to um feedback given. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. Good. Now last question though is is there any design modification because one of my biggest concerns has been everyone who appears to have not known how
123to give input earlier. Are there any other opportunities for um the community to get input on the design? Not on whether this should be built or not, >> but on the design itself like the city commissioners were able to [Music] >> No. Uh I will I will answer that. At this point, the design is pretty uh settled. As we begin to talk about other types of colors and things of that nature, typically once you bring the principal on, there's additional um decisions that are made in the branding and colors and the theme of the school. It it's a little that's those are the be the next decision point. >> Thank you. >> What are those circle numbers on the bottom? 66 888 64. >> So that's just is that that's what a parking >> Yeah,
124just the number of spaces. >> So that that is just number of spaces with kind of like green islands or whatever between them. >> But that that's all still a little bit in flux given the angled versus parallel parking question. >> Okay, that's what I was asking. >> Yep. And then can you talk a little bit more about the angled versus parallel parking conversations that are having? So got to give you where we are with information. So if we go with parallel parking looking at about 18 spaces which will reduce onsite parking both reduce parking. Reverse angle parking is what the DOT we did angle parking. it would need to be reversed in. So essentially they're going to pass it and back into the we reverse into their parking space. So when they leave they
125just go they being parents or whoever's driving right into the flow of traffic. >> And you said that's the DOT's preferences. We also heard that that was safer for children drop off >> and that's that was part of why it's their preference just because they've done the research. They just found that to be the best way if it's going to be angle parking. Uh however, if it is anchor parking, it will push the building south. We'll reduce green. Even though we won't have as much on-site parking, it will reduce the green space. We go to parallel parking, you're going to reduce parking on site, not as much as the angle, but you end up with about 45% green space versus a 40.9. So parallel parking as green space angle parking decreases on site four >>
126and to clarify that is going to be staff parking right or where and that's permitted parking and so where in this design are the babies dropped off so if where do you drop the number >> so okay so where it's where the numbers are >> that's the that's the entry that parking is where parents are pulling in the dropping. >> Yeah. And so then where so parents can drop off but then staff would park in those same in those same areas as well >> there. Yeah. But then you have street parking >> parking street. >> Okay. So there will be designated because I think I don't know I'm I'm not the best parker in the world but back I'm very intimidated by backing up and having a baggage to a spot but I can't parallel
127park either. Um, so but either way, I just I whatever it is, I just want to make sure it's it would be it's functionally easy for somebody who has to get up and get out with like, you know, a six-month-old and all that kind of thing, then I don't know it, whatever it is, as long as it's functionally easy, they can get to the front of the building. Um, >> so we're thinking Go ahead. Yeah, I I was going to say the staff more than likely will be the persons that are parking on the street. >> Okay. >> So that and that's where that permit is allowable. So staff will be in issued a decal very similar to like you um to say you are allowed to park here because they are a member of
128that staff along that street. That's how it mean that's why would be permitted parking. uh know that if there was a space there in the middle of drop off and pick up if you would like to reverse angle or parallel into it, you could. But that's really more so what the part that is further south by chewing way is for for our actual family. Gotcha. >> Yeah. Can I clarify that now because I'm confused? I thought it says um public facing entry up top that pink. So you've got these numbered um parking areas that James had asked about, >> right? >> Then you've got the pink square at the bottom, but then you have like a pink rectangle at the top and I think it says public facing entry. So most the drop off be
129where the public facing space. >> Ah okay. >> Right. So you know as you're going up Tally you see the school but you can still go in. So thank those >> just to be explicit for the public these modifications that we've made in the last few weeks now have this building not requiring any variance comports with with what the city's standard requirements would have been. Yes. No. >> Any other questions? Thank you Mr. Adam, next month's update will focus on finance as we will bring the resolution to request the public facilities authority to issue the bonds to the board of education for approval. November's update will focus on programming and we will close out 2025 with an update on human resources in December. >> Thank you for the update, Mr. Adams. It's great to hear
130that the preliminary traffic study results puts us in a strong position and we look forward to our next community engagement session which will be on Monday, September 15th at Beacon Hill Middle School from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dr. Whitaker, please introduce the next presentation. >> Thank you, Chair Sultan. I would like to call on Dr. Lonita Broom, our chief financial officer, to present the FY27 budget calendar for discussion. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, board chair Dr. members of the board, student representative Fatra and superintendent Dr. W. So it seems like only yesterday we were building the fiscal year 26 budget. The time has come for us to begin the preparation and timeline for building the fiscal year 27 budget. The finance department operates based on the district's four strategic accelerators with a specific focus on
131accelerator number four, organizational effectiveness and excellence by ensuring financial transparency and sustainability. We are pleased to announce that Lane Davidson, an eighth grader at Beacon Hill Middle School original artwork was selected for the 2526 budget book cover. In City Schools of Decator, we take pride in showcasing student talent and interest in the arts while also supporting school programs and teachers who offer a variety of creative artistic learning experiences. A heartfelt thank you to Lane for contributing this beautiful artwork, which will serve as a reminder of the students represented behind the numbers. Pictured left to right, Beacon Hill Middle School art teacher Sarah Nathaniel and Lane. The 2526 budget book is available on the district's finance website and will be submitted to the Association of School Business Officials International, also referred to as ASBO, and the
