001meeting. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to Mr. S. >> One of the elements that we enjoy in our board meetings probably the most is whenever we get to hand out recognitions to students. And so this evening, uh, we're going to start with Bright Adventures and ask Bennett Cook. Are you here, Bennett? Bennett, are you Bennett? Bennett, would you come up here? And who from Bride Adventures is going to award Miss Cook? >> I don't see Miss >> Well, it's going to be you then. >> Who is that? Who is that? >> Why don't you go stand with Mr. >> Let's take his email, shall we? Here we go. Miss Becky wrote some words for you. Okay. It says, "For our best and then some [snorts] award, we choose Miss Bennett Cook. Bennett
002is a leader in our classroom. She always has a positive attitude and loves learning." She does. I've seen that. She shows persistence and gives everything her best effort. She goes the extra mile when it comes to class participation. She's a great friend and is always willing to help when there's a need. We're so proud of the grow she's made this year and love to see her personality shining through. You're an excellent student, Miss Bennett, and we're very proud of you. This is our bestile. Give a smile. >> You got to give me a hug, too. [laughter] >> I don't know about that. >> She agreed to that. [laughter] >> That's my buddy. >> Thank you, Bennett. [cough] [clears throat] Do we have James Moore in the house tonight? James? Not yet. We'll come back to
003James in just a second. Okay. Um, would Katie Moore be related to James? >> She's not She's not here yet. >> Okay. If they come in, uh, Miss Crow, would you let me know, please? Thank you. Do we have Dwayne Wacha here this evening? >> Do we have someone from East Elementary to talk about Dwayne for us? >> Yes. >> Awesome. >> You didn't up your video. >> [laughter] >> I wrote some words. So, I am proud to name Dwayne the second grade choice at East Elementary. He's a wonderful leader who knows how to be a great friend. If a classmate needs help, Dwayne is the one of the first students to step up and support them. He has a creative mind and makes the most amazing drawings that tell beautiful stories. Most importantly, he
004always tries his very best. Dwayne, thank you for being such a kind and a superstar in the classroom. We're happy to have you here. That's it. >> Lincoln Chambers from East Elementary. Are you [snorts] here, Lincoln? You have one of my favorite names in the world. Lincoln, you sit right over there and let's let's have somebody brag on you. >> Okay. Today Today I am proud to recognize Lincoln as our East Elementary student of the month. He is a third grader. Lincoln is a respectful and hardworking student who has done an excellent job throughout third grade. He comes to school ready to learn and always tries his best in everything he does. What truly makes Lean stand out is his kindness. He treats his classmates and the adults in our school with respect and kindness.
005He works well with others and is always fair and encouraging to his peers, not only at school, but also on the field and court, as I have had the privilege to watch him play some of his favorite sports this year. So far, basketball, baseball's next. If someone needs help, Lincoln is one of the first students to step up. always willing to help and never complaining. Lincoln is the kind of student who leads by example both in the in the classroom and out of the classroom. We are very lucky lucky to have him in our class. Congratulations, Lincoln. We are very proud of you and thankful you're in our class. [applause] Congratulations. [applause] Do we have Savannah Miller here tonight? I think so. Savannah Miller was who I selected for our um leadership award for the
006month of for this month, excuse me. Um, she consistently works so hard, does her very best in everything she does. She is a kind friend, has a great attitude, comes in ready to learn every day, and I'm so happy to have her in my class. So, [applause] Congratulations. >> I see a fellow named Cooper Booer. We've been trying to get you here for months. [laughter] Stand right up there with Miss Davis. Come right here. Cooper Ber is a kindergartener at East Elementary. He's a friend to all and he is finding his voice. He comes in every morning with a smile on his face and ready to have a great day. Cooper loves being among his friends. He practices kindness in that he includes everyone when playing and learning. Everyone wants to be Cooper's friend. Cooper
007is hardworking. I'm sorry. Cooper is working hard to reach his goals this year. And he knows that we work first and then play. He plays hard and is never still. He often organizes games on the playground and has a very active imagination. Again, he includes everyone which shows strong character at any age. Cooper speaks nicely and respectfully to friends and teachers. He has great manners and I attribute that to a large part to his parents and the support he receives at home. Cooper was an easy choice when considering our January student of the month for kindergarten. I'm extremely proud of him and want to celebrate what an amazing kid he is. [laughter] I am looking for Levi Allen from the middle school. All right. I have Mr. Levi Allen and his sixth grade teachers chose
008him for our our best and num award. So, I'm going to read some words about you. Okay. You won't get embarrassed. Really? Okay. Levi has become a fantastic leader in our sixth grade. He demonstrates a strong work ethic across all of his subjects and is always the first to offer a helping hand to his peers. A truly dependable student, Levi guides those around him with kindness. We are incredibly proud of the strides he has made since the start of the year and look forward to seeing his continued growth. Congratulations, SIR. [applause] Miss Cro, did we have some more come in? >> Katie Moore. >> So, this is Katie Moore. She's a fifth grader at West. I am incredibly proud of Katie and the amazing growth she has shown this year in her academics. I had
009the privilege of teaching Katie last year and got to firsthand witness her hard work and her determination to succeed. Katie has made 57 points of growth on her in-class reading, 32 on I already reading, and 13 on I already math. Not only has she made growth in all areas, but Katie made the highest score in all of fifth grade on her reading check-in last month. Her hard work, focus, and perseverance are clearly paying off. What truly sets Katie apart though is her character. She comes to school each day with a positive attitude, treats others with kindness and respect, and always does the right thing, even when no one is watching. She is responsible, honest, and willing to help her classmates, making our school a better place for everyone. Her determination and confidence are and caring
010heart are wonderful qualities that will take her so far. Keep up the fantastic work, Katie. We are so proud of you. I hate to see Katie leaving us um at West next year and going to the middle school, but they will be getting an incredible asset to their school. I love you, Anita, KATIE. [applause] >> It's probably all from her dad. [laughter] >> Now, have we missed any of the students for this evening? >> Miss [cough] James Moore. >> James Moore is on his way up. Miss Ben is going to present. >> Okay. We're we're going to take two minutes and give Mr. Moore an opportunity to get up here. All right. So, if you'll just wait for a second until they make it up the steps. Thank you. Remember to take that. [laughter] >>
011Is James Did James make the trip? All right, James, come on up here. >> Come on. >> Take a deep breath. I know those steps are something, aren't they? [laughter] Step right over there with with Miss Bennett. She's going to brag on you. >> Are you surprised? [laughter] >> He's probably a little surprised. Miss Bennett, what? Yeah. So, this is James Moore, and he's one of my fifth graders, my math kiddos. And I just wanted to brag on him because since he sounds like he ran a marathon just now, we'll just give him. But I just wanted to brag on him. He is just one of those kids who every day has a smile on his face. Every day, positive attitude. Every day working hard. And the thing that most impressed me was at the
012beginning of the year when I first met James, I had to get to know his handwriting. And it was it was difficult, wasn't it? Yes. We had we had a conversation and every day I would just get on him, get on him. I said, "James, we got to work on this handwriting." And usually a fifth grader would just be like, "Yeah, that ship has sailed. I'm this is the best I'm going to do." You know, like I'll be typing soon. But not James. He every day he would do the absolute best and try harder and try harder. And he came in on last week after all the snow apocalypse and everything. Came in after a long time off and he said, "Miss Bennett, Miss Bennett, I want you to look at my paper. I've been
013working on my handwriting." And that just melted my little heart because that's him. That's his initiative. That's something he wants to do better at. And he he decided for himself, you know, and um and that's how he does everything. That's how he does his math. That's how he does his reading. everything is he's decided he wants to do better and he's going to do what it takes. And so I'm just really proud of James and I want to make sure everybody else was too. [applause] >> Thank you, JAMES. [applause] Have we missed anyone? >> Have we missed anyone? Any other students? Would you give these amazing students and their parents another round of applause, PLEASE? [applause] NOW, parents and students and and teachers, you're welcome to stay uh for the rest of the meeting if
014you would like to. However, don't feel compelled to. If you want to go have ice cream or something um or take them to McDonald's, have at it. This is a great time to separate. Y'all have a good evening and thank you >> be. Yeah, they came up and got off the elevator down and I remember like he was like, "Okay, ready to go." We're like up one more for us. Okay, it's 5:09 and uh we'll all stand. Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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. >> Let us pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you for allowing us to come together once again. We ask that you grant the wisdom for
015us to make the best decisions for those of Swain County, Swain County schools, faculty, staff, and most importantly the students. And dear heavenly father, in such a tumultuous time in society, we ask that you bestow upon us the kindness that we need to be able to show your light throughout the world. Thank you for everything that you do, for your kindness and your love. It's in your precious son's name I pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> Thank you. [cough] [clears throat] >> We'll call our meeting to order and we will uh go over the approval of the agenda. we have any additions to the agenda? >> Um, Mitch, I don't have any additions that I know of or remember right now, but I do know that it would probably be better for us to put all
016of our financial pieces together. >> Okay. >> Um, in our discussion and and that would necessitate that we move this I would like to move Gh >> um to uh E and I would like to move F up to E. um that audit that those budget amendments fall right in line with conversation about the maintenance vehicles. >> Okay? >> Because it it may impact that. Um those are really the only things that I think that would help us. Um, I need to draw your attention to the fact that on the consent agenda, uh, there was an individual who was listed correctly as a resignation, but the position, uh, was incorrect rather than a, uh, speech language pathologist. Uh, it's a social studies teacher position. And I think that you have a corrected copy of that.
