001just to make sure that it doesn't on YouTube. So now I've done it. So it should be just a second. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Thank you, Taylor. Have a good night. Bye. It works. There it is. Come on. There you go. It's okay. I would like to call this meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, January 12th, and I want to officially welcome you to our first board meeting of the new year. And I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and happy new year. So wonderful to see parents and students in the in the audience tonight. And hope you're having a wonderful second semester back at school. And look forward to hearing from many of you tonight. So at this time I would like to ask Dr. invitation father we thank you for blessing us to see
002you another day as well as keeping each of us safe while we travel to this destination. We ask for your divine guidance as we deise policies in which to guide instruction. Lead and guide us in the right direction for just policies. Be our road map in all man. As administrators and school board trustees, we ask that you help us make informed decisions and continually in a way that you and the community is. It is our hope that all we do will be the betterment of the community. Bless our Lord in attendance tonight in person as well as online. We thank you for Inc Brown to come up and lead us in our pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under
003God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> And at this time I would like to the approval of our agenda. question. A motion on the table to add superintending amended agenda. Motion to approve the immedend [clears throat] for special recognition. We are in the midst of school board appreciation month. I will let you I have in my hands a proclamation from our sweet governor in Columbia who was unable to make the meeting tonight. But I thought that I would read what you wrote and I will do my very best to do my very good invitation of Governor Henry for state of South Carolina. Whereas education foundation upon which the economic intellectual and social capital of our state is built whereas school boards directly influence instruction's public schools. And whereas the decisions of local school
004boards affect the present and future lives of children while setting a direction to prepare all students to be competitive in a local, state, national, and global 21st century knowledge economy. And whereas local school board members work with parents, businesses, education professionals, and other community members to represent their views and create the ideal educational vision for their public schools and students. And whereas school board recognition month highlights the unique role school boards play in representing their constituents by promoting quality public education. Now, therefore, I, Henry McMaster, Governor of the great state of South Carolina, do hereby proclaim January 2026 as school board recognition month throughout the state and encourage all South Carolinians to recognize the contributions of local school boards to the academic success of public school students across the Palmet State. Signed by Henry D.
005McMaster, Governor of South South Carolina. And school board members, we thank you so much for your service, it is sometimes a a job that is there's not much thanksgiving, but in uh recognition of our appreciation to you. We did present to you a small token of our appreciation. It's a gift that came from uh End of the Road Studios in Wajala and uh the artistry was uh built by Ruth Boils, an artist from Westminster. So, I hope that you enjoy the gift. It's just a token of our appreciation. Thank you for your service. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And it is certainly an honor to uh serve the people and the students and our community uh of Okone County. And so uh later tonight, we will actually be signing our ethical principles statement. And
006so if you stick around and see that signing, it's something that we uh are when we're sworn into office. Those are the ethical principles that we're guided by. So it's an honor to be here uh representing you tonight. And at this time, I would like to invite Blue Ridge Elementary up for their school highlight. I know we've got Miss Stephanie Hanman and I believe I saw Sarah Melton and perhaps Mr. Ben Bowling in the audience to be with us. >> Mr. Good evening. I am Stephanie Hammond. I'm the proud principal of Blige Elementary School and I just want to thank you for giving us this opportunity um to be here tonight. We truly appreciate you giving us the time to highlight our wonderful music teacher Ben Bolan and two of our students, fifth grader Lewis
007Johnson and fourth grader Arya Mole. And they're going to talk to you a little bit about changes in our chorus program and the winter concert that they did. And you'll see we could not do bring the whole group because we had way too many instruments. So we have a clip. So at this time I'm just going to let them do a little talking and then you see the clip and then I'll close it up. At Blue Ridge Elementary, we believe that all students have the capacity to be musical and creative. Our music program is built on the idea that music is not just something students perform, but something they experience, explore, and create. Over the past year, we have taken additional steps to make student creativity and ownership a central part of our music classroom.
