October 8, 2024, Board of Education Meeting

001e e I get started thank you for joining us today for Board of Education freeor session our board meeting Cadence allow board m MERS to prepare for the upcoming regular meetings through these pre-work sessions sessions typically more casual for info Gathering and no votes will be taken we'll begin with our book study for the year the governance Core board member UTS chapter two is yours sir uh well thank you very much uh board chair heren I thought that we would um each of us take an opportunity to talk about both what we felt work well out of this chapter I want to be clear I know I've been a Critic of this book but uh there were things in this chapter that I found helpful um but I I feel like it would be remiss

002if we didn't also each of us take the opportunity to offer a critique of something that they found um short the CH let me just use use that word and I can uh maybe start one of the things that I thought was most helpful so a generalized critique that I have is that the book has a tendency to avoid specificity but on page 40 where it is talking about characteristics of of governing mindsets and how to be effective about it one of the sentences that stood out to me was that a characteristic of a governance mindset is that trustees run towards complexity and depth rather than run away from it and I felt that that was a really good encapsulation of understanding what is meant by systems thinking understanding what is meant by the role

003to to not over lean on each of our independent expertise but as a group to Grapple with the complexities of a of a of a complete system I just I felt like that was a a an excellent ENC capsulize are uh tasked with and expected to do as a as a team uh I also felt the um figure 2.1 the six CES uh I I felt that that is a a very good layout of of they were using the term Global competencies but in general competencies for man in uh very very complex environments uh I was pleased in reading through this that I think every single one of these points makes it into our strategic plan in one way or the other uh and in particular in in how we think about what is our

004objectives for teaching our students so um that I was also pretty out uh the last thing that I was pleased to eat about and I uh actually reminds me follow up with um superintendent Whitaker on page 45 it describes uh most one of our most valuable activities is take time to actually visit the school yes and and so I believe that we are due of schol I think would like to follow and make sure that we do have the opportunity to schedule that I also think that would be an excellent opportunity for our newest uh board member to uh to join us on on some of those uh some of those tours uh board member soon as I read that part I immediately sent need to get this scheduled uh I know for board member

005Anderson we want to try to work around your greatest level of availability which me it needed needs to probably be next week which I don't think it could be so what uh yes we did think about and when I read it I immediately sent the email so fantastic it made me think about it yes uh I think this is quite an important critique on page 39 the top of page 39 they start well describing that strategic thinking and strategic planning is often confused with one another I don't disagree with that uh I actually also agree with the second sentence strategic thinking refers to the mindset that drives the work of governance I completely disagree with the definition of strategic planning we did the strategic planning we as a community did the strategic planning those strategic

006plans then go to the uh the the administration to be operationalized that is the point of operational planning tactical planning execution planning it is different and and I I didn't P I understand what they're trying to say I think being unspecific like that is part of the frustration that I've had with with some of this text um so with that uh ready to go you want me to pass it along this way and let you do yeah board member Johnson Davis would you like to take a a pass well I don't know if it's because you know we hasn't been too long since we last um since we read the last book and we had you know BBA training um this summer um these kind of feel like reminders for me there was nothing groundbreaking

007uh which I guess is affirming um you know there's just I feel like different lingo lingo that they add to certain ideas and Concepts but I you know I was like yeah this sounds like what we're doing and but these are you know I think helpful reminders um you know the manner like when I first at the beginning of the chapter I was like what is Manner and so it just seems like kind of a odd label um you know but you know basically I thought you know just kind of reminders about board norms and how do we interact and how we present ourselves um so that was that was it for me do you do you find that so I mean a lot of the information in this book is presented as groundbre have

008the shortcomings of not having this information and I feel that does not comport to my actual experience on this board and working with gsba so you know I'm constantly thinking about gsba as you know which you know shout out to them because I'm like they cover this they cover this and they're doing it for you know all of these districts in the state of Georgia and so like our other you know state school board or state yeah School Board associations you know not doing these things um well I I want to say I I have not shared before but this was the recommendation by gsba because this is part of the foundation of a high performing School school board that they would be able to understand this and this is really the foundation for a

009lot of what they create to give to us so I'm glad that it feels like it's a reminder and a reiteration this is that's what it should be is great sorry uh part I like was top of 44 they're discussing what it means to be a trustee and uh this challenge definitely spoke to my first little bit which is no one can know everything uh looking back at the district How could a trustee have deep knowledge about Transportation Food Services Health Care Facilities construction finance and budget and construction and curriculum and I could go on and on and on and on on the list and I think that when you are a new board member and and I struggle with this as well it's like a constituent or someone hits me with something at this

010point like if I got a in-depth question about bus routes as a board member I think it's important to say I I have no idea but I can get the answer for you and if there's a policy flaw causing that I can start that conversation but then I do have parents that look at me like like you don't know the bus route that tally in which bus my child should be on aren't you tempted to say yes to that I I think yes I I think that I'm you know I think it's natural my personality you share this right to be like yeah yeah yeah of course I know that um I can get but when the correct answer is I can get the answer to it and being a good trustee means approaching that

011with the right stuff because the truth is is until we embrace it like expert in any way that this community is elected to tell you how the the the student to staff ratio at Glennwood Elementary should be broken down that is not my role that is not something that I am qualified to do or hired to do um are we funding those things what is the priority of the budget that leads to paying staff so that we can oh now that I can get excited about so I actually like that I think it it gave me the confidence to say like that but then the second part which is really important I think is that cycle of mistrust that made me think back about other board members that I've worked with where um or or

012just even in past relationships when I've been privy to like there's a gap there between this person saying this and me believing it that's not a good working board and so as an administr I thought part of this is talking to the superintendent which is you've got Miss Anderson comes on as a new board member she's gonna ask questions and rule number one is earning trust and earning Faith because if that's never brought on it's impossible for her to be a good boy how could you if you're first respond and I just use as the newest member right like I show up and I'm asking questions I'm asking questions um there have been other yeah there have been other administrators were just like well I just don't trust you we're g to be a bad

013board if we don't trust the information that we're given or look elsewhere because we have to say I don't notice so much stuff to be a good board that was I first started reading chapter 2 trust is what popped up into my mind and maybe because we have been on previous boards to get Shar that have that shared experience yeah but it's it's really about a level of trust between board members between um board members and superintendent and um the staff absolutely yeah I I do think it's worth pointing out that we are in a better place a lot of it I I have served on mostly the makeup of this board and have always been um very pleasantly surprised how effective that's all J Dr R yes uh to Echo that trust component one

014of the things that was shared at gsba new board member training it was the key element to affect effess is trust among and when I read it I immediately thought back to that session when I that I attended at gsba so it speaks directly to it um I will also say the four uh what are now the six C's um the original four C's would be communication collaboration critical thinking and creativity but to know that we now talk about citizenship we also talk about character and that speaks specifically to me to our vision our mission around who we are as dictator and our and just our vision like I said and our probably our share beliefs as well um I think I struggled with this chapter a little bit um I think the overall organization

015of it um I understood but then Within each subheading I felt like it bounced around a lot so um I had to go back and read some things twice which I found frustrating so I would start off with one thing there would be a concept and then they would throw in like an anecdote or a story which I thought like was completely unrelated and then I would get a little confus so sometimes time all the things together I strugg with a little bit um it was helpful to have a little icons at the side so I could remember exactly what they were getting at um but some sometimes I find stories like in margins that are not related I find that it's kind of hard to tie all these things together um Loosely um uh

016without it seeming redundant like the same concept beinging itself an a different flavor um I think the thing that stood out to me the most is actually towards the end when they talk about manner um I thought it was somewhat controversial um but I kind of got the point which is that um a lot of what we here is not necessarily in concept but in delivery um and I think he has a quote here which said they may not forget what you said they will forget what you said but they will never forget how you made this and I thought that was a my answer I did too I had to go look it up but apparently there is some controversy about who actually gets credit for it um but if you Google it still

017my but um and then you know he talked about how you board should take a board meeting edit out the sound and then see what you look like what are like um what your body tone looks like um because it's true so much of your communication is actually not verbal at all um I think that's an important point when you know communicating with stakeholders um your colleagues co-workers so much of getting your message across as and how you're delivering it listen they don't like choices um but I did think as I was reading this I was like there's a lot of broom for bias there I think is a a lot of my other goals and jobs I think a lot of the way that I say things is often interpreted because I'm a woman

018my side I'm a woman of color I think sometimes people think that if you don't say things a certain way you to misinterpret those things so some when I went back and read that for the second time I really was offended by first part of it um you know sometimes I said what I said wasn't be offensive it just very direct you could take that any kind of way but at the end of it I think the core of it is that sometimes when dealing with parents community members parents have concern or even dealing with each other uh sometimes it's not what we're saying it's we saying it to one so I highlighted um well one you know I try to ignore the style but I guess I will start with I would like to

019see more specificity that applies to us because it it just feels a little bit like the last book with the we're arguing about paint color and I just don't see any of that on this Flor so you I do appreciate it but I want real world examples versus the ones that just hover in something that I don't see um but I did highlight things like what more important to the trustee on page 30 is about the understanding the ambiguity of the gray area that exists between the two and that is between the function of governance and administration and curriculum instruction I think it is important to do that like there's that strategic planning and day to day versus the visioning so I I quite like the ambiguity um I also like the idea I think

020it was on the same page H that you cited uh 40 perhaps most of all those trustees who become more effective are willing to go outside their comfort you know to G new understanding and so I do ask a lot of questions because I do I like learning and I want to know um I think one of the challenges is knowing when you know my doctor used to joke her my daughter's p CH I'm like okay you're maxed out on your questions give me the sheet of paper now um so you know still knowing when the questions are effective for what we're doing and when the questions are more of a kind of personal need to understand what's happening those were the two biggest things I did I did I do in a second that

021I I did acknowledgement that there is a gray area I mean that's going to exist and that's a part of the complexity that we have to sort of remember um what stood up to me was on page 49 figure 2.2 where um there was there's data on the importance of um verbal and nonverbal Communications and what you know kind of shocked me because I didn't really I didn't really know this 7% of 7% of the the communication importance and words like say a lot about about the board and that like trust isn't always established you know with words but rather actions I think that that's um such a big part of the communication and ESP on the board how actions are just um they they go a lot they go a lot further than and

022then how on page 50 um it kind of talks about how empathic listening um which means listening with the intent to understand which I also feel is largely Comm um what's interesting about that I'll just make a small anecdote to to wrap this up um that relationship the ability to to to feel heard to hear and to be able to effectively communicate that hearing Beyond just words um without without going into any details Dr Johnson Davis and I have a very very concrete disagreement or point of view on some issues facing the board and I do feel very much that it is only because of the awesome amount of respect that I hold her in that that we're able to express those differences without it affecting our underlying relationship so I did want yeah knowledge

023that's a that's a real Dynamic yes thank you right that was good thank you board member what uh next month Dr Whitaker will facilitate chapter three superintendent governance mindset and we'll move on to the next item updated board Norms Dr Whitaker yes board Norms have been updated to reflect the presence of the student board representative and the feedback that was provided last month during pre-work the changes are reflected on page five any discussion that's towards the bottom of the page where we added the information I did want to say that I agree with the changes that were made I mean I do I do largely feel like this could be written for all of us I mean we certainly don't have I think the right to demand a response from any one of us but

024I appreciate documenting it in this way to the Reas I thought it captured our you know very involved conversation well awesome all right so now send one across the table we will sign that and move forward thank you thank you for you all yeah that paragraph's great awesome so uh chair hearnen I would like to actually call on Mrs Jennifer Burton she is our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning we are going to have an early learning panel so as you can see in front of you we do have three Educators by trade in the fact that they work in this space they may not be actually teaching children but they are leaders in their own right and so uh Mrs Burton will facilitate um a few questions and then obviously you as board members

025will be able to ask as well afternoon everyone um thank you for uh joining us today for this really important discussion on early childhood education with city schols of dictator school board members and we're really thrilled to have you guys here um to offer your Insight um our panelists bring a wealth of knowledge and experience from their work in education and Community impact so I'm going to read a little bit about them to introduce them Britney Collins is an experienced social impact strategist with over 15 years of experience in urban public education and the nonprofit sector as the executive director of the Betty and Davis Gerald Foundation Britney overse Grant making Andy supporting organizations focused oness low income family she previously led the PX initiative at gear working to enhance early childhood education and partnership

026with the Atlanta mayor's office Britney has been recognized for her leadership and Civic engagement and holds a VA from Spellman College and a master of education from Georgia State University next we've got Christine Ramirez who is dedicated over 20 years to maretta City Schools where she has held roles in elementary and middle and administration she's the Emily lmic Early Learning Center which ensured that all children in Marietta have access to free highquality free carts Christine is passionate about Community Partnerships and early learning believing that they are foundational for lifelong learning her current Focus includes promoting the science of reading traa and last we've got Rachel spreer who serves as the relationships manager at the r Howard dobs Jr Foundation where she oversees Grant making and Education Health in the environment across Georgia prior to joining

027the foundation Rachel spent seven years is the executive director of Partnerships and development at Atlanta public schools building strong corporate philanthropic and external relations she also brings her experience from other K12 District roles and is actively involved with organizations such as Hands-On Atlanta and the boys and girlss Club of Metro so we're excited to hear their perspectives on how school districts can effectively prioritize and support Early childood Education so let's dive into questions so my first question is for ch over the last several years we've seen more and more school districts invest in early childhood programming with the goal to lay a stronger foundation for later educational years can you share examples of the benefits and outcomes you've observed of districts and communities prioritizing Early Childhood educ thank you all for inviting me it's an

028honor to be here um to talk about early learning learning when we um before we opened our Early Learning Center in Marietta we had a year to and actually we visited your very own solid typ um it was one of the reasons seeing the different Early Learning Centers that we chose to do Center versus doing pre in the elementary SCH um we definitely found that was a benefit versus having it spread out some of the things that we focus on to ensure that um we're doing what we need to do is number one data a lot of data gets lost with Early Learning right because they're little what are you going to look at so we've done a we've over the years we've done a couple of things we follow our children to kindergarten so

029I know when my children are in prek they're moving on of kindergarten we use an assessment called map and I follow that map data for my kids year after year based on the Early Learning I had that data to show that the kids that attend my Early Learning Center performed significantly better than kids that did not perform my a lot of times we get lost in the data piece um and I don't find that a lot of people value data when it comes to Early Learning but it is a very important piece the other piece is so you can't get a r you can't get rid of small private centers right you need those those are very important for the state of Georgia but school systems what we know is that when families feel connected

030they want to stay with the city so one of my goals is to really help my family to feel connected and want to stay in marry the city because we know transc creates what issues later on so we want them to stay so building that connection having them be part of the school the other piece which you can see as a pro but also it's a financial um con is child sign so in the past before Early Learning these children that were having difficulty would come in your door at the kindergarten right there was nowhere to catch them before now we're catching them earlier so your numbers in your special education in your ages three through four is increasing which then turns into additional funds so you're either going to spend the money in ages

031three and four and do early intervention or you're going to catch it in in kindergarten so I my opinion it balances it out we've seen an increase in our numbers um but I think over time we'll see a decrease in the casr SI right because we're offering that early intervention um and just access to Quality Early Learning we are considered Georgia pre so we are partly funded by Georgia PR and we are partly funded by marett City everything we do instructionally has intentionality we focus on the science of reading that phonological awareness that language development that social emotional piece that a lot of people have stopped talking about is so important for birth recort so we focus on all of those different which then leads into kindergarten so now kind of you have these teachers

032and just kind of the district have said there's a difference between the kids that have gone to Early Learning and the kids that haven't so as you see the years go by you see a difference and the data supports it what are some of the significant challenges um that you've observed so I will say I'm an expensive program if you ever talk to our superintendent he says I'm very expensive but I always say I'm well worth it so we um we are partly funded by Georgia PR I'll give you kind of some approximations my program just general education not special ed a special ed would have to be there regardless of me right just general education is about 1.8 million a year and Georgia prek which has significantly increased their their amount they're spending this

