001School Board education order first on our agenda tonight I an adoption of the agenda second M Smith Miss Taylor all in favor motion motion passed next I'd like to call on Haley Lal fellow and Anthony Chase privet to come lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance with the flag of the United States of America I up 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 great J I stepped out of order we're going to back up and now tonight Dev tonight's Devo is honoring Mary MCL Legacy of education and Faith Proverbs 31:26 she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue Mary McLoud a trailblazing educator and civil rights leader devoted her
002life to empowering others through knowledge born to for enslaved parents in 1875 she understood early on that education was the key to Breaking cycles of poverty and oppression with unwavering Faith she founded athon cookman College creating opportunities for African-American students who have been denied access to Quality education Bon's Legacy reflects the heart of Proverbs 31:26 her wisdom and kindness trans excuse me transformed lives she believed that education was not just about acquiring knowledge but also about developing character and Faith she once said faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service without it nothing is possible with it nothing is impossible as we celebrate women's History Month let us be inspired by Bon's example may we use our own gifts to uplift others just as she did and trust God to work through
003us to bring wisdom kindness and Justice to the world and now we're go on down to our um public comment with no one signing up tonight we'll move on to recognitions the first okay the first um recognition is a resolution Steam for um Mr Donald Don Owen Blake his family would come forward whereas our heavenly father in his infinite love and wisdom saw fit to call home Donald da Owen Blake on October 17th 2024 and whereas his dedication to Montgomery County schools for many years in maintenance for a Living Testament of his integrity and skill and whereas his loss will be deeply felt not only by those with whom he served but also throughout his entire community and County now therefore be it resolved that the Montgomery County Board of Education goes on record in
004expressing a sense of real loss and regret in his passing that a copy of this resolution be conveyed to his family as an indication of our deep sympathy and that a copy of the same be filed as a part of the permanent minutes of the Board of Education next I will on Mr so it's always a pleasure to start the meetings off um with some recognitions of Staff members um so if I could get Miss Dunn and Miss Kimberly Cranford to come forward she was our certified employee of the month for greenbridge elementary so I'll have Miss Dunn com say a few words about this young lady congratulations so miss Frankford teaches U first grade at Greenridge uh this is her third year will'll be finishing her third year this year with us um Miss
005Cranford puts a lot of time into her lessons building relationship with her students her families um she also seeks out leadership opportunities here at the district as well to kind of help influence some of the curriculum that um the county chose this past year for reading the CK program uh that the board approved so she's sat in on that she's done some additional training uh with letters to be a trainer of the trainer uh at the school so we're just super proud of him and u i congratulations congratulations again and next we would like to have Mr Xavier Dunlap come forward he is the classified employee of the montra Greenridge Elementary as well congratulations sir thank you for being here tonight so I don't know if everybody knows um exactly what Xavier does at our
006school but Xavier has been with Greenridge for several years in uh as a teacher assistant in our Behavior classroom and not only is he in back classroom but he also serves as a mentor throughout the building with other males in the building so it's not just in that one isolated spot and it's not just we say males it's you know the female the young females love to come and give him a fist bump he spends time coaching out in the community whether it's recck Ball Church sleeve whatever he actually just came from coaching right now to make it here in time for tonight so we appreciate all the hard work Xavier does U because honestly if we didn't have him the behavior CL would not and could not exist um because outside of green rich
007he's also at Camp eumi so he also brings talents from his Outside Agency to teach these kids how to you know be better citizens he mentors them he teaches them how to be have have coping skills because all of us need more coping skills and so he uses the things he's learned at the camp to also bring in and to utilize with these kids and we're super proud of him and his work that he does thank [Applause] you back picture started clapping I had clap to three two one there go um so moving to the next um recognition uh we've got the certificate of Merit for the um from the North Carolina Schoolboard Association and this is presented to miss Angela Smith for successful completion of Schoolboard training during the 23 24 Academy year conat
