SHPSD Committee and Board Meeting (5/8/25)

001[Music] Hey [Music] baby. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey. [Music] And he wants you to use I said one that carried coke in the drink. [Music] Comedian order. Personnel Committee come to order roll call. Bella Cheney present. Miss George Porter present. Dr. Kelly here. Mr. Watson here. Mr. Jackson, first item receive and consider for approval 202526 exceptional service contract. Mrs. Miss Leah. [Music] Ah, good evening board members. Uh, good evening evening everyone. Uh, we have six contracts before you uh that I'd like to submit for approval for speech therapy. uh adaptive p. Well, you don't have the copies. The copies are attached to board dots. um speech therapy, adaptive a AP, um gifted and talented services, um and first choice therapy, which provides our occupational therapy and our physical therapy. Um

002so I'm asking for the board to approve those uh contracts which are attached in the boards. I so move fourth quarter. Yes. particip next item. Receive personnel updates and workforce dashboard. Good evening. All right. So, we have a few um things happening on our personal report this month. This month we did um hire three new three new hires. So we're excited about those those positions and then um unfortunately we had five uh terminations and one resignation and we are hiring for uh because of those um separations from the district. We are advertising for a few more additional positions and they are listed at the bottom of the personnel report. Then um if you look at our human resources dashboard report um some things that has changed u some of the announcement we are we have

003recognized some of the our employees such as for teachers appreciation our bus drivers and our administrative assistants uh we are still working with the same for alternative certification programs. Um we are in the process of scheduling interviews for custodians. Our recruitment video has been finalized. We are working to pro uh purchase a new background check machine. Assignment letters are going to be prepared for the 2526 school year and the evaluation process is still ongoing. The staffing needs are the same uh position that's listed on the personnel report here. our upcoming things that we're doing. Like I said, we're going to be doing custodian um appreciation um next and then our food service uh employee staff will be uh appreciated and recognized as well for all their hard work and dedication. Do you all have any

004questions for me? So is it um are you planning to reach out for some like a job fair or something like that? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. We are going to make a draw for Miss Jackson's going to uh present on that in her report a little bit later on for teachers, right? For teachers. Yes, ma'am. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Anyone have any more questions? So this concludes the personnel committee budget and finance committee come on a quarter. here. Glenda Cheney here. Dr. Kelly Joseph here. Miss Ashley Castle here. Miss Tracy Wat present. Yeah. Uh received 202526 operating budget for consideration and approval at June 12th, 2025 regular board meeting. Miss Ashley. Hi, good evening board members, president, superintendent, and community and directors. How are you all today? I hope all is well. I

005am here for two reasons. The first one is for our adjustment to our 25 our 20 324 our 2425 school year budget adjustment. All righty. Our um proposed budget it included the revenue of 9.8 8 million and our expenditures of 11.1 resulting in a shortfall of approximately 1.2 million. So if you look in the document that I just gave you on page six, you will see for our 2025, you will see our projected adjusted and our budgeted information for our local sources, our state sources, our federal sources, and our other financing sources. So, our local sources was adjusted 120,000. Our state sources were adjusted 134,000. Our federal sources was adjusted 1.3 million. And our other financial sources was adjusted $502,570. So for our proposed budget, it um it also included the 1.3 transfer for capital

006fund projects that we have discussed previously in the past regarding our um upgrades to ELC. So that is basically for our adjustments that I am coming to ask that we amend for our 2425 budget. Next, it will be the introduction for our 2526 fiscal year school budget. All righty. As we transition into the postcoid funding landscape, the budget reflects key changes to our revenue streams and our planned expenditures. So we are at the conclusion of COVID and ESSER funding. In 2025, we received 1.3 million in ESSER related funds and 66,000 in indirect general fund revenue. These are no longer available for the fiscal year 2026. Our MFP funding shift. While we experienced a $150,000 decrease in our fiscal year 2025, we expect a $450,000 increase based on our current increase in our MFP funding for

007our 2526 school year. For our local revenues, minor increases are expected in our Avalorum tax collections with flat projections for sales tax revenue. Just a brief overview and some high points for our 2526 school year. The proposed budget is balanced and it reflects prudent financial planning for our revenues 17.9 million. Our expenditures 17.3 million and our surplus for the school year will be $520,000. So we will be starting our school year with the surplus. Any questions? Any questions about the budget? So, I want to thank Miss Castle for getting up and presenting to you all this evening. As you all know, she has been really working diligently to fix all of the um issues and the challenges that we faced in the finance department as a result of, you know, a lot of uh employee

008turnover. Um so uh they are still working on uh getting all of the work done in finance department uh operating smoothly and they are closer to getting that done um than they have been previously. So we're very excited about uh the transitioning uh within the department. So tonight she has provided with you all um the amendments to the 2024 2025 budget and is also presenting to you the budget for 2025 2026 fiscal year. So those are two things that need to be approved by the committee. Can we get a motion to approve the 2025 2026 operating budget? No, wait. It's the introduction. It's the introduction. It's the introduction. The we're asking for you to approve the adjustments, the amended the amendments for the 2024 2025 fiscal year. and then um add that and add that.

009And then for 2526, this is the introduction of the budget and we will be advertising and sending out information and letting the public view the information and you all view the information and for our July meeting to approve the budget. The June the June for June to approve our budget. Yeah. So we do a motion to approve the 2425 minutes. I move to approve the amendments of the 2425. Yes. Yes. You second. Second. And we need a motion to approve the 2025 fiscal introduction of budget. Get to vote for the amendment first. Okay. Miss Linda Cheney. Yes. Miss Lolita Porter. Yes. Mr. George Hugh. Yes. 30 motion care to vote. Now I move to Um 2025 26 introduction of the 2526 budget. Yes. Miss Linda Cheney. Yes. Miss Lolita Porter. Yes. Mr. George Hugh. Yes.

01030 motion car. Refer to the full board to votes. Thank you. Next item is to receive and consider for approval proposal from coder layman and company CPA and business advisor conducted the 202425 fiscal year audit. What's the salary schedule? You skipped over number four the salary schedule. Oh, I'm sorry. receiving considerable approval 202526 salary schedule. Yes, committee. We uh have finally completed the uh salary schedule for the 2520 2025 2026 um fiscal year and there are just a few uh minor adjustments. Um the first is on page 10 um for the differentiated compensation. Once again, that was a requirement by the Department of Education that we include this language about the differentiated instruction in our salary schedule. Um, and this of course is for differentiated pay for uh the different types of uh jobs that

011we have that are uh in high demand. Uh so we've discussed this in uh previously, but that is the thing once again that needed to go into our salary schedule. Um, also, um, if you look on page 12, we did more, uh, clarifying language, um, about the pay structure and requirements for our coaching staff. So, it deals with the coaching roster, making sure that our athletic director um, ensures that the roster is submitted in a timely manner prior to all of our uh, sporting events uh, begin. And we also have um how to handle changes when uh during the school year when coaching staff uh needs to be adjusted, attendance verification and other administrative uh responsibilities. So there's some clarifying language that has been included in that portion of the salary schedule. Besides that, there

012are no other changes. And so with that, I'm asking for the committee to approve the 2026 salary schedule. I think I get a motion to approve 2025 2026 salary schedule by Mr. George by M. Next item. I'm sorry. Roll calls. Mr. Cheney, yes. Mita Porter, yes. Mr. George Hugh, yes. Three motion care refer to the full board to vote. Next item receive and consider for approval proposal from CER slaving and company CPS and business advisory to conduct the 2024 fiscal year audit. We did receive one bid, you know, as we spoke uh in previous uh at previous board meetings about the need to change um our auditing firm. And so we do have one bid, one bidder that came in and it is Cer Slavin and Company and they have worked with and they continue

013to work with 15 other school boards from across the state and they do come highly recommended. So, um, we're asking for approval that we move forward with this new auditing firm. Um, as you can see, the cost for the service will be $60,500. Go ahead. Can you get Can I Yes, ma'am. Okay. So what what public school district are they working with just to name a few? They have Allen Parish of Boils, City of Baker, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Iberia, Jackson, Lafayette, Madison, Sabine, St. Landry, St. James, Vermillion, West Carol, and Win Parish. Let me just add um since I've been here, we have been working with our current auditing firm and during our audits, they have had turnovers which have made things so much harder on us and have extended the time frame. So during

014this time we have experienced last year two turnovers while we were in our audit. This year we have experienced three turnovers while they were currently doing our audit. We are currently in still in the 2023 24 audit that should have been completed. So my suggestion to Dr. Joseph was to switch firms so that we can present our audit in a timely manner so we can no longer have that bump and downfall on our end. So, but we have been working diligently with them to get this process done and hopefully for our next board meeting, we can present our audit and we can move forward with our next one to be on a better time frame and have it presented to you all in a timely manner. Mind Cheney. Yes. Mind Porter. Yes. Mr. George Hughes.