132Government Finance Officers Association, also referred to as GFO, for consideration for award number two. The fiscal year 27 27 preliminary budget calendar as always starts with community input on their on the budget on their budget priorities and our feedback on the current budget. There is a link on the finance department budget section of the district's website where we continuously ask seek community input and feedback on the budget. Currently, the link is set up for the 26th budget. However, as we begin the budget process for fiscal year 27, the link will be updated for the fiscal year 27 budget and will be available on the budget section of the website in the district's main page for the community to provide feedback. I respond to each comment submitted and frequently have follow-up calls meetings with community. The
133board receives a summary of all budget feedback from stakeholders on a monthly basis. Today the fiscal year 27 preliminary budget calendar is presented for discussion to make any modifications as determined by the fisc year 27 budget calendar will be presented at the October 14th board meeting for adoption. Additionally, the current school a lotment guidelines for fiscal year 26 will also be presented at the October 14th board meeting for review at November's work session. dependent will discuss the fiscal year 27 budget parameters and priorities. These discussions will serve as the guidelines for developing the fiscal year 27 budget. At November's board meeting, I will present the fiscal year 2025 budget review, which will include the unodudited fiscal year 25 actual expenditures in revenue and the unodudited fiscal year 25 ending fund balance, which will be the
134beginning fund balance for fiscal year 26 and will provide us with a more accurate projection of fiscal year 27 beginning balance. Also in November, the fiscical year 27 school aotment guidelines and fiscal year 26 salary and benefit comparison to surrounding districts will be presented at the board retreat in December. Fiscal year 26 midyear fiscal year 272 aotment guidelines and fiscal year 27 budget parameters and priorities will be presented to the board for approval. The internal auditors will present the fiscal year 25 financial audit results at the January board meeting. The tax commissioner and city manager will present to the board in February. I will also present the 5-year financial review. A presentation on the use of federal and state grants in SLOs funds will be presented to the board at the March work. The preliminary
135fiscal year 27 budget draft number one will be presented at the March board meeting. The board of education first community meeting will be held on March 25th at Oakhurst Elementary School. The budget community meeting will allow the community to verbally provide feedback on the budget, ask questions, and receive responses. Based on feedback from the community on the preliminary fiscal year year 27 budget draft number one and guidance from the superintendent, I will revise the budget and submit fiscal year 27 budget draft number two at the April 14th board meeting. A board of education community meeting is scheduled for April 22nd, 2025, and this will be another opportunity for the board to hear from the community prior to the final approval of the budget. As required by the state, there will be two public budget hearings
136in May at a special call board meeting to allow the public to comment on the budget. After the community meeting and public budget hearings, the board will vote on the fiscal year 27 tenative budget and tenative mill rate on May 12th. In June, the board will vote on the final budget. There will also be three public military hearings followed by the final adoption of the property tax military. The dates for the military hearings are contingent upon receipt of tax digest information from the tax receive. The budget book is scheduled to be printed by August 30th, 2026. Again, the budget calendar with any modification after today's discussion will be presented to the board at next month's October meeting for approval. I will be happy to respond to any questions or provide clarification as >> uh just
137that fiveyear fiscal review is that projections or is that past five years? It will be actual. Fiscal year 25 will be budget. Fiscal year 26 will be No, fiscal year 25 will be actual because it will be half. >> So So is it 25 to 30 or is it 20? >> No, it'll be 20. >> That's what Okay. So it's it's passed. Gotcha. All right. >> Yes. >> Any other questions? Thank you. >> For members, we anticipate receiving a tax digest in time to inform the budgeting process. Now that we've moved the tenative approval back one month, reflecting on the past two years, that additional month will help us. Uh, thank you, Dr. Broom. I agree budget development is a year- round process. We look forward to this coming next month on the consent agenda.
138There being no further business, this work session is adjourned at 4:41 p.m. We will recess and return at 5:15. >> That's what we have. >> 5:15. >> Yeah, we'll do 5:15. >> 5:15 to begin our regular board meeting. We will now call this meeting to order at 5:15 p.m. We ask that you silence all cell phones at this time. We will begin with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. At this time, I ask that everyone join me in a brief moment of silent reflection. Thank you. Now I ask that all who are able to please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> 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
139for all. Our mission is to inspire and enable student growth through meaningful and engaging learning experiences supported by highly qualified and caring educators in a safe and inviting environment. Board members, are there any revisions to the Okay, >> I have a suggestion or question. There's one item on the consent agenda. >> Is there a revision to the agenda? >> Oh, sorry. No. >> Okay. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> So, move. >> Board member UTS makes the motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Uh, board member Hearnen seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor? I >> chair votes I. Any opposed? >> Hearing none. The motion carries unanimously. Our next agenda item is the approval of minutes from previous board meetings.