017>> Yes. And it's corrected on the agenda itself. >> So, those are the only suggestions that I have unless somebody else has some others. >> Okay. Motion to accept the agenda with the modifications of uh G moving to E and F moving to E. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. All approved. Raise your right hand. Okay. Do we [clears throat] have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor raise your right hand. Okay. So moved. So, first up will be public comment. Joanne, did we have anybody tonight for public comment? No public comment. Uh, I'd like to take just a second to give a shout out. I told Mr. Shell I was going to do this to Yellow Rose reality. um they showed up
018in mighty way for us and gave us the ability to house uh it was going to be two coaching um two co two head two coaches that were uh filling in to be our or to that had applied to be our head football coach. Uh Yellow Rose realy gave them a house for the weekend. only turned out to be one. Uh, one didn't make it uh for his interview and stepped aside, but it ended up being our official head football coach. So, I would just like to uh personally and the board as well would like to give them a shout out to Johnny Ensley and his family. Um, we never ceases to amaze what our community does. They always uh are here for us and that's just another example of the community we live in
019and we we certainly appreciate it. Uh there's no need for us tonight to go into close session. >> Not for me. >> So we'll move on to discussion. >> This is uh February um with the month when all great individuals are born. Um [laughter] >> that's right. >> Right, Casey? Right. >> Right, Cody? Yep. >> It's their birthdays, by the way. Just saying. And um it's also CTE month and Miss uh Sneeed is not able to be with us this evening. So she has reached out uh to her right hand who is now the voice of Swing County. [laughter] The baritone [laughter] the the baritone of public phone calls. [laughter] >> The new Barry White. >> [laughter] >> just get up here and put an end to it. >> Read my resation. >> No, >>
020I told him he could read it all day, but it takes 30 days to to complete the process. >> I am not Barbara. >> She's at a director's conference. Um, and she's representing the West as she's our director of the year for Western District. She didn't want me to put that in there, but so I don't know when she'll hear. She's competing against other districts of the state, but anyway, I think she does a great job. But um I'm just here to briefly speak about CTE and how we're doing it. February is um CTE month. Uh time that we can uh celebrate the achievements and the importance of career and technical education. Um, so I don't want to read this word for word, so I'm just going to shoot from the hip. Currently, what we're
021seeing reflects a remarkable level of student engagement and success. We offer 15 distinct pathways representing 10 career clusters. Um, ensuring that our students have diverse options ranging from agriculture and health sciences to construction and technology. a lot of other uh districts our size aren't able to offer everything we offer. So, and some even bigger don't offer the the the wide range of things we offer. Um this year it looks like 60% of our seniors will graduate as a CT completer. What that means is that they have taken at least two classes in a pathway. Um one of those is an upper level class. Um [snorts] so that's pretty high percentage. Um, that's not to mention all those seniors that there's some that just that take multiple classes. They might take foods one, they might take
022Adobe one, they might take drafting. So, they're taking a lot of CT classes, but that's just as important as I tell them. They're trying to find out what they what they want to do in life. So, that's just as important as being a completer is taking figuring out what you're going to do. Um, also our students are earning real world credentials. At the end of the fall semester, our seniors had already attained 170 industry recognized certifications. So those aren't just um high school level. Those are recognized by our industry partners. So that's pretty good pretty good attainment right there. and uh those are rec recognized by employees that lead to higher paying uh jobs and immediate immediate employability. I don't know why y'all are making me nervous. I know all of you. [laughter] I don't
023like reading from a lot of people, but anyway, those are just a few highlights. Um but thank you for your support of our program and our system. And I'll entertain any questions you might have. might not be able to answer them, but >> but he knows where to get the answers. She's in Greensboro. >> Yeah, I'll text her really quick. So, >> what all uh what all courses do we have lure in? Like um if you're able to get a license, what courses do we offer that we can get licensed? >> Lure or credential? >> Credential, excuse me. Uh so we offer credentials in there are um you can get certified in Photoshop, illustrator, in design and a video editing program. Those are recognized industry standards. Um you can get CPR, first aid, stop the
024bleed. You can get um serve safe with with foods and nutrition. Um there's a lot in the health health that you can get. You can graduate with your CNA. There is a I think a hospitality and tourism uh certification that you can get. Um and then our or welding and carpentry certificates that you can graduate and go to work with. I'm sure I'm Oh, AutoCAD and uh AutoCAD engine um inventor. So those are drafting programs you can go out. So those those are pretty rigorous tests. We have to as teachers we have to take them and and show that we uh that we know what we're teaching. So um only took me like 12 times to pass it. So [laughter] just kidding. Anything else? >> Thank you. Mr. >> Thank you. >> It's Loftess. You
025don't want you don't have a comment. >> I I do but I was going to keep it to myself. >> You'll just put on Facebook. I was just going to ask if you wanted to say good evening. Thank you for calling. This message is from Swing County Schools. [laughter] >> We um have been asked to to share an assessment update and share some planning steps that we're taking now that we've gotten past the midyear point. Um, and so we've have uh some slides to share with you that there's one that's up there and I've put that one there intentionally um because I want you to see that this is just part of the data that we have and we have I have no desire and no intent to [clears throat] go through all of that
026nor does anyone else. Okay? But the what I am going to share with you comes from within that. And if you have any questions or or would like to look at these or any other numbers in more detail, be pleased to do that, just not necessarily this evening because of the amount of time that it would take. Joe, would you go to the next slide, please? Um there is a type of uh metric called the composite metric uh which is where you take all of the scores in in all of the areas and through the magic of of some formula that they use at DPI you come up with a number. Uh you can see that the west district the western district and this is all from last school year. Okay this is we we
027don't have this kind of data for this school year yet. Uh you can see that the western district scored at 50 56% proficiency. Um Swain County scored at 44% proficiency which is kind of in the middle of everyone else for the comparative districts that you will see to the left. Now you're going some of you may want to ask uh who those comparative districts are. I'm not going to tell you because I don't think that we need to sit here and compare ourselves to particular school systems. I don't think that's fair to them and I don't think that's necessarily fair to us. However, I can assure you that each of these systems are very much like us and it's in the western end of the state. Okay? All right. And you'll notice that in every
028every slide that I show you in just a few minutes uh that the western district will be in blue to the left and Swain will be right beside that and then you can compare from there. This is the composite for all scores in all classrooms. Joe, next slide, please. This is the composite for all scores in third grade through 8th grade. all scores, not just math and not just reading. Okay, you'll notice that there is a difference there. Could I have the next slide, please? This one may be fuzzy and it's not because I'm trying to hide anything. This is the reading composite for third grade through 8th grade. Again, towards the middle, maybe a little below that. The next slide please. This is the composite for math third grade through 8th grade. Next slide
029please. This is the composite for science which is only tested in fifth grade and eighth grade at four high school. Okay. Could I have the next one, please, Joe? Thank you. This is the composite for all EOCC's that come out of the high school. Next slide, please. Thank you. This is the composite for biology. There will be a question, why does Swain lag behind like that? That's because it has been very difficult for us to find biology teachers that will stay with us for a period of time. And that's something to remember in all of these scores that we look at. The amount of time that a teacher has been teaching the subject or even in the classroom has a direct relationship to how their scores are going to come out in the classroom. Okay?
030And we have a lot of young teachers and some of them seem to be some of our classrooms seem to be be revolving doors. Okay, next slide please Joe. This is math one out of the high school. There's a there's something to remember about this. Unless I am wrong, Heather, and please tell me if I am. This does not include the students who have taken math one at the middle school. Okay. So, in my opinion, it's my opinion only that skews the score a little bit. Okay. She has a question. >> I was going to say that the other schools have more students in math than we do. They generally have two sections. >> Yes, >> one section. So that's >> that changes it as well. That's one of the difficulties that look when we're
031looking at numbers because we're not always comparing apples to apples. Okay, this is math three. Um I sent this particular slide or that score to Amelia and her calculations came out different than this. >> Yeah, it was a little bit higher. And that's another I raised that point also because sometimes when you look at the score in one place it'll say one thing and then you look at the scores in another place it says something different and we never really understand what the magic formulas are that are being used for this and that's how come I it's important it is a measurement but I try not to get so tied up on it that uh it makes me lose a whole lot of sleep all the time. Okay, could I have the next one please?
