001Okay, it is 520 somewhere including right here. Do we have do we have a quorum present? Yeah. Okay. Is everyone ready? Miss Jackson, Superintendent Ligins, board members, everyone ready? >> Yes. >> Okay. [clears throat] Good evening. I will now call this meeting of the County School District Finance Corporation to order. At this time, uh, I'll ask Miss Jackson to please take role. Sorry for the delay. Is Casey Urbanaa on the meeting? >> Mr. Thompson, if you're talking, you're muted. >> So, um, Casey actually called in for a sick day today due to a family issue. >> Okay, got it. I'll take care of it. I wasn't aware. So, give me just a second to get everything pulled up. >> And I was not aware she was to be part of this meeting. She did not.
002>> No worries. I'll take care of it. >> Okay. Amanda Ferguson, >> Amy Green, >> present. >> Tyler Murphy, >> present. Penny Christian, >> present. >> Monica Mundy, >> present. >> Thank you, Miss Jackson. Uh, this time I'll entertain a motion to accept the amendments of the May 11th, 2026 finance corporation meeting. Is there a motion that effect? >> I move we accept the minutes from the May 11th, 2026 finance court meeting. >> Motion by Bormer Green. Is there a second? >> Second by Bormer Christian. Questions on approval of the finance corporation minutes from May 11th, 2026. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 40. At this time, I'll turn the agenda over for Superman Ligins to take us through the action items for the finance core meeting. >> Thank
003you, Chair Murphy. Tonight, we're seeking your approval of the sale of 729 square ft um at the intersection of North Limestone and East Fourth Street. uh to the Lexington Fiat Urban County government for the legacy trail project. If you have any questions, our chief chief operating officer, Dr. Meyer Thompson, can respond. >> And Dr. Ligins, if I can clarify real quick, uh oh, no. Uh just in terms of the agenda that's going forward before the board tonight, uh that you referenced the 729 square feet. We did receive some information late from the Lexon Pay at Urban County government. And so the board agenda item that the board will take up later in the evening will need to be amended to reflect an actual 1168 square ft and the amount changed from a,000 to 1300. Uh
004so in the next meeting uh we'll just need to make that amendment going forward. >> Thank you Mr. Thompson. Thank you Superintendent Liggins. And this is the um it's been a long uh standing collaboration. It's the towards freedom park um where they had the um statue of Lewis Hayden and Harriet Hayden uh near Lexington Middle School. Um so it relates to the property um it relates to the property there which we've been working with our partners the friends towards freedom um and it's part of the Lexington uh uh freedom train um as well to extend the educational plaza in that area. So that is the the context for for this. Are there any other are there any questions for uh Mr. Thompson or staff at this time? Okay. If there are no further questions, I'll
005entertain a motion to approve a resolution for the conveyance of a portion of the Lexon Middle School to the Fyet County Board of Education. >> So moved. >> Motion by Bormer Monday. Is there a second? >> Second by Bormer Christian. questions on uh a resolution for the conveyance of a portion of Lexa Middle School to the Fate County Board of Education. Is uh if there is there any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 4. And I'll now entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting of the Fyet County School District Finance Corporation. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Motion Warmer Christian. Is there a second? >> Second move by Warmer Green. All in favor of adjourning the finance core say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion
006carries 40 zero. We are now adjourned and we have about five minutes and we'll start our planning work session at 5:30. We'll see you right back here. Heat. Oh. Heat. Heat. Okay, It's 5:30. So, make sure everyone is ready. Um, there we go. Okay, everyone. Good. Okay. Good evening everybody. I'll now call this planning work session of the Faget County Board of Education to order. Miss Jackson, once again, good evening to you. Would you please take role? >> Good evening. >> Amanda Ferguson, >> present. >> Amy Green, >> present. >> Tyler Murphy, >> present. >> Annie Christian, >> present. [clears throat] Monica Mundy >> present. >> Thank you, Miss Jackson. I'd like to welcome everyone joining us for tonight's meeting. Our first matter of business is the adoption of the agenda for tonight's meeting. Um,
007as Dr. Thompson shared uh during the finance core meeting, uh there is a need to amend a portion of the agenda to reflect the updated information received on the legacy trail project. Um, and if there are no other changes, I'll accept a motion to adopt the agenda for tonight's meeting with the amendments to that item C1, declaration of surplus, approval of sale and approval of initial BG1 of a portion of Lexon Middle School site BG number 26-396. So, is there a motion to that effect? >> I'll make a motion to that effect. >> We have a motion by board member Green. Is there a second? >> Second. Second by Bmer Christian. Questions on adoption of the agenda with that uh change noted to that particular agenda item. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I.
008>> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 5-0. At this time, I'll turn the agenda over to Super Ligins to take us through the action item for tonight. >> Thank you, Chairman Marcy. Uh tonight we're seeking your approval on the sale of 1,168 square ft at the intersection of North Limestone, excuse me, and East Fourth Street um to the Lexington Fed urban county government for the Legacy Trail project. If you have any questions, Myron Thompson is available to respond. Uh >> any questions, board members? Okay. If there are no further questions for staff at this time, I'll accept a motion to direct the County School District Finance Corporation to join with the Board of Education in the conveyance of that portion of Lexon Middle School as described in exhibit A and made a part of this
009agenda to the Lexon Faget Urban County government to approve the sale of said property to Lex Faget County Urban Government in the amount of $1,500 to approve an initial BG1 application related to the sale subject to approval of the Kentucky Department of Education and to authorize the superintendent to sign all subsequent related documents except for any applicable deeds which will be executed by the board chair person upon approval of the board with this motion. Is there a motion to that effect? You do not have to say all of that. Uh >> I will make a motion to that effect. >> Motion by board member Green. Is there a second? >> Second by board member Christian. What all of that means in English is that we will uh convey the portion of that property for the
010legacy trail um to complete that um educational plaza as discussed within with the finance core. So the motion is on the floor. Is there any discussion? If there's hearing none, all in favor please say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? Motion carries 5-0. The next item on our agenda is the approval of the minutes from the May 27th, 2026 regular meeting of the Fay County Board of Education. Is there a motion? >> Motion by board member Christian. Is there a second? >> Second by board Green. All in favor of approving the minutes from the last action meeting say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 5-0. And finally, we have approval of our consent items for the planning meeting. Is there a motion? >> I move we approve the consent items as listed. >>
011A motion by Bmer Green. Is there a second? >> Second by Christian. Uh all in is there any discussion? All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries 5-0. Um, our planning work session is an opportunity to review the agenda for our action meeting later in the month and to allow time for extended presentations and discussions. So, this time I'll turn the agenda over to Superintendent Ligins to lead us through our regular meeting agenda. And as usual, the superintendent and staff will be available to answer any questions we have regarding any agenda item. And if there are any questions they are unable to answer this evening, we would like to ask them to compile listed questions to provide and answers to provide the board as followup. Superintendent Ligins. >> Thank you,
012Chair Murphy. At our action meeting on June 22nd, the moment of silence, pledge of allegiance, and the reading of the mission statement will be led by board me member Monica Mundy. Uh under our superintendent reports this evening, I would like to invite Tracy Bruno to provide an overview of the impact of the 2026 legislative session um and its impact on FCPS. Good evening, Superintendent Ligins and board members. I am here to discuss the um 2026 legislative session impact it has on F County Public Schools. Next, please. The 2020 legislative session has introduced several significant mandates and policy changes that directly impact district operations, safety protocols, and academic standards. Some of these legislative actions prioritize enhanced student and staff safety through new bus enforcement technologies and stricter disciplinary measures regarding physical injury to staff. Furthermore, the
013session emphasizes increased transparency and financial reporting alongside a mandatory transition to evidence-based reading curriculum by 2029. Additionally, adjustments to state funding or seek and scholarship requirements as well as new standards for district governance and leadership development reflect an effort to reshape the educational administrative landscape for the coming years in the state of Kentucky. These bills touch all of our portrait of graduate promises as well as our strategic priorities. Next, please. And next, the first bill we're going to look at tonight is House Bill 7. It's known as the stop arm camera system bill. This bill officially allows the district to implement stop arm camera systems on our school buses to enhance student safety during loading and unloading. Violations carry significant penalties. $300 for a first offense and $500 for any sub subsequent event uh subsequent
014violation, excuse me. Importantly, the school district will collect and retain all revenue generated from these violations. The law enforcement agencies may charge a $25 processing fee per penalty. We are currently working with the Lexon Police Department to determine how many of these violations occur during a school year. Next, please. House Bill 67 focuses on communication and messaging. Uh HB67 updates the rules for traceable communication between staff and students. This bill lists several restrictions put in place in Senate Bill 181 for uh last year. The bill provides clear exemptions for educational platforms like virtual instruction and or academic feedback and as well as public uh social media posts and comments. Those are now exempt. Emergency situations involving imminent risk to a student are exempt as well. and restrictions have been lifted for private communications necessary for
015our work-based learning experiences for students. The legal definition of family member has also been expanded under this bill, including but not limited to grandparents, stepparents, aunts, uncles, and foster parents. Outside of exemptions, there are four permitted ways to communicate electronically with our students. One, use the district app to prove traceable communication system. Two, complete a waiver. Three, include another staff member or volunteer in your communication. Or four, include the parents of the students in your communication. Next, please. >> If Mr. Bruno, may I? >> Yes. Yes, absolutely. >> If you would you rather me wait till the end or >> you you can ask as we go. >> Okay. Um, we are my understanding on the House Bill 67 update to SB81. Mhm. >> Um we are awaiting some more specific guidance from KDE, but
016we will be updating the trai the waiverss and the the forms that we've been using prior to these updates. Is that correct? >> The forms we've been using, Chair Murphy, can still be used, but now uh families can use one form for multiple adults. So whereas before you had to fill out a a waiver for each adult, I have also um provided uh to our schools u um KD provided um some guidance and I put that in a document that's a little bit more digestible for our for our uh our um staff and we'll get that out to families as well so everybody's on the same page starting July 1. >> Miss Christian, >> thank you. Um hi. Um um you mentioned family members. You mentioned uh stepparents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. What about siblings?
017>> Siblings are included as well. That's why I say it's it's not limited just to grandparents. That uh uh document that I put together has a list and a link back to the original bill that lists all of the all of the people. And it's really uh board member Christian is really expanded to uh as as well as any adult in the house taking care of a child. >> And is this something that has to be is it renewed each school year? So if a waiver was signed in this past school year, would that have to be renewed for this coming school year? >> My understanding, yes, it has to be it has to be renewed. >> Okay. But our schools have bottom line is the schools have that information that'll be communicated to families
018and should we get any questions we can just refer them to their their schools. You can um and again a couple of the the the big changes are say an adult has a text string with you know a coach with a football team as long as you have another uh employee volunteer on the text messaging that's permitted now. Or if you simply add the parents or families uh or parents, it says actually the parents of the students on the text message string, that's permitted as well without having to get to do a waiver. >> Thanks. >> Okay. House Bill 67 um is it's there's a second part of this and you'll see some of these bills were lumped together. So some of them have different subjects and I'm going to go through those um individually.