140Do I have a motion to approve August regular board board retreat and special call meeting minutes? So move. >> Board member Anderson makes the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Uh board member Jonathan Davis seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor? Chair votes I. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries unanimously. Dr. Whitaker, I see we have some people who have joined us. Do we have any recognitions today? >> Yes, Chair Sultan. To facilitate tonight's recognition, I'd like to call upon Dr. Deputy Superintendent Karen Newton Scott. You board chair Dr. Tolen, Vice Chair, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Whitaker, and student. This evening, I am honored to present four recognitions highlighting the achievements of Decada High School and Beacon Middle School. As we honor each
141group, please do not take your seats. Instead, we'd like you to stage along the wall to my left and your right for a photo opportunity with our board members. First, we proudly recognize June Bug Brown. Come on up. Brown and her teacher Randall Archer. Mr. Archer Brown and her teacher Randall Archer are being recognized for an exceptional accomplishment. Dumbba's project was named a finalist in the international fresh wood competition organized by the Association of Woodworking and Furnishing Suppliers Fair. Her work showcased in Las Vegas this July earned an honorable mention and brought national recognition to our CTA program. This achievement reflects both June Bug's remarkable talents and Mr. Archer mentorship and I believe this is your work here on display. >> Thank you. Turning to leadership, come on up. represented PSD at the 2025 youth
142lead Georgia summit held July 17th to 18th at the University of Georgia. The summit hosted by the JW Fanning Institute in partnership with Chick-fil-A brought together rising juniors and seniors from across the state to build leadership skills. Uh their leadership skills form connections and explore issues facing Georgia's youth. Patients participation reflects the strength of our students voices and the bright future they are helping to shape for our community and beyond. Congratulations. school to the side. I want to invite Principal Glenn up. Next, we will celebrate the art. Lane Davidson, come on up. is an eighth grader at Een Hill Middle School and her original was selected for the cover of the soon to be awardwinning budget book. This publication highlights district history, fiscal priorities and expenditures and lang design reminds us of the students at
143the heart of those numbers. >> Proud of the opportunity our school provides to nurture artistic expression. Congratulations come back. Okay. Finally, we will recognize Decater High teacher Courtney Phillips. David Kuster, Stalin, Courtney Phillips won the grand prize of $92,000. Let me know 20. K show the 1% club which aired July 29th, 2025. Joining her on the show were her colleagues David Kuster and Mary Fowler who all advanced to the final round. Together they represented CSD with excellence, showcasing both their intellect and camaraderie. Miss Phillip win is a wonderful reminder of the outstanding educators in our district. Thank you for joining me in celebrating these accomplishments that continue to make us proud in CSB. I now invite our board members and Dr. Whitaker to join us for photos. This is the honore tight. Congratulations. want to
144put on my trivia. >> Trying to get a couple of trivia ringers, you know. >> Yeah. Congratulations. >> We want to bring the table. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Nice. Wow. >> Also dances with my daughter. >> Really? >> Yeah. She's a heck of a dancer. Wonderful. >> Yeah. Of course, >> you know, I'm going to ask the question when it's a it's a commitment. It is commitment. Yes, it is a commit. Yes, you're holding coming up. >> You want to come up? Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations everybody. >> Oh, okay. >> Okay. >> In the middle. Oh, look at you. >> Still doing the turn thing. >> Yes. >> Okay. Can you wait one second in the middle? >> There you go. [Music] >> Yeah. Okay. You don't you don't need it. >>
145Okay. You don't need Okay. >> Of course. Don't click it. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Newton Scott. Dr. Whitaker, do you have a superintendent report today? Yes, Chair Sultan. Good evening. We have officially completed our first month of school and students high energy and engagement continues. In September, we will recognize several observances. The National Literacy Month observance promotes reading, writing, and lifelong learning. Learners of all ages are encouraged to read, visit libraries, and engage in languagerich literacy activities to develop those skills. Our schools will host several activities throughout the month to increase awareness about literacy. Beginning Monday, September the 22nd, CSD will recognize Georgia Reads Day at the beginning of Dyslexia Awareness Month with a weeklong variety of engaging literacy and awareness events. The week will kick off with a read aloud read aloud by
146me followed by a Georgia public broadcasting live live stream featuring Georgia reads coach Malcolm Mitchell. Schools will participate in a bucket of books drive collecting gently used books for children read Atlanta. Community involvement will be encouraged through guest reader opportunities, including parents, staff, and our board of education members. Students will engage in the rock for dyslexia activity by painting awareness themed rocks. The week will continue with another read aloud by Dr. Whitaker and a go for red dyslexia day where students and staff are encouraged to support the global dyslexia awareness campaign by wearing red. This month we also recognize national attendance month which aims to raise awareness about the importance of regular school attendance to student achievement. theme this year is here today, ready for tomorrow. National Arts and Education Week, which celebrates dance, theater,
147music, literature, design, media, arts will take place September 8th through the 12th. And we are proud of our awardwinning arts programs offered in CSD and celebrate the talented teachers and coaches who enhance student experiences and opportunity through the arts. I think we just celebrated a couple of them today at the school year. As the school year progresses, I want to recognize that amid our celebrations and achievements, our community by events occurring locally, nationally, and globally. While the district may not always issue a formal statement, I want to reassure you that as tragedies, conflicts, and situations beyond the control be beyond our control emerge, City Schools of Decar remains resolute in supporting the needs of our students while upholding the values of the Decar community. I want to reiterate that the safety of our students and