032This is English 2 comparative. Those are all of the district comparisons that I have for you at least tonight. Now, I think that I may have shared uh several others for you to look at in your handout. And if you want to have a conversation, let's do let's have that conversation. But I think the more important pieces are going to come up when I have some of our staff from the schools say and so because of that and more importantly our middle of the year scores what are we doing? How are we trying to help our students? Okay. Right now I would like for Katrina to come and to talk about our middle of the year data. This is current data doesn't come from last school year. It came from our middle-ofthe-ear assessments. Okay. So,
033we're going to go from that [clears throat] summit of assessment that he was talking about to our formative assessment. I started to give you all a quiz from the last time we talked about all that assessment, but I didn't. Okay. Good evening everyone. I'm going to go over data from I Ready and MCL class. And I know you've probably seen this data in your packet, so I'm going to be brief, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, just to remind you, we assess our students using I Ready Math kindergarten through 8th grade. We use I ready reading in fourth through 8th grade and MC class is used in kindergarten through fifth grade for reading. Okay, next slide please Joe and you can go to the next one. So the data that I'll be showing
034you will be comparisons from beginning of the year to middle of the year. Okay. And we're going to start with I Ready. This is um reading from I read that already. So this is um the middle middle of the year, beginning of the year and middle year for grades four through eight in I Ready reading. These are our district scores. Okay. So fourth and fifth grade across the across the grade level. Um I like these scatter plots a lot because I like the way they're laid out. So you can see um like in the upper left hand quadrant there, low performance but high growth. And then the um one right across from that is high performance and high growth. But if they're making high growth, they're eventually gonna get to that high performance. So I
035like the way those um are laid out. Our next slide, please, Joe. Um you can see this same data, but it's now you can see east and west separated there. All right, next one. We're going to start into I Ready Math. You can skip ahead one. There we go. Um this is again the whole district and if it's and we're uh in math so this is kindergarten through 8th grade. Okay. Um and then the next one shows this is just east and by grade level. [snorts] Okay. And then the next one Joe this one is just west by grade level. Kindergarten and second grade were on the same um plot point there. Okay. Um All right. I think we can go to implies now. Joe, anybody have any ready questions before we go on? Okay.
036All right. Go ahead, Joe. Can you hit the slide, please? Joe, >> not moving. >> Pass this one. >> Yes, please. >> One more. Right there. I'm sorry. I've had you in the wrong place. All right. Um, we're going to move to the M class and you can and I had some help with AI and and he AI run this scatter plot for me. This is not normally something that we can pull, but um [clears throat] through the magic of AI, we got it. So, it's kind of the same thing, but this is just east. And again, this is MClass, kindergarten through fifth grade. And then the next one is just west, kindergarten through fifth grade. Again, you can see where we're growing a whole lot. We always expect kindergarten to have a big growth
037spurt from um beginning of the year to middle of the year because when [snorts] they come in, they are expected to know a whole whole lot of about their reading and so they have a lot of growth usually. [clears throat] And next slide. So with any of these um scatter plots, I can't compare in our our formative assessment. I can't compare us to other districts in our region. I don't have access to that data. And again, not everybody's using the same formative assessment um like I already that that we are. I can get state data um with MClass because everybody in the state uses MClass kindergarten through at least third and most do fourth and fifth. So I can get those comparisons and that's what this chart is showing you. Um, so you can see
038where North Carolina is and where we fall. >> And that's district. >> That's district. Everybody in it's total district kindergarten through fifth grade. >> Yeah. Okay. And I think I have maybe one more slide. Nope, that's the end. Okay, great. Um, so just to quickly summarize a few things that stood out for me when with I was looking at these slides. Our kids are growing and we see it in reading more than math. Um there's still not the level of proficiency that we'd like, but they're working so hard to get there. And I know all our teachers are working super hard to make sure that they're meeting the needs of our kids. They're trying to find the holes that the kids have in their skills and fill those holes so that the gaps can be
039taken care of. Um so what are we doing at the district level to improve? Okay, we have several things going on. First, we're giving all our admin professional development in literacy so they know what to look for when they go into the classrooms. Um, we actually have that tomorrow morning. We have a consultant coming from the state and she's working through a book study with us. She's phenomenal. We've also given all our admin professional development about coaching and how they can support their teachers in instruction. Um, we have really strong [snorts] teaching and learning coaches now in four of our schools. I'm so honored to work with with these um, ladies and gentlemen. Um, that they can support our teachers and any needs that they have. Um, we have an early literacy specialist that's provided
040by the state. She can go in and help with them. Um, we've got a really strong curriculum in all our reading at the elementary level. So, we have CKLA. We've talked a lot about CKLA. We have letterland. We have Hegrity. So, it's covering all the areas of um of reading for our teachers. And our teachers are getting stronger and stronger in that. We have uh some coaching from the company coming in in um March um to come in and see half of them got it in the fall and now half of them will get it um in the spring. So, um that's been a really big help along the way. Um, again, we're focusing on finding those holes in the children's um, skills and filling them. And we're going to be using our diagnostic data
041to search out the missing pieces and place them in an appropriate instructional groups, not just for um, interventions, but also for core instructions. So, the kids are going to get split across the grade level and teachers will be teaching directly to what they need. And then those kids that are struggling the most are going to get a double double dip of that in intervention with a smaller group. So excited about that. We're starting that in some grade levels now and hoping to expand it very quickly. That's something new that we're trying and I think it's the missing piece. I think this is what's going to push us over the edge and get us up to that proficiency level we want. Um [gasps] I am looking for a new math curriculum for us. It's been a
042long time since we had a a math adoption and so our teachers have really been without a strong math curriculum. So I'm in the process of finding good curriculum and having a big demo day and bringing in some teachers and and trying to find one that will fit us and and help our students and help our teachers so that they're not having to dig for things and and you know spend money out of their pocket or whatever. Um, we had intended to do that to wait till the new standards come out, but the state has pushed those new math standards out to the year 2829 [snorts] and we can't wait. So, we're going to go ahead and if we have to switch um I'm sure whatever curriculum we're going to get is going to adopt
043those new that'd be stupid not to um to adopt those new standards and they'll be able to adjust with whatever comes. All right. There's a lot more we're doing, but I'm going to let our TLC's talk specifically about what um what they're doing in their schools so that you can hear from from those four schools. But right now, do you have any questions? >> That math curriculum, is it uh K8 or >> I'm looking K12? Yeah, cuz our high school needs it, too, and our academy needs it. Um so, it may not be the same all the way up. So, right now I'm just kind of contacting companies that have um I'm trying to fill out people around us, what they're using that they're successful with and starting with those companies and then go from
044there. >> Yeah. But then hopefully he will be K12. Anybody else? >> Okay. Who would you like? So Josh is going to come and he's going to talk about what is happening at East, any midstream adjustments that they they might be making. I think that you'll probably hear that they're going to continue to push forward uh with some of the things that they've already had in place, but Josh needs to go first because he's also in school to uh to complete his credentials for lensure. So we need to get him out of here so he can get to class. >> Thank you, sir. Uh so it's been a honor stepping into this role and and working with our teachers uh at this level. Uh so looking at our MOI data uh we are we've met
045with our teachers and PLC's and we're recon you know refiguring our instructional groupings. So we're taking our MOI data and we're refiguring how we're teaching our kids. Um and so to do that we're using several programs. Uh I don't know if if Mr. Trina's ever talked to you guys about UFly, Hagerty and Letterland interventions, but we're seeing a lot of great growth using those in our individual kit with our individual kids. Um and uh for school net, uh we're using that as EOG practice. Um we all went through Swain and we know that the EOG is, you know, how we're how we're measured. It's changed dramatically. Mr. Tread, Mr. Cell met with us, sorry, Mr. [snorts] met with us on February 5th and uh I showed him an example of what the EOG looks like
046and uh it it's changed a lot. So, we're using Schoolnet um to teach our kids how to take the test online and teaching them you're looking at the test, taking that and putting it on paper and then taking [clears throat] what you did to put it back on the computer. So, it's really it's a really challenge for our kids and our staff because they're not trained on how to take that. So, uh, I know, uh, Kendra and I are really stepping up and trying to teach our teachers how to take the test. >> So, would you pause for just a second and let me ask the board something? When he used the phrase school net, do you understand what that is? >> I think they spoke about a little bit last time, but it's like
047samples from the previous >> Yeah, it's it's EOG style EOG style question. So, teachers can go in there >> and build a test based on standards, based on whatever the curriculum might be. And that database is across the whole state like you >> Yes. Y >> we can teach we can teach them all the standards and and everything about math or about reading that we want to or they want to but when they they sit down to take the test you almost have to know how to take the test also. >> Yeah. >> Do we offer any practice exams? Like I know we do it sounds like you're doing small group but like >> what a full exam feels like. So, we do check-ins. Um, and the check-ins are, you know, pacing guide based. Uh,
048the reading pretty much stays the same, standard based. The math changes. So, because there's so many math standards, so they take the check-in data and see where kids are struggling at, and those teachers try to target those standards before the EOG. But, but Josh, I think that that Casey and Casey Cody may be he's he's not Casey. I know. Um the I think that what Cody is pushing at is are are we actually giving the students the opportunity to build the test endurance that is needed? >> Yes. >> So we're we're try we're trying to get our teachers give at least one test a week. You know anywhere from five to seven questions. >> Okay. >> And what happens is the way the te the reading test is structured the reading test on the left
049side you have to scroll down and kids don't even know how to do that. So, we're trying to teach them how to scroll down and they'll click they'll click four or five, seven questions on that one story and then they'll go to another story. So, that throws them off. And then then you have test questions that are technologically advanced enhanced questions where they have to take a drop-own menu and answer [clears throat] the question or they have to fill in the blank. So, it might be a math question where the answer is three and 78. So they have to go in there physically type in three and seven with a slash8 on the test. So they're just trying to trip the kids up. So that just adds another layer that we're trying to teach our
050teachers. This is how you have to teach the test. Okay, >> which is not fair to the kids, but that's what that's the age we're living in. >> Okay, >> any questions for Josh? >> So let's get Josh's counter uh counter point up. and that would be Kendra Crow. And uh these two folks are doing wonderful things with our staff and with our students already kind of a little bit of a different view. It's from the same scatter plots that show you church yesterday. You know why she's not [laughter] about >> with all the snow. She forgot how church works. Um, okay. So, what you're looking at is our BOI and MOI data for our math I Ready, which is K5. Like Mr. Terville said, our MClass reading is on the second page. That's K5.