008get picture take picture can't all right we've got three other recognitions from our for Miss Anne Evans Miss ly EPS who is unfortunately not able to be here she's at home sick and Miss Cindy Taylor um again this is for a certificate of achievement from the North Carolina School Board Association for the successful completion of School Board training during the 2324 Academy year congratulations thank you for everything you do congratulations to you as well thank you congratulations and we're also very thankful tonight to have uh youth leadership mcgomery with us us tonight um and so I will call on Miss Chrissy or Miss Anna whichever one's coming to chat just talk to us a little bit about the program yeah so this is our 2024 2025 class of youth leadership Montgomery it's our largest cohort
009yet we have 36 kids this year so sorry about all the space we taking up but we're glad to be here yeah the program's been going on since 1998 and over 500 students have been through it it's focused on leadership personal development everyone who applies this program they want to grow personally they have been identified as leaders in their community and they're really just here to learn about their local community where they live and become better persons we have primarily students from Montgomery County Schools but we also have a couple from Greystone Day School a couple from y Charter and a homeschool students so pretty broad range here across the county um we go to two local board meetings which what we're doing today to learn about how local decisions are made we'll also go
010visit the state legislature to learn how decisions are made on the state level we've toured local business in Montgomery County in January they've done team building activities learned their real colors for leadership they do a lot they do workshops every month through the entire school year and then we'll have a graduation for them in May so we're very proud of them thank you for recognizing us thank you all moving on on our agenda we come to the consent agenda and do I have a motion to accept it tayor all in favor pass for the consent agenda moving on to r one call on miss Emily from Elementry well good evening everybody um I must say when we came tonight I didn't know we were going to have this large of an audience so this is
011going to be real nice um so as we're getting started I want to thank our students that came did the Pledge and congratulations to you all that just finished the leadership program that's an awesome so at Green Ridge um you know you think about elementary and of course all of you guys were elementary kids at one time and you know what we're looking at tonight with Elementary is we are looking at one day and one test that they get a chance to determine where they are when we talk about levels three fours and fives and uh proficiencies and things like that for the school you we're talking about one day in the of an eight-year-old I don't know about you all but at eight years old I was not thinking about those things you know
012so those are high pressure high stakes tests that we're asking little eight-year-olds to soak into their brain and put back out everything theyve tried to learn in the 180 days of instruction so you know as we're looking at this and we're thinking about this let's think about this in the mind of this kid who is just now sitting down for the first time with the test they thought their little hearts about to be out of their chance I'm probably sure most of you all felt the same way the first time you ever experienced that um so when we're thinking about that we're looking at our goals and Y going to remind me because I do not remember who had one all right so let's start with let's start with our goals here so by June
0132025 we're looking at glp glp stands for grade level proficiency so we're talking about any student third fourth or fifth grade who scores a grade level three four or five so we want to increase from 36.2% to 42.7% and we put things in place to make this happen our overall composite dop which means reading and math for third fourth and fifth grade we want those students to go from 34.986489 so our teacher attendance is a number that's always given to us at the end of the year when we come together for leadership currently um we we're saying we're at 92 we're will to grow that to 94% as one of our goals uh we do not know who we are at the moment that's again something that's calculated later in this um in the summertime
014um our overall GP course our Hispanic subgroup we looked at that and we grew in that um demographic area last year that is an area we thought we going to continue to grow on um this year we have a retired teacher from kander elementary who actually came back from retirement who was doing our eel program after school and Miss colmer brings in years of classroom experience and the various curriculums that the county has utilized in the reading uh aspects uh throughout the county uh for you know from grades kindergarten through fifth grade she's familiar with that so currently we 3.6 we're looking to go to 47% we don't see why we can't get to that or even surpass uh that um because she makes data notebooks uh for her students she reviews their current levels
015with them so we feel like we are on heading in the right direction uh to meet that goal as well so these are our key indicators and our key indicators are interwoven into our school Improvement plan as a way to help us support meeting the go goals we just talked about so the first first one is the principal monitors curriculum and classroom instruction regularly and provides timely clear constructive feedback to teachers we do that through our use of classroom walkthroughs um we try to give an opportunity for improvement and tell them what they are doing wonderfully in the classroom we also do that with our feedback at our um post observation conferences we um we do that with a lesson plans weekly we provide clear concise feedback on that the second indicator is the school
