001good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to the berkeley county board of education meeting this tuesday september 22nd 2020 i call this meeting to order i declare a quorum as present and the media has been notified do we have a motion to approve the agenda second there's a motion by mr ramsey a second by ms condor to approve the agenda is there any discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 5-0 we'll now entertain a motion to approve the minutes for the board meeting september 8 2020 second there's a motion by mr ramsey a second by ms condor is there any discussion regarding the minutes from september 8th hearing none we'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye
002aye opposed nay the eyes have at 5-0 we'll now entertain a motion to enter into executive session make the motion second there's a motion by mr ramsey a second by ms bradley to enter into executive session the stated purpose of executive session is discussion of pending employment matters to include the appointment of an administrator discussion of employment matters to include assignments reassignment and performance legal advice regarding pending litigation and settlement negotiations legal advice pertaining to potential litigation with the state department of education five student attendance appeals and two student expulsion appeals we traditionally take one hour to do this business but this is a tremendous amount of business so if we are not back at 6 30 we'll be back as soon as the business is complete is there any other discussion hearing none will
003call the question all in favor please respond by saying i i opposed nay the eyes have it we are in executive session there's a motion by mr mcclellan pick up the second second by miss littleton to return to regular session i like to state for the minutes that no action was taken in executive session um if there's no other discussion i'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay um before we do the pledge of allegiance i'm going to try to take one min a minute of personal privilege i wanted to take a moment tonight and acknowledge the passing of one of berkeley county's greatest mr john fulmer passed away saturday he was a long-time employee of the berkeley county school district most notably he was a football coach
004and administrator at goose creek high school if you want to know how great of a me and mr fulmer was you don't need to look any farther than gator football the field was named in his honor in 2006. mr fulmer was a legend he impacted the lives of many students and teachers in berkeley county um this is the hard part on a personal note mr fulmer was a great friend to my late father-in-law buck wofford the connections buck made from the time spent at goose creek with john still bless the wofford family every day he will be greatly missed by the berkeley county school district community and our thoughts and prayers are with the family as they grieve today please stand for the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america and to the
005republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so uh i was going to uh ask for some comments myself please do this morning uh my wife and i gail attended the funeral services of john henry former iii i know john fulmer since 1973 when i was teaching and coaching at goose creek high school he came to us with a vision of goose creek football which expanded well beyond goose creek football he became mr gator he became a voice for the community he was a man's man he was made out of a different fabric than the rest of us he could see the goodness in people he could see the needs in people he was a visionary he was a leader [Music] that we have rarely seen and
006i hope we see more in berkeley county but he was one of the kind and i'll leave you with this frank sinatra sang a song i did it my way john fuller did his way and he did it well and gator nation has reason to celebrate his life today a legacy of giving to the community to goose creek high school and to berkeley county school district god bless and rest his soul in order to conduct the meeting in an orderly and efficient manner we ask that you honor the following guidelines i'm going through citizen comment procedures stakeholder comments are welcome 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
007or 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 board chair reserves the right to allow additional time or halt public comment that does not adhere to these guidelines thank you mr mcquillen give me a minute to get it together thank you mr vegera um first up to the podium is my understanding these two would be like to call together be called together uh terry hardesty and victoria cowart the berkeley county republican party resolution and support of the berkeley county school board thank you good evening madam chair members of the board superintendent ingram this is victoria
008cowart she is the chairman of the berkeley county republican party uh she's doing a phenomenal job and last night after we had heard about the super state superintendent threatening to take our buses away we we passed a little resolution and if you don't mind i'd like to read it whereas the berkeley county school district is defined under south carolina code of laws in chapter 59 with specific authority to promulgate rules and standards of conduct regarding pupils within the district along with authority to control school district property paid for by the taxpayers of berkeley county and whereas the current berkeley county school board has demonstrated extraordinary competence in the aftermath of the financial crisis caused by a corrupt long-term finance officer now serving prison time by cutting central office staff raising teacher compensation over and above