051And then our I Ready reading is on four five and that's also on the second page. So, BOI to MOI kind of what you're looking at is green on one side, red on the other, yellow falls in between. So, of course, we're looking for our numbers to progress towards that green side. That's our ultimate goal. So if you look at the top one, which is BOI, and then look at the bottom one, you can see our numbers are progressing. Our red side is going down and our green side's going up. We're making that shift of students moving across. We call that kind of moving the needle, moving them across the way. So um, of course, we want to target all students, but right now we're focusing on targeting those yellow students. Those are our students
052who are probably only one grade level behind or maybe even on grade in their grade level, but just at the bottom of that. You know, they might be a beginning fourth grader, but we're at midpoint of fourth grade. So, um, we're trying to strengthen our core instruction, which is our everyday instruction that all students are receiving. So, the way that we're doing that is some of the things that Miss Terry's already talked about are Josh. Um, so we are participating in CKLA coaching days for reading. So, a lady's coming in with our curriculum. She is helping us out watching teachers teach and seeing how can we improve this to benefit all of our students. And so, since we're using that K5, that's our goal there. Um, we are currently already looking at our schedule for
053next year and how strategically that plays into our students. Um, what Miss Herby is talking about, one of the ladies that we're doing a book book study with, excuse me, she talks a lot about the cognitive load of students and that cognitive load of a kindergarter at 2:00 is very different than the cognitive load of a fifth grader at 2:00. So, we have to be very strategic and that starts now when planning next year's schedule. We already start to look at that. So, and then our PLC days that are built into our calendar. Um, this past week's PLC last Friday, we decided to use it for grade band meetings. And so, that looks like K1 getting together, 2, three getting together, and then four or five. And so, we all come together, Miss Sutton and
054I as well, and we looked at this data of how is K1 feeding into our whole school's data. What is 2, three doing and what is four, five doing? And then, well, well, a lot of times what we like to look at is, you know, what does a kindergarter need for that next year of first grade? And so those teachers can collaborate together to say either my first graders got this or they don't. You know, we need to help this in kindergarten type things. And so that's the conversations that went on this past Friday that were great. And so some other things that we're doing just to promote our growth and the performance is um we have interventions at our school that we're very fortunate to have and their schedule is very intentional. It's very
055heavy so that every teacher receives them somebody during their win time every single day so that students are getting exactly what they need at that time and teachers also are getting the help and support that they need. So that's very intentional. Um that schedule's been reworked many of times but we keep reworking it and thanks to Miss Sutton though. And then we have AR. We're very fortunate to have that for third through fifth grade and that just promotes independent reading and we have seen great success. We have students at parent drop off with their book out. We have students in the cafeteria. One spilled milk on her book the other day because she was reading while she was eating. So, it's just promoting a joy of reading which a lot of our kids don't have.
056And then um first, second, first and second grade are using a program called UFly that you heard mentioned before. And so, we're using that during interventions to help close the gap of some foundational reading skills. And then our third grade is actually using it with our most struggling readers. Um and we're using that during win time across the board. And hopefully that's something that we're going to play into K5 next year. So we're kind of piloting it with first and second and then third grade a little bit right now at West. And then we're also doing what's called a walk to read in first first, second, and third grade right now only during intervention and win time. So what that looks like is all students in the grade level are ability grouped based on when
057Miss Tiffill talks about see the gap and close the gap. What gap do they need? So like our third grade has four teachers. They kind of split them up based on their abilities and one teacher's doing something specific and during that 30 minutes they rotate, shift around and they're getting just what they need. So that that cognitive load is not over their abilities at that time. So it's really helping them. So our goal is next year that that's with our core instruction and not just our win and intervention time as well because through some of the book studies that we're doing, we're seeing that that is what really is what we need to move the needle the most. And then in extra, we purchased extra math as a whole school this year to promote our
058number sense and our fluency. So our teachers are working. They're working hard. Our students are working hard. We have phenomenal growth. Our performance isn't quite where we want it to be yet, but we're hoping with all these things that both pieces kind of come together to promote that. So any questions? >> Thank you. We were in a meeting uh a digital meeting last week with uh the people from I Ready and uh Lisa Sutton was in that meeting and she threw a curveball at us and said, "So, do you think we could we could find more tutors to work after school uh towards the end of the year?" And my my initial reaction was, well, we're lucky to find the teachers that we've got for [clears throat] after school right now. But I walked out
059of that thinking, what Lisa is really asking for is another set of hands, is more hands to help with kids. And I thought, well, why why do we limit that to just after school? That's just a select group of kids who made the cut to get there, you know? So, I went to talk to Millie and I said, can we find some money? and Millie found us enough money to hire an atrisisk tutor for both East and West uh for the rest of the school year uh so that Mike and Lisa and their and their teachers can find those students who are bubble students at risk students and get them some additional help as well. Uh, now I don't I can't promise that that'll be there next year because the budget, who knows, right? But
060at least we can put those people in place now. And if I know Lisa and Mike, uh, they already have somebody that they're looking at and they're trying to persuade to come in and they'll be high quality instructors, right? I know you guys pretty well. So, uh, we're we're making that adjustment now as well already. Um Heather who is is the resident genius um is going to come and talk about the things that they are going to do additionally at the middle school. Uh the middle school has got so much going on right now and uh their numbers are blowing the people at I Ready um away. They're asking they've asked um what's your name? Ryan. I'm sorry to call you Evan, but that would be so bad. >> Okay. [laughter] They've asked Ryan to
061come and present at a conference to describe what the middle school is doing. Um, and Lisa has already said, "I don't know what he's doing, but I want to do it, too." Right. So, it's it's going to filter out. Talk to us for a minute, Heather, please. >> All right. So, I did not bring data. I just am going to tell you what we've been doing. I will tell you that on your sheets, the first three two pages, those are just the things that we've enacted this year to try to um boost our students proficiency. But I did forget to say that we have two dedicated tutors. Yes. that come three days a week and stay with us from 8 o'clock till 3:00 and they are pulling groups and they are helping our teachers to
062make sure that all of our students are covered in their needs areas. So that's Mr. and Miss Hawin for those of you who came through the school and may know them. So I'm going to read this to you. Um, as you've seen from the data presentation, Swain Middle School has area areas where we must improve and we take responsibility for that. Our responsibility is to ensure the hard work of our teachers is as aligned precisely to what our students need. So, NCDPI identified our challenge as core instruction. That doesn't mean our teachers aren't working hard. It means that we have to ensure that what they're teaching and how they're teaching it and what they're expected to learn is expressly and precisely aligned with the state's expectations, standards, and assessments. One of the things that Mr.