019The other part of House Bill 67 deals with financial transparency. Uh this mandates that future draft budgets that are submitted to the board in January of each year must now include line item estimated revenues and proposed expenditures. There's also a transparency trigger that says a new accountability measure requires that if board that if the board's budget reserve falls below 4%, the district must publish all procurement and credit card statements on the district website. As for superintendent reporting, we are now mandated to post the superintendent's contract, which we already have, and any amendments within 5 days of their approval. And we have to provide provide an annual report of non-contractual compensation paid to the superintendent from the district every January. Next slide, please. House Bill 253 deals with reading curriculum and personnel. Um, we'll start off
020with the reading curriculum. By the 202930 school year, the district must use KDE approved reading curriculum and intervention based on phonics, decoding, and structured literacy, commonly known as science of reading. The three queuing system that deals with meaning, structure, and visual representation is now strictly prohibited in literacy education. Post-secary teacher prep programs must also use the science of reading approach when training new teachers. And as for the personnel, districts are now legally barred from entering into non-disclosure agreements regarding employee misconduct involving minors and students. Minors or students. Next, please. House Bill 392 uh deals with is focuses on uh small purchase amounts. This bill raises the small purchase amount requiring board approval from $40,000 to $50,000. And starting in 2030, the amount will recre will increase by $10,000 every five years. This increase this increase
021also goes into effect for any requests for proposals that go out from the district. Next, House Bill 500 deals with funding and scholarships. As you can see in the presentation, SE per pupil funding is scheduled to increase annually over the next three years. For example, next year the SE will increase to $4,586. But due to our local effort, FCPS will receive $2,867 per student. Local effort calculations are based on the taxes we generate from property each year. Since we have a high tax rate and therefore generate above average tax revenue, the state reduces our seek based funding. Transportation and keys. While Keys uh funding remains fully funded, the qualifying GPA has been raised from 2.5 to 2.75. Please note that state funding for pupil transportation will remain flat at the current level. Dual dual credit
022scholarships. New limits apply to dual credit scholarships, typically allowing for one core class in grades 11 and 12 and two CTE classes per year for grades 9 through 12. The board has prioritized dual credit opportunities in our budget so we can pay for additional dual credit classes for students at Opportunity Middle College, Steam Academy, and for students who qualify for free introduced lunch. Chair Murphy Green, >> thank you. On the keys funding, the change of the qualifying GPA, is there any um grandfathering schedule in for current students or a start date for that or is that immediate effect? >> These typically go into effect, board member Green, if they if they're not emergency, they go into effect July 1st. But I can check for the grand grandfathering for you to see if students who are
023already in high school um receiving those those GPA are grandfathered in or not. I'll get that for you. >> It my understanding is it starts with the 26 27 school year. Um so whatever earnings that you had in prior school years, the prior GPA formula would apply. Does that make sense? >> Yes. So you could earn money for some grade levels up until this point, but starting July 1st or this next school year, it's going to have to go to 2.75 for you to qualify for keys money for that year. >> Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. >> And one thing to underscore and and you brought this up in the context of seek funding. We talk about the seek base. Part of what's included in the seek seek base of course is local effort.
024So uh it's important when we have these conversations about state funding is that even if we see a nominal increase in seek base, that doesn't necessarily mean that the local effort um is reduced, right? And so in this case, you know, it's typically the opposite uh the opposite for for county. >> Yes. >> Chair Murphy Green, >> if I may follow up on that, talking about local effort, am I correct to remember that that local um the local efforts also assume that we take the 4% increase in revenue um as well? >> Thank you. >> Yeah. So when they're calculating u the local effort each year, that's why we only have next uh you know 2026. We still have to figure out what the property tax looks like or the and and then the and
025then the state will use the formula to tell us how much we're getting uh based on our local effort out of that 4,626 for 2027. >> Thank you. Yep. >> All right. Next slide, please. Senate Bill 4 deals with leadership and governance. Um, new principles must now complete a mandatory four-year leadership practicum which includes mentors, core training, instruction, and safety, and summer leadership programs. Please note that County Public Schools already pro provides support such as mentors to our new principles. The bill also standardizes all district school boards to exactly five members. And finally, residents of Fate or Jefferson County who work for other school districts are now banned from serving on their local board of education. And as you know, this ban is currently being challenged here in Faget County. Next, please. >> Uh Mr.
026Bruno, on the principal training, is that is there does that include any funding for those initiatives? >> So, there's a stipen um that they've worked with the Kentucky Chamber um on to provide funding for the um for the summer leadership programs, Chair Murphy. And I've gotten a couple of different versions if if there's money that we can use for our mentors. I've been told that there there has been money set aside to provide funding for us to pay our principal mentors. But >> the wording of the bill, Chair Murphy, says that ultimately this should not cost the district any additional money, >> but we're not certain that that there's been appropriation for it. >> I've not seen specific appropriation for it. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Senate Bill 101 uh deals with expulsion policy.
027Uh there's now a minimum 12-month expulsion for any student who intentionally causes or attempts to cause physical injury to school personnel. They strict they have some strict re-entry requirements to return to school. It must a student must meet three criteria. Maintain a 3.0 GPA on all school work. Completed during the expulsion. Complete 15 hours of community service for every week they're expelled. and submit a formal written letter of apology to both the injured party and the adjudicating body. And this letter of apology must must be um accepted unanimously um by the adjudicating body which is the superintendent designate and anyone affected by the um the actions that led to the expulsion. Chair Murphy >> War Green >> on the community service requirement. Is there um going to be a mechanism within the school district that
028we help coordinate that or is that something that the students have to figure out on on their own? >> The school board, it says the school board is going to come up with a framework. Chair uh Vice Chair Green. So, we're going to bring um people together here at the district and really build out what that looks like. The other part of this that's going to be really difficult is that we are not allowed to provide transportation to these students. So now we have to come up with a virtual learning scenario as well if they can't get to an alternative placement on their own because it says shall not provide transportation. Uh, Bormer Christian, >> as far as that minimum GPA, am I mistaken? Uh, last year was there not a bill that was passed
029involving this type of discipline where it said you did not have to provide educational opportunities for these students. Is that a thing or did I imagine that or did that not pass? If this true and and it's where it gets into a little muddy water with when you talk about what expelled means because some people think expel they they they think that just means you're an alternative school for a year but true expulsion means you don't get any services right you're deemed too much of a too too big a threat to even be an alternative school board member Christian I think that's the true expulsion where we don't provide any services that happens very rarely when I was middle school chief I remember it happening one >> [clears throat] >> Th this may be a
030uh this question may be premature because I know that this is relatively uh a new discussion, but I know that we have changed our our approach to um uh the expulsion and alternative placement process um to allow you know more direct engagement with the families in more due process. Have we had discussions yet about how this might impact our current approach in Fyet County? Um >> well, yes, we have one of the this bill leaves a lot of room for interpretation and a lot of gray area. One of the things that we plan to do as part of the administrative procedures is to try to to make it very specific to where there's less gray for Fyet County Public Schools and how it will um operate within our school system. Um however, it does leave
031a lot for understanding still to take place and misunderstanding for that matter. So, we're we're really working hard to ensure that we make it very as clear as we possibly can. I mean, for example, what is um physical injury, what is intentional, what is an attempt, all of those things are left up to the interpretation of an individual, which as you know um in a system this large can become dangerous very quickly um without consistency. So, we look to bring you all something that will provide some consistency and um definition of language so that we will not find ourselves in a position where we're providing unequal or inequitable um services to our students. I also just wanted to jump in here. Um, as far as an expulsion from a student outside of school, since for
032a long time the law has been we have to present clear and convincing evidence that we don't have a facility in which we could keep the students safe or that our students would be safe. Um, we since I've been here, we have never put that on um that kind of evidence. we have either placed them in an alternative school and if that's not working we work with them on an alternative to that such as virtual learning. So you know when they talk about the expulsion outside of school that rarely happens in Bayet County. Now as uh Mr. Bruno and Dr. Ligins both pointed out there's a lot of gray area in this bill so some of that may change but um you know we've always had the philosophy in our district that we're better when
033students are in our classrooms. Um, and if we can get them there and everybody's going to be safe, then that's our preference. So, we've always kind of operated under those guidelines. This bill will perhaps make us not really change that philosophy, but work with it a little differently. But just so you know, that's a legal standard in the law, clear and convincing evidence. That is a legal standard that we just have never um operated under or presented. >> Thank you. >> All right. And so, as you can see, I mean, these aren't all the bills focused on education, but uh this last legislative session was very heavily focused on on um on bills that that focused on education. So, just want to make note that Faget County Public Schools has issued a request for proposals
034for legislative services going forward. So, we have a voice in Frankfurt. Um, and while these bills change the landscape of education here in Kentucky, we continue to keep an eye on the national level and the decentralization of the US Department of Education where management and resources of K12 programs are being redistributed to other federal agencies. So, we have to keep that in mind as well. So, it's a federal and a state. There's federal and state changes that we have to consistently monitor. So, um, we're compliance. Next, please. Next slide. If there is that's it for me. So, >> okay. Uh there are no further questions for Mr. Berno. Mr. or Superintendent Lincoln. I'll hand it back over to you. >> Thank you board members and thank you Tracy. Um following the superintendent's report at our
035action um meeting later this month, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to comment on items on the agenda. After public comments on the 22nd, the board will consider the following consent items. Uh the first one um our chief operating officer uh Dr. Myron Thompson and our chief financial officer Kina Co are available to answer questions and that is about the awards of bids and proposals. Any questions board members on awards of bids and proposal? >> Thank you. Uh at the meeting later this month, we will seek your approval of a pledge of collateral agreement with fifth third bank and central bank and trust. This is something we are required to do every two years. You have any questions about this? Um um our exe act acting executive director of finance accounting
036and benefit services Amy Smith can provide uh additional context for you. >> Any questions from Miss Smith board members? >> Thank you. Uh Amy um is also available to address any questions that you may have on the next four items in the consent agenda. Those include the special and other leads of absences, the special activity fund contract renewal, the paid date schedule for fiscal year 2627, and the general fund contingency. >> Any questions on those items, board members? >> Yes. for my person >> just on the um general fund contingency. I mean, can you explain that? But there's a there's a summary, but then there's not really another uh detailed explanation of what of what's happening there. Is Amy, would you like to do that or would you like me? It's I don't know where
037Amy is, but essentially we have as we've discussed as we're looking at this year's budget and adjusting um what where we are and what we've spent and what we have available uh we fully intend to go into contingency um this school year uh for this fiscal year's budget. And so this is simply permission from the board in order to do that. >> So for the the 26 fiscal year or the 27th the 26th fiscal year. >> Yes. The one. Okay. Yes. The one the one that >> before the end of the month. >> Yes. Yes. Before the end of the month. >> And And what is our contingency right now? And and how much are we going to go into or it doesn't say that. We're still waiting on to find out and we're hoping
038by the end of this month to know what our numbers are, but that's something that Kina has discussed that that they continue to dig to see where we will end the year. >> Amy, you want to >> I mean, I appreciate that we're we're asking to use it now, whereas we haven't in the past, but um I guess it's just a little vague and maybe we'll have more information before the vote at the >> and the meeting. >> I'm sorry to interrupt, Miss Smith. It may be helpful if you just kind of give a reminder as to just to make sure everyone's using the same language is when when we refer to contingency, what are we referring to? Um, and you know, Miss Cope and and both you and Miss Co. present last meeting that
039you're still working on getting final numbers and so forth. So, can you just kind of address what what we mean when we use the term contingency and how this assists in the ongoing review that you all are doing to get to nail down these numbers for the fiscal year 26? >> Yes, sir. Can you hear me? >> We can. Yes. >> Okay, perfect. Um, so yes. So, our contingency our our budgeted contingency for the current year that Yes. ends June 30th. um just in a little over three weeks from now uh is estimated at $27 million. But as we have reported and as we reported in a lot of detail uh last month when we presented the tenative budget for next year, our estimated unreserved uh beginning balance for next year was zero. And so
040as we are still continuing to finalize the restatement of of FY25, as we were planning this budget and not wanting to overestimate what our beginning balance is, we do realize that we are going to be using contingency this month to finalize our payment of bills and payroll. And so we are asking for formal approval of that process. And that amount won't be determined until we you've nailed down those final numbers through the restate. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And that's and that's fine. But will will we know a final amount by the action meeting or No, >> no, we will not know the final amount by the action meeting. >> Murphy, >> thank you. So this vote will be to like you said to approve the process of using these funds when needed. >> Correct. >>
041Thank you. Murphy >> War Monday >> once we know the amount and um thanks for sharing what it would be spent on. Can that come up in a future monthly financial report? So once the financial report comes out for this month, could that just be clarified so we'll have an idea of how much it was? I'm assuming that's where it's going to come out at, but I just want to ask to make sure and just not assume. So the hope is to have um a financial report in the month of July that will represent the status of where we are as of that moment in time in at the end of June. It may not be 100% final because there we are going through the close of year in process throughout the the month of
042July which we have until July 25th to complete and then which that also kicks off our audit period. Um but we will definitely have a a better number by that point um to to share you to share with the board. >> Thank you. And related to that, when will the restatement of 20 fiscal year 25 be complete or you don't know? >> So as I report a lot going on, >> right? As I reported last month, we are probably 95% completed with the general fund uh portion. We still um are probably 15 to 20% um away from completing our special revenue and grant program review and and restatement. So we are working I almost say around the clock because it it really feels that way. We we are working tirelessly to get this completed as
