001[Music] it was a little extra hard tonight because you were having a good time talking with each other it's a party in here good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome to the berkeley county board of education meeting this tuesday october 2021. i called a meeting to order i claire mccor members are present and the media has been notified for the record ms littleton is on the telephone she's in route she will be here shortly is there a motion to approve the agenda have a looking from a motion from mr ramsey a second from miss tanner to approve the agenda is there any discussion all in favor of the motion please respond by saying aye aye aye any opposed nay motion is approved by a vote of 6-0 is there a motion to approve the minutes of
002the board meeting of september 28 2021. second we have a motion from mr mcquillen ramsey mr ramsey excuse me and hey i need a second mr mcquillen with the second is there any discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor of approving the minutes of the board meeting of september 28th please respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay motion carries by a vote of six zero i need a motion to enter into executive session we have a motion from mr tanner a second from mr ramsey to enter into the executive session the stated purposes of executive session are to be discussion of employment appointment assignment demotion discipline or release of an employee or employees as needed 2c a legal update regarding a pending threatened or potential claim or other matters covered by
003attorney-client privilege also to e or is it d the two out of district appeals for students that are out of district are wanting to come into berkeley county and also for expulsion appeals is there any discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor of entering into executive session please respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay thank you miss littleton we are in executive session by a vote of six zero just a couple of minutes late not too bad huh [Music] ladies and gentlemen is there a motion to return to regular session so moved i have a motion for miss tanner a second uh miss littleton is there any discussion hearing i will call the question all in favor of returning to regular session please respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay
004uh for the record uh is ms wofford on the phone no she we need to text her or get her on the phone are you there okay sure i suppose we need to vote again all in favor return a regular session please respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay have a unanimously vote of 9-0 we are in regular session and for the record no action was taken in executive session ladies and gentlemen please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] thank you please be seated [Music] the next agenda item is citizens comments in order to conduct the meeting in an orderly and efficient manner we ask that you honor the following guidelines stakeholder
005comments are welcomed and encouraged however the board will not take immediate action on public comments at this meeting any person wishing to address the board must register prior to the meeting comments must be regarding programs policies or procedures comments regarding complaints against employees other than district level executives or references to students other than the child of the speaker will not be heard in public session groups addressing the same topic should select one speaker comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker the more chair reserves the right to allow additional time or halt public comment that do not adhere to the guidelines our first speaker is dr chris hanley welcome dr hanley his uh his concern or comment is public comments mr barrow members of the board mr jackson uh good to see you all
006again you know there's been a uh troubling trend recently with uh canceling the speech of so many people in this country we see it on social media we see it in in organizations and now we had and i'm sure you're all aware a couple of weeks ago the national school board association petitioned the federal government to start looking into and prosecuting uh citizens who came and made comments that they deemed to be offensive or uh threatful i didn't hear any threats in most of those comments though you know free speech and being able to petition your government is something that has been long held in most western societies i mean we go all the way back to the 1200s when you look at the magna carta that actually was produced in uh as an answer
007to people who were complaining about their government fast forward a few hundred years we get to the british bill of rights 100 years before ours they gave the right to be able to petition the sovereign and it made it illegal to prosecute or to commit anyone who made those kind of comments you know we look to our own constitution which initially did not have a bill of rights wasn't until a couple years later that that was ratified and in our bill of rights everyone knows in the first amendment that we get the right to speech the first amendment actually has five rights guaranteed and one of which is the right to petition your government concerning grievances you know we look forward to uh supreme court cases in the 1964 landmark supreme court case new york
008times via sullivan the justice brennan writing for a unanimous court and i'll paraphrase essentially said free speech is free we need to keep it free and it gets ugly sometimes but that doesn't mean we should suppress it just because it gets ugly amen that's right so i've heard a lot of folks here come and disagree and i've been one of them who has disagreed with policies of the board or or various other things i haven't heard anyone make any threats in this room and i would be strongly against that i would request that this board every member of this board make a strong statement to continue what you've been doing you've been doing a great job of allowing free speech and even ms tanner i remember you asked the crowd to quiet down so that
009you could hear the speech even though you weren't happy with some of the things that were being said awesome kudos to all of you but i would ask for a strong statement from this board affirming your commitment to free speech in this room thank you thank you dr that's well said and uh [Applause] just a brief comment i think you will attest to the fact that what a couple of months ago we had 40 speakers and all speakers were heard uh given their due time as much as possible so no one on this board is is willing to go down what's happening in other areas of this country todd hanley the next speaker is tony sims on accurate history welcome mr samus i'll try to keep it brief today uh i'd like to first thank
010you for saying that and you're right uh we do get heated debates disagreements but not once that we get violent with that way we never threaten anybody and i'm very proud to be a part of a community that believes in that with that being said what i wanted to talk about was we just celebrated indigenous people day for the first time yesterday that's acknowledging that we were historically inaccurate in some things with christopher columbus so that made me think about what indoctrination actually is would that not mean that we were indoctrinated for so long before we finally came to this conclusion and what other things in our curriculum is like that in history recently we had an issue in our school district that was racially insensitive and regardless of the investigation how that played out