033coming year which is great I'm I'm approximating they're going to give us about 900,000 of that so it'll be about a 5050 even spit so with that the financial piece is um definitely a barrier um finding the families of that are needed so in the beginning we're a very small radius so we're about nine miles in marot city we do not offer transportation that was one thing that we were not um willing to do just because of the cost and um just the buses retrofitting the buses and all the different pieces of it so we um find find in those families we have weighted our system the great thing is we've become sought after but who wants us the middle and upper class wants their children to go to our Center so we do a

034lot of work with working in our lowincome areas we go to the apartment complexes to register the children and we wait them on our lottery so when we have a lottery children that live in certain communities are weighted differently so it is working over the past couple of years we've had weight lifts and the the families that are speically from our middle and upper class areas or employees employees also are have the option to to come to the center but again they're part of the lottery so the waiting is working so right now we're about 5050 we're about 50 low income 50 middle and upper class um we'd like to have more low income again it just goes back to finding those same I know one things that you're looking at um the other thing

035that um can be a challenge Early Learning is just the idea of ensuring you're intentional with your instruction in every area everything you do should be intentional and it should always have a specific outcome based on academic rigor therefore four right so there's a lot of play happening but all that play has intentionality and ensuring that that's happening and it's just not turning into kind of your typical you served as the previous tax director in the city of Atlanta and now serve in a role with with based on your experience establishing strategic coalitions and shared vision for regional impact what are the most critical actions Community Partners philanthropy and districts can take to work together to meet the needs of young children thank you it's a pleasure to be here I will say as a

036person that served as a founding director of P one of the strongest documents that allowed me to really identify Partners around certain strategies so they wanted to do early learning Early Learning is it's a big that's a big term right and it's not just your Center is all of the other um wraparound Services attributes practices that you're building around that so one of the strongest things they did I actually inherited but it was a report and folks spent about nine months those folks included representatives from the district representatives from the city Business Leaders Community heare providers I was able to benefit from that Runway when I came in three years because that Vision had been set and people saw themselves in that so it wasn't just oh we're GNA you know invest in this one

037program there were a set of recommendations that we really coralled around and I think because one we had that um report that set out the recommendations which are also guard rils because everyone has lots and lots of ideas but is right now to be able to build some momentum from a funding standpoint from a specific code in a bigger city to say we have limited funds or limited capacity where are we going creation that took about n to 18 months before anybody even but that was so strong I will say getting in the seat you know once we had our guard RS one of the first for who we're doing work um because with Early Learning you can have preek in school districts you can have PRK at private centers um that's a lot of

038turf so one identifying what are existing Assets in this community who are your anchor Partners who can lead on implementation but also that when we identify gaps that's really where our city Partners came in so working with the city of Atlanta vir was actually at Atlanta public school at the time working with APS to say these have the Gap around what we've heard from community that don't exist in our community who can lead on that and then who can lead on the funding and because I'm speaking to the school board um and now putting my funding hat on the one thing we look for is we're public dollars and we're philanthropy supplementing and not to planting we get so many different requests where because I spent time in an advocacy organizations helping an organization say

039you know we can come in at the 30% but have you actually talked to detal you're fundraising for preas LA but have are you on a list are you leveraging that public Stream So as you are looking at your role in school board really thinking about your budget and being Innovative like maybe they haven't us it that way but for the pack work for the first time ever the city and Atlanta Public Schools directed investment towards Early Learning ACS invested in eight 8we old and they don't have eight we olds in the door but they knew the return on investment and really was because of the school board member I mean School Board collectively and a superintendent it's because we haven't used our Public Funding or those line items that I don't ever want to

040be responsible for if they figured it out um how can we allocate Public Funding and that was so much easier to make the case when we took the fundraising the scale to our fulfilling dropic Partners to our corporate and they raised $21 million in 13 months and that was because were able to say this is what the school board put in this is what the city put in and we're counting on you corporate Community or philanthropic and I think it really was the success of not duplicating Services figuring out the unique role that all of those different players can play but undergrading that I um it was really to me the report that I was able to to it some eight recommendation for my guid I was fundraising whether I was identified partners and I

041said a lot of NOS because that's just not what we're doing in the first four years but I hear you and also last four taking it to Rachel was really Community engagement along the way um started during Co and we had to do some virtual know picnics we had all these Partners but I go to Washington Park and show flyers and Mom's like I have no idea what you're talking about but to me there is a disconnect if we say we're serving at family and we're sharing all of the logos of the partners and they don't have any idea we're not doing something right so they continuous Improvement our partners including our school board including our city including our child care providers who have to leave our Missions at the door our work was all

042anchored around this common goal of increasing classess and quality um so I heard you all talked about trust trust was the anchor and accountability and sort of guard rails Focus was key to start that work Rachel so you sered in on both sides with the district partnership and then you know also on the philanthropy side so bring it together for us so you know how do funders evaluate the impact of the district's effort yeah well I would say asking for money giving away the money giving away the money easier but both have been so valuable but memb Dr than um so I think um the way I think about it is three buckets so the first you know a fun will think about um alignment so um many foundations philanthropy whether the origin of the

043wealth is a family or another donor there's something called donor intent which means that's the intention that the donor s for the funds to go to um so in the case of the dobs foundation Mr Howard dobs was a life insurance executive the dancing goats here indicator used to be a Georgia life um building um um he made a his wealth that way decided to um leave his assets to a foundation the three things that were important to him were the environment education and health and within those areas he had ways that um he wanted so that's important to know because you could have the best project in the world but if it's not a fit with the foundation guidelines it doesn't mean the work's not valuable it's just you know that alignment is important

044um so that's one of the filters in which funders make decisions um the second is relationships so Britney mentioned trust um I think of this work a lot like Shark Tank or dating you know like sometimes you in a person presents and you know the idea might not be fully flushed out but something about the person says I believe in you and so I want to go where you're going going and I'm going to attach to your train and so relationships trust um I Heard a statistic that said something like takes maybe Britney you know this 18 to 24 months to close a major gift or something I mean it takes work it takes relationship building stewardship longevity really getting to know these thund and kind of iterating back and forth building that relationship and

045then the third part is the outcomes and kind of evaluating the evidence um this has really changed in philanthropy um even when I was at APS um raising money that um a lot of evidence outcomes in exchange now there's a philosophy called trust based philanthropy which to do good work and not really like demanding outcomes in exchange for funding or outcomes based funding um but they are going to want to see you know evident not not real statistics or numbers they hard numbers but evidence of what um the outcomes that you want the desired outcomes that you want so you know why do you want the early year Learning Center because um foundational education is the most important predictor of success going forward evidence that it's going to be high quality um more kind of

046qualitative things um they will also you know want to see things like for a capital request they'll want to know you know the land's yours are you going to have to purchase it are you going to have to um do a lease you know that they'll funders will ask those kind of questions basically they want to know that the investment is not you know gonna money not so that's really what they'll be looking for um they have competing priorities of course across three area or in our foundation three areas we have a limited budget to begin with and so we just want to make sure the Investments are um really sound um but that doesn't mean you know if it's a new thing or a pilot you know like I said if it's intriguing um

047you know we will we will support that but those are kind of some of the questions that they'll ask um they're also going to want to know about community buyin and stakeholder support um sometimes they're going to want to know about other funders so Britney mentioned you know how much fundings do the district gonna have get in the game um are there other funders that are going to come in um are you only relying Solly on the One Foundation um so it's multifactorial but I think those three things um alignment relationships and and outcomes you know shared outcomes are how we would evaluate looking forward um what role do you see school districts playing in the broader early childhood education land so one of the things that Britney mentioned is this idea of early learning

048not just being the center and that is exactly right I think a lot of times we think that if you're offering prek if you're offering a center that's all you need to do when in actuality it's about a community so our ultimate vision is to be the Hub of maretta city so we all re I don't necessarily provide resources right like I'm not going to be able to work with twoy olds or I'm not going to be able to help families get different programming but can I help them actually go get those resources absolutely so we see ourselves as the community hub to where if a if family's having trouble with finding a pediatrician or finding location for food or any of those basic necessities we have a lot of um I don't know if

049you've ever tried to navigate the world of birth rree if your child is not typical developing it is hard it is a really hard world to navigate so we've really gotten into that piece of it and that's going to better us right because now these kids are getting early intervention so we have become kind of the Hub and we help support them finding resources that's one piece the other piece is we had we received a grant about three years ago and I have a person who is um founded in the science of reading and four year old three and four year olds and she actually goes into our private center and we have centers that work with us and she works with a teacher she coaches we we offer professional development um we've seen the

050other world we have lots of resources we have lots of the school systems are much better prepared than these private centers so having that person go into these private centers it it alleviate some of the barriers and it kind of levels the playing field we also have been able to follow those children so then we can say to the center hey this is how your children are doing so it builds that relationship it builds Community um and they now believe they're part of us right like you always want to be part of the bigger of your community so they feel that way and the final thing that we're beginning to start we haven't started it yet is we're going to do something called learning speak and those are for families that either have birth through

051before and they don't go anywhere necessarily you have one group that may have nannies you have one group who may just stay at- home moms or families that just stay home with the children there places they can go and actually get two hours of good academic um mom and child or dad and child it's not a drop off it is a it is an actual relationship ship where you're actually kind of working with the parent to also provide what you do with little kids right so it's not just I'm going to drop my child off we're going to read together we're going to talk about kind of the different things that you should be doing with your child the nursery R rymes how do you do all of that early learning which is easy but

052families don't know not if they just don't know it so we're going to start in November three learning spaces and three different locations in our at risk population so all of that is early learning all those different pieces is helping that early learning so school system could kind of become that tub and Branch out they don't have to have the resources for everything but connecting the the community the family to their resources it's only going to help the school system in the long love the learning space so question for everyone um if you had one wish to be fulfilled for The Early Childhood system in our region what would it be how far sorry um every child has access to very high quality Early Learning Program and and that I guess Early Learning are respected

053and paid I want take that same really have a system set up to where the k312 model is the same as5 the communication between the bar3 5 and the K through2 is just it's two totally different worlds so if there could be some alignment and just um [Music] Equity I mean the only add is and if we had all of those things he the process for par um you know you have the central enrollment for Cas well if you're child had children you have a proll you have to call many different centers many different I think about families who don't have the gift and the privilege of time that is a barrier um think about families who have to make different decisions just to live daily life and we think about equity and removing barriers

054what does it look like if we have these strong systems for the system to take on that navigation burden and EAS the process be little easier to open up the floor for our board members um to just jump in and and ask any questions or open discussion so I did I did actually have a question around uh for so this is kind of directly towards maretta but in general enal when we're thinking about just the capacity of a centralized system how how did you think about that and and how do you obviously the goal the the optimal state would be no weight list um with infinite re you end up thinking about what the right balance of space versus cost was in a place like Marietta or in general across ABS so I would say

055I'd love to add more classrooms but I don't have the space so what I know is I can really only impact a hundred typical Georgia pre students at this time so when we were build we said we want to impact the community at the largest scale possible so I know I only have a hundred seats in my Center so what are we going to do to make an impact in this then we have about 650 kindergartner kids every year so I impact 100 of them right so there's about 550 kids that I want to touch somehow and so that's how we kind of worked through the capacity building we received a grant through literacy and justice for all which made it possible if we would not have had that Grant um if I have myself

056and my coordinator there's two of us so I'm not sure we would have had the capacity to do what we are able to do now but that Grant made it so we could do this outside in the community work with the center to start the learning spaces the grant is helping fund that and we have some fabulous social workers to probably not part of their job but they are willing to be on our task force so they do it great thank you just to add something I know they did in schols uh similar looking at shared resources so some of our anchor institutions and APS for the crout and APS but also Sheltering Arms YMCA Sheltering Arms and YMCA teachers with then train the private child care center and it alleviated competition like oh you're

057taking a lot to taking my kids but it it really formed a and also there's something called a P3 Fellowship so the district Early Learning leison and be partnered with um private Child Care Center lead so they can sort of co- plan to say oh well I have 23y olds leaving how can we make sure they can triculate easily into APS or sharing weight list we don't have the infrastructure but because of relationships if they have 10 people on my weight list and you say I have 10 vacancies can I share your parents information so those are ways where you don't have to do a big Capital campaign but sometimes put on the funding hat if you see proposals and this person has this 80 weight list and they're saying I'm looking for slots I'm

058looking at the same community so I may ask a question are they actually talking to each other if we're all saying we want children inide community to have access to Early Learning yet we have I have a two question for on that I think I might be the only person on this panel with a toddler but I um I remember vividly what you were describing with the multiple weight lists and the multiple application fees um and the shopping around of centers and I think to your point I think there are a lot of families that are holding spots in mul places so I think um sharing the weight is probably um a great idea but I would like some thoughts I think from from you guys as to how do we make uh barriers to

059applying um lessened I think if I had not had the privilege of having consistent internet access or um being able to download and print something or if I was at work having my husband print out something some people wanted some stuff hand delivered or they wanted things from the pediatrician pediatricians in shamble I didn't have a car um so ways to uh decrease those barriers for family so they we're able to get kids in the building that uh really need be there and I guess the second part of that question is how do we get um how do we message to the community that I like the idea of a weighted Lottery system um you know within our community how do we get that out that messaging out there that um although some of our

060more accolate and privileged families can take um you have you know some families that need to get we need to get there using the building first how you may have gotten that message across in a way that it would proceive one intervention that had for partnership was here was Early Education ambassadors these were community members they were compensated they wanted to do this these Senor on the street who knows everything anyway but they hit the ground I mean it takes work it's not a flyer put a flyer in a grocery store they were're doing promo they flooded the community they were at housing fairs they didn't just attend education things I think the question we would ask is we're the human being know in a city not just oh we got to get we have

061to get the parents but they go to the grocery stores they go to the housing fairs they go to the job fairs places where parents may be go to parks on the weekend and they may go to the areas in ZIP codes but if we say we are really wanting more children from ex area the ambassadors make a plan to sort of flood that area also the ambassadors were from the community so these weren't nonprofit folks on Saturday who maybe don't have a connection to a community leave the people you went to church with anyway to say hey there's resource exists um I remember an example we were privileged to have scholarship funds and we had about a million dollar sitting scholarship get to sign the nonprofit that managed scholarship funds were people who were

062promot promoting it we just say can the Ambassador share this I mean it was living four days we had a wait with like the money's gone um so it's really who are your Messengers like who actually is from Community I will highly recommend PL for for something not just staff of the organizations but finding a meaningful way it may not be an ambassador model but a meaningful way to ensure that people who live in your community are co-creating whatever it is that you're doing but also are the messenger um alongside you know whatever group is we do something similar so we have a group in our it's a nonprofit cop collaborative which focuses a lot on MAR City and cob County in general and so they have ambassadors so we go to food drive together

063we actually have families app fly we'll go to the apartment complexes I sign a lot of kindergarteners I'm like where are my free um but we will actually go to the different um hotels and actually have the parents come up by we will assist them with anything like if they need us to contact the doctor to get it like we will go wherever we need to go to get we definitely don't want that to for kind of your middle and upper part of the the weight list barrier that we had was the quality of the Early Learning Centers there are some Early Learning Centers within our community um to be honest I would not send my child too and so how do you say oh this Early Learning Center has five spots when you know

064that's not a place so that's one of the reasons why similar to what Atlanta did was really work with those Early Learning Centers and say do you want to partner with us because then I can say they are one of our partners my Miss Miller goes out and supports those teacher she offers professional development so it gives me a stake in that Center and it gives them a stake because now I can say we work with with Kitty college so you know what that may be one you want to go look at and take a chore and think about because if you don't don't have that it's hard I don't know if you've been to many Early Learning Centers but some of them um they're rough they it's a different world than a school I

