Berkeley County School District Board Meeting - April 27, 2021

001good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome to the berkeley county board of education meeting this tuesday april 27th i call the meeting to order i declare mcquorum is present and the media has been notified do we have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second we have a motion by ms tanner to approve the agenda second amendments to write all in favor of this motion say aye opposed nay motion is approved by a vote of 9-0 for the information of our audience ms littleton is not here presently but she's on a call so she did vote in the affirmative do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the board meeting on april 13th make a motion to approve the minutes from the april 13th board meeting do we have a second second we

002have a motion by miss tanner to approve the menace of the board meeting on april 13th seconded by mr wright all in favor of approving the motion say aye aye opposed say nay motion is approved by a vote of 9-0 do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the berkeley county board of education budget workshop on april 14th so move mr chair second we have a motion from mr right a second from miss tanner all in favor of approving the minutes say aye aye opposed say may motion is approved by a vote of 9-0 do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the berkeley county board of education special call meeting on april 15th so moved second we have a motion for ms tanner a second by mr wright to approve

003the minutes of the berkeley county board of education special call meeting all in favor of the motion say aye aye aye opposed say nay the motion is approved by a vote of 9-0 do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the berkeley county board of education executive session on april 19th so move mr chair exactly i have a motion do we have a second second i have a motion for mr wright second from ms tanner to approve the minutes of the berkeley county board of education executive session on april 19th all in favor of the motion say i i all opposed say may motion carries by a vote of 9-0 do we have a motion to approve the minutes of the berkeley county board of education executive session on april 20th so move

004mr chair we have a second second miss right mr wright least a motion miss tanner gives a second all in favor of the motion say aye aye all opposed nay eyes have it my vote motion carries by 9-0 do we have a motion to enter into executive session so moved we have a motion from miss tanner do we have a second second i have a second from miss marone to enter into executive session and seconded by ms marone as stated items for the executive session are to be a discussion of employment demotion or release of an employee or employees as needed to see discussion of employment appointment and compensation including benefits for district administrative positions and for other positions to be appointed by the board including in-house general counsel position capital project supervisor and maintenance

005department director also 2d we have one student expulsion appeal all in favor of the motion to enter into executive session say aye all opposed say nay motion is approved by a vote of 9-0 we are in executive session do we have a motion to return to regular session it's no move mr chair we have a second second i have a motion for mr right second uh miss maroon oh that was me sorry miss tanner all in favor of the motion to return to regular session say aye aye aye all opposed say nay motion carries and approved by a vote of 9-0 we are in regular session for the record no action was taken in executive session ladies and gentlemen please rise for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence i

006pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated next item is citizens comments there are some procedures that i'm going to read in order to conduct the meeting in an orderly and efficient manner we ask that you honor the following guidelines stakeholder comments are welcomed and encouraged however the board will not take immediate action on public comments at this meeting any person 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

007addressing the same topic should select one speaker comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker the board chair reserves the right to allot additional time or halt public comments that do not adhere to the guidelines first speaker is phil menard a selection of counsel for bcsd budget and curriculum issues welcome mr menor good evening thank you very much for the opportunity to say a few words i have just a few things on my mind relevant to the decisions that the board is preparing to make first being the selection of a council for the board for the school superintendent very concerned of what i have seen and heard and read about one of the candidates that is being considered for that position and that being a miss tiffany richardson i have seen the comments that

008she has expressed mr chair you need to tell him that he should not call her name if he's speaking he can speak in reference to i believe it's public knowledge sir no but i think when you're addressing the board you know this is a potential employee of ours and we just made that in his comment that you should not call anyone's name per se you can say the council or whatever uh but i don't think you should call that person's name just for respect from a okay fine i will reserve those come the name anyway the comments that this person made that i saw are totally objectionable they are condescending they are disrespectful of an elected u.s senator happens to be a senator of our state and they are totally unprofessional i am shocked that

009this type of individual would be considered as an attorney for the board i have another comment regarding budget issues that being if there is under consideration any increases in millage rate any increases in the budget that would affect the millage rate i stand opposed to that i am a resident of monk's corner fox bank subdivision and a homeowner here and i i would expect that the board would operate within its allocated budget and not plan on expenditures that go beyond that finally i do want to say a quick word about curriculum which is extremely important to me as i'm sure it is most of our uh colleagues and friends and families parents here that if there is ever consideration of political correct curriculum whether it be critical race theory or any other that i stand

010strongly opposed to that type of teaching of our children and would expect that we continue to teach art our students from kindergarten on up on true civics issues on the history of our great country thank you very much [Applause] thank you mr menard uh we have i believe it's paula quick i think it's paula quick yes and the nature of the comment is we are concerned about hiring council that does not represent berkeley county in regards uh to the general council it's quick okay we will move on to the next speaker michelle credel the comment is i'm here to support the board teachers finally feel supported again thank you for looking out for students and teachers ms credel um i put that in last week so i wasn't prepared to speak but i just want

011to reiterate we do feel like you are listening to us and all of these decisions that you are making they do benefit the teachers but they benefit the students if you don't retain your teachers who are you going to have next year sorry i didn't have anything prepared thank you [Applause] the next speaker is amanda duke the nature of the comment is thank you for all attempts to keep the education of berkeley county children first in all decision making instead of personal politics uh miss duke i do not see miss duke so we'll move on to the next comment i'm not sure i can say the second name is tony tony uh wants to talk about teacher advocacy supporting the school board dr england could you make that out for me oh sims okay tony

012sims you're recognized thank you sir thank you good evening i want to start out by saying thank you excuse me mrs sims could you speak until the microphone so we can hear you i want to start out by saying thank you to the school board and to the teachers of berkeley county i'm very thankful for what you do i know this past year has been very difficult you guys had to overcome and adapt to many challenges and it is not going unnoticed parents and residents of berkeley county love you and respect what you do and you are very valued the current school board very very happy with you and please ignore some of the loudest voices in rhetoric because we're here for you we showed up at the ballot box and we would continue to

013do that thank you um i want you all to stay focused on what you're doing and keep those kids and those teachers in mind first and ignore any political rhetoric uh and keep um i'm very happy that with the new legal council changing over uh and i hope that in doing so gets rid of a lot of our ethical conflicts that are currently in our system that's all i want to say thank you [Applause] next speaker is dr chris hanley of comments about board procedures concerning meeting notifications welcome dr hanley chairman barrow dr ingram members of the board two weeks ago i sat in this very room at a regularly scheduled board meeting and then again wednesday came back and attended the budget workshop in neither of those meetings was there any mention of a

014thursday meeting to discuss hiring in-house general counsel as i left the budget workshop wednesday evening i received a text stating that there would be a special called meeting on thursday i found that a little curious because before i left home on wednesday afternoon to come to the budget workshop i checked the website looking for the agenda of that meeting and there was no thursday meeting scheduled at that time when i went home sure enough there was you may have met the technical requirements for providing 24 hours notice but you certainly did not meet the spirit of that requirement which is transparency what were you hiding you know as i as i later found out i found out what you were hiding you plan to award a multi-year contract at a very high salary with a

01570 000 golden parachute to an attorney who already works for the south carolina school board association we the citizens of berkeley county were forced to use the freedom of information act to obtain those details i also found uh in those documents that at least one possibly two of the three members of the committee charged with finding candidates for the position had a prior relationship with the candidate chosen and the chairperson showed great bias against other potential candidates and it appeared that the fix was in from the very beginning after reading emails and social media posts from the candidate i found multiple tweets and uh that are disrespectful and dismissive to both of our u.s senators bias against school choice and many of these comments would be considered by many people to be even racist i

