Special Called Board Meeting 6/8/2026

001All right. I would like to officially call this uh meeting to order. Today is Monday, June 8th, and this is the board retreat. And so at this time, I would like to have an approval of our agenda. >> I make a motion we approve the agenda for June 8th, 2026 board retreat. >> Second. >> All right. Motion, a second. All in favor? All right. 40. Thank you. Again, we uh certainly miss McCormack and we certainly hope she's getting some rest and healing. So, um we'll look forward to catching her up at some point when we are able to see her. But at this time, we will go into our board planning and strategic vision. So, Mr. Smith, I'll turn it over to you. >> Outstanding. Well, thank you. It may be uh with a little

002bit of external noise, it may be best for us to close these doors. And if you have any uh uh any issues with uh Thank you for that. Will it just pull? That'd be awful. It's a little bit warm in here for me, but I tried to turn it down a little bit. We'll see how that goes. But but this is a little bit different. First of all, I'd say thank you to Senica Light and Water for uh for hosting us. What a beautiful, beautiful venue uh here. We've talked a little bit about the lay of the land. This is a little bit of a different meeting uh for us. As you uh may recall in the in the years past, this is the meeting the board retreat would be a time where uh each

003division head would come in and do some formal presentations. But uh you know, there there are a few different reasons that we've kind of are kind of rescheduling that. We're going to kind of push it to October. Uh partially because that's going to fit the rhythm of our strategic planning. Secondly, we have some new folks that are transitioning in that I think will be better prepared. And third, I think simply the information and data that we're going to hear will be probably more timely uh at that moment. But uh I thought we'd just talk through a little bit about what we're going to accomplish today. Uh first we're going to talk maybe a little bit about some numbers uh and data that we do have that is uh kind of relevant, pertinent, and timely. Uh

004this is that time of year where we would update our board goals. This is uh this is something that's done statewide where uh where our board would come forward with some goals. We're going to have a little activity where we can review current board goals. I would say that this is going to be a year that we might tweak those board goals and then we might see more transformational change about those board goals that would align to our strategic plan uh as we move forward. And then speaking of strategic plan, I think that this is kind of where we'll land. This is really not planning for the strategic plan, but it's the plan for the plan. Uh where we're going to really talk about uh you know this is this will be the final year

005of our 22 through 27 strategic plan. Think about what was happening in 2022. Uh public education was disrupted. Uh and so that was when this strategic plan uh was uh was born and came in uh to existence. And so now we're at this moment where we're hopefully on the other side of a lot of that. So in the fall of 27 27 through 32 and I never I can't even imagine talking about 2032 of running schools. So uh this is uh this is kind of where we are. We're going to go ahead and have our executive session uh this morning following this meeting. Uh if uh if that's okay, we put that on the agenda. This will be the normal uh employment recommendations, changes and evaluations. Uh be pretty traditional conversation that we would have

006in executive session. But two things that are really annual events. One is final evaluation or annual evaluation for superintendent. I know that you've had some discussion about that and we'll be prepared to have that conversation. But also uh each year the board of trustees is tasked with kind of going through a self-evaluation and uh and talking about some of the things that you're going to be focused on. Have an instrument that I'll bring forward that'll help you walk through that today and we'll do that during executive session. If you look through the agenda for tonight, I just want to kind of give you a preview of that. Uh you'll see that executive session exists on that as well. As long as you feel like we've accomplished the work of executive session, then that would be

007something where probably uh as we begin the meeting this evening, there would be an amendment and we could remove the executive session and we would get all of that work done now. But uh if that's uh if that's okay uh with you any any questions or uh or uh ideas about how we might divert from that or does that sound all right for y'all for a start? >> Absolutely. >> And so a really reasonable timeline today. Uh it's uh somewhere in the neighborhood of 910 I imagine. Now, uh, our, uh, presentation is coming at 11:15. And so, just want you to kind of feel like this two hours, we'll do what we can. If we need to come back into executive session after lunch, that's absolutely fine. If we get to a place where we're

008ready to begin it before then and then break uh for that, then we can do that as well. So, we'll just be kind of nimble today. Um, and if uh, anytime anybody wants to call break, call break. Uh that's we could we could take five minutes anytime you want to. So when we're talking about data, I think that it's really important that uh that we talk about this, right? This is a year of transition uh really representing quite a bit of change here. Uh in uh just in terms of leadership positions, uh you've gotten a new superintendent, three assistant superintendent, one uh CFO, uh two directors, three principles, and seven assistant principles. and we have some pending uh some pending postings that are still out there. And so a good amount uh of change that

009represents so it's going to be really important for us um as a leadership team and a governance team to really represent uh steady uh I would I'll go back here to uh to to make sure that folks have what they need when they need it and for us to just be uh be really steady this year as we plan and execute this year. you can stop talk about man I I tell you I I'd rather talk less and less >> uh and uh if you have any conversation around this that's absolutely okay and I can get you guys copies of these slides there's no need taking all these are current staffing numbers uh you look at total employees and I'll I'll just kind of be quiet and let you go through that just for a

010moment One of the things that I'm careful to observe here is that when you add all those numbers, they don't equal 1657. So, if you look down at the very bottom, you'll see that there are just a number of of other categories that are out there. Everything from substitute bus drivers to food service database clerks. There's some that ju just based on u just based on the uh the the numbers that are out there uh they I didn't put them on this page. >> I got a question. These the mental health counselors we have three for the entire district. >> Uh it's an interesting thing. Uh so we have three that are employed by school district of Aone County. We also partner with DMH, the department of mental health for additional uh contracts and they

011have those as well. Uh beyond that uh we have Stepping Stones, that's a private contractor that has actually come in and helped us and this is all uh been in the last three years because it's been simply difficult to find and identify mental health counselors. uh DMH has has actually uh been able to elevate their beginning salary uh to a place where it's been a little bit easier and manageable to attract folks to these roles and keep them once they're here. And so we have four conduits to provide mental health support. One is these three mental health counselors that are part of our team and have and have been as well for for a long time. I would say the department of mental health, stepping stones which is our partner uh and then also we

012have gaggle. Gaggle is an online support and uh it's been really important for us to have this uh this relationship for a couple of reasons. Number one, if there's a short-term lag where we're not able to have somebody in a school, while it's not the very best to be online and virtual, we're able to have that connection and make sure that they have consistency. We've also been able to offer support uh in other languages. And so if we have a Spanish-sp speakaking student that needs support, Gaggle is able to bring that support in multiple languages. >> These three mental health counselors, where are they based? >> Uh they're they're one per area. And so I could uh I could actually give you a list of schools. I'll write that down as a note. >> Are

013they are they at a school all day or they're not? No, they are at a school. They're not in the district office. >> No, they are absolutely not. They are at a school with a case load. They are uh all of our uh we have no mental health counselors that are located or based in the district office. All of these folks are located out in school. >> So, when we have a problem or a referral, they go and and essentially take all the information. Is that >> Oh, absolutely. Yes. We have a we have a series of folks, you know, Alica Queen and her team from a social working point is involved. Carrie Carter is one of the lead uh counselors. You um Miss uh uh Miss Stacy uh Frick over at OA is is

014really involved in those. And so there's a conduit when a counselor comes forward with a referral. Okay. There's a process by which it goes it gets approved. We attach somebody. That person goes right onto a case. >> But you feel like we're pretty covered with the three that we have >> in this well in this moment with all of the support we we are. I I think Honestly, between our partnership with DMH, some other potential partnerships that over time it may be that we would get out of the mental health business and actually use our our our community partners to offer this support. That would be the goal over time. But right now, don't forget these folks would already be a part of u of the retirement program. They would be it would be uh

015you know, I think it would be probably a bad bad form to begin retreating while these folks are still here. So in your experience that you bring to us are any of these categories do you feel high or low for our district here? >> We have uh we have too when we look at uh we we look at statewide numbers. We are uh really anemic in some areas and uh we would probably be only above state averages in two distinct areas and this is coming from our CFO uh over time >> those two areas uh where we would be above average when you look at student ratios based on the number of students that we have maybe even the number of buildings that we have where would we be above where we'd be below we

016would be above uh in the area of teachers we would be above above in the area of custodians. And so in uh some respect, you know, if we're going to be above in any area, teacher is not a bad place to be uh because that's that's where the rubber hits the road. This is where we serve our children. This is where we serve our community. And so uh this would mean that in in many cases we would have lower class sizes than some of our neighboring districts. And that is uh that is in fact the case from observation and from the data that uh that uh Mr. shipling has been able to provide from custodian standpoint. uh we uh we if you walk into our facilities that's pretty evident as well uh regard even if

017we have we have some buildings that uh you know are 50 years old at this point when you walk in they look fantastic the floors are clean and I think that this is an expectation of our community that we walk into our children are coming into facilities that are are ready to go my experience uh when I rely upon when some of this happened when you think about 2020 and the regulations that we had to overcome and the cleaning that had to take place just to reopen schools. >> It was a pretty extraordinary thing. And I think that it's it's quite possible that some of those numbers rose during that period of time simply because of the lift that was necessary in keeping schools open. Uh but uh certainly we benefit from having having good

018folks out there. >> Mr. Smith, do you know what our average class size is? Uh it would it would depend on the grade the grade band elementary, middle, and high. It would also but that's uh probably some numbers. It would be a bigger spreadsheet than I would be able to memorize. But uh again, I can make some of some of these these notes uh as well. Uh this this is the kind of data that as you bring these things forward that when we come forward in October, we would be able to say because think about what comes right after that conversation. How do we teachers, professional development. You'll be budget planning for 2728. All of those things come forward at that time. And so that's a that's a that's a good reminder for me to

019add that to our list. >> Well, that'd be a good recruiting tool. >> Sure. >> And then going back to below average, any specific categories that stand out to you? >> Um, anecdotally, uh, you know, there was a, uh, there's a kind of a normal curve. We were uh we were trying to really get behind district. I think folks are worried about a topheavy organization and district office. When we look at student services and instruction, the instructional team that we have, we would probably be far to the left of the average in terms of uh of state uh of state averages with with the number of folks in the instruction student services team. Some of those categories and Miss Holder and I've had this conversation. Um it's it's just kind of tough to get at.

