001Oh yeah, show your ring. Yes, and she has her. We were able to celebrate during um during a halftime of football game this year and so Caitlyn received her national champion ring um which is pretty impressive as well. So again, thank you so much for letting us share this but even more so for your support. Um I cannot say enough about Colonel Mangan and I think the only person that spends more time at the high school than me may be Colonel Mangan. um he he is there um and >> programs like this is a really big deal and really do appreciate that because it makes a difference with a lot of kids. So, thank you so much for that. >> Awesome. Thank you very much. >> We're certainly very proud. So, thank you guys for
002coming. And now, Dr. McDonald, if you would like to uh lead us in our special recognition for the Call Me Mister program. >> Yes. So, we're just really excited tonight to have some outstanding pre-ervice teachers with us that are part of the Clemson's Call Me Mister program. Um I had a pleasure last year of attending a couple of their meetings and to say that they are impressive would be an understatement. Um these young folks are phenomenal and we are super excited to have them going into education. Um, they are accompanied here tonight by do Mr. Spencer. Want to go ahead and call you doctor. So maybe I'm manifesting that. Um, but they are accompanied by Mr. Spencer who some of you may know was a former teacher in our district and administrator. And now he
003is in the profession of leading other pre-ervice teachers down to this path towards education. And we're just so excited that he has connected with us and allowed them to be here and that they're here tonight as a part of their regular meeting. And one of the things that I'm just most proud of is this past summer they actually partnered with us with our third grade summer reading camp and they worked with some of our students who need them the most and they had the opportunity just to work alongside them, work with our teachers. Hopefully they learned something from us, but I think we learned something from them uh a little more than that. So just thankful to have you guys here, thankful for you being in the room tonight. And if we could just have
004them stand just so everybody can see them, that'd be great. Thanks. >> And now for our school highlights, we have from Ravenel Elementary, Mr. Josh Harrison. >> Good evening. Thank you all so much for the uh opportunity um to uh brag on our school a little bit. Lots of great things happening and I feel like this highlight comes at a perfect time. Um with our school report cards being released uh at the beginning of last week. Uh we were really proud of the growth uh at Ravenell Elementary School. We improved our uh index point on our our school report card uh by 11 points. uh one of three uh elementary schools to have that amount of growth in the Anderson Okone pickings area. Um I did do some research to see how >> [snorts] >>
005uh much uh how easy or difficult it is to grow 11 points. So, um, which brought us up into the upper range of the good category. And, um, so as as this highlight kind of comes on the heels of that, um, there's lots of great, uh, numbers and and and points, um, to to celebrate on that school report card. But something that you won't see, uh, on that school report card, uh, that I believe truly helps us create that positive learning environment uh, at Ravenel is our mentor program. Um and and this program has shifted over the years. Um it had been a uh like an upstate program and then kind of condensed into OKone and and then at this point really is kind of on the school level. And uh and and that's one
006thing that really jumped out to me as I came into Ravenel at the beginning of the 2425 school year was just um just how well that program is going at Ravvenel and it's even grown more this year. Uh and so um what that mentor program is is is where we have community members come in and spend 30 minutes uh either at lunch or re uh lunch or breakfast with a student. Um and and to give you a little bit of uh a breakdown in some numbers here. Uh we have 23 mentors that join us from Delta Sigma Pi Business Leadership Fraternity from Clemson University. >> [snorts] >> Uh we have 17 mentors that serve our students from Paw Pals, uh a program that partners with Clemson University athletics. And the Paw Pow program was actually
007started by our current assistant principal, Sheridan Crouch, um when she was a guidance counselor before she moved into administration. Uh that program started over 10 years ago and and has it started with one or two uh from the baseball team over at Clemson and has just grown. Now, we have gymnastics um uh athletes in our school. We have um uh football players that come in. Obviously, probably not this time of year. They're more like the springtime mentors for us. Baseball players, just we reach all the athletic programs uh in that program. So, we also have four community members and we're very grateful that each one of those four actually serve multiple students in our school. Um and and if you come into Ravenel and and visit us at lunchtime, um I actually had to purchase
008uh some extra tables because we were out of room um to to to to uh allow these mentors to meet with their students. So um uh uh money well spent uh in in in in my opinion. So uh and at this time I'd like to bring up Miss Candace Terry, our guidance counselor, who's joining me tonight. um she works extremely hard to build the partnerships with our community and these student groups at our local universities. And uh I just wanted to give her a moment to share kind of our onboarding process for this uh because I I I feel like we have a a very um strong way of of getting these mentors into our building appropriately. And and then she can also share just a minute or two about um just what they do
009what what are they doing when they're spending that time uh with our students. Well, first of all, thanks so much to Miss May and Miss Dodd for all of the um support organizationally that they provide. Um the systems are in place. We just have to use them. Um so we have been really fortunate to develop some very neat community partnerships that honestly have expanded word of mouth. people have come to me because I I just got an email today from a student, a Clemson student who heard about the programs and wanted to participate. So, um after they reach out, we set up a training. If they choose to go through the training and say, "Yes, I want to do this." Then there's an application online on the website that they complete. Um they go through
010a background check and once all of that is done, um I pair them with a student. My dream is uh to have every student have some adult pouring into their life in some way. not because they have to but because they want to. Um and so we have come a long way to normalizing a culture of mentoring to where we have students who many students who don't have a mentor yet who ask when do I get to have one. So I do have a wait list. I'm always looking to develop new partnerships and we've got some of those in the works already. Um and to Mr. Harrison's point. Um, this year one of the things that I thought was maybe, you know, those those initial conversations can be really awkward. So, I've created some conversation
011starters. Um, even um like sentence stems for uh how they might go about learning how to do conflict resolution. That's an issue that we've seen within our students that they they don't know how to resolve conflicts. And so, we that that's something that we have asked our mentors to help them with. And so we've given them those sentence starters for that. And then just games, learning how to take turns and share and and be playful. Um we that was another thing. I put out a deck of Uno cards and that was a super hit. So we brought a few more things and that was a super hit. So now we've got a whole table of games and um so we have a lot of fun. >> Yeah, absolutely. So uh with with all that being
012said, Miss Terry mentioned we we we were starting to build some more partnerships. We have a partnership with the local Rotary Club where they're going to start coming in and reading to some of our youngest students in our school uh at least once a month. Um and and to say all that, we're just again proud of the growth um in our students learning. Uh but we definitely believe that that these programs like the mentorship program really uh allow us to uh pull all that growth out of our students and and it just further shows the dedication that Ravenel has to the whole child. And uh so I'm super proud to come up here and brag on our mentorship program uh and the work that Miss Terry and Miss Crouch before her um has done within
013our school. So um with that, I'll take any comments or questions you may have. >> All right. Thank you'all so much. Appreciate the opportunity to share and definitely good job on on the growth of the 11 points. That's that's very strong. So, thank you for all the work. >> Students, all teachers and students. >> Give them give them a congratulations from us. >> Absolutely. >> And now, Miss Ashley Ramirez from Sica High. >> Good evening. Once again, thank you guys for allowing us to come and and to kind of share some things that are happening in our buildings. Um, I'm just excited. Uh this is now my second full year at Sica High School. So I'm not in that that first year uh that beginning stage, but kind of starting some things and seeing some
014growth um in our building. That's super exciting for us. So last year when I came and presented, I kind of talked about my vision for the year is a phrase from our alma mater, which is ever onward. And so that's something that we're continuing at Cynica High School. But last year kind of our phrase was committing to the pursuit of perfection. So we talked a lot about what that means with our students, our faculty. And so this year it's purpose with progress. So small steps taken with intention can lead to big change. So sometimes when we look at our goals, maybe they seem kind of far out, but if we start with all those small steps to to change some things in our building, then we know that we're going to reach those in the