016can now read for myself that the candidate you have chosen seems uh to see everything in her world through the lens of race sex and political party anyone who does not agree with this candidate is treated with disdain and disrespect these com public comments show at a minimum poor judgment how the world how in the world do you think you'll ever be able to discipline an employee for charges of racism sexism or political bias when you are knowingly hiring someone who has shown this type of poor judgment i respect that you reopen the position and begin anew your search the statements of the current candidate do not reflect berkeley county values and if they reflect your values i would request that your voters reconsider their choice in representation on this board thank you [Applause] [Music]

017the next speaker is mr terry hardesty the nature of the common is bored you call us somebody's name you need to shut them down [Music] i promise you mr bear i do believe that the candidate's name can be stated it says on our card that it's um district level executives um and the name has the top three has been released so i'm double checking that but i do think that there's i want to make sure that when these folk get up here particularly people who have a contract with the district should make be very careful in the things that they do when they call people's name but i'm saying you can go ahead just discontinue but i just want to make sure that people understand that it is true that the individual in question is

018not an employee is a candidate for employment so i would i would be careful about about calling specific names in public session mr hardesty good evening mr chairman members of the board dr ingram it's with a really heavy heart that i'm here tonight um i've already heard a comment i'm assuming from a teacher i don't know the gentleman about you guys disregarding angry or loud voices we're all citizens of this country we all have a voice and i just i'm concerned about that if if that's what we're teaching our children and speaking of teaching our children i placed on all of your board members they're here a packet about a foia concerning a current board member and i'm not going to mention any names tonight but i think this board has been ignoring this situation

019for quite a while and it's something this board needs to deal with and i hope you deal with it if you don't deal with it i'm going to be back and i'm going to be again reading that for you piece by piece into the record in this school district thank you thank you sir [Applause] the next speaker is victoria calvert uh coward uh for comment of transparency and accountability welcome ms calvin chair barrow dr ingram members of the board on april 15th i talked with chair barrow on that day he told me the committee interviewed some candidates and came up with a recommendation tonight will be discussion about contract negotiation only specifically who would negotiate the contract following a foia request here's what i learned took place before that conversation on april 15th on december

02015th of last year tiffany richardson sent an email to krystal wiggfall stating in part i am following up on the question you asked about providing staff bonuses the board can provide a bonus to staff but cannot provide a step salary increase per legislation please feel free to follow up i hope that helps that exchange predates this position and reveals crystal wig fall went outside the board's legal representation to an obviously trusted source so with that clear and pre-existing relationship should chair barrow have appointed crystal wick fall to that committee and should she have accepted and then in another email also predating this position in the same exchange between the same two individuals i've been trying to get in contact with you and wanted to speak with you prior to our conference would you be able

021to speak with me this week moving now to the chair of this committee on february 23rd tiffany richardson is directly emailing kirsten tanner asking how to proceed with her submittal for this new role without a required component and then on the very next day kirsten tanner telling her in all capital letters so excited to see this and then one day letter later so happy to hear from you does this sound like an impartial process the applications were closed on march 3rd on march 5th mack mcquillen sent additional candidates to which kirsten tanner tells everyone to disregard even though the committee had not yet met in his next email mac mcquillen state t2 shares his concern and offers a road map for the committee to consider additional candidates and urges the reopening of the posting he

022states as a board i do not know why we would want to exclude any qualified candidates unless the fix is already in for tiffany richardson our march 6 chair barrow refuses to intercede in this farcical exercise which has already gone farther than he agreed it went on april 15th on march 16th mack mcquillen sends another email to those involved and shares he learned a candidate for the position asked to have her interview conducted virtually sounds reasonable in these times a request kirsten tanner unilaterally refused without communication with her committee the foyer also revealed notes from the process which stated on march 30 was directed in executive session to call and negotiate the salary and date to begin work march 30th april 15th there was no decision according to chair barrow the notes continue on april

0232nd and read dr richardson called back and again this is april 2nd i offered 120. i offered 130. she said 140 was her lowest stand on april 6 in an email from tiffany richardson to karen whitley tiffany richardson states thank you for reaching out to me friday afternoon to let me know the committee's decision i'm excited to have been chosen and to continue this relationship in this email she even attaches two contracts that she alludes to having discussed with karen whitley on the proceeding friday that being april 2nd she shares attached you'll find the contract that we discussed on friday this contract is what was used for dorchester 2 in charleston of course i've made adjustments well isn't that lovely tiffany richardson was offered the position on friday april 2nd but david barrow told me

024there had not been a hiring decision made when i spoke with him on april 5th miss carrick your time is up but i'm going to allow you the opportunity to continue your comments thank you and here we have her documenting that offer and her gracious offering of a contract for her own employment have you ever heard of any such thing which was then in turn sent out to all the participants april 15th executive session terms laid out for in-house counsel kirsten tanner called and spoke with dr richardson with the whole board present and dr richardson agreed again taking place on the date i was told no decision would be made april 16th spoke to tiffany richardson at 9 10. save five seats for april 27th would like to start 24th of may terms that i

025went over twice and she agreed spoke with david bower concerning the start date of may 24th and the contract only 10 minutes later again all of this took place before my conversation before the last meeting this is not transparency this does not represent the conservative people of berkeley county our taxpayers our voters deserve better thank you [Applause] the next speaker is christy dixon on hiring a new school board attorney welcome ms dixon good evening i appreciate the opportunity to speak i'm speaking on the general counsel interview process which is which was done to give the false appearance that this was a fair process the emails that were provided under foia clearly show that this was not a fair process here are the facts that are supported by emails provided under foia the general counsel job

026was posted on february 16 2021 from february 3rd through the 16th before the job was posted by the district crystal wig fall was communicating with tiffany richardson and asking her to call her her email message is intentionally vague because it appears she probably knew she was doing something wrong i have this email here with me additionally it appears kirsten tanner clearly helped tiffany richardson with the application process and even wrote her an email before she applied with the subject line application miss tanner said that she was so excited to see this and so happy to hear from you this was all in caps and to tiffany richardson before she applied this was the only candidate that was contacted by committee members before during the proc application process i also have that email here with me

027yet you say this was a fair process in terms of the so-called negotiations on salary the foia response indicates that 140 000 salary was the maximum the committee was willing to pay when this was discussed in executive session however tiffany richardson almost immediately said that 140 000 would be her bottom number was someone on the board or committee leaking information to her is this fair negotiating on behalf of the district maybe this is why mr barrow forwarded an email on april 14th about this hire to his personal email address all of this coupled with the fact that mr mcquillen the only lawyer on the board wrote the board several times that he suspected the fix was in and believed that there were more qualified candidates this reeks of unfairness and a rigged process you need

028to set a good fair example speaking of setting a good example as the district's lawyer you need someone who will be impartial civil and act professionally we teach our children not to call names and to be respectful tiffany richardson's tweets are demeaning and totally unprofessional to united states senator and berkeley county resident tim scott tiffany richardson referred to senator scott as timmy and scotty and called him quote idiot despicable and clueless if a child called these names in school they would be labeled a bully and disciplined yet this is who we want serving as our school district's lawyer finally and most importantly i have read ms richardson's email where she misrepresented to the district that dorchester district 2's lawyer had a contract like the one submitted by ms richardson she made this statement so that

029the district would give her a contract but her statement is not true name-calling and lying our children deserve better and so do all the citizens of the county the board says let's just give her a year see how she does no i implore the board to take a second and fair look at the candidates and pick the most qualified candidate as miss richardson clearly is not that candidate thank you so much [Applause] the next speaker is vicki liberge comments mr mac mcquillen mr barrow board members dr ingram thank you for letting me speak i'd like to read some expert excerpts from mr mcquillen's email obtained through foia to ms tanner regarding his concerns about the general council committee's hiring process as being unfair these are his statements i am concerned about tiffany richardson's representations regarding