009the state funded pay raises building new school facilities without a bond referendum and in fact lowering tax millage and whereas the berkeley county school district previously reached agreement with the state superintendent regarding the plans to reopen public schools in south carolina which included an aggressive policy to encourage the wearing of face masks while still respecting the constitutional rights of students and their parents and whereas recent common experience has taught us masks hinder both verbal and non-verbal communication which will harm the potential education of our children and whereas the recent threat by state superintendent to withdraw the use of 209 state-owned buses to transport students to school if the district did not adhere to the south carolina department of education face covering guidelines for k-12 public schools and whereas the south carolina department of education face
010covering guidelines for k-12 public schools was presented to the state board of education the state superintendent had sent the policy to school districts noting that prior to the board approval of that one member raised concerns the policy overstepped the bounds of the board therefore be resolved the berkeley county republican party condemns the state superintendent's overreach of state authority and usurpation of the rightful authority held by the berkeley county school board to operate the school's districts that that has been sent to i understand to experiment to the news media a generic version of this without specific county things has been presented to the state party for to be taken up by the state party and i believe miss cal probably likes to speak to you if any time does remain i'd just like to say thank
011you for your services thank you for the work that you do for the families and children of berkeley county my daughter is a graduate of berkeley county schools by and large she has had amazing generous gifted thoughtful caring lovely teachers we thank you for the work you do we're here to support you this evening thank you thank you thank you up next we would like to invite kelly maron topic is collaboration miss welcome two weeks ago i stood before you concerned frustrated and disappointed tonight i stand before you excited determined and hopeful the transportation system was a mess and mr dion jackson ameliorated the situation along with others quickly and efficiently mr jackson i thank you it should come as no surprise that i have a strong passion along with out of the box ideas
012determined to make berkeley county school district a leader in world-class education when i physically saw mr jackson at the school observing and participating to find a solution i thought this is what it's all about this is what i've been hoping for this is the collaboration our district needs a little bit about myself i have three young children there are days that i'm shopping in the store exhausted drained and feeling defeated and i will have another mom approach me and say i remember those days my question is does she really if i was to approach a mom who has three high school age children and ask her to take care of my three children for eight hours i'm confident she would be more exhausted and drained than she thought now it's not because my children are
013small tornadoes it is because their role her role changed and with that her perception changed with all the noise around berkeley county school district i encourage you board members to embark with strong collaboration and establish trust with students teachers parents and stakeholders how follow mr jackson's lead for one full day teachers are our best resource our children have our friend a friend said to me on a phone call last week and with that ideas started forming i suggest each board member to mirror a teacher for one full day bus duty temperature checks teaching planning blended activities eating even washroom breaks wear the shoes of a teacher for one full day this will allow fully understand the life of teacher but also our students allow yourselves to observe with an open mind to find solutions to
014offer top net notch education without draining or exhausting our best resources allow the county and the state to see that berkeley county schools have the potential to be the best with collaboration dedication and trust allow yourselves to fully support the teachers and our superintendent on the failed decision of retraction of separation of distance and in-person instruction please allow yourself this opportunity because we all need to work together our children and district's future depend on it patrice bliemeister i am really sorry if i did not say that enough for me how do you say it correctly blind meister um covet 19 and black lives matter welcome to blemishes my name is patrice weimeister i am a grandmother to four children there will be five soon in berkeley county school system i'm coming to goose creek um
015i do the taking to school the picking up or if they're sick or anything to that nature because mom and dad both work during school hours okay well it started back on the 7th or the 8th of this month out of caution pure caution the children live with their mother they visit with their father but out of caution the father's roommate was tested positive for kobe so we contact the teachers and let them know and of course the nine-year-old can do virtual um she can do the virtual learning but k4 cannot um and of course it was she was so excited about going to school and then she could and then there's nothing for but we talked to the the parents wouldn't get tested they were negative negative no symptoms we waited several days per