063Cell was talking about the EOGs and and so was Mr. Chris. One of the things that we found um shocking is that our EOG tests are written from a different group of people than who write the standards. And so they don't use the same language necessarily as what the standards written in. And the standard may be written at what we call a depth of knowledge of one or two, but the questions are written at depth of knowledge three and four. Three and four are things like uh synthesizing information, compare and contrast. A one or a two is what's three times three. And so that disjoint there is something that we are trying to overcome. And I'll show you how we're trying to do that just a minute. Our biggest help right now is our golden
064leaves school initiative grant. Um [clears throat] it's based on the framework from Dr. Robert Marzano. And one of the biggest things that we have right now is we have Mr. Bill Zema who meets with us every Tuesday for 30 minutes to an hour to an hour and a half, however long Ryan wants to talk. And he has also come to our school three times. He'll be at our school for the next four years repeatedly. And he is a expert. He's a blessing to us right now because he's really shown us things that we can do that just tweak a little bit to help with our um information and and our our uh instruction. And so that is a really good thing for us. We've created proficiency scales and in your happy little folder like the
065second thing there's a proficiency scale. Can I you hold it up? This is an example of a proficiency scale. And what happens is you go in, this is the student one. And so the goal is for a three. This is proficient. If students know this information right here, that's what the state wants them to know. This is above and beyond. And so you go into teaching creating equations and inequalities and you give this to the student, they know exactly what they have to do. And there's example problems there for those. There's also more um test taking strategies as you go further into those. We don't give them the whole thing every time. But then the teacher one is even more intense in the material that it's given. Uh I will say I hate to admit
066this. I've only gotten the ones for math and language arts and social studies written right now. I'm working on the science ones. The science ones, even though I'm a science teacher, are the most difficult for me to write because they don't have priority standards. You can't group things in science because Newton's laws and habitats, they don't go together except for with entropy, but we will talk about that. So, it is um those I'm I'm continuing to work on those. We are also doing those in our elective classes. So we're working on them for music and for art and for our CTE classes and for PE so that students know exactly what's expected of them. Um [clears throat] sorry we have oh conducted a detailed analysis of the EOGS and that is Casey that is this
067and so we've gone through and looked at every question on EOG and classified it as to what standard it comes under whether it is a technology enhanced question is it calcul calculator active, what's its depth of knowledge, so that our teachers are so familiar with those exams, they know exactly what we have to do to to meet those. Um, we do have classes where that isn't available because social studies isn't a tested subject. Sixth grade science isn't a tested subject. So, we only have those for the EOGs. Um we have redesigned our whole entire schedule on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays. Our students right now uh Tuesdays and Thursdays have a dedicated 90 minutes total of intervention on Tuesday. Everybody stops what they're doing and we go to intervention or as Mr. McMahan calls it
068TNT which is targeted needs. No. What is it? >> Targeted needs time. >> Anyway, so we have TNT time. And yes, he plays the song to signal that it's time >> to go. But um so kids are grouped based on their I Ready data. They're grouped based on their teachers Friday assessments and they are also grouped based on their EVOS projections. EVOS, were we okay with EVOS? Evos is the devil. It's actually the book of the devil. [laughter] Okay. So, [gasps] um we group those. Everybody is doing reading on Tuesday for those 45 minutes. Every staff member has a group of students. And so the students, they don't get to go anywhere. They don't do anything. The English teachers are working with the students that need the most English and reading at that time. And
069then our uh auxiliary staff are doing um what are they called? Extensions for the students who are above who who are already a four on that proficiency scale or they're just reinforcing. We intend on starting our third the Wednesdays for our eighth grade science which will give the sixth and seventh grade an extra day for reading or math depending on what the students need. We are also moving toward doing uh test just straight up test prep for at least a week before the testing. Um another thing that we have done is we've gone through and made a oh I did the priority standards. You can see those. But we went through I don't know. I'm just going to tell you about these things. We went through every standard and North Carolina gives you a if
070you are a level five in seventh grade math, these are the things that you can do. This is what's expected of you. If you're a level three, this is what's expected of you. But they don't separate them out by uh standard. So, we went through and separated them out by standard. So we know that if we're teaching numerous numbers and quantities, this is what a level three student is expected to know from the state of North Carolina so that we're not overaching or under teaching. So we're teaching right what they need to know. Then our grant asked us to take math and relate it to North Car to Swain County. And so this is an example of one of our posters and you can see it has Darnell Farm, Swing County Hospital, and then it
071has a map maker like the um >> like a surveyor. >> Yeah. And it goes, this is a math ratios from sixth grade. This is how it's used in those jobs in our county. We are trying to build a a group of professionals who can come in and say, "Hey, I'm a baker. Let me tell you how I multiply my uh recipes so that I can make big batches or I am a surveyor. Let me show you how I uh set this transient." Okay, we are really struggling with that. We have created a uh survey asking for the public's help. I am excited to report to you that we haven't had a single person reply to it. So, if any of you know anybody, Mr. Mcmahan and I talked about it today going to put
072that back out uh social media also going to send it to the students, but it's just a really short, hey, would you mind? I know Date Nate Darnell will come and talk to us about seed ratio and how much he has to plant per hectare. He'll tell us that. But we've got to get that information. We're not just doing this in math. I've done this for science. I've taken all the eighth grade science standards and listed all the employees I think I could figure out in Swain County and matched them up with the standards. So that for reading and language and social studies, we've done the same thing. So um retesting Mr. Mr. McMahon, what else am I talking about? Retesting. Um, when we retested math, some of our students don't believe that the I
073already diagnostic means anything. So, Mr. Mcmah shocked them when they went down from 8th grade to fourth grade and said, "You know what? We're going to take that again cuz we know you didn't lose knowledge. we know that you were tired or you were hungry or you just didn't care. And so when we did that, 73% of the students who were required to retake in math made much better. That's why our scores were the way they were in reading. 51% of the students who had scored lower scored much higher. I will tell you that the 49% that did have intentionally bombed it. And I I say that if you drop from seventh grade reading to below kindergarten level, you're not trying. And we had students do that. So we are I think that's all Mr.
074Mia. Um I hope that list and if you don't want all those papers, I will gladly take them back up and give them to our teachers. But um I also have a brief summary of what we are required to do for the uh golden leaf grant. There's just two p uh two copies of it. If anybody wants to read that and oh with the posters, >> you send that electronically to us. >> What sir? >> Can you send that electronically to us? >> I can. There are lessons plans to go with each one. So [clears throat] that's something else that we're working on. Do you have any? Oh, and if you need a road map because we're experts, I need questions. [snorts] >> Sounds great, Heather. It's a lot. It's a lot. >> It is
075a lot. And but you know what? My kid's worth it. >> It's worth it. Yeah. Thank you for that. >> And we can't you can't be a teacher who says, "Well, this is my last year and I'm just going to because you're messing up that kid for the rest of their >> So it Yeah, we've got to do it. It's our kid. I mean, I do it for your kids." >> Here, just one quick question. I know this math one, that's what high school does. >> Yes. >> That same same test. >> Yes. >> Do you share this with high school or do y'all work together on that at all? I have showed it to Amelia, but uh so the golden leaf grant provided us I got to call sorry [cough] the golden leaf grant
076provided us skeletal um proficiency skills the sixth seventh and eighth grade math and they did share us one actually today the whole Sorry, I asked you to get our math one proficiency scales completed, but we have a website, our school website, and all of the proficiency skills are on there. And if Ameilia will pay me, I would be glad to share [laughter] >> the two two thoughts on this RL and everyone. Um Sherry had a group, Sher Wright had a group of teachers come in a couple of weeks ago to work on something that was not related to EOG's academics. It was related to some character education. And one of the most phenomenal things happened is while those teachers from across the district, all grade levels, you know, um while they begin to work together,
077they begin to share ideas and begin to to hunger for the desire to meet with teachers from other schools. Now, we used to do that, but we've allowed ourselves to pull away from that out of a fear for loss of time or or wouldn't know didn't know where to find the time. But I think that there's a renewed commitment now to doing exactly what you mentioned and that is our math teachers from the middle school sharing and learning from the math teachers at the high school and other places as well because there's such a value in that. So the >> I'm sorry middle school right now because we are one of five schools in that cohort [clears throat] and we meet two times a month and um and get to share ideas. I mean, I
078talked with him today and I just want you to know he told us that we was exemplary school [snorts] [laughter] an exemplar that that the middle school is an exe exemplary school exemplar >> and the other piece I want to add to that is Heather is full-time teacher learning coach. Okay, at the elementary school, our TLC's are having to split time and be deans as well. And I can promise you that there are days in their lives when they spend more time acting like a dean than a TLC. Ain't that right? Right. Okay. So, as as the school system moves into the future and we look at budgets and we look at positions, I would encourage you and and whoever takes my place to think about the extreme value of a full-time TLC in every
079school because then they can do what Heather's doing. I mean, Heather's a genius and I and and a workaholic, [snorts] okay? But we have other people like Ameilia, who's going to talk to you in just a minute, who is as conscientious and works just as hard and is just as smart. We just need the opportunity to have the people to do that. I believe that might be the most single important thing as a school system that we look at doing. One of the most important. Okay. Speaking of Ameilia, Ameilia, would you come and share with us, I think, how the high school is a little bit different in its approach to this. >> Good evening. So we are semester based at the high school and I was able to kind of give you a snapshot
080of our EOCC scores and I guess it was January whenever I saw you last. So MOI and um EOI data looked different for us. At the end of each semester of course our EOCC courses take those state exams. So if you are a student in math 1 and math 3 you take a state exam. If you're a student in math 2 or another math course you have a teacher made exam. So, our teacher made exams are also um affected by an exemption policy that's applicable only to teacher made exams tied to an attendance incentive that we are currently thinking about revising and working on um as a team. Uh midway through the semester though, our EOC courses use NC check-ins like the other schools. uh we've done a better job this semester of strategically scheduling
081those so that when we administer those there are no standards that we have yet to cover. So we're getting true valid data back and can adjust our instruction or retach moving forward. So again those assessments are designed to mimic our end of course exams. Teachers review this data with their departments or with me and address adjust instruction and review accordingly. Um, our EOC courses have been strongly encouraged to utilize SchoolNet assessments, uh, particularly for units aside from benchmarks alongside NC check-ins. This year, specifically, teachers have been recommended to use the statemade questions instead of writing their own questions as we try to address an issue with rigor. and Miss Turby and I have had several conversations about how we can tackle that at the high school. So far, biology and math 3 have used utilized