030dorchester 2's general counsel having a contract is untrue you and crystal decided to trudge forward turn a blind eye and vote to hire her after contacting several neighboring and large district counties like dorchester district 2 greenville county district and berkeley their in-house lawyers do not have a contract and are at will employees i am not aware of any other districts where the in-house lawyer has been provided with a four-year contract term like the one submitted by tiffany richardson in your role as chair of this committee i expected you to share all information you received with all committee members this has not been the case the multi-year contract from tiffany was emailed by tiffany on april 6th however it was not sent to me until yesterday april 13th less than five hours before our committee meeting

031and only because i requested it was it reviewed by employment council brandon gaskins or any lawyer if not this is extremely atypical and raises additional red flags i wonder how tiffany richardson happened to arrive at our maximum number as her bottom line was it coincidence or was information from executive session leaked i believe this process has been a farce from the start as the only lawyer on this committee all of my feedback has been disregarded the last time tiffany richardson directly represented a school district in an employment matter or iep was in 2008 nearly 13 years ago to be clear i do not know any of the candidates and do not have a relationship with any of them i just want to select the most qualified candidate in a fair manner while not doling out

032our children and teachers resources unnecessarily as chair of this committee you have asked us to disregard qualified candidates resumes a principal was wrongfully placed on the committee by you and participated in violation of board policy information has not been shared and now you are turning a blind eye to the fact that tiffany richardson provided us with what appears to be untrue information it's obvious to me that this process was put in place to appear fair when it's not i have also now seen on facebook all of the pushback based on tiffany richardson's condescending inappropriate and unprofessional posts from social media which she now apparently i'm sorry your time has expired thank you so much [Applause] the next speaker is melissa's soul thanks okay hello thank you all i did not actually come like i was

033going to prepare anything big but i wanted to thank you all for your decision to keep the superintendent search in-house and to save the district um a whole bunch of money and time with that decision i'm you know i'm just a little i'm a little frazzled seeing the year i teach i don't teach for berkeley county anymore um and i'm an ap teacher so my kids are insane and um i'm insane grading papers um we have three amazing candidates that were mentored in nurtured in berkeley county and that many of us have worked with and for and have created great working relationships with and that we know and trust this will make the decision for the board a lot more difficult but at least we all know that there's not a single bad decision that

034can be made and um i'm excited to see who our new superintendent will be and um i don't think there's a bad decision that can be made even though i'm going to say that i'm hashtag team dion all the way all right thank you very much thank you man [Laughter] the next speaker is uh torrey lyfridge the comment is general feedback to the board and district officials welcome mr lyfrich thank you good evening chairman barrow superintendent ingram board district employees um i had so many other things i wanted to share but i guess i'm going to shift a little bit it it it's interesting that this outcry wasn't here in 2016. i thank you board for at least having a process where we can have candidates for general counsel to be considered um because all

035of a sudden uh you know now process is what matters in 2016 this many members of of that are still part of this current board acted as if they had a mandate and and i can't fault them because in this country elections have consequences and they can they continue to act as if they had a mandate and that mandate served the agenda of a limited few and so as my grandmother would say was good for the goose has to be good for the gander and so last year our voters voter coalitions helped this board to deliver another mandate and that mandate is that we begin to clean up berkeley county school district that we actually have full transparency it is amazing that all of a sudden i mean that that those are very legal arguments

036um you know everybody can get the foyer i know i've done several of them haven't always gotten everything i needed but it's interesting that it that it was so well laid out and we're talking about leaking how is it that her name was leaked in the first place right but and it wasn't by i i first heard about it from uh i believe it was a republican group right berkeley county has always been political let's get this that's that's a load of crap you can be political obviously if you're republican or conservative let's not talk about raising millage let's ask the question why was the millage decrease in the first place if you went to the financial meeting a couple weeks ago why was it decreased over 12 mils when it only had to be

037decreased about three maybe it was to set it up so that now anything that this board does to raise mills is going to seem like a tax increase the audience will so we have to recognize that a lot of stuff has been going on and there is a lot of people in this county who may represent the silent majority and i want to encourage board members i know intimidation is real but i encourage you stand strong because we will return full trust in this school district and in this school board but you're gonna have to stand to do it and trust me there is a silent majority and everybody who ain't people who just look like me ain't people who just vote like me it's a lot of people who are tired of a limited

038few controlling it's the many that really want to see you guys be able to execute your positions with full responsibility full authority and full transparency and that's the majority of berkeley county don't be fooled by the rhetoric that you hear on tonight thank you so much [Applause] uh we're having trouble trying to see the last name as ken fessler the comment was please hire superintendents and legal employees that share this county's predominantly conservative views i'm sorry i messed your name up i couldn't read it it's ken felscher thank you for allowing me to make a comment this evening i've been a berkeley county resident for 20 years now and i appreciate this i feel like this this county is a predominantly conservative county and i'm concerned that what i've heard recently about the superintendents being

039considered and the the legal counsel being considered that they should represent the views of that majority in berkeley county and i don't know i don't understand why a group of elected officials or managers for that reason would hire people that might have a different view than you do because that would present nothing but problems in the future when things concerning male and female bathroom issues come up in the future transgenders in women's sports anti-american history such as the 16-19 project capital race theory if any of those issues come up in the future it's going to come back on the school board to handle those things and i think that would present a very difficult situation then with the voters that have elected you i appreciate the opportunity to address you tonight thank you thank you

040sir [Applause] the next speaker is nicole rubert's comments under mask and their negative effect on children and an extra struggle for those with uh delays to catch up and actually delays them more the extra struggles also for depression and anxiety ms rubits welcome hi um i'm a mother of four four six eight and ten um i wanna first off by thanking you berkeley county for actually opening our school systems properly this year because i was very proud to say that i'm a berkeley county resident and my kids are getting a proper education i also want you guys to know that i am very proud of the struggles that all of the kids teachers that my kids have they are amazing by the way i'm not good with public speaking so sorry um i just want

041to start off by saying that i'm not saying covet is not real i do believe it exists i'm merely here to tell you that my children's story and how masks affect them in their schools and their development and their delays my six-year-old is special needs he has speech otpt all the different lovely therapies um this year is his first year he's in kindergarten and the last two years he was in pre-education at college park and he is so depressed he comes home crying and bawling saying mommy can i quit can i go back to my old school i said why baby i can't stand these masks i said well your old school wears them too because no mommy they don't he doesn't understand you know and the fact that he's having such depression and such

042anxiety and such stress over this we had to go to the doctor over it and here's how much it has improved two weeks ago his doctor wrote him a medical he researched him he evaluated him and he wrote a beautiful letter to our principal explaining that he needs to have time to breathe he can't breathe he can't feel like a child and that two weeks i got a text on the way here saying that your son has improved the last two weeks what's happened from his therapist i've never seen this light he's changed he's already improved his speeches just going on and on about him she's like i cannot believe this what happened he doesn't have to get forced in a mask right now he's able to look at somebody understand what they're saying by

043looking at their eyes and their mouths because when you have a speech delay you can't hear somebody all the time like this and actually learn to speak how do you expect to learn to speak if that's your big delay and you can't even see what they're trying to say to you um he also has sensory processing disorder that is a huge problem constantly has fidgeting constantly has itching and anxiety i mean this list could go on and on of the things and struggles i've had just with him this isn't even including my two older ones who are advanced and have their things going but before i left the house today to come to this meeting it was a soccer game and he's a big special needs he's mommy and i'm the team mom and i