016the pediatrician and we went and took them on monday the 14th and got them tested negative with no symptoms we had a doctor's note that said they could return to school on the 14th from that point the school started the teacher the teacher in particular started playing and told me i needed certain paperwork well i ended up talking with the nurse the nurse didn't understand why the children couldn't be back in school but said it was above her head and that's all she could tell me so i called up here to the berkeley county school board i got the run around all of last week every single day of last week i spoke to somebody several times it went from giving me to the district nurse or whoever i don't know her name and that's
017who they told me they were speaking with that district nurse told me they were going by cdc guidelines okay because i had gone to the berkeley county website and it told me that there was either if they're positive which is obvious or if there was negative with symptoms what about negative with no symptoms doctors note nurse doesn't understand why why are my kids back in the current kids back in school um they wear a mask they've had fever check everything's been fine but i did take me fighting all of last week and finally getting them back in school in the 21st which is when they could they could come back again why did anybody have to go through that and no one else should have to go through that my time's about but i'll tell
018you during looking on the berkeley county website though i came across i was just curious after all the covid stuff in the bologna because oh i called the cdc cdc said there is no guidelines on that just so i was told that and i called back up here and then they couldn't get me the nurse because the nurse was supposedly moving her desk around these are quotes and her phone wasn't connected okay so but during that i was thinking you know critical race theory black lives matter it's in the news a lot i know it's now reached the rochester in new york schools i was curious if it reached ours and i really didn't think so until i was on the bertha county website and when i put in critical race theory up came i
019sculpted the daughter's granddaughter for the nine-year-old dog granddaughter's name and it showed me brain pop well brainpop.com i can get to on my phone or brainpop is already on the chromebooks that you guys have to all these kids starting in elementary school and i really don't understand why black lives matter a marxist organization organization per the founders and i have video i have every proof i'm talking about that their marxist organization and then the information on there is incorrect the first thing they say is that there's shootings it's in proportion of two to one the black people are shot more by the police than you met i'm sorry can you wrap up your last comments yeah the fbi website says differently and i've got those numbers as well um so i think there needs to
020be some issues with why those black lives matter or anything gay pride is on elementary school website for these kids thank you up next clinton echols encouragement i have one agenda it's the same one i'm that free agent pastor that drops in here to encourage you guys and to tell you how much i love you and how much i'm praying for you um i did something crazy uh a week ago i missed this meeting i wanted so badly to be here on the eighth and i missed it and so i went on the website and i watched the eating i mean i know i'm a glutton for punishment but um i watched our superintendent give his report and uh i saw the fatigue in his eyes and his voice giving the numbers and telling us
021that we had 15 700 in traditional learning and 15 800 and in other and i might be a little off on those numbers uh superintendent but i saw i saw the weirdness and fatigue and wanted to encourage all of us but i also was reminded that we have over 30 000 lives that we take very serious responsibility for every day and you asked for it you you stepped in front of everybody and said we'll be the ones that take the highest responsibility for these lives and so i commend you again in jesus name i commend you for the battles that you were fighting in a war that you did not know was coming and um and i applaud you i was in my bible last week and i i read about king david and uh
022king david had fought so hard to do all of the right things he makes a couple mistakes and and uh he's honest he's he's he's he's finally the king of israel and his own son sells him out and goes out to hebron and rallies all the people to make him king and he's going to go back in jerusalem and he's going to kill his own father i mean what a bizarre story and david has just got to be discouraged he's got to be down he's got to be shrunk um to have fought and fought and fought and had given so much to the people that he loved only to have one of his closest turn on him the way that he did it had to have been a rough day for david as he was
023fleeing the city and up comes this guy who gets one verse in the whole bible his name is it i the get tight and david says look man this is your battle this in your fight you know you're not from around here i know that we we hung out and gathered when we fall together but go home to your family go home to your kids and entitle to get tight says this he says this he says i know this this day all right from this day forward whether you go to the left or to the right whether by life or by death i will be there by your side right what an encouragement that had to have been to david at that moment to know that there was somebody else there by his side berkeley