015end. So, I wanted just to talk to you about a couple of those things that we're doing just to promote that positive culture at Sica High School. The first thing I want to mention is something that one of our coaches, um, Coach Dri Ellis has started and it's Tai Tuesday. And so, um, really just wanting to teach our young men to be leaders in our building, but also to dress for success. And so, um, I wanted to share a few pictures with you, um, here. So, our faculty members also participate. Some of them choose to do that. And just seeing the confidence that it's building in our young men um on Tuesdays when they come in dressed for success has been really neat and and to see that grow. We started out with only about
016five students participating. So, seeing that growth with our teachers and our faculty. So, we have um ties that are available to any student. So, we've had donations from the community. Um, so anyone who wants to participate is is not it's not something that they have to even go purchase if they don't want to. We have those available. And then we have our wall of style where we take pictures and post there. So just excited about really helping and encouraging our young men to be successful. The next thing I wanted to highlight is something that we are working on called our fasttrack program. So this is a a snapshot from from the school report card that was that was just released. And so our graduation rate was 86% this year. So we were excited um that
017we were kind of leading the district in that. But our goal of course is to continue working towards a higher graduation rate because we know how much that impacts our students as far as their um the rest of their lives with their profession and things of that. And so we're working with something called our fasttrack program. So this is for very extreme circumstances of students that we are just afraid if we do not come up with an individualized plan they are not going to walk across that field in May. And so we have a referral process where an administrator, a counselor, even one of their general education teachers and our graduation coach meets together and we really look at an on an individual basis what can we do to really support this student because we
018don't want to lose them. A lot of times for us, we think they're so close. It's already November and May is just a few months away, but May sometimes seems seems a long way if they're going through things in their personal lives, maybe at home or or um you know, just things that they're facing. And so, we're really working to try to individualize and just help our students so that we try our best to help them be successful. And so this is something that we are working towards that I think is really going to help us and help us continue as we're talking about school report cards as we're working to increase our numbers as well. The next thing that I want to mention is something called order of the bobcat. So this is something
019that is new and this is a goal to help some of our minority students to raise and fulfill expectations to better prepare them for college and career ambitions. So, we worked with the middle school at Cynica Middle to identify some students um who maybe would not have normally signed up for an AP level class as a freshman because we really want them to participate in our AP and honors level classes. And so, we work to identify them. And so, this is our first year. And so, they're currently in AP human geography as a freshman. And our goal is that we would love for them to take either an AP or an honors class in all four cores before they graduate high school. And so we're really encouraging them um to to kind of raise the
020bar to set that high expectation. So this is something that we don't have a lot of data yet for because we're just beginning this. But just excited to really push our students to that high expectation. The next thing that I wanted to highlight is we were very excited that we were um a recipient of the Palmetto Pride grant. And this was a lot of hard work um from Mr. McDonald and Miss Swagert as far as once we found out that we had received this grant. We received 246 trees um sawtooth oaks, dogwoods, red maples. So they helped to go and lay kind of walk our campus to see what we could do as far as where um we would be uh the most beneficial to plant these trees. And so they worked really hard. They
021marked things um to just try to once again building that community pride and making our campus a beautiful place. And so we were really excited because we had 75 students who volunteered on a Saturday morning to come out um with several members of our faculty, Mr. Mcatee kind of helped lead that as well along with Miss Swagert and Mr. McDonald, our agriculture teachers to help plant these trees. So we still have a few more left to plant. We have not quite gotten all 246, but we are just excited. Once again, all of these things that I'm kind of just highlighting tonight is just really working to build that community and that pride at Sica High School to help our our students be successful. And then the last thing that I wanted to share with you
022guys is something that is new and it's something called the [snorts] hope squad. So this is um a student-driven organization that will take place here in Flex. The purpose of the hope squad is to foster human connection, community, and hope, and then elevating of mental well-being through peer-to-peer suicide prevention programming. So, there is um a gentleman, Mr. Larry Lawrence, and he has a foundation called Christopher's Hope, and he is working um to try to increase the number of schools in the upstate that have a hope squad. So, this is a national program. It was actually started in Utah, but is very student driven as far as um students will receive training as far as knowing signs and things to look and their peers and also just having those positive conversations. And so because of this
023uh his foundation and grants that were received, the training will be provided to our faculty members and to our students as well as all of the curriculum and cost um for free this year as part of that grant. So we are the 30th school. we will be the 30th school um in the upstate that this foundation has been able to do this for. So, this is kind of a pilot program that we're starting, you know, a little bit later in the school year, but just really excited um since this is very student driven um as far as promoting the mental health well-being that's such an important part right now. And so we are just excited at Synica High with all the things that we are working um as far as to create that positive climate,
024create that positive culture along with all the things that we're doing with academics to continue to work with increasing our graduation rate and college and career readiness. But we feel like all of those things just work together and with all of those things that we can continue to move ever onward. So thank you again for your time tonight. Um, and if you guys have any any questions or comments about any of of the things, then please let us know. >> Thank you. And to our teachers and students for the wonderful job that you all do. >> At this time, Miss Bay, do we have any public comment? >> Yes, ma'am. Jody Hughes and Miss Benson. Good evening everybody. My name is Jodie Hughes. I am a product of the school district of Okone County. Graduated
025high school here in 1998, many years ago, and am in my 24th year of service as an educator here, uh, currently at Ravenell Elementary School. I'm here tonight to introduce my friend Lisha Benson who is also a product of um the school district of Okone County and a graduate herself and her children of the school that I'm currently working at at Ravenel. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend the Nola Foundations Gayla in Clemson and there I learned a lot about the Nola network. thought I knew a little bit about it but learned much more after attending. And I was really called that evening to come alongside um my friend Lkesha. Being a mom myself of two uh childhood athletes, I have a daughter in the eighth grade currently at Synica Middle School
026and a third grader at Ravenel. It really hit home to me because the message that uh Lkesha and the Nola network send is no other life affected. We often live in a time where we think things that she will share will not happen to people like us, but they do. And so tonight, I am here to introduce Lkesha and the NOLA network in hopes of getting them involved in all middle schools and all high schools in the school district of Boney County. >> Thank you. I am totally going to steal because I'm a Synica High School graduate. Go Bobcats. Um but ever onward and purpose to progress and I that really inspired me when she said that. True to you. Um because five years ago I think was it five years ago I spoke with
027Dr. Mr. Handy? >> Yes ma'am. We we've spoken several times. >> I'm very very grateful we launched our keep the beat initiative um because of him. he allowed us to pilot it at Sica High School. Um, the keep the beat project is one where we provide preventative heart screenings to students and student athletes. Um, and we also, and I think we talked about at that time, we also teach students CPR for free. The reason that we do that is because in 2017, my son Var Benson, who graduated from Sica High in 2014, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest when he was in college. He was 21 years old. He was playing a pickup game of basketball. also not a sanctioned game. And he had a cardiac arrest. He was with his best friend that also graduated
028from Synica High School in 2014. None of the students knew CPR. None of them recognized what a sudden cardiac arrest was. And so, unfortunately, he did not survive. Um, that was the same year that my youngest son had just signed for his full ride to play football. And as a parent, I was afraid at that point for my kids to continue to play sports. Um, I used to coach uh track. Um, I've taught I've taught 4K for 5 years. I worked at this group home for 20 years. I hate to say that I worked anywhere 20 years. I'm older than I thought I am. But I recognized that before I lost my son, I would not have been prepared to respond because when a student collapses, you don't typically think of it being their heart.