044said honey before um we get going i want to ask you a question only you can decide this none of the other kids just you i want to know would you be would you rather have mommy at your game tonight to support you or would you have mommy rather go to a meeting to help talk about masks and schools jumped out his seat and said go to that meeting go to that meeting mommy please please he wanted me to leave something that's so important to him it's the only thing that makes him feel normal to come to this meeting to ask not to have to wear a mask so not a huge thing thank you mrs rubio [Applause] the next speaker is john chapman a lack of respect to others and the example it says

045for others including students welcome mr chapman thank you board members everybody else attending teachers thank you as well comments that we make as adults affects everyone around us they don't even have to see us they may hear it firsthand second hand third hand everything that we say and do affects the children from the time they're born up the decisions that we make how our mannerisms is whether we're a conservative republican democrat liberal extremists of any nature it affects our children it is our responsibility in every capacity doesn't matter which side of the fence you stand on to look at the best interest of the children to teach them a normal life not an extremist of any manner doesn't matter where we stand i heard the the term mention ethical conflict that's a very touchy subject

046for all of us no one wants to touch that one what's ethis every one of us has our own opinion of ethics but when i enforce or apply my opinion to someone else's child i've crossed the line is that acceptable for any of us we have to look at this we may not view the same thing as you but we all have to stand together these are all of our children these are our future every decision that's made whether it's negative comments on on social media whether it's a bully in school some of us have been bullied some of us were bullies doesn't matter where we stand in our past or our future everything that we do in this room decides the future of the world thank you thank you sir [Applause] the next speaker

047is valerie fitzgerald for upcoming legal challenges welcome miss fitzgerald thank you all for this time i appreciate it and teachers as the daughter of two teachers um and my mother who started her third career at 50 to teach special needs kids you guys are so valuable and i appreciate you even when i may not agree with you just like i don't agree with mom i mean she can tell you that that's a pain um it's my understanding you won't actually answer any questions the ones i'm posing here are rhetorical but if you'd like to answer them that would be delightful my first question is what is it that the board specifically feels you know what specific challenges is the district anticipating which would lead to their decision to hire full-time in-house counsel rather than someone

048who would be able to deal with something incident by incident with a specific skill set for that incident especially in light of the fact that we've been told and many know already that that's not the model that many other school districts follow furthermore why if that choice is a valid choice to have in-house counsel versus hiring on a case case-by-case basis would the district decide that it's appropriate to select someone who seemingly does not support conservative values and when i say conservative i don't mean republican or democrat what i mean is we teach our kids the value and the power of words idiot nobody in my family and i have school aged children is allowed to say idiot or stupid stupid is the s word in my house okay and we don't say it so

049we certainly would never call an elected official whether it be president biden who i do not support but he is my president and i will go to my death defending that office okay but we do not call our elected officials names i find it extremely disturbing that you believe it's appropriate to pursue that position for in-house counsel which leads me to say i find this entire process rather suspect again why hire someone in-house what is it you anticipate that our district's going to be facing what kind of events are you gearing up for that's a little disturbing that you would hire someone who is seemingly very left leaning do we need a strong arm left leaning person who's going to advocate left-leaning positions in our schools i find that disturbing i certainly don't endorse it

050the fact that it appears based on everything i've heard tonight and this is my first time at a school board meeting so i in many ways am ignorant of the processes but having worked in the business world as part of audit and compliance committee meetings for decades i certainly do understand there are processes and procedures that need to be followed i'm sorry but the time has expired may i say one more thing sir yes ma'am you're going to do not thank you i do not believe that my teenage daughter should be under the purview of an official who is left-leaning and may decide it's okay for her to have to encounter a boy in her bathroom thank you thank you the next speaker is uh debbie zimmer the concern or comment is social media welcome

051mr zimmer thank you so much thank you so much for having me come make stand here make my comments i too am concerned about the intent in-house counsel person i printed out that her social media and unfortunately this is the world we live in is that what they put out there that's what gets spread around and it's very important and i feel that if these here remarks were made to a standing senator while she was employed by the south carolina board of education we have an issue i i i've been here i'm a citizen i i vote on a regular basis and i i as a constituent would not expect someone like her to say oh little scotty don't you know which south carolina senator's worth despicable oh you are a horrible senator who cares

052a twit about the people you represent i would hope to think that every one of you worry about how i i think and what i feel because if i can get you in i can get you out as a voter [Applause] okay my daughter did not attend public school for her first eight years but i will tell you she learned morals she learned being nice and having the manners she respected i didn't care whether she got to this day if she doesn't like you she would say sir even though she can make her own judgment but i taught her those manners and i expect her to use them just like i expect you and anybody else in this room to respect me and if she was going to say that to a sitting senator what

053would she say to you what would she say to me i'll tell you what she'd get a handful back but you know i'm good and that would make her be totally on the ground and she wouldn't be expected of that i i want to think that you would have more sense than to put someone in there like that but we shall see thank you very much thank you man [Applause] the next speaker is karen parker mask risk and long-term effects welcome miss parker good evening thank you so much for the time i appreciate as well i'm very grateful that y'all made the right choice for getting the kids back in school this year and i'm grateful to have a county that's open for business as well um we've come a long way i don't think

054we're finished um i think the mask is now a concern and an issue we have spring well we have summertime in south carolina coming up if you've never lived in south carolina in may and june and we're longer in school this year um then welcome welcome to heat and humidity um if you've never had a kindergarten child that likes to chew her mask and have a wet mess then welcome to kindergarten if you have children they're young and need to see for language purposes and don't want to hear the muzzle talk welcome to elementary school a big concern for me is not coveted okay one thousand times over i would rather be in a room full of coveted people then i would have to deal with the future unknown consequences of long-term mask effects we

055do not know what they are i don't like the unknown i can deal with covid i am sure that we'll get through covid i'm confident that our immune systems will handle covid i choose faith over fear my concerns are the socio social emotional development brain development due to lack of oxygen that we're sitting with mask on our face the oral health the changing of your ph level in your mouth and your bio which leads to other health issues um the lung and respiratory issues that are unknown who's going to come to my house when my kid has bronchitis or pneumonia or worse some kind of cancer that pops up in years to come that we don't know about who's taken liability who's taken accountability who's going to sign a waiver who's going to go through

056the lawsuits on this who is going to take the bills that are coming in from parents for mental health concerns and issues depression anxiety suicides psychological effects that is by far my concern as a parent i am a guardian it is my job as the parent to be the guardian i should choose what my kid wears and especially any obstruction to breathing and carbon dioxide levels on their face if anybody in this room or on this planet that is breathing can prove to me and show me a long-term study and i'm not talking about since september the 8th then i am willing to hear i am ready to listen to any of it but to force a mask on a child's face that is vulnerable without any liability or anything going forward then we have

057a problem i'm asking you to please revisit your choice on the mask it is not a mandate it is a strong recommendation encouragement that we know our legal rights we know that you know our legal rights and we don't want to have to go down that path so we're asking for consideration we're asking for choice if you want to wear a mask go for it you're more than welcome i'm not trying to prevent anybody else's choice i just don't want my rights affected as well [Applause] thank you miss parker the next speaker is jordan pace do not raise property taxes and do not hire in-house legal counsel well thank you mr chairman for having me um i'm a former educator so i've seen and kind of been in the situation where you catch maybe catch

058a student i think they're getting away with something and then it comes out you find out what they're doing kind of gets awkward a little weird uh and they don't know what to say and i think we're kind of feeling that tonight i i came up here really just i thinking when i got here to make a comment about how one of my students former students who made the comments that the potential counsel uh would have made on social media and school you know administrators found out about that if they made those kind of comments to another student they had been disciplined uh instead of said that in my classroom somebody else i certainly would have disciplined them uh but i think victoria and those who looked up all this other stuff going on with

