001call this May 12th board of education meeting to um order. I need a motion to approve the agenda. So move. I would like to amend the agenda. I'd like to amend the agenda to include an operations report that provides a facility update on Okone County Okone Elementary School. I recommend that the operations report be placed after the business services report on the agenda. Miss Parish has made another motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Mr. Hammock. All in favor? Passes 5. Motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Mr. Tulle. Second. Mr. Hammond. All in favor? Passes. 5-0. Recognitions. Thank you, Mr. Ransom. Good evening, board members and Dr. Branch. We have several recognitions this evening. So, if you'll step forward, we'll begin introducing those folks. As you come forward, I'll note that this month's art
002display is provided by the students from Rocky Branch Elementary School. You can see we've got some very talented artists at Rocky Branch. And you're going to hear a little bit more about the art program there later from their sponsor, Miss Dixon. First, this evening, board will recognize the Malcolm Bridge Elementary School bookkeeper, Allison Hodgeges, as the May Pursuit of Excellence Award winner for student services. She will receive a $50 Visa gift card and a golf umbrella provided by Peach State Federal Credit Union. Additional gift cards from Chops and Hops and Rosy's hometown meets and a commemorative plaque from Okone County Schools. Some of her colleagues share this information with us from Miss Hodgeges. Malcolm Bridge Elementary is beyond blessed to have Allison Hodgeges as our bookkeeper and so much more. If you spend any time
003in an elementary school office, you know that you're never just a bookkeeper. Allison also serves as secretary, registar, nurse, custodian, cafeteria worker, and whatever else is needed. She is the epitome of professionalism and truly gives 110% to our school every single day. She is the leader of our office and the glue that holds everyone together. She goes above and beyond the requirements of her job to make sure all teachers have what they need and are supported. Allison is kind and always has the how could I help you mentality. She goes above and beyond to pursue excellence each day, ensuring that the Okone County mission is carried out and that students above all else are loved and taken care of. The May Pursuit of Excellence Award winner, Allison Hodes. [Applause] Next, a board will recognize the
004FBLA state medalist from Dove Creek Middle School. Ean Shaw, first place in interpersonal communication. Kinley McCrae, third place in business etiquette, and Tony Zy, third place in exploring economics. Their adviser is Scott Burrell. [Applause] Next, the board will recognize the FFA Junior Poultry judging state champions from Okone County Middle, Alisa Casio, Tyler Gay, Bennett Stole, and Davis Waters. Their advisor is David Chapman. [Applause] Next, the board will recognize the DECA state medal. from Okoni County High School, Rohan Patel, first place in principles of finance. Samuel Cooper Powell, first place in principles of hospitality and tourism, and Annie Rose Johnson and Ella Davis, first place in team decisionmaking, hospitality and tourism. Their adviser is Josh Bentley. [Applause] Thank you. [Applause] Nature board will recognize Dear Morotra of Malcolm Bridge Middle for placing first in Georgia in
005the Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest. Board members, since we received this information, Deer has also won the national championship for all sixth graders. His sponsor this evening is Eric Shurmer. [Applause] Next, the board will recognize the class 4A state champions in gymnastics. from North Okone High School. Mia Albert, Ava Arenas, Adalie Buffford, Matt Maddie Bert Weekes, Ella Hawkins, Emma Howells, Danny Ivy, Hadley Keller, Hannah Moffett, Tatum Poe, Fabiana Pombo, Kylie Rhodan, Emry Shepard, Savannah Williams, and Morgan King. The coaches are Hillary Sanders and Ashley Owens. [Applause] Hold tight. One, two, three. Next, the board will recognize the class 3A GHSA literary champions in quartet from Moni County High. Anan Fazula, Memphis Gober, Pedro Marcato, and Tyler Sage Wyatt. Their adviser is Katie Williams. [Applause] 15 seconds. [Music] Silhouette [Music] silhouette on the [Music]
006and board members. That concludes recognitions. There's a nice wheel. recognition. Next we have points of pride with Rocky Branch Elementary School. Welcome. Good evening board members and Dr. branch. My name is Sarah Johnson and I'm the principal at Rocky Branch Elementary School. I am joined tonight by assistant principal Candace Ivory, art teacher Stephanie Dixon, music teacher Josh Luke, and students who are part of our tank gang from Finding Nemo. Tonight, we will highlight the work of our fine arts program for the experiences it offers our students as well as the integration of the arts into the steam initiative at Rocky Branch. Our teachers work to expose our students to all elements of fine arts as emphasized by the Georgia Department of Education. Students attend an art and music class each week through our connections rotation,
007but they continue to be exposed to these components of fine arts through our steam initiative at Rocky Branch. That A and STEAM means that we purposely integrate the arts into our content. This year, as part of the first grade unit on sound, we discovered an authentic connection to the arts. Teachers taught the standards and then students used the knowledge on sound to create a bell in art, as seen here. Students then performed a song using the bell that they made in music class. In second grade, students learned about the life cycles of butterflies. They then performed a song learned in music class from the movie Encanto that tells the story of caterpillars growing to become butterflies. We also use community partners to expose our students to the arts beyond the classroom. In addition to supporting