024county school district teachers bus drivers everyone in between all the way up to to you mr superintendent i applaud you i'm with you i'm praying for you and i redoubled my commitment to be praying for you and giving you over to god for wisdom for courage for strength when i saw you last week on video i'm cheering you on you have a brother god bless you thank you thank you well now move on to agenda item 5a action is required from executive session we'll start with attendance appeals i'll now entertain a motion for student number one madam chairman i move that we grant the appeal for student number one so there's a motion by ms condor a second by miss kelly to grant the appeal of student number one is there any further discussion hearing
025none we'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying i i opposed nay the eyes have it we'll now entertain a motion for student number two madam chair i make a motion that we grant the appeal for student number two second there's a motion by ms littleton a second by miss mr ramsey to grant the appeal of student number two is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay now move on to student number three i'm sure i'll make a motion we approve the uh appeal of student number three second there's a motion by excuse me there's a motion by mr barrow a second by mr ramsey to grant the appeal of student number three is there any further discussion
026hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it eight zero before we went out to executive session i said five student attendance appeals and two expulsion appeals there are actually five total three attendance appeals and two expulsion appeals i've said it incorrectly so we did the three attendance appeals we'll now be hearing um the motions for the expulsion appeals student number one i'm sure i'll make a motion that we expel student number one for the entire first semester and allow to return for second semester second there's a motion by mr barrow a second by mr ramsey to expel student number one for the first semester and allow student to return at second semester is there any further discussion hearing none will call the
027question all in favor please respond by saying i i opposed all right passes six two student number two is there a motion for student number two i make the same motion that we student number two for the first semester and allow the student to return second semester second there's a motion by mr barrow a second by mr ramsey to expel student number two for the first semester to be allowed to return at the beginning of second semester is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay no the eyes have it 6-2 we'll now move on to agenda item 6a where we'll be moving into committee reports from the standing committees the first report is from the committee on academics and innovation chairwoman
028ann conder madam chairman thank you the committee on academics and innovation met on september the 8th 2020. on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the head start budget expenditures report for july 2020 head start credit card report for july 2020 and prospective new hires we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it eight zero also in recommendation of the committee madam chairman i moved to approve the committee recommended books selected by teachers as presented for second and final reading we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none we'll call the question all in favor please respond by saying
029aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 8-0 madam chairman that concludes my report next is agenda item 7 the committee on finance and human resources chairman michael ramsey madam chairwoman the committee on finance and human resources medals september 28 2020 on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the recommendation for first reading to delete policy jga student insurance program we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 8-0 also on recommendations committee i move to approve the revision of the bcsd 2020-2021 salary book as presented we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question
030all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 8-0 also on recommendation of the committee i move to approve the award bbb 565-19-20 as an indefinite delivery contract for metal canopy contractors two east coast tvm llc and mobile modular for a maximum two-year term or until the maximum value of 750 000 is realized no single project shall exceed 150 000 and east coast tvm llc will receive the representative project to install metal sidewalk canopies at mid-river educational park we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying i the eyes have it 8-0 madam chairwoman that concludes my report next is the committee on facilities and capital planning chairman matt mcclellan
031madam chairwoman the committee on facilities and capital planning met on september 8 2020 on recommendation of the committee i move to approve the updated master facility plan and five-year plan as presented we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion do you want to point out to everyone that the the thumb drive that you received from dr parker has your individual um in-depth information don't lose it yeah any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 8-0 also on recommendation of the committee i moved to approve the k-8 and middle school prototype models as presented we have a recommendation from committee no second is required is there any further discussion hearing none will call
032the question all in favor please respond by saying aye aye opposed nay the eyes have it 8-0 madam chairwoman that concludes my report thank you mr mcclellan next on the agenda we are down to agenda item 9 the superintendent's report dr ingram thank you madam chair board members and members of the audience uh before i defer my time to mr cheatwood i would like to thank amy hardison for being here as a member of the teacher forum amy uh i love your attitude i just wanted to say that you you it's hard it's like the pastor said it's hard but you exhibit the spirit that we hope that all of us can um and in this time it is very uh i can only think of the title of the article that i'm so impressed