015Yes. 3 motion here. Refer to the full. Thank you. Next item. Receive and consider for approval 202526 bid winners for asylent of food service products and services, waste disposal services and pest control services. Good evening board and committee. On behalf of the district, I would like to ask the board and the committee to approve the 2026 bids awardees in the following category. fresh fruit and vegetables, processed food, frozen foods, paper and chemical supplies, bread, milk, pest control and waste. I would just like to highlight a few just a few points in this um bid. If you would turn to page two, you would see how many inquiries that we had in the different categories and the returns. This year we have two new vendors. Uh in milk we have Perry Farms is which is a

016very new vendor and for frozen food and processed weas we have SNW Whole Foods um as well as Gold Star which is considered pawns. Um, these two beds are very lengthy and we had to go through them. But just looking at it look like the beds are half and half with these beads also. Um, that was considered like part two partial bids. And then with the paper bed and the uh chemical bid um they had um two syntax and economical for the be. So I'm not going through all this. You have it all in front of you. All the letters that's going out, the documentation um that will be going out tonight um on your approval. um we can get this process started with these new vendors. Do anyone have any questions about anything? It's

017a lot of information. And uh I do want to say with the milk um with the milk vendor um I think it took a lot of people by shock because they wasn't expecting this group people to come in and take over. But I think everybody is all out to make sure that they get in the game. So we got some we got some comp this year. So with your approval, we can get the ball rolling on these uh the new year bids. Second chain. Yes. Porter. Yes. Mr. George Q. Yes. 30 motion car refer to the full board to vote [Music] policy committee will come to order. Roll call. Mr. Alson Travis absent. Miss George Porter present. Miss Linda Cheney present. Dr. Kelly Joseph here. I will serve as the chair. Miss Lolita Pter will

018serve in Mr. Trader's voice. I'm requesting an item be added to the policy committee. The item is to receive and consider for approval converting from board docs to assembly eboard solutions management software. Board docs assembly item. First item on agenda receive and consider for approval memorandum of understanding between S. Parish School Board and Greensburg Police Department to provide a commission postcertified deputy at designated schools within the parish. Yes, as you know, uh Gregory Tiller is our new school resource officer or school safety officer at the college and career academy. Uh we did complete the memorandum of of understanding um that clearly states that the school system will be responsible for all payments and benefits and all things uh dealing with the SRO and the Greensburg Police Department will be responsible for ensuring that uh he

019maintains his commission. And so that memorandum of understanding was signed uh by uh Chief uh Beerus. And so we're asking for the board to approve thisou so that it can be submitted to um the state so that we can move forward with receiving funds from that particular grant. Can I get a motion to approve that? I so move. Motion by Miss George Porter. Second. Second by Miss Lolita Porter. Questions? No questions. Vote. Miss Linda Cheney. Yes. Miss Lolita Porter. Yes. Miss George Porter. Yes. 30 motion carried refer to the full board to vote. Next item is to convert from board docs to assembly. Yes. So uh board docs is moving away from uh or they are turning into what's called diligent community and so we have until uh September 30th to either make the choice

020to continue with diligent community which I do not recommend but that we switch to assembly. Assembly is highly recommended by the Louisiana School Boards Association and there is also a discount to purchase that service along with the new LSBA policy module which is a really good uh service and we did have a meeting with assembly and we do like the features that they provide. Um along with that they also allow for better communication among staff and it also uh allows us to align our strategic plan with the things that that are going on within the board meeting so that there is evidence to show that we are working toward achieving the vision within the district. So I'm requesting that we uh transition from board docs to assembly. Can I get a motion? I move motion

021by Miss Porter Joyce Porter. Second by Miss Lolita Porter. Any questions? No questions. Vote. Miss Linda Cheney. Yes. Miss Lolita Porter. Yes. Miss George Porter. Yes. 30 motion care. Refer to the full board to vote. Billing the ground committee will come to order. Roll call. Mr. Alton Travis absent. Miss George Porter present. Mr. George Hugh present. Dr. Kelly Joseph here. Mr. Edward Gon here. Okay. Um I promise I will serve as the chair. First item grievance receive and consider for approval 202526 professional service contract with Curtis Environmental Services to provide environmental sampling reporting service and scholars. Uh we're going to ask that you defer that one. Uh we we received it but they had some things that needed to be corrected. So we we we uh we send it back and we going to defer

022that to the next uh meeting. All right. So we'll tape that item to the next meeting. Okay. Next item receive and consider for approval 202526 professional service contract between Sling School Board and US A5 extinguishers and safety lights. Mr. Din. Yes. We asking that you consider that one. That's that's the regular person that's been doing it for quite some time. Uh the uh the owner changed, but this gentleman been working with the owner for a while as you know. He uh he the old guy got sick and parish. So uh we but we certainly move with same company and they've been continuing uh the service throughout the year and so uh we hoping that the board will consider and uh approve that one. Same company, same price, same company. A little twerk in the in

023in the price. A little twerk in the price as as we know. Yes. But uh uh the percentage is very low. All right. Very low. Can I get a motion? I move. Motion by Miss George Porter. Second by Mr. George Hughes. Any questions? No questions. Vote. Mr. Cham. Yes. Mr. Porter. Yes. Mr. George Hughes. Three motion car. Next item. receive and consider for approval preventive maintenance agreement with uh Sharky Mechanical Service for the period July 1, 2025 uh through June 20 June 30, 2026. And yes, once again, uh this is the same company that we've had for a minute. Uh unfortunately, I have to say the same thing to the the owner of that company Parish, but it has been left in very capable hands. And uh Dr. Joseph uh met with them on on

024last week and there was some very very small changes to the price a little uptick uh but wasn't nothing un unreasonable but and I'd like you to consider uh uh them going forward. We've been satisfied with it. Can I get that motion? Motion by Mr. George Hughes, second by Miss George Porter. Any questions? No questions. Vote. Linda Cheney. Yes. Miss George Porter. Yes. Mr. George Hill. Yes. 300 motion care refers to the four boards today. Thank you. Next item. Education committee will come to order. Roll call. Miss Lolita Porter. Yes. Miss Virginia Bell. Miss Linda Cheney. Present. Dr. Kelly Joseph here. Miss Valdez here. Miss Latia Brown here. Miss Nettle here. Dr. Joshua John Paul here. Miss Singleton here. The first item receive and consider for approval 202526 media proposal for flying ghost production uh

025company. Yes, we are requesting to that the committee approves the contract for flying productions for the 2025 2026 fiscal year and school year. Um there is u an increase in the cost. I believe it's just one time and I'll ask for um Mr. Davis to come up and maybe explain because he can explain better what will happen in his boardroom as a result of the increase. But um it does uh speak to uh some new things, the equipment and setup and purchase of equipment that we'll use uh when we're recording the board meetings. Um and then also looking at the recordings and the live streaming. So Mr. Davis, if you would please come up and explain exactly what will happen in the board. So we're going to uh permanently install these PTZ cameras inside the

026building and then have a room in the back of the schoolboard where the students can come and manage everything like I'm doing back here. So all that would be permanently installed. So it's just a a temporary or initial fixed cost to get the equipment that we need, which is duplicating everything you see except for these mics. And um yeah, that's it. So we'll be able to do everything in house and there'll actually be a sign that will let you know when they're live or when the camera's on so you won't have to worry about saying anything. But yeah, that's it. So administration is is recommending that you approve the contract with Flying Ghost Productions for the 2025 2026 uh fiscal year. Just about everything remains the same. There's some prices, you know, that go went

027up and then there are some that went down, but overall it's an $8,000 increase and that will cover the cost of, you know, the the setup and of the equipment and everything in this in this space. And then uh moving forward also remembering that if we don't um you know do a video or you know any type of project with them we won't be uh build for that particular uh service or project. So I'm asking for approval. So move [Music] second quarter. Yes. Miss Linda Chain. Yes. Miss quarter. Yes. [Music] This concludes our education committee and that concludes all of our committee meetings and we're moving right on to our board meeting. [Music] come to pray. Lord, once once again we come before you with thanksgiving in our hearts, Lord. Lord, we thank you just

028for another opportunity, Lord. Lord, thank you for another day. Thank you for safe travel for everybody that attended, Lord. And Lord, we ask that we keep at the forefront of everything that we do the children. We want to remember that all that we do is because of our greatest blessing, our young people. Lord, we thank you for just being you. Lord, give us strength as we leave this place. These things we ask your son Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The meeting room will come to order. We're now holding a meeting of the St. Louis Parish School Board. Roll call. Miss George Porter, present. Miss