011there was someone who was who was distressed by that that person brought it up to social media talked about it and we have currently a provisional budget that is talking about a uh a provision that says that any psychological distress from a racially education class therefore you can fatten you to lose your money and your funding for that situation i've sat here for the past eight nine months saw many parents come up here and talk about hypothetical children's feelings on a situation with a critical race theory and or culturally relative teaching and we have a situation here that has been made public and we're being told uh some people who showed up to this meeting that they were insensitive that they were seeking attention and not once did they first acknowledge that the perceived psychological
012distress of that person and i didn't see any of the groups here come up and talk about that mothers of liberty our wonderful esteemed blexit unit uh union there and any other groups that talk about against critical race theory not one of them came up say anything about that that's all i want to say thank you mr sims our next speaker is uh katrina white uh the comments will be regarding spiritual beliefs and place back and also bullying [Music] welcome miss white good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to allow me to speak my name is katrina white i'm the president of second chance ministry community outreach i'm the daughter of apostle original white and evangelist dorothy white from ponyville south carolina i'm also the previous commissioner for the town st stephen on my
013previous i'm sorry i received the citizen citizenship excuse me award december 2018 and i'm currently operating under the low country basketball storm at 143 hotel street st steven south carolina i was also a previous substitute teacher which i re-registered today with kelly services secretary's ministry promotes structured mentoring education vocational training and sports program for our youth that choose to live a spiritual godly life i'm here today to push the need for prayer put back into the school as a priority more spiritual programs that should be implemented structure mental spiritual and emotional growth to address bullying bullying has been a big problem in today's society social media school and con in the community when we have adults officials that commit social media or cyber bullying and physical bullying then where does that leave the community parents
014and most importantly to children my own children has been a victim of adults and government official bullying i addressed the berkeley county school directions at state definitely prayers needed back in school and it's just a recommendation or suggestion i know me as a little girl when prayer was in school structure was in place spiritual beliefs when it was in place we performed better you had better citizenship i have never accumulated a criminal activity not judging anyone else this is just off of the fact of my life i'm uh what you call the example of having another chance when it comes to spiritual beliefs i don't knock anybody else spiritual believe but on our dollar bill that says in god we trust is not to me that's not being shown in the education system and i
015i suggest as a advocate for christ a youth advocate being over a body of children that it works and i hope that y'all could take that in consideration and we can get that place back in school and we'll see a lot of things in the education system change you all are our leaders if you don't and i'm not again not judging you because i don't know your spiritual beliefs but if our head is not there then where does that leave the body the head what the tail follows so if we are adults even when it comes to bullying if we are allowing these bullying um actions that happen where did i leave our children we are the example the bible say train up your child into the way they're supposed to go right now the
016act that our adults are committing is not a god and it's not godly as or as a leader and as an example and i just pray that we get back on task so our children can follow in that same manner god bless you thank you man our next speaker is mr garris davis on educational material approval welcome again mr davis appreciate the opportunity again to be able to speak um i want to thank superintendent jackson for getting back to us on some questions we had from last week's customer comments as well as ms smith got back to us that means a lot to us today we're talking about educational material approval process including e-learning process don't like to refer to it as curriculum because that's probably latin going forward education material is any and everything
017any kind of media whatever and then it's not ambiguous number one these are questions we understand no new english and history social studies approved for the last uh approval period is that correct if that or if those are the books made a quick scan and i didn't see any but we just want to know we're real interested in history and social studies and english number two does the school board approve summer reading list if not why not we need a list for all schools in berkeley county in time to review if you recall we had a problem last year a lot of efforts were made in the citizen comments to get a list and we got a partial list that stuff needs to be approved by you okay and we need to have access to
018it number three we're told typically annually there's two months of chosen for total review process of new educational materials is the public notified how and when number four we understand the district uses two groups to review educational material the first is a more detailed review of educational material the second group includes the school board includes the school board when is the public included prior to each of the four reading approval votes at the public school board meetings we also have credentialed educators who can make a critical review of that material and we want to be able to do that we're not the so-called um vocal minority that gets up here and spouts off about things we don't know anything about number five are each of the four approval proceedings documented if not why not otherwise
019how would you prove your due diligence on the materials you are responsible to approve thank you mr davis [Applause] our next speaker is crystal gadsden and the concern is change welcome ms gadston i'm not going to honor any of you for being in your positions i'm going to congratulate you for it was god that allowed you okay to be where you are second i'm going to say to god be the glory uh i did not stand can you move the mic down for us can so we can all hear okay is that better i did not stand at the site of the uh uh reciting of the pledge allegiance because i don't pledge to anyone but god um third i agree with miss white her request was for prayer that's the change that i want
020to see i'm going by example i mean experience and maybe 20 years ago almost now maybe almost roughly real rough around the edges but it's been a little while ago i was arrested and i was before this um board it wasn't the people here it was different and i asked for them to put prayer back in school then i said a lot of the reasons the things were happening with my child particularly that i was in school for and disciplined and was recommended for disciplining was uh caused by what was what he was getting from the outside and it was being brought in it was being brought into my home a lot of it was coming from outside sources and a deterration from what was going to happen to the children in the community in