020This district may put this set of employees in this category. This district may put this uh this set of employees in a different category. Uh and so um that's uh it's difficult to make an applesto apples comparison there. And so part of it is hard data is part of it anecdotal. >> Thank you for these questions though. This is what I was hopeful to have. It was going to be a 15minute meeting if you didn't do this. I'm thankful for >> Mr. Smith. In terms of career specialists, um I'm assuming that each area has a career specialist in the middle school and one in the high school. >> Yes, ma'am. Those are uh are partially funded through EEDA. There's another funding source for these and and you might uh you might expect that that there

021there are different categories that have different funding sources and so not all of these would necessarily come out of the general. >> Don't we have math coaches? Uh yes ma'am and I'm not sure why that's not specifically listed there because we should have uh have the same number of math coaches that probably would be down there and others and so for for just the sake of updating this slide if we forward I think it would be good if we have reading coaches there we should have math coaches there >> and one more question we have nine do we have 10 elementary schools or we have nine elementary schools >> yeah and I think that there may be one that's currently being hired there may be a posting out there that uh that one has just

022not been filled yet. >> Okay. >> We're also uh and we'll uh we'll talk a little bit about uh this will fold into a personnel conversation around uh around some some of the sharing that might be taking place with some of our smaller schools as well. Well, thank you uh for that and any questions that end up coming from this this of course you'll have access to this this information thought it might uh might spur some conversation. So this is if you're like me, you're thinking, well, I would like to see this longitudinally as well. Let me see this over the course of the last five years. Which are up and which are down and which which categories exist that didn't exist. And so you could easily turn this into a one-hour conversation, but I

023just wanted to kind of give some highlights about where we are. >> I got one last question. >> Yes, ma'am. >> We have 194 aids. Is that inclusive to companion aids, instructional aids, and maybe uh bus aids? Don't >> this is this is the >> total number general ed. The only thing the only category that I'm not certain that it includes would be bus monitors or the are the monitors that >> that we have. And so, uh I'll I'll get clarity on that. But yes, this is both gen ed and special ed. >> Okay. And I'm trying to take as good notes as I can, but I know you're taking notes. So, thank you. So, thank you so much. Don't let me miss anything. >> Don't let me miss anything. Uh just some uh additional

024numbers of interest uh regarding uh your school district. And so, uh some of these are just fascinating when you start looking at the number of meals served. You know, sometimes we say out in public that uh boy, if if you knew how much food we serve, you'd think we were in the food service. business and not the education business. But that's the case. I I'm just fascinated by 8,880. >> I'm not surprised. >> And you know, we come back to there. There are several things that are super unique about our organization, but the fact that we have over 725 square miles that we're serving with 16 traditional schools is uh is really an amazing it's it's an amazing statistic. Uh and that uh I mean it speaks to the to the geography and and the

025population uh distribution within our or uh within our our community. But when you think about the fact that if you look at the circumference of the Earth at the equator, it's approximately 25,000 miles. And so every 3 days, our buses travel the equivalent of all the way around the Earth. >> Wow. And I know the fact that I know that the circumference of the earth just means that I don't have any friends and I have a lot of I have a lot of spare time on the weekends. I I get I get what that means. So go ahead and make your judgments there. But that >> I drove up to the mountains a few months ago and I was amazed at how far our county goes out that that way. >> Yeah. You start driving

026toward cashers and realizing that we would go all the way to the to the line there. when you start driving to Clayton and you go all the way to Chhatugu. When you start driving through Fair Play and you go down to exit one and you get off at exit one and you're right there at Leavonia, uh you're uh that that's all Aone County schools. And so uh it's it really is amazing. It's pretty expansive, but it's uh it's it's interesting. So going to share with you the administrative survey data uh from this year. This was a question that was asked uh this past month and uh I had to go back and do my homework on exactly when this was. But want to make these key points before we start looking at the data. One

027uh this is that data that was by principles and assisted principles to provide perception data for supporting documents. So I'm going to go up just once uh or two to look at school level administrators. You see the number 49. And so the possible pool of respondents here would be 49. Uh as a rule, uh when you go through these questions, you're going to see that there were 24. So about a 50% response rate. And there may be a reason for that. We'll talk about uh in just a minute. Uh there were some questions, for example, when we're saying, "Tell us about your support from elementary or tell us your your support from secondary," you'll note that it's not going to be 24. It's going to be are lower than that. And so I uh I

028I've actually provided raw numbers for you on this so that you have the exact number of respondents per question. Uh but just wanted to make sure that you had that as clarified. Number three, uh each question has five options. We can go from strongly agree to agree to disagree to strongly disagree. I've tried to color code these where strongly agree would be dark green, agree would be a lighter green, disagree would be a light red, almost orange, and then a darker red would be strongly disagree. And then I think that there will be a blue that would say I simply haven't had enough interaction. You can imagine an assistant principal at an elementary school when we start talking about procurement over at Miss Gibson's office, right? They wouldn't have any opinion on that because it's

029not what they do on a daily basis and so they would probably simply say not enough uh not enough interaction to evaluate. >> Fourth and really interestingly the survey was completed midFebruary when I looked at the the window and some of the uh the the dates that were there. We tried to maintain consistency from the previous year but you know what was happening in January? You just gotten a new superintendent. uh we had a CFO that uh had uh we're just in the middle of that transition. And so when you're asking folks uh how do you feel about support from that office? Are we talking about the new one, the old one? And so there may have been some of that confusion there. And so I just want to, you know, data is data, but

030it's important that we put data in context. And so I think for this year, it's going to be important that you just have that context as we go through. >> Okay. Is there a reason it's done in midFebruary? Is that going to be Is there some state regulation that mandates it be done in February? >> Oh, no ma'am. This is actually a local survey that we do by choice uh just to get information about our department. This is something if you uh if you feel like there's a better time of year, you know, you want it far enough into the year where people actually have an opinion develop. But you know what happens right after February? we get into March and we start uh we're in the middle of access testing and and uh those

031sorts of things. You start to get into spring break. Once spring break comes, uh we come back and we're into testing. And so I I think I'd be open to uh I think under normal circumstances, February wouldn't be a terrible month to have it, but uh I'm open to uh to any other you get towards the end of the year, I think it people get a little bit >> right. You probably have less responses. Yeah, >> that's exactly right. >> So, this survey that we did went to every principal and every assistant principal. Correct. >> This is something that goes out to uh all admin, the the principles and the assistant principles here, which we have of which be a group of 49, >> but they get the same survey. In other words, you wouldn't

032send one just to the principles and some >> No, the raw data >> because you were having some questions about whether it's before or after transition. >> Sure. >> So, I was wondering if that would make a big a difference sending something just to the principles on their specific information that we need. >> Okay. Well, you can disagregate it and we can talk about what this survey might look like. Uh the survey that was given this year was consistent with the survey that has been given for the the pre the previous years. And so uh again this this will give you a little bit of insight for each division. Uh you start with the superintendent's office communication. These are the three questions. Overall I'm happy with the performance of the whatever the office is. And

033so that would be strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree or I don't have enough information. The same would be true for communication from that office because that's something I think that was a question that had come from the board before is what's the quality of communication that's coming from the district office uh and uh and the conduit of information between district office and uh and local schools and then overall I feel supported and challenged by uh what whichever office there was uh you're going to notice when we get to special ed there a couple years ago uh based on the information that came from this survey. We were in the middle of a transition and change there. There were some additional questions asked uh for special ed around compliance that were kind of specific to

034special ed. And so you'll see that those are included in the special ed data as well because they've continued to ask those questions. >> Okay? And so we'll go through uh quickly, but I also want you to have it hard copy. I want you to be able to uh to see it and uh and so I really We'll sit down on on this for a little bit, but I thought that we'll uh if you want to make a note, the conversations that I would have uh in this setting would be uh in under the heading of maybe celebrations and observations, right? In those in those categories. Uh in other words, you're going to find some of these categories that have really pretty significantly improved over the last couple years. And uh there may be a

035number of reasons for that. Uh under the other heading, I don't know if if in this setting we want to take a whole bunch of people to the woodshed, but uh but there may be some wonderings or questions that you would have about that. So uh so we can we can talk about those as well, but it'll be it's your conversation. You can take it wherever you want. I thought that I would go through them briefly here and then maybe give everybody just five minutes to just kind of relax with the data, go through it and then have any wonderings and questions or celebrations and observations. Is that still okay? >> Okay. >> Now, before we do this, I'll say the surveys that have come from we also have a formal No, you're talking about

036a state survey. That's the parent survey, the student survey, and the teacher survey. We've gotten results back and uh Miss Kelly is actually formulating the ones on parent survey and student survey. We are still awaiting the teacher surveys return. Those normally come back in July. And so again, that will be another box of information that we would have in October to be able to bring to you uh if not before. But as part of our strategic planning for the following year, we would have hard data on perceptions from those three uh distinct. So that that survey is what's included on the report card. >> That's exactly >> and this one is not on the report card. >> This is simply SDOC leadership team over time has actually wanted to gain feedback so that we at