029Lolita Porter, present. Miss Linda Cheney, present. Mr. George Hughes, present. Miss Virginia Bell, absent. Mr. Alton Travis, absent. Four members present, two absent. A form has been item B, approve minutes and agenda from April the 10th, 2025 committee meeting, April the 10th, 2025 regular board meeting, and approve the current agenda. Can I get a motion to approve those collectively? I move. Motion by Miss Joyce Porter, second by Mr. George Hughes to approve all of the meetings and agenda collectively. Any questions? No question. Shall pass by general. New business. Adopt the 20 25 millage and bond rates. I have a resolution in front of me that I will read and then we will vote on it. Be it resolved that the following millage are hereby led on the 2025 tax role on all property subject to

030taxation by Sing Paris School District 1063021 school district parishwide 2024 NR9.480 480 meals 1063020 school district regular 24 RF 3.380 meals 1063031 school district uh 2024 RS 5.0000 meals 1063048 school district parish wide 2024 NR 16.400 400 meals 1063047 school district parishwide bond 10.250 2550 mill. Be it further resolved that the proper administrative officials of the parish of Selena, state of Louisiana be and they are hereby empowered, authorized and directed to spread said taxes as here and above said for upon the assessment role of said parish for the year 2025 and to make the collection of the taxes imposed for and on behalf of the taxing authority according to law and the taxes during herein levit shall become a permanent lean and privilege on all properties subject to taxation as herein set forth and collection

031thereof shall be enforcable in the manner provided by law. The foregoing resolution was read in full. The role was called on the adoption thereof and the resolution was adopted by the following votes. Roll call. Miss George Porter. Yes. Miss Lita Porter. Yes. Miss Linda Cheney. Yes, Mr. George Hill. Yes, Mr. Virginia Bell. Absent. Mr. Alton Travis. Absent. This certificate I hereby certify that the forego is true and exact copy of the resolution adopted at the board meeting held on May 8, 2025 at which meeting upon was present and voted Greensburg, Louisiana 8th day of May, 2025. So can I get a we voted. Next item on the agenda. All right. LSU a center update. Dr. Gary Haye. Thank you, Dr. Joseph. The board members. I've got a little folder here I want I want to

032hand out to you. Just a couple of documents we put together to kind of show you what we're trying to do with services for H program. Sure. First, I won't make you read too much. Really, what I wanted to do is just introduce the board to myself and our staff and talk about some changes that we've got going on with the extension program. Uh, any of the they're not aware of extension. The cooperative extension program is part of the LSU a center. We are the educational outreach for the a center and we operate in all 64 parishes in the state. We have offices in all parishes. We typically have three areas of activity. One is called uh a and natural resources where we we work with farmers and producers and homeowners and anyone else uh

033that has need of educational opportunities. We also have a nutrition and community health program which we work with uh people in the community uh from with SNAPED and other programs that uh provide educational opportunities and and events uh to to help produce better and healthy healthy uh communities. And then third program is 4 which is our youth development program. And I know uh probably some of you are familiar with 4 program and maybe even hopefully have some alumni from the 4 program. So, uh, what I wanted to do tonight was just give you a brief update of where we are and where we're where we're going to try to be heading over the next few years. The first thing I'll say just in introduce myself real quickly. Uh, I'm Dr. Gary Haye. I'm a longtime

034livestock and dairy specialist with the egg center. I've been involved in higher education for about 50 years now. Even though I know I don't look it, but but I have. It's true. and I've taught taught at all levels from 4 to adult education college classes for many years. Um I came to St. Lina Parish about a year ago. I was the regional livestock and dairy specialist. My office was a meat but I've been over here now for about a year. I'm I'm in addition to be a regional livestock specialist. I'm also the parish chair or the parish administrator for all extension programs in the parish. Now uh so I'm kind of guiding and and directing the programs here. Uh we we do have made some changes in our staff recently and I wanted to introduce

035a couple new staff members. We we got them here with us and I'm going to ask them to they're standing up in the back of the room. The lady here in the back, young lady is Isabelle Ze. Isabelle is our new nutrition and community health agent. She's been with us since November and you've probably seen or heard her around the parish. She's been pretty busy, quite busy. Been involved in a lot of events already. Uh Isabelle is starting a SNAPED class next week. This coming Saturday at the library and it's every two weeks. Uh so she's involved in a lot of programs. Isabelle also since she when she came in since the first year, she's been uh guiding our 4 clover clubs program, clover buds, I'm sorry, clover buds over at the early learning center

036and she conducts uh classes over there from time to time. We've had some activities with them. Some of you may be aware we took a bunch of third and fourth graders to a magic on LSU campus last month and uh I think about 80 kids. Uh and and that way I had a ball. Uh really good educational trip for him. I did say I've got a slide presentations I was going to show but this room is a little crowded. So I'm going to say this. I do have a slideshow showing a bunch of pictures of 4 events and kind of things that we're talking about here tonight. Uh we just loaded up on our Facebook page. So, uh, there is copies if you'd like to go look at it. Very impressive, these two young people

037that put it together. The other person I want to introduce tonight is our new 4 agent as of May the 1st, Mr. Nicholas Muse. Uh, many of you probably already know Nick. Uh, he's been a ANR agent with Southern here in the parish for a few years, but he just transitioned over to LSU the first of the year and he's gone from doing adult work to 4H youth work. And we're really excited about having having uh Nick and I think he's excited about working with the young people. If all of you board members don't know, Nick spends quite a bit of time over here at the at the college and career academy working with the a science class. Miss Overton classes, they built a lot of raised beds, done a lot of beautifification around the

038school. Uh Nick and the class also helped put together with Mr. uh Mr. Scott last month some new raised beds for the early learning center. and we went over and and planted some materials in and the kids had a ball with it. So, we're excited about where we're going. Um, our other staff member in our St. Lena office in addition to us three is Miss Sharon Holden. Many of you may probably know Sharon. She's a long time born and raised here in the parish. Uh, come back to us about a year ago, a little over a year ago. And, uh, Sharon's kind of the glue that keeps all of us together. Sharon, in addition to knowing everybody in the parish, she uh she worked for many years as administrative coordinator for a school superintendent in

039Georgia. So, she's very familiar with all these educational programs. I haven't been able to stump her yet. Whatever I ask her to do, she gets it done before I get back to my office. So, we really are proud to have Sharon. What I what I got in this in the little folder I gave you tonight is a couple of documents we've put together that I wanted to share with you. The first is uh goals for the St. Lina Parish 4H program. And this is kind of an outline or a roadmap for our five-year plan for our 4H program. And I'm not going to bother go reading through all of it, but it tells you kind of where we've been in terms of enrollment. Our numbers have been down. We only had 47 kids in the

040parish uh this current school year in 40 in 4. Uh we're hoping to increase that significantly over the next few years. I wouldn't mind seeing three or 400 kids in this parish enrolled in 4 and I think we can get there. Uh we don't have a whole lot of volunteers right now. So, uh if you see my number come up on your cell phone, you better watch out. I'm going to be asking you to volunteer or asking for money, one of the two. Uh so, we're going to try to make a really strong push to get a lot more volunteers involved with the program. I know we have a lot of expertise in this parish. I've been here long enough to meet a lot of people and see that there's a lot of really really

041finite knowledgeable people here. You just got to get them to come out and donate a little time to us. Um the third thing we're going to be working on and that's this what the second document I'll get to in a minute is financial support. Um in order to efficiently and effectively run a 4 program, it takes a lot of financial support. We don't get state dollars to support the events and activities that these kids do. We rely on, you know, gracious donors to to help us put together these programs. So, one of the things we've done is design a new fundraising program for our 4H foundation, our Saint L 4H foundations. And uh you can see from the the first there, it kind of defines that what we're going to try to be doing here.