016regularly looks at school performance data and an aggregated classroom observational data and uses that data to make decisions about school Improvement and professional development needs so just this past week in elementary it's called either specials or connect that's 45 minutes that the teachers have for their planning so we actually double blocked our connects so that they could have 90 minutes of uninterrupted data analysis so we took that 90 minutes and we dove into our midyear data to look at our kids look at their individual needs determine who we needed to Target to help make the growth in that areas that they needed it and we have a plan moving forward into the rest of the year and that was just a little thank you to teachers here's a little extra time and the support they
017needed to do that the last one is the school implements a tier instructional system that allows teachers to deliver evidence-based instruction align with the individual needs of students so we have tier one is our core we really work to strengthen our core daily with what we do in the classroom that's our great instruction but we have students who need more instruction they need differentiated targeted interventions so that would be tier two and tier three different levels of support that feed into mtss which is the multi-tiered system of support to make sure that we're trying to reach all of our students and grow all of our students while meeting their unique individual needs all right so now let's take a look at our mclass eii proficiency mclass is the authoritative source for reading information for grades
018K3 um when we look at this we're looking at the end of the year for 2223 and the end of the year for 23 24 so according to our data kindergarten start Ed the year at 22 23 at 52% and ended the next year at 49% it's important to for you guys to notice this is not the same group of students we have a completely different c um first grade ended the year 2223 at 61% and improved the following year at 71% um those first graders obviously are that's a different cboard as well and then our second graders went from 42% at the end of the year in 22 23 and then went to 23 24 at 47 okay I'm gonna pause right here because we came in I neglected to U introduce who I
019also have with me tonight and I didn't mean to do that so I have Miss Mandy Hall the assistant principal and Kelly Kennedy the instructional facilitator um for Greenridge and I did not mean to do that when we came in so but um we made notes today we actually sat down this one for like two hours making notes and of course we don't have any of the notes because what we made on our computers we our computer um but that's okay so um this is our reading EOG our grade level proficiencies which means these are the students that made either a level three a level four or a level five on their eogs so keep in mind this is the first time that a third grader has ever set down in front of this type
020of testing on a computer to take their reading EOG they didn't they didn't have it that way for K2 so this is a first for them so you see the data from 22 23 at the very end of the year because you know we only do eogs at the very end and you're thinking about an elementary school you get you test the very end of the school year you know when you're in high school you test first semester you test second semester in high school it seems like you're testing all the time by the time you take act and work keys your exams you know so when you're looking at putting stuff together for high school you have all those numbers to create your actual report card grade at the elementary level you have one
021set of tests which is math and reading for grades three four and five and you add science to that for grade five so you get one set of test to determine what you look like on day one well I don't know about you but I don't want to be completely judged based on one day because I could have had a bad day we had a kid last year whose dog about Runner before the test so you know this is at the time it was a NY old kid and the state asked us to have this kid set for a test so keep that in mind when you're looking at numbers because our kids shouldn't be more than numbers our kids are about relationships and what we can do for these kids is they continue to
022move on to the middle school and on to the high school so if you see the third grade reading in 2223 was finished out the year there at 13% 2324 which was the last school year 26% so we Are Climbing we anticipate we'll be climbing again this year that is our goal fourth grade in the same year you can see going straight across I'm not going to read that to you um I think all you can see that so we are moving in the direction we want to go which is upwards um now I do notice that in the fourth grade when you're looking at that there's a drop there um and we are addressing those uh areas ourselves and we have made some adjustments and gave some supports in that area that we'll be