037the district office can serve people better. That this is this is it. And so it's it's informal. It's not mandatory. We're not held accountable for it. This is simply uh asking uh for for feedback, which means a couple things. We can give it whatever we want. We can add questions to it. We can take you but you know you don't want who wants to take a survey with 57 questions. Uh you know we got we want to make sure that uh that we're pretty nimble and and maybe get right at the information that we want. So again uh what you're going to see here just in terms of layout is you're going to see principles. You see seven principal respondents and this is uh based on support from the superintendent's office. And you see that

038those three questions are again the three questions that we just saw here. Overall, I'm happy with the performance. That would be overall the communication and the support. You see raw data from the principal's office. Uh you see raw data from assistant principles. And then uh you see those are just aggregated. Now if you look at the bottom three, what I've done is I I did the pie charts based on the total. And so you could obviously that the pie charts would be a little bit different or you could have three different sets of pie charts, but I just didn't want to over complicate it here. And so again, I uh I know the superintendent's office uh includes me uh and I had been here for about three weeks and so I don't know what exactly

039what this means, but uh maybe they uh they haven't developed a a good opinion yet, so they cut me a little bit of slack. I don't know. Uh this is uh communications again. Uh what you're going to see here is uh the uh the the four colors dark green strongly agree light green agree light red uh disagree dark red strongly disagree. You can see when you look at raw data that that piece of pie would represent for example one person. Uh and so I just want to put it in context. And then overall support you see that one person didn't have enough interaction to uh this is admin services and uh the only thing I would say is that this would be I I actually asked a question well I see student services I see

040admin services student services actually under admin services admin services would would would have been formally the associate superintendent for uh for for student services that would uh that would be all encompassing of that office suite and you can picture you know there's been a little bit of restructuring there was a lot of things under that which would have been uh you know it really is the combination of a lot of different departments human resources overall pleased that uh that we're seeing uh mostly green in every category but uh you know I always say uh all feedback is good feedback and even if it is just one person uh I would have questions this is an anonymous survey, which is pretty important, uh, because I want people to feel like they can they can give their

041opinion. Uh, I also would love to be able to go to the, you know, if somebody gave me a dark red, I would want to be able to go to that person and say, "Hey, tell me more. Tell me how I could be better." Uh, and so it's it's uh, it's a little bit challenging in this particular year for this to be actionable. And so, the reason I'm really presenting this to you is that I don't know if we can make any decisions based on the timeliness. Is it the previous person, this person? We have half of the folks responding. There are some challenges with with responding to this survey or or drawing meaning from this survey, but I want you to see it because first of all, I want to be transparent, but second

042of all, I want us to be able to in the future if this isn't giving us the information we need, we'll need to be able to talk about that some of the future things. >> Was this sent out Google form? >> Uh, there is a it's a Google form. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And it goes right back to the county office. >> Yes. >> District office. >> Yes. Transportation. I'm just I'm going to give this to you in just a minute so you can go through this. Uh student services. This would be particularly I think uh you would think between um Miss Hugh's office, what has formerly been Miss Hugh's office and uh Miss Gibson who works in that office. technology got technology in the back. I know that they're looking at that. Nice going,

043guys. Uh facilities and maintenance. This would be Mr. Witrock and his team. Tell you what, uh I would give a lot of dark green on my side this year. uh just because uh if you remember what we did in January and what facilities of maintenance did just to get our driveways cleared and freezers fixed and leaks back in check. It's just a an awful lot of support that that they did financial services. You see a lot of blue there and that blue is probably going to come you see uh it's going to come largely from the assistant principles because we uh we hold our principles accountable and most of the financial obligations and tasks lie with the principles and so it's not uncommon that assistant principles wouldn't interact a whole lot with that food service

044and this is uh again a an independent partner in uh TNG procurement. Uh you see an awful lot of blue here, right? Because our assistant principles again don't have that interaction. This is Miss Gibson's office that's located over at the Bounty Land campus. Elementary instruction that would include really uh assistant superintendent. It includes all the instructional specialists, the professional learning, the professional development that they do. We'll call your attention to the fact that the N numbers are really less here. You only a total of 13 respondents here, which means that in this one you only have nine uh respondents total uh for secondary instruction, early learning. Uh this would be Miss Robertson and the work that they do with uh with probably 4K all the screening and uh and that work uh that takes place

045data and assessment. Uh this was a new transition. This was Betsy's first year or Miss Kelly, I should say, uh Miss Kelly's first year. And so I think that uh that this really um demonstrates her level of responsiveness to uh to the community. I was really pleased to see this. And this is special education. Um you can see that this was an area uh that frankly and and transparently believe it was probably two years through maybe three years ago now, there was a good amount of dark red. This was one of the prompts along with some of the other data that really prompted some of the work that the board uh centered itself around with the uh the special education audit. Uh this was uh when Miss Cox came uh from her role at Rabanel

046to ATSI, from ATSI to director role. And so uh they asked a few more questions. These last three questions, this first three were the same, but then they asked about responsiveness. When our when our special ed teachers need help, are they getting the help that they need? Uh assistance through challenges. when a challenge has come up and there are some whether it through be through um through uh consent to evaluate all the way up through the RTI process and uh and interventions and those sorts of things and then practical solutions around when there are compliance needs and we know that when when those significant behavior needs show up at a school for example what is the level of of practical solutions when we come uh are they feeling like they get the support they need

047and making that we're in compliance. And so, uh, I see, uh, we have a little bit of of pink or light red there, uh, still, but I would, uh, I would want to point out specifically in this category that this is one where we've seen significant improvement. And this is the kind of thing where when we look at the data, it's one piece of information. When you put it together with all of the others, uh, this is what the, uh, additional support has represented, uh, for for that program. So this is sometimes when we're even making personnel decisions is is this needed? Is this something that we should do? Is this a direction we should take? Uh well, this is some of the response to that. And so uh what I think that I will

048do is I'll go back to this slide just for context. Uh if you want I can also go back and forth, but I think you got those down pretty good. Uh I thought what I would do is just make sure had a copy of this and just give you kind of a few minutes to digest it a little bit better. >> Thank you. >> Of course. I'm going to set my timer at 5 minutes. It means absolutely nothing other than the fact that I want to honor your time. You need 10 or 20. Somebody may have asked you this question, but what grades are early learning? That's is that PIP >> K12? >> Does that include the PIP program as well? >> Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is the early learning as as it

049relates to this uh survey would really be Miss Robertson and and her office. That's very specific work. Okay, I stopped it with three seconds left just because I didn't know what irritating sound was going to happen. Um, are are you all ready to uh to to chat a little bit? I would say let's uh let's and this this doesn't have to be lengthy. Uh but I would say uh three things specifically about uh these kinds of of surveys and this data and even this conversation. Number one, boy uh it's a vulnerable thing to put out a survey like this, isn't it? When you ask folks what their opinion uh is, uh you have to be ready for it. And uh sometimes it's uh it's not it's not what you want, but it's important uh it's

050important to get it anyway. Second thing I would say is I don't think there's anybody organization that uh drives into work on a daily basis and say, you know what, I want to do a mediocre or a lousy job today. I think our folks want to be their best. I think that they want to be good. Uh and so sometimes uh these things are are a little bit interesting uh to get the feedback. Third, I think in this setting uh we would want to be cautious about making having personnel conversations in this setting. This is more about departmental support. And so, uh, with that, I think I would say, uh, Miss Bay is going to try to capture, uh, any notes that you have, but really celebrations. I would say the four things I thought

051about, celebrations, observations, wonderings, uh, or questions uh, about the these data. >> I think they I think I think it looks good across the board. Um, you know, a couple of areas. the one if if I was looking for one thing that we need to make important for improvement that's communication. That seems to be something that is a a thread throughout and I think that we need to make sure that our administrators understand the importance of this survey in order for this board to be able to hold people accountable or the superintendent. He's the one guy we hire. So >> we need we need as much information >> concerning your work as we can get in order for us to do our job. >> That's right. >> So I think it's important for them to

052understand that is the purpose of our work and we're not trying to got you anybody. We're trying to figure out and make sure that we're doing all we can to meet the needs of the students in every area. So somehow uh helping them understand the importance of the work uh in addition to some communication improvement. That's that's my quick view of what I saw. >> No, it's a good point. I think that we would on the one hand we wouldn't it be nice if we had a 100% response rate uh from from our building leaders. And I think that part of it is uh you know I I've I've I feel like in the past I don't know about you I've probably filled out surveys and I'm thinking why on the world am I am

053I filling out this survey? They're not going to do anything with it anyway. But I think if folks knew that we're sitting here having this conversation potentially uh making uh anything from personnel decisions uh to strategic planning decisions based on these data. I think it might elevate it. So let me own that as a a call to communication and support on my part. So that's something that we can help with. >> Have we considered maybe giving them the option to um other than Google like computer option where they might print it out and mail it in because some people are skeptical, nervous, intimidated. So >> I wish I had the technology skills to see who was behind it but I've learned even in my PhD work that even at that level, we've learned that people

054often times are just >> intimidated about those types of things. >> Thank you. >> Back in the day, archaic time, we would we would have people come in with paper like this to fill out and they took it back up. You know, I mean, you could have at a teachers meeting, after a teacher's meeting, provide them with paper, pencil, and then have one person, not in the district office, but one person, maybe a I don't know, somebody that would come and collect all these and and provide. >> My understanding is that teacher survey is not on Google. That would go straight to the state, but I can check on the >> Yeah, we're talking about hours, >> but this one, this one specifically to the principal to go to a principal meeting. Yeah, sure. That

055that would be >> Oh, yeah. It could be done in a principal's meeting and then you put it in the box in the back of the room. Yeah. >> Often times people don't want their handwriting connected to. So that's why I say if there's a way that they could print it out >> and and return it back in some way. >> Yeah. >> I think you would get more of a true representation of what is actually going on how we can help them more. >> Yeah. >> More more positive than negative, I would hope. >> Uh no, I don't I don't disagree and I'm thankful it's positive. You know, we have some principles that, you know, even when we uh and I always appreciate it. We laugh about it a little bit is uh when

056they respond, they always put their name at the bottom of it. They're like, "Hey, I know that this is an anonymous survey. I don't want it to be anonymous. I shouldn't I shouldn't have the courage to say anything if I'm not willing to say it." uh but uh but we also want real uh real data and real feedback too. And so uh you know I think in in the end uh all feedback is good feedback, right? >> Uh and so if uh you know there's as as I said if I if I found that there was one that was less than positive on my survey, I would simply just like to say tell tell me more. Tell me more. I really do want to be better. Uh tell me more. And so there's I think

057that there are positives to anonymous surveys. Uh, and I think that there are some challenges with them. Uh, sometimes, uh, you know, when my name's not on it, sometimes I might feel like, uh, you know, I can just go through and it would be my chance to say anything I want to say. But I maybe that's good. I don't know. Maybe that's good. Any other any other things around uh around this survey? Again, this year with the timing of it, uh, the response rate, some other things imperfect. Let me ask you this question. Is there anything that's just at the top of your mind that you say I would have wished that this question or this item was on the survey? Is there anything that comes to your mind immediately on that? >> Not immediately.