043soon as possible. >> Okay. Yes. I thank you for your work and I'm sorry it's it's what it is right now. >> Any further questions board members? >> Thank you, Miss Smith. Thank you, Dr. Lans. >> Thank you. At this time, I would ask uh Kina Co to review the next two agenda items regarding capital fund requests for fiscal year 2026 and the audit contract. Kina. Hi. Um, on the capital funds request, this is something that you have approved before. It's the uh approval of us using money in the building fund beyond what is needed for debt service um for um maintenance and insurance and those kinds of things. That this is strict there are strict guidelines from KDE on what we can use this money for. Um but but this is all of these
044have already been expended and um so we need your approval to to um to complete the capital funds request and you want me to go on to the >> chairman. I'm sorry. >> Thank you. I just have one question on that. Um what were our financial advisors uh consulted in part of the recommendation each time we do a capital funds request? I can't Amy I can't hear her. >> So she wants to know if the financial advisors were part of the recommendation. >> Yes. I'm sorry here. So I have Amy here to to to help me here. Um yes we consulted the financial advisor and and all of the things that are in that request they have approved. >> Thank you. Murphy >> board member Monday >> and um Miss Co if I heard you
045correctly we've already expended all of these like we've already made these purchases. >> Yes. >> Okay. In the future will we know before the purchases are made if we need to do this or is this typically how it works? >> Um this is actually how it works because KDE requires that the that the money actually be expended before we seek the approval of the board. And I I I'm sorry that seems a little backwards, but um we started out by trying to estimate and bring estimates to the board and we when we looked at the KDE guidance that was inappropriate. So this is actually what they recommend and but I agree it's it it does seem a little backwards. And ju again just to clarify for um the public as well is that capital funds
046are a different set uh it's a different pot of money monies that are used for specific purposes that are essentially it's a restricted fund for these types of purposes. It's differenteral yes they are restricted funds but but can be used for these purposes. >> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Any other questions? Board members, >> I have one more >> board member. >> Um, so I know that we don't have a problem with covering this amount, but is there like a check or balance in place so that like if this if it for some chance we don't have the amount of money to cover and it gets spent, but it comes to the board um to be approved, but we may not have it. I know we don't have that problem. Um but just wondering what the
047like check or balance or guard rail is that's in place to prevent that from happening. Well, we will be reporting this to KDE. Um, even though it doesn't require their approval, but um the checks and balances there would be that um we have to make all of our debt service payments. And after the debt service payments are made, then this these are funds that are remaining in the building fund after we have met all of our other legal obligations. So, Okay, thank you. >> And then >> if there are no further questions then are you are discussing audit contract as well. Correct. >> Audit contract. Yes. >> Okay. >> Sorry. >> You're fine. >> Discuss the audit. >> I'm sorry. Um well, as you I think we discussed last month that that we um have
048an RFP that is uh on the street as they say right now and um that is to be received by um this Friday. We have um we have lined up a number of the um audit comm the members of the audit committee to actually review the proposals that come in. Um, and we'll be doing that before the next board meeting, before the regular board meeting. So, at the regular board meeting, you will actually be asked to approve a vendor for our restatement of FY25 and for the audit of FY26. >> Thank you. Any questions, board members? Okay, >> thank you Kina and thank you board. Um I also this time of the year is also when we do our annual update on policies and procedures we will bring a large group um to you next
049month but right now we have one in particular that I would like for Shelley Chadfield to speak about. >> Hello again board members. Um, yes, this affects um some of our retirees, so we needed to get it into you right away. And I am going to call on my colleague, the chief of human resources, Jennifer Dyer, to explain this because the last time I tried to explain it to a group, they came away more confused than ever. So, I will pitch it over to her who is much better at explaining how this all works. Miss Dyer, I don't think we can hear you. If our tech people can help Miss Dyer out in the room, that would be great. >> And Miss Chapel will set the bar high, Miss Dire. So, no pressure. >> I
050know, right? [laughter] >> Testing. Can you hear me now? There we go. >> Thank you. >> Very good. So, um, last year there was a statute that was passed regarding the maximum amount of sick days that can be added to someone's retirement package. So, each year the uh, school district submits the number of sick days that an employee has. In Faget County, the board has approved sick leave, personal leave, and emergency leave. Personal unused personal days have rolled into sick. those on a teacher's work calendar, pair par calendar, those that are um nine and t-mon calendars, they receive 10 sick days, three personal days. So all of those can be combined for a maximum of 13. So they would not be impacted. those that are on a longer work calendar that receive either 11 sick
051days or 12 sick days. If they don't use any of their personal nor any of their sick time, the combined total at the end of the year would be more than 13. So this is just notifying folks that they need to either use personal time or sick time. So at at the end of the work year or the school year, they would not have a combined total of more than 13. So it's not removing any of the board approved [clears throat] from access to our employees. It's just notifying them that it won't count towards that. So it's important that they use um a combination of either they're sick or they're personal. And most employees do. That would be for a 12-month person using two days either of some personal or some sick. So that when
052at the end of the year, come June 30, when you add your sick and your personal unused time together, it does not exceed 13 days. >> Chair Murphy, >> Murphy, >> is this um going to go into effect for this June 30th? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Thank you, board members Shelley and Jenny. Um the consent agenda on the 22nd will also include approval or of an RFP submission for legal services. Um Shelley, could you lead us in this presentation as well? >> Absolutely. Um, we have had it was that time to put out the request for proposals on the legal services for the attorney or the law firm that would report to the board and give the board legal advice across all areas of the law. Um, we had
053three that wish to be considered this time around. And so we have representatives from each of those firms with us this evening. Um, the first one that you will hear hear from is someone you may know, uh, Josh Salisbury from Sturgil Turner. So, Mr. Salisbury, I'm going to turn it over to you. >> Thank you, Miss Chapfield. Good evening, board. U, I I do not have any kind of slide presentation for you tonight. That's intentional. Uh, the board is familiar with me, my firm, and our work. Uh, and I know these meetings can be long and I know our time for the presentation is short and I know you've got uh detailed materials about myself and my firm in our RP response, but I did want to briefly offer this board five reasons why I'd
054very much like to continue as your board attorney and why I think the board should agree with that. The first is our experience and expertise. uh in my opinion it's unmatched and you can see that in the materials we've submitted and you know that from your own experience myself I've got almost 25 years working with P12 districts and in higher education Elizabeth Deer who recently joined our firm and and you may be familiar with likewise has extensive school experience uh defending school districts. Carmine Icarino of course also has extensive work in state government and private defense and that experience and that expertise span a vast array of challenges that school districts face. You know open records, open meetings, labor, employment, student discipline, um civil rights, special education, governance, redistricting, court vacancies, regulatory challenges, and we've
055helped fet county schools navigate all those and more. So that's the first. The second is we are accessible. Uh we're available. We're attentive. We're responsive. And hopefully that's something that's evidenced itself over the last five years. Third, we're efficient. And I know particularly in this day and age, that's that's very important. we work our work quality is second to none, but we're also uh very mindful of the time and resources that we spend in providing that. The fourth is that we know you and honestly in in challenging times maybe right now more than ever your board attorney needs to know not only the law but they need to know you. They need to know the issues, the people, the agencies, the organizations you work with. That relationship, that knowledge, that institutional knowledge is critical in
056continuity and serving you well. Last thing is this. We are problem solvers. I'm a problem solver who gives sound, honest, objective advice. We're certainly aware of, but not swayed by uh politics and preferences. I think the best proof of it is this. All of you know that sometimes what I've told you is exactly what you'd hope I'd say and sometimes it's not what you'd hope for. But we always take care of our board. We always work with the district and we look forward hopefully to the opportunity to continue doing just that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Salisbury. Um, moving on to the next, unless Chair Murphy, there's anything that you wanted to ask or comment or anybody wanted to ask questions. >> And what and I will preface this by saying uh board members
057have been provided um >> okay >> the RFPs and um what we will do and this is so all of our prospective biders will know is we will compile questions from board members and I'll I'll also go over this at the end. We'll compile questions from board members and distribute those to the respective biders who submit written responses um and then share those with the board before any final decision is made. >> Great. Thank you. I didn't want to cut anybody off. Um the next firm is the law firm of McBrer and we have Miss Ann Tyler Morgan here this evening and I think she's brought one or two with her. So Miss Morgan, I'm going to hand it over to you at this point. Thank you so much, Miss Chatfield. As Miss Chatfield said,
058my name is Ann Tyler Morgan from McReer. I am joined by my colleagues, Mark Fenzel and Kevin Clarson, who will present alongside me. And I'm here in our Lexington office very close by. We're very honored that you've given us the opportunity to potentially serve as your board counsel and appreciate the chance to be here tonight. As many of you may know, McReer is a full-ervice law firm founded in 1963. We have 64 attorneys and offices in Lexington, Louisville, and Frankfurt. And our attorneys practice in many areas that we believe can assist Faget County Public Schools, including municipal law, real estate law, and of course, school law. In addition to school boards, we represent a number of local governments, special purpose governmental entities, and taxing districts in a variety of matters from general governance representation on
059issues like open meetings, open records and procurement to real estate and land use to economic development, financing to litigation. The school board defense bar, as you all know, in Kentucky is very small, and there are only a handful of firms we know that have been doing it for as long as we have, since the mid1 1980s. They're all fine firms, but a couple of things we do believe set us apart. One, we're a true Lexington firm and our attorneys practice in Faget County, state, and federal courts every day. We know the judiciary and court personnel and understand Faget County juries. Two, we're very involved in local and state government and Lexington civic affairs, and we understand how political and community dynamics can impact our work. That's further bolstered by our deep working knowledge of politics
060through our lobbying counterpart, MMLK government solutions. With this background, we can assist with any sort of issue that involves other Lexington stakeholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin and Mark to talk more about our school law practice. Thanks, Ann Tyler. And hope everyone can hear me. And as Ann Tyler said, and let me re-echo, thank you for the opportunity to present ourselves to the board so you can get to know us a little more than just looking at our uh RFP on paper. Mark and I uh together have nearly 50 years or more experience in representing school boards, board members, and the entire gamut of employees at schools, administrators, principles, teachers, and staff. Um, we have handled just about every type of case you could probably imagine a board getting sued of, and
061you've probably experienced some of that in your time on a board. Title Nine, special education, personal injuries that occur at school, employment matters, administrative matters, including being asked to do outside investigations for school districts. Uh, in total, we've represented approximately 30 school boards across the state. Um, and you can exponentially increase that number of the personnel, both teachers, administrators, and the like that we've represented. That breadth of seeing issues across all districts, big, small, medium, I think brings a perspective that is unique and would be good to have for any school board, including one of the biggest in in the state. In our FP, we included a list of various cases we've worked on over the years successfully for school boards and districts, both state and appellet. Um, and we're not strangers to fe. One
062of the decisions Mark and I are most proud of is a case called Turner versus Nelson that came out of Fyet County where uh it still is a quoted landmark Supreme Court case related to immunity and a duty to report child abuse. Um professionally besides being lawyers uh for school board, we also continue our education as members of various educational uh professional entities like the Kentucky Council of School Attorneys or KSBA. and regularly we'll attend those uh meetings to not only get to know attorneys in our field, schoolboard members like yourselves, but also to present. Um Mark and I are also proud to say that attorneys we've worked at um in our specialy over the years have gone in house uh in other districts and we have one former colleague on the federal bench. Um
063lastly, I think one intangible that we can bring to the table is we have worked with your TPA Charles Taylor for multiple decades and having that intimate knowledge and experience when claims come in and working with adjusters is a relationship we can continue to call on if you select us uh and our RFP. And with that, let me uh let me turn it to our closer, Mr. Fenzel. >> Good evening. Uh thanks very much for giving us the opportunity to uh present tonight. Um I'm very proud to having started this school group about 25 or 30 years ago and working with great people like Kevin and now Ann Tyler and others at Rare. Um I I'd invite you to to actually take a list look at the list of cases that we've included. Um these
064are real life stories of real life cases. Everything from open records, open meetings, title nine, special education. We we have done everything when it comes to school law. Um and for those reasons, our great Lexington connections, our experience, we think we'd be a great fit with County. We look forward to working with you. Thanks. >> Thank you all. Well, thank you to the Rick prayer firm. Appreciate you coming tonight. And finally, we have another that you may recognize, uh, Mr. George Algy. Mr. Algy, you are you on here. >> I see him. >> There we go. Can you hear me? >> We can. >> Thank you all. uh I am a sole practitioner. I don't have the resources that these two larger firms do and they're very good firms. Uh they're litigationoriented type firms and
065and that's what you probably need for certain types of litigation. My representation of the board, which this month stretches now for 47 years, is in the area of real estate and procedural matters involving boards. the board such as open records requests uh um real estate related litigation, tax related litigation that involves real estate. Um, I was uh I was the council for the board when it was uh sued many years ago by the McBrer firm for the re for the refund of certain agricultural taxes paid to uh certain taxpayers in County and we were successful in that. Um, I think what I bring to the board is an institutional knowledge of the board. There are things that I can remember and bring up and which I think would be helpful to the board. I was
066second chair with Mr. William Sloan in the institution of the occupational license tax and the defense of that tax all the way up to the Supreme Court. uh I've worked uh represented the board on issues regard regarding uh sewer assessments that are being charged to the board which uh in my opinion probably shouldn't be charged and um but all of this all of these aspects sort of relate back to the board properties and its and its uh real estate holdings which are substantial. there's always something going on as far as uh dealing with easements and land acquisitions, land sales. So, I feel like uh I would like to continue in that practice and representation of the board in those matters and [snorts] other types of situations like that. >> Thank you, M. I appreciate it.