023talking back here in just a few minutes so this is our EOG math glp glp proficiency so that would be three4 and FES on math and our third grade um were 41.7 and at the end of last year they went up to 53.8 fourth grade once again the st's already addressed that that that we are addressing and working on those areas of provided support because that's a clear opportunity for improvement based upon the data analysis fifth grade went up from 21.7 to 29.6 so we did see improvements there in third and fifth all right for I ready um I is um we only have one math measure for kindergarten through third grade for math other than the EOG so for case two I math already is our only piece so kindergarten in 22 23 we're
024at 52% proficient the end of the next year at 54% proficient with set first grade we increased from 36 to 38 second grade we went from 18 to 27 and third grade we have from 33 to 48 so we s of improvement across the board with those so when we talk about subgroups 10 or more students make a subgroup so we look at EDS stands for economically disadvantaged students so we went from 31.3 to 31.9 and our Hispanic subgroup which Miss dun's already kind of alluded to with our addition of Miss colmer is a wonderful support for our students and our faculty um went from 35.6 to 39 35.6 to 39.6 so that was a good jump there and we actually looked for that to be even higher this year with some of the supports
025and planning that we put in place there so the highlights from our previous year um when we look at this we can we know that we went up 10 points in growth from one year to the previous year um this is our second year as us as a team together so we also have an intervention schedule with support people so like our PE our music our art any extra people whether it's ta also come in and offer support with like reading or math strategies during a certain block of time during the day we block out about 25 minutes for that uh every morning teachers completed letters training um this past year for the most part we do have some based on higher dates that they're finishing that up yes so we have about 18 certified
026staff members for K5 and of those 18 I want to say 16 have already completed letterers training which if you don't know is a two-year program that's basically based on the science of reading has been Len to a master's program to be quite honest with you so we have most of our our teachers have completed that we have about two that are still in the in the midst of it and we're thankful enough and lucky enough that we have an early literacy specialist with us in the county Miss Aon leech who we can use and she actually comes into our school and helps um support us as needed so we do have that which is EXC also in this past year um all of our teachers met growth also in the past year mentors and
027mentees were one onone especially that helped our math program because we also hired um and last school year we used Trudy East um earlier in the year um but based on funding we're using we had to start her a little bit late in year so we have additional supports just for math uh about four days a week about four hours a day so right now we're doing at 16 hours a week of additional math tutoring throughout the day or throughout the week um our growth went from 70.7 to 80.4 um overall the reading growth went from 75.2 to an 8 3.3 and our math grow went from 67.4 to 75.2 so growth is important so even if we're not getting all the three fours and fives are we growing all the students and we are
028growing all the students because I've sat in several of the presentations for the last four months and watched and listen to the other principles and they're talking about how the kids catch up at middle school and then on at high school and how we're competing with other are areas that are similar to ours so we are catching up we are making games so that moves us into this school year so coming into this school year we retained all of our staff except for one due to retirement we are doing data chats with students teachers and administration as well as doing data chats with students we each have a list of students that we're pulling from we'll meet with them during their connect time talk about their data and goal set with them it's important to
029note too that all the teachers know that they have a data student that the student keeps up with their data they report frequently with the teacher and then we're also getting involved too because I want them to really understand when you have Young Learners and they're taking such serious tests they need to understand that it's important to do their best and it's not just something that we're taking and thrown in the backyard we're not thinking about it again but we're going to bring it back up and make sure that we're having that continu and as an Administration team that's important to us we want our teachers to have these chats with students so that's one reason we feel it's important for us to model that behavior as well um also we're moving into this year
030off of last year with all of our teachers needing growth our ELA teachers have worked tirelessly to adapt to the new ca reading curriculum yes so over the summer our very first work day we had a reading curriculum brand new to our County which I'm thrilled about our teachers have taken that they've taken the the feedback and they worked with me and they worked with with others um we actually Miss Kim Frankford who was here earlier is actually serving as a l kind of train the trainer and she's also one of our what I would call CK G so if I have questions she can go to to other teachers and help as well and one of my favorite things about Green Ridge is the community and family support that we have at Green R