058>> What were the questions again? >> It's overall performance. Uh I think that there was some wrestling a couple years ago with number three, right? Uh because you you know there are there's simply some places where we have we have to get better uh you know if we're we're really out after student outcomes and so uh boy oh boy uh you said for example finance let's say we had we have had clean financial audits for a long time so this is an easy thing to talk about because we we do we've done great work historically there but let's suppose that there comes a time where uh you know we we got something that that the financial auditor said, "You know what? This is a process that uh is just not working and you need to

059clean it up." And then we have to go ask schools to do something extra or different than they've done in the past. You know, they might say, "Well, hey, they Mr. Shikling gets all red this year uh because I'm having to do a bunch of extra work and this this doesn't feel like support to me." And so we uh we really wrestled with that. I feel supported and challenged, right, uh by this office. I think that that was where that word came from in terms of challenge. So it's it's imperfect. Why don't you have two different overall I feel supported overall I feel challenged >> possibly uh possibly separated >> because when you provide professional development that would be a challenge I would think that they would agree with but they may not feel supported

060in doing that. Excellent. >> Could we possibly have a category for them to add comments? >> Open-ended. >> We actually do have uh open-ended uh that that we actually get and I'll tell you exactly how I've handled those in the past. uh is uh because some of those I mean when open-ended they would include names which probably would maybe be a little bit less uh appropriate for this particular conversation but uh I I can tell you this that I was actually given access this past year to all of the uh open-ended comments that were pertinent to say secondary education. What I would do as the assistant superintendent is I had access to all of those. Some of those were very specific to folks that were working in our program and I was able to extract

061those where you might not see the ones that were about Miss Swain. Miss Swain might not see the comments that were about you, but somewhere in uh in our conversation, maybe in our end ofear evaluation, I was able to actually share those perceptions with those individual folks. And so that's how those have been handled uh in the past. And so there is an open-ended component to that. I just didn't include it in this conversation. But that's a that's a great thing. And I almost forgot I should have mentioned that right right out of the gate. >> That seems like the best way to handle that. >> Yeah. And honestly, I will tell you uh in some ways I think it was honoring uh for folks to say, I I I've never heard this. This is

062this data hasn't been shared with me in the past and and I I I appreciate this. In some ways, it was challenging because uh you Imagine, Dr. Sloan, in an anonymous survey, people start to feel it sometimes. Uh, and they put uh pretty uh let's say uh un unedited uh versions of these uh things and some of them are just uh you know, you you I wanted to I read the comment and I thought, boy, you you had a bad day uh on the day you filled out that survey or you might have thought about maybe a little bit sweeter way to say that. And so for folks to read these some of these things in a company, and I'm saying that's that's that's rare, but think if somebody had to put their name at

063the bottom of that survey, they' find a nicer way to say it maybe. But that's >> Well, I from experience, I don't think a teacher will ever put their name at the bottom unless it's a 100% in favor. >> Yeah. And I think that that speaks really to uh I think it really speaks to uh to our culture. You know, one of the things that we've talked about is that what is it what does it mean to be a performance organization uh to define success and then get to a place where we are able and willing uh and we have a culture that where we hold ourselves accountable for success where we're really more open where uh and but I think it's a culture of trust too. So and I and I think that some

064it's not unique to us. It's tough it's tough in a survey to be honest if you know your names there because we want to say hurtful things to other folks. >> What do you think? It's a uh we're a little bit over an hour in. Could anybody benefit from a fivem minute break or you just want to keep going? >> Let's keep going. back uh to uh to board goals. Uh I think do we have a board goals document or uh no we don't. I actually have them up on the wall uh there that you'll get to interact with them in just a few minutes. You'll recall that this past year uh we really did some work in this setting around board goals. Uh it was uh again when uh transition just began, we came

065back uh to this document that really had four board goals under the heading of and I'll just scroll uh back and forth here a little bit. Student achievement, student outcomes, student well-being, highquality workforce. This was around uh not hiring, retaining, supporting, holding accountable, all of those sorts of things in terms of uh the things that are required for a high quality workforce. and then parent and community engagement. And so these are the four categories. Just wanted to uh to kind of go back through uh what these are and give you an opportunity to see them. You're going to have a copy uh over here and I really would love for you to begin to maybe think about uh about these uh these things. So I'm going to give you an activity where we get to

066get up and move around a little bit. as you look at these uh now I can't imagine we'll ever have any game plan uh in a school uh system that doesn't involve student achievement or student outcomes right and so that's uh I can't imagine that that's on the table but these are the things that we discussed this past year and so you see that there are uh there are papers at the top of the flip chart but then there's a whole lot of space underneath and so this is what I imagine this activity looking like in two places number one you I have a green, a yellow, and then I don't know if there's a red there, but we'll call it orange or pink. Your your choice, right? And so each of you uh would

067have one of these. If you would go up uh and as you go through these things, uh would like for you just to kind of look uh and say for the uh the one the bullets that you see that says, so for example, when I'm looking at increasing literacy and math scores is measured by SC ready for grades three through eight. If I say, "Well, I just can't imagine having board goals this year and not having that bullet there. I'm going to put a green beside that one that says, "Hey, this is kind of a prioritized one. Let's go ahead and make sure that uh that we keep that one." If you see one that you think, okay, the topic is right, maybe that last one of increasing graduation rate as a percentage of students

068designated in college or career ready. Uh, and so I'm going to uh I'll uh not to call Dr. Keterman out, but let me just imagine that she might at that bullet and say, you know what, I think that needs to be two different bullets. Maybe we need a graduation rate one, but we also need a separate one that talks about that college and career readiness and the industry certifications and the pathway completions. And so for Dr. Ketman, that one might be yellow where that would be, hey, I like it, but we probably we might need to work on that one or tweak it a little bit. and maybe you see one that just says, you know what, I just maybe that was good for last year, but just not thinking that that needs to be

069on there for this year. And so, want to make sure you know that there are going to be two different uh opportunities during this. We want to take maybe uh five to seven minutes to have you go through and do the uh the red, yellow, green uh on on the wall, but then we're going to come back and I want you to begin brainstorming as I've sat in these meetings and listened to you and having ideas. I'm listening to everything uh from, you know, I think maybe we need an anti-bullying campaign. Well, write you you're going to for the second half of it, we're going to come back and you're going to Write that down. I know uh somebody has talked about student leadership. Maybe we need a proactive maybe re uh reinvesting or reimagining

070that junior leadership. What that used to be. Where would that go up here? And so if I'm talking about anti-bullying, that would be something that I would write down as an idea and I would put that under probably student well-being. It's going to be under that heading. Uh if I have another idea about maybe uh you know I just don't think that we put enough uh emphasis on participation in advanced placement or dual enrollment. So that might be an idea and you would put that under student achievement. Maybe there's something that you feel like uh Dr. Sloan would need to go under high quality workforce or or community engagement and we would put those ideas there. But you see I put a blank one down there. If you have an idea that you think this

071just doesn't go under any of these headings, then put them there. Now, I have to be honest with you. In this year, where next year is going to be really transformationally reimagining our strategic plan, I'm imagining this being a small shift year, right, where we would tweak this one way or the other. Maybe add a couple of bullets. I don't know if we would add an entire section, but this is an opportunity for us just to we don't get this opportunity very often of you just kind of have ideas and get them on the board. And so I thought what an awesome time for us to begin to get some of these. Some of these may show up when I bring this uh board document to you for approval. Some of them may be things

072that we put on the conversation list for October and as we begin to go through this process of developing the strategic plan. How do you feel about uh about that as an activity? Is that okay for us to kind of get to a place where we're on board goals? So, let's take maybe five minutes or so just to kind of go through uh these. You can stand up and stretch your legs. And don't forget there's some snacks back here. There's some coffee back here. Um I may excuse myself just for a moment and be back in a couple minutes. >> Can I ask a question? Of >> course. So, um, that bottom one, >> what constitutes college and career ready? Like, what what I know there's more that goes into that. >> Sure. >> Than

073just the win scores and whether they're graduating or not. What >> What a great question. Thank you for that. College ready, career ready. We get three measures back from the state. What percentage of our students are college ready? What percent of our students are career ready? What percent of our students are college or career ready? What percent of our students are college and career ready? We we get all of those. When you're looking at college ready, you're thinking about they've taken an AP class and scored a three or above. They've taken a dual enrollment class and scored scored C or above. Some of uh some of those types of of things. SAT score of a certain uh of a certain number or ACT score of a certain number or higher. And so these are the

074things that are under the category of uh of college ready. Uh under career ready, it's uh one of the things that was really important for the work that we've done this year. It's not just pathway completion, but pathway completion. Remember we we had a conversation about the numbers at the end. There's some things that happen at the end of the pathway completion that count as a one, a two, or a three. This alignment work that we've done from middle and high school with even the agriculture programs of aligning our industry certifications with the pathways has been monumentally important and so really thankful for that work. So, it's pathway completion, industry certification for some of our credential students over at uh over at uh Hamilton Career and Technology Center. That workbased learning that they do over

075there, that 40 hours of work-based learning, if it's categorized in the right way, counts as career ready. A score on the ASVAB will count as career ready. the wind test which is really a a career aptitude uh survey that uh that a particular score on the wind test and so these are all on the website and I can get them to you in paper but those are the kinds of things that are counting I may be missing one or two but that's that's college career college ready career ready >> why can't we instead of say increasing district graduation for all that just put college career ready and then college and career ready three different bullets up underneath It's it's it's your board goals. You can do anything >> because it's confusing the way it is.