029Um, before I go any further, I'll say that today is November 10th and is the birthday of Shondaanda Bradley, who is a former um, employee of the school district. I think Miss Holder would probably have known her well. She also suffered a sudden cardiac arrest in 2019. So, I won't bore you with too many stats, but I will say 350,000 people die from sudden cardiac arrest every year. 23,000 of them are students. Um I think when I first spoke to you it had not been researched as much and they thought it was between seven and $9,000. Research now shows it is 23,000 students every year die from sudden cardiac arrest. Um and one in 100 kids have a heart condition. My children played sports from the time they were six years old and then played
030in college and never were identified as having a heart condition because a typical screening or typical physical will miss about 80% of things that can cause a sudden cardiac arrest. So one in 300 kids that's never diagnosed and unfortunately my son was one of those people. But had he ever received a screening, he would have a 90% chance to have had that call. So unfortunately, I was not able um my son didn't survive, but we're called the Nola Network because we don't want what happened to our family to happen to anybody else. Um so progress to purpose. Um we didn't know what we were doing. I was just a a mom that was angry and I wanted to do something about it. I thought I can lay here and I can cry. I can get
031up and do something about it. So we did. We put together a project. We kind of piloted it, launched off here in Sica and we have now received funding from the state of South Carolina. Legislators have supported us and we are now a statewide organization and we also serve Georgia and North Carolina as well. So we have grown exponentially, but we still find sometimes even here it is hard to get people to call you back or to get the screenings done. I realized that when we started, we paired them with sports physicals because I knew that if someone said, "Well, there might be a chance something's wrong with your heart." When I was playing sports and my kids play sports, we wouldn't have thought so. And if it's, you know, not mandatory or whatever, you
032may do it, you may not, but you have to have a sports physical. So, we paired it with that. So, we were trying to give you what you needed um along with what you had to have. Um, and so we're thankful that we've been able to make the connection with the schools that we now we're able to still have screenings or I'm sorry the physicals in a lot of our schools um because of that partnership that we created with that doctor uh doctor's office. However, oftent times now what happens is they just get the physical and they've left off the screening. Well, that wasn't the whole reason for me doing that because I recognize and the doctors will tell you, a stethoscope will only catch about 80% of things. Um, this year, and we count
033our year from July to January, we've already identified six students that have life um threatening conditions since July. So, that's just to show you. I think the last screening we did was in Atlanta, 64 kids. Two out of the 64, that was a month ago. one of them has already had surgery. So people tend to think that this is just so rare and they will say it's rare and the first thing I will say is it is not rare enough. And so I guess we just wanted to speak to you guys and hope that we could get your continued support um so that we can get the buy in from the principles and the athletic directors and the coaches because I know as a te I' taught for five years people tend to be overworked
034and underpaid and it's just one extra thing they have to do. But if it can save a life and just one life then I think it's worth it. It's very easy for um schools to implement because we'll do all the work. We'll we've even got volunteers. We'll staple out. We'll pass out the forms. You sign up online. We charge $20 per student that screened. However, we have never to this day turned a student away for inability to pay. We fund raise year round to be able to offset and cover those costs, which is why Jod was at our gayla. So, um, we do that, but we also receive some state support and we also, um, have other components of it. We teach students CPR for free. That's actually a mandate by the state of South
035Carolina, um, that all students by the time they graduate are supposed to be taught. We recognize that schools don't have oftentimes the staff to do it. We would send our certified staff in for free to do that for students because as you know and we've got a room full of students, 16 year olds, 17 year olds, 18 year olds do not always have an adult with them. And you would be surprised the amount of adults that just don't know CPR either. They're not always AEDs accessible as well. But we want kids to be able to save a life. And what I will say further is oftentimes when we teach adults, they will say, "Well, what about the liability?" And you guys all know that there's an good Samaritan law and there is no liability. But
036a child does not even think about that. They would jump in and they would save a life. And in fact, I have a friend named Ed who walked into Chick-fil-A, dropped dead because his heart stopped. And the student that had just learned CPR the week before ran out, her name's Sarah. She saved his life. Um Ed lives in Florida. I would have made him come with me tonight, >> but [clears throat] we really want the investment of the community of you guys. And I think for a while I kind of shied away because I am an elected official and sometimes I try to not wear too many hats or terrorize people. But if terrorizing people save somebody's life, then why not do it? So, I'm back. [laughter] So, I don't have anything else to share
037unless you have any questions. Um, I would love to answer them because I didn't watch the time so I might be out of time. >> Well, thank you for being here. >> Thank you for having me and it's so good to see you, Coach Holder. >> Good to see you. You're doing a phenomenal job with this. >> Thank you so much. >> Tell you that. And uh, thank you for working with I know you work with Senica. Um, >> we terrorize them sometimes. We left them alone last time because they had a new principal, but I've told her today. >> We appreciate the work you're doing. >> Yes. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Okay. >> And now we will move to our approval of minutes. If
038I can have a motion to approve our October 13, 2025 board meeting minutes. >> I make a motion we approve the October board meeting minutes. >> Second. motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Okay. And now our approval of minutes. If if it's okay, can we combine those two? All right. We'll combine the two from last week. A motion to approve November 3rd and November 4th special call board meeting minutes. >> Second. >> All right. Motion a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Thank you. And now for our discussion items. Uh we've got Miss Betsy Kelly here for our school report card update. >> Good evening. So, the last time I was here with y'all, we were talking about um EOCC results and SC ready results. Um and our report cards
039were um were embargoed still, right? So, there was a little bit of a late release on the report card data. Um but it was the embargo was lifted um this past Monday. And so, today we get to talk about our report card data. Let's see. Do I click? You got it. Do you want me to click or you >> It's the one on the very edge of >> right there. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. All right. So, what you see in front of you here are the five different rating categories. Um that this is how the state defines those categories for the report cards. And so I encourage you to look at those um pay close attention to the words there that are um colored that are that are bolded to help us understand
040really what each one of those means. So the first one is excellent. So schools that are rated as excellent. That is school performance that substantially exceeds the criteria to ensure all students meet the profile of a South Carolina graduate. So schools rated as excellent um substantially exceed the expectations there. Schools rated as good then that means they exceed the criteria. Schools rated as average actually meet the criteria set forth by the state. And then below average would be those schools that are in are in jeopardy of not meeting. And schools rated as unsatisfactory would mean that they failed to meet the criteria set forth. So, I'll be referencing these ratings um throughout the next few slides. So, here we um we have a list here of about 30 schools and or 30 districts, sorry. Um
041out of the 81 reporting districts that get report cards in the state of South Carolina, only 30 of them uh were districts where all of the schools in the district were rated as either average or better. average, good, or excellent. And we are proud to be one of those districts. So, we are one of those 30 where every school in our district is average or better. It's certainly something to celebrate. We're proud of that work. So, 16 of our schools actually get a report card rating. So, we have HCTC, Okone Academy, um adult ed. Those schools don't get report card ratings, but our uh 10 elementary schools, three middle, three high, those 16 schools all get a rating. And so, like I said, those were all average or better. So, that indicates that a 100%