031and you're going to see a little bit of that on this slide we have some of the top pictures are our families we have a holiday Extravaganza and it's children to have a musical performance and we have games it's kind of become a tradition at gra rdge our annual Thanksgiving lunch we have we also have a lot of community involvement with 4 coming in the health department coming in the fire department providing little special education for our students I was thrilled this year we actually got the um was the group that came from the early college or from the high school from the high school they came and they did like a Hispanic Multicultural day with our kids they got to show them dancing and and saes got have our students thoroughly enjoyed that and
032some of our non-english speaking students that haven't been here that long their face is just lit up because they able to conversate with the with the high school kids and they were leading some of the things where you don't necessarily see them leading the classroom they were in there leading it and showing their PE so that was a wonderful moment for us so that's Adriana person up there dancing with the kids and Iris canol is somewhere I don't know if she's in that picture but I know but anyway it was Adriana person in Iris can that came and did that for us at the high Elementary School okay so this is what the school report part actually look like comparing it from 22 23 and 23 24 if you will notice as you go across
033you can see we're moving up and upward is where we want to go um and you can't go upward unless you know where you are you've got to have a starting point and we can throw out numbers and we can put the numb so far out and hope that we're GNA throw a dart and hit it but if I just throw out a number I got to be realistic in that number I want it to be something that we can actually we can achieve and believe in because we have a you know I talked about the um the adult support that comes in one thing we didn't mention was we also have a tutoring group from the high school from the early college that actually sought us out and they come out and they were
034doing tutoring with our this group right here yep um they sought us out they they developed their plan and they came out and did tutoring with our kids at the school so we are moving upwards of course that's not where you want we don't want to stay where we are we want to keep moving in the right direction and if you look at 22 to 23 we are moving in the right direction and I can't wait to see what this school year holds and what we can look back at any questions I got some I know I didn't bring sticky noton um so the year that fourth grade was it was that was that the year the test was rored it was okay that was the 22 school year that it was rored yes so
035you're getting used to that new that year we also had two people in fourth grade that were new to that curriculum and also if you don't know the curriculum the jump from third grade math to fourth grade math is huge yes you know from third grade you're just teaching basic fractions fourth grade you're going to adding fractions unlike denominators step word problems I mean it's a huge J and fifth miror is fourth with the exception you're adal I felt like it was a reor year that usually that reor year usually Tak we that um when you did the double up with your planning um is that just once a year you do that or we try to do it in the fall and in the does the state still pay for Letter's training that they
036do not why we are very fortunate to have Aaron Lee as our early literacy specialist because she is a trained trainer so she has been the one that's been offering all of our training otherwise we would have to pay I think it's $800 a person to let them go through the training so we are very fortunate and and on top of that she also gives resources to me there's the North Carolina has implementation go and I work hard to kind of Pi out which pieces that need for our teachers and wec to that's great one last question because I'm not very familiar with I does I have like a North Carolina aligned component so when our students are taking the already ready math does it align to what they're actually seen on yes it also
037has it will give us projection based on their skill score and if they continue to show their typical or stretch growth and that's in our data chats we've been pulling that up and saying you're here if you said this is your goal then that projects you to be a little three on your EOG or four whatever it may be we have been showing that to students since we have those chats I had a question about data chats but you answer and ideally it' be nice to have those a little more than just once you know once each semester and we might be able to work that in but it takes a lot of creativity and time and you need your data to come back and you know how it is you don't really get your
038data Sav at October you know so almost like it is once a semester thing but but our teachers have really that's been something that we've been able to do and with with the help of our special connect people without them it wouldn't be possible but our teachers have really appreciated that time to to analyze their data but the goal is not to just analyze it do something with it be thank you very much um got for the summer school [Music] plan well good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board I'm Joanna Perkins and I'm here to present our summer school plan for um 2025 unfortunately you guys know how this goes have the best plan in the world and then we still need to plan b c d e f and g so this is