008our unit planning, our community partners attend our career day as well as our fine arts night. As the art teacher, one of my standards is to introduce students to careers in the arts. I like to expose my students to modern-day working artists, not just the old dead ones. Um, in fourth grade, I teach the history of onepoint perspective through Raphael's famous painting, The School of Athens. Students practice the drawing skills of creating a horizon line, a vanishing point, and receding lines until they get the hang of this perspective trick. Next, I introduced them to a modern-day artist named Grant Hafner, who creates landscapes with exaggerated neon bands of color that remind him of the country roads where he grew up. Students create their own landscapes and then apply Hafner's bold use of bright colors with
009special neon paints and oil pastels. We discuss how he has made a career out of his artwork. This could be them one day. In our music classes, we have some uh pretty visible evidence of of fine arts. And uh we do that through grade level musicals and and smaller performances. Perhaps the most visible program that we have in the performing arts is our chorus program. Uh we perform uh at school and throughout the community. We are um pretty active in singing the national anthem. We did the Rock Lobsters this year and actually we are uh we have a big group of across the county folks that are going to be doing the national anthem for the Braves uh coming up. So um that's that's some evidence of uh performing arts. And so here today I
010have some students um from our Finding Nemo production that we just finished. And this is as Miss Johnson said our tank gang. So I'd like to introduce McKenzie Flippin. You can come on up. Leighton Loader, Payton Stevens, Brooklyn, McKenzie Me, MJ Trust, and Harlon Skinner. Welcome to the Sydney Harbor. [Music] together. We Everybody. [Applause] Woohoo! I guess [Applause] I'm going to sing the rest of this. Next we have presentations and discussions. Mr. Adams, good luck. Tough act to follow. Two tough acts to follow. Two singing groups. Good evening board members and Dr. Branch. The business service report for May 12th, 2025 contains eight items of information and two action items for tonight's board meeting. The first item of information is the April cash balances report. As of April 30th, the closing cash balance represents a
0112.39% decrease over last month. State funding projections are currently stable and our cash balance for April is strong and we are well positioned to meet our financial obligations for this fiscal year. The second item of information is a list of all vendor payments. In April, we paid 460 vendors $1.5 million for the month. The third item information is is the budget report for April. Revenue collections are positive with 94% collection rate so far this fiscal year. Expenditures would expected to be at 83% for the month. Our monthly report shows us at 81.4%. This indicates that we are on target for the period, maintaining a balanced financial position. We will continue to monitor these figures as we move forward towards year end. Our fourth item information is our ELOS collections report. We've had an increase of
01214.92% in collections over last month and a 13.49% increase over April of last year. The fifth item of information is our ELOS 6 report. Revenues and expenditures have been updated through April 30th. Our sixth item of information is our federal funds report. This report provides an update on the federal funding allocation and expenditures for the month of April. These funds are reimbursement based and we will see these funds continue to be reimbursed to us throughout the fiscal year. Our seventh item of information is our audit update. Uh we are proud to announce that the fiscal year 24 audit has been su successfully completed with no findings. So, we're very happy to announce that our team's commitment to compliance and accuracy and operational excellence was clearly demonstrated throughout this process. We remain dedicated to upholding the
013highest standards and are pleased to be recognized for our continued diligence. I'd like to thank all of our teams for all their support and dedication and attention to detail this past f that fiscal year 24 because without them, we wouldn't have had that audit with no findings. This information is up on our website under the business services audit area. Our eighth item information is the fiscical year 26 tenative general fund budget and fiscal year 26 federal funds budget. In our April 21st expenditure budget review presentation, we presented the tenative fiscal year 26 budget expenditures. The fiscical year 26 tenative budget for general funds and federal funds are being presented tonight. The budget hearing information on the budget hearing dates will be advertised in the legal Oregon this week. The budget hearing dates are set for
014May 22nd and May 29th. Both meetings will be held here in the boardroom at the instructional support center. Again, this is a continuation of the budget development calendar for the rest of the fiscal year. This slide shows our fiscal year 25 expenditure budget and our fiscical year 26 expenditure continuation expenditures. Staff did an excellent job reviewing their budgets. Without the SRO program and unfunded state mandates, the overall budget would have decreased by $1.1 million. I've attached the expenditure presentation from the 21st for your reference in assembly. And again, just to point out some of the things that staff did for that, even in maintenance, we had a contract to replace air filters throughout the district. um our new maintenance director, they formed a tiger team and they'll they'll go to a school and they'll change
015the filters themselves and do that. So that saved that contract. So that's some of the due diligence and the hard work that our folks did to review their budgets this fiscal year. Also in our expenditure budget review presentation, we highlighted areas of additional consideration for the fiscical year 26 tenative budget. During our preparation of the fiscical year 26 tenative budget, the state provided information on what to expect in the governor's budget. As we go forward in this presentation, you will see these expectations from the governor's budget along with our recommendations for salary steps, health increases, TRS, and school safety. Our first consideration is step increases to all certified and classified salary scales. The cost for additional steps is $1.08 million with our certified staff at $872,000 and classified staff at $216,000. As of this fiscal