082school net and they have unit data that they can work with and respond to. In addition to our EOCC courses, several of our history teachers use Schoolnet for unit assessments and we will continue to phase that into place. We have had conversations about incentivizing um performance on our end of course exams or on the ACT as we have in the past. So if a student were to beat their projected score, they would somehow be rewarded. Um I don't think that I need to review our EOCC exam performance with you. But aside from that, do you have any questions or do you have anything that you want to add? No. Okay. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. I really like the fact that you're taking the actual exam questions and using them. I think that there's
083invaluable uh uses for that because that is they're practicing what it because state exams all the way through even college and and afterwards are all, you know, standardized exams and there's a way that questions are written. >> Absolutely. I think that that's very important >> and Miss Herren did a really good job of kind of describing the depth of knowledge of our standards as opposed to those test questions and that's that rigor piece that we're struggling with. So we're hoping that's going to kind of be a a missing puzzle piece. >> Thank you. >> So I brought this to you first of all because RL has asked you know where are we? How do we compare? What are we doing? And and I think that this shows a couple of things. We know where we
084are. Okay. We acknowledge that we have work to do. There are places where we're doing really well and there are places where we need to to really pinpoint our our action. But but also I also want you to see that our TLC's and our staff are working exceptionally hard to be in be intentional in in the changes that they make so that it focuses on achievement for our students. We really are making strong effort with that now. I'm really pleased with that. Okay. Do y'all have any questions or any thoughts? Thank y'all. >> Just just a thought on the east and west because they're their their time split, you know, uh maybe they could take half the standards in east and half of them in west and work together on that to come up with
085something. I think that that's a a legitimate uh possibility for us to look at. Need to provide them the time to do that, but we we have some time where we might be able to make that happen. Thank you for that that suggestion. Anything else? So, let's get past academics and let's talk about money. All right. For just a few minutes, thank you all. And and if you guys, please thank y'all. Thank you all so much. Last time that we were together in, see this is February. in January. Uh one of the things that we brought to you was our need to uh put our maintenance department on a vehicle purchasing uh plan that that's revolving with the intent that at the end of 7 years we will still have some life left in vehicles
086so that those vehicles might be uh resold uh and get some of that money back out of them and then start over. Um Tommy has uh been in contact with three different dealers. Tommy, uh, you want to tell us, have we received any additional information? Where are we on pricing? In conversation, I've been led to believe that fleet pricing is pretty consistent because we finally got on that fleet. We got a fleet ID number, which is something we hadn't had in the past. So, we did do get that done. I've been in touch with Ken Wilson and Crossroads and Franklin Ford. Crossroads is where Taylor used to be downtown in in Wesville and uh requested quotes from them with for the same thing that we had already gotten quoted from uh Mountain Ford and I
087have not gotten anything back from them and I think this is the third time I reached out. So I haven't gotten anything from them but I've been led to believe in talking to them preliminarily that it's you know basically fleet pricing is what fleet pricing is. So, it's just a matter of what we want to we want to go. So, that's pretty much all I've got on that particular piece. >> Do you remember, Tommy, you just you you had some some estimates at least on the the dump truck what it might cost? >> Somewhere between 50 and 60,000 I think would get us something that we can absolutely work with at a in a better way than what we've got right now. I mean, the one we've got now is an 87 model, as we
088shared on that thing before. and it was the gas truck that we used to have before that that we decommissioned and took the tank off and put a dump bed on it. So, I mean, we've owned that truck since 1987. Uh, and that's a good thing. I mean, I'm not saying we don't need to be good stewards of our money because we do. We need we need to take care of what we're investing our money on, but at the same time, we have to give our people stuff to work with. Um, I think that uh between 50 and 60,000 if we can get 60,000 out of I know that we can go go all the way up to make a good tandem. We can get a good tandem for that. And if we can get
089a good tandem, that can save us some money on the back end to about hauling gravel in because a single axle you can haul it, but a tandem you can get probably 16 tons whereas a single axle you'll be doing about eight per trip. And so I think that would help us. And it's not really that much longer in terms of so a tandem or a single axle somewhere in the $60,000 range is what's in our mind right now. >> Is that like a 450 Tom? >> No, that would be like a uh 8000. >> 8,000. >> Yeah. One of those an 800 or an 8000 series a big truck. >> And the other piece that we were talking about was I believe a 350 or a 250. >> 250. >> A 250. And did
090we get a quote on that? >> We did Mountain Ford. I got it the quote from Mountain Ford that we got uh from Chris Barnes. And this is it's got a little age on it. So I don't know exactly what this would be because it was given to us actually on December the 11th I think was the date that I saw on this, but it's 42,800 is what he quoted to me for a new 2026 at that point. Um, and it's basically a a stripped down uh F250 for four four-wheel drive XL trim package, which means you can roll your windows up and down, which is fine. We don't need a bunch of bells and whistles. We just need something that we can get in and point and go get parts if we need to
091pull a lawn mower around. Um, take care of those types of things. And it's as basic as you can possibly get with a with a receiver hitch in the back. So, so if my math skills are are strong enough, that puts us somewhere in the estimated $100 to $5,000 range for those two. Um, and that that may be a low range. I don't know. [clears throat] Okay. Um, and so our recommendation was that we go ahead and move forward with the purchase of those. And I went and had a conversation with Millie and said, "So, where can we find the money to pay for this?" Then you have a sheet in front of you that says maintenance vehicles uh was printed February 13th and it's got a bunch of numbers on it, right? Okay. You're
092going to see that the number for the current fund balance in in fund number 80. Do you have that, Lisa? >> Okay. You're going to see that uh we have just under half of that in an investment account that we call a stiff account. Okay. You're going to see that right under that Millie made a significant transfer from the checking account into the stiff account back in December. Okay, you see that? All right. You'll see right under that that that she has listed uh the interest that we have received on those accounts. And um I want you to notice that fiscal year 26 um the the the interest on that stiff account is significantly stronger. Okay? Matter of fact, if you take um the interest from fiscal year 25 and half of fiscal year 26,
093there's over $166,000 in just interest off of that account. Okay. So, what Millie is is recommending that we do is that we that we allocate now, just hold your breath on this number, okay? That we allocate $150,000 for these purchases just in case, knowing that it probably won't cost that. >> It won't. >> You budget high, come in low, right? And that we go ahead and purchase a dump truck and the F-250 for this fiscal year. Now, if you look on the right hand side, it says calculated fiscal year 26 interest. After taking out that money from the the the fund balance, we will still earn over $113,000 in interest on that stiff account after taking that out. Okay. So, is is this really going to impact our fund balance a little bit? But this
094is all interest money, >> right? [clears throat] Some people would say it's free money. And if we if you continue to think about it in that perspective, using interest here, you'll be able to accomplish purchasing two vehicles every year that you need to off of interest as long as that fund balance in that stiff account stays like it is. Okay. So, as part of our budget conversation in just a few minutes, I'm going to recommend I, if you all are in agreement, that we purchase these two vehicles and that we take the money out of the interest from the stiff account and pay for them with that. I believe that that is a a judicious use of funds. Okay. But I'm open to your thoughts on that. Obviously, >> is leasing an option or is
095it pretty much we're going to buy them? >> There are difficulties with leasing. The answer, the short answer is yes, it is. But we but you remember we found that with leasing you comes with a fairly high insurance >> issue and then you still don't own the vehicle in the end. Okay. Now, if the board wants us to look at leasing, we can do that. Okay, that's going to put us into I'm not trying to discourage us from doing that, but that's going to put us into a different budgetary um requirement because we really try to to close out our purchases by March 15th, I believe it is, to give us the rest of the year. However, this could be an exception to that, Casey, if that's what the board wants us to do, and
096that's fine. It sure you make the decisions about the budget. Okay. And if that's what the board wants us to do, we can bring that back, try to bring that back in March >> and and have that conversation. >> It's a big deal your way. I was just thinking the same line of of logic about using that interest income. Yes. You know, the more of that you preserve, the more you'll keep acrruing. And if you're leasing it, you're you're going to be making, you know, $1,000 a month payments compared to losing 105 grand at one time. I think that that may be an option to look at after this because of the age of the dump truck. I agree with you that that's something because I was looking at the calculated interest, but I think
097if if we look at it on the next time that we're looking at purchasing something, I just with an 87 I myself an 80 87 model, so [laughter] things need to be replaced. So, um that's just where I'm at. >> Yeah. So I think dollar difference either way. >> Okay. Ju just and I know we want to stay local for can but how does that compare with like Dodge Chevrolet? >> It's I to be honest with you I didn't shop everywhere as far as different makes. Part of that cuz Ford guy and the other thing is cuz that's the only dealer in town and I'm not and if it was going to be prudent to be able to deal in town I was going to. I mean that's and if you want me to go
098and ask Chevrolet and Dodge and everybody else I can do that. But I can't imagine it's going to be a big barrier. >> Fleet pricing is probably all pretty. >> It'll be I mean it'll be it'll be close. I mean a couple of maybe a thousand here, a thousand there. I don't know. But I can look into it if you want me to. >> Driving a dump truck to town for maintenance is a whole lot easier than driving it to Asheville for >> or driving it anywhere. Yeah. I mean, and the dump truck part, I mean, as far as this F250, that's what I've looked at. As far as the other part that we're talking about buying a used vehicle for the [music] dump truck, because you if we went in talking about buying like
099a a new dump truck, you're talking about probably $100,000 off the top to buy it, maybe a little more. >> Those prices seem good. I'm just a little concerned with the Ford being aluminum. Is the dump truck aluminum? Well, the dump the the dump truck is something that I really haven't even shopped yet cuz I wanted to see what kind of budget I was going to have before I even started shopping because you can get all out of skew. But now what I really want to stay around is somewhere around 60,000 and that's going to be a a used truck and it's probably going to be seven years old, but it's probably and something that's been on somebody's fleet that they are taking out and that they're going to they're taking out to sell because
100they depreciated as far as they can. And that's where we step in and buy something that'll be able to hold together for some time. That's that's what I'm thinking. Now, I'm open to suggestion, but that's where I think that's where we're going to get our most beneficial price point. >> If you can get a new DR for that price, that's a good deal. >> It won't be new, but it'll be new to us. >> Yeah. It it'll be it'll have to be used because it >> won't be an 87. >> It will not be an 87. I mean, I looked it at the other day and there was a u there was a 2016 Freightlininer that was a uh tandem with a 16 ft dump bed and it was 63,000 is what they were asking.