021that particular area would come from us bringing prayer back to the schools well it was looked over as nothing of course i was looked at as crazy me i kept on going i kept on saying what i had to say doing what i needed to do i thought i needed to do and eventually still i'm standing here asking you guys for the same thing you have a chance you have the opportunity in front of you because you can make the decision um it's up to you to want to see our children really succeed we started this meeting hallelujah god i thank you with a prayer right we did that for many reasons everybody in their own everybody had their own individual reason for praying give that to our children give them that chance that second
022chance because we already gave them what this world got and it's nothing you hear me absolutely nothing but we have a chance to give our children we control our environments it's what we bring in and what we send out what we accept and what we reject it's up to you i thank y'all you have a good day thank you miss gadsden i think i'll make a comment on that as well state law requires every public school in south carolina to begin the day with the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence so children in south carolina do have the opportunity to exercise that religious privilege in south carolina schools just for your information you may or may not have been aware of that that is state law the next speaker is dr sheila foster
023on science behind mask welcome back dr foster i did i didn't get your card stuck behind another one tonight and i'll pull it way down so you can do it we've been talking about masks and i know those are still in a lot of parents minds and again i wear one i wear it more than than probably most of you do and in fact i said i carry them with me and somebody took me up on that and came out to my car and got one after the meeting last time so a time before last but i did want to talk about some of the things i i tend to do research on what i'm looking at and i looked and if you do research you usually try to look and see what other people
024have done so that you can build on theirs you can refute theirs or whatever but is the best i can find is there have only been two small studies done on how masks affect children one let the children wear the mask for three minutes and then take it off and compare and the other one let them wear it for five minutes and take it off we've been in a pandemic for two years we have about 21 000 people at cdc and we have two studies that didn't even come out of the cdc what in the world is the matter but there have been some things done and some observations made and i kind of like to tell you about some of them so you know i think this is a parental choice but um there's
025a doctor i'll start with some of them um there's a doctor who claims that um there's a german study let me do the german study 25 self-reported responses though not perfect they found that it didn't seem to affect the children to wear masks but they said that 60 percent were irritable reported headaches 50 percent reported difficulty in concentration 49 reported sadness another german study reported in jama pediatrics measured base carbon dioxide levels i told you a little bit about that last time and this was the three minute study and if you know anything about osha regulations you can only have 2 000 uh parts per million of carbon dioxide in an eight hour period they found that the younger the child the more carbon dioxide they were getting and in fact they found that in
026three minutes some children were getting 13 000 parts per million that's six times the regular level and so they suggested that children should not wear face masks and they actually found one little boy seven years old who got 25 000 parts per million that is 12 and a half times what an adult is permitted in an eight hour period at work they'll close your work site down if you have more than that general dentistry long narrow faces narrow mouths high palate vaults misalignment of teeth um and this person this dentist who wrote this study said that children need to be taught not to suck air through their mouths when you put your mask on watch how you breathe through your time has expired thank you okay i'm never going to get through this see you
027next time our last speaker is miss patrice blymester on the change why the differences our kids deserve better welcome ms blaimeister i hope i pronounced that correctly good evening thank you [Music] to leave with um i've been here a couple times um actually many times um and every time i come i um i address the board and not once have i ever received a response i do not respect the response that night of course but i've never received a hand of a response even weeks later i'm hannah anywhere i don't fool myself by being here tonight necessarily but i do believe in a chain of command my understanding of the purpose of a school board first and foremost is to look after the students education is a line in these isn't just a line item
028it's the school board agenda it's the only item so how do you think we're doing berkeley berkeley county schools have dropped 11 percent in the last five years not counting covid we learned in the 2021 school year how well most kids perform while doing virtual it was a disastrous year therefore we know our children belong in the classroom yet schools in berkeley county haven't learned how to keep our kids in school in light of the coven i know you're following the cdc and the dhec guidance um but have anybody actually dived into the public availability data um i know there's a well i heard that there was a cova team but i've never seen but so d heck had a paper out it's 9 26 to 10 to one week berkeley county had 19 deaths
029confirmed or probable and what's the probable where's that come from in science um age group middle age to elderly um based on that was just policies and probables and possibilities and then i look at berkeley county and the total deaths for this entire time's been 314 that's 275 confirmed 36 probable if you look closer at the numbers though in the graphs that have supplied um like i do you'll take notice that those dates that i've given are for the entire time from 319 to 10 6. um that's 17 months of normal numbers and people that are doing everything but the chart states that from age 11 to 20 it's less than 0.1 percent they don't give us anything from 11 until 0 to 11. but so they say the minimum age is 20 years medium
030age is 72 years maximum age is 100 years with the average age of 70.31 for deaths so but what are we doing um i was told there's a cova team like i said so what i'm saying here tonight with all that said though is i've got grandchildren and some go in cane bay she's been out for she was over five weeks before she was able to return i have a she never had a single symptom but it was because she was possibly exposed to um every time she was returned back one of her sisters would be possibly exposed to um so all together five weeks but then my grandson goes to sedgefield he was possibly exposed to we picked him up on a thursday he was able to return that monday that's three days so