039our um plan for summer school after this I will say just really quickly before we get into that um fourth grade reading was low across the state um that proficiency level was a Statewide issue um and a lot of that had to do with the um the field test questions from that particular grade level um because it is unusual for it to be that different and for IR math that is the closest we've gotten aligned with with math um so those are some really good resources and we just got through with um Early Learning specialist sustainability with the changing over of the state school board so we are really confident that we've got um eron leech as a resource regardless of letters in its feuture so um great job Green Ridge and all elementary schools
040are doing great job um so for summer school the impact of summer school give students another chance to demonstrate Mastery of content after concentrated reteaching but most importantly in a smaller setting um this year what's different is that although science counts for student transcripts this year it doesn't count in our school performance grade because the science tests are being rored in grades uh five eight and at the high school um and that's a state issue so um we won't offer science in summer school this year summer school also provides a safe place for students for an additional three weeks with caring mber County School staff um teachers have the opportunity to make additional income here at home at County Schools rather than having to work elsewhere and get a different kind of summer job and
041we often use the time to try new and different teaching methods to learn from each other as professionals and I can give you more details about what we have planned this summer um to think outside the box for summer school um as professionals as well as to keep the kids engaged and interested because they have to come to summer school it's important um for us though because the summer testing will count toward School proficiency and you can see the data from our district it has had an impact in 2021 it made 4.3% difference 2022 2.21% difference 2023 1.76% and most recently this um pass number 3.2% um overall proficiency gained and fourth grade ELA improved by 7.3% in the retest so that tells you something about that original test right and that number that you
042saw before was not like a g does that make sense right okay next slide so this year um I've got two slides on Elementary here's the overall big picture Elementary reading this summer is going to run leaner due to budget constraints and student information system transition it's going to be offered to second graders CU they're in second grade right now through fifth graders at every site for fourth and fifth grade we're going to have instruction on June 9th through the 13th June 16th through the 18th and then our last testing days for Fourth of B grade will be June 19th through the 20th um Power School is our current student information system and it ends on June 26th and our new system will be infinite campus so that's another reason why we've got to be
043really Swift with getting everybody through and retest for second and third grade um as you know we have to comply with read to achieve RTA if you've heard of that um and so to comply with our comprehensive plan for reading achievement we have to offer 12 total instructional days meaning 72 hours of instructional time so for third graders they'll come um well and the second June 9th through the 13th June 16th through the 20th June 23rd and the 24th and then on June 25th third grade reading testing occurs and then the second grade enrichment occurs for the RT kids for secondary so that's grades 6 through 12 like I said before was science renorming will'll only offer um math and English language arts retest for middle and high school and um early college has to
044run separate than the traditional middle and high school dates obviously you guys that are in high school you're familiar with this hopefully this w't apply to any of you um so our Early College dates will be May 26 through May 30th instruction June 2nd through 4th instruction June 5th through 6th retesting and then for traditional middle and high school June through 13th instruction June 16th through 20th instruction June 23rd and 24th um the last test will me and once again the power school is going to end on June 26 so everything has to be in and reported by then for camps um just so you can kind of think about other options in the summer we're going to partner on summer camps with Montgomery Community College those dates are all to be determined um we're
045definitely looking at culinary Camp agriculture camp and photography camp planning on running jump last year middle school and CTE will run a skills USA Camp any questions about summer I did want to add in here and remind the board that um technically speaking this is an action item tonight um because we do have the last page in that packet um this is actually uh our summer school program plan that we have to submit to ncdpi for approval um so please ask questions but we do officially have to uh approve that so that we can submit to the state by April 1 and I'm just going on past um experiences with great to Chief Camp so with that camp you really we really only have to offer it to the graders but we are doing it