101So, I figured, you know, if we can get something for 60. Now, it had nearly 400 on it, but that's not anything on like a M11 Cummins engine. 400,000 has nothing that they that's not even time for an inframe. and it would take us years to do another 200,000 miles on a truck like that before they're even due for an Nframe rebuild. So, I mean, that's that's the other thing is its workload is going to significantly decrease, which may means to me, honestly, I if you bought a new one, it would almost be counterproductive because you wouldn't even further justify the amount of money that you're going to spend on it. You can't you can't make the work out of it. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Tony, what what all do we use a
102dump truck for and at what frequency? >> Well, we use it to what we use one of the things we use it for now is we drag our our stuff around with it. When we pull the lull, when we pull our uh our heavy stuff like the backhoe and things like that, it's easier for us to pull it with that because the brakes and everything and it just it makes better sense. So, we pull a lot more with it honestly than we do >> than we do hauling dirt or hauling brush because that's the other thing. We haul a lot of brush like when we do our pruning and stuff and we take it out to we usually take it over across from east and dump it. So this would give us an opportunity to
103do the wood chipping and all that stuff and put it in that and take it to take it to spots. That's what we've used the old truck for. So gravel when we had to have it um those types of things. So So what what are the wishes of the board on this? We we can get more information if and that's fine. I would ask that if we bring information to you and we're going to make this type of a you're going to make this type of a decision this year that you make it at the next board meeting which would I think is March the 8th I think because that would keep us on this side of our our self-imposed purchasing deadline. Okay. um or if you are comfortable with us moving forward just like
104we're describing for you, you need to let us know because that's going to also regulate the next part of the budget conversation. Either way, what do you all think? >> What's your pleasure? I'm I'm good with moving forward. >> Moving forward. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, if you would find the uh Thank you, Tommy, very much. If you would find the budget amendment summaries that Millie provided for you and if you will look down through the front pages, there are two of them. Okay? And one of them has an increase to the budget for special revenue of $111,149. This budget summary is uh includes these trucks. Okay. And Millie has asked for me to bring these to you as amendments. Millie is at finance officer training in Greensboro right now. Okay. So, if you go
105back up to the top, there is an increase uh to the budget as an allotment, not an expense, but an aotment of $69,000 and change. >> And you can see where that's come from. Okay. Um in the federal grants, there's an increase of $18,528. Those are a lot that's not expense, that's a lotment revenue. Okay. Now, the one that will catch your eye is the capital outlay of $338,64. The reason for that is we have been allotted two new school buses by DPI. >> Okay. >> All right. But but DPI doesn't buy the buses and give them to us. DPI gives us the money. We buy the buses. >> Although they tell us kind of which buses we get to buy, it's a it's a pass through. We have to show that on our records.
106That's why there's an increase of $338,64. >> Yellow buses. >> Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Yellow buses. Okay. [clears throat] And and then you will see that there are increases to the buses to to the to the special revenue, including a $25,000 increase to maintenance and custodial. And of that, she has allocated $150,000 for transportation, maintenance, transportation. Okay. Um there have been some expenses in uh in maintenance and capital that outpaced what we had planned for the budget. And so we've had to increase um some some funding from other places by about $55,000 to get us through the rest of this year. That's also included in that budget. Okay, those are the budget amendments that Millie would like for you all to approve this evening. She sent those to you last week. Do
107you have any questions about any of those? Um, >> no. Back to that deals. We got the kit for the >> the thing. Do we got or are we going to what did we decide on that? Are we in constructing it or >> do it? >> Okay. Good. >> Either Friday or Monday. I talked to the gentleman today. Is it going to be Friday or Monday? >> And what's the schedule on hanging the the new net on the old We're going to do both those at the same time. We got everything on hand and ready to go. >> Soon as we get this one up. >> So Mark, the maintenance and custodial that that's where those two trucks. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yes. That's the that's why she she created two of these RL. The
108first one was without those and this one included. Okay. Any other questions? All right, those are the budget amendments. If Millie were here, she would also call your attention to the page that says the budget to actual. You should have that. And those are the percentages that tells us where we are in our budget. And right now we are at 58% of uh of the allocated budget that we have that we have already used which is exactly where we ought to be. >> Okay. It it's perfectly on pace for the school year right now. >> Okay. Good. >> Okay. >> All right. And if you have any questions about any of those items, um I will try to answer it, but really we would need to give that to Millie and let her get back
109with you. Okay. So, I will be asking for you to approve the budget amendments that Millie has provided and included in that will be uh the purchase of the two vehicles for maintenance. All right, fair enough. >> Mhm. >> Okay. Also, you have uh the audit engagement letter. This is the contract for the auditors that I told you that had been held up. Um, it's increased by, I think, $250 from this year from last year. Uh, they do a good job for us. Um, we sent out a, uh, RFQ for this last year and they replied and that's who Stephanie wanted to go with, this particular company. They serve several districts. Um, I'm going to ask for you to approve that as well. If you have questions, I'll need to get somebody to answer them.
110You have Do you have questions that would hold this up this evening? That's pretty. I mean, that's not much more than what we've been doing, right? >> No, it is notation. >> It is not. It is not. Um, also last month we brought to you um this is off of budget and now to to policies. We brought to you a policy for therapy service providers and the one element that RL asked that we add was putting a [snorts] time aotment in it between three and five. And so I added that [clears throat] to the policy. Um, all of these pieces were exactly like you saw them last time. It it will allow external providers to come in and use our facilities after school hours if they fill out a facility's use form and we have
111an [clears throat] active memorand memorandum of understanding with them. Okay? And there's also language that that specifies that we are not accountable for what they're doing. We're just allowing the space. Okay. So, we're going to ask for you to to approve that. Questions. All right. Then the the last two items up for discussion. Um I have already shared with you the adjusted calendar for this school year. Uh and has taken into account um the snow that we had uh back in the first week of February. I'm going to take just a minute to explain if anybody is watching um by YouTube or Marine Devil Network tonight. There are people who are questioning why we're not using remote days for instruction. Okay? And and it's not that we don't want to use remote days. is that
112in order for us to allow our students to come to school on August 18th rather than August 25th, the the state law mandates that you start the Monday closest Sherry, tell me if my date is right. To August 26th, correct? Um, it's a law. The only reason that we can start a week early and stay within the law is because we get a winter weather waiver. And we have to accomp have to accomplish eight uh weather days that take us out of school over a certain time frame or we we can't start until the Monday closest to the 26th. We are at our we're on our last year right now on that. And if we don't have a couple of more weather days uh in two years, the students are going to be starting somewhere
113around August 26th or 27th unless they change the calendar law in Raleigh. And I wouldn't hold your breath on that. Okay? >> And if we use a remote learning day, we don't get to use this as weather day. >> No, we don't. A remote learning day is an [clears throat] instructional day. Mhm. Now, if we have two more weather days this year, okay, we will immediately shift to remote learning days like other districts. And I've been working with our principles and our central office staff [snorts] to create a a a justifiable remote learning plan that will benefit students and also take care of staff. Okay, both of those. Um, but we're just not at the point where we can use that yet. Okay. I just want everybody to understand it's not that we don't want
114to. It's that we're try we're trying to keep our students um to finishing the first semester before Christmas for a lot of different reasons. >> Okay. So, I hope that that word gets out [clears throat] um and if you would help us spread that. The calendar adjustment that you have for 2526 takes all of that into account. And you'll notice that we have shortened up the number of optional teacher work days at the end of the year. You can begin to think that graduation could perhaps maybe possibly happen somewhere around there. Uh we're hesitant, aren't we, Tyler, to say exactly when graduation is because once that goes out, it's out and we don't normally uh put that date out until somewhere around March. Okay. All right. Do you have any questions about that calendar? No.