067And I will pass it back over to the superintendent and the board chair. Uh thank you Miss Chhatfield and again as I uh [clears throat] shared at the beginning um the board members have been received copies of each of uh these biders RFPs. um we've heard their presentations and then I will next invite board members to send follow-up questions in writing um to me by the close of business on uh Wednesday, June 10th, and I'll compile those questions and send them to the biders who will be asked to provide follow-ups uh in writing by close of business next Monday, uh June 15th, so that those can be shared. shared with the board. Um, and then the board can use those alongside the RFPs and the presentations we heard tonight um to provide um scores and
068recommendations for potential action at the action meeting on Monday, June 22nd. Um, so that's our anticipated projected timeline. Are there any questions from any of our uh biders or from board members? Okay, thank you all and and all this will be shared with you in writing as well um as a followup. Okay, >> thank you chair Murphy. >> Thank you Dr. Le. >> Thank you board members and Shelley. Um at our action meeting later this month, we will also ask you to review a contract with Powers School. Uh that's the system that supports human resource functions across the district. If you have any questions about that, Jennifer Dyer can respond to those for you. Chair Murphy, um my my question is um if because it's coming to renewal, I'm assuming that you are happy with
069the services, but just to be clear, um have you been happy with the services and you look forward to moving on? Yes, we from HR's perspective, >> they um provide us with multiple platforms that we use everything from our application system to our records to our professional learning uh our evaluation system and they've been great to work with. We were able to negotiate the price down just a little. So, that's always a positive thing as well. >> Thank you. >> And I would like to add with the exception of one of these contract renewals, all of them have been negotiated down in price. So that's also a good thing. >> Thank you for that work. >> Appreciate this. >> Any further questions, board members? >> Super lens. >> All righty. Thank you all. The next
070consent agenda is one for the board to take you to take action on this annually. It's our annual our certified evaluation plan. Uh this was developed with the input of staff representatives uh in accordance with state regulations. Uh Miss Dyer can also add any information should there be any questions about this? >> Any questions board members? >> Chair Murphy Murphy. >> Uh were there any major changes um or red line um were there any major changes to >> There were not. There were a few formatting but there was no content changes at all. Wonderful. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, board members. Our next three consent items uh for the action item or action meeting on the 22nd, these are contract renewals. Again, uh our multilingual services director, Boro Santiago, can respond if you
071have any questions about these contract renewals with curriculum associates, and those are to support the instruction and data reporting requirements for our students receiving English language services. We also have our director of technology, Amy Johns, who can respond about the contract renewal with Canvas. Any questions for >> Okay. At the meeting later this month, we will also ask you to consider a request for a designation to the international balorate program at Tates Creek High School as a gifted and talented program. At this time, I would like to call on um our chief high school officer, Dr. James McMillan to present a proposal along with his team, members of his team of the high school team. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Ligins. Uh, as Dr. Ligins mentioned, we are going to be asking you to
072approve that designation for IB um as an official gifted and talent talented program specifically targeting the service category of leadership. And I have invited Dr. Christy Field on who's going to talk you through a presentation and give you a little bit more information. I know she's talked to a few um people about this, but you're going to have a little bit more of a formalized presentation tonight. I'll turn over to you, Dr. Field. >> Thank you, Dr. Ligins, uh and Chair Murphy, and all board members for giving us the time this evening. And as Dr. McMillan said, we are requesting to have the GT designation added to our existing IB full diploma program at Tates Creek. And I'll go through this presentation and give you some more details. Uh can I have the next slide,
073please? And as we go through this presentation, you'll see that this really hits all parts of our portrait of a graduate and our stu strategic priorities on our next slide, please. It does um focus on our student achievement. So, next slide, please. Thank you. And here is a list of the committee members that worked on this presentation and this proposal with me. This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. We were able to to speak to Dr. Matthews and Darren Morris through transportation to make sure that we were getting input from as many stakeholders as possible. And the ones present this evening are Dr. McMillan, myself, and Julie Gan. Next slide, please. Thank you. Um, so again, our presentation this evening is to request a formal GT designation for the existing
074IB diploma program at Tates Creek, specifically in the category of leadership. Next slide, please. And these are just some of our IB seniors seniors this year doing some presentations throughout the year. Important to see our kiddos and who this affects. Next slide please. All right. So um the IB curriculum if you're not familiar with it is an extremely rigorous internationally recognized program. It's been um a part of Tates Creek since 2007. and the IB learner profile already really really stresses leadership within our students. We have student choice through service learning um leadership development and just all throughout the core curriculum. And just a little bit of history when I had the privilege of taking over at Tates Creek High School, it was evident that our IB diploma um was going to need a little help.
075It is an extremely special and um really important program to for our students to have access to. But there is a little bit of misunderstanding of what it really entails if you are not already familiar with the IB program and the IB curriculum. So one of the important parts for me of adding the GT tag is to really help families and students understand what the program has to offer in a in language that that is more universally understood with gifted and talented as opposed to international balorate. So just a little background of kind of why we went down this route. Um if I can have the next slide please. And again, just some more of our IB kiddos. This was our junior and senior group from this year. Um, just one of the experiences they
076got to have and be a part of. So, next slide, please. All right. So, one of the reasons that now we feel like is the appropriate time to ask for this GT's designation is because we've been um able to add kind of another branch of the IB curriculum and it's called the career program. This part of the IB program perfectly aligns with our existing career pathways and it is a lot more flexible and gives our students a lot more choice. It still gives them access to all of the wonderful parts of the IB curriculum and part of learner profile without being quite as demanding and rigorous um and structured as the full diploma program. So through the addition of that career program, we've opened up access truly to the entire school. Our students can still
077go to tech schools. they can still take part in band, they can still care uh finish that career pathway while having access to parts of the IB curriculum. So that's that's the reason um that we want to we're exploring this GT designation now because the C CP program has given access schoolwide to our students. So we aren't limiting that in any way. If I can have the next slide, please. I'm going to pause for a drink and see if anyone has any questions at this point. Any questions board members? >> Okay, I'll keep going. Thank you so much. So, one of the important things um again through the GT designation and the addition of the CP the career pathway program is increasing student participation in our IB program schoolwide. So our ne our projected enrollment
078for next year for our full diploma program which is juniors and seniors was 54 students. In the first year of our career program that we will be offering it next school year juniors only we're going to have 39 students participating. So we've gone from an overall student enrollment in our IB programs are 54 to 93 and we are adding students throughout the summer who are interested in that career program. So I think that growth is really important and shows that we are opening up access with that career program. Next slide please. All right. So student recruitment um we have talked extensively with Julie Gan and her office of how we will go about recruiting for this GT program. We um have kind of the new the new um introduction of leadership within the GT services.
079that's very new and they they are working on processes to make sure that we have as many students identified as possible. And we also have a really uh amazing opportunity to partner with the leadershipmies at Crawford Middle School and Mil Creek Elementary kind of already having kind of a feeder pattern for our students who are identified specifically in the areas of leadership. And we w have already had discussions with Julie Gan and her department about how we will make sure that those students are identified. And if we do have students who are interested in the full diploma program who are not yet identified, we will have those mechanisms in place to try and help them earn that designation. All right, next slide, please. And then this is just some um some details about how the
080GT structure and the IB structure overlap perfectly. we will have the added benefit of having already existing resources within the district and existing supports that we can pull into our IB program. And through the GT structure, what we will be able to do is start kids on this path freshman year instead of waiting until junior year. And one of the things we'll be able to do is build in a class specifically freshman year that um helps build the skills that are needed to be successful in that full diploma program when it it officially starts our junior year. Um, but you can see the student led community projects that's already part of our IB curriculum. And then we'll also have those specialized student services plans as part of the GT path. Um, that we'll be able
081to make sure that we're we're focusing on those leadership skills throughout those four years that we have them. Next slide, please. And this is just kind of a quick overview of the specific GT programming that we would be able to offer throughout the four years. the the um that freshman seminar class, we're able to pull some things from our existing career CTE structures and build in some of the the GT the leader in me curriculum and also those those new um IB skills that are needed for our students to be successful later on. Right, next slide please. And of course and very important to recognize this is a costneutral addition. We already have the structures, the budget, the training, all of the resources built into our school level budget and have since 2007. So, we
082are taking on no new costs at the school or district level. Um, and also with the introduction of the centralized transportation hubs for our magnet programs, we anticipate no additional transport transport transportation, excuse me, cost either. So, um, I think it's very important, like I said, we already have those structures and processes in place at the school level. So this will not add any additional cost at the school or district level. Next slide, please. All right. And this is just um this is our contact information if anybody would be interested in this after seeing the board presentation. We do have our IB coordinator listed there and as well as a direct link to our district website for our magnet and special programs. And next slide, please. All right, those more of our kiddos. Thank you.