042of the schools in the school district of Okon County meet or right exceed or substantially s exceed um the expectations set forth by the profile of a South Carolina graduate. So of those 16, seven of those schools earned a rating of of above average. So of those seven, six of our schools were rated as good. And one of our schools, Kiwi Elementary, earned a rating of excellent. So uh those schools demonstrated performance that exceeds or substantially exceeds the criteria set forth by the state. So now we'll take a look um at the ratings longitudinally. So we'll look back to uh 22 23 the next year and then up to this year. And so as you can see the um this year like I said no schools rated um below average or unsatisfactory. Same for last
043year right? So that improved over that 22 23 year. But what you also see is the number of schools in the average category is reducing. Right? So the number of schools in the good category is increasing from the previous year and then we've added a school into the excellent category for this year. [clears throat] So this is evidence that over time school district we are moving in the right direction as identified by the state report cards. So when we look at um we've looked at the ratings over time, so over those last few years. Now we're going to break it down by level and then an opportunity to look at it um at the school level. So in our elementary schools, so we're breaking it down by level, there was a net gain of 18
044points. So across our 10 elementary schools, when you look at how each one scored, there was a net gain of 18 points over last year with Kiwi, Ravenel, and Wala L all moving up a level in their report card ratings. With our middle schools, we had an increase, a net increase of five points there, um with West Oak Middle moving up a rating level as well. And then with our high school, we had a net gain of seven points. So in all three levels, right, we've got a net gain um and at our high school level, each high school increased their numerical score over the previous year. Now you have um a packet with you I believe you've been given and that has um each school and how they scored on the report card last
045year, how they scored on the report card this year, what their rating was last year, what their rating is this year. Um you also see the totals and at the bottom then you see the rating scale. So what it takes to earn um how many points it takes to earn that good rating or that excellent rating and it is different by level. So each level has a little bit different um rating scale there. [clears throat] So four of our 16 schools like I mentioned or 25% of our schools moved up a rating level. We did have one school that moved down a level. And as we begin to look at the specific data that is used to generate these report cards, you're going to see a trend. So you're going to see a trend of
046improved student achievement overall. So now we'll take a look at just exactly what kind of data is included in these school report card calculations. So on this slide you also have that have a paper copy of this. Um on this slide it lists each of the indicators for an elementary and a middle school report card. So we've got academic achievement based on SC ready English language arts and math preparing for success based on SC ready. That one would be science. Got student progress also based on SC ready. So you can kind of see that that the report card for elementary and middle school is heavily based on student performance on that end of the year summitive um SC ready. Now remember that SC ready is grades three through eight. So u math and language arts
047and then science which shows up in that preparing for success category. Science is in fourth grade and sixth grade. And while this report card is is very heavy on SC ready um we also know that that's not the only way to measure student success but it is um very much a a part of this report card. Additional [clears throat] criteria used to um indicators on the elementary and middle school report cards um is progress for our multilingual learners as well as the results from our school climate surveys for our um students and teachers. All right, continuing to kind of understand the indicators and what is included in the school report card. The next slide is for um our high schools. And so, as you would expect, our end of course tests are a part of
048this school report card. They show up again with math and language arts in academic achievement and science and social studies in that preparing for success category. Um you see multilingual progress multilingual student progress and climate survey that we had in elementary mental also shows up here on the high school report card. But in addition to that you see graduation rate, college and career readiness and then also high school student success. And so that high school student success piece is about um where our students are at the end of each year. So, are they on track to graduate after year 1? Are they on track to graduate after year two? And so on. All right. So, we've talked about what the indicators are. So, now let's look at the data for each of those indicators um
049for Okon County last year compared to this year. So, we're going to start here with academic achievement. Remember that one is math and language arts. So that's SC ready and EOCC's math and language arts. Um let's first take a look at that top and bottom row specifically. So that top up there SC ready English language arts that's grades three through eight the whole district the percent of students meeting and ex or exceeding on um SC ready. So you can see that that improved from 51.2% 2% to 59.8% over last year to this year. That's a huge accomplishment, right? Shout out to our students and uh teachers and community support leaders, school leaders for that improvement. And same with algebra, right? So, um that's the EOC students scoring a C or better went from 46% to
05052%. [clears throat] So, again, good work there. um great improvement from one year to the next. In the middle, we have our um SE ready math and that's grades three through eight and then our English 2 EOC. Um and both of those categories stay fairly consistent right within a tenth or two um from year to year. That next category is preparing for success. And so that again is our um science and social studies. So we'll start looking there at US history, right? So that EOSC is given in high schools looking at percent scoring C or higher. Um and 39.6% C or better. Last year, 49.1% this year. Um that's 10% improvement. Um that that's huge improvement in one year. Um, that's a really big deal. Um, we have SC ready science there. So, we really
051don't have a comparison last year. This this time next year, we'll be able to to make a comparison for that one. Biology, we have biology uh 52.4 to 49.3. So, that is a difference of around 3%. Um, if you remember us talking about this last time I was here, we talked about how biology has been and continues to perform above the state. Um, so even with that right there, we we are still above the state. And in fact, when you rank them, so when you rank EOC scores, looking at a mean scale score, um, for all the districts, we are 14th out of all the districts in biology. So you see that that 3% but you have also have to keep in mind that the whole context and the big picture. So still doing great
052work there in biology. All right. So looking at multi-ingual learner progress. That's a lot to say. Um so this one is remember it's on all the report cards right? So elementary school, middle school, high school. Um multilingual learner progress is based on the access test. So the access test measures English language proficiency. This test is given to our multilingual learners in January, February. Um and each student has a target. So that target is based on how they scored the year before, if they took it the year before, or if they took the the screener um as well as um when they entered school in the United States. So those two things put together um stay creates targets and then um what's reported here is the percent of students that meet those targets. So last year
053we had 31% of our ML students reach that target. This reporting year that went up to 35.1. >> The other way that's measured for our our multilingual students is the percent of students that are showing proficiency. So, they're taking that access test and if they earn a 4.4 on that test, then that shows uh English language proficiency. Um, and so, and that number stayed about the same from year to year. All right, remember that one's on all the report cards. This one, college and career readiness, is only on the high school report card. And this students can demonstrate um college readiness right through college entrance exam. So a score on the ACT, a score on the SAT, um earning a three or higher on an AP test, um or some participation in dual enrollment classes.