076And I went to graduation this year and I'm sure y'all heard this person's college and career ready. >> Well, to me that that didn't mean a whole lot. I would like to have it so that people can read, okay, either they're they're career ready, >> they're college ready, or they're career and college ready. I didn't know that there's another >> I think the way it is and and I'm not making a justification one way or the other. Again, it's your board goal. The reason that it's worded like this is this is what we're held accountable for. And I think that one of the things that the board called us to action on this past year, well, you wanted something that when we when we get the number, it's it's something to which we can hold

077oursel accountable towards smart goal, right? Uh and so sometimes uh you know and I I think that we can we can have a broader document that has all of that information. But when we look at grad rate, we know that we know what that means. Uh when we look at this this category of college or career ready, this is how our schools are being held accountable. This is how they're being compared with schools up the road and down the road. is what percentage of our schools are in that what percentage of our students are in that that category of college or career ready. And so this is the one that we're held accountable for. That's the only reason that it's there. So just so that I can uh clear all this fog out of my

078head on this topic because when you when we go and attend these functions and every kid walks by getting the cord and they say they're college and career college career ready and I'm like but on your report card you weren't 100%. >> So does that mean we're not checking the right box or something? Are we not pro providing the right information or are we just making everybody feel good by giving everybody a cord? >> No ma'am. I I believe that what it means to be college or career ready, it means that there is a spreadsheet that is a long it's a long way this way and a long way this way that represents okay when a student gets a check in this box it means that they're college ready. When they get it in this

079box it means that they're career ready. And it simply means that there there's a box. So I guess my question is are we uh making sure that the the reporting information that we send to the state department is accurate? >> Sure. Two years ago, the way that we coded, one of the things that we learned at Hamilton Career and Technology Center, we realized that there were students that actually had met the career ready goal, but because of whatever category that they were coded in, and it was a coding issue in Power School that some of those we weren't credited for some of those students. To the best of our ability, we have attended to those. These are things that we're we're meeting more about and I think that we're as good as we've ever been.

080Um, I will say one of the things that I'm I'm proud of and it's a source of pride for us is that uh our graduation rate went up uh slightly last year. I think it's going to go up more significantly this year as a district, right? Which means that more kids are getting across the finish line. But what we never ever want to communicate is that we're lowering the standard to make this happen. At the very same time, we see that the percentage of students that are getting college and career ready, that gap is actually closing. Now, you might imagine that it's a tough thing to say, well, wait a second. If we have a graduation rate that's here and percentage of students that are college or career ready, let's say, is lower than that,

081then what question do you have? If you're like me, you would say, what's happening with these students that are in this gap between Because certainly our uh our diplomas need to mean something and we have to maintain that level of rigor. It means that they met the graduation requirements but systematically it just means that they didn't get one of those B maybe they didn't do the workbased learning. This is one of the important things that we are able to attend to what if we knew about this in the 10th grade and when would we learn this during the IGP meeting. And so elevating the importance of the focus on and the support of our IGP meeting is one of the things that is going to allow us to continue to close that gap at a

082high level. We don't want to bring Brad rate down for sure, but >> okay, >> we do get we do get our college or career ready numbers from the state. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Would that we provide? Yes, ma'am. And this is something that uh that Miss Kelly has been instrumental in is making sure that these processes are are cleaned up. >> So, we have we have here how many is college ready, how many is career ready, and how many is college and career? Is that divided up or is it all sent? >> Yes, ma'am. If you look at the report card, you can see that it does a college and career, a college or career. >> I would I would like to see the percentages of those. I would like better. >> I'm happy

083to share that. It might be agnostic to this to this process, but I can Yeah, we're happy. We're happy to share those. Please, Miss President, if you can make a note on that, we'll we can make sure we get that to >> So, all of that to say, are you ready to do some stickers? >> Yep. >> This is the fun. This is as fun as it'll get y'all today. So, if you don't enjoy this, boy is it going to get bad uh soon. So, just enjoy the uh the opportunity to stand up and interact with this and then maybe take take five minutes. Once you get your all all of your stickers done, come back and then just have some ideas. And if this needs to, you know, in my mind, this was going

084to take in the neighborhood of 20 minutes. And so, just take your time. Don't feel rushed here. >> So, I just looked all this up just to clarify some of the things that's on the state report card that they're measuring. All right? For instance, for college enrollment, college ready, they're looking at the students that are enrolling in instate and out of state schools. They're looking at the graduation co cohort that's completed the FAFSA form. They're looking at the students that are completing college applications uh eligible for life scholarships. Percent of students in the grad cohort per uh eligible for palmetto fellow scholarship. And then for career career and tech ready those are going to be your students that are CT completers. They've taken three to four uh courses to become a completer. um students that

085are earning those credentials, those industry certifications. Um how many of those classes that those students have taken to become either a um oh shoot, what's the one the category before completer? >> Um they are a it's a students that's that's taken one or one or two class concentrator. Yes, thank you. >> Um so that kind of helps us determine the difference between college and career, but the state looks them as the same category. >> I think dual enrollment might be in some of those AP. >> Um, >> and and I'm thankful uh, you know, this this really speaks to what what what are we held accountable for? We're held accountable for college or career ready. And I'm thankful for that because this means that our students that are going to college that that this is

086the direction that they want to go. They need a college degree for what they choose to do that we get to celebrate them and support them in that area. For our students that do not that's not the path that they want to choose. It's not that that they don't count because they don't they don't simply want to fit into the mold that we have for them. whatever they want to do, as long as they do it at a successful level and they show that they're career ready at the end, then uh then then I'm thankful that our accountability measure allows us to serve kids the way that they need to be served, not to try to force a student into a program or a pathway that that's not good for them. That's of of all

087of the imperfections that we have, that's one that I'm grateful for that we get to celebrate kids and and support them in their direction >> because at the end of the day, A lot of the college and um career ready students can make more money than the college >> in this day and age. >> Oh, you're not kidding. You're not you're not kidding. That's it. >> And we have uh one walk through Hamilton Career and Technology Center says that some of those kids are getting exactly what they need. Uh they're they're engaged in what they're learning and they are prepared for the world ahead of them and they're com they're prepared to be uh a very active and engaged member of our community. And so good for them. And I heard recently that the number

088one ex excelling career path that's going to be needed in the future is going to be welding. >> Yes. >> We certainly have good welding program. >> Absolutely. >> Well, hey. Okay. >> So, you know what to do with your stickers if you need more. I uh I am not planning to participate. So, and this would be a great photo op with you. >> Maybe give us a little bit more time. You know, we we work slow and methodical, Mr. Smith. >> Hey, take at least 20 minutes. I'm put 20 minutes on the timer. If you need more, >> we'll let you know when we're done. >> Exactly. Right. greenest. Well, I uh I think we'll uh we'll kind of move on. My goal with this will be we're going to capture all of this.

089We'll take a picture of it. We'll collect it. We'll take it back. What I'll uh likely bring to you is a uh a modified kind of an updated version of this document for July for your uh discussion and possible approval in the July meeting. How about that? >> That's good. >> Thanks. Uh thanks for your feedback. I I just took a a quick look uh across. I thought that uh that the responses were uh were awesome. I think that we can make a couple of those as just little adjustments. There are a couple of those that are fantastic ideas that might come back and you'll see those kind of recirculate and kind of come back as we begin talking about strategic plan which will be a little bit more of an expansive document. Feeling okay

090about that? >> All right. Well, in review of our agenda, uh we uh we did a small data dive. We looked at some data uh SDOC by the numbers if you will and then some admin survey data. Uh we've talked about our board goals and maybe some updates that we'll make to that. We have one agenda item left for our open session and that is beginning to think about our strategic plan. And so just wanted to u maybe uh begin to get our heads around this strategic plan. You can see uh again when I wrote 22032 up there I'm thinking oh my uh I think back back when I started this journey it started with a one nine uh like many of you but uh wouldn't have uh imagined I would be having a conversation

091about what school would look like in 2032 but here we are uh and so strategic plan five years required by the state uh there's uh there's going to be a few things that we kind of go through I do have a copy of our current strategic plan which is 20 through 22 through 27 which we'll talk about in just a minute but this is this is really the point you could say have one bullet and say well it's required by the state we have to have a strategic plan so uh but I think that it's so much more than that and I really want us to kind of dream big uh because I I believe that this could kind of uh serve as the north star I've talked a little bit about strategic planning and