148staff remains our highest priority. Families should expect timely communication during school and districtwide incidents and disruptions to the to our normal operations. Collectively, we can and must maintain the safety of our school community. The CSV safety and security team encourages all students, staff, and families to learn the standard emergency protocols of hold, secure, lock down, evacuate, and shelter. to assist us in our emergency preparedness. And as always, if you see something suspicious, please say something immediately. During the 2025 legislative session, the state legislature allocated funding to assist school systems in improving physical safety measures. At the state board of education meeting held on August the 20th this year, the board state board approved mental health grant funding for school districts. Based on a state definfined formula, the funding will ensure that each middle and high
149school receives $20,000. CSD is pleased to announce that we will receive $40,000. This crucial funding will enhance and expand mental and behavioral health support specifically in grades 6 through 12. As with other grant funds, specific stipulations exist regarding using this this money. The state has been clear that these funds are intended for direct mental and behavioral health services for students in grades 6 through 12. The services must align with the Georgia multi-tered system of support. We call that uh GAMTSS and may include crisis interventions. GAMTSS is a DA data-driven multi-ter prevention system designed to meet holistic needs of students by implementing a continuum of tiered supports. It relies on academic, behavioral, and well-being data to guide decisionmaking. It is important to note that funds cannot be used to purchase interventions, assessments, or other materials. Funds
150cannot be used to cover training for staff providing these services. The grant money must be supplement and it must supplement existing mental health services, not replace them. To identify students in need and determine the best support, CSD will utilize the data results from our BAS three behavioral and emotional screening scale. We commonly know call this the best our universal screening for social emotional and behavioral needs substance abuse referrals also our tier three referrals and chronic discipline referrals depending on individual student needs. Some may receive in-person services from a mental health provider while others may access services through state approved teleaalth provider. The district team is actively engaged in the procurement of these services. In compliance with the grant guidelines, CSD must provide a mid-year report to GDAU, Georgia Department of Education, detailing the services and
151activities. This report will include the number of students that have been served at each tier and specific funding allocated for various services. Each month, the administration brings policies to the board for recommendation and discussion. The board of education establishes the policies that govern the district's operations. Under the superintendent's leadership, the administration is committed to creating regulations after the board has approved the policy. regulations provide the specific guidelines on implementing and enforcing policies. Last month, thank you board. You approved policy JB, student absences. A draft regulation is being finalized and will be brought to the superintendent advisory councils for feedback this month. The final regulation will be presented as information at our October board meeting. At this time, Deputy Superintendent Karen Newton Scott will present beginning of year star data for students. Good evening board chair
152Dr. consultant, Vice Chair Hutz, esteemed board members, student board representative Batra, and superintendent Dr. Dimma Whitaker. Today, we are going to take a closer look at our fall star grow results. What's powerful about STAR is that it doesn't just give us a snapshot of where students are right now. It also tells us how much progress they are making over time. By looking at both achievement and growth, we're able to see not just what students know, but how far they're moving each year. This gives us a much fuller picture of how our instruction is working for different groups of students. Remember Jane from last school year? Last fall, Jane began with a score of 853 and this fall has scored a 983 at the beginning of the school year. She scored higher than 90% of students
153who also started with a score of 853, placing her at the 90th percentile for growth. Yay, James. Now, here's John. John also scored 853 in the fall of last school year and has begun this school year, increasing its score to 865. He increased by 12 points, which we celebrate, but many students who started with a score of 853 grew more than John did, placing him at the 20th percentile for growth. Jane's results are categorized as high achievement and high growth because she performed higher than most of the norm group and showed strong progress. Don's results on the other hand are categorized as high achievement and low growth. He is still performing at a high level but his yeartoyear progress is slower compared to the norm group. This distinction is important as we analyze results. Being
154identified as low growth does not mean a student is low achieving. Many of our students are meeting or exceeding grade level standards. Yet, their growth trajectory signals a need for continued attention to ensure they keep advancing. So, let's look at how this plays out across different grade groups. We will begin with results for early literacy. We assess all preK through third students three times a year in the fall, winter, and spring because early identification is key. Frequent monitoring allows us to step in quickly if a targeted support and challenge those who are ready to move ahead. This also aligns with Senate Bill 48, which requires universal dyslexia screening for all kindergarten through third grade. Start early literacy fulfills this requirement and ensures we are meeting both state law and our own commitment to early literacy.