065had a question from Miss Ramirez I'm sorry um in the uh introduction um she mentioned that you trauma trauma informed Community how does that play out in what the services that you provide um for your community so we um teamed with to collaborative and actually they are wonderful grant writers so we we got a grant to actually um become a trauma informed Community which means all we have lots of resources for families um we offer training through top collaborative for educators and training one of the things that we found is that some a lot the inequality in birth through four right and what the teachers are being from trauma themselves right like if you're making 12 or $13 an hour you're living in poverty so through that trauma informed we work with our early learning

066staff through the trauma informed we also work with our families the other piece of that is helping families that don't have the resources so again if you live in poverty everything is hard it's sometimes you have to make a phone call and you're on hold for three hours they don't have time to be on hold so through that trauma inform formed we help support families find resources so it's not us necessarily providing that Services is really helping families navigate the system to obtain I have two questions one is regarding the learning spaces so are they traditionally during school hours or all and then are those separate are they rolling in some of the people that were on the wait list or just people that we've communicated with who we offer it's open to anybody bir

067through four and we chose the hours of 10 to 12 um Atlanta has quite a few learning spaces we're actually using the Atlanta learning spaces as our model so we've been down there our facilitators but it really is a non-traditional to capture those families that don't go anywhere um I know Atlanta who's already established they have nannies to lowincome families they've also connected food drive so like if your hours are 10 to 12 then at 12:00 they have food pickups so some families can go and get food so we have one place we're going to do that so it's all connected to allow resources for the families regardless of where they are low poverty or not man to follow up because I think this was partly your wish that appeared to be along the table

068um getting the stat so you know I love what I'm hearing about how you know you have mult multiple Learning Centers and so we're taking the staff we have and they're training other teachers but what is that um what does it look like in terms of two four years from now teachers to work in the Early Learning Center it's definitely that's definitely a barrier because they quit and then you have to start over it's definitely a barrier what I have found is relationships are key like if you can find a coach that really builds a relationship and give them a connection to your community they want to be part of something bigger the first year we started this people from The Early Learning Centers were saying they worked for Mary City school so my superintendent

069was like what are you doing here I'm like no they worked with us they don't work for us so it really is that relationship that connection so we found our person that goes into the centers is old maretta she is just the best personality in the world she can get along with anybody and they want to do it because of her so we still have turnover don't get me wrong but teachers call her back because of that relationship there's no judging no judging so I think that is the key okay yeah so one of it and Britney P might have been responsible for this but one of the things we did at APS was um we realized that there was a disparity between what the teachers were kindergarten teachers because teachers on it making enough

070they will go to kindgarten made that right with a pay parity adjustment but I think another thing to remember is just burnout and I think 3K Early Learning teachers I have a three-year-old like they when I go to my child Center like they don't get a day off ever you know and so I'm sort of coming in there being like hey your job is really hard you know what can we do you know I come in and relieve them for you know half a day that's not my law you know so I guess my my method or my point is flexibility and what can you do to be flexible about some of those you know rules or um things like that um creative thinking to just support your your teacher because it is like is

071not for the pain of part and um they are Ed just as much as like looked up um and um there was this conversation around just teach p and we're investing and they were thinking about the science of reading we invest all of business no nothing's bad to folks who work in business but they said from a business perspective you make all of this investment here you can't mitigate that b the RIS here in any Perfection one but second we work with rotary of Atlanta for two years it's not a ton of money but rotary of Atlanta fundraise and we call detal so this is just a part of calling people who already have this data that how many approximately how many Early Learning educators are in city of and we asked rotary would you

072be willing to raise $500 per teacher so if they were to stay at the end of of the year they get a $500 bonus $500 a ton of money but what we heard time and time again I feel invisible kind of the person you know I'm here anchoring we were the anchored in the pandemic a lot of childcare programs did not close so you know our Central work could actually work um and rotary said well we'll take on the effort and know your early learning teacher and, firms that you work for a year straight get $500 not a ton but it feels really good to say some of the top Business Leaders in the city see me and I have this so it's not a ton but you know both through your point they just

073still invisible sometimes um because they're doing the work in the shadows and they such small amount of pay for just a tremendous effort for our children one thing about the training so this is a little bit how we thought about it ACS with Charter Schools and a little bit how I think about it the thunder so if a charter school you know comes to the jobs Foundation so we want to train all our teachers in sence reading or F or something you know I'll say we will fund you but you've got to invite you know the traditional the teachers from traditional ACS neighborhood School facilitator or trainer just invite CA wide net and invite everyone to participate in that training um is kind of how we used to do thank you I'm hearing a lot

074of like it's just a f financial problems like you said supplement don't supplant like legislators love that phrase you said you're doing something for $2 and you're only getting a buck you talked about philanthropy and public dollars and we have like some you know the GC meeting coming up we're part of stuff what would your advice be given you know where you sit particularly as a philanthropic stuff to work towards um and I'll share a small anecdote which is two years ago I sat down with the with the state that's a member of of the education board and I honestly don't think I agree on anything with this man except for child early child learn like he was a huge component like oh my God it's great and so sort of like I wanted to

075come back and be like well put your money where your mouth is what's your advice what do you see how would you go about sort of supplementing that dollar so that your superintendent quit telling you that you're expensive because 100,000 or is that just I'll shut up and I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts on that [Laughter] um I think that um well let me say a couple of good things have happen so you know Atlanta you talked about the Pay Georgia pre has actually um changed it this year to where now pre teachers it doesn't help the birth through three but pre teachers are being paid on the K through 12 scale so if you have teachers with Master's level they're being paid on a master scale so there is a better benefit for pre

076um doesn't help a benefit 3K teachers which I did not realize up until last and goes back to the K through 12 realm um I think that it um in the end I feel like the more children you can touch the better impact you're that you're going to make and so really supporting as a community and saying that you have built it up as a community I love the idea I haven't even thought about like this idea of going out and asking private to help support because really I think in marota city we were so invested in it in the beginning but we had no idea what the cost was going to be I'll tell you a funny story I actually worked with Spears the first year and went on a bus tour around the

077state of Georgia and got to see some amazing Early Learning Centers and at that time he no longer is in with maretta City but I went with a person that was um central office and after the bus tour he says okay do a budget so I sit down and I do based on everything I had learned and so I call him and I say at that time it was going to be like $500,000 Marat City money and he says to me oh you only have about 50,000 I'm like what are you talking about that is not gonna be anywhere close so I don't think we had any idea but once we dove in it was well worth it in the long run when you look at the community outcome um we're sought after which is

078fabulous so I'm not really sure how to fix the the money piece of it other than get investors that believe in it in your community I'll tell you the Grange is actually looking at doing this also and they have found the call the Callaway Foundation is going to fund everything so finding that investor who is willing committed to your Community Fund I just don't have that yet it really would be find an answer talk to people Mar now has a model that Atlanta not super slow but figure out what the lessons what the Lessons Learned are I will say in the background of all of this moment lot of State policy that's changed because your Advocates are talking of that's what changes policy is practice so because we had the work a ton of funding

079last year years ago privately now we have public dollars so my number one thing talk to other school board members who had to make this tough decision to say I'm going inv K how did they do it what was legal what wasn't legal that will help you um alleviate lots of bumps but then also figure out what's you know what's different about dictators what are we putting our own spend on based on the assets in our based on what we story may not be Atlanta or maretta but there can certainly be structure um share funding I mean benefit from being close to Atlanta so there's some who funded your early learning there's a lot of talk around I know my board is saying I love supporting Atlanta but can you go find other areas um

080not concentrated leverage and lean into that um so that would be mine is just talk to other priorities with them to learn and expect to fail hard and [Music] challenging a lot of times the the how or the what is the same and Northstar is the same but that kind of how we get there might be different and so when you're getting someone you know feel for dollars you know appealing to their interests of course but you know ultimately just sharing the the same star I think research helps a lot you know there t of research and data I think people are really motivated by that especially you know you're talking to an economic development person you the statistics about how much save on the back end you know if you or what's the F

081de quote if you it's better to prepare the child and rep thank you thank you um and so storytelling and narrative I think helps um with getting fiscal resources and then also just the rationale about why um you know when I was at ATS there was we got a lot of Public Funding of course but there were some things that were restricted that we couldn't pay for that was my job it was like go out Rachel and like raise money the and above Innovative things that like we can't get done with our public you know like we didn't even have a pizza party you know I'm calling Papa John to be like you're going to do the pizza you know and so thinking creatively about your assets and it's also the you guys have heard

082time talent and treasure so sometimes time is volunteer you know you can get people power um Talent is you know an example is we got UPS to help us um think about our transportation Logistics you know with our school buses because it's that was our week's Link in the school district um you know that's a talent thing a skill safe thing and then treasure it's funding but yeah just sort of explaining why we need this or like my favorite thing that I used to do when I was um in APS was sort of going to philanthropy and saying or saying you know I can get APS to commit 25% 75% you know like they were getting a deal so there's just a lot of different ways um about it well I just want to thank

083you um for the groundwork that you have already laid towards early learning strategy as a whole um and thank you for being our thought partner um and continuing to be our thought partner as we navigate expanding our early learning strategy thank you all so much thank you all and before before you before you go wait before you go I just want to say to the board I I know you can see that early learning is Alive and Well in the Atlanta metro area and we have some critical steps that I believe all of the panel today um so that we can make sure Early Learning is Affordable and accessible to all indicator so thank you panelists for your expertise and um the board chair will make his comments and then we'll pause officially thank you

084Miss Collins miss and miss Burton dark for putting the panel together ensuring that we're on top of these Trends in early quick calls just to rearrange the room our panelists and then uh we'll be on back on agenda I would like to call on Mrs Amanda Lynch the staff to seek your feedback on three student policy draft good afternoon board chair hearnen Vice chair Dr Sulton a members of the board student representative Delena and superintendent Dr G Whitaker today we have three policies on our pre-work agenda in accordance with our annual policy calendar today's policies are in policy code J students policy jceb student hearing procedure is a revision to an existing policy the other two J policies are new policies that were elevated by staff for consideration by the Board of Education these policies

085are jqk exchange students and J gfg student accents policies that are presented during pre-work are new business these policies are being presented for board input and discussion they are being shared to gather your feedback that can be reflect refed in drafting or revising future versions I will share highlights of each policy and invite any discussion or feedback after each one policy jce student hearing procedure was reviewed in response to Cil 169 from the 2024 legislative session which amended code related to disciplinary hearings in public schools specifically SB 169 allows for both to extend a hearing date when mutually agreed upon however it sets a limit of 15 days after the beginning of the suspension it also states that the hearing may be further extended By Request of the parents but only when agreed upon by

086the school finally it requires schools to provide appropriate grade level instructional materials to any student receiving in school suspension and in addition to accounting for the changes in response to SB 169 JCB student hearing procedure was also updated to reflect language from our freshly revised student code of conduct so you know staff has been actively working with legal and some recent revisions have been made in the last several days such as pairing down language that's unnecessary at the policy level be reflected as we prepare the draft to bring to the board for first read next month does the board have any input on policy JC EV as we prepare the draft for next month I admit having read this one particularly like it's all green um I was wondering if there is more guidance or

087uh explicitness around what would constitute the framework in which the schools could agree to an extended so it's not arbitrary but that there is some definitions around what will constitute that the changes reflected there has to do with the laws that were passed in the Senate bill that has to do with the ability of like the continuance of time and the mutually agreed upon time it def who is the hearing officer in the decision making policy is that the board chair is that Council no uh actually I have Mrs Francis Hulk to the board she is the cabinet member expert and the person that oversees the student code of conduct creation as well as its implementation and would be the staff member of expertise on this on this policy we do contracts for those Services

088okay and we have okay okay so that's it's a attorney but it's not our attorney it's a functions as a third party hearing officer when the need Ares we let our attorneys know and then they reach out okay so when we recently listened I say when we recently listened to an appeal hearing that would have been his voice that we heard correct right he's been working our district ask one question this may be to the legal part and it may not even matter the composition of hearings it says the members of a hearing include so if I think what I'm trying to ask is what if the student doesn't show up or a parent doesn't show up it doesn't say it must include so that's so one thing um in some of the conversation was

089legal over the last few days that composition hearings is actually one of the things that they recommended we pair down and adapt into the regulation portion of it so that'll be addressed in the next version that is because at times you do not have um Guardians that would appear but the the actual hearing would still takes I hear any other comments on there all right we look forward to Preparing the draft for first readex month next is policy J qk exchange students City schools of thear has historically accepted foreign exchange students as part of our practice but we have not had an exchange student policy in place this draft policy was informed by our current practice and environmental scan of other Georgia school districts it explicitly states that the Board of Education recognizes the value

090of international study and student program it defines a foreign exchange student and provides guidance for the enrollment and attendance of foreign exchange students in decator high school does board have any input on policy jqk as we prepare the draft for first grade next month one this was specific students who would be enrolled in the district versus visiting students on an exchange correct is that 18year six month thing pretty standard we did have legal review um we'll continue but that is what we've had in our practice I'm looking at the other some of the other said 18 you know that kind of stuff I would I would just take for like rotary toen the Europe behind us and they're 19y old and we're like oh the policy says you're not allowed a little different when you're

091talking about enrollment and transcripts okay that's not necessarily exchange okay sorry this uh this may be for a a later conversation but what struck me about this was whether we were thinking about our students that might want to be exchange students in other District or other countries I guess as foreign exchange students and what parameters would we want set around that as well we can look into what policy codes there are and do an environmental scan for that and and that I I don't want to volunteer well for some work so if this is a next year thing that's fine I will say next year and that will be a next year thing but it is something that's needed okay so so a student who's here on a long-term visit that goes to class is

092not covered by this policy it really has to do with a type of Visa I've learned a lot about this um it really has to do with the type of Visa so if you're here like on a like tourist Visa or whatever those aren't so there's specific visas and really there's a lot of companies that do this right that are accredited by the state and the Cs csiet um and so it has to do with the type of Visa that allows them to really be a student okay right thank you one more one more all right last this afternoon is policy J gfg student accidents policy J gfg called for promp response of school Personnel in the event of a student Serious injury or severe illness in this event notification of the school principal school

093nurse or principal design and students parent or Guardian as soon as possible as required it also indicates a staff member will accompany a student during EMS transport when the parent or Guardian cannot be reached and if the parent legal guardian is responsible for related expenses once again working with Le goal over the last few days we've made some initial revisions again really largely pairing it down to the key pieces that exist in the policy versus those that might exist in the regulation that that is updated in future vergin for next year or not next year that would be a long time next month um but in the meantime does the board have any input on J gfg as we prepare that draft for first read next month was um some language I don't know if

094this belongs here or in regulation was just um something that ensured that the scene is safe uh so if you have a serious illness um you don't want teachers or staff going into a big immedately call excellent now thank you I was I know legal has looked this over so I guess I was just concerned about the last bullet only use treatment methods within your skill level and your scope of practice so one of the things leg will recommended was actually to remove those bullets so those bullets in that last paragraph um really in conversation with them we Bel We Believe belong elsewhere um so we are going to make those changes for you yeah great all of the bullets the bullets the the actual procedures because they are procedures outlines really they belong more

095in the regulation than in the policy level itself so those would be procedures rather than um the policy okay so yes all of the B does that and maybe we just wait until the next draft so you have your first sentence in the event of an accident resulting in uh the principal school nurse or principal design should be notified and then is it something to the effect of follow the outline procedure should be out should be notified as soon as possible and um and then the park of event so really it's a little bit of clarification as well about acting promptly with the language that we replace some of those here's the steps you need need to do act promptly and intelligency in emergencies for the saving of Life the prevention of further injury and