054So that's how they can earn um they can show that they are college ready. Um, students are considered career ready if they complete a CTE pathway and get that industry certification. Um, they can earn a three on the college and career readiness test. Um, or they can participate in work-based learning. So, any of those things would identify a student as career ready. So, if you look take a look at these numbers in all areas, right? college or career, college and career, college ready, career ready. Um we have increased the percent of our students that are college and career ready. And so you know what that means is our more of our students are graduating college ready, career ready as they um move on to the next step. All right, two more indicators here. High school
055student success. So remember that one is about um the percent of students after each year that are still on track to graduate. So this is about earning all the credits. So six credits a year, one in math, one in language arts each year in order to be on track for graduation. Um this also includes our our five-year student success. So that includes students that are earning a GED or an employee employability credential. Um so that's in our five-year student success number. Um all of these numbers are improved over um over the last year which is why our graduation rate is also improved over last year. So going from 82.2% to 83.8% as a district. All right. And then our last two indicators. So we have student progress and then school climate. So student progress is
056an indicator that is only on the elementary and middle school report cards. It is based on SC ready and it measures students meeting what's called their median annual target and their added value target. So the added value targets like a think of that as like a stretch target or a stretch goal for each student. So each student has these goals and the percents there um are last year 23 24 was the percent of students meeting those targets in math and language arts but in this reporting year it's math only because our English standards were new last year. So you can't really compare these numbers even though they're about the same. Um they're really reporting different things. math and language arts. This year is math. Well, now we have new math standards, so next year will
057just be language arts. So, it really will be several years before we can get comparisons. But, we'll continue to report the data um and and use the data um to to to help out our students. And then this last one is school climate, right? So, school climate, there's a school climate survey that teachers, students, and parents um can take. The the report card though is only based on student and teacher perceptions. You can see the number was uh went from 7.24 out of 10 to 7.15 out of 10 for student and teacher perceptions. Um parent perceptions are not part of the school report card. um just because the variability of the number of parents that respond to surveys across the state is so different um that that that is not used in a school report
058card, but teacher and student perceptions are. Um however, um we do have do get that data. It is on um the school report card website. Um and it shows that our parents overwhelmingly report a posit they have positive environment, positive experience with our schools. 90.2% 2% of our parents report they are satisfied with the learning environment, 89.7 that they are satisfied with the social and physical environment and 89.6 um reporting that they are satisfied with um our home and our school relations. So that's all of the indicators. And so now I'll give you just a minute to look at um you know the key t takeaways we have. >> [snorts] >> The student outcomes for our students continue to get better and better. There are trends in student achievement and they are positive. Right? Our
059graduation rate continues to increase. Our on track to graduate increased. Our college and career readiness more students graduating college and career ready. are multilingual students, more of them are showing proficiency. Math performance, English language arts performance increased. US history performance increased and then that biology performance um still remains above state averages. So [clears throat] when you put all of this together, this is really really very exciting news for for our students, for our staff, for our community. It really is um something that we should all be proud of. Um, you know, not to say that there's not work to be done. There's always work to be done. Um, but this is this is great progress and we should all be excited and proud about it. Um, and I think we have every reason here to
060feel positive about the work being done in our district. So, I thank you for your time here. Um, I enjoy getting to share this data with you and I look forward to to the next time. >> Thank you. Thank you for your time and putting all this [clears throat] together for sure. >> Any questions, discussion? >> All right, moving on to our October financial report, Mr. Shikling. >> Um, so for October, pretty routine month. Um, of course, not very high tax collection revenue yet. Um, because we're waiting for January. I did I received my notice in the mail so I know that they're going out there. Um aside from that, you know, state sources are the uh primary revenues on the revenue side. Got about $7.5 million of revenue for the month of October. On
061the expenditure side, um it's just routine payroll costs. Um general utilities, not a lot to speak of there. Um expenditures are about 11.4 million. So, you know, for that month, uh, we're looking at about what, uh, $4 million deficit again. And when we, uh, get those collections in January, we'll see a large increase on the, uh, positive side. Um, for the dispersement report for checks, um, see some capital work going on. Um, for one of them, the security film, that's, uh, out of the state security grant. Um, so that's a non-general fund expenditure. pretty large expenditure for our uh insurance through the schoolboard's trust. And then one that we don't see on here very often that I thought I would probably would need to explain is the arbitrage repayment. Um so that's near the bottom
062to the Internal Revenue Service. Um we don't normally do a lot of business with the Internal Revenue Service. Uh but there is a rule for arbitrage um that states when you're a local entity uh or a governmental entity and you issue debt meaning our bonds our go bonds um when we issue those in an in a low interest environment um so we're paying very little interest and then the interest rates increase as they did um after the recovery from COVID. Um what happened is as we were building Senica Middle, in order to have enough money to build that building, we take multiple years of bond issuances and save them up. So we have a lot of money in the bank waiting to build that building. You have two years to spend it without penalty. And
063so we were in our third year of banking that money and the interest rate environment changed. So we were recovering very large returns on our investments where we were paying very little interest. And so the federal government says, "No, that's not why we let you issue government bonds." And so you have to take whatever interest you earned that exceeds that two-year period. And and we have a firm that calculates that for us, and we furnish the report to the IRS, and we have to repay those earnings. So that is paid out of the capital fund, but it is paid from the interest earnings that we generated on that balance. So it's not as though it's money that we would have had and now have to spend. it's just basically we're not allowed to keep it.
064So, I wanted to make sure that that was clear because it's a very um unusual dispersement to see on that report. Um and then on the capital side, you can see the progress uh works going on. Not a lot of activity right now. So, a lot of those are near completion or wrapping up from the summer with just invoicing coming in. Um and then as we get into the next cycle, May, June, July, we'll see some expenditures ramp up there. Happy to answer any questions. There might be >> any questions. >> Okay. Then I'll move on to the excitement of the report um put out by the revenue and fiscal affairs office in October. U so this is in the last budget cycle. Um, if our board members will recall, there was a time frame
065where it appeared as though there was a lot of money being diverted to charter schools out of the general aid formula. Um, there was some consternation, maybe some some feedback that reached legislators and so um, that was amended with the charge that there needs to be a study done to figure out how these weights and these formulas need to be constituted to get it right. Um so this is this report is the outcome of that effort. Um what I'll try to do I'll try to review um the formula a little bit just to give that basis of how it's calculated currently. Um and then an overview of the recommendations that come out of the report as well as an assessment of how they might impact us. Each district is unique. So each district might see
066favorable and unfavorable things coming out of it. Um, so for the state funding, um, this is a slide I took just from our budget presentations last year. Um, and I I won't spend a lot of time going over the numbers, but essentially the state funding formula, um, looks at a ratio of intended teachers per pupils, counts how many pupils there are in the state, and says at that ratio, we would need to fund this many teachers, and then says the cost of a teacher is defined by the state's schedule. So here's how much money needs to be allocated to schools. Um when you get to that total calculated pool of money um there's a assumption that there's a share from the state and a share from the locality and the state assumes 75% of the