092if think about how and I want to talk about coherent and vertical alignment. We begin with a mission and vision. The mission is why we exist. The vision is what we aspire to become. And then from that we begin to get to this big rock which is called a strategic plan. In my mind, if we get it right, under the strategic plan, each division of our organization, whether it be finance, student services, instruction, the superintendent's office, communication, everyone rallies to the strategic plan and says, "This is what we're going to accomplish. This is how we're going to accomplish it. This is our north star." And so, we begin getting several things out of it. Number one, key performance indicators. This is an organization. It's kind of a maybe a more commercial or maybe outside of

093education lingo. Uh but when we begin to talk about key performance indicators, it's things that I might come up with if I'm in the finance department or in the student services department to say these are the things that we're going to accomplish that are aligned to this strategic plan that you can hold me accountable for. I'm going to hold myself accountable for these and I can I can say that you can hold me accountable for these. When we begin talking about the budget, all of a sudden our budget conversations are around the strategic plan. It's not chasing an initiative of the day because these are the things that we're centered around and really it uh when I say it serves as a north star, it kind of keeps us focused. It keeps us moving in

094the right direction. So if we get strategic plan right, this is what it can do. Uh, it identifies clear priorities and direction for the board. It promotes community input and engagement. We're going to talk a little bit about how we might do that. How do we might how do we make sure that what we think is most important for our schools is reflective of our community values and their input. How do we make sure that that happens? It helps build trust among stakeholders. Nobody has to worry about, well, why are we doing this with the budget this year or why are we doing this? why are we hiring people in this uh in in in this particular sector? All of those things are attached to the strategic plan because we've said that this is the

095direction that we're going. Um it really provides a basis for measuring success as an organization. Now, this is an important one for me because how often do we go to schools and say, "Hey, how do you like your school?" And they say, "We're the best school in the state or we're the best school in the entire universe." And you say, "Well, how do you know that?" and they say, "Well, it's because I feel that way." And we know that this needs to be more than a feeling. When we need when we say that we're a successful school or we're a successful district or this is a success uh this is a successful initiative, we need to be very clear on how we're measuring success and what we're calling performance. It serves as a foundation for

096aligning resources, which we've already talked about. And it really is a key factor. If we say that we want to be the highest performing or the very best that we can be for our community, then this is a critical component of that work. So just wanted to uh to share that. Uh I'm going to give uh in this moment what we currently have. You're going to find a good amount of variability. Uh but this format at some version. It may in some districts, if you go to some websites, in some districts, it may be seven clicks away. If you go to uh other districts, it may be one click away. But this format uh is uh it actually meets the state requirement. But I wanted you to have a copy of yours from the last

097several years. >> When is this due? >> I'm sorry. >> When is this due? This is uh this will begin fall of 27. >> Okay. >> So, what I'm proposing for you today, that's why uh we are going I'm gonna I'm going to give you a proposed timeline today and talk to you about what this work looks like for the coming year where we are able to gain the input, where we're able to look at our data, where we're able to get the feedback from our stakeholders, build this plan, and we will launch it the fall. But it takes pretty much a year to build this. And so I want to to make sure that we uh that we don't get oursel behind where we end up just making a document for the sake of

098compliance because if that happens then this gets tucked into a closet somewhere and nobody even knows how to find it let alone what we do as a result of it. And so >> um as you go back you'll see names uh and this is not out of compliance when this was written. These were the names of some of the folks that were here. And so you'll see names of leaders that that were here and now aren't. There are a set of asurances where we just have to be able to click yes for all those to make sure and you can see some of the compliance mechanisms and we're going to have to make sure that we meet all these compliance mechanisms. But then if you as you go through there, you begin to see some

099of the landscape work that begins to look like this. And these are those performance goals where we say based on our current data, this is what we feel like should happen. I think almost all of ours are really student achievement. So I guess if you're going to be weighted heavily on one, you would say, "Hey, let's go let's go on student outcomes." And so you're going to see a lot of those kinds of things here. I think that in our strategic plan moving forward, we're going to have a strong component, but there can also be other components as well. And so with any strategic plan, I want to just say as you as you get a chance to go through this uh in your own leisure. It needs to be specific enough so that we

100know what direction we're headed but it needs to be general enough so that everyone is attached to it and has a part of it. I'll give you uh an example uh it may be uh for uh for our uh our bus drivers how are they attached to a plan if there was only uh if only SC ready scores were a part of it. Now I guess getting students to school with a good attitude uh might be uh important for that but there may be some specific things in our strategic plan where everyone else would be able to attach and say yes this is how I am a part of the organization. This is how what I do uh moves the organization forward. And so what you're what you have there in as a handout is

101uh is really uh I put the caution area under construction because this is the document that we're going to be spending um at least a year. It's not the only thing we're doing this year, but it's certainly a big thing that we're doing is updating this document and really hopefully aligning it to our vision and mission and where we're going in a very unique way. Think about some of the branding and communication ideas that you've had. Where are they going to be attached? They're going to be attached to our strategic plan. They're going to be uh helping us communicate the current data that we have, the current needs that we have, the current things that we can celebrate, and the current direction. And so all of these things go together. And so this is a

102very noisy slide, but for me, the most important slide of the day. This is uh my proposal of uh really kind of how this would look uh throughout the course of the day. Uh I uh I'm going to stand just because I'm tired of sitting down if you don't mind. But today we begin. We're here at the board uh retreat planning. And so the things that we want to do today take a little bit of a review of the current plan. Uh we've we've kind of done that. We want to discuss a possible structure and I'm going to do that in just a few minutes. But uh but really right now establishing a timeline. Uh I have actually sought the the wisdom. You know, the Old Testament says there's wisdom in the council of many.

103Uh and so this is not something that I have made up on the back of a napkin. Y'all, I I can promise you I have sought wisdom. I've looked at organizations that I believe are doing this very well at a very high level. You're going to get a chance to take a look at a couple of examples today. But uh but this is kind of the rhythm that this would follow. August through September, uh, we're going to have stakeholder teams. There'll be teams of parents, teachers, students, leaders, support staff, and community. This will be me. It'll be part of our leadership team now that we have most of those leadership roles established going into the community and making sure that we get authentic feedback. And this is going to come through two different conduits. One,

104uh, key questions, it may be that we go out to Synica High School or maybe, uh, have some area schools and parents and communities involved where they would come. We would ask specific questions and it's going to be really in the area of SWAT. I'm sure you're familiar of a SWAT analysis. What are the strengths? What are you most proud of about our schools? What do you think are some of the the the things that we probably need to rethink or things that you think that we can do better? What are some of the opportunities? If you dream big, what do you imagine our schools doing? And what are some of those threats? what are some of the forces that are pushing against us being as successful as we can? These are the kinds of

105things that we'll hear from our community in these meetings and uh we're hopeful that we're able to cast a broad net where this would extend to uh to parents of all levels that we hear from our teachers, we hear from our administrators, we hear from our bus drivers, our custodians, uh our our business partners, all of those folks would need to be able to weigh in. And so you can see why I didn't have folks come here doing data presentations to you. If you imagine fast forward to October, what do you want to hear? Wouldn't it be fantastic if you if you heard information feedback from all of these based on SWAT analysis from these groups about where we need to go in the next five years? And so this is what's going to happen.

106We're also haven't quite developed it yet. Where I come from, uh there's a state partnership uh through GLY glissie or GSBA, but uh but that's uh that's that's that's here or there. Uh that uh there were places there were resources where you could partner to get surveys like that. I'm still working on maybe finding that partnership. What we want to avoid is just making something up or even asking AI or chat GPT to make something up because, you know, we're going to be under scrutiny. Uh and we should be, right? We all have bias and I don't want that bias to be uh involved in the creation of this survey. I really want to know what people feel and what they think. And so we may uh have some external partnerships that allow us to

107either generate that survey or or look through it to to the points that you have already made with respect to surveys today. We want to make sure that this is uh that this is good. I would love to have 10,000 responses uh to this survey to get the most that we can. And so this is what we're going to be doing hopefully through September. Uh and then we would be able to have a planning team. Now, this planning team is going to be a larger team. It's going to have it's going to consist of really a a broad spectrum of internal stakeholders. It's going to it's going to have teachers. It's going to have leaders. It's going to have folks from non uh instructional uh perspectives that come in. uh they're going to be looking

108at student report card data. They're going to be looking at some of this survey data. They're going to be looking at all sorts of things and they're going to begin to start to develop major areas that are going to be you see we have four major areas. How are these identified? Hopefully, there was some thought that went by and it wasn't just something that I made up and and and overnight just said, "Hey, I think these are the four areas." And so when you begin to look at the feedback themes are going to be able to come out and those themes are going to be the big rocks and major categories for our strategic plan going forward and we'll be able to generate those in a very meaningful way and then we'll begin the draft

109of the strategic plan. You know there are two things that there are two sayings. I'm from Alabama and so we uh we generally uh speak in simileies, right? But uh there there one that said uh many hands make light work. And that's the saying that I would I would use for this planning team. Many hands make light work. When I go to the action team, there's another saying that too many cooks spoil the room. Right? Sooner or later, sometimes you have so many people in the room that you can't come to consensus and bring this stuff together. And so this would be a smaller, more nimble group of folks, still a broad spectrum of of stakeholders, but the ability to begin to bring some of those things together uh and uh and and become begin

110to to maybe formulate some of these and really kind of get down to brass tax. Uh I think in this moment what you're going to see here somewhere between this this would be that that board update that we're imagining on or around October where we're able to come to you and say hey look this is what the teams were saying here's some data this is the community survey this is what the survey data says this is what the planning team these are some of the big themes and the big rocks that are beginning to emerge and at that point give the board an opportunity to hear those things, give feedback on those things, and maybe steer one way or the other, and have an authentic voice about what moves forward. But this would probably be