033with you know uh necessity is the parent of transformation and because we've all been thrust into this thing called covet 19 we've been forced to transform in ways we didn't think we could and you and you actually exhibit that every day and thank you also susan don't cry but you know one of the blessings that i've had in my career to work in so many different places is that i've met so many interesting people and i consider lifelong friends every one of my cabinet that i interact with every day i consider you a lifelong friend and i mean that very sincerely and susan this is susan's last board meeting she's retiring and her last day will be october 9th but they don't make them like susan anymore uh she's often here at an ungodly hour
034and off often still here after most of us have gone home and she even comes out here on weekends and she is tireless in trying to answer parent concerns and working with principals and you're always going to be part of this family and i would be really remiss if i didn't take this moment to give a heartfelt thank you for what you do what you do is often selfless i mean it's it's thankless because sometimes you talk with people that aren't very happy and and then often more often than not they're happier or less unhappy after you talk with them and the same can be said for the principles that you work with because we're all trying to get to the same place you know everybody in this room we're all trying to get a
035safe place and and susan does it as well as anyone i have ever encountered so susan my heart felt thanks we're going to miss you but like motel 6 we'll leave the light on for you how about [Applause] anyway with that i would like to uh welcome mr david cheatwood uh mr cheatwood is the uh represents first tryon he is the berkeley county school district financial advisor he's got what i believe to be some very good news for the board and the public with our recent bond rating david great thanks dr ingram uh good evening thanks very much for having me here tonight um it's good to be back in front of you it's probably been a year and a half or so since i last presented to the board also side notes first in-person
036board meeting i've had in a while so good to be back live and in person and forgive me if i'm a little rusty here as dr ingram said i'm here to provide you with an overview of the results of your general obligation bond sale from a couple weeks ago congratulate you on those results as you'll see very very strong and also commend both the board and the management team specifically dr ingram and ms smith on the job you've done over the last couple of years that was really well received and acknowledged by the rating agencies which is a huge driver of your your interest rate so i've got some information i want to share with you on that as well um the school district sold two series of general obligation bonds the first was an
037approximately 48.7 million dollar series a it was a tax-exempt series the purpose of that was to fund some of the capital projects you all have going on to continue some of the facilities improvements technology technology upgrades some of the other maintenance requirements you all have as well as make certain payments on your outstanding installment purchase revenue bonds you also sold an approximately nine and a half million dollar series b which was a taxable series uh the main purpose of that was to pay some of the other installment purchase revenue bond payments and special obligation bond payments that you have outstanding um both of those bonds the 2028 and 2020 b's were sold in the public market i'll talk about that in the distinction of that versus directly to the bank or in the bank market
038which all have done the last couple of years those are competitively bid they're bid at a certain on a certain day certain point in time and so on the 2020 a series you all received five bids from different underwriters underwriters bid on your bonds they buy them and then sell them to public market investors the lowest true interest cost is the winner as you can see in the table on the bottom left citigroup global markets was your lowest interest rate provider on the 2028 bonds that tic or true interest cost 0.21 you all sell very short term debts inside of a year but to get a 0.21 interest rate is pretty incredible on your 2020 b series you received two bids not unusual to see a smaller number there that was a smaller series but
039you received two bids wells fargo bank was your lowest true interest cost at 0.35 the difference the reason why that's a little bit higher again that's tax work care is a slightly higher interest rate to provide you some context for those interest rates just last year your interest rate on your tax-exempt series which was similar was about one and a half percent and on your taxable uh series is about it was about 2.2 percent so you can see how much interest rates in general but specifically short-term interest rates have fallen over the past year so an incredible cost of money on that one of the main drivers of the interest rate in the public market is the credit ratings the school district has had credit ratings um on its outstanding some of its outstanding debt
040for many years you all are currently rated by two of the three major credit rating agencies moody's and standard and poor's you don't have a credit rating from pitch which is not unusual not everyone does your credit ratings in the lead up to this on your general obligation bonds which are backed by the full faith credit tax and power school district we're the third highest possible double a2 from moody's double a from s p those are the same level of ratings they just each use a different number and better methodology there as a part of this process you all had not been uh to the rating agencies since 2017 when you last sold your referendum your last part of your referendum bonds so it's been three years and a lot's changed in three years and