008One way we have done this is by implementing performance opportunities that follow the principles of the ORF process. The orth process encourages students to move beyond simple imitation and instead engage in exploration, creativity, and personal expression. Rather than only copying rhythms or melodies, students are given opportunities to make musical choices, collaborate with peers, and develop a deeper sense of musicianship. This approach has been a long-term goal in our program. By preparing students from kindergarten through fifth grade, uh we have focused on building confidence, creativity, and a sense of ownership in the music classroom. Therefore, this year we decided to launch a brand new ensem ensemble called the music den. What makes this group unique is that it's not audition based. Instead, it is open to any student who wants to participate. Our goal was to
009remove barriers and ensure that every child has the opportunity to make music in a meaningful way. In the music den, students sing, play instruments, move, and compose their own music. The ensemble reflects the or philosophy by allowing students to experience music holistically through sound, movement, and creativity rather than focusing solely on performance perfection. Our winter program this year marked the music den's first performance. Unlike performances in the past, this program was largely student driven. Students had a significant voice in how their performance was structured and what music was included. Um, and I'm going to turn it over to them to say a few things. Hi, I'm Louis Johnson, a member of Music Den, and I'm in fifth grade. I really like that we um sang and instruments this year, and I will miss Music Den
010when I'm in middle school. The program titled 10 Ways to Hear Snow was based on a book by Kathy Camper. We began by reading the book together as a group. >> From there, we worked together to decide how the story could be represented through music and movement. We explored sound, created musical ideas, and worked together to bring the story to life. Here is a brief clip to demonstrate part of the performance. >> [music] [singing] >> Children making [singing and music] sounds in the snow. [music] >> [music and bell] >> What did they do? [music] of a concert. Um, it brought everything that the kids did collaboratively and their creativity and they had ownership in it. It was just absolutely amazing. Nothing I've ever seen before with a group of kids. They did amazing. So we
011um were proud of what they did and that is one of our beliefs that if we use creativity and we allow kids to work together, we're not only creating um great students, but in his class, we're creating musicians. So, thank you for giving us the opportunity. We wish we could have brought everybody, but as you could see, there were a lot of instruments. So, but thanks again for letting us come tonight. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. And now we have James M. Brown Elementary. And I know I've seen Miss Thrift and Miss Graham and Mr. Shelag in the audience tonight. So, thank y'all for coming as well. >> Good evening everyone. I am Mary Thrift and I'm very blessed to be uh principal at James and Brown Elementary. Uh along the same lines, we
012have our fourth grade um chorus students with us and something that Miss Hammond was talking about their collaborative effort. This is going to be a display of um crosscurricular collaboration with classroom teacher uh librarian and music. Um Mr. Haney is here. He is new to James and Brown this year. Not new to the district but new to us. And we have Miss Bman who's right behind me who is a brand new librarian this year. She was a second grade teacher prior to moving into that role. And so what we have and I'll let her talk a little bit more about it is we have fourth grade students who learned about electrical circuits. And um in class they learned about that and in the library they were able to use some of our STEM materials in
013a program called Makey Makey to explore what that was actually about. How does that work? And so what they and I see the bananas back there. What they did is they used that there they are um to create completed or closed circuit instruments uh using this program. So tonight uh we're going to showcase science learning the technology of Makey Makey the engineering of creating these instruments and um they'll also be singing tonight. So you'll have the full STEM experience. Miss Bman, if you'll give them just a little bit more information. >> I think I had just as much fun as they did. But um Makey Makey is a small device that turns everyday objects into an interactive button. So when something is connected to it and when that when that thing is touched um it
014completes an electrical circuit and sends a signal to the computer just like pressing a key on that computer. So you'll see our students holding a ground wire that gives the electricity a way to travel back to the computer. When they touch their instrument while holding the ground, the electricity flows from the Makey Makey device through the object through the student and back again to the computer. And that closed loop is what tells the computer to play a sound or a note. The computer is running a coded program that decides which sounds um uh are triggered for each of the signals. So now we will turn it over to our chorus so that you can hear what they have built. be able to see. 2hat [music] [singing] [music] time because you did a great job. Thank
015you so much for coming out tonight. Thank you parents for bringing them out tonight. Um, this is learning in action and this is why we do what we do, the application of what we're learning and making it fun. So I I guarantee you they're going to know the difference between an open and closed circuit based on this activity. So thank you so much for having us tonight. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you. I always wonder why they don't want to sit and hear [laughter] the rest of our board meeting. It's so fun when they're here. >> That's great. And thank you to the parents for coming out tonight and bringing them here. At this time, we will move to our public comment section. And I believe we have one public comment signed up. >>
016Yes, ma'am. Hayden Duncan. >> Good evening. Uh my name is Hayden Duncan. I'm an architect with Craig Alden Davis PBK. Uh I think Dr. Mercer probably beat me to the point on this a little bit already earlier tonight, but it is National Schoolboard Appreciation Month. So, um, as architects that work on a lot of K12 projects, we understand that in order to make our project successful, it requires the right mix of creativity, knowledge, and, uh, experience in order to have a successful project. And school boards and their students and schools are no different. And I think Aon County has that right mix of experience uh knowledge and creativity to help their students succeed in their everyday lives. So I believe uh as a token of our appreciation for what y'all do daily for your students.