059the foia to reveal that to us my experience with maybe not you guys but with politicians in general i've worked in around politics for better part of the decade worked for politicians in the state house places like that usually i say usually often politicians accuse other politicians of the things that they end up being guilty of uh accusing the transparency issue i know came up last year and a lot of these races with a former attorney and it seems like uh that's been the case of what's going on with this you know accusing others of the thing you're guilty of i think jesus said something about that matthew 7. pointing out the log in someone else's eye but my hope is that you don't hire don't go through that process that you put an end

060to it open it up look at some other candidates who don't have that kind of rhetoric on their background to the property taxes i put my put on my other hat uh if anybody's looking for a house recently everybody knows the housing market is on fire uh houses don't last very long prices going through the roof and my hope is that you don't raise millage not for the sake of of homeowners because most of y'all know hopefully homeowners don't pay the school board property tax bills it's those who rent houses who rent apartments that wind up paying that those on the lower end of the associated economic spectrum who would be hurt most if you all were to raise taxes so it's my hope that you don't do that the prices of these homes and

061these rents are going up anyway so please don't contribute to that and live i hope within the means that you already have rather than raise taxes so i appreciate it thanks thank you [Applause] next speaker is margaret johnson uh comment sally wafford chairman barrow dr ingram and members of the board thank you for allowing me to speak as a resident of berkeley county and a former school board member in another state i am appalled that the actions being taken by the school board regarding the creation of a new position to allow the hiring of a special counsel for purposes that are not clear particularly given the current availability of legal counsel to the board and school district to provide some clarity to my concerns let me read from two documents the first is an email

062written by tiffany richardson dated march 2017 providing her comments on rule 8.4 as follows model rule 8.4 g is simply the anti-discrimination and anti-harassment statement that is a requirement for every federal and state entity across the united states i write policies for south carolina school districts so i can attest to this to this why should this fundamental principle not only apply to the practice of law at the fundamental heart of my opinion is the question how many non-male non-white individuals serve on the professional responsibility committee and were present for the in-depth conversation on harassment and discrimination i can only guess there were none furthermore i can only assume that the conversation amongst this homogeneous group of provincial white men centered on the fact that they do not believe there is ever a racial or sexual

063divide in society or the practice of law well i beg to differ it is 2017 and time to wake up now i would like with great appreciation for her courage and willingness to stand up for the people of this county to read from the april 14 2021 email sent by sally wofford to school board chairman david barrow as follows i have not been formally informed by you but i believe tiffany richardson is who you plan to bring thursday night for a multi-year contract as the in-house council for the school district i am very unhappy with how this has been handled and i plan to make a very public record of this higher including the suspicious suspicious special called meeting on 24-hour notice if you go forward in this manner with this hire which many believe

064has been predetermined aka rigged i will outline for the public the allegations of its being rigged i concur with sally wofford as it was immediately evident to me that something untoward was occurring with this done deal that was brought to the public's attention very recently please reconsider this very questionable process and provide the citizens of berkeley county with a complete honest and transparent recap of your actions and motivations thank you thank you [Applause] the next speaker is lindsay piper loomis critical race theory welcome ms loomis thank you thank you for allowing me to be here i am actually campaigning for south carolina district one on the republican ticket and over the last several years i have actually traveled internationally in in the purpose of civility i've gone to africa where the children didn't look at

065my skin color but actually played games with me and we shared meals and we shared time together it's come to my attention by constituents in this district that you guys are entertaining the thought of critical race theory students have come home sharing with their parents what's going on and you know for me personally i look at all men and women are created equal i believe that every single voice not just in berkeley county but in this district has a unique infusion of their voice to put into this district if my own children i found eight years ago that when they were in the public school system that there was programming already taking place we weren't supposed to know what they were learning in class or what was hidden behind closed doors and i pushed it

066all the way to the state level in texas and found out that there was already programming happening i teach my children civility because i believe that through humility that we can actually come all around the table every race i don't want my children to identify themselves as only a male or a female black white green blue purple but actually to value the person in front of them with the gold that is inside of them we were all created in the image in the likeness of god that is our truest form of our identity and it's an unalienable right it's irrevocable so when i look at my friends of all different nationalities i've met with government leaders in different embassies all over the world i don't see their race i see who they truly are a

067voice that has to be infused into this world and without that the entire world corporately individually humanity is at a significant loss it's no longer about republican versus democrat or this versus that it's actually we need to come together for true unity history repeats itself because we continue to apply strategies that don't work we see segregation happening over and over again with different different groups different races different things it appalls me and so when these constituents came forward to me and said that their kids had been surveyed and classed by certain teachers i asked those teachers i ask you to evaluate what was it that you wanted to be when you were growing up i've got 25 seconds left i'm almost done what was it that i wanted to be i wanted to be a

068congresswoman i wanted to be president but first and foremost i'm an american first we need to look at that instead of that race or gender thank you [Applause] [Music] yes the next speaker is patrice uh blindmeister i think uh mask patrice welcome [Music] i want to talk about our policy with the mask you know i i i'm really actually quite confused and i've actually even called the school board and i've called the governor's office there is no mandate by our governor any longer we are under a state of emergency quote because of the federal funding for the rollout of our national guards for the vaccine for those who want it end quote okay good our our website but i even called and wanted to speak first and get it even though before going to your

069website it says encouraged all through there about our mask encouraged encouraged and required are totally different okay we're adults in here and we're supposed to be more susceptible to this virus but we have the right to sit in here without our mask on and we're doing so but we're asking our children to go to school for seven eight hours a day mike i got grandchildren four and ten and wear that mask because before they even get out of my car in the morning the first thing that person sang to him where's your mask i have a problem with that especially when it's encouraged but i have a principal at our school that is saying required now when does a principal get to make policy over what the school board and our governor says okay so

070i've done quite a lot of research okay i've done a lot of research about this virus we know a lot more about this virus than we ever knew a year ago okay children do not this this virus for the most part does not affect them there's been one case in my my granddaughter's school there's been two in the middle school and three in the high school okay um no deaths okay out of all these numbers first of all they've even said that these numbers are inflated they've proven that okay but i've got new studies from stanford i've got you studies from osha okay osha is a government entity the cdc is not the cdc is a private entity other places but i even went further studies stanford i went to an actual mass expert and

071brought you that study as well okay so when we have require encouraged and we're in here with adam i want these masks off my grandchildren and i want them off much sooner than later okay i'm going to leave the information with you but it doesn't matter what pandemic or what war or what anything else we're at in the nation nothing tramples our rights nothing okay [Applause] there was there was a petition done i i've got about 125 signatures before we did the petition there was a poll there was over 600 on that so i got about 720 and that was a matter less than a week okay so but this is the information for you for every single study and i would ask that you please look through it and make some good decisions for

072our children because that's what we elected you guys for not the cbc thank you man [Applause] the next speaker is uh debbie zirkel comment on hiring action the circle let's go i don't see miss zirkle so we'll i think this is the last request here to speak is mary sue worthy comment on teacher retention and recruitment welcome is worthy i'm not going to touch the laptop this is my 28th year at stratford high school i'm the teacher of the year this year um i've been the biology teacher of the year for the state i have had if i counted right 11 student teachers we just hired my last one what is it that you want from us when we're looking at retention and recruitment pay is important thank you for your efforts on that part

073the thing is is why are teachers showing up more and more it's no secret that we're showing up and showing out probably more than makes you comfortable that's because you are not making in some cases decisions that help us do what we need to do and this has been the case in the past it's not a deliberate thing it's not something that was designed to interfere with us or hold us down or be ugly but you didn't hear us you weren't willing to listen and so we've made efforts on the political front so that you hear us and hopefully you start to listen to us when we start to speak on policies and things that are interfering with what we do for all of our children i'm not teaching kids that are on the right