016year, all salary scales were extended to step 30. By extending our salary scales, we recognize and value our most experienced teachers and staff, and it's a great retention and recruitment tool. And I think Justin can attest to that so far. This slide shows a history of payraises for the school district for the last 11 years, including what has been proposed for fiscal year 26, step increases for all eligible employees. Our second consideration for the fiscical year 26 tenative budget is a state health insurance increase. The governor's proposed budget included increase in the employer's health insurance contribution for both certified and classified rates. The proposal includes the certified employer rate increasing from 1760 a month to 1885 a month and that will take effect July 20th 2020 July 1st 2025. The proposal also includes the certified
017employer rate, excuse me, the classified employer rate increasing from $1,580 to $185. A big jump also starting July 1st, 2025 for a cost of $1.9 million. Again, total cost for both certified and classified is $3.08 million. This slide shows a history of health insurance increases to the classified employer contribution since 2012. The local cost for health insurance has increased $6.5 million. Our third consideration for the fiscal year 26 tenative budget is the teacher retirement increase. The governor's proposed budget included an increase in the TRS employer percentage contribution from 20.78 to 21.91% for a cost of $1.2 million. The certified increase will be provided by the state for all earned positions. This slide shows a history of the TRS employer rate increases since 2011. TRS employer contributions for certified staff has increased $5.7 million. Our fourth
018consideration for the fiscical year 26 tenative budget is the school safety and security program of $2.5 million. These expenditures include contracts for our SRO program. This amount uh recommends that we at a fully funded program with the full 16 offer comp 16 officer complement. This also reflects an increase of $6,320 from the April presentation as we received information from the board of commissioners that they said would provide us by May 1st. So we we had that after we we had our presentation with y'all. But it did increase $6,320 from our prior presentation. Here we have a summary of all considerations for the fiscical year 26 tenative budget with expenditures of $7.8 million. Of this $7.8 million, 4.2 million is required increases by the state. The remainder is to provide salary step increases and school resource
019officer program. Here we have our total expenditures for fiscical year 26 tenative budget. Continuation expenditures of $12.6 million plus additional considerations of $7.8 million bring total expenditures to $120.5 million, the same amount we provided to you at the April 1st expenditure review meeting. Just a reminder, the continuation budget only represent expenditures if we were to continue from fiscal year 25 with no changes. It does not account for it would not have accounted for any staff or operational increases. As you know, we budget expenditures at the functional level. These slides show all the functional areas within a Coney County school's budget. These were presented at the fiscal year 2 meeting as the highlighted program areas for us. But this these slides show all areas and our tenative fiscal year 26 expenditures are $120.5 million. But as
020a reminder, the board will adopt the annual budget at the summary level. Of the total expenditures of 1220.5 million, salaries and benefits make up $16.6 million and operations make up $13.8 million. As you may recall, salaries and benefits made up 90% of the continuation budget. With the additional considerations, salaries and benefits are at 88.5% of total expenditures and operations is at 11.5% due to the addition of the school safety program. The 88.5 covers around 1100 employees salaries, TRS, health insurance, and retirement with the remaining 11.5 allocated to covering all operational costs of the school district at $13.8 million. These costs include district-wide utilities, repairs and maintenance, curriculum, and transportation. Now, we will present projected revenue. Total projected revenue for the fiscal year 26 tenative budget is $119.1 million. Of that 53% is state revenue at
021$62.5 million and 407% is local revenue at $56.5 million. This slide shows projected revenue in total has increased 5.6 million or 4.9% over fiscal year 25 budget. State revenue for the fiscical year 26 budget is projected at $62.5 million. QBE or quality basic education funding funds make up 95% of state revenue at $59.3 million. QB funding is is funding we receive from the state based on our student enrollment. Oops. categorical grants, which are transportation and nursing, make up three 3% at $2.2 million, and our CTIE and security grants through the Department of Education make up 2% at $1 million. QB funds, our net of local fair share. Our fair share rose 300,000 over last year to 13.7 million. This is part of the state QB reduces our QB funding by five mills of the equalized
022net t excuse me net tax digest. Local revenue for fiscal year 26 budget is projected at 56.5 million. Property and advalorum taxes make up 90% of local revenue at $51 million. Other local revenue make up 8% at $4.3 million. This includes our title ad valorum tax and real estate and intangible tax rate and our Medicaid reimbursements. Then we have our interest income that makes up 2% at $1.25 million. Just to note, this is an increase of 1.2 million over fiscal year 25. This is a history of the tax digest. We've had steady growth since tax year 2014. The fiscal year 26 tenative budget is built on an estimated tax digest we received from the tax commissioner with an estimated growth of 6.18% that rep represents a tax digest value of $3.8 billion. We would like