031the dhec website has two other interesting pieces of directives and cdc and the dhec go together um and it's the options to shorten a quarantine due to covid it says that you can do the for the original 14 days but states you can test on day five but then return on seven if it's negative miss bloodmeister your time has expired okay thank you thank you so much the next item on the agenda is uh item number five any action is required for items from executive session i'll hear a motion for out of district mr chairperson the matter of student number one i move that we grant the appeal second we have a motion from uh mr mcquill in a second from ms littleton to grant the out of district appeal for student number one is
032there any discussion hearing now we'll call the question all in favor of the uh the motion please respond by saying aye aye all opposed nay the eyes have a vote of 9-0 motion carries on student number two out of out of uh may i say that uh dr wig fall has abstained from the voting she was not privy to some of the information so it was a 8-0 in the matter of student number two for out-of-district appeals i move that we defer the appeal pending further information second i have a motion for mr mcquill in a second mr ramsey to refer this out of district appeal to the administration for further review and then return to the board is there any discussion hearing them will call the question all in favor of the motion respond
033by saying aye aye any opposed nay as have it by a vote of eight zero we'll entertain uh motions for student number one the expulsion appeal of student number one mr chairperson i move that we grant the appeal and allow student number one to attend virtual school for the remainder of the school year second we have a motion from mr mcquillen a second from miss littleton to grant the appeal and to require the student number one the virtual option for the remainder of the year is there any discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye aye aye all opposed nay nay motion carries by a vote of seven one the expulsion appeal is student number two mr chairperson the matter of student number two i move
034that we grant the appeal and assign the child to attend the alternative school on strict probation second we have a motion from mr mcquill in a second from ms maron uh to grant the student number two appeal and to refer or to assign the student to the berkeley alternative school for the remainder of the year on strict probation is there any discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion please respond by saying aye aye all opposed nay there was three there were two names three nays three nays eyes have it by a vote of five three motion carries [Music] and the oh she voted in favor okay six three uh dr wickfall did you vote on those i did not i'm so it's five three okay because dr whitfold did he did abstain on
035uh explosion number three is that correct that's correct mr chair person the matter of student number three i move that we grant the appeal and allow the child to attend the alternative school second we have a motion for mr mcquill in a second from ms littleton for student number three to grant the appeal and refer or assign the student to the alternative school for the remainder of the year is there any discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye all opposed nay [Music] all in favor of the motion response by raising your hand and selling sally's and i yeah okay uh ms wofford uh are you affirming this are you voting for this motion yes sir i'm affirmative i okay raise your hands again because i
036didn't one two three four five to three it's a vote okay five four and so the motion carries uh all opposed nay okay okay so we have a uh we have a vote of five three the motion carries by a vote of five to three the last expulsion appeal of student number four mr chairperson the matter of student number four i move that we grant the appeal and assign the child to finish the school year at the virtual school second okay mr mcquillen made the motion a second from miss marone is there any discussion the motion was to grant the appeal and to assign the virtual instructions that correct the student for virtual instruction for the remainder of the year uh all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye aye aye the next
037item i think that that requires uh that's all of the expulsion the next items we have are coming out of executive session for some employee appeals not appeals but recommendations mr chairman i move to accept the recommendation of the administration to name miss allison thornley as the new principal of marrington middle school with a starting date of october 13 2021. we have a motion from miss tanner a second from mr ramsey to name miss allison thornley as a new principal of marrington middle school with the start date of tomorrow october 13 2021. is there any discussion hearing now we'll call the question all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye aye aye any opposed nay as have it unanimously by vote of 9-0 welcome and congratulations mrs thornley [Applause] for you to introduce
038your uh your family or your guests that are with you my husband [Music] let's get a group photo brian get a group photo right there okay we're ready mr chairman i moved to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr jason owens as the new assistant principal of berkeley high school with a starting date no later than november 20th 2021 we have a motion from ms wofford a second from mr ramsey to name mr jason owens as the new assistant principal at berkeley high school with the starting date of no later than november 20 2021. mr owens please stand up and if you have anybody with you introduce them we didn't vote we didn't vote we didn't vote oh oh we haven't voted let us vote we need to vote okay we haven't voted
039okay is there any discussion not you all of us so we'll we'll call for the question all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay unanimously mr owens okay my sister who actually remembers you your middle school assistant [Applause] welcome home mr owens we are excited to have you back at berkeley high school mr chairman i moved to accept the recommendation of the administration tonight okay welcome back home mr owens he just left us last year from berkeley high now he's coming back with a promotion isn't that great so that's good uh miss wofford you're up mr chairman i move to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr ferdinand cooper as the new assistant principal of berkeley high school with the starting date of november 1st 2021 second
040we have a motion for ms wofford a secretary for mr maroon to name mr ferdinand cooper as the new assistant principal at berkeley high school with the start date of november 1st 2021. is there any discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor of the motion respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay motion carries by a vote of 9-0 mr cooper's not with us tonight but we'll congratulate him anyway and i think next is the superintendent's report mr jackson mr chair good evening mr chair board members members of the audience cabinet thursday marks the end of the first grading period for this school year and students will receive report cards and be soon to follow our students and staff have worked extremely hard to overcome the obstacles before them this year and