042And basically, we're going to try to raise money for three main purposes. The first is we want to raise money to support these kids activities. I'll be honest with y'all. Right now, we got $995.17 in our foundation account, which is not much money to do anything. I'm hoping that from this point forward that we can start putting 20 to $30,000 a year in that 4H foundation account so we can sponsor these activities. The first thing I want to do is is provide the youth in this parish with some lowcost opportunities to be be involved in 4 events and activities. The first of which is I'd like to see start in the fall. In the fall, any child in this parish that wants to sign up 4 will be it won't cost them and their family

043anything. We'll have money the foundation to pay their their state registration dues, which is not a lot of money. It's five or$10 dollars. But that's one of my first goals. There's also some information in here about that I want to share with you real quick. Um, you see a section on parishwide events and programs. Since I've been here and kind of watching and learning, we don't have a lot of we don't have any parishwide 4 events in this in this parish at the at the time. I know years ago I've talked to a lot of people that came through the 4 program said they used to have them and we're going to get them back. One of the things I'd like to do is have a parishwide 4H achievement day here next spring. little too

044late in the year to get started this year with that, but we're going to try to do that probably next April or March, April or May. We're in the planning phase of that now. Uh, and I'm sure some of you if you've been through 4H achievement days here or other parishes, it's a lot of fun. A lot of good activities, learning opportunity for kids. The other thing I want to do is start a junior leader club. uh we don't we haven't had an active junior leader club and we got a lot of kids that are you know in high school that have been through 4 many years and getting ready to graduate and and uh they're looking for other opportunities and we're looking for volunteers and I think those kind of people we we could

045really use to help boost the younger kids in the program. Uh one other section I'll talk about in here is uh we want to create a mainland Parish 4 alum association. anybody been through 4 in the past and particularly the kids that are now, you know, growing up and graduating out, we want to make sure we maintain contact, interact with them and keep them on board and and helping and supporting the program. So, that's that document. The second one I'm going to show you here real quick uh is in addition to putting together a kind of a roadmap for our 4 program, I've also been working on putting together a road map for our sponsorship program. how we can go out and create get sponsors to help uh donate to help these kids in their

046activities and their events. And what I've got here is a document. It's just a little three-page document that we're going to be putting out to everybody in the parish. Uh and we're asking for donations. And if you go through and look at this, you can see in the first page again, I'm defining what we're going to use this for. It's not going to support salaries. It's not going to support travel for our agents or anything else. just going to support activities for the kids and activities for the volunteers and also if we need to buy any any equipment. I can tell y'all right now the 4 program is single parish we have we have six archery targets three recurve bows and nine compound bows about that's the total of our work these kids and teachers

047we got a lot of a lot a lot of potential demands and things that we could we could do one of the things I'd like to do we've got two solar clubs in parish one of the solar clubs miss Shirley Freeman using a bunch of SW machines that were donated to us by Livingston Parish 4 when they got new machines. I love buyers and we're going to get there. I promise you. So, if you look at the second page of this, this is just kind of a brief outline. We haven't really finalized all this yet, but you will see this is a little just a little form you can fill out. Anyone can fill out to donate to the program. Uh we're working on getting this form online. You can go to our Facebook page

048or our website and click on that and bring up the form and you can actually contribute anyone to contribute right there online. Use a credit card or however you want. We're not there yet, but we're going to get there real quick. One thing I want to point out about this is I've done something a little bit different. I work with the state 4 foundation to help me come up with these ideas. You'll notice on the second half was this partnership level. One of the categories I put in there, of course, we're we're all looking for companies and businesses or anybody else that can donate, you know, $10,000 or $20,000 to us, but we also want to engage everybody's parish. got a section in there that says clover co anyone can donate any amount of money

049starting to $5 that they would like to club so to the foundation. So my thinking there is if you got $10 and you want to join donate to 4 you will pay the 4 membership two kids. That's kind of my my idea of playing out and this whole program is designed around uh the national 4 program. They have they have a new 5year theme they're calling beyond ready. And uh you see on the last page there, this is just a flyer I got from Louisiana 4 foundation. Louisiana 4 has also adopted that same theme. And the the basic thing is that these kids come through 4, by the time they get to be graduating high school, they're beyond ready to go go secondary education or trade school or wherever they want and be successful. So,

050but this just gives you some of the statistics the state office about kids in the state are enrolled. So, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about. Uh, we have a lot of things going on right now as far as ANR. Uh we also have two other agencies not house in some parish but they have partial responsibility our registers housing also her responsibility she also miss Jesse Hoover is horiculture she is in Clinton County but she also does same responsibility and she comes over here a lot does meetings with our garden clubs and Mr. Warner halls deal days. She's into that several times. She and I have talked about doing maybe some master gardener class some other other projects over here a little bit later on in the year. I work I'm currently left

051in a master what we call a master calendar class down at fifth warden at the purpose center. It's a 10week class. We meet once a week for about three hours. We have 16 people in the class. It's I've been doing these these things for about 10 years all over the state. I kind of run them here this region. We've got 16 people from six different parishes in my class. First time I posted once and it's been really good. Tell people this is probably the most fun class I've ever had. These people are really enjoying it. They're all interacting and having a good time and they're learning a lot. We're all excited about that and the adult education programs we do as well as I just want to introduce ourselves to all of you. Thank you

052for your support of those school supports the extension program and we really appreciate that and anytime you have any suggestions or comments or ideas or complaints uh my cell phone is always available. I turn it off about 2 10:30 at night back. Before I leave, I do have two requests from all you coordinators. It's not going to cost you any money. Not to panic, but I do have a couple things I'd like you to help. Number one is we're in the process of rewriting the bylaws for our 4. We currently have a nine member board. I'd like to expand that to a minimum of 15 members. And I say a minimum, we have more than that. What I'd also like to do is give a little representation around the whole parish. So if you would,

053I'd like to have each of you as schoolboard members nominated somebody to your district. It could be a business person, just a community leader. One of you, you know, a couple of you have are already on the board, that's fine. Or a school board employee. Our current board has nine members and six of them school board employees. We love them. Not going to blame it. you just want to get more of them. The second thing I would like to ask you to do is one of the things we'd like to do is kind of show people in the parish all over the parish what we do as extension and what we're trying to do with our 4 nutrition program. Well, we would like to go around to each of your districts this summer and have

054a little kind of present to your constituents what we do and what opportunities we have and I'm up here tonight to ask you to think about that. You're willing to help us host that find a place to have a meeting in your business. If you're willing to come to the meeting and host it, that would be fantastic. We want to get out of Greenberg. We want to get out this whole parish and make sure everybody has an opportunity to participate programs. I can tell you working with with adults and the kind of work I do and I mainly do cattle work, pasture and also I spent a lot of time all over the parish because I get calls from people all over that have situations and questions. We want to expand our whole program. We

055want to make sure best we're engaging every child in this parish. So y'all think about that and uh I got all your emails. I kind of cheat. I got all your emails. I'm going to be contacting see willing to help and I will be honest with you also. I'm also going to go to the police year and I'm going ask your members to do the same. So if we can if we can do it all one time in your district be great. Thank you all again for for taking the time to listen to me. I know I'm talking fast. Try not to hold you up too much. We do appreciate all your support. All your support and like I said, anytime we can help you with anything extension office. I'm sure all of you probably

056know where we're at now. We're at the old tourist commission building out there on Highway 10. Nice little building. Glad to be there. So, thank you all very much for your attention. Thank you, Dr. Thank you, Dr. Next item, presentation of Flying Ghost Production Senior Interns Award. Mr. Fagen Davies. Okay. Yeah. The presentation um by Flying Ghost will be done uh at graduation next Friday. Thank you. Exciting recognition of 2025 technology fair winners Dr. Joshua John Paul Good evening board I'm excited to share the results of the technology fair. Uh this is the first time we are eventually 80 learners from both the schools. Um our learners display uh the incredible creativity, talent and technological skills during this event. We would like to express uh our sincere congratulations to all the winners and all the

057participants. Um their dedication, passion for technology are truly commendable and we hope they continue to pursue their interest in the field. Uh a special thank you to the teachers um mentors and parents and leaders who supported and encouraged the um innovators throughout this process. Um we also like to thank all of the um all the people who helped the learners in this process. Um um we look forward to seeing even more incredible projects in the years to come. Um I'm pleased to announce the winners of this techn this year's technology career. Um elementary level sha the first place under the category robotics and automation. The project title is robotics rumble. The winners are Kai Allen heard it last night. Uh, you always got something to say. That ain't yours. That is not yours. Uhhuh. Um,

058can you slide over so they can take a picture and get a little organized here up front? No. First place under the category digital creativity and multimedia. The project title is science kids social media marketing. Lee Alani. Hi Alan again. Can you get the gift for me? You double duty, Miss Ch. One, two, junior and senior level from um college and state academy. Uh the first place under under the category data science and analytics the project titled what's up measuring solar energy by clouds and robot mega. Uh the winners are de and first place under the category robotics and automation. The project title is robotic number two classic Elijah. [Music] Okay. Honorable mention of under the category coding and app development. The project title is uh coding aon code. Josiah Allen. Now two of the

059top winners will um briefly explain and demonstrate their projects. Uh first I would like to call upon D. Uh he will explain his project measuring solar energy by clouds in rural America. Followed by Elijah D. He will demonstrate his project on robotics rumble. entire will explain his project on first. What is the uh okay so I told I only had two minutes so I'll just briefly summarize it and answer any question okay so the big one yes it's a very funny There you go. So the project started by specifically measuring the solar energy came from a solar panel we have installed by the heart room and it quickly grew into measuring cloud density moisture into the air, precipitation, the temperature. We gained a lot of variables. Do you have any questions? Oh, please ask questions.