017I we presented a gift of some tea to I believe Miss Bay has given it to Miss Kerman already just kind of playing on that same knowledge of how it takes time to brew a a good solution for our students. So I just want to say thank you in recognition of that. So Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh we are move to approval of our minutes. If I can get a motion to approve. We've got three um three sets of minutes to approve December 8th 25 board meeting minutes. >> I make a motion to approve December 8th, 2025 board meeting minutes. I'll second. >> All right. motion and a second. All in favor? >> All right. Thank you. And I think we can lump the next two in together. Special call board meeting
018minutes for um December 11th and December 15th. Special call board meeting minutes. >> I make a motion that we approve the minutes for the special call board meetings on December 11th and December 15, 2025. >> Second. >> Motion. and a second. All in favor? All right. Thank you. 5. And now moving to our uh discussion items. Fiscal year 25 audit presentation. Mr. Don Eastep. >> Well, it's good to be back again. We um are a month later because the federal government didn't issue their compliance supplement on time this year. So the state let us send a draft copy in to the state by December 1st which is required by law and then we were allowed to send a completed copy later after we got the compliance supplement which really didn't change hardly anything. So that's
019why we're presenting in January instead of December this year. Um let's see. All right. To start with, I'd like to get my reading glasses out so I can see this. Um, our governmental audit this year, we expressed a clean opinion on the audit as a whole, which means we didn't qualify it for anything that wasn't in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Um, we also had clean opinions on our compliance audit for the single audit act and also we had a clean opinion on our compliance audit report for the yellow book audit which is the the federal government's yellow book that we have to go by their principles also. So, another good report um for the school district. Um as far as the monetary amounts go, let's see, Brian, are these There you go. Uh
020the first one is net position, our governmental funds net position. That's just a total of all our assets minus all our liabilities. And this year it ended up being $30 million. Um, compared to last year was only 9.7 million. So we we had a big increase this year, a total net change of $19 million. Um, 1.4 million was because the accounting pronouncements changed for how we record compensated absences. In the prior years, we had recorded um all the compensators, absences plus any social security matching that the employer had to do. And we also used to add in a pension matching amount for the compensated absences total. Well, they changed that because they realized because of the pension obligation that we've already recorded for the whole school district, it was kind of doubling up on the
021same debt. So, they let us uh change that and the adoption of that Gatsby number 101 increased our fund balance by $1.4 million um as of the beginning of the year. Now, the the other big change in net position was because we put the uh middle school, the new middle school on the books and started depreciating it. And once we put the school on the books, we also have the debt on the books. But the debt gets written off a lot quicker than the asset itself. The schools are depreciated over 40 years. the debt just depends on how long the bond term is like six, seven, eight years, something like that. So, it always creates a an increase in our net position whenever we add a new school on the books. So, that's what most
022of your net change of that 19 million came from. Um, if you see the word business type activities, that's what we considered the food service operations. And if you'll notice, it went from 4.7 million to 5.4 million. So it it went up by $600,000 also. And then districtwide, it's just adding those two together. All the governmental funds, which is everything except food service. Um, and then your total is for the whole district as a whole. Let's see on the budgetary comparison this year. You'll see our local sources actually exceeded our budget by $1.6 million and the state sources exceeded by $1.4 million. So, we actually did a lot better as far as collections were concerned on both the state and local letter level. See, and then for expenditures, you'll say we spent less than the
023budget for the instruction, a little bit more for supporting services, but as a whole, we spent about $521,000 less than what we had budgeted. If you look at our general fund comparison to re actual revenues from the prior year, you'll see in fiscal year 25, our local source revenue went up $2.7 million. State sources went up 2.1. And so that was an increase of 4.9 in our revenues. I must have missed one. Our instruction expenses went up $5.9 million from 24 to 25. Support services went up 2.3 million and we had a reduction in community services. I think that was because of the YMCA. Um we didn't have that in fiscal year 25. So, your net net total was $5.9 million that we spent more than we did the previous year. And then several years