083Uh Dr. Phil, any questions? Board members chair >> Murphy Green. >> Thank you. Um wanted to start off with a comment. Thank you all so much for being so intentional to expand our access and opportunity to this rigorous and like you said, it's a world recognized curriculum. Um so you all I know you bring in speakers from around the world that work with our students. their projects are not just located right here in our neighborhood, which they are many of them, but they're also interconnected within communities in our country and outside of the United States. So, this is very exciting that more and more students can experience IB, whether it is the career related pathway or expanding access and understanding [clears throat] of what you offer with the diploma program. I think there's recently having
084a middle schooler look at the high school options and being in those conversations with other parents understanding um that this really is a rigorous program that is on par with our other GT offerings around the district. I think this labeling like you said will bring the language of IB into the language that we understand of some of our GT conversations. I will like to see uh the your the parent um information about how people can become uh their students can become identified gifted in leadership and if there's additional steps that middle schoolers need to take whether they're public uh students or private students so that they're aware and have that timeline so they can be successful with their application process. But thank you again for the entire team that worked on this. >> Thank you.
085Yeah, we definitely will have that vice chair green. Um that's already in place to ensure in parents through a screening process that we're doing right now at the middle school level. Um and then also once the students are interested and they apply through the schoolment platform for Tates Creek IB, we'll have the process in place to ensure that the um the assessment measures or the evidence collection is available prior to that um application in the end the application season. >> Thank you. Uh, any other questions, board members? >> No, I just I just want to also say thank you to Christy and Julie for for working on this. I I think it's a great idea. Uh, I mean, I remember when we started IB at Tates Creek and I thought it was such a neat
086program and kind of read about it myself and and and told everybody about it and it's somewhat disheartening to hear you say, you know, that people still really don't understand what it is because it's I mean, probably outside of the US, very >> widely known and um, this is kind of the reverse of what the academy did at Henry Clay. I mean, they were known locally and then didn't have the national recognition and did the capstone. So, um I mean I think it's a great idea and appreciate your work on it and and especially just to continue the the um leadership service for students who are identified in leadership because I know that's one of the you know by statute that's something services we're supposed to provide. So, and and the cost neutral makes it
087even better. So, thank you both. >> Thank you. >> Murphy board member Monday. >> Um just to make sure I heard correctly. So, this will be an option for next year's GT application, correct? >> Yes, ma'am. >> The 27 Yeah. 28th school year. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. And and I forgot to say we were we are the first high school in the state of Kentucky to offer the career program portion of IB. So, that's another um hopefully we can draw more people into IB. And you know, we have kids that will start maybe not thinking they will be in diploma program, but we'll able to able to provide those supports and get more students involved and hopefully lose a few of our a fewer of our Tates Creek Middle School kids to
088uh the academy Henry Clay. >> Not that it's a competition, but >> not that it's a competition. We are team FCPS for sure, but choice is good. >> No. And Dr. for and that's a point I was going to emphasize as well echoing what others have said this um certainly highlights um the choices available to our students here in Fe County um you know um I was excited graduations it's no secret graduations are my favorite thing that we do uh you know we got to spend some time with you Dr. field um at the Tates Creek graduation. Um we got to see some of our students receive those IB diplomas um which is incredible. And a comment that I heard um actually from um a parent at graduation was, you know, one of the values
089of Faget County Public Schools is that we offer a private education at public school prices, right? and and as I was hearing you uh your team present this, that's kind of what kept coming to mind. Uh not to mention the fact that, you know, this conversation excites me as an educator because uh we know that so much of what we're the work we're doing is not just uh teaching the three Rs. It's it's preparing students for a world that none of us can predict yet. Um but that learner profile piece is so critical when we talk about the need for principled and openminded leaders. Yes, we we know that we need that in our community in our society. And so um and those those are pathways that are open to to every student. and and
090this is just I see this as part of our continued work um as a district uh to meet every learner where they are uh and then to take them to places that as they sit they might have only imagined it um but because of our investment in them we can get them to wherever wherever they dreamed to be and so so I appreciate I appreciate this I appreciate the work and we're excited about the opportunities Any other questions, board members? >> Dr. Thank you, board members and Dr. Phils. Uh, at the meeting later this month, we'll also ask you to consider the resoning plan for Helen Case Elementary School. Um, our director of pupil personnel, Steve Hill, along with Seria Matthews, is with us this evening to present a proposal. Good evening board. We have
091a proposal this evening that we're going to share. Uh it will be presented by myself as well as Steve Hill and our partner um in our work, Miss Cassandra Regis, um with MGT, also known as David or previously known as Davis Demographic. Next slide. And as you all know, opening up a brand new school, uh it will touch base on all of our strategic priorities, uh across the board, such as student achievement, unity, belonging, and student efficacy, highly effective workforce, outreach and engagement, as well as organizational health and effectiveness effectiveness. Next slide. Also, again, open up a brand new school and making sure that we are resoning for the best case scenario for all of our students. It touches on all of our promise as a portrait of the graduate. Next slide. In order to
092kind of set the stage for our work this evening, I wanted to provide kind of a brief overview uh just to let you know where we're headed with the information that we're going to provide for the board this evening. Making sure that you have all the information that is needed in order to make the best informed decision. Uh initially we're going to start with just the the timeline and some of the guiding principles that we used as we went into phase two of this bright future work. Uh we're going to talk about some of the foundational data, the analysis that was used, the demog demography information that was considered from our committee as well as future growth pro projections. Um and then lastly, we're going to share with the board some of the scenarios that
093the committee had a chance to look at. And we want to make sure that the board is well um informed of those scenarios, which will include um the 450 a 450 scenario with the inclusion of a program being placed within that pro um the school, the viability of that. Um and then ending with our final recommendation. I want to also bring to the forefront that this is phase two of our rightsize bright future work. Um, and with the intentionality of this phase, I want to make sure that the board is aware that any resoning that happens with this phase will ensure that we do not have to reszone these addresses again as we go into phase three of our district-wide resoning. Next slide. Also wanted to remember or remind the board as well as our
094community that we are sharing all of the information as it relates to right size right future work and in inclusive of this work phase 2 on our website. Uh we do have a web page that is designed and designated specifically for current information as well as our archived information. Um the website is fcps.netrightsize. net slrightsize. Next slide. Some background information as we begin this evening. Just making sure that the board is aware that what we're getting ready to share is really anchored to the district um facilities plan that was designed and approved by a local planning committee. Uh specifically, the building of this property was identified as a need in 2017. Um, and as you all know, the community out Leasetown Road and Georgetown Road is continuing to grow. Uh, one of the reasons for
095the the building is to ease the overcrowding that we're currently seeing at Sandersville Elementary, Coventry Oak, and Meadow Thorp Elementary. Next slide. As we look at the process and the timeline of what kind of took place in this phase, phase two, again making sure that we were using a scientific process uh that is based on data data analytics uh with a partner that we have engaged with for over 11 years. Um and so of course we re-engaged them for this project and as you are also aware we have our rightsize bright future committee. uh many of our committee members have continued, but we added some additional members for this phase of the work specifically as it relates to our community and and bringing in other partners that have worked with um the resoning before. Some
096of the timelines that we took play that took place in March, we did our on boarding and orienting of the committee for this phase of the work. In April and May, we did some scenario planning with the committee. they had a chance to really dive in and look at some of the the different data, the boundaries and kind of put hands-on to some different scenarios. Uh in May, we had a chance to look at that viability, as I mentioned earlier, the viability of the 450 uh residential families along with the placement of George Washington Carver STEM Academy. We looked at that scenario in May as well as we garnered feedback from our community and making sure that they were able to engage and pres and and provide feedback. um and and really engage in this
097process. And then here in June, of course, we are here to present to the board for uh for your recommendation and for your final approval. Next slide. Some guiding principles that served as guard rails for the committee as they began this work. Uh couple of we've got about six of these, of course, and we're going to start with the first three. Uh first, and as I mentioned before, we're going to keep talking about this. This is really based on um data analysis, demographer, uh a very specialized process and making sure that what we have is accurate and factual analytics that we are basing all decisions and recommendations on. Uh then of course uh the next guiding principle is opening Helen case with approximately 600 residential families which leaves some room for growth. That building capacity
098is 750. So opening at 600 does allow for a highly growing area to continue to grow and not not experience overcrowding too soon. Um our next one was to reduce overcrowding at some of our current locations um with the start of the 27 20 2728 school year and then eliminate the need for portable classrooms that are currently being utilized. Next slide. And then our last few guiding principles. We wanted to make sure that the schools reflect our community as a whole. And so we do work pretty diligently with the analytics to make sure we are doing everything we can to uh replicate what we see as our community as a whole within our schools. Uh we also made sure that we establish very logical boundaries. Some of some of those are man-made boundaries um that
099really make sense as dividing points um to ensure that we're not um creating issues that doesn't make sense especially for busing in our community. So we have some very logical attendance boundaries. And then last but certainly not least is looking at those scenarios that are least disruptive to the overall feeder patterns. um specifically as we think about busing and create keeping shorter travel routes and times for our students. Next slide. At this time, I'm going to kick it over to our community partner, Miss Cassandra Rodriguez, and she is going to share a little bit about just the science behind the reasonzoning process. Cassandra, >> thank you so much, Sharia. Um, next slide, please. So just a highlevel quick uh demographics 101 here. I don't want to bore you. So um but it's very important to
100understand uh the demographic analysis behind the science of the behind the reason process. So first we start by mapping where students live. Um that's basically a process called geocoding. Then we analyze neighborhood level trends um using study areas. And you'll hear that word term a lot. study areas that you could think of as neighborhoods. Um, from there we our forecasts incorporate birth trends, student mobility, so the ins and outs of student movement and future housing development to understand where students are expected to live over time. Um, this analysis serves as the backbone of the resoning process, ensuring our recommendations that we bring to you today are based on based on both current enrollment conditions and future growth patterns, especially within this area of the district. Um all data is based on fall 2025 information and
101the best available demographic information at that time. Next slide please. So to to to support this analysis um we divided the district into 853 study areas which are you could think of um as small neighborhood units. Each study area is assigned to an elementary, middle, and high school attendance area, and we like to keep roughly 50 to 80 K12 students within these neighborhoods. Um, these study areas are one of the most important tools in the reszone process because they serve as the building blocks for the attendance boundaries. They allow us to evaluate potential boundary changes at a neighbor neighborhood level while keeping communities together whenever possible. We would like to keep you know our students to um together at the same school wherever possible during this process. Next slide please. So a little information about
102the future growth within the district overall. Um residential development is a key factor in one of our for in our forecasts. We identified approximately 7400 housing units um that are estimated to be planned within the next 5 years. These units are expected to generate um500 additional K12 students. Now, understanding where this growth is expected helps us ensure boundary recommendations can accommodate both current and future students. We would want these boundaries that we created to essentially be viable for five plus years. Next slide, please. So, a little bit about um what the district is looking like for the next five years and the future growth. We take a look at a district as a whole. Overall, student enrollment is projected to remain relatively stable over the next 5 years with growth about 2%. Um the district
103is expected to grow roughly 2%. Birth rates have declined in recent years, but kindergarten enrollment is expected to remain steady, and that's just due to family immigration and the new residential homes you are seeing built um around your area. Growth is not occurring evenly across the district. Um, some established neighborhoods are experiencing enrollment declines while newer housing areas such as the area we're concentrating on today, particularly around Coventry, Sandersville, are expected to see continued growth. So, these offsetting trends help explain why district-wide enrollment remains stable while individual attendance areas may experience very different enroll enrollment patterns. Next slide, please. So the map here um shows current elementary utilization based on where students live. So uh what we call our resident students. Um several attendance areas that you see on the map include Sandersville, Coventry, and
104Booker T and Meadow Thorp um are operating near or above their resident capacity indicating growing enrollment pressure in those areas. At the same time, other areas have available capacity that is not being fully utilized. So, the opening of Helen case Wade is expected uh to help relieve some of this pressure and it it positions the district uh in a great good opportunity for future growth that may occur within this area. Next slide, please. So [clears throat] the map um here shows where current K5 resident students live within the attendance area. Um what we call a heat distribution map. So um the [clears throat] yellow and red areas represent the highest concentrations of students illustrating a significant cluster of families living around the new school site. The concentration of students is one of the primary reasons