060So, you know what's what's up? What's up? That was the joke. Okay. installing our weather station. So, did you install the weather station? Yes, we had it we had it set up right next to the solar panel. We've been gathering information from it. We should have some posted on the board, but we haven't gotten very much. Okay. Wasn't it about like the types of clouds or something like that? So, there's no different cloud types we have right there affect the energy differently because the solar energy is reflected back up into the sky. So only the solar energy that hits the ground gets captured which is why we had to gain so many extra I think we just don't know really what to ask. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I'm not used to introducing this

061board to this Florida crowd. Uhhuh. I'm very nervous. So, did the work that you the I guess the results that you got from this work, does it meet what you thought it was going to be? Did it answer the hypothesis? Cloudy day, not much electricity. Gotcha. But then also depending on the type of cloud makes it even more. The entire process was look at the day, how much energy they did, go outside, look at the sky, see what cloud they are, contact NASA because they give us pictures from their satellites to see what they saw from space. Compare all of that together and then do a flowchart and do that multiple days in a row to compare information. Gotcha. Elijah, you have yours. fully and Python is the programming is the program that you use

062to do the robot. Gotcha. No. And that's the project. That's your robot. Prototype of the one that's out. That's awesome. That's a multiion piece of equip. So, how long did it take for you to create the to build a prototype? Two months. two months trial and error. So can you tell us what it what what is it going to do? Mhm. Some of like so for example if you talking about Southland steel at Southland Steel set of them using manpower they use these type of machines to move the equipment from place to place rather than human took them one year. One year. One year because they had to start from the very basics and that's what we started. We've come this far. Next year we're going to compete. Got [Music] good evening. So as we

063do about coding, it's sort of like as you say like a process on which certain actions happen through techn through technology like as we say we're trying to get these robots to go autonomously meaning to go by themselves doing doing a specific code. So with coding it's not just a do this put here put here just done. It's trial and error. You have to see what will work. You'll have to try new things. Like, trust me, that robot, it's a little bit hard to code, but it's easy once you get used to it. So, we've been trying to get these robots up and ready for competition next year. We're trying to get them ready, like have them ready autonomously, have them ready to go. trying to get these ready for competition like to dominate. So

064with coding we could try to coding can actually help us because majority of the challenge or I think it may be autonomous. So autonomous we could use that to help our robots win. So, as I'll say, these robots can do anything if it has a specific a specific code. I'll say that coding can help anything. Like, it can help specific things like in specific times, specific codes can happen. See, right now, this is just going remotely while if we use a code, we don't need to use the remote. we can just activate a code and it could just do what we want it to do. So if we learn to code, we could help the world easier. Like instead of like using robots by hand, we could have fire robots that could be controlled by

065code or police robots, anything. It could be the step of the future. So with all that being said, I think coding could be something great. I think that might be all my time. So daddy crying. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And ladies and gentlemen, these are the kind of kids we serve in St. Helina. And that is why we are St. Helena. Good job. A lot of times, you know, people in the community, inside the community, outside the community, they see our facilities, right? They they see those things and those things are nice, but it's what is happening in the classroom that really matters. and the things that are happening in the classroom are phenomenal. And so this is a prime example of that. So thank you very much, Miss Joelle, for all of

066the work that you put in to making this happen. She works year round. And thank you to our parents. Parents, please stand up. Let's please give them a round of applause. Thank you so much for all that you do. Um, anyone else we need to recognize? I see you. Mr. De Muse, you're with Miss um, Miss Joelle. Let's please give him a round of applause because I know that with our revised program and of course thank our children for doing a wonderful job every single day. Please give them a round of applause. That's it. Miss Joy, would you like to say something? We're working on uh we started with the basics and we're growing every year. So last year uh we had drones, we competed in regional and we got third place. We had underwater

067and Don did the coding for that. Yeah. Uh so we ran autonomously and with the uh remotes and they had spotters and it's a sport. Yeah. Okay. With the drones, right? Also the underwater robots. We do those. We we compete uh in the district at the region as well. So, and we won third place in that. We just want to get to first place. We're working on that. But we're working on grants with uh uh Walmart with uh Harbor Freight. Just found out about Nissan like maybe the possibility of Nissan um helping us with robotics. Uh we're trying to get organized. It's a lot of screws and a lot of nuts and a lot of bolts to keep up with. So uh y'all, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Next item, discussion on

068personnel and payroll records. Yes. Um, board, I just wanted to bring to your attention that we um we are conducting an audit right now between the HR department and our payroll department regarding all of our employee files and making sure that all of the employee files are um complete and accurate and up to-date and that there is a um there's better communication between the HR department and the payroll department to ensure that there are no discrepancies or errors with employee pay, employee positions, and all of the things dealing with um you know, employee and personnel u matters. Um we have Miss Watson here and Miss Jackson um that are are helping along with that and also Miss Castle. So, I'm going to yield my time. Just give you all maybe whoever wants to come up

069a minute to explain the process and how long this process is going to take. Hi. So, uh right now we are um pulling all the um information we are taking. And we're literally going one by one and we are we have our checklist that's available to make sure that we are a guide process that we're going through to make sure that we check off everything that's listed on there and if it's not we are making sure all those information are put in those uh the personnel files to make sure that it's accurate. We are also using our uh digital platform as well to make sure that we um streamline streamline the process as much as possible to make sure all the information that is paperbased we're trying to put all that information in our electronic

070files so that once it is stored there employees can have access to their records and then it'll be a smoother communication piece between both our departments. Um that process we are we're targeting working hard on it. We are trying to get it done by the end of May as so we're moving pretty swiftly with it. That's our target. You have any questions for me? Okay. And from the payroll side, we are trying to ensure that everyone is paid correctly. Our certified non-certified is paid correctly. Everyone is on the level. We have all of their previous experience, certificates up to date, everyone is on the correct pay scale, our dedu any deductions for IN's taxes, state, anything um for payroll. We're trying to ensure everything is correct for that. So that's the audit that we have

071between HR and payroll and we will stay on the same timeline with them and keep everything transparent from here for our current workers and our incoming work and our incoming item D superintendence report. All right. Um good evening board members, good evening community. I'd like to start off uh my superintendent report with our directors. We have a three minutes tops, please. Your uh please come up and present on your um things happening within your department. We begin with Miss Donna Jackson. Thank you for those five minutes. Greetings board. My name again is Donna Jackson. Um, wait. She passes out those voters. Our work is grounded in the district vision. Educator support and in our blueprint to excellent vital goal 7, a commitment to continuous improvement guides much of our work this year. In your folder,

072you'll find our recent results from our staff survey that helped us to determine most relevant professional development needs. Based upon this data, we have identified the key focus areas for the upcoming school year. We're looking at classroom management, DI, social emotional learning, technology integration, learner engagement strategies. These topics which will shape our professional development for all schools. Aligned with vital goal six, the community will become partners in education. We are taking actionable steps to build public confidence and engage local stakeholders. Take a look at our community job fair. We're excited to about our community job fair where we will connect schools with local businesses, collaborate about our internship opportunities for our high school learners, empower learners through realworld exposure, and enhance community outcomes and workforce partnerships. Any questions? At this time, I invite you to

073view our new recruitment video, which highlights our district's mission, staff, and why St. Helena is a great place to grow and serve. I'm Justin Davis, and I'd like to share with you why this district is the perfect place for passionate educators like you. Many of our educators have advanced their careers right here in St. Helina starting as teachers and moving up to become principles and district administrators. I didn't have an education um background. I came from a different career path, but I quickly found out how much I love teaching. So I did enroll in an alternative program here. Now I am going on this journey of leadership. So we do have a leadership program here where I do continue to teach But at the same time, I take on leadership roles and I also get

074a scholar. At Staint Alina, our commitment to your professional growth is unmatched. Through our partnership with Reach University, you can earn your degree with financial aid support from the district. It's almost like getting a free bachelor's degree while you teach. We believe in a 4-day work week, giving you the time to recharge and bring your best self to the classroom. Beyond our tangible benefits, what truly sets Sangelina apart is our vibrant and fun culture. From homecoming celebrations to literacy bashes to even sneaker balls, we know how to have a good time while also maintaining a strong sense of community. Here you can truly win both professionally and personally all while making a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of Santa learners. Join us at Sanina Paris School District where you'll find not just a

075job but a community dedicated to excellence in education and a place where you can thrive. Together we can make a difference. Visit our website and apply today. All right. I love it. All right. This has been a week of celebration and gratitude and we want to thank the board for your unwavering support. We appreciate you. So this is a little something from the HL department. It's been nice. Make us feel special. Thank you. And again we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Music] All right. Next we have Miss Latia Brown, director of post-secary opportunities. So good evening everyone. So now you all have learned about how we are um building our educator effectiveness part of our district vision. Now it's talking now it's time to talk about our increased opportunity for learning success.