067responsibility and then when that happens the state then applies the index of taxpaying ability. So, as a district with um a nuclear energy plant and some high high wealth, high high property value um properties around the lake, we are I don't quote me, but I think 68th out of 71 districts in terms of the state's uh assessed need, right? We have a lot of local wealth and so the state would say you have a ti high taxpaying ability in your region. Um and so each of those metrics is figured out and then the aid is distributed a formula based on need. Um big picture metrics where do we stand? Um what's interesting with us is the formula is driven by the number of pupils times the number of or times the weights for various distinctions
068and those are put into our power school student information system. Um, and so that you know, how many kids you have determines largely how much money you're going to get, but there are weights applied. So that's not just, you know, Mr. Han will go over our enrollment and we'll we'll talk about, you know, assigning teachers to classrooms. It's not a, you know, we've got 9,700 students, so you get 9700 worth of the pot. It's multiplied by weights. Um, and so special education is the highest weighted variable. If a student has a an IEP, if they're classified as requiring special education services, then they are weighted at 2.6 of what one students aid would be worth. Um CTE, meaning career track would be 1.2. Pupils in poverty is 1.5. Um and so you can see um
069one of the things that you can see here over time is our average daily membership um has decreased um and our total weighted pupils in comparison to the state is 16,000 while we have 9500 students. So our weight is on the higher side. Um when we look at why that is um and there is a link in here to the report so that you can view it. Um but there are different tables in there that will be referenced here and they would be an appendix if if you look at the report. Um we are at a 19.8% classification rate. So that means that out of our 9500 students 19.8% of them are receiving special education services. that is a higher percentage than 70 districts and a lower percentage than two districts. Um so on that
070spectrum of weights we are on the very high end [clears throat] of the highest weight which is a 2.6 pupil weight. Um for the career and tech and the pupil is in poverty. Some of the other weighted items um we are uh in the at 24% of our students in a career track career and technical education. So that's more than 22 districts, less than 50. For pupils in poverty, um we are higher than 26, but lower than 46. So for those weighted uh variables, we're actually a little bit lower than the average. Um so the conclusion that you can draw is the fact that we are um one of the higher weight districts than average is largely driven specifically by our special education classification rate. Um, the next thing I'll show is student enrollment to
071staffing over the course of and this gives you it's a little bit it's a little bit odd because one of the charts starts in 2122 and one of the charts starts in 2223 but this is the way the report was published and so I wanted to take it directly from the source. Um the change in student enrollment from 2122 um to this past year uh was a net change of a reduction of 266 students for our district um in particular. Um and then in in funded instructional positions if you look at that time span from 2223 to last year um we actually saw an increase in funded teaching positions. Um so you know that's one of the things that um I think we need to look at when it comes to the funding formula. We
072are retaining the number of positions or increasing the number of instructional positions but we have less students. So we're receiving less money to support those positions. Um one thing that I thought was interesting to point out was just the the um ratio of adults to students at the charter schools. So, you know, if you look at um the column of funded uh funded students per teacher on the right side of that chart, the public schools are ranging from uh McCormack at 9.4 um to York at 12.6 and the charters are 6.5 to 6.8. Um so again, it's a discrepancy. Um you know, I think that stood out to people is why there was some of the attention drawn to funding going to charter schools. Um and and what I for neglected to um articulate which
073I should have is each one of these charts is sorted to have the top three, the lowest three, and then wherever we fall. Um so if you were looking through the charts and wondering why are the district names changing, I apologize. I should have explained that at the onset. It's going to be the top three wherever we fall, whether it's first, last, in the middle, and then the bottom three. Um and so that's how we compare on enrollment to staff. Um the next one is overall funding from initial to final and that's just last year. So we've talked during the budget cycle about the phenomenon of the pupil count at which we're funded at and then the pupil count which is our final count at the 135th day and how if there's a reduction or
074a loss of students there's also a loss of money. So last year um shows the initial estimate that would have been due to us and then it shows our final payment. So that was a reduction of about 437,000. Um thankfully we're we're finishing up the audit right now. So thankfully, you know, we took a defensive position with our budget. We budgeted less than what we were projected to receive and we ended up receiving $34,000 more than what we budgeted. Um so that's a I mean a positive but I think that's a practice that um we would be wise to continue. Um the other thing that I think is is notable is the shift of funding from the public to the charter schools. So you see the uh 49,579,000 um was the dollar change that um
075was a loss from the public's that was an increase to the charter schools. Uh again, largely driven by enrollment moving to charter schools as online options or brickandmortar options are uh available. Um this link is simply a link to the report itself as a Google Drive file. Um so I'm not going to open it now, but it was furnished just in case there's a curiosity or a desire to look through some of the charts. Um and so the next step here is to go over what the report recommends. That was kind of an overview of how of the status quo. Um and there are six major recommendations that come out of the report. Um so each one of them is going to be explained and then kind of a the best assessment we can give
076as to how our district may feel about it or the consequence to us. Um the first one was to take the career and technology the the CTE weight out of the formula and do that as a separate allocation. Um, if you're reading through the report, part of the justification for that is the state's belief that some of this money that was intended to fund instructional positions for CTE classrooms was being used to buy supplies, materials, and equipment for CTE classrooms. So there was a desire to blend call CTE regular instruction, blend that weight in with the rest of all the other pupils and then give a separate stream for equipment, supplies, and materials so that districts wouldn't be tempted to utilize that um to buy those things rather than to staff instructional positions. Um in
077terms of how that would impact us, we're relatively average. We're in the middle range for CTE weight. So you would not assume that it would have a large impact as to where we would fall um from top to bottom statewide. Um the other recommendation that they made was to consolidate uh and I I go through these acronyms. They're limited English proficiency, gifted and talented and academic assistance funding which are some add-on weights. They're lower impact weights um to modify the base weight for all students to 1.1. So essentially there the rationale was there are all of these different weights being applied applied in power school. So there's a lot of tracking of student data that needs to happen but they're not largely impactful on moving the needle for various districts. So why not consolidate all
078of them and change them the base formula. Um so that was the recommendation and again for for a number of these were near the average or slightly below the average. Um so you would not um estimate that it would have a large impact on where we fall in terms of um statewide support. The next one was to distribute funding for charter schools both brick and mortar or virtual separately from the formula um for public schools. And so that would no longer show you know I showed you a report where you could see the 49 million leaving public and the 49 million going into charters. um they would be funded through completely separate apparatus um which this the state report would would explain. Okay, now you can handle each one differently and give each one its
079needs. I don't know how that works out if it's still a zero sum game for total money going out the door. Um so this one is unclear. it really specify how the relationship between them would change or if it would or if it's just the same numbers but distributed on two different processes. Um the next one was to distribute all funding through the funding formula. Um so I think this is the one that probably would raise our eyebrows the most. Um currently the state has that 75% obligation. The 25% is the expectation of the district. Um and then there's also funds that come to us through different avenues to reimburse for the cost of employee benefits. Um one of them is for contributions to PEIBA to support health care costs or health care premiums for
080our employees. Um this recommendation would take all of that aid distributed to schools and apply the index of taxpaying ability to all of it. So rather than just a component of it, it would be the additional 25%. Um we receive about $4 million in support for PEIBA premiums. And so index of taxpaying ability would be applied to all of that. And as a district that has a high index of taxpaying ability, there would be an expectation we support more of our local costs. Um, moving on to the next one is, and there's so two more. Um, allocate funding on prior year student counts. And we would view that favorably. We've demonstrated that each year as enrollments change, we tend to be a district that while our enrollment is fairly level, um, we see a decrease