105additional elementary capacity was needed in this area. So you see the deep pockets of red and yellow. That's your highest concentration of K5 students within this area. Um the map also highlights why boundary adjustments are necessary to help align attendance areas with where students live today. We want children to go to their neighborhood schools. That's an very important fact and that's exactly what this density shows. Um so the the reason why we were creating boundary adjustments was to help distribute enrollment more efficiently among nearby schools. Um next slide please. Just a little bit about our reszone process and the role that MGT played. So um the process is built around a series of whatif scenarios using GIS or geographic information systems data. Uh we use these d these uh scenarios to evaluate different ways attendance
106boundaries could be adjusted to better balance enrollment, improve utilization, accommodate future growth while following the guiding principles of the committee. So NGT's role is to is to provide the data. We forecast the data and use scenario modeling uh to support decision- making. Throughout the process, we analyze the impacts of each option, incorporate feedback from the district and other stakeholders, and refine scenarios to identify solutions that best meet the district's goals. So, the goal is to ensure any recommendation is grounded in data, informed by community input, and focused on the district's long-term needs and making these scenarios um stable for the long term. Um, with that, I'll turn it over to Steve. Thank you. Thank you so much, Cassandra. Um, I really want to publicly thank her for all of her work and um uh and
107the committee um that gave up so much of their time freely and I just appreciate your quick responsiveness and uh and your help throughout this. Thank you. Um if you go to the next slide please. So the purpose of showing this is our current uh FCPS boundary. And the reason for showing this is to just give you a mental visual of of what what we were looking at when we started this project. So there's three things I really want to highlight. One is the location of the three schools. And I'm going to write on this a little bit here. Right here is uh Sandersville. Here is um Heavenry. And then this is where the new school was coming, which is right here. So you'll you'll see that that is in itself they're pretty close in
108proximity proximity and where within probably a mile of each other if you if you just u go east to west um and then the southern portion here of this um is metaphor. So those are and then Booker T is here just to orient you where the schools are. So it's all kind of compacted in a pretty tight space. Second thing I wanted to show you is that we had overflow areas. And if you remember a couple years ago, we were in a a pinch point with Coventry's growth. Um, and we've overflowed this area which was going into uh to go to Booker T. We had to take and remember we we found areas that were undeveloped. So we didn't want to surprise families the best we can. We recognized there were a couple families already
109in those areas, but for the most most part undeveloped. So this area here uh we overflowed to Metathorp and then we chunked out parts of Masterson and Station Park uh excuse me um neighborhood. So uh just wanted you get a visual of of this slide. Um and if you could go to the next uh slide please. One thing I do want to mention on that previous slide is if well this one actually Cassandre showed was the population density. if you focused on that, that's a really good visual of where our students live. And it it it presented some challenges, but that's why that's why we wanted to show that. Um, this this is just called opportunities because there's highlights that we wanted to show on on what this accomplishes, this resoning. So, we will be
110able to accommodate uh in the year 2728 rising fourth and fifth graders, which are our current third and sixth fourth graders. So uh that will be in the excuse me third and fourth graders in the 2026 277 school year. So we will in other words out of out of area through grandfathering options we will try to accommodate the older grades to be able to help those families. We can we will also have sibling options to be able to keep families together. Um out of area requests acceptances are dependent on building capacity. So I just want to note that because that could impact some things depending on how this all plays out. Uh this option is available with the understanding that transportation will be the responsibility of the parent guardian and that's pretty consistent with what
111we've done in the past. We just don't have the ability to um to to route bus route all those kiddos. Uh positive of this plan. It reverses the Sandersville to me uh overflow. It also eliminates the Coventry to Booker T. So those are two positives. Um transportation will positively be impacted due to the elimination of double routed overflowed areas. So, that's going to be a a great benefit to the district as well. And um as as Dr. Matthews mentioned, it eliminates the need for the portables at Sandersville Elementary. Um next slide, please. Okay. Uh next slide. This is the recommended scenario. And so what I'm just going to again, we kind of already seen this. This is the first shot of the general visual of what it the Helen case elementary school boundary is. You'll
112see up here at the north, we were able to over to to eliminate that overflow area in this little spot here that was existing. And you'll notice we had a plan 2B and honestly, just full transparency, we were going headstrong with the 2B because that's what the committee wanted to look at. We had our community forum and there was a half of this study area down here in this little area. You probably can't hardly see my little box, but that was going to be continued going to Metaphor and that was an overflow area. Um, after driving it, after speaking with Sandersville, after hearing from our community partners that that came to the community forum, we wanted to take a second look and the data actually favorably, I think, split Helen case way to Sandersville better.
113It brought more kids back to Sandersville and kept the Masterson Station neighborhood um as intact as possible. And then uh we have a nice boundary line that's actually a tree line. The the uh the eastern border of Helen case is actually a a railroad track. So it kind of splits evenly. That's that's a man-made barrier. Uh and then you'll see down one thing just in unique is this southern part of their of Helen case. And it's important to understand this. There's a golf course. There's a lot of um industrial uh buildings. And so it made it a challenge. We had to we had to carve into this area of Sandersville boundary in order to be able to help their overcrowding. So that's just wanted to give you that look there. If you'd uh go to
114the next slide, please. Thank you. Um all right, this slide represents the the area study areas that have been moved. Um and again you'll see that the study area 39 it was kept at Sandersville and that's due to our community response uh from our community forum. Um and then obviously the blue represents the new highlighted um boundary for Helen case wade. Uh if you could um go to the next slide please and then we'll look into that. Okay. Um what you'll notice here we in total 749 kiddos have been moved back to either one attendance zone or another but 75 kiddos have been impacted through this and this is K through five mind you on the right you'll see represented is essentially five years worth of growth and I want to I want to reiterate
115what Cassandra said this is resident students so this is not their current enrollment these are how many kids are actually living in their uh in their their boundary Um, but you'll notice at the at the end of it in in five years in 2031, we have a nice distribution of students. And I want to hit on a couple of points here, but um, and and understand when we look at this, it's not there will be some of these kiddos that go to uh, DI programs or other district programs. So, it may not even reach the 90% at Coventry for that fifth year, but it may through growth. Um, Booker T, you'll see 67%. The reason for that is we we um uh one it was it's kind of landlocked so it's difficult to pull other
116communities into that that school but we're also using it for dual purposes. We have multiple preschool and MSD classrooms and and it serves um district program purposes that are not reflected in those numbers. And then metaphorp you'll see 76% and you might think that's concerning but that that doesn't include the 90 to 95 kiddos that go to GTAP there. Um so that that percentage would be closer in the 80s or 90% once we had those kids in. So we have a nice distribution of kids um in in in the final data and what what what's resulted. So um and I think next slide please. And I think this uh Dr. Matthews is going to take this one. Thank you. >> So in summary from the committee's recommendation uh some high points that we wanted to
117just make sure we leverage for the conversation. The recommendation does address the overcrowding and leaves room for growth in that continuing growing area. It creates minimum disruption disruption across neighborhoods and residencies. Um it also eliminates double busing uh where we are busing across multiple uh school boundaries and it eliminates the expense associated with the two portables. Next slide. As uh Mr. Hill mentioned before, we did have an opportunity to engage in our community. So, we wanted to make sure we share just some of the highlights that came out of our community engagement um sessions. Some questions that came up, some really common questions um wanting to know how some of the boundaries were determined. And as we mentioned before, it's mostly based on either natural or man-made kind of cut points to make sure that,
118you know, it's pretty natural. Um but again, it was intentional to alleiate the overcrowding. um why were some of the residents uh that were in close proximity to the school not reszone to the new school? We had many parents to ask that question and Mr. Hill has also mentioned the importance of that all three schools being very close in proximity themselves and therefore um that leads to the reasoning for thatation be offered for grandfathers and Mr. Hill has mentioned that of course transportation is the responsibility of the parents if they choose to do the grandfather option and then what are the options for students to stay at their current school. So we've been able to address that question as well. Notification for families uh should the board approve and this is the recommendation should the
119board approve this option notifications to the family would happen in the fall of 2026. Um and so families would essentially have about a full school year in preparation for any changes that may impact their family. Next slide. And as I also mentioned when I began um we wanted to share that as part of the larger work for Rightsize Bright Future uh the committee will continue to look for a full-time um a long-term placement uh for George Washington Carver STEM Academy. And so we did take uh an opportunity to look at the viability of having a 450 resident option for the new school um to include George Washington Carver um as a program within the school. So we want to make sure we share with the board as well some of the data behind that. Um
120and I will turn it back over to Mr. Hill to share some of that information. >> Thank you, Dr. Matthews. I appreciate you. Uh, if we can go to the next slide, please. So, I'm going to be covering um the 450 program scenario. And again, this just to re reiterate being that we had this opportunity to to look at um, you know, the usage of the building, we wanted to make sure that we at least did our due diligence to look at all all scenarios possible. Um, if you'd go to the next slide, please. So in the just again the you're familiar with this map but you'll see what would have been compromised. We would have had to taken a lot more kiddos out of metath. Uh and going back to the the population density,
121location of schools, all those things made it a little bit difficult to try to get this down to the 450 scenario. Although we did come up with one, but there were some things you'd have to compromise by doing so. But um this if you go next slide please. And this gives a little bit closer visual and you'll remember this this area was going to Helen Casease Wade before and uh in this scenario this stays at Sandersville. Um but that that's really the the main the main uh changes. If you could please that it just shows you how much density of populations expected in this little area here. If you go to the next slide please. This is the data. Uh we would in in the scenario uh 450 scenario we would have moved 650 kids
122and I just will focus on the the u the 2031 right here. So you'll notice Booker T was not necessarily impacted on this but the two areas that were actually three Helen case Wade in five years would have been now remember this is the capacity we set it at 450 because the with this scenario we would have filled it with other students that were program students but it would have put the building over capacity with the assumption that that the program would also reach its capacity. Metorpor would have been at 84%. That's without adding the 90 90 to 95 kiddos for GTAP. So now we're looking at probably nearly 100% because we would be right at the uh 600 number and Sandersville would be still above um the 650 threshold. Uh and and with the
123portables, we would probably want to leave those there to monitor uh where we are in a couple years to make sure that we're we still can operate within the building. So those are th that's the way the the data uh uh displayed after after looking at the 450 scenario. Um next slide please. >> And I think Dr. Matthew is going to take it over. >> Absolutely. And so as a summary of looking at the viability considerations um one benefit of course is that George Washington Carver STEM Academy for Boys would have a long-term space. Um some potential drawbacks though is that um looking at the facil district facilities plan in 2017 the school was the new school in the area of Letown and Georgetown was recommended because of the community growth that was actually reaffirmed
124in 2021. Um another drawback would be the concern for overcrowding and that would continue that the portables would also continue to be a need. And then last but certainly not least, but it reduces the number of residential families who would have access to the new school facility. Um, and next slide. So our purpose of course this evening was to uh bring to you um the recommendation from our committee. Uh the reason that we have this is because uh the construction the new construction of brand new school was presented and approved by the local planning committee to move forward to address overcrowding with Sandersfield, Coventry Oak, and Meadow Thorp. Um we anticipate Helen case elementary school opening in August of 2027 and the committee has made a recommendation to the board for the 750 residentially zone
125school students uh to attend Helen case. Thank you. Are there any questions? Thank you for that thorough overview and obviously [clears throat] there are so many moving parts um that go into these calculations and obviously it's clear from the presentation that this isn't something that you know is approached willy-nilly. U any questions board members? Chair Murphy, >> former >> Thank you. I just want to say thank you for the amount of work is evident in your presentation and I've heard it along the way through your months of work and planning of how much a consideration to all um perspectives on this decision has been taken. And so I I thank you. I I actually heard directly from several community members that felt very uh they felt heard and when they came in and shared their
126their thoughts about making a natural boundary with the road and keeping the neighborhood of Masterson Station together. Um, so that is important and I wanted to to highlight that you all were able to listen and to consider that u feedback and then additionally for you to share with us that you did look at the idea of putting George Washington Carver in that space and what that impact would be. I think it's important as a community that when we have these conversations and we have this want that's still out there, we need to find George Washington Carver a a permanent home. But in the meantime, you're showing that we're being thoughtful. We're looking and seeing what that would look like. So, I look forward to that uh conversation continuing and I'm sure we will find um
127the best fit for them. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Board members >> Murphy M. >> Um I know that it was mentioned that Sandersville has two portables and this will alleviate that. Are there any portables at Booker T Coventry or Metoorp currently? >> I know. And we we actually looked at that kind of the way it's positioned down in that little bowl area. It was hard to or the way the land around it, we were not able to even put those in there. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And then on slide 16, there was a little portion of the map that I couldn't see that was um a area of Meadoworp. I just wondered if someone could send that um to the board just so we could see the rest of the heat map.