155This fall, we assessed 1,149 KP students and 83% performed at or above the 40th percentile. This is a very strong starting point. With a full year of STAR assessment now behind us, we can look at student growth not just within a school year, but also across across years. In our falltofall data, 939 students took the early liter literacy assessment in both fall 2024 and fall 2025 and 74% demonstrated typical or high growth. This exceeds the national benchmark of 65% reflecting the hard work of our students and teachers. At the same time, of our K3 students are categorized as low growth. To better understand this, we broke the group into three achievement bands. Low achievement, low growth, which is the low 40th percentile, typical achievement, low growth, and high achievement, low growth. This breakdown shows us
156who is both below proficiency and not growing, who is meeting average performance but not making expected progress, and even which high achieving students are experiencing low growth. This helps us target support so that every child whether struggling on grade level or advanced continues to make meaningful progress. Now that we have this information and can drill down to see which students are represented in each group, teachers and leaders can also use STAR to access individualized focus skills and resources. Star suggests specific next steps for every student, making it possible to promote growth at every performance level we saw on the previous slide. An example of this report is is presented here on the right for kindergarten. In addition to this resource, all our elementary teachers have robust literacy resources through programs such as foundations, just write
157readers and other decodable texts like so early literacy is designed for our youngest learners measuring foundational skills. However, STAR reading is administered to all second through 12th grade students and it measures more advanced reading skills including vocabulary, comprehension, and text analysis. So, now let's take a look at star readings for grades 2 through 5. Here, the information is organized the same as the previous slides. We assessed students this fall and compared results from fall to fall. We found that 290 of the 1,255 students um who took the assessment outcomes were in the low growth area. What stands out is that the number of high achievers showing low growth is increasing. which tells us that while many students are maintaining high achievement, we must keep an eye on annual growth. This also suggests a need to
158ensure that enrichment and extension opportunities are challenging enough to promote continued progress, not just for grades 6 through 8. The data is also organized in the same way. And what we notice is a clear trend. As students move into the upper grades, the number of students who are high achieving but demonstrating low growth increases. Yet our achievement remains steady. This pattern suggests that while many middle school students are reaching or exceeding proficiency, they may not be consistently making the level of progress we would expect year to year. As students get older, it becomes increasingly important to provide rigorous, engaging learning opportunities that stretch their thinking and push them beyond grade level expectations. Without targeted enrichment and challenge, even our strongest students risk plateauing rather than continuing to grow. At the high school level, the numbers
159stand out even more. We see a higher concentration of students who are high achieving but demonstrating low growth. High school presents a unique challenge because students often perceive the impact of star data differently than younger students. Many may not see the assessment as directly connected to their grades or future opportunities. This means that additional digging is required to fully understand the story behind the data. We must triangulate star results with classroom performance, interim assessments, fourth grade, teacher observations and so on in order to accurately identify the names and the needs. This highlights the importance of engaging high school students in meaningful conversations about their data, helping them see its relevance and connecting it to long connecting it to their long-term academic goals. The same supports can be found within the star platform to assist our
160older students who are tackling more advanced literate. For example is what the output might look like for a ninth grader. In addition to the guidance provided within STAR, we also have curricular resources such as with wisdom Nissan at the middle school freckle and lolo which offer digital tools and instructional supports to help teachers extend learning differentiate for students and challenge those who require that. Together these resources create a comprehensive system for supporting literacy growth across all grade levels. Now we turn to star math which is administered to all K through 12th grade students in CSD. Just as star reading, this assessment projects proficiency on the state math test and tracks student growth over time. By pairing growth data with achievement levels, teachers and leaders can identify where students are excelling and where targeted support is
161needed. For K5, we can see we continue to see the same trend of exceeding the national norm with the majority of our students achieving typical or high growth. One consistent pattern across math and reading is that about 25% of student outcomes in the low growth category are from our average performing students. This indicates that while these students are performing on or near grade level, they could benefit from accelerated learning as well. In contrast, the percentages of students in the low achievement low growth and high achievement low growth fluctuate from year to year, suggesting variability in the way students at the end of the spectrum are being supported and are performing. For middle school, we again see a consistent pattern of about 25% of low growth falling in the typical achievement category. There continues to be
162an increase in the number of high achieving students who are experiencing low growth. This mirrors the trend we observed in reading where many students maintain high performance but are not demonstrating the expected yearto-year progress. At the high school level we see similar patterns as well making it essential to again triangulate the data star results class performance grades teacher input to identify students accurately by name and need. This work connects directly to graduation readiness, course success, and post secondary preparation. So across all grade levels, the pattern that emerges is that low growth appears in every group. So performing, average, and high achieving. We must celebrate, excuse me, we just celebrated remarkable achievement on our state test and we must be equally intentional about growth to ensure every student makes meaningful progress year to year. So what
163does this mean for our classroom? Our instruction must be differentiated, flexible and strategic. This means we have two jobs. Number one, we need to lift up the students who are behind and accelerate their progress. Number two, we also need to make sure our high achieving students are continuing to grow and are challenged in meaningful ways. Principles have already completed the STAR analysis to identify students showing no growth and with their leadership teams, they verified the needs using multiple data sources. Leaders and instructional coaches are partnering with teaching teams to name and execute clear actions to improve outcomes. We have supports in place to guide implementation of the instructional action plans, monitor progress and adjust as needed. At the same time, we are continuing to train and support teachers in using STAR data effectively. growth will