076So in the office of postsecary opportunities if you can I also have a handout inside. You can follow along with me. I'm not going to read all of that because um Dr. JP only said I only had about two minutes to present. So I'm going to make it short and sweet and most importantly most shorter than Miss Jackson what she did celebration but okay. So if you look for our 2425 school year we serve a thousand learners with a 30% district truency rate. Um we're expecting 85% graduation rate as well. We have 64 learners that started in ninth grade with all of the learners we currently have now. That mean we have 10 learners who are considered legitimate levers. So we also have only four seniors that need to retest. So good job. Our numbers

077have been larger but we only down to four. So we expecting those learners to come back and retest in the summer. Um so we also have about 50 spring graduates and so the number difference if you look those 10 learners they are legitimate levers. So that mean that they withdrew from our school district from 9th 10th or 11th grade year and possibly their 12th grade year as well. So that's why the gap there as well when you look at that 64 and those graduates. Um so we have approximately 2.5 million in scholarships which is awesome as well for 50 learners. So that's another plus in learning success. Also, our summer virtual academy registration starts now. Everything is done online. So if you know anyone that's interested in credit advancement or need some credit recovery opportunities,

078they're more than welcome to sign up with our summer virtual academy and it will last from June 2nd to July 31st. And the last day of registration for our summer virtual academy is May 31st. just a few post-secary opportunities we offered this school year. All of our 10th and 11th graders participated in ACT prep courses. We also introduced a new ICV platform which gain the opportunity for our learners to actually participate in basic credentials earned on campus and we have 73% of our learners that earn those basic credentials. So that's another increase in learning success. Um, also we have 14 learners that were enrolled into a paid internship. That's definitely a increase in our learning success as well. 20 learners also participated in the CNA program with Royal Angels. And finally, we completed St. Helena's

079profile of a graduate. If you can click on the link, this is just a little teaser. Miss Jackson stole my idea and added a little clip, but I'm so thankful that Flying Ghost was able to work with me and put this little snippet together for you all to review. At St. Helena Parish School District, education is about more than academics. It's about shaping the future. Our profile of a graduate outlines the essential skills, knowledge, and character every learner should build, preparing them for college, careers, and life. We created the profile of a graduate to give our students a clear road map. It's a promise that they will leave us prepared, not just academically, but personally and professionally. Across all our schools, students are mastering the skills needed to lead, innovate, and thrive. This program ensures

080our students leave not just with a diploma, but with direction. Because the future isn't waiting, and neither are we. The profile of a graduate where tomorrow's leaders are made. This is St. Helena Parish Schools. Good deal. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the teaser. So, we hope to give you a full overview in June of what that looks like inside of our classroom. And just know that all of our learners participated in those activities. If you look on that back part, you'll see all of the dates that we assigned each component and each learner prek through 12th grade participated in each of those components. Any questions for the office of postsecondary opportunities. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next we have Miss Tracy Wulmarmac, director of nutrition and wellness. Good evening. Before

081I start, I do not have a video. Okay, no video. But what I am going to do is provide what we do and some of the outcomes. I would just like to say we provide nutrition and balance meals to ensure that our learners receive the fuel they need to learn, grow, and thrive. We focus on quality ingredients that is comp compliant with the dietary guidelines, a commitment for excellence in taste and nutrition. Um, I'm just going to touch a little this. Um, we did a um district uh taste test throughout the district which allowed our students to sample the food and we added um the product that they like the most to the menu. uh they received it really well and it helped them identify the food that they like and you know it's more

082enjoying when they like I like buying stuff that they like. Um, another one is like bidding pro process and I went over that. It's a tedious, it's very tedious with all these vendors and stuff, but I got through of it and it just makes sure that you have competition between other uh people trying to get the bids and stuff. Um, learning learners involvement. Um we talked to student counselors and um they gave us input what they wanted and um we made it happen. Uh in this process it gave the student a voice to say you know they listening to me you know so we made that happen. We also um districtwide we started back in uh the 1st of February trying to increase our participation. Our biggest school was the high school. I mean we

083had numbers like 150 kids sometime 200 kids that was not eating. As a result of the taste test and changing menus the percentages has really went through the roof. Right now all the schools is in a plus. We have no negative. I mean these schools um were the our biggest one was the high school was down they up like 20 20% in like our lunch and like about 10% in the uh breakfast because breakfast was always up. It was the lunch that's the big heavy gives us. So we see these things that we're doing is working for our students and we will continue to uh provide taste test and let our students have a voice. Um also we did surveys. We did a lot of surveys and we got a lot of good in um

084uh a lot of feedback from our parents as well as our um learners. and we use that and we also put our menus on the district website um that that way the parents can go in they can see what's going on as well as using social media as a platform to display what our food look like and the taste and we get um feedback from the community overall um everything that we this way we give our parents parents parents are engaged and can see what their uh students and self is eating. And last thing that I want to say is that summer be my program will be open start June the 2nd. Bring your kids out. Get you a free breakfast. You won't have to cook breakfast. You don't want to cook lunch. And they

085will tell you we do a lot of batch cooking. You know, fresh cooking. So come on. Lunch our breakfast start from 7:45 and end at uh 9:00. And lunch starts at 10 uh 10 10:45 and end at 12. So bring your kids out and let them eat eat free lunch and that's less you got to worry about. Thank you, Miss Tracy. Next we have Miss Leia Valdez, director of exceptional services. All right. So I'd also like to thank Miss Tracy for stopping the bleeding with those videos because I do not have one either. Uh again, good evening everyone. As a director of exceptional services, I am honored to share the incredible progress we've made this year in supporting our exceptional learners. Um in your folder, you'll have a handout uh that um displays some of

086our successes throughout the year. I'm proud to report that 22 of our 25 learners with IEPs or IAPS are on track to graduate next week. Um with two of those uh two of the of those 25 learners having another opportunity over the summer. Uh so that number speaks to the dedication of our learners, our families, and our staff. We've expanded our services to include alternative curriculum through unique learning system for our uh learners taking alternate assessment strategic pullout interventions and work-based learning experiences for our learners. Right now we have 10 learners registered for a workbased experience through opportunity now. Um just recently they um were given a chance to take online courses, a virtual course that they get paid for and so they engage in discussions. Um they learn about self- advocacy, college and career

087readiness, interview interviewing skills, um resume building and uh executive functioning. So um you know this program is is a highlight of our department because it really helps to prepare our learners for life after uh high school. Um we also have eight learners enrolled in project create which is a part of opportunity now. Um and we have 17 participating uh learners in opportunity now right now. uh focusing on social emotional learning like I said life skills executive functioning our related service providers have been uh they've done a phenomenal job this year ensuring access to speech language therapy uh occupational services I'm sorry occupational therapy and physical therapy as well as adaptive PE and English learner supports our educators have shown incredible commitment and growth this year uh we have 12 teachers Uh we started the year

088off with 13 exceptional services teachers. We have 12 that have participated in uh daily co-planning with our general education teachers. So kudos to our principles for making sure that they have that common planning time and that they are meeting in those uh PLC's. They also attend our monthly department meetings. They engage in that tier one curriculum training along with their partner teachers. Um and they also our uh exceptional services teachers also participated in a three-month IEP writing workshop series. Um the teachers also received training on developing transition plans. I was able to partner with uh Dr. Rory Ross from the LDOE. She came in and she did some training with our teachers to make sure that our IEPs are in compliance for transition services. Um and they also participated, our school district uh participated in

089a partnership with um the specialed best instructional practices cohort. So we were able to join a cohort that helped to support us with um our schools with scheduling with those best instructional practices making sure that we had enough time for extra time for learning uh for our learners. These professional learning opportunities have sharpened our skills and align our work with those high standards of special education instruction. Um, of course, every year um doing our best to make sure that we improve those practices. And so that's why this year we join that cohort to get that support from um New Solutions. Uh, New Solutions is an agency that partnered with the LDOE and they're providing support to school districts throughout Louisiana. And so we were chosen as one of those school districts um to get that