096the alleviation of pain but we will make sure we get all of those new fresh hot off the press updates does this policy apply if you're not on school property but under the umbrella of yeah yes so school property School transportation are on schol field trips that would apply do we need to put that in absolutely yes I feel like I see these injuries a lot [Music] football I I'd like the procedure to I think I've seen staff uh quickly call an ambulance you know and then sometimes it's not appropriate and in parent so as you think about procedure I mean I like that those bullet points are moving away to Jane's Point like getting into that but I'm probably make bringing up an additional procedure thing which is just sort of like information about

097when to call an ambulance and when not to and part of that is required training that staff um must take on a on an annual basis so that that's where the making sure we have a great a solid what we believe and then how we believe it and how we monitor that our staff are aware of all of what we just said that that gives me a level of confidence with the question that I had because I mean I can see we imposed upon them right and so and the how is typically what is done is a parent would have to say that I am no I do not want my child transported I am going to trans transport the child myself and they have to they have to sign in in advance like this

098would be a part of them signing their when no when they come when when it happen yeah but if if we can't get a hold of that parent oh if we can't get a hold of that parent and the 91 if now yes you're you're acting in Locus parenes you must transport the student if you can't get a hold of the parent but EMS is fairly trained you know like if it's something on the side of a b call you know but if if they do if it's required that's when staff member will actually Ride Along because you don't want the child by themselves depends upon the severity so no circumstance am I suggesting that we not transport a child that needs it just because or they need it just because we can't get a

099hold of their parents but I am thinking this will happen I am thinking of the situations where a parent with low means ends up hit with $2,000 Transportation Bill and that situ that I mean that that's just going to be a difficult situation that we face when it happens thank you Miss Lynch for conversations next month and the work session on these policies thank you yeah thank you board members for your discussion that concludes the pre-work we will return to the work session at 3:40 p.m. which gives you a 10-minute bio break and warm up yeah call the work session into order thank you for joining us today for our monthly work session Dr Whitaker if you'll take uh pres present our first presentation introduce yes thank you chair hearnen I would like to call

100on Mrs Jennifer Burton assistant superintendent of teaching and learning to share the redesign of our multi-tier support system and dyslexia screening process afternoon board Dr Sultan esteemed board memb student board representative Delena and superintendent Dr GMA Whitaker mtss stands for multi-tiered system of support which is a prevention framework designed to use datadriven processes to identify students early and provide them with the right support So students will be successful in all areas a key finding in Dr Whitaker's first 90 days was the mtss needed to be completely redesigned my team took the next 90 days to complete that redesign phase one is in full implementation with a focus on systems and processes phase two will emphasize the use of evidencebased practices and effective progress monitoring data review this presentation will explain the components of an effective

101mcss structure how school teams are now effectively using assessment data to determine interventions and how we are continually improving our dyslexia screening process mtss support may include academic behavioral social emotions or attendance resources there are five components associated with effective npss implementation databased decision making multi-level prevention system screening progress monitoring and infrastructure you are probably all familiar with this pyramid this multi-level prevention system is also a component of mpss but only one part the three tiers represent three tiers of instruction and intervention tier one includes high quality instruction and schoolwide prevention strategies for all students tier two focuses on the targeted supports some students need and tier three addresses the Intensive needs of a few students when looking at an individual student's needs however that familiar triangle may look like this this student needs intensive

102intervention in Reading fluen like repeated reading given by a trained teacher daily but is benefiting enough from the schoolwide prevention efforts for attendance in other words the tier one support for attendance is enough for this student database decision making is the driving force of ntss at a system level we are using data like star and the Georgia Milestones to determine where additional support is needed for example after analyzing our US History scores we saw a need to provide more support with our tier one instruction the curriculum and instruction team responded with quarterly teacher planning days and individualized teacher coaching sessions for novice teachers at the school level the mtss team meets once a month to analyze student data school teams use a protocol to review data at a schoolwide level level to identify schoolwide needs

103and then use the problem solving model to analyze student needs for example at the CER High School's most recent npss meeting the mpss team looked at the attendance behavior and course proficiency data to identify students with support needs through an analysis of the existing data and discussion about the student as a learner the team selected an intervention that was most appropriate for that student's need and developed a plan of implementation and monitoring this year the high school is using the connect and engage strategy as an intervention to increase attendance and work completion each identified student was also assigned a check-in person to build relationships so each student has a trusted adult inside the school we go to the doctor once a year for screening to ensure we're on track to live a long healthy life

104from sometimes the medical team will decide that further evaluation or treatment is needed we screen in school because we want to identify any student who needs additional support through our screening process not only are we able to identify student needs and qualification for intervention programs but we're also able to identify specific areas which a student may need additional support so here you'll see at Beacon for students who score below the 30th percentile on reading the school team will also gather oral reading fluency data by doing so teachers are gathering decoding accuracy fluency score and observation on key reading behaviors additionally screening data are used to help teachers make instructional decisions progress monitoring is the way we assess the effectiveness of the intervention we look for strong limited or no response to an intervention to decide

105if an intervention needs to continue change or St infrastructure includes the additional parts that support this work including leadership professional learning and Community Family engagement this year we hosted a star family webinar along with an EIP family webinar both of which are recorded and posted on our updated npss website page the mtss team is working on a menu of interventions broken down by specific skill that increases efficiency for school teams if another intervention is required because one was not a good fit for a student school teams have a list of interventions to choose from previously all schools submitted their own menu of interventions We Are publicizing One districtwide menu on our public facing CSD the npsf website to increase transparency with our community dyslexia is a specific learning disability that's neurobiological in origin last year

106we did a dyslexia simulation with district and school leaders and even Vice chair Dr sulan attendant this year we will be doing the simulation with our K through five teachers throughout the semester tomorrow we will host a dyslexia panel featuring a District staff member with dyslexia and her child who also has dyslexia to share their personal experiences at our monthly admin staff meeting before I begin sharing the dyslexia timeline I would be remiss to not recognize key stakeholders and partners in this work the members of the dyslexia task force have been and continue to be strong advocates for all students in CSD and have been Champions and thought Partners in this work over the past 5 years CSD has been refining its dyslexia screening process last year we expanded our initial screening score from 20th

107percentile to 30th percentile to cast a wider net this year we moved away from using the additional assessment of the kta 3 to a characteristics of Dyslexia rubric for K through three which has been included as an agenda while the law required K through three we expanded additional screening measures to include grades four and five through an oral reading fluency measure by June of 2025 all K through five teachers and leaders along with all secondary special education remedial and esol teachers will have completed a state approved structured literacy course we believe all staff that are supporting students with learning to read should have this training so let's take a closer look at our revised dyslexia screening process here is a first grade example this year all first grade students took star early literacy and two

108CVM the encoding and Rapid automatic naming families received early literacy reports on September 5th we have 31 first grade students that scored below the 30th percenti if a student scored below the 30th percentile the student received an additional CBM that was appropriate to their grade level and gave important information in alignment with characteristics of Dyslexia in first grade students did a phoning segmentation and nonsense word reading quick assessment these assessments are given oneon-one and and take about one minute each 61 students took additional quick assessments if the student scored below the characteristics of Dyslexia rubric is completed and 33 students in fact scored Below on those CBN these students begin receiving interventions and support based on the findings of the rubric many characteristics of Dyslexia rubrics have already been completed with ntss teams already meeting

109and students receiving targeted interventions all rubrics will be completed by October 31st so here's our grade specific data as part of our dyslexia screening process all students took the K through three star early literacy the dark blue bar tells the number of students who scored below the 30th percentile for each grade level students then received additional curriculum based measures you can see the yellow bar has many more students receiving additional assessments this is because npss teams and teachers felt that there were some students that needed additional assessment data identified so they could use that for their instruction or they saw other red flags in working with the students this indicates a positive shift in how our schools are using assessment data after analyzing the CBM data you see the number of students that we are

110completing the characteristics of Dyslexia rubric for in the red intervention Fidelity classroom checks have begun this month to ensure the interventions in the plan match the interventions provided in the classroom npss is equity work it's a structure whose sole purpose is to meet the individual needs of our students and as we continue to grow our teachers Professional Knowledge and effective tier one instruction along with using assessment data effectively to identify strengths and weaknesses our achievement Gap will close and our students will receive the support that they need to be and successful in all I'm prepared to take your questions just ask one question about sp8 is that the thing that now is compiled all these districtwide interventions slide eight so we are building a um districtwide Bank of intervention yes and posting it publicly previously

111schools would um determine their own interventions and submit them um but we want to make sure that they are the best interventions and then if you have something consistent then we can train and support and monitor if we have some consistency then one last I don't know if you can answer I only thought it it when I was looking at it would um a parent especially for the younger student conceivably older will they get to see like hey these are the interventions we're using or we've tried like if there something that looks like this um for students yes so if your student is um yes yes so um through those meetings yes the parent should be part of that and see hey this intervention this wasn't working we had limited response inter I was wondering

112um with the um structured literacy training do teachers get any special designation Nation um it's a requirement of the law um and so um now there are additional structured literacy trainings that we offer Beyond kind of that um state required like the two years letters cour so that would would Grant you a distinction or if um we also provide Orton Gillingham Trad that certification would be considered an additional distinction um on slide 11 um explain those the 3161 and the 33 again what what snapshot of students are we looking at is this where students come from yeah so this is a broken down first grade example y so so um so after we gave that Universal screener we had 31 students score below okay so according to our flowchart we would give this additional CBM

113it's just a one minute assessment um but the so typically if you just followed the flowchart and you weren't really thinking and looking at like a your whole child then you would see that it should be 31 but what our teachers did and our ncss teams did was they said hey we have some other students they're not below the 30th percentile and I've seen some other reading behaviors or some other indicator and so I just want to double check this I want to give this assessment and so that's a shift in a change when we're talking about data literacy um and and it's a it's a exciting Shi so then after we had those 61 students we looked at that data and said ah 33 scored below according to those cbms so we're going this

114characteristics of Dyslexia rubric and put all of this information together to inform our next step and that allows the intervention team to say okay this student has a need right here um it gives you much more specific data and by us taking away for the ktea three we had to go through hearing a vision and consent to evaluate and I don't know if you guys remember from last year but when I got up here and talked about data there were still schools and kids that I was kind of chasing behind to get signature and consent and all of that and so by us moving to this rubric is really compiling data from that we already have or quick assessments to then meet the needs of the students more quickly that makes sense as the why

115it's going to 31 61 33 are some of these students being double counted so you have 31 some a kid could be in the 31 the 61 then also in the 33 yes yes so um yeah so what this tells me is that I we had 31 we we assessed 61 and then yes so now out of that 61 I've got 33 so certainly there are kids that are coming over from the 31 bucket and the 61 bucket to give us the 30 so my question was about the the specific details of that so in the 61 all 31 students are in the 61 and then there's additional 30 students that were brought over and then of the 61 students the 33 students were all in the 61 student bucket are all 31 students from

116this the universal screener in the 33 students bucket or did those students drop out yeah not necessarily yeah okay so it might be a different we we have students that scored below the 30th percentile but that did not qualify for the dyslexia the additional like they're still in the tier one I guess is what we're we're saying yeah um it but we're going to monitor them very closely through small group instruction so they're not just lost yes they're still they're still different than the green so I just from from a data elness standpoint it would be helpful to understand what students ended up where from which buckets right I mean so that that would be kind of helpful to see where those breakdowns think because because we're talking and then about it's hard to do

117the math on how many students in total are in any one of these individual so is it is a total Universe just 61 students out of this grade is what I'm is what I'm so we have what 10 students that didn't qual that are under the 30 percentile but we didn't feel we dyslexic but we are going to say higher uh attention to them 15 students in the next bucket that do you see what I'm saying like it's hard to disaggregate exactly where these students fell I think yeah I I think you're trying to follow it student by student I'm in the 31 I get to the 61 now student a where are you going at this point you would need to see 31 or 61 different flowcharts what will say is that by the

118time they are in that group of 33 we now have a decision to make and and that's where we are now so I what I what I would be I understand the complexity of those FL I don't really necessarily sh the flow I'm more of the four peers at the end how many kids are in each of we don't know that yet well the other Counterpoint too is that from 31 to 61 you've gone up so now you've pass the wider net which I think was a criticism we had in the past was that we were using one metric was like map scoring and the bar was too low and we a lot of P to cck and now you've got between bar one and bar two you've got a more sensitive test so the

119net is wider and even if some kids you know graduate out and they you know don't go all the way down to tier three at least they're the teacher Jennifer can you click one more animation there there it is there it is so we aren't so you want to explain that green box that just came up on that animation yeah um so we are you know we started with star and then the cbms then we did the additional CBM which are oneon-one and now we are coming together as an TSS team reviewing that data and completing these rubrics and from their decision points are made individual to each student um they look and and can be very different so can we just look at slide 12 so I I can synthesize this that slide for

120first grade is the bars that we were looking at in the previous SL so 31 student students scored below the 30th percental and then the additional CBM I those are those different like one-onone okay and so that's 61 students that may include the 31 or definitely includes1 and then includes an additional 30 students right and then City School the theator has a rubrick and just that's the characteristics of Dyslexia R not city of the so then the I think this was do those 33 students come from the 61 yes okay thank you I also have a question so out of the students that did the CBN test how many of those students were scored above 30% so how many of the students who yeah scored above the 30% something start has ended up testing so

121well so we won't we aren't all the way there for characteristics of Dyslexia but you in the first grade example we know that there are 30 more students so there are 30 students that were flagged by their teacher and saying Hey I want I want to do a double check on this there are 30 more students that scored above the 30th percentile that received an additional screen um so that's the jump um and then from there we looked at the six those 61 students and they scored Below on that CDM so that's where we get our 33 and of those students now we are completing this rubric and and so what what interesting to the answer to that question once we know it is that of the students that scored higher than the screener but

122that we are now providing dyslexia services to those are the kids that we have historically missed year after year after year and so that's I think the answer to board member Del's question is one that we're probably keenly interested in because it really shows what we've missed historically one other and I don't know if it's answerable and it may be too much of the doesn't matter the first grade the blue and the red are pretty much on par but when you get to second and third grade there are fewer in the red is that partly reading development and testing because what I'm seeing is the yellow second grade in particular there are a lot more students identified are there Trends or it's just the way it well when I looked at um I looked at

123third grade specifically because that was a standout in second grade a little bit but um in the third grade many of those students um in the blue bar have IEP and so at that point their IEP is going to drive their next step um and so I looked at third grade specifically because it was such a dip wait so we are we saying that 12 students in the third grade are incremental that we have a bunch of students that are already receiving dyslexia services and we identified an incremental 12 students that needed it I I just want to make sure I understand no in third grade there are students that have an IEP for anything okay and so um you know or um and we also had esol students that were um first year so

124we would we would stop the assessments and not continue because they are being served through their IEP or through their esol plan so I'm I'm sorry so the the then it is incremental what we're saying is that the 12 students the other the 37 students or some portion of those 37 students are already receiving Services there are 12 of them that we've been able to incrementally identify I guess where I'm coming from is that it's hard to understand I think this is to to board member um Anderson's question wouldn't expect a you know 60% reduction in identified students with dyslexia between the third grade and the sixth grade it ought to be relatively consistent right in in the population and so are we saying that some of those students in the third grade probably are

125already receiving services and the 12 is incremental or that for some currently in explicable reason our third grade just presents a much lower percentage of Dyslexia than our other grades that that's I'm gonna have a harder time believing that I I don't think that's the case one we're not finished the entire process sure so you can't you can't say that oh where are we going to land and how is that difference because you don't have a final bar to say where did children land truly identified you know BAS their characteristics of Dyslexia we're not there yet and what Mrs Burton was speaking about is by the time you're in third grade there are some students listed there that are they have an IEP not for dyslexia but it could be for one of a myriad