164be closely monitored throughout throughout the year, especially for students flagged as low growth. And at the end of the day, our goal is that every child grows, every child learns, and every child is supported in doing so. I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Um and thank you for um addressing the older students because that was the trend I noticed that as students got older whether it was English or math or reading or math you know middle school a higher percentage of high achieving but low growth um and I don't know if this is also the interoperable data system so I know there's student growth for like ECS and milestones this is specific to student growth for our stars correct >> will there be a time at which those intersect because I know
165you were talking about how, you know, we've got to look at different factors with the high school students because if there's not a grade and motivation, but eventually will those two intersect to see what student growth looks like across the board. >> That's part of the work that we do at the school level. Um I will say um bringing star on last year and understanding how they align both to the projections for the state assessment has been our learning curve because we don't want to make assumptions that aren't accurate and so that's the work that we're taking. >> So and then just one followup. So, it started with Jane and the other guy and um I'm guessing the student growth is specific to that student. >> Yes, the illustration just shows Jane and John at
166the same starting point, >> but if a student started at a different point, um the projected will be different. >> So, there wouldn't be a benefit because this is the third year we're using star. >> This is second year. Okay. So, we don't have enough then to see like I was just looking at math compared to reading and what you start seeing is like 60% of the students on the reading are at the high achieving right but math we're pretty much at 50% it looks like for all the grade levels. So at some point then is there just comparison of cohort for the test? We can get Thank you. Okay. Thank thank you so much Mrs. Newton Scott. Finally, I invite all stakeholders to mark your calendars for two upcoming superintendent listening sessions. The first
167one is scheduled for October 2nd from 5:30 to 6:30 at the Decatur Housing Authority Community Resource Center. The second will be held on October 9th from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Tally Street Upper Elementary School. That completes my report. >> Thank you. On behalf of the city schools of Decatur Board of Education, I appreciate your in-person and online presence for our September board meeting. We join Dr. Whitaker and the administration in underscoring the fact that the safety of students and staff is the top priority of every school district. Recent tragic events served as a poignant reminder of the vital role we all play in ensuring the safety of our school community. If you ever see or hear something suspicious, please say something. In addition to safety, we continue to appreciate the school community engagement in
168celebrating our schools and recognizing our monthly observances. Dr. Whitaker, who celebrates a milestone birthday this month, recognize literacy, attendance, and the arts. September is also the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month. The theme for 2025 is collective heritage, honoring the past, inspiring the future. Beginning September 15 through October 15th, National Hispanic Heritage Month recognizes the contributions and influences of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. Beginning during today's pre-work, the board continued our book study on modern-day strategies for community engagement, how to effectively build bridges between people and the bottom line. We then provided input on a state required policy, the use of electronic devices by students and potential new policies regarding facilities. There were four presentations during the work session. The first was an overview of interoperable data systems
169which is being built to provide insight into the district student data around attendance, academics, behavior, and demographics. This will enable the administration and school leaders to meet the specific needs of every student. The following presentation reviewed the progress of the annual capital plan, the five-year plan that began in 2022 for the entire district. Today, we discuss the priorities that are scheduled for the final two years of this plan. We are also pleased to receive an update on the new early childhood learning center and the expansion of Decar High School, which the administration will now provide monthly updates for the duration of the planning process. This presentation was followed by an overview of the proposed budget calendar for 2027. All of today's pre-work and work session presentations are available on the district's website and assembly. In
170addition to highquality learning, our schools provide a variety of programs and events. One particular upcoming event I want to highlight is the annual DHS 911 remembrance ceremony, which will be held this Thursday at 8:30 a.m. at the high school. The ceremony will be hosted by the JOTC and open to the community. Please check your school newsletters and CSC weekly to remain a breast of all the upcoming events and activities. I also want to remind the public and personally invite you to the board's upcoming fall community meeting on Monday, September 15th, starting at 6:30 p.m. at Beacon Hill Middle School. The meeting will be held in the media center. Board community meetings provide opportunities for the public to ask questions directly to the board and receive immediate responses. The topic of this meeting will be CSD
1712025 comprehensive capital improvement proposal. Additionally, stakeholders will be able to provide input on the district's future building utilization plans as a result of local and national enrollment trends. That concludes my remarks for this evening. Board members, do any of you have any thoughts you wish to share? Okay. Okay. All right. Board will now move into the consent agenda items which include monthly items such as financial, nutrition, and personnel reports. The first item includes a report. This will be a motion to accept the consent agenda in totality. Dr. Whitaker, do we have a monthly financial report? >> Yes, Chair Sultan. Dr. Lonita Broom, chief financial officer, will present the monthly financial report. Good evening. The July 2025 financial report and definition of function codes are located in the center. The finance department operates based on the
172district's four strategic accelerators with a specific focus on accelerator number four organizational effect and excellence through financial transparency and perspective. July is the first month of the fiscal year 2026 budget. The board approved a general fund budget of $111,858,374 in May. The district has $41 $41,519 in rollover grants from fiscal year 25 and have been awarded $88,912 in new grants for fiscal year 26. The combined grant total of $490,430 increases the general fund budget to $112,348,85. The grants are state awarded grants. State grants are funds allocated from the state for specific purposes as listed in the box to the right titled grant rollover and new grant. The grant revenue funds are listed in function of the grant Georgia Department of Education on the general fund financial report. The listed state grants are required to be