074kids that are on the left i'm teaching all the kids and if you think i have time for an agenda the only one that i have time for is the one i write on the board every day and that deals with anatomy and physiology and forensic science so this idea that that we're this left-wing group of nut jobs really doesn't help with retention and recruitment and i can assure you that people are asking why should i stay and why should i come and if i come how long am i going to stay over 6 500 teachers in the state of south carolina left since august we're not even at the end of the year so you decide where's your support going to be and start listening to us please [Applause] that concludes the uh portion

075of the meeting with citizens comments i'd like to uh to say that i i appreciate the civility i appreciate the fact that we were listening to each other especially the the speakers and the audience so what we will do now is entertain any uh any items that come from executive session chairperson bear i move in the matter of student number one that we grant the expulsion appeal and assign the child to attend the alternative school second i'll defer to frank we have a motion from mr mcquill in a second from mr wright to grant the appeal of the expulsion of student number one and refer him to the alternative school for the remainder of the school year is there any discussion paul for the question all in favor say aye aye aye opposed nay guys

076have it by a vote of 9-0 next item from executive session mr chairman i move to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr ronnie burnett as the new executive director of facilities and maintenance with the starting date of april 28 2021. second we have a motion from miss maroon in a second from ms wofford to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr ronnie burnett as the new executive director of facilities and maintenance with the starting date of april 28 is there any discussion hearing none we'll call the question along the favor say aye aye opposed nay unanimous consent congratulations mr burnett [Applause] mr burnett has been has been the acting director of maintenance for several months now and is doing a great job so congratulations mr burnett we entertain another action

077item from executive session mr chair i move to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr joe nathan roberts to the new executive director of new construction and capital project with a starting date on may 15 20 21. second we have a motion for mr wright a second for mr mcquillen to accept the recommendation of the administration to name mr joe nathan roberts as the new executive director of new construction and capital projects with a start date of may 15 2021 is there any discussion hearing young will call the question all in favor say aye opposed nay the eyes have it unanimous consent 9-0 congratulations mr roberts stand up and recognize did you get a picture brian okay mr chairman on recommendation of the special appointed committee for hiring of in-house general counsel i

078recommend we hire dr tiffany richardson for the position of in-house general counsel with a contract to take effect on may 24th 2021 second we have a motion for miss tanner a second for mr wright uh to hire in-house general counsel recommendation of dr tiffany richardson for the position of in-house general counsel with the contract to take effect on may 24th 2021 is there any discussion yes sir ms wolfer a lot of things have been discussed i won't be repetitive um i just would like to point out that we do have a social media policy and we hold teachers nurses administrators um hourly employees all employees to the highest standard but we're going to give a 140 000 contract to a lawyer who tweeted i don't think you're an idiot because of the color of your

079skin your words and actions are more than enough we have literally fired minimum wage part-time school employees because of old social media posts that violate our policy things that were not posted by the employee but they were held accountable but we're going to overlook these tweets in the hiring process for a lawyer who should hold themselves to the highest ethical standard it's unfair it's inconsistent and i cannot support it [Music] i would like to state for transparency and clarification that as we talk about holding ourselves to the highest standard that it is alarming to me that during the budget workshop meeting on april 14th at 5 45 pm i got a text saying that good evening on behalf of the berkeley county republican party i would like to speak to you about the eternity i'm

080told you are preparing to hire tomorrow evening i would appreciate a call at blah blah blah and it signed the chair that something at an executive session that would only be explained at executive session was sent out to the public so talking about the highest state of transparency and i will be transparent i have said this in executive session that is embarrassing me to me as being a new board member that something in executive session has been sent out to up to the public and how can something from outside the board know that it was talking about and i'm very firm on principle and if we are going to talk about something that's been outside of it outside of the executive session once then we should talk about what's been in executive session going forward

081because i'm sure all of the residents of berkeley county would like to hear what happened in the executive section especially the special special meeting in which was called for the termination of our capital projects consultant so before we talk about what is going to be called an executive session as a board we must think about how we are going to hold ourselves up with the utmost respect and we are the ones that set the example so before we talk about left right wrong indifferent we are hiring somebody to set policy and procedure that does not set the curriculum for our school they set policy and procedure and if you want me to go through everyone's social media's post and think about what they said four years ago i'm sure we can all say something about

082each and every one of us but to sit here and say something about happened in an executive session that got out to the public let's be transparent we don't pick and choose what was said because like i said i'm sure the public would want to know what happened in that special meeting [Applause] any other uh any other discussion before we call the question i i have something to say uh mr mr is recognized and the reason the reason why i'm gonna speak to this effect because i've been on this board longer than anyone else has for 23 years and we always took pride and dignity and how the way we treat our potential employ if we're hiring one and in an executive session i've always said to anybody that wanted to come out in an

083open session and be little a potential hiring of us that that is not the policy because we're going to have to work with this individual and i stop many people from making those comments because i know that it's not appropriate it's not appropriate to do that because let me share this when the shoe was on the other feet when others were hired with no consent of mind no one talked to me about it but i supported when i got here in open session even if i differ i did not differ like that i differed professionally and there were several people persons that were hired without any kind of consult i never knew anything about it until i got the executive session but when i came here in open session i handled myself like a professional

084and and i'm telling even past board members you better be careful because i'm telling you and i've said this before you have contract with the district and you should never be out here talking about anything because it's a conflict of interest so when we do the audit on the contract that you all have i would like to say the way you apply your energy to that so let's be very careful and i would hope that dr richardson will not let this affect you because you're here because you've worked hard and i think there are some people are intimidated because you're coming but you come and you do your job and you do you do your job effectively i'm gonna support you because i know you're qualified forget about the rhetoric okay you are a product

085of berkeley county you went to stratford high school you worked extremely hard to be where you are when you were writing those opinion you had the right to write them you were an independent thinker at that particular time now you're going to be the council for berkeley county now we can tell you what and what not to say particularly but i think you do understand your responsibility i support you 100 and i know you're going to be effective attorney for us i thank you for being here tonight and i hope that you don't let this stop your progress please don't thank you very much for the [Applause] the opportunity will suspend the audience will suspend is there any other uh discussion intimidating i'd like just would you like oh i'm sorry i apologize miss littleton

086i i know you wanted to speak let me see if i can turn your volume up my concern has been with um process not um i did not know the name of the candidate until after it was all over social media you know they shared it with me to this day so there's a process problem and i just um i have a hard time with the fact that it feels secretive miss littleton thank you miss littleton what was the process four years ago can you tell me the process mrs littleton did you hear that that never mind wait well she wasn't on the board four years ago so she was born she wouldn't be a part of that let me uh let me make a comment before we call for the question um several weeks

087ago probably two months ago by now um could you turn that down because okay i appointed a committee of three board members to conduct a search for the application the interview and the recommendation for an in-house general counsel the committee was chaired by ms tanner and other members were mr mcquillen and dr wickfall and the board approved the committee according to policy the committee has to be approved all all of the [Music] all of the rhetoric is is personal and it is in some way possibly political let me just say that school board politics are non-partisan they they have no place in in the school board that is by law that is the law we are nonpartisan when we run for office we don't run as a democrat republican independent or anything else conservative or

088liberal because that's just the way it is i believe the committee has has performed its duties under the responsibilities that i gave them and have performed well in providing what i consider to be a well-qualified candidate dr richardson has an extreme tremendously credentialed past in terms of her education she has a bs from university of south carolina she has a master uh not an mat mba masters in business administration she has a dura juris doctorate in which is a law degree and she has a she has a phd in in something that had political science or something so she is really really well educated she's also uh currently i think for seven or eight years has been the general counsel and policy uh person for the south carolina school boards association which is a highly