024ago under Gatsby 68, we had to start recording a liability for all the pension money we would owe if you know we were to shut down the pension plan, you know, at the end of the year. And basically it put a huge liability on all the governmental entities books. And this year you can see the the net pension liability um decreased by one point by about 11 million. Um net change from the well I guess if you look at the net change it's 5.2 million. The business type is the food service which you know gradually going away over a period of time. It was an increase of 230,000 postemployment benefits. That's everything that we promised to pay for people other than the pension obligations that we have. Um so in summer we had a pretty
025good financial year but a very good year from a compliance standpoint. And you got anything you want to add? >> I'm not at the moment. No. >> Okay. Um, I appreciate y'all letting us do the audit. Is there any questions or anything? >> Okay. We appreciate y'all letting our firm do the audit for all these years. As you know, this our last year doing it. Um, we're kind of backing away from doing governmental audits. So, I've been doing this one 27 years myself, and I know the firm was doing it before then, but we appreciate y'all's cooperation over the years, and changed constantly, but everybody's always been very helpful with us, and um it's been a a pleasure [snorts] working with y'all over the years. Well, >> thank you for your service to us as
026well. >> Thank you very much. And now at this time we have our 2026 ethical principal signing. And I have the poster down here at the front. If I could get everybody to join me at the podium. I make a small presentation. It's okay. So each year the board adopts and signs our ethical principles reaffirming our commitment to integrity, transparency, and accountability in serving the community, our students, families, staff, and taxpayers. We thank you for entrusting us with the decisions that impact the education of our children. And so this pledge here reflects our responsibility to place students first, honor the public trust, uphold open and honest governance, to conduct our work with professionalism and fairness. We are committed to leading with principle, not politics, to stewarding our school district in a way that honors that
027trust. And so at this time I would like to invite all of our board members to sign this and remembrance of the work that we do each day. Thank you. We can have y'all stand together. The schools association always asks us to take a picture of y'all with the poster so that we can share with All right. Thank you. And now, uh, Mr. Shikling, you're on tap for the December financial report. >> Okay. Um, for December, uh, in terms of cash flow, about a break even month. Um starting to see some early annual tax revenue coming in. Four and a half million in um local collections. Uh for a total of about $10 million of revenue. Um terms of expenditures, again it's primarily um staff salaries and benefits if you um and so that was
028about about $10.6 million in expense. Um looking at the check report, very short check report. Uh you can see we were done with dispersements on the 18th of December because everybody was going home for break. So not a ton of activity really. There's three major dispersements. Um one of them is for um TNG for nutrition services. Uh again it's one of those instances where sometimes billings cross the month. So you might see a couple of billings from November also with the December in there. um Thompson Construction Group for some of our ongoing uh capital improvement projects. And then um Vivacity uh I always joke around with uh Dr. Price and call it Viva City. I think I've got them pronounced wrong, but Vivacity um and that's some of our annual Chromebook purchases and you know,
029capital maintenance there. Aside from that, just utilities um you know, minor expenses um for about $2 million total dispersements. And then the um capital projects status report is attached as well. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> I have one question um with regard to the food service. Is that contract up >> there? Uh contract can be renewed for five continuous years. So we are in we would be on our last renewal. Um if we chose to renew um that decision needs to be made somewhere in the January to February time frame. It's uh largely dictated by the state and uh they've got a template that the district has to adhere to and usually you need to give three to four months of uh leeway for the state to guide