081from the first day to the last day. I think it was Spartanberg five maybe when you looked at the districts that saw more students and increases they had something like$1 or2 million dollars more revenue by the end of the year. So a district that's a high growth district would say we we need that money we're adding kids we're adding classrooms whereas we would say it's nice and easy and predictable that when you give us a a value and we plug it in our budget we get that amount of money and then the adjustment can be made made in the next year. Um, so I think the constrnation here was coming up with a mechanism that would have a threshold where if you're a super high growth, we can still address that somehow. Um, but the
082districts that would be losing funding can rely on what we told them they would get. Um, and then the and that's the second one here is a new hold harmless or a phase in approach. So some of these could be pretty radical changes. Um, I think then the the political conversation is how do you phase them in so that you don't uh you know radical changes usually lead to changes in seats um in the state office as well. So um that's where we stand. This is this is directly from the report as a quotation but the summary of the impact um the big picture is if they go through with the especially the recommendation for the index of taxpaying ability. Um there would be 46 districts that would receive additional funding to the tune of
08348 million. there would be 29 districts that would lose funding to the tune of 48 million. Um, how that breaks down, there would need to be uh an increase if if districts were going to make up for it, there would need to be an increase of operating millage by an average of 3.2 mills per district of those 29 districts with a range of of virtually nil to 13.7 based upon the property tax values for 2023. So the inclusion of that language led me to believe that there is an analysis that knows who those districts are and assigns those values. So I did ask for it and the response was we're not making that information public at this time. So I think that um throughout the legislative process maybe access to that information will will be
084granted or it will become public. Um but given our metrics I think it would be safe to assume that we would be one of those 29 districts. Um and so then what range would the impact be for us and um trying to assess that based upon the data which is a little bit uh more in-depth than I think I'm prepared to be able to do right now. So recommendations for the short term are um really to just begin planning to bring our staff to student ratios closer to that state average. you know, we did see that um we have had um a a noticeable decline in student enrollment, but we have not made adjustments to the level of FTE of instructional positions. Um and I think that's putting a strain on u the general fund
085budget. Um intermediate would be monitor the state budget proposals for the inclusion of these recommendations. So at this point they are just recommendations. Um Dr. Mercer shared with me that there was a presentation given to the school superintendence group um that outlined what these recommendations are. And so now the next step is are they included in the governor's budget or are they included in house ways and means or or different proposals and to what level or which ones are included. Um and then long-term would be um as we become aware of what's proposed, legislative out outreach to to make sure that our local delegation and also our our county constituents um understand what the consequences would be. Um you know, these are not decisions that we would make locally. So we would have to live
086within the parameters of the state formula. We would need to be able to articulate why we're asking for what we're asking for. Um so that's uh that's a recap of I think it was a 66 page report uh but those are the so call it 10 pages per bullet point those are the highle items so any questions I can answer for you >> school >> you don't have the answers right now >> so >> school board association has come out uh enforcing this for the most part feeling like it's they're moving in the right direction so hopefully as it funnels through the legislature, we'll be able to determine more exactly how it impacts just us. >> Thank you for that, Mr. Shikling, and certainly keep us posted on what we should be prepared for. Sounds
087a little concerning for sure. >> Okay, now moving on to our U policy GCC and GCD staff leave and absences. Dr. Mercer. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, we have it as a discussion item. I'm hoping that if there's not much discussion that we could get, uh, a first reading approval of it. The only change we're asking for in GCC, GDC, staff leave and absences, is allow staff to take one quarter day of leave rather than having the the minimum be one half day leave. uh we think it'll make a difference in u people that maybe have an appointment at 2 o'clock in the afternoon instead of having to take a half day leave could just take a one quarter day leave. So uh we're hoping that you would approve that if if there was
088not much discussion. >> Any questions? >> All right. Can we move to first reading on this? I make a motion that we approve the first reading policy GCC-G staff lead announces second. >> Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um policy manual sections K and L. As I'm I think I mentioned at the last board meeting, we have skipped over section J at this point which is uh having to do with students and we'll be working closely with uh the attorneys on some of those sections because it's a pretty high priority. Conversely, sections K and L are really fairly simple. Uh section K has to do with school uh parent community relations and uh section L has to do with our relations with other education
089agencies. In fact, there are only three separate policies in section L. I would tell the board that the the biggest change that we had in here was in KF-E which was u the amount we charge to rent school facilities. And uh as you can see on the uh screen uh this was last looked at in 2018 and we're actually losing money when we rent sometimes with electricity cost that kind of thing. So that's the biggest change in the entire section K. If you've had opportunity to read over it, but uh I would encourage the board to uh also pass this on first reading. We could perhaps get it into policy in December. We'd like to move on first reading or policy K and L. >> I make a motion that we approve on first reading
090and administrative policy manual sections K and L. >> Second. >> All right. Motion is second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Thank you for that as well. All right. Now, discussion and possible action. Mr. Smith, with some local board approved courses. >> Yes, ma'am. As you know, uh this is the time of year we bring uh forward local board approved courses for your consideration. And that uh really is not only so we might begin teaching those courses as early as January, but you know, we begin scheduling students for next year as early as February. So, it's important for us to go ahead and uh and know what courses we're going to be able to offer. I have four local board approved courses for your consideration tonight. They've all been submitted by Aone Academy. Now, you
091know that our students are assigned uh to Aone Academy in increments of 45 days. And that produces some challenges in terms of having those students earn credit. And so, three of these four courses are actually renewals. They've been formally approved by the board, but they really give students in that short period of time uh to earn half credits in certain areas. And so, uh, three of those areas are service learning. Now, this course mirrors the high school service learning course. That's for students that are in grades seven through eight. We also see character education courses in seven uh for for middle school age students in grades seven and eight as well as character education for students in 9 through 12. And those have all, like I said, been previously approved. We bring those to you
092uh in the form of renewal. There is one new course if you've visited OA you know that they're doing uh quite a bit in the area of green steps u and so some of the agricultural uh and science kind of coming together uh for those students and so this is green steps 2 you'll be familiar we have green steps one already uh at one of our other schools but this would be a continuation of that green steps uh one that's offered at another school it's aligned uh with existing science standards and so there's going to be as you look through those standards that are offered. There will be nothing that would be surprising or out of uh the ordinance. So bring those four local uh board approved courses for your consideration. Um also uh in
093the same vein uh we have three honors frameworks that we would bring uh for your approval as well. And this is a little bit of exciting. I think uh Miss Kelly set us up by talking about college and career readiness. You know we have a strong CTE program here in this district. Uh two of these courses are in the area of agriculture, agriculture power as well as nursery greenhouse uh and garden center uh technology. There's another one in advanced web design. Uh the reason for us bringing these is teachers have brought these forward. We recognize that there is a very uh rigorous set of standards for many of these courses. They give access and opportunity for more students who are participating in pathway completion and industry certification and also it's in response to some of
094the new uh state requirements in terms of earning career readiness based on some of the criteria that they've set. And so bring those uh four local board approved courses and three honors frameworks forward for your consideration and approval tonight. >> I have a question. The honors uh classes are only at Wala High. Is that correct? >> They were brought forward by Wajala High School, but we would actually open these up to all any of our schools that are offering these courses. Miss Holder. >> Okay. And so if we approve these and say only Gualah High wanted to teach it, however, we had students at the other high schools that wanted to take the class. Would we have that opportunity for them to provide their own transportation to go to that site to get the credit?