023to thank the tax commissioner's office on the work to get us this information. Um I, as I said last week, they were they were struggling with a statewide uh software issue. Um they worked very hard to get us this information and we're very happy that they were able to get it to us at late last week. Um I was at a conference last week in Savannah and we got to hear from a lot of folks in the room and we were the only ones that had received their tax digest. So kudos to our tax commissioner. The current millage rate is 14.25 mills. The fiscical year 26 tenative budget has been built on a proposed roll back millage rate of 13.919 mills. We currently estimate the ending fiscal year 25 fund balance at $40 million. Of
024this $40 million, 13.4 million is set aside in the committed committed fund balance and 2.02 02 million is set aside in the un excuse me assigned fund balance. This leaves a remaining estimated fund balance of $24.5 million at June 30th, 2025. Committed fund balance is the portion of fund balance that can only be used for specific purposes committed by the board. $13.4 million has been committed for future debt payments on the 2021 general obligation bond. Assigned fund balance is the portion of fund balance that is set aside for future projects and initiatives. $1.1 million has been set aside for the new school generators and 850,000 for intercoms at Malcolm Bridge Middle School and Aone Middle School totaling 2.02 million in assigned fund balance. This leaves estimated unassigned fund balance at June 30th, 2025. Again, I
025will say estimated of $24.5 million. When you add projected revenues of 1119 mill.1 million and deduct expenditures of $120.5 million, you come to an estimated fund balance of 23.2 million on June 30th, 2026, which is $19.2% unassigned fund balance. That would leave us with about two two and a half months of salary and operationals cost for us to if we had to worry about that next year. Um just a reminder DOE and business best practices are 3 to six months of reserves. So we're a little bit short there. Now we'll talk review our fiscal year 26 tenative budget for federal funding. Expenditures and revenues are projected at $7.6 million. Federal funds make up about 6.5% of the budget. We have on average nine different grant programs for each fiscal year. And again, these are reimbursement
026based. We usually have a lag for when we receive the payment throughout the fiscal year. Sometimes that lag could go two to three months. We're about month and a half, two months right now lag time on receiving those reimbursements. And that concludes the portion of the review of the fiscal year 26 general budget and federal fund budget. And uh I have action items if you want me to go those or I can answer any questions. Right now I have a comment and then a couple of questions just to make sure I'm I'm clear. First, just uh thank you to you and your team um for all the work that you've done leading up to our audits. Um I've looked through those and really really pleased to see the clean audit, unqualified audit. So, congratulations and
027thank you for all of your work there. Um you were referencing one other question on that with those audits. Um so, those are published, those are finalized. Are those on our website yet or? Yes, sir. They're on our website. So anybody could go out and could pull those along with prior year audits. Yes sir. Great. Thank you. Um you had mentioned on slide 17 that 88.5% of the cost uh of our budget will go towards uh personnel and personnel related expenses. Um did I understand you correct that the uh school resource officer cost does not fall in that bucket but instead falls in the operational budget. Yeah. Two 2.3 million of it. And then we have 200,000 for um the um in the morning traffic control. And then we have the door checkers program we
028call. They're they're basically the zone patrol. They'll go up and check the doors. Those are salary portion. It's a very little amount. It's about $37,000. So the majority of it falls in operations because of the contract. Okay, great. That's one. So we are paying people. It just the way that we classify it's going to be different since it's not a direct employee. That's correct. system. Okay. Um and then one last question. Looking at the federal funds budget, I saw 7.66 million out there with more than 50% of that being school nutrition. Um I know there have been some updates to the school nutrition piece um that we've seen. Have we heard anything about um any cuts to any of the reimbursement items out here knowing that there is a lag in some cases of several
029months before reimbured we are reimbursed for those funds? We were told that Title One and IDA are going to be fully funded in his budget. The only uh thing we did hear was the the local school program was cut about $10,000. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. Our first action item is the fiscal year 26 tenative budget for general funds for your consideration which has estimated revenues of 119.1 million and estimated expenditures of 120.5 million which are based on an estimated roll back rate of 13.919 millillage rate which is a decrease of 2.32% from fiscal year 25. Our second action item is the fiscical year 26 tenative budget for federal funds for your consideration which includes total anticipated revenues and expenditures of $7.6 million. These grants are reimbursement based as we just discussed and therefore
030we must outlay the revenue and then wait for reimbursement. I ask the superintendent to recommend approval to adopt the the tenative fiscal year 26 general fund budget and the tenative fiscical year 26 federal fund budget. And that concludes my report unless you have any further questions. Um I do. Yes sir. Um so you're talking about the roll back rate at 13.919 mills. Um so as we're doing this we are not voting to approve what the millage rate will be. We are simply looking at what the budget is and then as we continue to look and and look into what the tax digest is um we'll begin to look at the revenue side of this um in the coming weeks. Correct. This just is based on that roll back rate. The budget was built on that.