041they've been successful i look forward to all that they will continue to accomplish for the rest of this year now later in the month you will hear from the division of academics and innovation regarding textbook adoptions we are in the public review phase of the textbook adoption process there are a variety of topics and titles that are up for adoption these texts will be posted here in the boardroom through november 12th so they're at the perimeter of the room if you look around now they'll be up there for review if you'd like to review these textbooks please contact the office of academics innovation to schedule a visit i want to take a moment to congratulate the stratfor knights women's golf team who captured their first ever 5a region 7 golf title senior chase cool was
042named region 7 player of the year shooting a 77 on your home course on the crow field golf course next week the team will compete in the lower state tournament and will be joined by the lady stags of berkeley high who plays third at the region tournament congratulations [Applause] as our district continues to grow and continues to adjust and meet the demands of growth in our area and we're forced to assess our current use of resources and determine how can we get the most efficient use out of our facilities during last month's meeting we reviewed various scenarios including proposed changes to grade configurations at two schools and attendance lines and changing attendance lines impacting nine schools this presentation was led by one of our consultants since then we have provided our communities with access to
043maps and the link to a draft attendant zone service which includes the proposed changes this information was sent via email and posted to our website additionally we provided faqs to help families better understand how these changes may impact their children as we prepare to make the recommendation for changes to be implemented for the upcoming school year we will host three opportunities for the public to review the proposed recommendations october 21st will be at berkeley middle school this drop-in will primarily focus on the grade configuration changes coupled with attendance lines for students at berkeley elementary and berkeley intermediate these changes are proposed to transition the berkeley elementary school from pre-k through second grade and berkeley intermediate school from third grade to fifth grade in both schools serving pre-k through fifth grade on both campuses november 2nd
044will be at whitesville elementary this drop in will primarily focus on students currently zoned for fox bank elementary cane bay middle and cane bay high who are proposed to join whitesville elementary berkeley middle and berkeley high schools next august november 8th will be at macedonia middle school this drop-in will primarily focus on families who live north of the tail race and who are proposed to attend bonner elementary macedonia middle and timberland high school in august of 2022 each session will begin at 6 pm and reminders will be sent to each community regarding these events as we get closer and finally uh like to take a moment to remind parents or at least to inform parents that friday october 15th that's this friday is a scheduled teacher workday our staff will report to our buildings but
045our students will not so again friday is a scheduled teacher work day our staff will be in the buildings our students will not um it's a work day for all berkeley county school district schools and next week report cards will go home next thursday on october 21st chair this concludes my report thank you mr jackson i don't have any particular information to share this evening uh any other board members as a tradition i'd like to to share this this uh this platform if there's any other board members that have any ideas or any thoughts any questions concerns i would like to take a moment and ask the administration about our e-learning program i know we haven't really utilized that this year due to the pandemic but at this time i'm wondering if we have thought
046about utilizing it prior to the thanksgiving holiday or possibly right after thanksgiving holiday i think it would be beneficial to our students and our teachers our students could get some one-on-one time you know teachers can do small groups while students are working on other things i think it'd be beneficial to our custodial staff to to take some time to do some top to bottom cleaning again for us before we come back in um after the thanksgiving holiday um so just something i hope we're thinking about yes ma'am that's um that's a topic that um staff and i actually we've had some some dialogue we have some discussion about that originally our e-learning program was a pilot uh it's one of the things that helped us we were more prepared than some other districts last year
047when in march when we shut down for the rest of the year we were actually scheduled to have an e-learning day on that friday in march before we shut down for the rest of the year and so originally it was for inclement weather days a way to make up for inclement weather days or any other emergency that may occur we've been informed that there may be a little bit more flexibility and where we could assign uh some of those days and so that's one of the things that we're still looking into at this point uh we're able to we'd love to i love to bring that back um and and have it for discussion uh as far as a recommendation to the board um but we're that is something that we're looking into um and
048we'll bring that information back great okay any other members have any comments uh hearing none will uh will entertain a motion to adjourn the regular meeting so moved i can see a segment i have a motion with miss tanner uh a second mr wright is there any discussion hearing them we'll call the question to adjourn uh all in favor respond by saying aye aye any opposed nay you guys have a vote of 9-0 this time miss littleton we'll have the academics and innovations committee i am calling the committee on academics and innovation to order i declare there's a quorum of committee members present and note that the media has been given proper notice pursuant to the freedom of information act i move that we postpone this meeting until october 26th what is the pleasure of
049the committee we need a second second any discussion all in favor say aye aye oh against nay passes three to zero do you have a motion to adjourn second motion has been made by um mr ramsey and second by dr wig fall all in favor say aye aye aye nay um passes three to zero mr mcquillen the financing capital planning committee i'm calling the committee on finance and capital planning to order i declare there is a quorum of committee members president that notice has been given to the media pursuant to the freedom of information act do we have a motion to approve tonight's agenda make a motion to approve the agenda second all in favor of approving the agenda please respond by saying aye agenda is approved first agenda item is out of state travel
050mrs smith you are recognized good evening chairman mcquillen board members and mr jackson administration is requesting approval for the out-of-state travel as presented so move do we have a second let's take it we have a motion a second is there any discussion hearing none i'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye eyes have it three zero the second agenda item is the quarterly finance update miss smith you're recognized again this item is for information only thank you this presentation is to provide the first quarter financial update of our budgeted 331.4 million in revenues in the general fund we have received 39.1 million year-to-date as of september 30th 2021. the majority of the revenue received is from state revenue of the 339 million in budgeted expenditures we have expended 53.9 million