111on or around that October uh meeting. Uh and then don't forget the planning team data plus the board feedback goes into action team. Uh that's uh that's going to give an opportunity to really kind of formulate this document to kind of say okay this is what we're thinking. Get that planning team that broader team back together and say what do you think? Did we hit the mark here? Is this kind of what you were saying? Is this what is this where is this is this kind of what we need to be doing? At that point it would give us a chance to bring almost a finalized document back to the board on or around March. Now a whole lot of other things going around March. you're having uh pretty much your budget meetings and your

112budget conversation. And so I want to be sensitive to the fact that this isn't the only thing going on. And so this is just a general timeline uh that we would use. Uh if that works, then uh the board would approve our strategic plan in March or April for the year 2027 through 2032 and then we would be able to do this presentation. You can imagine that this presentation of the new strategic plan, if we get it right, it turns into a version of our branding of us really uh interacting with our community in a way where they understand exactly what they said, how we reflected it, and where we're going, and we're be able to get everybody kind of on the same train going in the same direction. So, I feel like uh the

113fact that I'm out of breath lets me know I'm talking too much and so I I feel like I would like to get your general feedback or any questions that you have on this document. >> I like the community engagement meetings. How how would you do that? Go to the schools and have a a night meeting. >> It could be a variety of things. You know, we have to meet folks where they are. Here's what I found is that we can't have a bus driver meeting at 5:00 in the afternoon when all the bus drivers are out driving buses, right? We have to meet people where they are. And so I think that some of these meetings are going to need to be at night. I think some of them are going to need to

114be during the school day for some of our school stakeholders. Uh and I think that there there are variety of those. So I think a variety of settings is uh is going to be there. you know, if the if at this I'm supposed to have lunch at the Senica Rotary this week and so if those folks wanted to give feedback, then I think we would need to be ready and available to accept that feedback. We're already in advisory teams. You can imagine that we're working with Miss McBride and the chamber with leadership of Coney, why wouldn't leadership of Coney, the folks that are in this program that are some of our leading influential uh leaders in in the community, why wouldn't they be a part of this? And so I'm imagining a multitude of conduits

115Don't want anybody out there that wanted a voice that didn't have one because everyone's part of this community. >> Any other questions about this? >> So, in the past, you've reviewed this document significantly. >> I have. I was just sitting here thinking, I wish I'd brought my notes with me, but I did not know. I didn't. We should be getting kind of an updates on this regularly. So moving forward, this would be a working document that then we could take each year as we say, okay, these indicators were not met or these indicators we exceeded and >> of course so when I say strategic plan really is the campfire around which we gather. Uh you have uh we're doing my final evaluation today. In the future uh my valuation will be tied directly to this.

116The way that I imagine that's coming forward is there there are going to be uh uh most strategic plans that I see are kind of a a blend of what you have there that's really focused on student achievement, some needs that our our children have and this document back here which are board goals that fit in different categories. And so picture those two kind of coming together. For me, the board updates the the information that you would have would come by way of monthly meeting. And so, for example, part of our strategic plan is going to be how do we recruit, support, retain the very best employees in every category. >> That's going to be probably one of our goals. They're going to be probably 15, let's imagine 15 key performance indicators. some things that

117are categories that Miss Swain, you're going to come and say, "Hey, this is a number. You said you were going to do this. I want information about whether you did it or not." A monthly update would come along the way from each division, I imagine. So, that month, human resources would probably come and give you an update about that. It wouldn't be me having an entire day where people would come and give you uh all of these updates, though I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. But this would be one where probably five or six of the months of your meetings, you would have more formal presentations down to stretch toward the end of the year. Uh that would be uh preceding the end of the year. Maybe this would all start in in January.

118We would have January, February, March, April, and May. There would be a presentation from five different divisions on the five different components of the strategic plan. And then you would be able to make whatever decisions you would be able to make, which would not only be informed by this, but all of the accountability measures, including my evaluation, including the updated board goals for the following year, those sorts of things. Ideally, imagine if the school goals, right, we have data presentations and data meetings with schools every single year. What if their goals were aligned to this? And what if each individual teacher in the classroom knew what they were doing each day to help attain the goals that are in the strategic plan? It it really turns into we have that 1,600 people that are a

119part of this organization. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every single one of those 1600 employees knew how they played an integral role in pushing this uh this this forward? And that's kind of the goal. It'll never be perfect as per as as long as you have me as superintendent. Certainly won't be perfect if you hire an imperfect superintendent. But uh but we'll uh this is kind of the goal of this strategic plan and blowing it up because it can be all of those things that you're talking about and ultimately it is the document for which you'll hold me accountable. This will be my evaluation. Other questions about this? Any any tweaks? Is there anything that you see as problematic or uh what were you thinking? >> I'm just curious on the 20 on the interim

120performance goals um page and I don't I don't know this right off the top of my head. I'm curious if you or coach holder do we meet our ELA uh data for three four and five for 24 and 25 last year? >> Yeah, I would have I would have to look at that. What I know is we made significant gains in three, four, and five this past year. Uh in in those I mean we made gains that we're proud of and >> and you know that that's uh I would say what you're really getting to as we begin to build this is is more that's a philosophical it's philosophical. Uh when we say smart, what's the A stand for in SMART, right? >> Attainable. >> It stands for attainable. But we also want to make

121sure that we have a stretch goal. We can have folks set goals every year that they're 100% going to match, right? That we can lower the bar far enough, but we want stretch goals. And so, I think, Dr. Kerman, what you're what I think you're saying, what I hope I agree with is that we want goals that are out there. and whether we meet them or don't meet them might not be the only measure of whether we're successful, but our progress towards those goals and making sure that we have the right goals and we're chasing the right thing is going to be really really important in the development of this. The thing that the thing that I've looked at and the thing that kind of bothers me about the the way this is done even

122with the school report card is if you take the third grade class in Okone County in 2526 and they took their SC ready scores and you follow that group to grade four to grade five to grade that way you get a better picture of what's actually going on than here are your grade three scores for for 25 26. Here are your grade three scores for 26 27 and then you want to talk about whether they went up or whether they went down. You're not talking about the same group of students. >> Yeah. So I think that we need to keep that in mind when we are looking at the way we do this >> because that's where we want to see the growth in my opinion is the same group of students growing over time

123as opposed to teachers growing over time >> because what we're looking at is how did the third grade teachers do this year and then when we get scores for next year how do they measure up? So that's almost like looking at two different things and somehow we got to wrap our mind around how do we improve the instructional piece to make sure that that makes a jump every year. So it's beyond numbers actually in my mind when I'm looking at the data. >> Sure. Well, let me enthusiastically agree and disagree with you all at the same time because really you you're describing the dilemma of every school, every district, every state uh while I I agree right when we when we look at cohort data how students travel through time there are some complexities even

124there because we can't uh we we don't do standardized uh we we don't do standard setting between the third third grade and the and the fourth grade exam and so it's very difficult even to follow that cohort there's some there's some challenges with that and uh what I agree with you while it's easest to look at the development of a group of children over time. I would say yes, we do uh want to and I don't want to say hold them accountable, but let's say that there are some teachers out there that I have enough data for them over time that says that they are absolutely effective. That what they are doing in their classroom every day is possibly more effective than what some of our other our other folks are doing. We need to

125be able to capture that. We need to know it. We need to be able to capture it. We need to be able to celebrate it. And we need to be able to expand it. And so you're you're right. Both of the things are absolutely important. Watching how our children progress over time and close some of those gaps, but also seeing how our teacher teams are working together to make sure that they're consistently getting the best results for our for our kids no matter which kids come. >> Thank you for that. I am setting up uh at about 11:20 we're going to have these folks come in. So I have 16 minutes and so I want to start something uh that I definitely will not be able to finish before uh before we get to lunch.

126These are a couple of examples and I want you to kind of compare uh not to be critical of our own document but I want you to compare this visual with this. Now, don't misunderstand me. When you click into these documents, you eventually find this document. But I think when we talked about branding, theme, structure, I think that this is something that we can make as part of our dream. When you look at Greenville County, and this is just a couple of examples that some uh two of them are really, really local. One of them is if you go down to Aken County and then just right across the river in Columbia County. Uh this is an an example that you'll see. But tell me what you think when you see the true north, you

127see the compass rose there. There are some things that actually come to your mind there, right? Uh I get the the sense that they're trying to trying to exude some version of this is our direction. We know where we're going. our compass is pointed north and this is something that everybody's in the same place on the same map and we're going somewhere. Those are the kinds of things that I think about when I see this, but really there's not a lot more information there. If you go to right across the river, school district of Pickkins County, uh you see a little bit of a of maybe a mindset with engaging today, empowering tomorrow. There's something that they're they're considering. Hey, we're engaging students today. I get this notion of what we do today is important

128because it's helping our students be prepared for tomorrow. So, this kind of future focused, making sure maybe it's around college and career readiness. I don't know. But over here, you actually get to see what their big rocks are on their very first notion. It's people focused, a supportive culture. I imagine that's their human resources, attracting, retaining uh and supporting teachers. Visionary, future focus, innovation. Uh this is probably some of the innovative approaches that you see them uh that you see them doing that would probably go under here. You see academic growth and excellence down here at number four and partnership uh for student success. You probably see some of their uh some of their business partnerships and community partnerships there. Uh and so you see differing levels of detail, but what is the first thing