031That's all. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you. Next, we have operations. Dr. White. Yes, sir. Board members, at your request, I'd like to inform you of the work that we that took place at a Coney County elementary school related to the gym, an outside pod during spring break. In the gym, the floor is older, and some of the previous seam repairs caused staining on those seams. Over spring break, we removed all the old seams, cocked and reccocked all the seams in the gym to ensure that we negated any trip hazards by having a continuous floor. Also know that the gym floor is designed with an impermeable layer to not allow moisture through the flooring. We monitored the humidity levels using the sensor on our HVAC units and a handheld humidity
032sensor as well, which allowed us to check multiple areas in that space. We also utilized a moisture meter to test a variety of surfaces in the gym, all of which came back within industry norms. The outside pod was renovated in 2022. It was found that carpet tiles in a pod had glue left over from the previous rolled carpet and powder residue left over from the renovation process. Although we were outside of the warranty window, Kevin Price Construction completed the removal, preparation, and replacement of the flooring in honor of our continued and long-standing partnership during spring break. These classrooms are also evaluated for humidity and moisture tested and we found the classrooms to be at the correct levels as well. Leading up to this work at Aone Elementary School, our director of facilities and director of
033maintenance who have over 50 years of combined experience in their fields evaluated conditions for the appropriate actions. We are continuing to monitor both areas. As a reminder, we have a million and a half square feet of heated space, over 35 acres of roofing, and over a thousand employees in the school system. We continue to investigate concerns based on our facts and data and follow our appropriate industry standard processes. That concludes the operations report unless there are any questions. I have one question. Yes, sir. What's the uh moisture thresholds that you mentioned? So 60% is what Ashray uses and that is the American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers and by default we set all our units at 45. And I have a couple of follow-up questions as well. The first is what is
034the communication process been like for staff members and parents around this issue? Um so we we've had some parents call in. I've talked with several of them. uh Miss Lockers, the principal has always has also uh discussed this with them as well. Okay. And if a teacher had a concern about something like this, what is the reporting process for that teacher? Um if they notice something or have some kind of concern about mold or any other kind of issue at the school. Sure. So typically they would go to an administrator to the front office. They can put in a work order where our team would evaluate that. If it's a high level issue with something like this, the principal usually gives us a phone call and we come out and deploy and evaluate the situation.
035Okay. Thank you. And you just mentioned sensors on the HVAC. In a few meetings ago, you talked about walkthroughs in the schools and that may be something you do routinely. I'm not sure, but what will be done moving forward to ensure there aren't dangerous levels of mold at Okone Elementary School, but also all of our OKone schools? Sure. So, one of the things that we do is we do do the walkthroughs in all of our schools twice a year. So, our first stop when we do those walkthroughs is to stop in with the principal. What are your concerns? What are you seeing? We check our work orders. Uh we have that moisture meter as well and we also have the humidity sensors that we're checking as well on all our HVAC units inside of our
036control software. And mold has to have water in order to grow. So, that's why we're continuing to look at humidity levels. Thank you. Other questions? Thank you, Dr. White. Yes, sir. Next, we have communications to the board. Mr. Co. Thank you, Mr. Ransom. We have six Okone County residents signed up to speak before the board this evening. Before I invite them up, I'll read this. Policies BCBI and BCBIR1 state that only Okone County residents or school system employees may address the board and that members of the public shall conduct themselves in a respectful manner that is not disruptive to the conduct of the board's business. The board allows three minutes for those who sign up prior to the meeting. Please state your name, address, and topic. The board requests that you refrain from making any
037disparaging remarks about school system personnel. Generally, there will be no response to comments or questions posed by citizens at the meeting. All comments and questions will be taken under advisement by the board. However, any board member shall be free to respond and make public comments if he or she elects to do so. To any citizen wishing to provide documents for board members, please submit them to the director of communications before the meeting or prior to addressing the board, please remain at the podium during your public comment time. Our first speaker this evening is Caitlyn Farmer. Welcome, Caitlyn. Thank you. My name is Caitlyn Farmer. I live at 1020 Pass, Athens, Georgia 3060. I come to you today to express my continued concern with Okone County School's lack of compliance with open records and open meetings
038laws. I come to you as a graduate of North Okone High School. As a daughter, as a friend to OCS teachers, staff members, parents, and children, I come to you on behalf of the community you represent, including the legal organ, the Okone Enterprise. I come to you begging. On multiple occasions, the Okoni Enterprise has experienced a lack of compliance when requesting documents, as you're all aware of many others that are in the same boat. We have consistently included you on requests begging for your help accessing documents. On multiple occasions, we have been told by your open records manager, Steven Kulwit, that you do not have policies that are required by law. Okone County Schools has no policy related to records management. That is illegal. OCS is required by federal and state law to have policies