041so we really wanted to put our best foot forward but the school district's best foot forward in that and so we spent a good bit of time with with ms smith and dr ingram to put together a really comprehensive rating presentation to tell your story what's been happening over the last couple of years we talked about your just the school district makeup your enrollment trends spent a lot of time on your financial position and how it's uh really drastically improved over the last several years your outstanding debt future capital plans just cover the waterfront with them you don't have to do that you can just simply get on a phone call with them or respond to questions but really wanted to spend some time since it had been several years since we've been in front
042of them and it's it's a crucial part of your interest rate so have uh two very good calls um i can say uh you know both rating analysts came away very impressed with what you all have done over the last couple of years and that's reflected in their rating reports as they put together and the ratings they gave you moody's assigned a double a2 and affirmed that double a2 on your outstanding debt so you kept the same really good high quality credit rating and then the same with standard and poor's they assigned a slightly a short term rating because their policy is if your debt is less than one year they assign your short term rating but they affirm your double a rating so you may say oh well we kept our same ratings yes
043but incrementally you all made some really good headway with both moody's and s p uh again as i said they acknowledged the improvement that you all have made and there's a couple things i want to point out to you related to each agency for moody's they both have their own um it's very similar but there's a couple of differences in how they rate school districts general obligation debt and school districts they look at different factors the tax base is one of the main factors they look at and some of the demographics in the county and so they noted in berkeley county you all have a very sizable tax base it's experienced strong growth and assessed value market value over the past five years and you're in a really good strong area of the state specific
044to the school district they noted your consistently strong financial performance over the last several years your really strong fund balance and cash balance levels and how you all from an operational standpoint have operated really well over the last couple of years you know they always put strengths and sometimes they'll label them as challenges or things that you can always improve on you know moody's for instance noted your debt position while slightly higher you are paying off that debt very quickly over the next uh five to ten years and so um while they noted it as something to improve on they also noted the fact the mitigating fact that you're paying it off very quickly in terms of you know how do i get a higher credit rating some of the factors they listed just basically
045continue doing what you're doing uh from an operational standpoint which will continue to improve your reserves as your debt starts to moderate and as you start to pay that off that's an upgrade as well and really factors that could lead to a downgrade and you all don't really have any downgrade risk uh really the inverse of that if your financial position weakens or your debt load significantly increases from standard reports the one thing i wanted to note they like i said they have a lot of the same factors but it's in bold it's that third sub bullet there you may not be able to see the bold text but the one thing s p does is they focus on the management they give you a specific management score they're looking at your financial policies and
046practices and your performance on the financial side and so they um they increased your score on that from they have different levels from very good to good to standard to uh i think the last one but basically subpar and so you all went from standard to good and that may not seem like a lot but that's a really good uptick in your financial management score from s p and that's again noting the improvement that you all have had over the last three years your commitment to that and so again i want to commend again the board and dr ingram ms smith on what you all have been doing because it is it has been noticed and that's uh that's a good thing um just for a second of background um both as i mentioned moody's
047and and standard and poor's rate you um based on similar factors what i want to point out on this and not to go into every factor but a big part of it is the economy in your tax base uh part of it is how you kind of interact with the state but you can see the things that you all have direct control over uh really um from a year to year basis is your finances your fund balance cash balance and the management score uh to you know you all maybe from a longer term perspective have some control over the economy and tax base in bringing industries in but really if you focus on what you all are have direct control over you're doing a great job on that you're getting the highest marks there so