030that process because they're going to review every step of the way. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Well, thank you for um all that you do for keeping us financially above board. >> My pleasure. >> Any other questions or comments for Mr. Shikling? All right. And now for the fiscal year 27 budget calendar. >> Um so this uh would require the board's um approval to move forward. Um the county council has reviewed it in terms of their meeting dates to ensure that they're aligned with our intents here. Um we have already completed some of our staffing meetings to look at projected enrollment for next year. um had conversations with some of our building and department leaders about um what changes they may anticipate if uh those projections come to reality. Um so that would give us
031February as a as a meeting date to look at current compensation versus the AOP region as we've done in the past um and kind of summarize what uh some of those conversations looked like in terms of projections leading to uh staffing uh counts at the different buildings. Um then the following meeting in March would be um the process we began last year to take a look at the budget's performance over the past couple years. Um review what we're projecting by each function and then uh April is when we would begin the first, second, and third reading process. So um traditionally it goes into a sequential order where our uh school board will have a reading of the budget and then that'll be reviewed by the county council. Um and so each time we will preede
032the county council um with the exception of the budget and finance meeting. So we actually would do our reading, take it over there, do a presentation to them and then in their subsequent meeting they would have a full reading. Um that would all lead to the culmination of the final approval by county council on June 16th. >> Any questions regarding that? All right, thank you for that as well. And now at this time, action items policy J ND artificial intelligence responsible use. Second reading, final approval. >> Uh, Madam Chairman, I would like to make a motion that we table this policy at this time. I know that what we what we have and what we've read through is a recommendation from schoolboard association. There's about three paragraphs in there that I believe we need to
033make sure align to um our plan for the future and then that'll give us uh some time to to have those discussions. >> Motion to table this until February meeting. Do I have a second? >> Motion second. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor? Thank you. And now, uh, superintendent report. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, want to take the opportunity as this may be perhaps my last meeting with you. I know that you have a meeting tomorrow night in consideration of your superintendent search and I know all kind of things can happen. But uh in in case this is last meeting, there are just a few things I wanted to let you know that it has been a joy and an honor to work with you, work with the staff, work with uh
034students and principles and teachers and parents in Okone County School. We have something special here. I have kind of figured out Okone County Schools finally took seven months to do it, but I feel like we are and I've mentioned this to several of our staff members. I feel like Okone County Schools are one big, beautiful, slightly dysfunctional family. And I feel like sometimes the the slight dysfunction comes from the fact that we have uh some strong strong uh legacy employees. Employees who live lived here, grew up here, went to school here, got jobs here. They work here with their spouses, sometimes with their kids, and they've never worked anywhere else. That's a beautiful thing. However, I feel like if you talk to some of our other employees who have worked other places, they would tell
035you we don't realize how special it is and we probably should be more thankful than we are sometimes for how beautiful it is. Uh but uh you've got a good thing going on here and uh you take care of your employees, you take care of your students, uh academics, arts, athletics, all are strong and all are striving to get uh uh even better and stronger every day. It's just been a privilege to work here with you and u I wish you great success in the hiring of your next superintendent. >> Thank you. It's certainly been an honor to work with you. I can't comment much more past that, but you are certainly a um you've been just what we needed during this time. So, thank you. >> And at this time, any board member comments?
036>> I'd just like to thank Dr. Mercer, too. I think he's you've done an excellent job. Thank you for taking the helm and running with it. We do appreciate it and you've done a really good job. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. like to say thank you as well. >> I would also like to say thank you to End of the Road Studios for our gift tonight. >> 100%. The the stained glass is my favorite. So, I'm excited to have it. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. And now I'll take a motion to enter into executive session for personnel items, employment recommendations, changes, and superintendent search from the amended agenda. Some move. >> Second. [clears throat] >> All right. Motion a second. All in favor? >> Thank you.