039and procedures involving collection and storage of records, including emails, text messages, written letters, employment files, student records, and more. We have sent you copies of the state law. All of these, with the narrow exception of limited redaction of personal data, are considered public records, bought and paid for with tax dollars, even your emails about board work, your text messages about board work, your call logs and written notes are all public and all must be preserved in accordance with state law at the minimum. When you say you do not have a policy for systemwide storage, you are either an extreme violation of foundational laws that govern our society or you are just plain lying. Both are extremely concerning. Initially, we believe that the school board may have been in the dark about how bad the issue
040was. The best case scenario being that you put your trust in staff that were either ignorant to the law or were trained to obiscate at all cost, but we have spoken with you all and Mr. Hammond was the only person willing to respond and attempt to resolve the issue. It seems that you all have not been trained on Georgia Sunshine laws. As we have told you via email, there are multiple state agencies ready to provide you training. This isn't normal. If the leadership in this building is telling you it is normal, do not believe them. At the end of the day, it is on you to understand and uphold the law. The truth is, we do this every day. Every single day, we request documents from government agencies from our local cities and towns, the
041county, other school systems, law enforcement, state agencies, and even federal agencies. None of them, and I'm not exaggerating, none of them behave this way. Many provide documents without even requiring an open records request. When they do, they provide swift and easy access even when the documents are related to difficult topics. That is normal. This is us begging you again to solve this issue and we will keep begging until it is corrected. This isn't complicated. It doesn't have to be difficult. Please, please take action. Do better. At some point, we have to ask the question, what on earth are you hiding that is so bad that you refuse to answer the most basic of questions? What is so bad that you are willing to break the law? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Our next speaker
042is Mandy Moriera. Welcome, Miss Morura. Hello, Dr. Branch and board members. My name is Mandy Morera at 3475 Downs Creek Drive. I'm here once again to discuss the potential mold at Okoni County Elementary School. I was here before. No one contacted me. No one has spoke with me. No one emailed me. Mr. Hammond was the only one that reached out to begin with. And thank you for doing that. From the last meeting, our plea as concerned parents was to have professional mold testing done. It was not the outside pod where my child is. This is the classroom that only had new carpet installed during spring break. There was no testing done. It was adhesive. Nobody believes it. Okay? Nobody. That teacher is sick. She is leaving now. A wonderful teacher that is leaving now and
043has already put her resignation in the gym floor that was sealed during spring break. The teacher has been sick. Our coach is leaving. She's put her resignation in. The other coach is leaving. She has been so sick. She tested it herself. It came back positive. I was in the gym two weeks ago. I put on the spring carnival. I'm a huge volunteer. I'm in the school all the time. It was awful. Go in there and look. Smell. Open your mouth. If you did a walkth through, you would know. It was in my mouth all night long while I volunteered and had people come up to me in tears about this. Teachers will not come forward. Staff is not coming forward. They're going to lose their jobs and they're going to get relocated. This is serious
044business. Students are sick. Parents won't even come because they're terrified. But they sure are calling. They sure are letting people know their kids are sick. They're leaving this school. They're touring other schools. This is serious and it's being covered up. It's been going on for a very long time. Our school nurse has put in her resignation. She can't deal with it anymore. Okay, it's absurd. We have a second petition in circulation right now. We have 213 signatures and it's growing. We want professional mold testing, not walkthroughs by the school. Okay? You guys aren't professionals. I'm not a professional. Nobody in this room that I know of is a professional. I've said it before. We have to have a change. And if it's not now, it'll be when Dr. Branch leaves. Multiple staff members have dehumidifiers
045in their room. They're emptying them every two to three hours. They've done humidity tests. They're in the 70s and they're in the 80s. Parents are looking at other schools. They're going to leave. What if this was your home? What if this was your wife and your children sick? Would you tell them no or would you go get a professional test done? This is very serious. It's all over the schools and especially in the elementary. Please reconsider. [Music] Thank you, Miss Morera. Our next speaker is Brandy H. H Hearnden. Welcome, M. Hearnen. Hello. My name is Brandy H. Hearnden. I reside at 1020 Echo Trail, Watkinsville, Georgia. Uh, some of you should remember me well. Sorry to say that I'm here yet again about the ongoing mold issues at Okone County Elementary School. I say yet