095>> I'm not aware of that happening in in CTE specifically, but I know we all we do see that happening uh in several instances with advanced placement. So, I don't see any barriers to that other than the student schedule, which sometimes is constrained, but uh but there but there's no formal barrier in the way of uh that would prevent students from doing that. We're hopeful that we continue to see more and more of these frameworks come forward that regardless of of which specific pathways are offered that we offer advanced pathways in each of our categories for these students. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. So, just so I'm clear, we've got one for um an a mecha technology career pathway, another one for a digital technology and web digital communications pathway. And was that was
096that the last >> agriculture power? Uh there was another one that was nursery, greenhouse, and garden center technology. And then there was one for advanced web design. Yes, ma'am. We we visited these classes. The quality of work that's taken place and the rigor of of the instruction and the learning that's taken place in these is absolutely defendable. Uh and so uh we we feel really good about uh being able to offer this to more and more students. >> Mr. Smith, does this require any additional teachers? >> No, ma'am. No, ma'am. This is uh this is absolutely costneutral. Would we like to take action and approve these courses tonight? Okay, I'll take a motion. >> I make a motion that we approve local board uh courses as presented by Mr. Smith. >> Second. >> Motion a
097second. Any further discussion or questions? All in favor. All right. Thank you. And now moving to administrative policy manual section I for second reading final approval. Madam chair, there's been one um suggested change in one of the policies between first reading and tonight that is in uh policy I ka-r. And the only change we're asking the board to make is it had been u the original policy is to take effect in January of 2026 and we're asking the board to delay that implementation until July 1 of 2026. Uh had to do with exemption from uh test and uh schools wanted to go through this year with what the kids already understood and then to begin in next school year. So, I guess the motion you would ask for would be to approve it with that
098one recommended change. I make a motion we approve administrative policy manual section I with the uh change that the policy will take effect July 1, 2026. >> Second. >> All right. Motion is second. Any discussion, questions? All in favor? >> Thank you. >> And now for our superintendence report. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um on your screen, you will see a couple of pictures. Uh we've had some u employees earn some recognition. It was wonderful to see our students recognized, but our own Melissa uh who works here at the district office was recognized with a statewide award with the Rachel Muff memorial award just recently. She was tops in the state with that. And then Stephanie Visich has won an award as Palmetto Resilience for her work in educational technology. She is like the power
099school guru in the state of South Carolina. people are calling her to to get information on work with our school. So, we're very very proud of her for that. And finally, uh, Philip Price defended his dissertation successfully at Clemson University this morning. So, we're very proud of him. He's got his EDDD and uh, we're proud of him for that. And then I wanted to mention that I had put in the board Graham Friday that I had attended the U. County Chamber of Commerce breakfast state of the state event this past Friday morning and Miss McCormick was there and it was very nice to hear all three of our uh representatives speak positively of our schools and one of the things was that Representative Whitmire talked about particularly from his work on the education committee and
100finance committee of how much money they have put into public schools and one point he made was they have worked hard to raise starting salaries for school teachers. It's now at 49,000 statewide. In in Okone County, we pay a brand new teacher $51,500. And this past week, I was at one of our elementary schools. uh had done a uh uh visit of all the induction teachers just to see how they're doing, touching base, and had a conversation with one of our she's actually an induction teacher, but she has three years experience in North Carolina. And she came to South Carolina. I said, "Can you tell me why you came to South Carolina?" And she told me something I've never heard before. The money was better. [laughter] The money was better. So, I was real proud
101of that and and appreciative of that. But I also uh you've heard what Mr. Shikling has shared with us tonight, particularly with that index of taxpaying ability that gets applied to our money. We're going to have to come up with more local effort. And as you know, we're one of four districts in the state that's still do not have fiscal autonomy. So, we'll have to get that approved from u across the street with the county council. So, I would encourage us as we're meeting with legislators this year if if we might continue to plow the field about asking uh Representative Whitmire, Representative Duncan, who's also one of our wrestling coaches and Senator >> I'm losing that phone, but >> Senator Alexander uh to perhaps move towards granting this district fiscal autonomy. Uh The positives I
102see of that is if you have to go up a couple of meals, the school board gets to take responsibility for that and so it takes that burden off the county council. I I would think that they would like to do that and uh but I would just encourage you for that. Um we have one more picture I want to share with you. I am pretty certain that we are the only elementary school in the entire country that has a Santa Sasquatch in the foyer. >> [laughter] >> that is a Tamasi Salem Elementary and I was there the other day when they were decorating and it was just colossal. I just thought I had had to call your attention to that. I couldn't go without being recognized. And finally, Madam Chair, uh a conversation that
103you and I had uh a while back was about how nice it might not how might it how nice it would be to have a copy of the Constitution of of United States of America in every school. And so we have We have these being produced right now. We we we we bought the Constitution copies and our men at facilities uh put built the frame and mounted it and uh they're they're making the others for our school. So, I'm just real proud of that. >> And I told the chair that one of the things I had to memorize in my high school years was the preamble to the Constitution. And I thought I would quote it with a responsive reading from all of you. And then I remembered I don't still have it anymore. [laughter]
104But anyway, we can read it right here. And uh we the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union. So I guess we could go with that, couldn't we? >> Might even end up with the Lord's Prayer and the Declaration of Independence. But we're we're just real proud of that. Looking forward to it. And I think when we get them all done, we'll do some kind of a little uh uh ceremony to take these to all the schools and we'll look for them in a place of honor in in each building. And with that, that's all the remarks that I had. Uh, Madam Chair. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Board member comments for tonight. >> Um, I just know we have some people from Pew Elementary. Congratulations
105on that excellent rating. We really proud of the teachers and students there. and thank you all for coming and and joining uh us tonight for all the special special stuff and all of our information that we're sharing. So, we appreciate y'all being here. And at this time, I'll take a motion to enter into executive session for personnel items, employment recommendations and changes and our superintendent search. >> Second. Motion is second. All in favor? All right. Thank you. We shall be back. And all ladies, I was out there feeling empowered. [laughter] >> Bye. >> Hey Denise, how are you doing? >> I'm good. No tomorrow. >> I supposed to say thank you guys. >> Thank you. I'm I was rude earlier because I was stressing. >> You were trying to get stuff set up. >> Well,
106it I was stressing. How are your kids? >> They're good. Getting older. Crazy. >> How old are they now? >> 9. Seven and three. >> Three. >> Yes. He is He is a mess. >> That's that last one. >> Yes. >> It's that last one. >> Chloe for sure. >> My last one. A Andy called me today and he said, "Do you give Chloe her money for weekly?" And I said, "Yeah, he is." You know, it's kind of snowing outside. I said, "It's flurry." He said, "Well, I'm gonna take her car and get her gas while she's in her last vlog." So, yeah. It's So this is >> church. Yeah, that was very impressive because I said, "Hey, >> I will." Five. Okay, we are back in open session and at this time I will
107take a motion for items on the executive session agenda. >> I make a motion that we approve the appointment recommendation and changes list A that was presented tonight. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? All right. Second motion. >> I move that we approve um the resignation as presented on list B. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion and second for list B. All in favor? That one's 40. One stayain. >> And I make a motion to approve the transfer as presented tonight. >> Second. >> All right. Motion is second. All in favor? That one's 401 abstain. And then lastly, final motion. >> Uh, madame chair, I make a motion that the school district of Okone County Board of Trustees designate the following people as the finalist in our superintendent search.
108Dr. Amy Edwards, who currently works as the chief instructional officer in Aken County Public School District, Mr. Anthony Smith, who currently works as assistant superintendent for secondary instruction for the school district of Okone County, and Mr. Eric Williams who currently works as assistant superintendent secondary school leadership for Greenville County Schools. >> Second. >> All right. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor. That one's 50 as well. All right. And at this time, I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> I move that we second. >> All right. Motion a second. All in favor? Thank you. Have a good night. You want this back? >> Sure. >> Yes. [laughter] >> You got over her group.