090support. Finally, strengthening public confidence in our work has been a continuous focus. Each month we send out SEAL surveys to families to track the development of key social emotional skills. Um and so in school our learners our teachers uh are teaching social emotional those five competencies of social emotional learning um in school and then the parents are sent information and activities along with the survey each month since January I'm sorry since February and so we have covered those five competencies to build um our you know responsible decision speaking, our self-awareness, social awareness, um those those five competencies, excuse me. We've also deepened community partnerships with Northshore Families Health and Families, Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, Synergy, uh which uh opportunity now falls under that umbrella, and others to extend our support network. We continue to prioritize family

091communication through our annual IP meetings, child search notices sent home three times a year and our special education advisory council which our next meeting will be May 20th at 2:30. Okay. And uh anyone can attend those council meetings. As we prepare for the summer, our extended school year services and project create program will ensure that our learners receive meals, transportation um for project create learners, they will receive transportation too, but because the program um our extended school year program runs from 8 to 12 and our project create program runs from 8 to 4. There won't be transportation for those project create learners, but those parents have been notified already and they will provide transportation home, but they will receive breakfast and lunch, some snacks um throughout the day. These initiatives reflect our department's ongoing commitment

092to equity, inclusion, and learner success. Um in your folders, I also have a flyer for Project Create. It's a registration flyer. explains more about what the kids will be learning over the summer. It's a two-week paid internship. The learners receive $12 an hour um to come to the high school and learn how to create flyers. Last year, they used um they used a program uh found a but they used a a media program to create flyers and invitations. So, they learn those things. they learn how to video and make videos um to post to social media. And so it was really fun and engaging for those learners. And so we do have some returning learners for that. Um that program will run like I said for the first two weeks of June, June 2nd through

09313th from 8 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. And then we have our extended school year services uh that will run from June 2nd to June 24th from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Okay. What's the what's the break level for this project? So, opportunity now and project greed is is a component of opportunity now. It's for our learners that are 16 and older with an IEP or an AP, an individualized ac um accommodation plan. So, I guess any other questions? I just throw I can get Come on. You should come in and watch. Come and witness. Those kids are learning. It's fun. So, thank you. All right. Thank you very much, Miss [Music] Valdez. Um, now we have Miss uh Saiaka Saiaka Singleton. Sh. I will never director of special programs initiatives. Miss Singleton. I got that

094right. Good evening everyone. I know Miss Valdez took about five minutes of my time. Uh but uh the majority wins. I do not have a video. Uh but I am excited to share updates from the department of special programs and initiatives tonight to uh and those will be centered around three key areas. our partnerships, our early childhood program, and our school improvement efforts. Uh the first uh we always are trying to reinforce our food security and demonstrate our community ties through our Lena's closet and food pantry uh at all three sites. The Lena's closets and the food pantries are completely active. Uh this is the first year that the uh pantries have been run at all three sites because when we started them, the early learning center uh started undergoing construction right after we got

095all of the equipment. Uh and this year we have received donations towards those closets from the ladies of Zeta 5 beta sorority incorporated for the early learning center and the arts and technology academy uh from United Way uh at the college and career academy and of course uh every year we do receive the uniform donations from St. Vincent Depal. Uh and along with the uh food bank, we also participate in the backpack program for our learners prek through sixth grade. And it's those prepackaged bags that they get to bring home. And they did have to sign up, but the representatives from the food bank did tell us that if we just see someone in need, if we have any extras, we can just give them out. even if it's someone at the high school that

096you know they don't typically service. Uh our sensational girls program continued for the third year uh hosted by Miss Angelie Keller. Uh this year uh we did learners in grades four through eight and she did uh six sessions but two groups at each school. Uh and of course that's centered around those uh girls empowerment activities. Um go jobs uh go jobs organization provides that workbased experience for some of our learners. This year we got an increase in one additional slot for our learners. uh and they work this year until June, but Miss Vessel did uh contact us to say that for this upcoming year, our learners do not have to wait until September to start. Our new learners can start in June. So, they'll work from June to June. uh and so we will be

097uh having a zoom call with them to go through that process to identify those learners that will participate in that program. And then a new initiative the ladies of integrity program uh hosted by the girls only collective. The girls only collective was founded by five young ladies two of which are St. Helina alum uh Miss Patient Muse Warner, Miss DeAndre Rob Morris, Kate Talbert, Kandra Jackson, and Miss Divine Dorsy. And they are bringing in a program to uh similar to uh Sensational Girls, but their program is designed to offer mentoring and support to our young ladies grades 7 through 12. So the scope of who they'll service will increase and they'll do a little different activities, workshops with them, but they have already started their work with us uh on graduation night. They will be

098presenting two scholarships to two young ladies and they also sponsored prom this year with the food and DJ uh courtesy of senior Devon Holiday who just mentioned it to them and they hit the ground running. So that was very appreciated. Uh for early childhood again our performance profiles from this year three out of our five centers were high proficient and then the other two were proficient which was growth because uh one last year was approaching proficient. So they did see that growth and from the visits that we've had the observations we've done it we they will maintain or increase. Uh and then prek of course we had two prek classes this year and we did receive word that we got the uh same aotment of seats this year the 40 seats which is two classes

099and prek roundup has begun. Uh I did go out and actually met with some parents at the head start. So a lot of those parents have started getting the applications in and they are really pushing uh the support with us because of course funding is being cut in all areas. Uh finally school improvement efforts. Uh I spoke at the last meeting about the Aogna accredititation review and just a quick um overview uh from our preliminary results for uh our different characteristics. Uh we were over a 3.0 in all areas and student performance on down all of those areas we were actually above the network average. But of course when we get the final reports we'll get more information. And then finally our high dosage tutoring started. We have 179 learners between grades kindergarten and five

100who are receiving tutoring in either math and or ELA 30 minutes a day three times a week. Um and in the folder is a uh packet uh uh reminiscent of the reports that we get from them. And the first is the like student satisfaction survey. So at the end of each session the learners get to do a little five question survey on uh if they thought it was effective, how they like their teacher, if they learned anything. And then the second page is just uh as of right now just some baseline information for how uh they are progressing across the grade levels in reading and math and those are standards that were identified as need uh standards by the principles at the schools. Any questions for me? Can you um provide some clarifying uh information

101about our COGIA accredititation? Uh also know we're district accredited um and have been since 2013. Um what is the for the analysis scores and that's that's out of four. That's out of four. That's out of four. And that is each of the so the narratives that we had to submit. Uh they scored them and those are our scores. And then they uh the actual report shows our score and then the network average for each of those. And we were above the network average and all of them except the stakeholder feedback if I remember correctly was a average. Good. That is awesome. Thank you. Another thing I just want to point out as well um uh in addition to the uh scores that we receive for our uh cogna reacredititation the early childhood performance profile where

102we receive high proficient that is tops in the state. So I want to be clear about that that is an accountability structure that is uh provided by the state for our um early childhood programs. So if you see our early learning center is rated as high proficient. So that means that that our teachers, our administrators, everyone at the school, they're doing a phenomenal job. They're they're knocking it out the park. So we do have Miss Smith here. Miss Smith, do you want to come and just say a few words about your high proficient rating? Please give it up for Miss Smith and her team and what she's done at the school. I apologize. because I'm not prepared, but I was kind of put on the spot. And our teachers, our staff, our entire staff, not

103just our pre-K teachers, they work in unison together as a family. So, that is what attributes to the growth that we see not only here, but our school, our school scores and dibbles, uh, early childhood. I'm just so proud of the work that I've seen this school year and look forward to success, continued success. Thank you, Miss And I would be remiss if I didn't ask Mr. McFersonson to come up and speak to his school and how he feels about testing because we just wrapped up LEAP 2025 testing and I just want everyone to hear how he feels about how well his uh learners will perform on the test. Yes, I did prepare a video. We are very excited though. We have a new um accountability structure that is impending across the state. We have

104been working hard and as my mom said, we've thrown everything and the kitchen sink at um this test. We've provided we've been provided with a lot of different technology resources as you saw our tutoring um through uh intervene and we're just really excited. I echo the sentiments of Miss Smith for our teachers at our campus. They're really working together. We've shifted to a common planning time across the subject area. So, our math teachers putting together ELA, so on and so forth. And we're excited to see the growth that our learners have made and will make on this assessment. So, we thank you all for your continued support. It's great to see you all. Our doors are always open and we invite you with open arms and a nice nice beautiful smile when you step on

105our campus. And we are always proud to be hashtag. And lastly, of course, we have Miss Butler. would you please come up? Um uh you know, as you know, we did have challenges at the uh at our high school um just with the climate and the culture. And I'm happy to have Miss Butler on our team. She has done a phenomenal job. She hit the ground running. And I just want her to just just give a little snippet about what she's experienced and then also share uh who our new assistant principal is going to be. Good evening. Um thanks for having me. Um as you as you guys know as Dr. has stated that I've just started. However, it has been a great experience. Um for our testing, um I listened to some feedback from