046again because I brought this to your attention way back in the fall of 2018 in great detail. I have this little notebook full of all the information from then. Um I I believe I addressed the board at three separate meetings. I received the typical no response at those meetings and insufficient mailed responses with one simply stating that my concerns were noted. Uh if the problem had been handled swiftly and appropriately at that time, we wouldn't be here now with the same albeit worsening issue. We the parents and stakeholders want, request, and quite frankly demand independent, reputable, and appropriate testing and remediation be conducted on the entire Oak County elementary school campus. The parents are prepared to pay for that testing to be done. And if you deny that request, it will only prove your unwillingness
047to be transparent, honest, and forthcoming about the extent of the very real issues and problems. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Melur. Welcome. Good evening. You'll have to forgive me. I'm a little overwhelmed at hearing the news that um nurse Lori is not going to be with us um next year. My name is Mel her. I'm at 1251 Calls Creek Circle. I'm the parent of two Okone County elementary school, excuse me, two Oak County school students. One who is at OCE. When you think about Okone County schools five years from now, what do you envision? What do you hope for? Imagine teachers, administrators, and support staff truly flourishing in their roles. OCS employees generously and creatively using their gifts, training, and abilities to serve their students to reach their full potential. In this
048vision of the future, the board and district office graciously welcome constructive feedback from employees. And as an opportunity for learning and growth and when an employee brings a concern about their wages or work conditions to the administration, that employee is met with compassion and care. Employees in this future feel like they matter. That if they were to leave the district, they would leave an unfillable hole. But here in the present, we have to confront a reality. How the district office has responded to concerns about mold at OCE has highlighted that in addition to having a potentially toxic building, you have a potentially toxic work culture in this organization. Our ocees chiefs are taught to be responsible, respectful, and safe. But it's irresponsible, it's disrespectful, and it's unsafe to adequately address mold issues that are brought
049to your attention by your employees. As someone who studies leadership and how people experience their work, I can tell you that toxic work cultures cause physical and psychological harm to their employees. And when a public school district is a toxic workplace, it affects our entire community. When a beloved teacher fed up with feeling like she doesn't matter resigns, it's costly. Practically, the district has to spend time and money to hire her replacement and train the replacement. But her leaving and the circumstances around it also cause organizational trauma at the school level. The employees who are left at Okone Elementary are going to grieve her loss. They're going to fear what may happen to them if they also raise concerns. And as a result, they're going to bring a little less than their best to school
050each day. Trust between those employees and this district office is going to erode. Personally, my child loses a favorite teacher. He won't get her hugs next year. My middle schooler won't get the smiles in the morning car rider line. It's a loss to our family. But multiply that by a few hundred more families and you see the loss of losing one amazing teacher. But we're not losing just one this year. We're losing more than that across our district. Our employees are leaving. This past August, Forbes published a list of greatest workplaces in Georgia. Okone County Schools was not on it, but Cobbwinet, Muscogee, Barrow, and Cherokee counties were. What if we could be there, too? High employee satisfaction, high employee engagement lead to better outcomes for our employees and employees employers and employees and better
051outcomes for our students. If we're going to boast about being the best county school system in the state of Georgia, let's be the best at creating environments where our employees flourish. My hunch is that the outcomes that we want for our students will follow. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Greg Debbacher. Uh my name is Greg Debbacher, 10:30 Blue Beach Point, Athens, Georgia 30606. Um I'm not going to add a lot of facts or uh kind of anything else to the conversation. And I'm here to be another voice and another person to go on record to say um you know I signed the petition and I support testing at the school to figure out what's going on and to improve dialogue. Um I I hate I have to be up here uh you
052know on a Monday night um to find a babysitter. Um, but we've, you know, it, as people have said, we've lost teachers. We're losing a nurse over this, which just seems out of context for a district like us, for a school system like us. So, I'm not directly aware of the mold issues. My wife has reported symptoms uh going into the school and I think she's heard multiple complaints from other teachers about the humidity levels, about smells. Um, so it seems an easy task to take us up on the testing, allow a third-party professional to do whatever the best practice testing is, whether that's surface testing, air testing, and figure out what's going out on, share the results, and, you know, follow through on any recommendations from those results. Um, I guess in addition to
053the the mold, I think the other issue that's been touched on is, you know, some form of communication breakdown that's going on here that teachers don't feel um empowered to have a conversation with administration and then with the district. Again, I'm I'm coming at it without a ton of information. Um, but it that seems concerning and so I hope um you know I'm talking to the board as per the rules, but I think I'm really talking through the board to figure out what's going on on an operational matter they otherwise wouldn't get involved in to help uh figure out what's going on from an operational standpoint to report back um and to help um ensure that testing is done and help figure out what the communication issue is and resolve it. So, I appreciate your