126other things and so but once you're in third grade you're also typically have been through school year over year for us so we know in ways that we touch them in in the past whether it's through EIP or through um it could be esol it could be any of those different things but you have to realize that last piece is not finished yet so we don't know what the final will look like but the 37 third graders who are below 30th percentile on Star does that include students who are receiving additional mtss services for dyslexia yes it would and then the 48 also include those students yes and then the 12 does not or does so the when I'm talking about special ed it could be that they have an I so in third grade

127there are 19 students that have an IEP um and so once we got down to at at the 37 I knew that we had St 19 that had an IEP we still screen but then when we're going down to the characteristics of Dyslexia we're not going to make an intervention determination based on that we're going to look at their IEP to drive that decision because that trumps so then that 12 is incremental then correct because you're taking out of that 48 in theory all of the students who had already received tier level of service from previous years yes that is but if they but essentially we're saying that those 12 students or the 12 students who were caught by the screener in third grade but had not previously been called or dyslexia be became evident

128but I don't I don't want to say the wrong language there I think maybe we're going to want to see this after October 31st when the data has kind of gone all the way through and because I think we're asking detailed questions about the outcomes of the data and we don't we haven't fully tied that down so I'm with James on this I'm confused by that but I'm I'm willing to put a pin in it for a couple of months until we get the answers I think maybe the Crux of it is that this has come up for for some of these screeners was that maybe we saw we were like yay we found something that works and really for some of the kids around this sweet spot third fourth fifth grade they really had

129already been identified and then we were kind of you know I I I know I was confused I was worried that maybe some of these kids had already been self-identified by other metrics you know I I I think like I said a couple minutes ago I'm happy that we have something that is not just relying on a standardized test so you can see the number jump up three ties for kindergarten three ties so that means three times as many kids are now have the the attention to teachers so it's it's also safe to say that previously by the third grade parents who were pretty furious with the services that we were offering and had the means to self-collect out had and you would expect to see fewer identified children at that point and that is

130also powerful I had a a broader question I think this might be a larger con conversation but much like ntss dyslexia I know having this conversation with special ed uh we're putting in place finally putting in place programs that are going to be kind of comprehensive for the full education life cycle of the the kids that are in our system but we we have built ourselves a multi-decade deficit of kids that haven't received these services and should have and so what are we going to do about the 11th graders what are we going to do about the ninth graders what are we going to do about the kids that we haven't served to this what are some of the things I'm I'm sensitive to a real sense of urgency this is I get that this

131is very much a go slow to go fast process it is incredibly important to institutionalize this and get the training right and to get all of that stuff right um but I would be very keen to also see a plan for intensive resources deployed towards the people who we missed frankly um they deserve to be provided options as well and so for the for the next several years because it is going to be several years for this to be properly institutionalized what are we going to do for the kids that are kind of dro in between the cracks and the inter yes we and uh board member SS we did talk about that even in cabinet earlier this week when we're talking about the budget development for FY 26 and how targeted resources can be

132applied specifically in the secondary level for students that really we have not served and so we do have students at the high school level who are reading on an elementary level and they're they don't have an IEP they're not identified as special education what will happen from hear me an 8 to four basis for those children so that we can provided a quality education so look forward to hearing that resource strategy uh in the budget development for fy6 thank you thank you to everyone for working on that yeah very much appreciate so um one of the three instructional leadership areas I was asked to delve into uh was around intervention and so I have talked to you often times about DME that one you design two you implement three you Monitor and then finally e

133you evaluate so we did some redesigning second semester of last year and as you can see we're in the midst of implementing that redesign where we do have a characteristics of Dyslexia rubric no longer having the kte ea3 those are types of decisions of redesign that have been made that are invest alignment with what this board is Desiring so um we are also all pretty much in red today thank you shair friend in honor of Dyslexia day so I thank you thank you M bton for the update um Leia advocacy is very important to me the board and this community and I'm happy we have a wi net being cast Dr yes thank you chair hearnen Mrs Adena Walker our chief of Human Resources will provide uh the purpose of the school allotment guideline or

134guide and what we have in place for this current fifth school year fy2 good afternoon board chair Heen Vice chair Dr Sultan Este steam members of the board student representative Delena and superintendent Dr J today's presentation will review the current sy25 School allotment guidelines also known as thead which the district used to allocate staff this year based on student enrollment although the board did not approve these guidelines for fy2 our presentation will provide a brief overview as we enter the allotment process we will you will have the opportunity to discuss any budget priorities you may have we will then present the finalized St and guidelines for your approval at the December board meeting for FY 26 the school allotment guidelines are directly aligned with two of our strategic accelerators cultivating and retaining quality professional and

135organizational Effectiveness and Excellence so what is the and why is it important the student allotment guidelines is a comprehensive document that contains formulas and criteria used to develop Staffing parameters and school-based budgets which are determined by a per funding mod these guidelines say clear guard rails for our efficient and effective use of resources by establishing these guidelines we promote transparency and ensure an equity-based approach to Staffing ensuring that Staffing and decisions are aligned with actual student enrollment and needs here we show the current student teacher ratios for FY 24 and FY 25 which can be used used as a reference when determining class sizes for FY 26 it is important to recognize that local teacher R ratios differ from State ratios which are used to determine class funding the funding sizes are essentially a starting

136point for districts to consider allotment it is advisable that a district strive to meet or be above the minimum of funding sizes for each grade level the Staffing allotment guidelines also outlin school-based Staffing per building including administrative staff clerical staff instructional support specials and connection teachers special education teachers and operational staff at each location so here are the next steps with Staffing allocations in November 2024 the board uh Retreat you will attend a board retreat the board will further discuss the staff and allotment guidelines and you will give your Budget prior priorities as we prepare for 26 we will also have the first look at compensation for FY 26 as well which will include CD's total compens total compensation Benchmark with other Metro Resa districts as well as take a closer look at other specific

137salary skills to see where we rank competitively with those job categories in December 2024 the board will approve the final draft of the school allotment guidelines in January each principal will receive their projected Staffing allocations for FY 26 during their Staffing allocation meetings already scheduled for January 2st 22nd and the 24th in addition to principles key Divi division leaders including representatives from Finance teaching and learning and special education will be present to ensure a clear understanding for each school's allocations for each program keep in mind principles always have the flexibility and Staffing in ways that meets their school's unique needs as well as as long as they remain within the provided Staffing allocation for example if two principles consider sharing a special teacher which that is perfectly fine as long as the segment and scheduling

138works for both schools in j also in January we project FY 26 Employment contract will be distributed in February 2025 the Surplus and hiring process begins as principles ass set their Staffing in order to be fully staffed at the beginning of the next school year in March 2025 the internal transfer process begins once any if any surplus employees have have already been placed and also staff who resign or hire may go ahead and submit their intentions to their supervisor at this time I am available for any questions that I I don't have a question but I do appreciate the note about the principles having the flexibility I think that this is one of the most misunderstood I'll get to a question I promise uh parts of our community which is like the the I would

139want to be a principal indicator because of the flexibility to make these decisions about a parap pro or Spanish or the number of kids in kindergarten the number of teachers in first grade and I love that and um you question group meeting that there's also some training that's going into the slts and the principles which if you're a Community member listening to that that is where you go to make and ask questions about what we're doing um I just want to ask you again uh what sort of training do principles get to make sure because it's it can be complicated to come in and and say like wait a minute I get to make these decisions the board's not telling me so from an HR perspective uh when do we start that I didn't I

140know they received the Staffing allocations and the guidelines and and and yeah I to go back right now the uh the in January so each principal they have a application sheet and it goes line by line for each grade level for each special teacher for language anything that they have alloted to their school and like I said any support staff they have all the numbers uh allocated on that sheet and we trained them how to look at the different because before looking at the person who's holding that position um and so that's that's the training that they receive and then we have right now currently we have creative Staffing at our schools we're we're you know job sharing at in some positions so the autonomy that they the the principles have are tremendous adher if

141a if a principal let's just devil's advocate here Cur looks at the numbers and it's like I can't make this happen I'm gonna have X and Y and Z and I'm not meeting it are they trained on then who to bring that to as well absolutely and those key people are at the table for us to discuss it at that at that point okay um of course as a principle you want as much and staff at your school and but we have to make it make sense right and when it comes to the student uh enrollment we have to say these are the numbers this is what the budget is and is driving us to you know how many classes that you're going to get and we we handhold throughout the whole process and then

142once they understand where that those numbers are coming from what their budget is what their allocations are they have a better understanding and I would like to add that we start the conversation around FY 26 budgeting um budget cycle as well as school allocations starting tomorrow with principles I start that conversation for next year and they will have it monthly at their administrative staff meeting as well as their supported in their principal meetings directly by Mrs Karen Newton Scott that's a quick question about the um allocations the allocation numbers themselves those are what slide for these are minimum or I guess maximum ratios are these the ones that are funded by the state is that where we're starting or is this what we're saying internal to City Schools educat this what we're saying internal um

143we we have a guide that's directly from the state say for instance for a k uh for kindergarten the funding size is 15 and so that we're looking at the sizes that we can manage here in the district we pride ourselves on smaller classrooms um there's a Max for the State as well but we try to stay within those confines and making sure that our our teachers are not overwhelmed with such big classroom so then to help me understand the ratio I would have thought a 15 to1 is smaller class size than a 23 to1 it is and that's you have to have 15 in a class in order for it to be funded but we also are looking at our staffing numbers and what it takes to really St the school and so oh

144I see I see so so the the state ratios are just the minimums of what's required in order to receive the funding this is what we're saying we can manage exactly say saying you can actually go way over that but we're saying that cated we're trying to those number as low as possible to still make sense with the budget I'm not I'm not an expert on this so my perspective on this is is mve but the I mean these numbers already look big to me so yeah can I just follow up I think to um question question about the ratio or more of a clarification so this is the ratio we're using for funding it doesn't necessarily mean that a kindgarten left will be 23 there's a I think Dr W you and I talked

145about this there's some variation Under and Over it is some variations 15es for kindergarten is that means we have to have 15 in the class to receive funding but when we're talking about 23 we're constantly looking at enrollment numbers yeah and we're constantly in that conversation with a principal of saying okay I'm getting close to getting over this number does it make sense to create another class or can we you know air whatever so so a prime example is a 23 to one but you really need almost 30 children in order to now split that class and make two in order for that class to be funded so yes it's provided on a 23 to one but you have to have for and and it varies so um we shared this slide with PTL earlier

146this morning so they asked the question well why do you separate third grade from fourth and fifth grade I said because we have K2 schools but when it comes to State allocations they don't think K2 schools a third grader developmentally is different than a fourth and a fifth grader and so those vary based upon what state provid to us and so um we are taking what is that minimum funding understanding what it will also take to actually keep an operate a school and then just one follow up I think to chair hearn's question I heard SLT so I think the question was on the training for principles but then is the SLT also um advising talking to the principal in terms of some of those determinations so the SLT is involved they have on their

147recruit they're always involved the ening process thank you and one of the keys around an SLT is in the specific School local governance and so um I shared that today um I was explaining to the community why members of the Wilson team do not sit on the local school team uh that's the time for the principal to their local school governance and we are there to support but we aren't there to be a part so there it's a different mindset to help build the leaders capacity and also their credibility in their Community those were some intense conversations on the SLT you know the Glenwood on like I remember like well we can afford half an art teacher or like full-time and then you know oh I love him and I love I mean yeah that's

148that's very tough so um that's good to hear I wanted uh thank you Mrs Walker I just want to reiterate that this is the conversation for fy2 what we're currently living FY 26 and that budget development is actually on the consent agenda last month you heard that presentation for the budget calendar uh for FY 26 as a presentation and so there weren't any other changes so now it is on the consent agenda and it is um definitely a part of this Administration a key piece to this is transparency so that's why we are starting with this foundational knowledge that we can build upon as we're going into FY 26 thank you m Walker um we look forward to discussion at our board retreat next month with these FY 26 guidelines um Dr Whitaker move on

149to the next presentation yes chair hearen I would like to call on Mrs Courtney Bernett coordinator of legislative affairs and Dr lonita Broom Chief Financial Officer to educate the board and the public on housef 581 and its potential implications for the city schools of decada Vice chairl board members student board representative Selena and superintendent Dr g w today Dr Broom and I are presenting an overview of House Bill 581 which passed during the 2024 legislative session could significantly impact all of our strategic accelerators particularly accelerator number four organizational Effectiveness and excellent as I mentioned hpit 581 pass during the 2024 legislative session in short this Bill establishes exp floding Homestead exemptions tapping how much home assessments can go up each year in an effort to Tamp down property tax this exemption impacts property taxes for

150cities counties and school districts Statewide with floating Homestead exemptions the amount of the homestead exemption changes or floats when the assessed value of a home is compared to a previous or based value and a limiting factor is applied in how 5 the limiting factor is the rate of inflation as determined by the state revenue while it passed in the 2024 legislative session house bill of 581 requires approval of a constitutional amendment by all Georgia voters the language of the Constitutional amendment is in house resolution 1022 which also passed during the last session the Statewide referendum will appear as a question on the ballot for voters to approve in September 202 for election read it will read as follows shall the constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the general assembly provide by General

151law for a Statewide homestead exemption that serves to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads but which any County Consolidated Government municipality or local school system May opt out of upon the completion of certain procedures if the voters of Georgia approve the Statewide referendum the exemption will go into effect on January 1 if the referendum passes cities counties and school districts will be able to request a one-time opt out of the property tax cap opt out procedures include advertising intent to opt out in a newspaper of General circulation conducting at least three public hearings with at least one starting between 600 and 7 p.m. on a business weekday adopting an opt out resolution and filing the optout resolution with the secretary of state by March 1st 20 I will now turn the podium over

152to Dr Broom who will provide additional thank you m Vice chair members of the board student representa and superintendent a property tax exemption is a reduction or elimination of property taxes on a specific property or for a particular group of property owners the city schools of decator offer multiple property tax exemptions for Which Resident Property Owners may qualify included are General exemptions based on ownership and propety as well as exemp and disability a homestead exemption reduces the taxable value of your home for example if your home is a price at $450,000 then the assess value is 50% of that amount are $225,000 with a 50 $50,000 homestead exemption you only pay taxes on $175,000 the $50,000 exemption resulted in property tax savings of $1,000 $1,00 15 for the tax pay currently the district has seven

153active Homestead exemptions based on various qualifiers including age exclusively and age combined with various other qualifiers including income the exemptions amount range from $10,000 to the full property value being exempt the fiscal impact to the district is based on the number of property owners that qualifies and the exemption p in The Last 5 Years Homestead exemptions have ranged have averaged approximately $6.4 million house BM 581 as previously described by Miss brette if pass will be an additional exemption on top of any current exemption for property owners and will result in less revenue for the school district's primary operating budget the general fund the column for fisal year 20 through fiscal year 23 show the actual number of Residential Properties in the city and as shown the number of Residential Properties have slightly increased each year

154Homestead Properties are the total number of property Parcels that are exempt for Homestead purposes the number fluctuates based on the exemption and the number of property owners that qualify and apply for the exemption the assessed value of all residential proy in the city of Decor has increased from $1.8 million in fiscal year 2020 to 2.4 million in fisal year 2023 the average asset value which is the asset value of all Residential Properties divided by the total number of Residential Properties has range from $ 392 to $314,800 the average assess value multiplied by the eligible Homestead Properties give us an estimated assess value of homee proper from fiscal year 24 to 2029 I projected the potential Revenue loss for the district if House Bill 581 Pass based on an estimated consumer price index of 3% please