106the staff and um as a team, the testing coordinator and myself, we made some changes. Uh we put um all of the learners in our elected building for testing. So they were separated from um the rest of the letters to uh allow them to concentrate um and have uh just less distractions, right? Um but we with that being said, we are expecting um some growth, right? We are expecting some growth just from those uh minor minor changes. Also, our uh new assistant principal, Miss Trudy King. She will be coming aboard within the next uh week as well, and she will be uh focusing on discipline. Right. Any questions you all have? Thank you so much, Miss Butler. I did put them all on the spot, so they were ready, but you have to be ready

107at all times. All right. So, as we approach the conclusion of another productive and eventful school year, I'd like to share several important updates and upcoming events, uh we are preparing to celebrate the St. Helena College and Career Academy class of 2025 on Friday, May 16th at 7 p.m. uh at the stadium. Uh this year's commencement hold special meaning as we um honor three of our learners, Dorian Hughes and Vernon Garden Jr. will be recognized as honorary members of the class of 2025. Um, and honorary diplomas will be presented to their families. And then we have uh Jarvis Brista Jr. will be um awarded his high school diploma um accepted by family uh representative in his honor. um their families have been invited to attend the ceremony and will be seated in a place of

108distinction as we acknowledge the lives uh their presence and legacies of um these young men. Um we are concluding the school year with several key academic and recognition events. Uh the literacy fair is scheduled for Monday at 10:00 a.m. at the arts and technology academy. This event will showcase the literacy growth of our first through sixth grade learners. We also have the early learning uh center awards ceremony which will be held on Monday, May 19th. Our prek will start at 9:00, first grade at 10 o'clock, and our second grade at 11:00. Our kindergarten graduation will be Wednesday, May 14th at what time, Miss Smith? at 10:00 a.m. Our sixth grade graduation will be Thursday, May 15th at 10:00 a.m. And then we will have our senior graduation once again, Friday, May 16th at 700 p.m.

109The last day of school for all of our learners is Thursday, May 22nd. So, we're excited about that. Uh, some other upcoming events, we will have our teacher leader summit. A select group of educators will represent our district at the Louisiana Teacher Leader Summit in New Orleans from June 10th through 12th. Uh they will be participating in powerful professional development and leadership building sessions that um have been created by the Louisiana Department of Education. We will have a stakeholder lunchon. Uh we're proud to host our first annual stakeholder lunchon on Tuesday, May 20th at 11 o'clock at the Early Learners Early Learning C Center's Gymnasium. This event is dedicated to recognizing our invaluable business and community partners who continuously invest in the success of our learners and schools. Um, as everyone stated, we did have

110our teacher appreciation week this week. Um, we celebrated them. Uh, and our we had our bus driver appreciation. Um, I extend sincere gratitude to our school administrators and central office staff for coordinating special treats, meals, and tokens of appreciation. We also thank the many parents and guardians who expressed heartfelt appreciation to our educators. Your support uplifts our staff and reinforces the community bond that is so central to our district's culture. We also want to recognize Miss Leatric and Miss Dion for serving in their roles as administrative assistants. They do a phenomenal job keeping all of us in order and keeping and keeping us all together. So, thank you all very much. Once again, our summer programming, we're preparing for a robust suite of summer opportunities. Um, all of our summer programs will begin on Monday,

111June 2nd, and conclude on Thursday, June 26, and they include our summer virtual academy, third grade literacy program. Uh, this is a state man mandated program for identified third graders, and they all have been identified and contacted. our summer sports practices, extended schoolyear program for all eligible learners, our virtual remediation program for our learners who failed their last benchmark assessment and per pupil progression, they will be retained pinning the successful completion of 30 hours of virtual instruction. So this is to prepare all of our learners for the next year and start building up those skills so that they can be more successful on these exams. uh summer reading program. Our digital summer reading initiative will be available on our district website shortly. We are encouraging all parents to ensure their child's full participation. Learners who

112do complete the program and those who achieve mastery are advanced on week 2025 this year will be invited to our annual literacy bash at the start of the new school year. Uh we did have our ribbon cutting for our pocket park. So families in Greensburg will have a new place to play or just the entire parish actually to play, exercise, and spend time together uh thanks to the opening of this pocket park that is next to the track at the football stadium. This park was made possible through a partnership between LSU A Center's High Obesity Program, uh Louisiana Healthc Care Connections and the school district. Uh the new playground is open to the public and was celebrated with the ribbon cutting ceremony on April 10th. We had Miss Lolita Porter who was there to help

113cut the ribbon and so we appreciate that you were able to join us for that event. Um we also had the summer feeding program in project create that was shared with you all earlier by our directors. Um so as we close this academic year I'm reminded of the strength, the resilience and the unity of our St. Helina community. I want to thank uh our board, staff, families, and partners for your continued investment in our learners. So before I end everything tonight, I have got to recognize Justin Davis. Please come up, Mr. Justin Davis. He is our teacher over at the college and career academy. But guess what? He starred in the hit movie Sinners. Wow. So if you if any of you haven't seen it or if you haven't, all right, when you see him,

114you're going to jump out your seat and you're like, Justin, Justin, we are so proud of you. I'm going to give you um a moment to share with us that experience and um you know, just everything about it. He is very modest. He does not, you know, talk about it much, but uh it deserves, you know, attention and so we're going to provide that for him. Uh uh um Yeah. Yeah. So, it was uh cool to uh kind of put, you know, uh Greensburg, you know, in the uh you know, you know, and uh yeah, on notice, you know, for the world on notice. And uh it was cool. It was cool. It was cool. the students saw it and then uh I the learners saw it and uh I told them well I told

115some of them that they couldn't because it was uh you know rated R, you know, but uh they still saw it and uh they uh they liked it, you know, and uh it was cool for them to uh to have that uh I guess experience of uh someone who was in the movie and around them, I guess. So, uh yeah. Uh you know, he is so very modest, y'all. But when you see him in action, I mean, it's like he turned into this butterfly. I mean, it's it's amazing to see. and we're just so proud to have him walk our hallways with our with our learners, but then he also walked these hallways as a learner. And so to have him represent St. Helina Parish, right, in this school community is just phenomenal. So we

116need to recognize that and let everyone know that it's not just Justin. There are lots of other people in this community that are doing some great work out in the world and we need to celebrate that and recognize that. And I always tell people we punch above the weight here. We do awesome things because we have awesome people here and we need to always put that in the forefront. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. But name someone who is. Name an organization that is right. We do have our challenges. But we still come to work every single day. We get up every single day. Everyone in this community gets up every single day and we try it again. And we work hard for what we have. And that is why we are # saintina women. And

117with that, that concludes my report. Next item, approve committee reports from May 8, 2025. That's a move. Motion by Miss George Porter. Second. Second by Mr. George Hughes. Any questions? No question. Should pass for general [Music] consent. Next item, meeting closing, announcement of the next meeting will be June 12th, 2025. Closing comment. Board members, anybody have any comments? I just want to say tonight that uh I was a very uh I don't know how you want to say this, how I want to say this of the learners, the the robots and all this kind of stuff. I was talking to a bunch of them before the meeting started and they was explaining how they done it and how long it took them to do it. It was just amazing. And I also want to let

118Miss Linda Cheney know that First District beat her tonight. Those are my babies. Finally. Finally. All right. Um, she got something to say. I'm sorry. Just real quick before we close, I would like to recognize Mr. Todd Haggood. He has um came to the district a couple of times. Uh we're trying to partner with him with National Life Group. He offers 403b solutions retirement for our teachers. Um we just like to say hi. He brought refreshments for the board members today and our staff and we just wanted to say hello to him. He's doesn't have a presentation. He's not on the list, but he just wanted to say hello and he's a good friend of Mr. Alton Travis. So, he just wanted to come do some things and we'll partner with him and have him

119come speak to some of the teachers. So, thank you, Mrs. Todd, for being here. Thank you. I'm sorry. It's National Life Group. All right. All right. All right. Um, as always, certainly I'm I'm proud of all the learners, you know, regardless and I know what it takes for these learners to be able to do the things that they do on a daily. I mean, it take parental support as well. So, thank you parents for supporting your learners coming out um tonight. Um I also want to say as the year close um let us keep these families in prayer that's going through what they're going through because we never know when it'll be our time. So please, please pray for those families. And I just want to pause just for a moment of silence for Mr.

120Jarvis Bister. Amen. Shield and protect his family to get through this tragedy. All right. Any other comments? So we'll get that last motion. This meeting is adjoined. [Music]