051and have 5.8 million encumbered these charts show a comparison from the same time period from fiscal year 21 as fiscal year 22. our state and local revenues are slightly higher than the same period last year as expected our expenditures for purchase services are higher than the same period in the prior year as well as salaries and benefits our expenditures for purchase services are higher mainly due to last year we funded floaters out of cares act which reduced the expenditures in the general fund and salaries and benefits were expected to be higher than prior year as a result of the two percent increase in salaries and the increase in retirement contributions the special revenue funds through 930 have revenue of 7.1 million and expenditures of 8.5 keep in mind that our special revenue funds are federal
052funds including title 1 funds all the title funds cares and esser which are on claim basis which is the reason expenditures are higher than revenues these amounts were included in the previous slide however i wanted to provide a breakdown of cares and sr2 spending to date of the total 6.8 million dollars for cares we have 1.8 million dollars remaining to spend through 9 30 we have expended 56 000 and have another 35 encumbered this grant ends on september 30th 2022 our total sr2 allocation is 32.2 million and the grant expires september 30th 2023. for the first quarter we have spent 3.3 million and have 1.7 million encumbered our first claim for sr2 is due on november the 15th in regards to sr3 we have received a conditional approval as of last week we have not
053expended any funds or have received any revenues for sr3 to date our eia revenue is 9.8 million for the first quarter and expenditures are approximately 2.6 million [Music] our capital projects fund total budget is 75.2 we're still closing out for school year 21 but we do anticipate carry forward funds for capital to be 34 million we received 40.9 million from the general obligation issuance in september expenditures are 4.5 million with 6.2 million encumbered the 4.5 and expenditures include cane bay middle and singery middle classroom additions land acquisition technology roofing projects middle school prototype and district-wide maintenance total year-to-date impact fees received are 20 29 765 and there are no expenditures last year we received twenty two thousand in impact fees and that brings us to a total of fifty one thousand nine sixty five in
054total revenue child nutrition has received 3.2 million dollars in revenue expenditures are 2.9 million to date normally at this time of the year we see expenditures over revenue however this year child nutrition received a reimbursement from usda for operational cost in the amount of 1.3 million any questions ms smith i know what the impact fee is but some of our folks may or may not be aware of what that involves and i don't remember seeing a slide to that effect in the past could you kind of uh clarify what the impact fees are and how they're collected yes sir at um closing attorneys collect hundred and fifty dollars per home and they're submitted to the district for um impact fees that we collect for future projects um regarding renovations etc and it looks like mr
055jackson would like to elaborate as well well i just wanted to make sure we clarified specific to a carnes crossroads area yes thank you so that's basically a collaborative effort with the development developers public private uh relationship public private partnership yes sir that's a that's a good way to go and that will eventually be a larger amount which will help us with the capital outlay so that's good thank you miss smith you're welcome any other questions or discussion if not we'll move to the third agenda item which is appreciation incentive school and administration ms smith you are recognized again thank you in october of last year the board approved coveted appreciation supplements for all schools to be used at the principal's discretion subject to procurement requirements for staff appreciation this was well received and greatly
056appreciated by all of our principals and we have had an overwhelming request for this benefit to be provided again this year the total allocations for schools using a very similar formula for the prior year is four hundred and twenty three thousand four hundred fifty six dollars in addition there has also been a request to extend the benefit to other departments in the district in the amount of 75 thousand the total request for the covet appreciation supplement is 498 thousand 456 dollars a copy of the breakdown of the allocation was uploaded on board docs for your review are these uh funds uh they're basically covered by the increase in the amount of revenue that we've experienced well actually um i anticipated this question so we did receive an additional reim end of last year that will
057automatically roll into fund balance the total amount was 497 162 and it was we normally received 10 tax credit checks during the year um this year was an anomaly we actually received 11 and the last payment was 497 162 which was not budgeted so it's very close to the cost of this we're off like one thousand two hundred some dollars so um and i'll be glad to share that email with you um if you need to see it chairman i make a motion to approve the recommendation to approve appropriate funds for school and administration incentives as presented we have a motion we have a second second i'm sorry we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion hearing none i'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye
058any opposed eyes have it three to zero the fourth agenda item is ifb 16 2122 window covering term contract ms smith you're recognized again thank you this solicitation was conducted to replace an expiring term contract for the labor and materials to install specified window coverings in district schools and other facilities the initial projects under this contract will be the new classroom editions at cane bay middle and sangeri middle the initial term will be for one year with the option to renew for four additional one-year terms awarded to youngstown shade and aluminum for an estimated year one total of twenty thousand dollars and an estimated five-year contract of two hundred thousand i'll make a motion to approve the award of ifb 615-2122 for window coverings to youngstown shade and aluminum for an initial term of one
059year with an estimated annual value of twenty thousand dollars with the option to renew for four additional one-year contract terms for a potential term contract value of two hundred thousand dollars suck we have a motion and a second is there any discussion hearing none i'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye any opposed eyes have it three to zero uh point of personal privilege to those on daniel island who've written me emails about the janitorial services and issues at the school i believe mr jackson that'll be on the agenda for next month due to finishing up the procurement and bid process or in addition um we have also um done an emergency procurement to assist until we get a full contract in place so that will be immediately great thank