155note that the Consumer Price Index also referred to as CPI fluctuate and has ranged from 1% to 8% in the last seven years I projected 5% for the actual tax digest growth in the last four years the actual tax digest growth has rank based on those projections and a milit rate of 20.30 fiscal year 25 potential Revenue loss is approximately half a million dollars and the potential Revenue loss increases each year year with a projected Revenue loss of $1.7 million in fiscal year 2029 my numbers are shown the actual digest growth rate has traditionally exceeded CP rate if pass the reduction in the general fund operational budget from the property tax cap would negatively impact the district's ability provide adequate Educational Services and competitive Sal overall this Le to fewer teachers larger class sizes deteriorating

156facilities fewer safety personnel and resources in a decline in overall educational resources State funds will not make up the shortfall the state has increased the district's Reliance on local funds with unfunded State mandates such as health cost health care cost and increased compensation blop funds will not make up a shortfall with the declining collection of sales tax we have seen a drastic reduction in slot funds approximately 60% of the district's general fund budget is funded through local property taxes the cap introduces uncertainty especially in economic downfalls if the property tax cap is enforced the district may have to consider increasing the milit rate to cover basic expenses are fac the ultimate negative impact leading to fur losss and job cuts the quality of local schools directly impacts combat poorly funded schools May decrease the attractiveness

157of a community lower home value could affect broader Community economic cap not just individual homes while the cap might save homeowners a small percentage per household on taxes the loss for the school district will be substantial with increases every year and projected increases of over a million dollars from fiscal year 20 27 forward immediate action must be considered and taken to avoid long-term negative impacts on our district incl if approved by the local taxpayers the district will have the district will have a single sing Single op out of the property tax cap by filing the resolution with the secretary of state by March 1st 202 fing to do so lock the district into potentially damaging Financial con the election day for voters to vote on housefield 581 is November 5th 2024 the ten and addressive

158timeline for an advertisement in the local newspaper of the district's intent to opt out on January 3rd 2025 three public hearings on the district's intent to opt out will be held virtually on January 14th 2025 at 10:00 a.m. and in person on the 14 at 6:45 p.m. the third and final hearing will be held 2025 at 6:45 p.m an OP out resolution will be presented to the board at the February 11th 2025 board meeting for board adoption the resolution will be filed on February 16 2025 any question that have uh I have one the one time opt out are we permanently opted out okay okay so the basically All Counties have to make a decision what does it mean by one time then so like you opt out right there at the beginning or you're

159stuck with it for life okay okay um I think it's important to point out that we actually have a millage rate cap I believe believe it's imposed at a city level but I'm not entirely sure it's 25 Ms if I'm noten so um just so that we're clear with the community if we are under this cap it will so we're not going to be in a situation where we allow the schools to go under fund right so what that means mathematically for the community is if we are under this cap the millage rate is going to increase and it'll increase fairly substantially and it will only stop when we hit the cap when we hit that that cap which will happen within the few years that we're talking about then the schools will be underfunded

160unless we remove that cap um what is troubling with the selection of CPI is that the costs associated with running a school system do not track CPI right teacher salaries don't grow at 3% per year for example not if we want to be a competitive District fuel hasn't stayed at that rate the underlying growth rate of the district exception of the last few years but for a decade and a half the growth rate of this of the district was you know three to four times for the CPI that we're talking about and so this cap would prevent us from being able to be flexible and meet any sort of changes that are that are like that and so I think um people should understand the existence of this cap threatens the senior Homestead the odds

161of us being able to maintain a senior homestead exemption if we are under this cap gets greatly greatly reduced so um there there's no way that we can be fiscally responsible and allow us to be held uh to this sort of arbitrary limitation um I'm firmly in support of ensuring that we apply for the one-time exemption and making sure that we are included in uh whatever steps we need to take to make sure that um this school system in this district is able to continue to serve our kids one question about the hearing are these ones um for which the public can speak or is it okay it's a hearing it's not a community meeting okay thank you all right so I just want to let the board know and you mentioned GE already the

162Georgia education Coalition has been wonderful to work with so GE District included in the working group for this work were Atlanta Bolton gwet cob Cherokee Henry Newton and Pauling so we met um pretty much on a monthly basis whether it's their legislative affairs their CFOs at time superintendent all of the school system systems assembled to learn more about the implementation of house spill 581 we've created collaborative talking points and develop that uniform um framework for the financial impact that was presented today so being a member of GE has been very valuable for us good night can I ask a question about whether we want to revisit at the system 25 mil cap itself and what would be required to um evaluate that I believe that would be a conversation with the city if I understand

163correctly Dr Broom that's right like they passed the resolution that we're beholden to yeah that was part the agreement once the school district came from very similar to conversations around bonds they have to approve them they have to approve them that's is just a function of being a constitutional versus Charter oh no no they're a charter too okay sorry yeah yeah yeah I will leave it at that but we can cross that bridge when we get there exactly hopefully we don't have to uh thank you Miss Bernett Dr Brom for that that presentation uh the board awaits the result of the Constitutional Amendment vote everyone vote sign up and vote I I do agree it will pass Dr Whitaker please introduce the next presentation sh heren I would like to call on Mrs Courtney brette

164coordinator of legislative Community Affairs and Miss Mcall Hart marunga who is our they will present our draft legislative thank you Dr Whitaker afternoon chair hearen Vice chair Sultan members of the board student Representatives the and superintendent Dr Whitaker today we are presenting a draft of the first first draft of the proposed 2025 legislative priority the city schools of the cater Board of Education annually adopt legislative priorities as of last year to support and goals of City School of the cater and all four of our strategic accelerators to effect equitably and effectively improve outcomes for all students however the creation and approval of legislative priorities is an example of organizational Effectiveness and Excellence CC's Board of Education will ask the decada delegation to support the approval of legislative priorities during the 2025 session of the Georgia

165General Assembly I will now turn the presentation over to the person who represents us well during the legislative session miss Courtney Bernett thank you miss hearta the proposed 2025 legislative priorities are categorized Safety and Security mental health funding local Authority and governance the first legislative Focus area is Safety and Security CSD supports legislation and funding that ensures every student both safe seen and successful by proactively providing safe learning environments for all students of the staff last year we had a priority for the addition of a line item in the state budget for school safety which the legislature approved this year we have a priority priority to continue to allocate funding for school safety the state budget making this a stable ongoing priority for 2025 we added a new priority to require safe and secure firearm

166storage for all citizens this is a recommendation from the B smart program and support the recommendation in house Speaker John Burn's recent letter to the house the next two priorities are repeat from last year as we continue to ask the state to allocate funding for monitoring potential physical and cyber threats and continuous training for school administrators and allocate funding for the installation LIC and maintenance of physical safety and cyber security systems our next leg legislative Focus area is mental health CSD continues to oppose legislation that prevents schools from creating inclusive learning environments where all students can thrive in a manner consistent with their identities this year we are adding our priority to a mental health care access particularly for teens and young adults which is also mentioned in Burn's recent letter the next four mental

167health priorities are repeats from last year and they include ensure the mental health and safety of all students including those from historically marginalized populations increased funding for training for mental health professionals and expand student staff access to Services increase funding for school counselors for students in special education and gifted programs and lower the student to school counselor ratio where we will continue to advocate for the funding ratio to align with the American school counselor Association recommendation which is a student to school counsel ratio of 250 to1 the current state funding ratio is50 the third legislative Focus area is funding CSC continues to oppose the expansion of tax credits and private school vouchers that divert public funds to private education the first four priorities listed are unchanged Chang from last year they are fully fund the

168QBE formula modernized the QB formula to account for inflation and adequately fund public education increase State funding for Quality learn Early Learning programs increase funding for student transport to and from school electric buses and green infrastructure last year districts received some funding for state required literacy and defia programs this year our priority will be to continue to advocate for increased funding for these programs the last funding priority listed was a priority last year however this year we've added two additional bullets we still want to reduce barriers to attracting and retaining Talent specifically by providing funding to support increases in the employer portion of non-certified employee health benefits we Al the Metro Rosal to allow non-certified Personnel to join the teacher retirement system instead of the Public School Employees Retirement System and provide funding for annual

169salary increases for all job categories our fourth legislative Focus area is local Authority CC opposes any legislation that overrides the Constitutional authority of the locally elected City schools of decator Board of Education We are continuing to Advocate to maintain local control over school governance and operations maintain local authority over educational and curriculum decisions instructional resour sources local Revenue sources as a result of legislation like House Bill 581 that passed last year we have added maintaining local control over local exemptions Authority is to control flexibility and implementing these legislative priorities I will now turn the presentation back over to miss Harman thank you Courtney in addition to our priorities the city schools of decada support the legislative positions and priorities outlined by the Georgia school boards Association as well as the priorities outlined by our partners

170including the Georgia Association of Education leaders ale the Georgia school superintendent Association Georgia Association of Educators and the professional association of Georgia Educators as Dr said earlier last year we joined the Metro Atlanta District in becoming a member of the Georgia education Coalition de was a great resource during the 2024 legislative session on a number of issues which we recently discussed keeping the member districts informed and providing opportunities for us to partner on responses to policy and legislative issues in other words they provided us muscle outside of the session they have continued to be an invaluable resource to our district responding to questions and requests and facilitating additional collaboration between districts I want to also mention that this year's legislative luncheon was originally scheduled for the December board meeting however due to a conflict an

171annual meeting of the legislature we are going to move that meeting to the November meeting because we are just presenting these to you today in draft format we will be presenting them in draft at the luncheon as well informing them that the priorities being presented will be submitted for final approval later Day Afternoon again these 2025 legislative priorities are being presented as a draft for your review and discussion we will bring the final draft prw to you again at the November meeting are there any questions thank thank you so uh board I I will take that piece of silence and feedback to say that we can move forward with those draft legislative priorities presented as is and then they would be on the consent agenda as presented tonight next week uh next month in November

172great awesome awesome thank you m Bernette M morunga for that presentation uh we look forward to the delegation and seeing revisions next month at our board meeting um personally excited about early childhood and hearing gun safety from the speaker of the house that was refreshing and U look forward participating in that Dr W you could move us to the next presentation yes chair Hearn and I would like to call on Mrs Amanda Lynch who is our chief of staff to review policies for first read good afternoon again for chair hearnen Vice chair Dr Sultan and state members of the board student Representatives Elena and superintendent Dr GMA Whitaker today we have four policies on the agenda for work session these policies were discussed in preor work last month three are new policies dib Financial reports

173djaa purchasing Authority djac purchasing or credit card use one policy DC annual operating budget was a revision to an existing policy if approved for first read these policies will be available for public comment through assmbly I'd like to take a moment to remind stakeholders that they can access any policies that are open for public comment by logging into s or by accessing sbly through the CSD web page on the sbly homepage on the right hand side is where you will see the policies that are available for public comment first there is policy dib Financial reports revisions were made based on input from the board last month to include additional details on when fixed assets should be capitalized may I read the rec recommendation please the recommendation being made is that City schools of DEC our

174Board of Education accept policy dib Financial reports for first read sorry yeah who want to make may I have a motion to accept bib Financial reports for first read thank you do I have a second second second John Davis thank you any discussion right all those in favor please say I I motion carries unanimously Miss Lynch all right second is policy djaa purchasing Authority no revisions were made to the draft that was discussed last month but it was noted that a requested in future years may I read the recommendation yes please the recommendation being made is that City schools of the cater Board of Education accept policy djaa purchasing Authority for first do I have a motion to approve to accept policy dgaa for first read some mov John Davis do have a second you

175Mr oops any discussion great all those in favor please say I I yes third is DJ EAC purchasing or credit card use board members were moved as eligible to receive purchase cards based on the discussion by the board last month during pre-work a few minor additional edits were made for brevity or Clarity may I read the recommendation yes please the recommendation being made is it City School the theor Board of Education except policy djac purchasing or credit card use for first read have a motion to approve the recommendation of DJ EAC for first read thank you Mr let have a second any discussion thank you for removing the part where I don't have to be responsible for a credit card I appreciate that listening and Gathering that feedback anyone else excellent all those in favor

176please say I I I all right last one last is policy DC annual operating budget this policy was a revision to an existing policy from last year to include the definition of a balanced budget there were no revisions that were made to the policy that it was presented in pre-work last month may I read the recommendations please the recommendation being made is that City schools of theator Board of Education accept policy DC annual operating budget for first read I have a motion moved Mr HS do I have a second second thank you Miss Anderson second motion uh any discussion um I this is just to jog my memory I I don't remember exactly where we aligned on this but there was talk about ensuring the budget book was included as an element of policy was

177that this or is that a different one we've already done that one already done that it's in there it's it's how toy this one is literally just adding the line like balanced budget is more revenues than expenditures and not because that's best practice equal oh yeah sorry equal to we're not raising funds all right uh all those in favor please say I I I motion carries unanimously thank you Mrs Lynch thank you Dr Whitaker we encourage the public to review the policies they are posted on assembly so that one of us can ask was there any public comment and we can hear at least one on one of these policies that would be great um that concludes our work session we will recess for 30 minutes to begin our regular board meeting at 5:35 with

178her uh all right we'll call this meeting to order at 5:30 pm we ask you sign us your cell phones at this time we will begin as always with a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance I ask at this time everyone join me in a moment of Silent reflection thank you now I ask all who are able to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Alle one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all thank you city schools of the cater mission is to inspire and enable student growth through meaningful and engaging learning experiences supported by highly qualified caring Educators in a safe and inviting environment uh first item up her agenda is approval of the board meeting minutes for October 2024 for board members are there any revisions

179to that agenda this evening do I have a motion to approve today's agenda move thank member up have a second second Davis second motion any discussion all those in favor please say I I that's unanimously our next agenda item is the approval of minutes from our previous board meeting do I have a motion to approve September's regular board minutes thank you m morz makes a motion do I have a second second joh Davis any discussion of September's minutes hearing none all those in favor please say I I I motion carries unanimously Dr Whitaker and moving on our next gen item I see that we have a lot of faces this evening are we recognizing anyone yes Cher her and I would like to call on Mrs Karen Newton Scott our Deputy superintendent to facilitate tonight

180recognition good evening Vice chair Dr Suson and Ste members of the board student board representative Delena and superintendent Whitaker I have the pleasure of making several presentations this evening from Glenwood Elementary and indicator high school we will begin with glwood Elementary Dr bookin if you would come forward Lenwood Elementary would like to shine a light on our student leg Community Circle and our parents band The Flock as well as the amazing music teacher Miss Katherine Pierce so would you all please come forward the flock is comprised of Glenwood parents Chad alond David water water maker her and Kyle Bryan they perform and accompany glenw students at our bi-weekly Community Circle Gathering Community circle is a community building labor of love for students staff and families at glenw elementary school it is created and led by

181our students along with Glenn Wood's music teacher Miss Katherine Pierce Glennwood is so proud to announce that the flock recently performed at deor [Music] education and won A1 thousand grant for their music education [Music] program Miss Pierce has collaborated with the Flop and GM Wood's admin team to deter how best to use the grant money to enhance the music program they have decided that this is an amazing opportunity to expand the percussion instruments they will add tuos to the West African drum set a class set of paint buckets for bucket drumming and an ocean drum they would also like to host a West African drumming Ensemble with a portion of the fun for the whole school to attend lwood sends its gratitude to thef the flop Miss Pierce and the entire School community and look

182forward to continued partnership with the community and opportunities for students to continue to grow and engage in community Circle thank you all for your support and dedication to the students of Glenwood Elementary and city schools of theer next we will recognize our Decor High School National Merit Scholarship semifinalist Dr spru if you would join us up front we are proud to recognize eight deada high school students who were named as semi-finalists for the National Merit Scholarship the National Merit Scholarship program is an annual academic competition among with among high school students for recognition and college undergraduate scholarships the program is conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation a non for-profit organization that operates without government assistance the United States high school students who enter the National Merit Scholarship program enter by taking the preliminary sat