129that you feel? What do you know about this district just by looking at this very limited piece of information? This one is kind of interesting. It says engage, enrich, and inspire. It's a little bit of a different terms of a tagline, a saying, or or where they're centered, but then you kind of see their big rocks here as well. You see maximum achievement. You think it's an accident that they made student achievement the biggest one here. They're calling it out and saying, "We're in the business of teaching and learning, and this is our area of focus." And so just one visual, what can you learn? This is kind of a busy document, but you see them kind of speaking some of their KPIs in here, Miss Swain. Uh we're uh under this notion of community

130engagement support. We're going to maximize family and community involvement. We're going to expand meaningful. And so when you begin to think about what you're going to hold the superintendent accountable for at the end of the year, you want to know, did I do that? These are the things that we're saying together that we're going to do and we're going to hold ourselves accountable for. These are all hyperl. When you get this document, I would encourage you, and this is why I had you bring your computers with you today because what I'd like for you to do maybe after lunch is to begin to explore. Don't just use these three, but go to different districts and see what they have for their strategic plan because I think that they're going to be some real some ideas

131that you begin to get excited about. Let me show you a couple if you're willing. >> Before you do this, is this going to be the general public that's going to zero in on this or is this going to be only educators? >> Uh, everyone is going to be able to center and and really see what how this evolves. >> Who who who do we market this to? Who is this marketed to? >> Everyone. >> Okay. >> Absolutely. And I actually have a couple of of small proposals for you to consider today. >> Okay. But as we think about this, I I just want to kind of kind of wet your appetite for the activity and what I would like for you to explore and maybe get some feedback to me. And it doesn't all

132have to be today, but let's let's look at uh the Greenville uh county just for example. When you look at uh I want I want to be uh uh honest with you. When you click on this one, you'll see I told you everybody has to do the state compliance document. When you click this one, you're going to get something that looks almost identical to the one that you look like, right? That you look at. But >> they also have this version which represents a one-page overview. >> Yeah. >> And so you see they have the blurb which is the true north. >> Then they have this is one of the things that I would say about this one that I would think would be a good idea for us to capture. What's our one pager

133look like? Right. Absolutely. What's the what's the flash? Right. If I have if I have 10 seconds, what am I going to tell you about our strategic plan? But if I have five minutes, >> I'm going to want a one-page version of this. And so, this is what I would imagine. Don't you think that this should be in the hands of every single parent that's in our district so that they know uh so that they know where we're going? Um and so this would be kind of the calling card uh for us. There would also probably be a 12-page version of this where people could flip through and say under this heading, what are what does this KPI mean? I need a little bit more information. So, as I look at the the Green Bull

134document, that was one of the things that stood out to me is uh is is that um when I look at this one, um I think some of you may have seen this before. When I go to this one, there's actually some really engaging branding strategy there with a flyer where you have uh you have a superintendent that's presenting and you can you can watch this video and show uh what their strategic plan is. And boy oh boy, uh it can go into uh when you start looking at key performance indicators, you go down here and these are the things that you're hearing about in the presentation around achievement. These are the things this this is the exact document that's used as the superintendent's evaluation instrument as you go at the end of the year.

135It's not hey I thought this should have happened or this could have been done better. It's we go through these bullets and you say these these are the things that we promise and really it's your self-evaluation as well because we're all in this together. this these are the things that we're saying we're going to support these we're going to focus on and these are the things uh that that we're uh that we're going to that we're really committing or are prioritizing as important and so those are just uh and maybe uh with the time that we have maybe this is something that you could do when I send this to you you could click into these you click into some other ones there there's we have approximately 70 districts in the state of South Carolina

136so you don't need to go far they all have a website they all have these and you can begin ideating and think about some things um that uh that we have. Uh but uh this is as an example two things that came in terms of me proposing a theme to you. I would like for you to consider these two really important words to me. One is a promise. Two things uh when I think about a promise. one is a declaration. It's an assurance. It's a commitment. This work that we're doing is important. And we need to be able to draw a line in the sand and say, you know what, I'm promising this. This is what we're committing to. This is not uh this is enjoyable work, but it's not easy work. It's important work.

137And so, these are things that we're promising. But I also look down to that second bullet under promise. And promise represents potential and expectation. There is promise within our students. And I think that one of the things that we can do if we really get it right, we're ensuring that every student has a chance. No matter where they come from, no matter no matter where they sleep at night, when they walk through the doors of our school, there's a commitment, a promise we're making to them, but there's promise that they have within them that we're committing to bring out. So, I love the word promise. When I think about excellence, it's saying exceptional, good, superior. This is something that Aone uh when we look at the OEA and Jamie uh Gilbert and those guys, they

138started talking about this notion of top shelf. Why would Aone be second to anyone? Why would anyone when they were considering where where they're going to move a business, why would they consider anywhere other than a con? When people want to know where they want to live, work, play, and spend the rest of their life, why would they think about any place other than a con? When we think about our schools, that's kind of how I think about it. Why would anybody consider any option other than school district of a coning county? Uh and I think this notion or aspiration of excellence is kind of it. So um really we've already kind of started uh thinking about what this might look like as we begin to launch for our July 31st. Uh and this is

139the notion of promise of excellence. These are just some ideas around what some branding might look like. Um but I think it it really allows uh every single person to be equipped. You see, whether it be engage enrich uh empowering for the future or the true north from Greenville, this would be uh what we have. I've seen a version um of uh the notion of but one of the things most exciting to me is these picture these children over here on the left. How awesome would it be if we have children standing up and saying I'm the promise I am the promise of uh school district of Aone County. And so for me, this was an exciting idea that I think that we could rally around. Uh but what exactly it means and how we

140realize it would be really up to our community and our stakeholders. So just wanted to kind of cast that any feedback on this. >> It's nice only my only question is if we would use I see the freshness of young children but we would use older. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Yeah. I think it has to be K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K K through 12, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. >> I like it. I actually love it. The promise of excellence. >> Yeah, me too. >> I like >> it's uh I think it's a little bit easier to get excited about now. And again, there's no criticism in this document. Every district has this document, but I think expanding it

141and having a way for people to enter into the conversation, something like this is helpful. It starts here, it goes into the one pager, and then it maybe goes into the uh to the 47 pager from there, but it includes really what our our community feels is uh is going to be uh most important. And so I come back uh to finish it like this. This is uh this is hard work. And so, Miss Swain uh I've come back to, you know, kind of wrestling with when does this thing do? Why are we starting to talk about this? A year and three months or a year. >> Know when it when it had to be. >> Yeah, that's and that's it for me. We have a lot of work to do. And so uh this

142is going to to take a lot of time and energy, but this will be something that uh that I think that we can we can kind of get around. >> So these pieces of this hold us accountable to the state law 59 whatever whatever. Uh I don't think people realize that the provisos um and the attachments of money for things like gifted and talented and uh IDEIDA students and so forth, CTE students, etc. I don't think they really grasp the complexity of all of these things working together for the funding of our schools. >> I don't I don't disagree with you. And a lot of that stuff, frankly, is not very fun to talk about. So, I think that one of the things that we're going to have to do is kind of build a

143bridge. We're going to have to make sure that this is something that meets the requirements of the state. >> But I think we have to be just as passionate about making it something that's accessible to our community. >> And I totally agree with you. Yeah. And this document because I've been through it extensively in comparison with the law and so forth. Um, this is more of a completion of that purpose >> compliance >> as opposed to explanation and and understanding of what our goals are and the actual work we're doing. >> And think of how destructive it is or well, not destructive is a terrible word, but think about how confusing it must be when they're separate, >> right? And so the the difficulty of putting them together, I accept. It's a hard hard thing

144to do because we have to be compliant and we have to be accessible, right? >> But think about if we say, "Well, that's hard work. Let's just have two separate documents." Suddenly the compliance document gets put in the closet and it doesn't mean anything. And if it doesn't mean anything, then we put a lot of time into something that really is >> That's right. >> is is not. >> So I appreciate your planning and the work that we're going to do because it is going to be great at the end over there. Sure. Yeah. This, by the way, this graphic was is my uh is my use of AI for for the presentation. That's the one thing that I did use AI for uh is that this is Gemini generated. So, I should I should

145credit I should credit it. >> Good job. Yeah, it it gives a um very thorough expectation of what what we should expect and and a process timeline that our community can can expect as well. So, thank you for for that. And going back to the promise of excellence pitch of of the the vision here, you know, our families um they depend on us every day to send their their children to us and we have to promise that we take care of them every day. So, I think this resonates with not only the promise of of of us as a board to do our best and steward well all the way down to to our teachers and our our building um our taxpayers, our children, and and also to the families that we serve. So, I

146I think this wraps everything up in a very nice package um that will that will share the the true vision of of who Okone County Schools are. So, thank you. is not going to go perfectly, >> right? It's okay. >> We'll uh we're not going to let perfection get in the way of progress. Uh we're just going to move toward this and commit to making it better and better every year. That's what that's what real goals are. >> I uh I will I think that lunch must be almost ready. Uh because we had called 11:30 to that. I think if you would like uh you want to take uh two or you want to take five minutes, come back at 11:25, have them do a short uh presentation to us and let you know about

147some of what they do and then we'll share lunch together and then go into executive session. Would you like to since this part of the meeting is closed >> uh and is well, let me say is is complete. Uh would you like to to uh to go ahead and have a motion to adjourn this portion of the meeting and uh we'll go into executive session when we come back. I don't know what exactly what that motion would look like. Maybe we could go to executive session launch. I don't know what it would look like. >> Okay. Are are you guys okay to go ahead and adjourn? >> Yeah. >> Our retreat goals session and and data review, etc. All right. Well, that being said, I'll take a motion to um enter into executive session. >>

148So, I make a motion that we enter into executive session. We're breaking for whatever our needs are in lunch and return later. >> That's right. >> Today >> for sure. >> All right. All in favor? >> Let's eat. >> All right. I think uh I think