173budgeted in the general fund. As of July 2025, the district collected 25% or approximately 27.5 million of the budgeted revenue, which is 10% more than what was collected this time last year. The majority of July revenue collections were from property taxes which increased by 11% from July 2024. Approximately 26.8 million of the $27.5 million came from property tax collection. Property tax revenues are collected in April and December. The April collection were recognized as current fiscal year revenue and account for the district's receiving district receiving such a large percentage of budget revenue. 42% of the budget property tax revenue is traditionally received within the first month of the fiscal year. Expenditures are normal for this time of the year. The district has expended 2% of the overall budget or approximately $2 million for the month of
174July. This is a 30 This is 35% lower than what was spent in July 2024. The decrease in expenditures is due to last year's payroll shift for employees who work 185 and 190 days. Overall year to date, there's a surplus of approximately $25.5 million due primarily to the large receipt of property tax collection posted in July. Last year this time, the surplus was $20.9 million. The surplus of revenue is normal at this time of the year. The fund balance of $48 million consists of the surplus of revenue and fiscal year 25 un audited end of the year fund balance which was $22.7 million at the time this report was ran. This number is subject to change. Last year's fund balance was approximately $41 million. Please note that the fund balance will decrease as expenditures increase
175and revenue begin to decrease. July revenue for capital funds consists of approximately $8,836 from earnings on investments. The receipt of capital proceeds begin in August. Expenditures are normal for this time of the year and customarily exceed revenue. The $495,000 deficit will be covered by the fund balance, which was approximately $4 million in July. Fiscal year 26 anticipated expenditures for capital, which includes outstanding projects from fiscal year 25 is approximately $9 million. Special revenue funds consist mainly of federal, local, and state grants, not budgeted in general funds. We are currently closing out fiscal year 25 grants, receiving reimbursement, and preparing for fiscal year 26. School nutrition revenue and expenditures are trending within the same range as previous years. During the summer months, when school is out, school nutrition traditionally operates at a debt. Receipt of school
176nutrition revenue from sales and federal government typically begins in the month of August. The $117,138 deficit will be deducted from the fund balance which is currently right under a meter. I will be happy to respond to any questions or provide clarification. >> The July nutrition deficit that's just for covering staff and salaries. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Dr. Broom. Any other questions or comments from the board? >> Thank you. This item is this item is on to consent. >> Sure. >> Sultan, may I read the recommendation? >> Yes, please. >> I recommend that the City Schools of Decar Board of Education approve the consent agenda items 1 through 11. Do I have a motion to approve consent agenda items 1 through 11? >> So move. >> Board member Johnson Davis makes the motion. Is there
177a second? >> Second. >> Board member UT seconds the motion. Um is there any discussion? >> Yeah, I'd like to discuss number six GMC. >> Okay. >> Um so I believe that is the approval of the contract for um the design and build of the ECLC. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. And so I so appreciate that the new design between our August board meeting and today includes that change and correct me if I'm wrong that was incited by the city's input. So we no longer have a variance. Um I'm glad that that happened. However, you know, I'm thinking of our community engagement um book and strategies and I'm thinking of what I've heard of input into say the past sessions and designs. We did host them and I'm so appreciative we did so,
178but afterwards I think we learned that many people felt like they weren't included. So, you know, I'd like to know if there's an opportunity for the community who wants to be involved, not to question the project, but simply to give input on the design. >> Um, as a point of clarification, the consent agenda item is not on the design itself. It's for the the services. It's for the services for the actual vendor, not the design itself. So, that should be the discussion point. Is that what you want to >> Okay, then maybe I'm sorry. It was like 500 and something pages we had. So when I looked through the entire contract, I thought what it was saying is effectively we're going to use this the design that we were presented today with this contract. There
179are no other designs correct other than the city as we discussed earlier coming back and saying something like you know when I asked about the permit feedback and I think Khan too clarified that hey there could be something about erosion that would make the city do that but otherwise the construction company and the you know related um entities are specific to building the building according to the design we represented. Is that correct? what I'm reading here. I'm sorry. >> Yes. I I wanted to share that >> um design is an iterative process. >> And so what the summary of this item is is under this agreement GMC will deliver all architectural engineering and landscape design services that are required to complete the project. >> The 500page document is not for this item. the 500page document
180is for the Verizon contract. >> But either way, so I'm sorry if I'm unclear. I I thought the design of the new ECLC was a product of GMC's work and now we're looking at bringing that all the way forward with this GMC contract. Is that >> this is a renewal of the >> Yes, it's a renewal that's been on the items last >> month. This was already Yes. This is the continued. This is a renewal of a contract that you already have in place. >> Okay. And so again, just to reiterate unlike the city input for the new modification of the ECLC building with the newest design, there will be no other opportunity for public to give input on the building design. >> Not not regarding changing the design at this point. No. >> Okay.
181But that's not but >> our our our next decision regarding the design is whether we accept the BFA indebtedness that we that I think is an October vote if I'm not mistaken. >> And that guaranteed maximum price is not provided by GMC. That is provided by your construction manager at risk which is Parish Construction >> which was approved also by this board. But to clarify, the recommendation that's in the packet here for GMC is to approve their continued engagement with GMC as a district architect to complete construction documents, provide construction administration for the ECLC, related capital improvements, coordinate with the construction manager at risk, parish construction, pre-construction services. Okay, that's the um is there any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor. >> Any chair votes? I any opposed hearing? None. The motion carries unanimously.