115Okay. This just helps us finish out the year. One of the things that people have asked about the no day, one of the reasons that we used a no day was I had the only option I had was to start taking annual league days from uh spring break and that'll be the last thing that I ever want to do. Okay? That might cause war. Um and and there's enough wars without me starting one. Okay? So, one more thing for discussion. Thank you all for your good attention. I know it's been a lot tonight. Sherry is going to come and I've tried to save the entertainment for last. Song and dance. And she's going to describe what the calendar committee and our administration um have put together for the 26 27 school calendar. Um, first I
116wanted to say uh put a few points out there about calendar law because I'm not sure everybody knows there's the calendar is very much structured and there's certain things we have to do. Teachers are contracted for 215 days. So our calendar by law has to be 215 days. um it can't be any less or anymore unless you know like when Helen happened or something like that they might pass something to make that less teachers um there's 11 holidays we have to take pretty much we follow the state holiday the only one we have to put on the day it is is Veterans Day. Yes. November [clears throat] 11th. The rest of them like we wouldn't have to put Easter with Easter if we didn't want to Good Friday or whatever. uh annual leave days. I
117think sometimes that we're under impression that annual leave days are sort of like vacation days and they are but teachers earn annual leave days. So if we put annual leave days in the calendar, they have to take an annual leave day. There's no personal leave they can take or anything else. So we try to strategically place those in the best place which would be best for teachers. Now, if you are five years or so less with time in the state system, you earn something around 1.15 or one two annual leave day per month for the 10 months. The state mandates that we put 10 annual leave days in the calendar. So you can say that most teachers if they're five or less they're not going to have any extra they're not going to earn any
118annual leave dates where somebody like me that's been here since you know Jesus was born just or maybe him and maybe I'm more I don't know >> I'm Moses or Jesus [laughter] >> I earn like 2 something you know so I have days that I can spend so to speak but five or less and we have a lot of young teachers that don't earn any extra days. So when you look at the calendar, what we did was we met with principles and uh representatives from each school and they sort of said what we liked and didn't like about the calendar this year, what we wanted to change. Then I created a calendar based on that and then looked at calendar law and did a few little tweaks and we came back together and talked about
119it. Made a few changes. So, one of the things that if you'll look at the calendar, we added an what we haven't done before is added an optional teacher work day on that first week of school where teachers come back because they spend a lot of time on open house. Open house will be on that Thursday. And so, we felt like if they had came in the week before extra whatever, let them take a day off that day if they had day to leave and they were all done. So, if we make an optional, they can. if it's mandatory, they cannot. Um, we try, we do really try and I know people say, why does a high school testing sort of drive the calendar? You know, we want to test before Christmas. My answer to
120that is we've all had kids and think about if your child is in elementary school and basically what's happening is after the last day of instruction, they had to wait three weeks to test. We would not, you know, that's what we're asking the high school to do. If we put testing after Christmas with a two-eek Christmas break, then they have to come back for a week and do a little um remediation if they all even show up for remediation and then they test. So, we do try really hard and with weather. Um, one year when we tested after Christmas, it was almost February before we were done with testing and we can't start the second semester till testing is complete. So, that just gives you a little background there. That Christmas may look a little
121weird, but because we took a holiday and put it after Christmas, um, holidays, nobody can work. So, a lot of people that are 12 months said they would like to have [snorts] a day time after Christmas, an extra day to catch up before they come back because if you're 12 month or 11 month, you can work annual leave days. Teachers cannot or 10 months cannot. They they have to take those annual leave days. So pretty much we wanted to be sure that we gave people u time to you know rest up after Christmas or do whatever they need to do or travel back if they had went somewhere. We made that optional teacher work days. We made that annual leave so that anybody that didn't have leave would have time to drive home before they
122went home for Christmas. Then [snorts] we have another week of annual leave, holidays, whatever. This year we did a optional teacher workday on Friday and we come back on Monday and it was chaos. [snorts] For one thing we probably had I don't know 25 new enrollies that we had to get in the computer in Infinite Campus. We had to schedule the high school was you know transitioning kids in and out between them and academy. They have to have parent meetings before they did that. And then teachers want a chance to get their classrooms ready and so they wanted more time when second semester started to be quite honest. So we have two days in there for them to get that done. This year we had separate PLC days and separate conference days. And I don't
123if you looked at the calendar for this year you would see that. And what we've discovered is that they don't necessarily every school doesn't need PLC days and conference days. For example, the high school doesn't do conference days like the elementary schools do. You know, uh the elementaryaries, they may PLC every week or every other week because they do those grade level meetings and they don't need PLC. So, we've made one day that encompasses both and going to leave that up to administration to how they want to use those days. Okay. Um, we have moved, uh, Easter is early, so we've moved spring break back to what I would say normal time, you know, and then the end of school, we know we need an annual leave day. That's one reason that around Christmas looks
124a little different is because we want a day where if it snows, we can say you don't have no one has to come to work. And so that's why that annual leave day is in there to use for inclement weather. We also have several optional teacher work days there at the end that we can use as well. So if we took one of those, the calendar would move one day closer to June, you know, for students. That's about it, I guess. Any questions? >> You'll notice on your calendar um in December of 2026 that it reads December 18th, 19th, 20, 19, 20. Those are groundhog days. >> Those are Sherry missed that even though somebody told her to change it. [laughter] >> Actually, >> those were the days where the days went. >> I'll fix
125that. >> So that Monday would be the 21st, the 22nd, the 23rd, the 24th, and then the 25th would actually be where Christmas is listed. >> Okay. Okay. And it was a little where Christmas and um New Year's fall for the coming up year is a little in a weird place. Not weird but you know just the way the week you get a lot of days before >> right? >> You know what we've tried to do to accomplish with this is start when the law lets us provide ample opportunities for teachers uh to work outside of the classroom but also inside the classroom. provide for uh the calendar law requirements, take care of Christmas, which falls unusually for us. Um and then give ourselves a little space at the end just in case. >> Those
126are the big things. And I and I really appreciate the work that Sherry has put in on this and all of our especially all of our teachers because uh we we called them together twice. This is not an easy task. M you know, you would think that you just [clears throat] throw it together, but you can't. Uh, and I appreciate what they've done. I'll also tell you that a majority of the districts in Far West um are taking spring break that same week with the exception of Jackson County and I think that Mon County is different. >> Um, but most of us in that same second week, >> Western schedule, so to speak. >> All right. We try to do that so that we can schedule ball games around that too. Otherwise, we've got some
127real problems with athletes in their schedules. Okay. Any questions about 26 27 count? >> We do go by hours and y'all probably know that we have to have 1,025 hours um in our and we have we probably have a few extra days in there, but we want to have a few extra days. You never know when you might have two two weeks or three weeks of inclement weather. So, >> we want a little bit of a buffer. >> Any questions on any of that? Any thoughts? Anything to change? All right. >> Thank you, Sherry. >> If uh if it's appropriate, then Mitch, we move to action. >> Yes. >> All right. I recommend that the Swank County Board of Education approve the consent agenda, including personnel and the minutes from the January 12th, 2026 meeting.
128So, moved. >> Second. [snorts] >> Any discussion? All in favor? I recommend that the Swing County Board of Education approve policy 40045021 as you have it in front of you. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor raise your right hand. >> I recommend [snorts] that the Swing County Board of Education approve the auditor's contract as you have it. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. I'm going to combine D and E together. Okay. Okay. I recommend that the swing board of education approve the budget amendments including the maintenance vehicle purchases as presented this evening. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I recommend that the swing county board of education approve the 202526 school calendar revision. >> So move second.
129>> Any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. >> I recommend that the Swing County Board of Education approve the 2026 2027 school calendar as we've discussed this evening. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor, raise your right hand. >> Uh you have several uh points of information uh that are listed. We've listed every field trip that's going to happen for the rest of this school year and into the summer. Um, we are required by policy to let you know if anything is overnight. Several of those are overnight. Um, they don't require your approval, just your knowledge. The only field trips that require your approval are out of the country and we don't intend to do that right now. Um there is a document that's in front of you that
130uh if we could have just a few minutes after the meeting comes to a close that talks about legislative agenda that I would like for you all to work on [snorts] for me and I will explain more about that in just a few minutes but let's not take time right now to do that if that's okay M. Okay. Your next meeting that is a regular schoolboard meeting is going to be March the 2nd is the combined meeting with Cherokee Central Schools. I don't know where that's going to be yet, but it's our turn to host. We'll let you know. Barbara is working on a meal. It'll start at 4:45 though. I [snorts] am going to assume that it will be somewhere on one of our campuses. Okay. Last year, I mean two years ago, we
131had it was at East Elementary. Okay. Um the meeting after that is the next Monday, >> March 9th, >> which is March the 9th. That's your regular scheduled meeting. Okay. Now, there are some other meetings that you already have on your calendar this week to attend, including [snorts] this Friday at 2:30 if you can be there. Okay? if you can. I think as far as I know, Joanne, have we covered everything? We've taken care of everything unless Mitch, you or any of the M board members have something to add. >> Anything to add? >> Nope. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. Second. >> All in favor, raise your right hand. Thank you. Now, if you'll just hang out for just a second, I want to share a thought with you. >> [snorts] >> We
132want to go at five on the ninth.