183or the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test it serves as an init as an initial screen of over 1.3 million entrance each year and by meeting published program entry and participation requirements these eight academically talented High School seniors had an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth over $26 million we hope that these students get to join Gordon blitstein the cater high schools class of 2024 as a national merit scholarship recipient as I call your name please join your principal upfront and remain until all names have been called first up we are recognizing Owen Beck m brown alsoo iol Emma B beatric Richard Louis land and Elanor [Applause] Stern congratulations to you all and we wish you the best of luck thank you so much next up are the Georgia

184Governor's honors program finalists the Georgia Governor's honors program is a residential summer program for skilled knowledgeable and talented High School sophomores and juniors the program offers instruction that is significantly different from the typical high school classroom and is designed to provide students with academic cultural and social enrichment necessary to become the next generation of global critical thinkers innovators and leaders Governor's honors is held in Midsummer as a residential educational experience at Georgia Southern Georgia Southern University students attend classes in the morning and a afternoon in specific areas of study and they participate in a wide variety of Social and instructional opportunities every evening the program is fully funded by the Georgia General Assembly through the use of tax taxpayer dollars and is offered at no cost to the students theor high schools 2024 fin finalists

185are as follows please come forward as I call your name Aiden [Applause] tagami did I get it right aen I always Aiden is going to um his nomination area is engineering okay Victor Lori State nomination area is agricultural research biotechnology and science next we have again Emma [Applause] Fong area is science with a focus on chemistry next is Robert bordic Robert's nomination area is comp descience next we have Michael [Music] [Applause] katrick Mich nomination area is World Language with a concentration in French now we have Ellen noova Ellen ell Focus mous excuse me Molin say concentration is science Hillary Rucker concentration is mathematics pton St nom for social studies Elanor Stern ELO's concentration will be communicative arts and last but not least Ezekiel wner with a concentration a nomination in music with a concentration on

186streams and the bi let's give all of our award at this time I would like to invite Dr Whitaker and the board members down for photo opportunities with each group parents feel free to get up and get your photo opportunity as well thank you [Laughter] I stand my to like I'm talking I know all good all right congratulations congratulations congratulations in put in chairs [Music] but here [Music] you go one more conratulations Molly years total [Music] got go in front the drummer context clue J [Music] good good job yeah yeah yeah nice to be all right Dr Whitaker do you have a report tonight that's next on our agenda yes I do chair hearen um good evening City schools of decar in recent weeks we have witnessed the devastation caused by Hurricane Helen faced frequent

187air quality alerts caused by chemical plant fire and felt deep sorrow over the tragic loss of lives in a local school district our thoughts also remain with our many students staff and families who have very personal connection to countries currently suffering from more as a school district we recognize the upheaval whether at a local National or Global level can affect us all as with all organizations local state and National City schools of Decor is navigating the complexities of ongoing change and uncertainty while maintaining our purpose of educating the diversity of students who enter our doors like all organizations CSD is dedicated to navigating these complexities I want to reiterate to our school community that while we are still a District in progress we remain steadfast in our mission to create a school District that promotes

188inclusion for all so tonight we are proud to announce the Scholastic after last of 2024 otherwise known as the SAT according to the results from the Georgia Department of Education the city schools of decada rose to number two this year out of 100 82 school districts across the state out outpacing the metro and National averages specifically a total of 73% of the 2024 graduating seniors of decar high school actually took the SAT earning an average score of 1169 this score represents a 22 Point increase mean overall from 2023 including a seven-point rise in evidence-based reading and writing and a 15o increase in math the entire School Community celebrates the accomplishments of our 2024 graduates whose achievements reflect the district's commitment to academic excellence and college readiness to further highlight student performance Deputy superintendent Karen Newton

189Scott will provide an update on the spring 2024 Georgia milstone assessment results in all content areas along with the newly released as of today graduation rate for the class of okay good evening again board chair hearen Vice chair Dr sulan the team members of the board student representative Delena and superintendent Waker how do we know how much a child has learned scale and say y they've learned as much learning like health is a construct your do doctor can't directly measure how healthy you are but he or she can directly measure variables that reflect health for example your doctor can take blood pressure and your temperature perform various examinations and ask how you are feeling and combine those data points to determine if you are Health when we assess we can only assess a propy or

190an attribute of learning no will experience and capture the amazing traits and attributes that make them the beautiful people they are and assessments don't CL to a test designer's job is to create a tool that can measure particular skills and particular standards in a particular way we then evaluate the outcomes to determine for that assessment on that day where students might be in their learning for us that assessment is the Georgia meston Georgia Milestones is a single assessment system that consists of end of grade measur and end of course measures currently grades 3 through eight have both Ela and math outcomes grade five and 8 are math and science and only eighth grade takes Ela math science and social studies our outcomes are categorized in four levels first we have beginning learners for those Learners

191they do not yet demonstrate Prof efficiency and will need sub substantial academic support to be prepared for the next grade level our developing Learners demonstrate partial proficiency and will need additional academic support to ensure their success at the next grade level our proficient Learners demonstrate Prof Proficiency in the Knowledge and Skills necessary at their current grade level as specified in Georgia's content standards these students are prepared for the next grade grade and and are on track for College and Career Readiness and last but not least the top performing level would be categorized as distinguished learner these Learners demonstrate Advanced proficiency and Knowledge and Skills necessary at that grade level students at this level are well prepared for the next grade level or course and are well prepared for College and Career Readiness this evening we

192will examine exam in the recently released math results please note that these outcomes were delayed due to the introduction of new math standards last school year and the development of a new measurement scale I am pleased to begin by highlighting the outstanding performance of our students in mathematics their results showcase a strong graph and Mastery of math concepts across all rate levels this achievement is a testament to the hard work of our students teachers and support staff in this presentation you will see the performance of various racial subgroups within our schools and you will see the average percentage of students scoring in the proficient and distinguished categories while we will present present data for all student groups our analysis will focus particularly on the performance of black students this emphas this emphasis allow with our

193strategic plan and key performance indicators which Target improving outcomes for our black subgroup highlights of our 2324 math results include that all of our student outcomes were above State and Metro Resa averages CSD ranked in the top three school systems in the Metro Resa and in comparison to the state our seventh grade ranked first in the state for their math performance sixth grade ranked third and fifth grade ranked fourth the arrows you see right now indicate whether performance has improved compared to last year or if we've experienced a slight decrease if there is no Arrow it signifies that the score has remained unchanged from year to year specifically for our black subgroups there were increases in performance in grades four four six seven and eight with the largest gains in fourth and eighth grade where

194the percentage of black students at proficient and distinguished increased by 10 to 12 percentage points the average performance overall for our black students increased by four percent percentage points we are trending in the right direction for our mathematics performance for English language arts CSD students performed above States and Rea averages by 30 percentage points our scores for grades four through through eight our grade our scores for grades four through eight are ranked number one in the metro area and third grade ranks number two for the state comparison all grades ranked in the top five for the state fifth sixth and seventh grade ranked second in the state third and fourth grades ranked third and eighth grad ranked fifth in the state for the highest performances in ela in comparison to the previous year's outcome grades

195four through eight maintained or increased in performance with the greatest cohort Gams in fifth grade with 14 percentage points and eighth grade with nine percentage points again I would also like to note the growth in outcomes for our black students in grade three performance grew by 13 percentage points grade five a whopp 21 percentage points three percentage points for grade six and four for grade seven when average performance overall for our black students increased by seven percentage for science our story is very similar Fifth eth and high school biology outcomes were above State and Metro averages by 20 percentage points gains were made in both fifth and eighth grades and both grades ranked second in the metro area fifth ranked fourth ranked 14th in the state and eighth grade ranked seven we experienced growth in

196both grades for our black subgroup for fifth grade we grew by eight percentage points and for eth grade we grew by six percentage points for biology these outcomes had a slight decline from last year by two percentage points so last year um we had 76% of students sufficient in St on this slide we see both e8th grade social studies outcomes and high school US History outcomes our eighth graders again performed above State and reca averages and in comparison to the 2023 outcomes this represents an 8 percentage Point gain and a seven percentage Point gain for our black student sub group the story shifts a bit when we examine High School US History outcomes the US History data does not include outcomes for students enrolled in at or IB level courses therefore the figures represented reflects

197only students taken us history as a general education course this data is revealing as it gives us an indication of how students who do not traditionally take a IID coures are performing this level of disparity can get masked when other data is combined despite a three-point gain from last year our student performance in US history remains slightly below State and Rea averages additionally we go additionally our black student performance declined by eight percentage points know yep for US History only in our first round of walkthroughs for the CER high school we were able to observe US History classes and determine where our high leverage opportunities for improvement are Dr spru and his team supported by teaching and learning developed a plan for adjustments to PTI and real time support on a weekly basis we are

198actively tracking and will assess the effectiveness and increasing focus and learning for students in US history by by by our first 90 days for American literature students performed above State and reca averages again we have an 8 percentage Point gain overall for our performance and and a fourpoint decline for black student performance the same plan I share for US history is to improve in this area for American literature we are monitoring the implementation steps outlined in the plan as well through observations and regular check-ins with teachers and the administration at deada high school for algebra outcome were also above State and Resa averages CSD ranked in the top three systems in the Metro Resa region for algebra Concepts and connections this was a new assessment as well therefore some comparisons to previous years would not

199be appropriate however we can compare proficient and higher outcomes from year to year overall scores increased from the previous year's Administration by percent point which is to be commended black student performance also increased by 12 percentage points which is also to be commended Dr sulan if I could dip a toe into your world for a moment and reflect on the health of CSV based upon these outcomes shared I would conclude that overall we are in a healthy range however overall I would conclude that we are in a healthy range we are one of the top performing districts who is making games across academic contest we have some of the largest games in our targeted subgroup and these games are the largest we have seen over the last three years we achieved games for black students

200in ela and math in several grades however healthy does not mean that all things work and that we don't have things to work on you agree there are areas of concern that we still need to address while we are trending in the right direction we have not yet achieved success for all so this picture is from last May and it captures the heartfelt moment when Decor high school graduates joyfully toss their CS into the air symbolizing the culmination of years filled with hard work work cherished friendship and supportive teachers and families who guided them through that educational Journey this celebratory moment represents an impressive 95% gradu graduation rate among our seniors this is an increase in our four-year rate graduation rate and it not only demonstrates our students hard work and dedication but it also

201stands significantly higher than both state and Metro averages as we celebrate this m Milestone we remain focused on maintaining this upward trajectory and ensuring that every student has the opportunity to thrive together we will continue to build on this success and strive for even greater achievements in the future in closing I'd like to remind everyone that these end of grade and end of course data presented tonight are also available on our website through our data dashboard as well as the fiveyear trend data for all grade levels and thank you Mrs Newton Scott for highlighting Student Success in all areas while we are pleased with the gains that have been made in the aggregate we still have work to do to close achievement gaps for black students and economically disadvantaged students in Mrs Newton Scott's presentation

202we provided the average percentage of students scoring proficient and above by race over the past month I've been on data tours in the Upper Elementary as well as well as our middle schools discussing these results by cohort for example if I'm a seventh grade teacher I want to know how my current seventh graders performed in sixth grade in fifth grade and fourth grade and so on that is C analysis and that is what teachers use to inform instructional decisions however the state holds us accountable for targets that are not cohort we are held accountable to the arrows that you saw in the presentation today so how the seventh grade class last year performed as compared to the seventh grade class two years ago on the data tours I share both perspectives at the aggregate level

203and scores by race now that we have the math scores I will do the same data tours at the high school later this month I should also note that these scores show our growth in just one year and that we are inching closer to the prepandemic levels when the state releases our College and Career ready performance index rating hopefully in December we will be able to inform the board and the public of the results for our economically disadvantaged students the state does not provide that file until we get closer to the ccrpi release in the interim our da data dashboard on our website has the majority of what was presented today today with the newly released math and graduation rate available by Friday I invite staff students and our community members to share their thoughts

204on our during my fall listening sessions the first one will be virtual on this upcoming Monday October the 14th the link will be accessible on the CSD website there will be two two more in-person opportunities one on October the 23rd at T Street upper elementary school and the second being October the 29th at the decator Housing Authority I will also provide information on how early learning and the urgency of another site is integrated into the road map for Student Success in all areas before I end my remarks I want to inform everyone that today is Go Red For dyslexia by wearing red we are helping to SP spread awareness for dyslexia which is one of seven disabilities that we are highlighting for National learning disabilities Awareness Month next Friday October the 17th CSD students and

205staff will go pink in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month the community is invited to join us to end at the end of the day for a pink out at our Decor High School varsity football game in October we also raise awareness to end domestic partner violence chair hearnen that completes my report thank you Dr sure yeah I I assume you have questions about data over there it's not not a question just an observation that I want to make sure that we keep um front of Mind as we review the data um for a couple of the uh subgroup performance we talked about how some of our black students were doing and that the numbers were actually growing from previous year want to make sure that we always include what the are doing as well

206um algebra was an example stood out to me where we said that the black love group had improved by 12% but the overall group had improved by 15% in my mind that means the gap of equity through it did not shrink and I just want to make sure that we're aware as we look at this information even though we may have good 12% sounds like a good number except for the fact that it means that they did not improve as well as the rest of the students and I just want to make sure that that front of Mind closing that Gap is what our objective is not just throwing the numbers but closing that performance Gap is what our objective should be may I ask a clarifying question regarding algebra so eth grade all eth

207graders took the math PC and then eth graders taking algebra or ninth graders taking or other students who had to take algebra primarily eth and nth were reflected in the algebra school yes yeah so 8th grade if you were in on leveling the e g EOC is the algebra but we have accelerated pa okay they're included all right excellent thank you uh next agenda item is the chair's report uh on behalf of the board thank you for joining us in person and virtually to learn about the progress of our strategic goals to achieve positive academic and social emotional outcomes for all of our students uh I must commend the administration for their support of schools the persistence and navigating the district through these past weeks also want to reassure our school community of the board's

208commitment to ensuring students and staff are safe and making CSD a district where every student is safe seen and positioned for lifelong success something that I have struggled with personally in the school safety world is that it just doesn't often makes sense and it doesn't make sense sometimes to share publicly the safety procedures um seeing the little Glennwood KidsDay remind me of a event that opened my eyes I was upset because I didn't know where my first grade daughter was during an intruder event at Glennwood I was Furious that I not know where she is is and the principal at the time uh not Dr brookens uh looked me in the eye and said you do know we have to prepare for the event that you could be the issue uh and it took my

209breath away obviously we weren't publicizing where the kids went obviously we weren't publicizing exactly what happened uh another example is as we were opening up tally Street this is also before my board meeting and there was a discussion of the windows and what would be bulletproof and what would not be bulletproof and some parents said can we get a list of which ones aren't bulletproof which sounds like a logical question until you just stop and think about it you're like no as part of our safety we are not going to tell you which Windows to attack um so in many ways it means that secrecy that makes me uncomfortable has to remain uh I got several texts last night after the email and the text from the board about threats to our school system asking

210me if I knew anything if if I if I had received for the decor police last night and the honest answer was I didn't know anything that wasn't in the email written by Mcall and her staff but I will tell you this as a board we are committed to doing all we can legally to protect prevent and respond to threats to investigate all threats thoroughly and with Vigor and I heard Dr Whitaker earlier today she is not a police officer and so in many times when we say Chief Richards and the others have deemed have investigated the threat um it's not like our third grade math teacher is confirming that they have done their job we are taking law enforcement at their word that that's what they've done and sharing it with the public most