089regarded position in this state last week you may or may not have seen a publication that dr richardson was elected as secretary of the national school board's association of attorneys so she is highly qualified highly credentialed and we will expect no more out of her than what she's already given in her other capacities and it will be it will be certainly scrutinized because this board she will report directly to the board that's why i made certain that the committee was made up of board members because dr richardson will report to directly to the board uh and on a daily day basis obviously obviously to the superintendent at this time it'll be dr ingram so let me just say i understand the personal issues uh some of the some of the posts were offensive to many

090of us but this is a time for us to put that aside and look forward in my opinion to the qualified person who is willing to come back home come back home to provide the services of our in-house general counsel so with that said is there any other discussion we'll call the question what the audience will suspend please we'll call the question all in favor of dr richardson say aye aye aye opposed nay nay nay so we have four to five if you raise your hand let's do it this way if you if you if you do not oppose if you agree with the with the hiring raise your hand three four five we have five members if you disagree raise your hand and miss littleton you'd said nay okay the vote is 5'4 the

091motion carries dr richardson congratulations [Applause] oh [Music] mr barrels i think if you you like you can have these folk that leave who uh tiffany knows that they like to leave i'm sorry mr wright we probably can have them to leave now if they'd like to uh the family yes what we're going to do next is uh is go through some committees so this would be a good time if you'd like to to leave the meeting thank you for coming if you'd like to stay you're welcome to stay just wait for a second to bailey thank you mr wright [Music] oh [Music] the bathroom used to be right in the boardroom so that is an upgrade that we made what was that [Music] thank you thumbs up [Music] several people have left the audience so

092will the audience please allow us to continue the next items on the agenda are reports from standing committees first a report on the committee of finance and capital planning chairman mac mcquillen mr chairman the committee on finance and capital planning met on april 13 2021 and on recommendation of the committee i moved to donate the parcel to the tri-county community center subject to the following terms the tri-county community center would cover any closing costs associated with the transfer the tri community center would execute a disclaimer and indemnification agreement which would establish that berkeley county school district has made no representations concerning the parcel and will not have any continuing responsibility for the parcel berkeley county school district will produce a simple transfer agreement establishing the bullet points above we have a recommendation from a committee

093and no second is required is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed nay the eyes have it unanimous 9-0 the motion is carried also on recommendation of the committee i move to approve out-of-state travel as presented whoever recommendation from committee no second is required is there any discussion all in favor say aye aye any opposed nay guys have it nine zero the motion carries also in recommendation of the committee i move to approve the award of bvb 596 2021 to hiller systems for kitchen hood inspection repairs for an initial term of one year with the option to renew for four additional one-year terms for an anticipated annual contract value of twenty thousand dollars and a total value of one hundred thousand dollars we have a recommendation from committee no

094second is required is any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay motion carries 9-0 that it is approved also in recommendation of the committee i moved to approve bvb 598-2021 as an indefinite delivery contract for painters contractors to bnr painting incorporated and quinn tech solutions for a maximum term of two years or until the maximum value of 750 000 is reached with no single project to exceed 150 000 we have a recommendation from committee and no second is required is there any discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed nay eyes have it motion carries unanimous 9-0 also the committee met earlier this evening and on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the award of bvb bvb 599-2012 for phase 2 roof replacement at

095devon forest elementary school to rike roofing services incorporated for a total project cost of 842 182 for the base bid and all three alternates we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any discussion the discussion is that that name right i have no relative to no relationship to the right whoever it is so we can make clear of that you for that distinction mr wright uh all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed nay the eyes have it none zero motion carries also in recommendation of the committee i move to approve a change order to increase the award of rfq 571 2021 to fw architects by twenty two thousand four hundred dollars for the additional services to redesign the hvac system for an overall savings and construction cost of nearly

096two hundred and eighty thousand dollars we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is any discussion i have some discussion on that mr wright who who hired the the other mechanical engineers or why was that particular system to be used and all of a sudden now we found that it wasn't appropriate or is going to save us this amount of money can we have a little more discussion on what happened with that situation because i never got any real clarity there anybody can give us some information on what actually happened perhaps dr ingram could shed some light on this i i thank you mr wright for the question i think i had similar questions um when i talked with uh jason bunch david hogg and uh david hemstrot um our in-house people um

097as i understand it i'm not an engineer so forgive me if i get some things wrong i'm not an engineer the uh the ice storage sometimes doesn't work as well in this particular climate that's what jason told me we do have an ice storage system at cane bay middle and we have a more traditional system at stratford and the bills than the cost to run these systems are are not there's negligible it's it's actually cheaper uh that's what i was told i haven't seen it's taken to operate with you to operate yes sir and it's also i'm sorry which one is cheaper to operate the one we're changing too one would change in two yeah but i was told and i was told by this by our construction folk under the guidance of whoever gave

098them that that that direction that this one was obviously cheaper this we're supposed to do prototype uh mechanical engineer i mean uh hpc whatever unit at the king bay middle and so now i want to know if that's the case and this particular one at cambay middle must be costing us a whole lot of money to operate and i think we may have done one like that at timberland too didn't we went out like that i wasn't sure but anyway mr jackson did we or not but what i'd like to find out going forward is if these other units are costing us as much money to operate then we need to find out about that because as we go through because i'm looking at nine million dollars to change those up are those the same

099one that we were told that we needed to have and now if those are costing us more than we should we should be paying for then i have a problem with that i really do because we need we need to have all that information because this was going to go to this into this new edition right and now we changed it new construction this is the new new k-8 that's okay now we changed that but anyway that's a red flag for me i just wanted to have that on record that we need to further do some more investigation on those units to make sure that we're getting the bang for our bucks and we're just not being hoodwinked okay thank you very much i i agree with you mr wright and i'm sure the higher

100of mr roberts will will hopefully he'll be able to scrutinize these things closely to make sure that we are more cost effective so we need to call the question uh all in favor of the uh of the motion say aye aye opposed nay the motion carries 9-0 we did plan b right before i yes the recommendation from the administration is to for plan b right also on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the sr2 plan b budget as presented by administration we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor say aye aye aye aye aye eyes have a vote of nine zero the motion carries also in recommendation of the committee i moved to approve a two percent salary

101increase beginning july excuse me beginning may 1st 2021 we have a recommendation com from committee no second is required is there any discussion i just i miss walker i wanted to voice my concern um i am not anti-teacher but i feel very responsible to say it has always been our theory and our thought process to not put reoccurring expenses into the reserve fund out of the reserve fund and that's how it's grown and i do believe that we have discussed before and have plans for the money that's over our 15 percent to help build the school at carnes and and help supply the money at the k-8 and so i'm concerned about spending down the reserve fund and then not being able to meet that growth um issue that we have at carnes so i

102just wanted to say why i was concerned about that i know it's a significant amount of money um i mean but the cost of a sheet of plywood has gone up to 40 50 60 it's going to cost a lot of money to build schools i'm concerned about that piece as well so i just wanted to state that thank you is any other discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor say aye aye aye opposed nay nay where the eyes have it by a vote of eight to one ms littleton you did vote in favor yes ma'am okay thank you also on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the step increase as presented by administration we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any discussion hearing none

103all those in favor go right ahead mr mcquillen we're doing this per the contract and stuff that you discussed right in accordance with legal counsel's directives on that point okay did we call the question all in favor say aye aye opposed nay motion carries by a vote of 9-0 mr chairman that concludes my report next is the human resources committee report chair kirsten tanner mr chairman the committee on human resources met on april 13 2021 and on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the draft 2021 2022 allocation formulas as presented by the administration we have an administrator excuse me a recommendation from committee and no second is required is there any discussion all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed say nay eyes carry it uh unanimous nonzero motion carries also on

104recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the district strategic plans and school renewal plans as required by the state board of education regulation 43-261 sc code 59-18-1300 we have a recommendation from committee and no second is required is there any discussion hearing none all in favor excuse me say aye aye opposed nay eyes have it motion carries 9-0 mr chairman that concludes my report thank you miss tanner uh the next item on the agenda will be the superintendent's report dr ingram you're recognized thank you mr chair uh board members uh staff members of the audience um i'm pleased to report their coveted numbers are are falling for the week of april 19th to 23rd excuse me we had 29 total cases of five staff 19 students five blended kids 131 student close contact six

105adult close contacts that's significantly fewer in the county report that we get i think i forwarded that to you got it today from berkeley county we are the fifth lowest in total and active infection rates and active cases are decreasing almost daily the county is on the low end but not decreasing quite as fast as other counties but still doing very well the county report indicates that and is encouraging citizens to continue to follow guidance uh in reaching out to private entities to ask that masks still be required we do have a cova team that meets every monday morning a coveted response team i didn't attend yesterday but they do review recommendations on a weekly basis and as i guess luck would have it a couple hours before this meeting cdc loosened some mass restrictions

106but the cova team will certainly take those kinds of things into consideration when they meet you know the following monday so it's an active group it's been active for a year and and they respond to the latest information and we all know how frustrating that's been because it changes frequently um but i'm encouraged overall by what we've seen and appreciate it uh the bids for the uh carnes uh attended a meeting this morning phone meeting for the carnes area school the bids are going to go out the 4th of may we should get the we should receive them back june 3rd and we should be able to award the bid if we have a special call uh committee meeting and full board meeting on june 22nd i think yes i've got that right i'm seeing

107the nods want to make sure again uh dr engram we're doing a hard bid we're doing the seam at risk we're doing design built what is particular type of uh construction on this particular school what are we doing what our whip i'm sorry actually ashley cash said a little bit and we said we already sent it out we already made plan to do that that's we review the qualifications first he's saying that we have reviewed the qualification of the contractors the number of contracts that will be bidding on the product on this project who are those contractors i just want to have the names of those contracts so i can know who they are and we said this bid is going to go out on the 4th of may and this is going to be

108a hard bit it's not going to be a seam at risk it's not going to be any of those things i think it's important you know for me right now just for that same example i just used with the the heat and air condition system and we're going to send this out right now i i disagree with that right now i totally disagree as a board because it's like we're starting all over and we need to figure out where we really are with these projects and i disagree with sending it out because you know uh i'm on the facility board and i had no information about anything up until currently now everything just moved speededly without me being a part of it and i totally disagree until we find out more about what kind of

109bid we're doing what is best for us and to look at what kind of system the unit is in this particular project is it the same one that we are now changing out and doing the change order for are we aware of that anybody can tell me i think we need to have a little more update on this particular project before we send it out for bid that's just my opinion he makes a good point because i've had very little experience with construction but the information that i have gathered over the last several months being a board chair and a member of the board per se it seems as if the cmr the construction management at risk is is the preferred way to to bid but it also seems like in this particular situation that

110usually a cmr uh kind of goes along with the architectural design initially absolutely and and that could be an issue with doing a cmnr and we could do a little bit and i understand what i was really referring to is that we're removing stuff now okay and we're saying that this particular unit is is not going to be good and we're going to save ourselves more than a quarter of a million dollars even before we even get started and what if these these contractors are bidding looking at this particular unit to be a part of it i'm just trying to figure out i want to see what the mechanical look like on this project so that then we can have a better uh idea of what we're doing because the mechanical on it is the

111same as the other then why would we send that out for bid when we know that it's not a unit that we want to use we'd be glad to okay come back with that and thank you give you more detailed information if you would like to see it i would love that okay unfortunately uh mr roberts doesn't start until may 15th i think so it would be it would be helpful if we could get his expertise and his advice and opinion in advance of that perhaps we could uh miss riggers go ahead okay uh ms driggers is in charge of maintenance in industrial uh or technology so she's saying that she is going to send mr roberts all of this all of this information for him to review and to offer any recommendations is that

112correct so we will be involved in the in the meeting process in advance of is actually starting okay that's good information thank you and i'm sorry i mean i know that i sound a little aggressive tonight but i've never been more embarrassed by what i saw here tonight and i hate it because it was planned and it's from a professional perspective it disrespected me and i served in this board for a long time and i've never been this emotional before just watching that just watching that someone who's well qualified for this job and we did that to her and now we're going to say we're going to work with her how do you do that how do you do that i would never allow myself to stoop that low because of my personal interest or

113whatever it is because i mean i know tim scott we're friends and tim have said some things to me and i've said thanks to him in conversation but we can still have dinner together i've said some things to mac he said some things to me and we can still have a drink and dinner together so what's the big deal let's stop playing games with something as big as this and i'm very embarrassed by it and i'm leaving before we even adjourn to me i'm just so upset and disappointed with what i saw here tonight it just doesn't make [Applause] ringham sense one last item mr chair um i want to thank our teacher forum judy thank you for a great teacher of the year process i i did watch the whole thing i wasn't here

114for the announcement but i was so moved by um brittany gary is our teacher of the year moved by her speech and one thing i extrapolated from it and it's it is uh paraphrased but she said color in neon markers boldly and outside of the lines and those remarks uh were a compelling tribute to the board actually for supporting our teachers and school administrators to exercise creativity and collaboration uh realizing that a sound education is holistic and not based on old paradigms of conveyor belt education marching to the nail of standardized testing so um you know as i approach the end of my tenure here i think my tenure and i know this is not my last board meeting but i feel compelled to say it i want to end on a positive note i

115feel like it served its purpose you know we're out of we're not we're no longer under fiscal watch that's huge and i don't take credit for it i give credit to everybody here that had a hand in it didn't happen alone right i i appreciate the the the openness to the academic focus that things are more important than just numbers on a sheet of paper that so many people you know wring their hands over that we're really looking at the education of a holistic child and giving kids opportunities to develop skills that will carry them far in life and i appreciate the teachers that have the courage to unhitch themselves from the post and you're not going to have to hear that i know you've heard that a thousand times and you're not going to

116have to hear it many more times but i hope you'll take that with you i repeat things often on purpose and i do that because i want them to stick and i mentioned the judy before the meeting i really depend on leaders like you in the classroom to to do that because after all that's why we're here and uh and and uh so anyway i was just heartened by the uh speech that brittany gave i wasn't surprised she was the winner but i wouldn't have been surprised if the any of the others had won we got some fantastic teachers and very worthy and i feel very privileged to have served with you and i look forward to the remaining time that i have going forward thank you mr chair and thanks for your indulgence yes

117sir uh miss rainey uh you're in good company because this lady is tremendous i was i was present at the uh at the breakfast and uh she probably had one of the if not the best uh acceptance speeches that i've ever heard besides yours obviously [Laughter] people call me a politician but i'm not but that sounded like i'm a politician so we're it's not gonna be long brian we need another uh another banner in the back and also one at uh nextin elementary uh so in uh also in the other board chair update i want to congratulate our three finalists who are all seated uh at the cabinet level positions right now one of you will be seated up here next to me before too long dr glenda levine congratulations dr axel anthony dixon congratulations

118mr jackson congratulations three finalists from in-house [Applause] [Music] [Applause] there were superintendents from all over the southeastern united states in south carolina that were very qualified highly qualified people and i'm ecstatic that that we have three finalists i don't think i'm taking speaking out of turn but on may 10 11 and 12 we'll have some some community uh opportunities for the meet and greet and also reception right here at four o'clock on the 10th 11th and 12th from 4 to 4 45 and then then they'll be on the grill one more time at five o'clock for the final interviews so uh congratulations at uh this time i'll uh i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so much second we have a motion from ms tanner uh second from mr mcquillen all in favor say aye aye

119aye opposed nay unanimous eight zero we are adjourned