128>> Um I don't know what or if is happening with um kindergarten students coming in there, but I'd just like to see that. Um and also thank you guys for taking a look at George Washington Carver. I know that was one of the asks that I had months ago um about what about the new um building and looking at that scenario and leaving no stone unturned for them. So I appreciate that as well. Um my well another comment um thank you to MGT. I get asked about different contracts that we have all the time and I always tell people that the um data that you provide is pretty top-notch and tough. um to come up with that and at the reliability that you guys are able to do it. So um I do appreciate getting
129the amount of data um that you guys have and always appreciate um Mr. Hill and all his work um on resoning as well. Um my last question was about rightsize bright futures. I know a portion of phase two was looking at special programs and building usage, and that's been a question that I've gotten from some community members as well. Will we get that district-wide portion later? Will that come with the larger resoning a little later on down the road or >> um Dr. Mundy, could you clarify? Do you mean the work that we did in phase one or you said phase two, so I just wanted to make sure understanding. Yeah, there was like a little chart um that had like the diff three different phases on it and one side of phase two was
130the redistricting for Helen K. Suede, but I don't think we had the name quite yet. Um so I think it might have said Greenale, but the other side said districtwide um uh it saywide program facility util utilization for special programs. So that was the other side of that piece. And I've gotten several questions of people asking, well, what about our program or what about a different building? So, my ask was, is that portion going to come later? Um, because a lot has happened since that original plan came out. [laughter] Um, and things have had to shift a bit. Um, so just my ask is, is that going to come sooner or later than the phase three districtwide um redistricting plan? >> Yes, ma'am. Great question. We anticipate that being part of our fall work that's
131leading into the districtwide. So, it's also part of the districtwide, but it'll go into it. So, we're looking at fall 2026. >> Thank you. >> Good. Any other questions, board members? Um, and you touched on this, but just kind of in a um in a bullet point uh way, this of course will be considered at the June action meeting. Um, if this [clears throat] is a if this plan is adopted by the board, um, do we have in place a communication plan for families? Um, is there a way to uh work with families uh you know if there are particular unique uh issues or needs? Are there considerations for students um with IEP considerations? Anything like that? So um do we have uh for lack of a better term a rollout plan in place um
132if we proceed down this path? >> Yeah. So um I'll answer and Dr. Matthews, if you have something else you want to add, please please feel free or anyone else. Um, in the past, we've after the resoning is confirmed, we will then send out direct communications to each family and I think um, credit to our communications team. We've really proud to be proactive on that just on the front end. We've also maintained on the website, which Dr. Matthew showed there's there's a place a resoning email that that actually comes to me and one of my co-workers that were actively answering those. Um and so if someone has a specific uh question about, for example, an IEP, we're happy to walk them through what that would look like. Um the great thing is our new school
133is going to have all the bells and whistles and all the services provide that that other schools will provide as well. So those most services can be provided or replicated within the new building. So that's a great thing. Um and then we will work with them to for those that have grandfathering options in the letter. We'll also state what options they have and they will get one specific to their family and then we will do the intake for all of those and then we'll have a better idea of of what the true enrollment will be uh later after after that exercise. So I don't know if you have any other questions specifically. I'm happy to answer them. Thank you. Do you have anything to add, Dr. Matthews? >> Nothing to add. >> Thank you. And
134you know, opening a new school is always a time of um excitement, but also mixed emotions. I remember um at the actually it was at the Pride Festival. I ran into a family um whose uh daughter just uh uh finished her sixth grade year at uh Mary Britain Middle School and they indicated that you know there were they were nervous right about about starting in a new school. Um but here at the end of the year they were just praising how much she thrived there and and the extraordinary experience it was. So I I think that you know what we've typically have seen with anytime we've opened a new facility um Fyet County no matter where you are in Faget County you're going to get a a high quality worldclass education and so uh again
135this is a a an important milestone for the district and any family that's affected needs to know that we the district will work with them and support uh and support um in any transition that that might be required. >> Thank you. Okay, if there are no further questions, Dr. Lincoln, >> thank you all so very much. That was indeed a robust conversation. Um our consent agendum will also include our annual update to the student code of conduct. if you have any questions about that. Um, our safe school specialist, Sarah Pinkering, um, is online and she'll be able to answer those. >> Thank you, Dr. Ligins. Good evening, school board members. My name is Sarah Pickering. I work in the Department of Student Support Services and I am glad to be with you this evening to
136share the recommended changes for the student code of conduct for the 2627 school year. Next slide, please. As you know, this work relates directly to student achievement. Um, we know that when our students feel safe and supported within their school communities, then we set our students up to reach their absolute full academic potential. Next slide, please. So, as a reminder, the student code of conduct is our our guiding document that both defines and governs behavior here in Faget County Public Schools. Um, this document does give autonomy to our schools to address behavior within the parameters that have been outlined. This document does provide specific definitions as well as outlining both supportive and traditional consequences for those specific behaviors. This is, I believe, the fourth year that the code of conduct has lived online. It's been
137electronic. And so we do have a link there for the landing page where you can find that document in English as well as I believe our top seven languages as well. Next slide please. So I'd like to just take a moment to share the process with you all. Um starting in January is when we share out an interest survey. This goes out districtwide and really just an effort to see who would like to participate on the committee that takes place every year. Also during the month of January, we had an opportunity. So my teammates in the department of student support services as well as the face team and our student belonging and success team, we partnered together to host uh both student and staff focus groups. And so I'm very pleased to say that during
138our time, we were able to connect face-toface with 88 students and 12 adults during those focus groups. And that was an opportunity for us just to have face-to-face conversations with students and staff about their recommended changes for the code of conduct. Then in the month of February, we shared out electronic surveys. And this was a chance for us to get feedback from students, staff, and families as well around their recommended changes. And I'm pleased to share we had over 500 responses to those surveys. So all of that was put together and in the month of March, our committee met and we had an opportunity to meet every Wednesday in March and to review all of that feedback and really look at trends and themes and pull out what we felt would be what we are
139bringing to you this evening, which are the recommended changes. I'd like to give a quick shout out to that committee. It was comprised of 35 total members. We had three students, seven parent or guardians represented on that. We had 15 school-based staff members and then we had 10 district staff members. So, a really nice group of people there to have good conversation. Next slide, please. All right. So, we will jump right into our changes. So, first up, there was conversation specifically about emerging technologies. As we know, that is everchanging. And so, there was conversation about adding what you see highlighted in yellow specifically to this section of bullying as well as harassment. So, I'll give you just a second to peruse that. Right. Next slide please. So there was also conversation about adding emerging technology
140um to false note or cheating and so you can see highlighted in yellow would be the example that was given to be added to that particular definition. The next recommended change is under the section of communication with parents or guardians. You can see highlighted in yellow there was some clarifying language that was recommended to be added to that particular section. Next slide please. Under our section of drug sale and transfer, it was recommended to add the words up to in that section. Our next section is our supportive or educational consequences specifically for tobacco use um as well as possession. So this is looking at vaping tobacco products. The recommendation was to intentionally add supportive consequences and you can see those highlighted for our first, second, and third offense for tobacco use or possession. Next slide,
141please. It was also recommended by the committee that we have a similar format specifically for vaping THC use or possession. So, this would be a new addition entirely to the code of conduct. You can see that there are outlined responses for first offense, second offense, as well as third offense. So that would be in addition. We also have an update based off of Senate Bill 101 and this is what Mr. Bruno was presenting earlier in the evening. So as it stands right now in our student code of conduct in our behavior management charts, we outlined consequences that are allowable for um specific behaviors. Right now, it is not allowable to out of school suspend students for class one behaviors, for example, disruptive behavior. However, in Senate Bill 101, it reads that if a student um
142essentially is removed from the classroom three times within a 30-day period, that student is considered chronically disruptive and may be suspended. So that verbiage is requested to be added to the behavior management charts both for clarification and to ensure that we are following um that legal update. Next slide please. We had recommendations um to update the educational enhancement opportunity section and so there was a request just for some clarifying language. So that was u provided to us from our our DPP our department of pupil personnel office and you can see those highlighted changes. Next slide please. Similarly with our out of area assignments, it was requested just for some clarifying language and so that information has also been highlighted as well as the direct link to the application for families to be able to access
143that easily. So that concludes the recommended changes for our 2627 student code of conduct. Any questions that that I will do my best to answer? >> Any questions? Board members. >> Chair Murphy. >> Board member Christian. >> Hi Miss Pickering. Um so I'm looking at this verbiage. I'm looking at chronically disrupted. Um that's very subjective. >> Yes ma'am. >> So when we talk about when a teacher has determined what is chronically disrupted, >> right? My concern is that that's going to be abused. So when we talk about the autonomy that schools have, you have the district policy or the handbook comes down to the schools, but how you how you choose to um portray those things, right? That falls on the that falls at the feet of the schools. So, is there a recourse for
144a parent or a guardian who wants to try and challenge or appeal that because of being called chronically disruptive, being kicked out of class three times in a month at the behest of the teacher, >> it would give me pause. Right. >> Right. >> What what what guards do we have to protect these babies in that situation? Yeah, there is absolutely an appeals process that that we have and and certainly um board member Christian, my hope is that um there is communication between the school and the families to be able to discuss these types of behaviors and have that dialogue back and forth to discuss that and really hone in on what are some supportive things that we can do for students for that to be the emphasis around how are we intervening in a
145meaningful way with students to help mitigate some of those behaviors. that might be taking place, but as you said, getting some clarification around what does that mean? What does that look like? What are the behaviors that are being observed? Um, and then working together in partnership to to try to address those try to address those specific concerns. >> Yeah, that's a concern because if we're in the if we are the district is in the mindset of restorative practices, >> Right. That's right. That's right. Yes. And I know Dr. Lian spoke earlier, he shared concerns as well about just some of that very subjective language. So I I completely understand your concerns that you are raising today and and agree completely. >> Chair Murphy Murphy, >> that was actually one that I noted as well and
146I wonder um as we had discussed earlier in the legislative update if there'd be an opportunity Dr. uh for an update to an AP when it talks about um the behavioral management within the classroom to update some of this language to give those guide uh guard rails and guidelines as board member Christian mentioned. >> Yes, we'll work on both of those for next month's meeting. >> Thank um and that Oh, go ahead. >> Thank you. Um, I did have a question. When it comes to the vaping consequences, they are vastly different for THC versus nicotine or tobacco. Is there a way that you determine the v what is in that vape to know which set of consequences to move forward with? From my understanding, our law enforcement officers have have been tremendously helpful in those