211importantly we are funding the necess and crisis response of the district tools like CICS and updated cameras and detectors and training and additional just naming a few things that will be funded we are considering just let me assure you as board chair father of two daughters the safety of this staff and its students is my top priority and in every conversation I have this board's top priority speaking of success I'm pleased with the gains and student achievement um it's a tough road to celebrate gains but be aware of places where we still have work to do particularly for our traditionally marginalized students during today's pre-work we continued our books study on the governance core School Board superintendent and schools working together the board updated our communication Norms prw work included an informative Early Learning panel

212guests shared their expertise on deepening the board's knowledge of the trends and steps for success as we move towards implementing our own early learning objective into our strategic plan there were then four presentations during the war session the first was an update on mtss and dyslexia included an overview of the processes and interventions and the results so far of the 2324 star literacy screening which is not complete uh literacy is a key Focus area of the Strategic plan we are continuing to monitor this and work closely the second presentation was an overview of the school allotment guidelines these are essential in preparing for next year's budget and we reviewed recommendations for policies related to finance during the next two presentations the board learned about the potential Financial impact of house bill 581 that passed last

213legislative session it will be on the ballot this November it's a floating homestead exemption bill that limits annual increases in home assessments to reduce property tax hikes that's a mouthful uh the draft of the legislative priorities followed for our review I encourage the community to look them up provide feedback the final presentation was a final review of the proposed FY 26 budget calendar all of this is available on assembly for those who are interested in learning more last week many of our students staff and families enjoyed the festivities of National Night Out hosted by the decor Housing Authority it is annually held in October to coincide with the national observance of crime prevention and safety month National Night provides a fun atmosphere for community building and promotes police Community Partnerships and awareness uh that's just

214one there are so many amazing things happening around CSD uh Dr Whitaker mentioned the DHS Bulldogs early we're just barely three months in the school year and we're on a roll shout out to coach William Felton uh who was the winner of the Atlanta Falcons coach of the week in the AJC this week the team will be recognized by Fox 5 as a high five team of the week it's also exciting that with sponsorship from Georgia EMC the GHSA selected to Kar high school as a 2023 24 recipient of the region 45a cooperative sportsmanship award love to hear that wow during the work session we recognized eight students who were among the 1% of seniors nationally to be selected as the Merit finalists the 11 Governor's honors program winners uh and finalists for the national

215May will be announced what next semester way to go Bulldogs uh congratulations to the DHS students and the staff who support them wish you the best in your academic Pursuits as a national Hispanic American month continues so do the school celebrations they with art Authors music and dance the Bulldogs at Beacon Hill are enjoying a schoolwide avocado hunt avocados are a key ingredient in Spanish culture representing cultural Pride family gatherings and abundance at tally Street Reading is lit and it is out of this world students and staff at all of the schools are recognizing National book month with a variety of fun activities I myself did an amazing job reading a book to a glass of fourth graders killed it uh I've also heard when Nona Park is for the birds these days they are

216working to create a rotation for the bird feeders in front of the school on Restaurant Row be cleaned and filled and they want the community to help so check out their school newsletter and the CSD weekly to find out how uh to kick off their fall e education Expeditions kindergarteners at Glennwood got a visit from the expert animal man that's in quotes there and had an opportunity to meet and learn about some unique animals the Glennwood parent band the block and their amazing music teacher were recognized during today's board recognition I want to shout out DF for hosting an amazing event to help support music in our community and it was fun seeing so many of those F that family band's amazing I feel like it's on its fifth generation of parents um so get

217set get ready all the schools are gearing up to join millions of families across the country for the annual Walk and Roll that's happening this week um in October we are commemorating the history and achievements of the lgbtq plus community and finally We join the National shout out to School principles this month for overseeing the magic thank you for setting high standards for instruction student achievement and a sense of belonging in our schools that concludes my remarks this evening board members do any of you have any thoughts to share now well I also read a book um I heard I heard second bet so shout out to um principal Lockwood and Miss need's um second grade class at Claremont I had the best time they were having P at ear pajama day and after what

218really really made my day um and I've been telling all my friends about after I finished my book I just looked over and corner there was one student he gave me a something he said and I mean I almost just melted right there so um I just want to thank them again for the invitation else thank you all uh board we will now move to the consent agend agenda items which include monthly items such as nutrition finance and personnel and overnight out ofate student travel I'll solicit comments from the board on each item after the item has been discussed we'll move it to consent there will then be a motion to accept the consent agenda items at the end of discussing them all so consent agenda item one is school nutrition any comments from the

219board hearing none this item can be moved to consent Dr Whitaker we have a monthly financial report yes chair hearen Dr Lita broom Chief Financial will the monthly financial report good evening evening the August 2024 Financial reports and definitions of function codes are located in the C the finance department operates the finance department operates based on the district's four strategic accelerators with a specific organizational Effectiveness and ESS do Financial transparency the general fund budget is16 m677 36 as of August the district collected 26% or approximately 27.3 million of the budgeted Revenue year to date which is in line with the percentage that was collected this time last year August revenue is 90% less than the amount of Revenue collected for July due to the large 41% collection of property tax Revenue received in July property

220tax revenues are collected in April and December the April collections were recognized as current fiscal year Revenue in account for the district receiving such a large percentage of budgeted Revenue within the first month of the fiscal year expenditures are normal for this time of the year as of August the district has expended 133% of the overall budget are approximately $1 million here today for the month of August expenses equated to approximately $8 billion this is 96% higher than what was spent in August 20123 which is due primarily to salary and benefit increases in addition to salary and benefit increases expenses in August are higher this year than in previous years due to changes in when employees who work 185 and 190 days are paid in previous years employees at work 85 and 190 days had

221a waiting period prior to being paid their payday started in September and ended in August this meant if an employee started in July their first payday was not until September 15th as you can imagine this negatively impacted Recruitment and morass so under Dr Whitaker's leadership to ensure Equity of all employees will allign their payb to coincide with other District employees for from August to July so basically we are paying them on the front end instead of the back for the month of August that was a deficit of approximately $6 million which means the district expenditures for the month were $6 million more than the monthly Revenue the $6 million has been deducted from the fund balance overall year to date there's a surplus of approximately $22 million due primarily to the large receipt of propit

222tax collection post in July last year this time that was a surplus of $19 million the surplus of Revenue is normal at this time of a year and account for the hethy fund balance of approximately $35 million which includ balance of approximately $19 million please note that the fund balance will continue to decrease at the expenditures increase August revenue for Capital and debt funds consisted of 63 $3,915 from earnings on investment and sply 6 collection expenditures are normal for this time of the year and the $244,000 deficit was deducted from the fund balance which was approximately $7 million in August thisal year 25 anticipated expenditures for capital is approximately 12.7 milon special Revenue funds are Grant and debt funds including federal and state grants not budgeted in the general fund we're currently closing out fiscal

223year 24 grants receiving reimbursements and preparing for fiscal year 25 gr School nutrition revenue and expenditures are trending within the same range as previous years The $35,840 Million last year's this time School nutrition fund balance was $1.6 million I will be happy to respond to any question you may have thank you Dr Bo hearing no comments this item can be moved to consent consent agenda item three is the Personnel report any comments from the board hearing none this item can be moved to consent consent agenda item four is overnight out of state travel any comments from the board this item can be moved to consent consent agenda item five is the budget calendar FY 26 we discussed it in the work session last month uh any comments this item can be moved to consent consent

224agenda item six wona Park Elementary playground equipment any comments sorry back to one thing yeah the budget calendar sure and given the calendar we saw depending on the results of the election is are those aligning I don't know if I'm asking the right question these are ACS right so these are independent of that result yes so the what you saw for house B 581 is not that is separate of our budget development so those are hearings that are specifically associated with House Bill 581 and the floating homestead exemption not the budget development calendar for FY 26 for our school system thank you okay I you threw me off with using the word election there like wait what who we who's up for re-election on this board okay um great well NOA Park Elementary playground equipment

225any comments hearing now the side the mov consent and consent agenda item number seven is camera systems any comments excellent hearing none this item to move to consent Shar Hern may I read the recommendation yes please I recommend the city schools of theor Board of Education approve the consent agenda items 1 through 7 do I have a motion to approve those consent agenda items mve thank you member H still have a second thank you Miss Anderson second motion any discussion hearing none all those in favor I motion motion carries unanimously thank you Dr Whitaker moving on to information reports yes uh thank you chair hearen during September's work session staff presented the capital budget and we have submitted the revised presentation with the budget on slide six to reflect Al reallocating funds to the Safety

226and Security line let put that in English uh yes last month the the board heard presentation about the capital uh plan and we at that juncture decided that um I could move the funds from the duplexes line to Safety and Security I stated that I would resubmit that budget line to the board it's not one that has to go for vote as it is a capital plan but I did want to make that information known and public to the board that we have re reallocated those funds yeah that's what I wanted you to say we move money from the duplexes to so that we can fund everything that uh we need to for safety as our top priority all right uh next item up agenda is public comment portion of the meeting do we have

227people signed up for public comment and I have this thing to read the following information is included in the board policy manual and members of the public acknowledge this information when they sign up to speak this is a reminder for all speakers and members of the audience the opportunity to address the board during public comment is limited District parents students residents employees businesses and organizations a person wishing to address the board during public comment must sign in before the period begins and not State their connection to CSD Andor the city of Decor to time for board's other business public comment is ordinarily limited to 1 hour or 20 speakers at the board's discretion we may extend the time the time limit is three minutes person speaking during public comment will not be permitted to yield

228the floor or transfer unused time comment should be addressed to the board as a body not to any individual board member at the chair's discretion persons violating this policy will be asked to step down speakers please 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 geers Applause or shouts from the floor disruptive persons will be asked to leave the meeting the chair will terminate public comments that are profane vulgar defamatory or disruptive if any speakers comments begins to Burge into hate speech or defamation I will ask the speaker to end their comments speakers you may not address confidential student or Personnel matters those should be submitted as concerns to the superintendent in writing

229members of the board will not address persons presenting public comment will not speak to the substance of comments made instead a member of the administrative team will follow up with the person speaking at the board meeting Dr Whitaker can you call our first Speaker yes the first speaker is Nia vatra oh good evening Bor Dr Whitaker on September 20th high schoolers across the State walked out of their schools to to demand better gun legislation in the wake of the massacre of two students and two teachers at appalachi high school at Lambert High School in John's Creek Georgia over 300 kids walked out and rallied with the support of school administration without consequence given their return to class after the demonstration we saw similar turnout in many Georgia high schools from Central gnet High School to

230jacin high school in Savanah by the board's encouragement and policy JCC I reached out to DHS administr about Our intention to walk out unlike Lambert High School diator admin refused to accommodate the integration of our demonstration into the school day despite the day being date being chosen intentionally before break on an early release day in order to minimize the disruption even though the administration encouraged me to communicate with them they never communicated their intention to advise teachers to write down the names of walkout participants in order to write us all referrals for skipping after the murder of four students and teachers this moment called for solidarity with with Barrow County and appalachi high school community and a promise to advocate for them we wore black and held four minutes of silence for each of the

231victims this work didn't end on September 20th personally I believe it is my duty to take action in mobilizing young people in Georgia to make our voices heard in this election during legislative Jan during legislative session in January and until Justice is delivered to the victims of appalache in the form of Common Sense gun safety legislation that will keep us safe in our school while this District Pride itself on a commitment to inclusion in advocacy on behalf of the voice list these actions make that promise feel hollow I want to make clear my intimate understanding of the consequences that come hand inand with speaking up in protest historically it is black and brown people that feel these consequences the strongest in this instance we are not protesting against our administrators or Educators we are showing

232up so that they too might come to work feel safe and return home to their families each night alive and not in a body bag it is therefore disappoint consequences for walking out on September 20th but to have been led to believe that such consequences would not exist by those entrusted with our care and with our education as a student in this district and the elected representative of my peers for the 2025 to 2026 school year I'm calling on theator to do better thank you thank you the next speaker is Alysa pulik so thanks hey hi I'm Alysa pulik I have three children two of whom are in the decor school system I'm here today as a mother and particularly as a Jewish mother and granddaughter's Holocaust Survivors seeking reassurance that I can trust that

233my to will feel safe while let schol right now I'm rattled very rattled and unsure yesterday was October 7th 2024 this marks the year anniversary of when Hamas militants invaded Israel murdered 1,00 people raped women and took 250 people as hostages of which 101 remain in Gaza this anniversary sparked a collective inner grief within the Jewish Community the world changed on this day for us it really for all of us we are now a part of this new world where polarization is the norm and anti-Semitism is on the rise honestly as Jews we feel scared we are asking questions many like will our community support us should we isolate ourselves and send our kids to Jewish Day School what is our place in America will we soon be like France where anti-Semitism is rampant and

234an expected part of life Jewish families are having these very discussions at home this is common this is our new reality such a brought time sending our kids to school can feel like an Act of Faith I have to trust that my community will be sensitive towards my children as Jewish children yes but even more as fellow humans yesterday on October 7th the anniversary of hamas's invasion a city school of decar employee and part of the Dei Department a CIA to thear high to Mark the occasion caia is a scarf it's a symbol of Palestinian solidarity and Liberation notably notably worn by Arafat who is historically remembered as no fan of the AEL choice to wear this garment on this particular day was intentional student body I asked my seventh grader who goes to Beacon

235Hill how would you feel if you saw a teacher wearing a cailla at school not on any day but particularly yesterday October 7th his answer this was unprompted terrible I would not feel safe I would turn the other way and this is particularly problematic if there's Dei and the person is affiliated with Dei and it's supposed to be part of diversity equity and inclusion I believe this is a difficult time for all of us but there is no room for any purposeful Act of divisiveness on an expected sensitive day for Jewish student students from sta we need all of our children to feel safe at school the stunt that occurred yesterday is against our core values of inclusion and empathy it was a betrayal to Dei um it's a violation of I I I fine

236I I can just say it was disturbing it needs to be looked into thank you for the next speaker is Lauren waden maker evening I appreciate the opportunity to provide comment to all of you I stand before you now as a Jewish mother the three Jewish students from City schools of deor I have written a letter already to Dr Whitaker and I've copied the board so I will not Bel labor the point but I would be remissed to have joined you all here this evening on a total separate occasion and not mention something that has heavily weighed on my heart and on the heart of many other parents in this District I wish to comment on an action taken yesterday by a member of CFC staff who serves as a leader in the district Equity

237office this Equity staff member deliberately chose aware cathia in Decor high school yesterday October 7th the one-year anniversary of the single deadliest Massacre of Jews since the Holocaust in ever in Israeli history do I have a problem with a CAA absolutely not yet context matters yesterday was a day of mourning for Jews around the world the complete lack of respect and empathy by this equity staff member appalling and in no way does it perpetuate this all indicator Mantra that we hear continuously I urge you to consider the blatant and sensitivity and intentional exclusion of Jewish students caused by the staff member's actions again this is an individual who is hired with our tax dollars to promote inclusion in our schools I would expect better judgment from someone in this position the ramifications for students psychological

238safety are significant Mr Hernan you spoke about physical safety at length I would beg that you understand the psychological safety also has significant ramifications here I trust you will take Swift action on this disturbing matter of student safety and in which again a CFC Equity staff member has used their position to undermine the CFC diversity equity and inclusion mission that they were hired to uphold thank you sure heren those are all the i' like to thank all of the speakers for taking time to be here tonight to share your perspective is very important for us to hear final agenda item is future well no yeah future dates next Tuesday October 15 the board will convene with the city of decator commission for a retreat at Agnes Scott uh the agenda topics to be discussed so

239far are early learning shared spaces and effective collaboration and communication between our two bodies this agenda will be published on assembly Friday October 11th uh our next board meeting will be held on Tuesday November future dates the you're you're speaking at Agnes Scott why is that not on here I have we have the state of the schools on uh Friday October the 11th from 9 to 11: at Agnes Scott as well all right hearing no further business this meeting is adjourned at 6:43 p.m. thank you