046for second and third is that correct the CPR says you have to offer it to Rising third graders as well okay so if you're sitting in second grade right now um you you will be invited you will be invited right and just so everybody knows that's a key word you will be invited to Camp not required y both in the second and the current third graders the current third graders a chance to take a read to achieve test and and an e or just a read to achieve test that the only to achieve can't give that same they show proficiency on it they move on but it doesn't count towards the school yes that's exactly right well said I know you can talk yourself in circles on this stuff a little bit of knowledge yeah
047um okay so I just wanted to make sure about that but the thing is it's multiple Pathways because you guys know and Miss D kept saying over and over again one test one day for an eight niney old it's a lot you guys so we offer them as many Pathways as possible to be successful question do I have ation to the um summer school plan ased motion v a motion to accept the summer school plan all in favor pass Su scho presentation has AC good evening board chair Evans and school board members last month we had one policy up for review um tonight we will need to vote on the policy concerning um teacher contracts and also I will answer any clarifying questions concerning the policy of teacher contracts I guess my only question is
048this has been recommended this policy update through the North Carolina School Board Association yes so actually the what it trickles down for teacher contracts they give you three different options to go with and this is one of the options um we had previously went with a different one that was um it was more options for them as far as like you know what you do to get the one year the twoe and the four year and we were seeing that a lot of our teachers through the data and our exit interviews were feeling some sort of way because they were not getting the two and the four year contracts because there were so many um parameters tied to that through their um observations and their evaluation um and I will say that after and you
049know I was like wonder how many teachers go through and read the board practice well a lot of them do because I received several emails after the February board meeting when I put this policy up for Reed thanking me for bringing this to the board's attention so I feel like um giving them the option to get the two-year and the four-year contract at just being proficient on their standards on their NIS evaluation instead of accomplished I think it's going to help retain our teachers because it's going to give them that job security that I've got a four-year contract but it also doesn't tie our hands if we need to just do a one year or a twoyear to offer some more coaching opportunities for our teachers this is at each principle of discretion yes so
050what what we do every year around this time um our department gives each principal a list and it tells them every teacher in their building and if their contract is up and if their contract is up then they have to look at the parameters set in our board policy to say okay am I gonna give you a one year A twoyear or a four year which one are you eligible for and if previously they were only eligible for those two or four years if they received accomplished on majority of their standards but this will give them that two year if they have proficient on a majority of them and when teachers move school to school within the county that follows it's easy to track it's easy to try it gives us a little longer opportunity
051to grow them as Educators as well it shows them that we have faith in them for them to be able to grow and become better Educators than just give them the onee contract as well so there there's a lot of there's a lot of of um anxiety with sometimes when you give an educator only a onee contract because it just it just doesn't really give them a lot of faith that we you know invested in them and so I think that was one of the bigger things and that's why Dr Shaw got all those emails because some of these teachers when they first come to us are dealing with a lot they're having to comply with all of the licensure requirements and all this kind of stuff and it and it's tough in in a
052teacher's first year and if they've only got that oneye contract or you know and I know that's kind of moving past that very first year but they've done a lot to be able to get the license and we need to show Faith with them that you know you guys have complied so we want to reward you for doing that and we feel like you are valuable you know valuable to the district and we want to continue to grow and this is more similar to what our neighboring counties and that helps retention yes they know they do questions well I heard you say that it's up to the principal right so when they're moving from school to school they're proficiency record is following them so but they're recommended for their contract before they move school so
053like they will get their I will go out that's all I will do in the month of May is travel around giving teachers their new contracts that will start on July 1 yeah good question motion for the policy update for approv motion policy upate um thank you Miss Evans um so if you look at a closure number 11 this is our proposal for the uh recent inclement weather that we dealt with on February 19th to 20th where we did have snow and we were not able to attend school um So based upon that like we did back in January where we dealt with this we still have banked hours with the state uh we still have 25 hours that are banked um so technically we do not have to make up all of our time