060you welcome at this time any other committee members want to say anything why don't one of y'all say motion to adjourn second all in favor please respond by saying aye aye aye eyes have it we are adjourned i'm calling the committee on human resources to order i declare there is a quorum of committee members present and note that the media has been given proper notice pursuant to the freedom of information act lacie just for noting purposes um sally has dropped off so it's kelly and i um do we have a motion to approve the agenda so move and i second we have a motion by miss marone to approve the agenda seconded by myself all in favor of this motion respond by saying aye aye the motion is approved unanimously agenda item is policy adf
061district wellness second reading dr karen whitley you are recognized good evening madam chair superintendent jackson and board members i've asked ms smith to join me on policy adf district wellness there has been one change to this policy after first reading we have removed the sentence schools will not use foods or beverages as rewards for academic performance or good behavior dr richardson obtained additional information from the south carolina department of education which allows leeway in this policy according to the south carolina department of education this is the only area of the local wellness policy that usda leaves the discretion up to the local districts at schools and end quote schools should make every effort to have non-competitive foods served classroom parties and performance rewards meet the nutrition standards established in the district's policy when possible foods
062and beverages for parties and celebrations will be when possible will be provided by child nutrition to ensure that nutritious standards are met and to alleviate safety and allergy concerns shared classroom snacks are not permitted for safety and allergy concerns so just for clarification of did you want to say something before i i'm sorry dr whitley i'm sorry just to say we're requesting second reading approval policy adf district wellness yes ma'am let me do this correctly do i have a motion i will clarify i want a little bit more clarification well do let's make a motion and then discuss do you have a motion to approve the second reading of policy adf district wellness as presented and i second that we have a motion by ms maron and a second by myself but let's discuss so
063we both want to discuss it apparently so i want to clarify to parents watching that we cannot bring it up inside we cannot bring outside food inside to our schools correct and benny's gonna hate me am i allowed to bring this up okay so i would like to clarify for parents that our food services is coming up with a program for you to instead of purchasing from publix or little caesars they will help you to celebrate your child or the class if you will whatever it is i'm actually extremely excited about this little postcard that was put up on the deus seat well you were going to talk about it am i taking your thunder you're not stealing my yeah they are they're adorable it talks about an ice cream party and cookie platters and
064cakes and pizza party and the prices are extremely extremely reasonably affordable and so i just want to clarify for parents that while it may feel frustrating that you can't bring in your cupcakes for um little susie's birthday we can still celebrate and child nutrition is willing to assist with that so i'm sure more to come from that um but i did want to clarify they also you know will help with our schools with cookouts i know when my child was at westview they did a fifth grade promotion cookout best thing ever those kids look forward to it every year and so food and nutrition is behind us on celebrating all of the celebrations that need to be had so i just want to clarify [Music] your turn ma'am okay no i just wanted to clarify
065that we can still celebrate like pizza parties and our children can celebrate their birthdays in school and be able to have that type of celebration because i think that's very important so i just want to make sure that we can still do that within our schools okay all in favor oh yes i'm sorry your comment was other than the one provision that we changed everything else is absolutely required by the law that would be a question for dr richardson yeah so [Music] we got to do it i think dr richardson would be uh would be glad to clarify something for us i hope i think his question was is it mandatory yes i think that does that answer your question so it's required by law mandatory absolutely okay very good yes any further discussion hearing
066none i'll call the question all in favor say aye aye aye the eyes have it unanimously moving on to our second agenda item policy ef food services second reading dr whitley you're again recognized thank you we are requesting second reading approval of policy ef food services berkeley county school district food service program the child nutrition services operates under current guidelines and standards established by state and federal laws and the south carolina board of education i motioned to approve the second reading of policy ef food services as presented i second is there any discussion hearing none i'll call the question all in favor say aye aye the motion passes unanimously yes yes ma'am third agenda item is policy efr food services second reading dr whitley it is you again ma'am thank you we are requesting second
067reading approval of policy ef dash r food services the purpose of this administrative rule is to ensure compliance with federal requirements for the usda child nutrition program and to provide oversight and accountability for the collection of outstanding student meal balances surplus balances and dissemination of procedures what is the pleasure of the committee i motioned to approve the second reading of policy efr food services as presented motion by ms marone second by ms tanner sorry i forgot to say a second is there any discussion hearing none i'll call the fa the question all in favor say aye the eyes have it unanimously moving along to our fourth agenda item it's the osha safety and security update fall 2021. dr whitley you're again recognized thank you ocean safety and security under the leadership of miss tina mccormick
068and emergency management under the leadership of mr tim knight are two departments under the human resources umbrella that work tirelessly to ensure a culture of safety for all stakeholders the osha and safety department was created in january 2018 and has made great strides in ensuring that workplace safety is number one during the 1920 school year fourteen hundred and fifty hepatitis b series shots were received by our employees in july 2020 berkeley county school district workers compensation program became self-insured with current savings during the 2021 school year of 2.8 million dollars safety protocols have been strengthened during this time the security and emergency management department was created in september 2013. priorities were to ensure a safe and secure environment for all district students staff and visitors and prepare the school district to effectively respond to all