147scenarios and we certainly are working with them to help make those types of determinations. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Yeah, I believe there they can be tested. We've see that in the context of, you know, my own work and there it's not uncommon for there to be a distinction between the two types. >> Um, >> that's accurate. Well, I'm sorry. What was that? >> I was just saying that's accurate. There there's tests that can be done. >> Yeah. Um the uh my question I just reiterates what was brought up earlier just making sure that in and it's common when there are these types of changes that you know in a district our size um a challenge comes with the consistency of application, right? So just making sure and I think you've already addressed this
148and and what Dr. Lian shared has addressed this making sure that our admin school administrators um have the same shared understanding when it comes to the application of some of these uh changes and uh that work is underway. Is that correct? >> Yes. Um and then to can you share the extent to which um uh student and educator voice is is factored into these conversations anytime we do these updates or how we're there these updates are a reaction to some of the data that we've compiled over the the course of the prior year. >> Yes, absolutely. So again with our our focus group conversations as well as our feedback surveys um we do ask specifically you know what are the changes that you would recommend for this document. All of that is compiled and then
149that is what is discussed during our committee meetings in the month of March. So truly that feedback is what drives our our agenda and the topics that we discuss. So we we rely very heavily on the feedback of our students, our families and our staff members for this process. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Murphy, >> I have another question. >> Um on the EH form, it's the end of it. It says an EHO form can be requested at the school. Could we follow the same practice or has it been considered to build in that link or that form or um more specifically maybe say which position it should be requested from? >> Absolutely. That's a great question and we we spoke with Dr. Matthews about that. I believe it is a paper copy that
150is at the school. So, let me check on seeing if that lives electronically anywhere. And as you were saying, if maybe there's a point person at a building that we could refer families to specifically ask for that. >> Thank you. >> Uhhuh. >> Thank you, board members. Any other questions? >> Thank you, Miss Pickering. >> Thank you, board members and Miss Pickerin. Um, at our meeting on the 22nd, we will also ask you to review and renew the contracts for the COGAT Iowa assessment, which we administer to all third graders to help identify students who receive gifted and talented services, as well as the peer assessment platform that our classroom teachers use um to create formative and summitive assessments for their students. If you have any questions about this, Dr. Brook Stinson, who is our
151director of assessment, uh can answer those questions for you. Any questions, board members, for Dr. Stinson? >> All righty. Thank you all. Um, Dr. Bill Bradford is available to answer any questions about the renewal of our contract with Pathful Incorporated. Uh, that's to support um, college and career readiness for our middle and high school students. That's also a renewal. >> Any questions, board members, on this renewal? Okay, >> another contract renewal, as you know, it's June, so there's lots of them. Uh, is our contract with Parent Square for two-way communication between home and school. Uh, Bruno talked about that a little earlier, but if you have any questions about this, Miranda Scully can answer those question. >> Any questions? for members. >> Chair Murphy, >> um just wanted to highlight and make sure I'm clear
152on this. So, this um contract is the legislative mandate part of I think it was SB181 um originally last year. And so, has there been any introduction of funding mechanism at the state level to cover this cost? >> There has not. And when I mentioned earlier that all contracts um have been negotiated with the exception of this one, this is the one where it has it is going up. And no, and to answer your question directly, no, there's been, as far as I know, no introduction and certainly no approval of funding to go along with it. >> And do we know of any other um companies that could offer this same service exactly as the state is asking for it? That's a better question for Miranda. She has been involved in the process of choosing
153this one more so than I have been. >> Sorry, I apologize. Um, we have spoken with parent square. At this time, it would not benefit us to switch um due to the timing and wanting to maintain consistency of a communication platform. Um, even though the price is going up, Parent Square is working with us to divide out the percentage of the amount that it's going up. So, the contract that you guys have in front of you, that amount is the same. We're not going over that original that it was last year. Um, so we did work with them on not taking the full percentage up. >> Thank you. And I will say again just from a personal anecdote that this is the same vendor that the district where I teach that the district I teach
154uses and they also their contract price increased for this year as well. So >> now I think most districts in Kentucky use parents square for as a result of this bill. Yeah, it it fits the particular requirements that are outlined in legislation. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any further questions? >> Okay, Dr. Ligan. >> All righty. Thank you all. Um, as you may recall, our plans for Henry Clay High School include um the addition of a school-based health clinic and that partner and and it's a partnership with Health First Bluegrass to provide consistency for our students. We begin contracting the nursing services with them during the 2526 school year and we would like to continue that uh for next year. So that's why you have this contract there. If you have any questions, our health services
155coordinator Debbie Bolan can answer those. >> Sorry, I was muted. Any questions board members for Miss Bowman? Okay, our next 15 consent agenda items are contract renewals with vendors who provide direct services to students with special needs. Um, our executive director of special education, Adam Liy, can speak to those if you have any questions, although he may be limited since they are possibly uh will identify particular students. >> Any questions for Mr. Chair Murphy >> Murphy. >> Thank you. Just because this is the end of the contract renewal on the list, I just wanted to reiterate a thank you to the staff for working so diligently to see about getting um these prices u reduced on these contract renewals. So, thank you for those conversations and that work. >> Thank you. Okay, the next three
156consent agenda items are related to current facility projects and initiatives. If you have any questions about those, myin um can answer as well as we have our architects and engineers prepared to respond as well. >> Any questions board members for Mr. Thompson or our engineers and architects? >> Dr. Le, >> thank you board members. Uh that concludes our consent agenda for the 22nd, but under our action item for that night, we will have two payments in lie of taxes agreements. Um, if you have any questions about that, I do know that several questions were sent in and shared um with the board previously, but those are the pilot agreements that were discussed um at the previous meetings, both of them, I believe, in May. We have we'll be bringing that back again at the end
157of this month if you have any questions now that you'd like to discuss. And I'll also add uh to what Dr. Lian shared that they uh the equity council committee did discuss them. Was that last week? Last Thursday or last >> month was it was last week. >> Last week. Yeah. Everything's ran together. This is the end of the school year. Um and they are also um uh following the same process the board followed of gathering questions, submitting them to Dr. Matthews and then we're working on getting them their responses. So the equity council questions and the answers to those will be shared both with the equity council committee and with the board and then they will be discussing them at their next meeting uh which will be the 16th I believe. Is that correct
158green? Um u it it's before our board action meeting. Is that right Dr. Matthews? The >> Yes, that is correct. 16. >> Yeah, June 16th. And then um and then we'll cons those those will be on the agenda for the action meeting. So but those questions and answers will be shared uh alongside what you've already received from the board. Okay. Thank you Dr. Ligins. Uh next on our agenda is a uh Oh, were you finished? Dr. >> I am now. I can turn the meeting back over to you. >> Okay. Uh, next on our agenda is a time for members of the public to address the board on any topic district related concern. Bay County Board of Education policy 01.545 states members of the public may address the board during the period says set by
159the board without submitting an agenda item. No action shall be taken during this portion of the meeting on issues raised by employees of the public and listing an emergency by the board. Uh, the time for speaking tonight will be three minutes. We do have one individual who signed up to speak in the room. They'll come forward to the podium. The timer will appear on the screen in the room and I'll ask that they keep their remarks to three minutes or less. Our speaker this evening is Mr. Larry Moore. Mr. more. I want to speak to uh your fiduciary duty under Kentucky law because of the two pilot agreements on this agenda place that duty front and center. The pilot is not simply a partnership gesture with the city. is a tax expenditure. It reduces the
160district's revenue in exchange for a promised future benefit. And under KRS160.290, this board is legally responsible to ensuring that any decision affecting district finances is based on independent, accurate, and complete financial analysis. What we have been given for the roast tower and the Midland station does not meet that standard. Both presentations are the developers created marketing documents. They are not financials models. They do not include a net present value analysis comparing full taxation to the pilot. A physical impact analysis estimating student generation or service costs. A yearby-year cash flow projections showing the the effect on the district's fund balance, sensitivity testing for occupancy, inflation or construction risk or any independent validation by a public finance firm. Without these, the board cannot determine whether these pilot create a net gain or a net loss for FCPS.
161Without that that determination, the board cannot meet its fiduciary duties. This is especially important given the district's recent two financial history, two Moody downgrades in seven months, reliance on a loan, and ongoing concerns about internal controls. When a district is already under financial pressure, approving a revenue reducing agreement without independent analysis is not collaboration. It is risk. I want to be clear. I'm not speaking for or against either development. Both may be ultimately good project, but the question before you is not whether the projects are good for the city. The question before you is, are they good for SCPS? And you can't answer that without the proper analysis. Approving a pilot without independent financial review would be adding to a growing ledger of weak governance decisions. It would signal that this board is willing to
162rely on the developer assurance instead of its own statutory responsibilities. I'm asking you to to do the responsible thing. Commission an independent finance analysis before any vote. Require MPV modeling, physical impact analysis, cash flow projection, and sensitivity testing. require the same level of vigor that any well-run district would demand. Your duty is to the students and taxpayers. Thanks. >> Thank you, Mr. Moore. That concludes our public comment period. Our next item of business is a motion to make the agenda dated June 8th, 2026, on which action has been taken this meeting part of the minutes as if copied in the minutes verbatim. Is there a motion to that effect? So move. >> So move. >> Motion by more Christian green. All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? >> I. >> Motion.
163Motion carries 5. As Dr. Lian indicated, we do have a need to go into close session. So at this time, I'll entertain a motion to enter close session pursuant to CARS61.810 810 section 1 paragraph B for deliberations on the future acquisition or cable property KS61.810 810 section 1 paragraph K. Meetings required to be conducted in privacy by law and KRS 156.557 section 6 paragraph C preliminary discussions related to the evaluation of the superintendent. The board will reconvene in open session if necessary to take any action required pursuant to discussions uh conducted during close session. I'll now entertain to motion to enter close session for the stated reasons. Is there a motion? So >> move a motion by green. Is there a second? Second >> second Christian. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any
164opposed? Motion carries 50. At 7:51 p.m. The board is now in close session. Up the The world Oh, the world. >> [music] >> Hey, hey, hey. Down. Hey. Hey. of the world. The world of the world the world of the world. Uhoh. Do we have everybody? Okay. The board left close session on a motion by board member Green, a second by board member Christian. The vote was 5-0 at 8:22 p.m. Our business having been concluded, I'll now entertain a motion to adjourn this planning work session of the Faget County Board of Education. Is there a motion? So move. >> Motion by Bora Green. Is there a second? Second second by Christian. All in favor of returning say I. I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries 5. It's 8:23 p.m. We stand adjourned. Thank you all.