182Um we will move to the public comment portion of our meeting at 6:30. >> Actually, we're going to do policy at one policy. Uh, so Cher Sultan, I would like to call on Mrs. Amanda Lynch, chief of staff to present two policies for first reaction. Yeah. >> Sorry. >> Good evening, board chair Dr. Soulton, vice chair, members of the board, student representative, and superintendent Dr. Jingle Whitaker. Tonight, we have two policies for action. These policies are ISVG internet acceptable use and BH board code of ethics. First is policy ISVG internet acceptable use. This policy was presented last month for first read and has been available for public comment through assembly. No public comment was received. A few grammatical changes were made to the version presented last month primarily removing repetitive language. May I read the
183recommendation? >> Yes. It is recommended the city school educator board of education approve policy IFBG internet acceptable use for action. I have a motion to approve the recommendation of policy IBG internet acceptable use for second read. >> So move member makes the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Board member Johnson Davis seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? >> Votes I. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. >> Next is policy BH, board code of ethics. This policy was reviewed by the board of education during your annual ethics training that took place during the August board retreat. No changes have been made to the policy. The recommendation being made tonight will be for the board to take action to reaffirm the policy which will update the last reviewed
184date. May I read the recommendation? It is recommended that the city school educator board of education take action to reaffirm existing policy BH board code of ethics. Do I have a motion to take action to reaffirm the existing policy BH board code of ethics? >> So move for member makes the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Board member Anderson seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? Were were these two policies the ones that were law required or was that a different set of pol that may have been a different set of >> policy ISBG was a revision to an existing policy in response to some legislation. Got it. >> And BH is just the annual kind of reaffirmation of ethics. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any any further discussion? >> Hearing none. All
185those in favor? >> Chair votes I. Any opposed? >> Hearing none. The motion carries unanimously. Okay. Now >> we will move the public comments. >> Yes, I know at least >> 6:30. >> We have anybody online? >> One one person I know is here. Miss Bowman is here. >> There are three others. There are two three total and um they're all in person. Turner Nick We want to move it forward or do we have to wait? Are they all here? >> No, I don't think they're all here. >> Okay, we'll come back at 6:30. >> Public com. The following information is included in the board policy manual and members of the public also acknowledge this information when they sign up to speak. This serves as a reminder for all speakers and members of the audience.
186The opportunity to address the board during public comment is limited to district parents, students, residents, employees, businesses, and organizations. Persons wishing to address the board during public comment must sign up by 5:30 p.m. and in doing so will be asked to state their connection to CSC andor the city of Decar. to allow time for the board's other business. Public comment will be ordinarily limited to one hour or 20 speakers. At the board's discretion, public comment may be extended for a spe a specified amount of time or a specific number of additional speakers. The time limit for all speakers will be three minutes. Persons speaking during public comment will not be permitted to yield the floor or transfer unused time to other speakers. Comments during public comment should be addressed to the board as a body
187and not to any individual board members. At the chair or chair's discretion, persons violating this policy may be asked to step down. Speakers should be courteous and professional. Speakers are not to list complaints about specific personnel or individuals connected with the district in a public session. The board strictly prohibits abusive language, threats, comments, jeers, applause, or shouts from the floor. Disruptive persons will be asked to leave the meeting room. The chair may terminate public comments that are profane, vulgar, defamatory, or disruptive. If any speaker comments begin to verge into the areas of hate speech or defamation, I will have to ask that speaker to end their comments. Speakers may not address confidential student or personnel matters, but may wish to submit such concerns to the superintendent in writing. Members of the board will not address
188persons presenting public comment or speak to the substance of any comments made during public comment. Instead, a member of the administrative team will follow up with persons speaking at the board meeting. Dr. Whitaker, will you please call our first speaker? >> The first speaker is Laura Bowman. >> Hi, good afternoon. Good evening. Uh my name is Laura Pulman. I'm a parent of two here indicator um and a resident. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um largely I'm going to save my comments for next week. I'm very interested in hearing more um before I share more and so I'm delighted to hear that building utilization is part of our community conversation next week. I did however um want to take this opportunity in this beautiful room to call our collective attention um to this space.
189Um I wish that our classrooms and that our learning spaces looked and felt like this environment matters. environment tells our kids that they matter, that education matters. And I know this personally because I taught um at Drew Charter School and the building, the K Ak um the elementary school building that is now there replaced a windowless brick building with a windowrich building whereby every classroom had natural light because environment does matter. And um I know that we all see the cater teachers and staff and leadership doing the most and I'm very grateful for that. And I want us to continue to show our gratitude not just with words of praise, but by ensuring that every classroom, every cafeteria, every media center, every playground, and every hallway shines like our team indicator does. and that our
190places are spaces that exemplify our commitment of allin for our kids who show up every morning bringing their very best to our building. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> The next speaker is Sarah Turner McFarland. >> Evening. My name is Sarah Turner McFarland. I have two children here in CSD. The new EC plan raises questions about priorities and trust for me. I worry that they could pull millions of dollars away from addressing the needs already in our schools. For families like mine with kids on 504s navigating autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, equity and compliance aren't optional. They are legal and ethical obligations that must be met. Many families have struggled to get services. Some have even had to leave CSD because these supports weren't accessible. I'm not against expanding early childhood opportunities. Those needs are also
191real, but trust is built in the district shows it can meet the needs of current students while investing in future initiatives. If the district truly values literacy, equity, and inclusion, and justice, then it should be able to demonstrate that commitment by ensuring supports for students with disabilities are in place. So my question is, how does CSD all police system translate to include concrete support for students with autism, disabilities, and special ed services? Thank you. That is all. Okay. Thank you. We would like to thank all of the speakers for taking the time to be here tonight. As board members, it is important for us to hear the concerns and we'll take your comments into Dr. Whitaker. We will go into the next item future dates. All right. Uh the board will host our second two-way
192community meeting of the year on Monday, September 15th um from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at Beacon Hill Middle School. Our next board meeting will be held here at the Wilson Center on October 14th, 2025. There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 6:37 p.m.