054um but to show good faith and to continue our efforts towards Improvement we do want to um try to get some instruction in uh so the recommendation is that we forgive Friday uh I mean sorry February 19th we forgive this day again because we have those banked hours um and then the date that we missed on February 20th we would like to turn March 13th into a half day with structure that's prior to our parent conferences that day which kind of takes us back to the model that we had previously before we made conferences in all day event um so that's our recommendation again um it it minimizes the impact to the existing calendar because I would be remiss if I didn't say that I had a bunch of emails saying that we've already made
055spring break plans we've already paid our you know retain not really retainers that's legally but we've already paid our deposits um for um houses and all this stuff at the beach so again this is a way that we can preserve uh the the the Integrity of spring break for families that have already expended funds but again we still have the banked hours and we still are uh getting some instruction back with that half day um so I would make the recommendation that we we um follow the memo and and approve that but that is uh up for your um discussion but I will tell you that there were a lot of teachers that emailed me and so that's this is kind of based upon that information that I received the the main thing that they
056were wanting is please don't take a day from Spring Break and this plan will will not take a day from spring break and then that's what we've done that's what we've done in years past this was the first year that we went to um the late start day with conferences so it's um again it's a way for us to preserve some instruction um and not do anything that we haven't done before still no school on the 14 that is correct we we proposed the planning day as a protected day for them to be able to I mean you heard what they did with double blocking their specials to give them more time to meet his grade levels and all and that's what the purpose of the planning day was so we did not want to
057take that away we wanted to try to preserve that again so that we can you know utilize that for continuous Improvement it's a full day and it is a full day yes um have a motion to [Laughter] AC AC all right next we'll move on to the superintendent Mr thank you again Miss Evans um I wanted to start tonight by just taking a moment to honor uh Mr Philip Bailey um he was a fifth grade teacher at Star Elementary and I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank the Star Elementary staff for assisting in his celebration of life that was held at the school yesterday uh Mr Bailey was a beloved teacher that positively impacted many children's lives and he will dearly missed and that was on full display because students actually um they
058actually got up and spoke at the service yesterday and I've got to commend those kids for having the um you know the the the tenacity to get up there because I don't even know that I would have been able to do that um and saying goodbye to him um so I wanted again to to honor him and to thank the star staff for for what they did for him to honor him um for for the superintendent comments I wanted to focus on read Across America week that begin that that began today um and I wanted just to take a moment to recognize and celebrate this this week because it is very important to our elementary school specifically um I also focused this week's School connection the mcgomery Herold on re re Across America week and
059wanted to use this time as well to promote the importance of this week uh this week is a wonderful initiative that encourages our students to develop a lifelong love of reading uh this week has been filled with engage or this week will be filled with engaging activities uh guest readers different speci events um that will bring literature to life for our students across the district um I personally am looking forward to reading to the kids this week um I've done it years past it's one of the highlights of my position um I'm scheduled to go to four schools this week at various times to read to the kids um and it's just it's always a joy um but reading is a foundational element of academic success and I know that this board is committed to
060fostering strong literacy skills at every grade level our Educators and staff have done an incredible job organizing these creative and impactful activities dedicated to this focused week and I want to personally thank them for their dedication and the efforts that they have put into this um additionally we appreciate the involvement of our families and our community members who have joined us in promoting the joy of reading we have a lot of community members coming in to be mystery guest readers throughout the week um so again I just want to thank them and then as we focus on this week I would like to encourage everyone here tonight uh to participate in some fashion in read across America week literacy development is not just a onewe celebration it's an ongoing priority of ours uh through continued
061support of strong reading programs access to diverse books and meaningful literacy initiatives we can Empower our students to become confident lifelong leaders else I need a motion to go into close session back in Open session after our Clos session do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so Miss Taylor I'll take it second Miss SM