069emergencies that might affect safety or security of students and staff this department has cultivated a strong working relationship with all the law enforcement agencies in the tri-county area historically school safety initiatives have addressed issues relating to bullying vandalism student fights and weather-related emergencies our safety and emergency management team has also been instrumental in establishing protocols for emergencies and conducting drills ensuring building security and working with our community to reduce stakeholder anxiety berkeley county school district is so fortunate to have these talented individuals who are dedicated to the service and safety of all i will turn the podium over to miss tina mccormick and she will be followed by mr tim knight thank you dr whitley good evening madam chair superintendent jackson board members this evening i have an update on the osha safety department on
070workers compensation as well as osha safety osha safety department was created or established in 2018 first with steve brandenburg in january of 2018 and then myself in august of 2018. along with the instruction of dr whitley before i go any further i would like to introduce you to my team members if my team members would please stand i have susie velaz who's our safety specialist i have wendy michaelson who is our osha safety clerk and karen hill who is our osha admin as you can see the monthly workers compensation number of claims have decreased since 2018. the claims comparison if you look at the chart in 2017 we had 199 injuries 2018 we had 162 2019 144 and our first year as self-insured 2020 at 129. great news so our number of employees have increased
071every year but our injuries have decreased if you look at the comparison in the cost from 2015 [Applause] in comparison to our first year as self-insured for 2020 we're currently at 989 000 with a savings comparison compared to last year of 2.8 now we provide and always looking for the best care for our employees we care about our employees we want to make sure that they have the best physicians the best specialists everything that is available to them we are always looking so how are we reducing risk and hazards through safety committee meetings we have established safety committee meetings at all of our district schools and locations these committees are formed by leaders and employee representatives together we can make a difference we can eliminate hazards and the risk we can make our place our
072berkeley county school district a safer place under the workers compensation we have safety training safe schools online training this is compliance training required by osha we have monthly and annual osha safety training as well under workers comp we have the annual safety shoe program we provide safety shoes for all of our safety sensitive positions such as maintenance our child nutrition group and our custodians we want to make sure that we provide the compliant footwear under workers compensation we have a light duty program we accommodate and provide guidelines for administering a modified duty protocol and in conclusion we have a hepatitis b vaccine program back in 2019 in order to become osha compliant we budgeted 1.1 million dollars for to be osha compliant in 2020 we provided the hep b 3 series vaccines to 1 450
073employees and we did this within a year we partnered with cuba and walgreens and we were able to save the district approximately one million dollars and this concludes my report thank you good evening madam chair superintendent jackson members of the board it's my pleasure to bring this security update to you tonight thanks to this board's generous support really appreciate your support we were able to add three new sro positions for this school year this past spring we implemented monthly sro supervisor meetings and as you know we contract with five law enforcement agencies to provide sros in our schools these meetings have proven to be very beneficial with bringing these agency leaders together to discuss current trends school issues and concerns and provides us an opportunity for networking and collaboration we've begun the process of creating
074a school security training video library and this video library is available to our administrators with the goal of them using this library to show and demonstrate to their respective teachers and staff members with district security and emergency procedures social media is a great tool that most of us utilize however there are many dangers associated that our students become involved in which sometimes creates dangers for not only themselves but for schools as well with this in mind we are in the process of developing cutting-edge social media presentations designed for our parents to educate them and what our young people are susceptible to these presentations will be delivered both in person and available in an online format each year our schools conduct a combined 700 plus emergency drills with the help from our technology department we have
075created an online drill reporting program designed to streamline our drill reporting process we saw last year that many of our parents were concerned with our coveted protocols and rightfully worried that their children were going to be safe in our schools with everything our sros do on a daily basis we wanted to remind our parents and stakeholders just how special they are to us in an effort to show our appreciation for their hard work and dedication to protecting our students and staff members we begin highlighting asro each month via the district's website and social media platforms it is important we remember our sros are critical piece of our overall security program and initiatives we also have two new members in our office scott cook and sharitha kinlaw hickman they bring over 50 years of experience to
076our office and we are very excited to have them on board and we also still have brian fenton with us as well can't forget about brian as you know we conduct at least two large-scale crisis simulations every year before the thanksgiving break we will conduct an active shooter intruder drill at one of our schools this spring we will once again test our security measures and protocols at a particular school it's like we always say we can have physically secure campuses but if our teachers and staff do not know how to respond to a variety of emergencies then physical security means nothing we use these training simulations to enforce our emergency procedures and ensure we are doing all we can the right way to keep our students and staff safe this past summer we hosted our
077eighth annual sro summer training program at foxbank elementary this is a time where we all get to train and fellowship with our sros and supervisors our focus training was in areas of active shooter mental health de-escalation techniques and our sros were all re-certified in cpr and first aid we had collaborative collaborative presentations from the 9th circuit solicitor's office tri county human trafficking task force berkeley mental health and other great organizations as we look forward we want to increase our engagement with our parents and our students we have plans to conduct more parent engagement meetings where we can talk to our parents directly about what we're doing to protect our students in a variety of ways and also give them tools to help protect their children as well in conclusion we want to keep our district
078and the state and national spotlight as a leader in school security and we will continue to do all we can to keep safety and security our number one priority excellent awesome thank you so much at this time i'll entertain a motion to mature second [Music] all in favor say aye aye any opposed the eyes have it we are adjourned the october 26 meeting is a college park middle school in case that you're not aware of that at this time october 26 college park middle school have a great night thank you you