048i wanted to point that out as well lastly hard to see maybe in the crowd or there but i wanted to provide some context for those credit ratings as i mentioned moody's you have a double a2 general obligation bond rating that's the third highest rating possible how do you stack up to other school districts in the state of south carolina there are two entities that have a rating one notch higher than you others that are um similar to you and then some others that are below and i think that would keep going down to lower ratings as well so you are basically one notch away from the highest credit ratings for movies in the state and similar on s p actually there's only one that's higher than you are so again i know i sound
049like a broken record but you're doing great things your your level of improvement from 2017 to today is really something to be proud of so i want to make that as well any questions or anything about the bond sale the credit rating process or anything else i really appreciate the time that you mr jackson was the interim superintendent in 2017 and uh we were in a bad place um and we have come a million miles sometimes covered and the the crisis of the day helps us be distracted from how far we've come but on that ratings call we were just hoping we could maintain what we had and we probably could have been downgraded for what we had just faced in february march of 2017 so we were probably at the lowest possible point to
050be double a2 and we have gone to the highest point of double a2 in three years which which is tremendous so a lot of things have changed since then but focus on handling our money right and having a good fund balance that dr ingram and ms smith have brought to the table have been paramount for us to be able to continue to move forward i also appreciate the time you've spent and the focus you've given us to be able to move forward and and pay cash for things and we have a really good long-term plan so um thank you for being an excellent professional and a good advisor and some really good rates for us we really appreciate it thank you dr ingram ashley dion i i know how much work has gone into this
051i don't everybody does not get it um but i really really appreciate it thank you and i like the second what sally was saying also something real significant to understand is the decisions and the advice that we were giving this board was giving during that time frame because i almost feel like sally is being a little bit generous in that it was such a dicey situation at that time that there was real concern about our bonds and real not only concern about maybe if we were going to be downgraded but even if we were going to be able to issue new bonds which as far as how school districts run this is a common process what we do and i i just cannot thank you enough as well just being a part of it on
052finance and seeing how again ashley does it and how how dr ingram and your staff and sally it takes a lot of work it just doesn't magically happen that you all of a sudden go from a situation where i use it in layman's term say your house is getting ready to get foreclosed on and you're getting ready to get kicked out and you don't know where you're going to move to to all of a sudden you you move to a situation where hey now i'm going to pay my house off the next house i'm going to get is bigger and i'm going to pay with cash that's the difference of where this board and this staff and this leadership has taken us in the last four years very significant very significant so again thank you
053sir thank you appreciate it i'd like to add too this was three of us were newly elected when we were faced with financial crisis that we were facing and what mr brantley thomas had left us with not only did he embezzle funds but he mismanaged the funds it was a very scary time and i'm telling you that three of us we were shaking in our boots wondering what in the world have we gotten into and remarkably we we just took it how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time and that's what we did we we began at the top um recruited this dr ingram who then recruited some very competent consultants and a very competent cfo and we just took it one bite at a time and of course mr jackson was
054also right there in the forefront he too he took a lot of heat too so i'm just very grateful and it took a lot of praying and i mean nightly praying and i'm just so pleased and so proud of what everyone has accomplished and when these reports came out i just i was so elated it was a happy day for me so i'm not one to do a lot of happy dancing but i did a happy dance that day and um i'm just very proud of of where we were and how far we've come and i i can't express to the folks out there that we represent the hard work that was put in not necessarily by the lord okay but by the people who did the leg work and i thank you any other
055comments thank you mr chief cheatwood we appreciate you seeing seeing you in person too thank you minus a couple of zoom meetings we've been here in person for a while thank you so much we are on to agenda item 10a which is the upcoming dates and events for board members please put on your calendar you have the invite the teacher forum has invited you on friday october the 2nd at 4 30 to freedom church for our teacher forum induction that was spoiled by covid in the springtime that is a very fun event if you can block your calendar off to be there please do that thank you for giving uh myself mr barrow a couple minutes of personal privilege um i would say something beautiful and eloquent about susan but i would 100 percent cry
056so i'm not going to do that i'll just say see you soon because we're not going to let you get too far from berkeley county so enjoy retirement we're so grateful for your service i'll now entertain a motion to adjourn i made the motion second there's a motion by mr ramsey a second by ms littleton is there any further discussion hearing none will call the question all in favor please respond by saying aye hi opposed nay the eyes have it zero we are adjourned