054time. Our next speaker is Sarah Danis. Dennis, welcome. Good evening. My name is Sarah Danis and I am here with additional concerns about OCE. I am an OCS proud graduate and now an Okone parent. Overall, we've had wonderful experiences um with my children in Okone schools. I have a third grader that um is in the outside pot at OCE and I have a 10th grader that is at OCHS. And on a side note, we've been so pleased um at you all implementing the SRO program. It's amazing to see the connection that Officer Dorsy is already having with all of the high schoolers. And it's just like they all have an uncle there and they know that there's somebody that they can turn to when things come up and just, you know, somebody else that's in
055their corner for them. But that's not why I am here tonight. Very simply, if someone was trying to break down your front door, you'd call the police. If your kitchen stove caught on fire, you'd call for the fire department. If your toilet is overflowing and you couldn't fix it yourself, you'd call a plumber. Um, and so it seems like if you had mold or mildew growing in your home, you would call an expert for that as well. You'd scrub the walls once or twice, and if it kept happening, you'd probably call someone to fix it. So, it seems simple enough that we could alleviate a lot of this concern. and all these parents that are bugging you by having a professional mold remediation company come and inspect things and make sure that there's not an
056issue in the third grade outside pod and in the gym and of course anywhere else in the school as well. Um but every day we're forcing our kids and the staff and our babies, our children to walk into it every day. We wouldn't let them sit like normal in a house where the door was being broken down by a bad guy. And we wouldn't let them sit in the in the kitchen while the stove was on fire or weighed through waste in the bathroom on the floor. Um, so we know there was an issue, a similar somewhat similar issue back in 2018. My high schooler was there. Um, and they had to remediate the mildew back then. So, it's an older school. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities that it could be
057something that's happening again. and it just seems like it would be a lot better to air on the side of caution. Um, so if we want to make sure we're continuing to keep our kids safe and we'd love your help with that, please. Thank you, Mr. Ransom. That includes public communication. Thank you, Mr. Carpet. Next, we have action items. Dr. Branch. Yes, sir. Board members, we have several action items tonight. Uh, first up is the CTA local plan and grants and we'd recommend that that be approved as presented. Thank Brans a motion. So moved. Mr. Hammond. Second. Mr. Tulle. All in favor? Passes 5-0. Okay. Up next we have Okone County High School field trips the girls varsity and JV basketball uh camp this summer. We recommend approval as presented. Made a motion. So moved.
058Mr. tool. Second, Mr. Hammock. All in favor? Passes. 5-0. Uh, next one. We are very excited and I know our administrators at our schools are excited about. Uh, we recommend that the board approve Rush Truck Center with a proposed bid of $252,000 for two 14 passenger activity buses. A reminder to the board that this will not require u the CDLs that our large buses require just some local training. So a lot more staff be able to use these. So recommend as approved. Made a motion. So moved. Miss Parish. Second. Mr. Hammock. All in favor passes. 50. Okay. Up next is North Oak Countyy's door hardware improvements. We'd recommend classic city doors and hardware with a proposed bid of $83,5212320. What this will do is standardize our locking mechanisms for all doors throughout our school system.
059Need a motion. So move, Mr. Tool. Second, Mr. Hammond. All in favor? Passes 5. Up next, Okone County High School parking lot edition. I want to thank our uh student advisory panel that we meet with on a regular basis. Uh we were meeting with our students uh along with Dr. White and his staff and that got brought to our attention about parking uh challenges at Okone County High School which required a study of our lots and as you've heard presented. Um we determined that when we did the addition, we did not do additional lots and so we needed to add some additional parking for the status of the kit. So, uh, staff has worked on that, presented it last week to you, and we would recommend Smith and Co. with a proposed bid of a
060little over $800,000 for the parking lot additions. Recommend approval at this time. Need a motion? So moved, Mr. Hammond. Second, Mr. Tool. All in favor? Passes 50. Okay. Our next paving uh project would be the maintenance facility paving. This will make sure that all of our facilities are paved. This the last one that has no paving. And so our maintenance staff's very excited about this option to better care for our equipment. And so we'd recommend magnum paving with a proposed bid of $192,414. Need a motion. So moved. Miss Parish. Second. Mr. Hammock. All in favor? Passes 50. It pleases the board. We can take both the tenative uh federal budget and general fund budget at the same time. Yes, please. Okay, we'll recommend approval as presented for both of those items. So moved, Mr. Hammock.
061Second, Mr. Tul. All in favor? Passes 5. We do have a need to adjourn to executive session and we need a motion to do so. I'll make a motion that the board will adjurnn to executive session to discuss or deliberate upon personal personnel matters as described on the affidavit to be attached to the minutes. Thank you, Miss Parish. Need a second, Mr. Tulle. All in favor? Passes 5-0. We are adjourned.