001good evening everyone and thank you for attending tonight's meeting of the berkeley county board of education tuesday march 24 2015 i call the meeting to order i declare that a quorum is present and that the media has been notified do i have a motion to approve tonight's agenda as well as a second mr chair i move that we approve tonight's agenda second thank you mrs walford has made a motion to approve tonight's agenda that motion has been seconded by mr mcquillen all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda please indicate by saying i all opposed same sign that motion carries six to zero tonight's agenda has been approved if you would please join us for tonight's opening prayer and the pledge of allegiance our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom
002come i will be done on earth us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us he is not temptation but deliver us from with the power evil glory forever of the united states of america and to the republic for which it indivisible with liberty and justice for all i will now move to agenda item number four approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of march 10th 2015. do i have a motion in a second for the approval of the minutes of march 10th some move thank you mr mcquillen second thank you miss wofford we have a motion from mr mcquillens a second from miss wofford to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of march 2015. all those in favor of approving tonight are
003the minutes of march 10th please indicate by saying aye aye all opposed same sign that motion carries unanimously the minutes of the regular meeting of march 10th have been approved now we'll move to agenda item number five entitled approval of the february 2015 head start budget expenditures report do i have a motion in a second regarding agenda item five mr chair i i make a motion to approve the february 2015 head start information as a presented in agenda item 5. second thank you a motion has been made by mrs walford seconded by mrs lee to approve the february 2015 head start information is presented in agenda item 5. all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye aye all opposed same sign that motion carries unanimously six to zero the february 2015
004head start information has been approved now it's time to celebrate uh our many of our employees here in berkeley county as well as some very valuable volunteers next up miss amy murray amy murray if you would please provide us with our legacy builders and our special recognition for this evening miss murray the podium's yours [Music] uh good evening mr chair dr thompson ladies and gentlemen of the board and all of you who have joined us tonight we have a few people we'd like to recognize and the first is dr charlene zainer of hanahan high school dr zainer was named south carolina's school librarian of the year by the south carolina association of school librarians the award honors full-time librarians for their exemplary library programs as well as their active participation and service to the south
005carolina association of school librarians and other related professional organizations now exemplary library programs integrate collaboration leadership and technology and qualities of exemplary programs include outstanding and effective support of student learning through well-rounded innovative and comprehensive program administration effective collaborative partnerships with teachers in both teaching and learning as well as information access dr zainer regularly collaborates with teachers at hanahan high one of the projects she's worked on is literary criticism join the conversation the project is an ongoing collaboration between dr zainer and honors english 3 teachers they created an introduction to integrating literary criticism into the writing process another example of dr zainer collaborating is her work with english 2 teachers to introduce the topic of book burning and censorship with teachers she created a presentation for students that taught them about censorship first amendment rights
006book banning and book burning as part of their introduction to the book fahrenheit 451 dr zainer also assisted faculty by serving as team leader in uh for hanahan high's a one-to-one computer initiative which educated faculty about new technologies that can make uh instruction more successful aside from assisting her colleagues and creating extremely effective programs that positively impact students dr zainer stays busy with professional organizations she has been the south carolina association of school librarian secretary the past president of the berkeley county association of school librarians she's a south carolina association of school librarians information technology committee member and she's on the south carolina association of school librarians public awareness committee she's a member of the district library advisory board and an internship supervisor for library science students at usc and she's the district library procedure
007manual committee chair at this time dr zainer would you please come forward to receive your certificate and be recognized [Applause] i am truly honored and humbled to have been selected as the south carolina school librarian of the year i've had been privileged to work with supportive administrators and staff i've grown professionally through my collaborations with other bcsd exemplary school librarians i accept this recognition on behalf of all school librarians statewide striving to promote a lifelong love of learning and reading and to optimize instruction for all of our students on a daily basis thank you [Applause] congratulations [Applause] uh the next person we'd like to recognize is principal ingrid dukes of college park middle school for just a moment i want everybody to think about the number of k-12 schools in south carolina that's a lot
008of schools right now i'd like you to think about the number of middle schools in south carolina still quite a few well principal dukes was elected by the superintendent of superintendent excuse me of education molly spearman to participate in the new principal advisory council so out of all of the schools and all of the middle schools she was hand-picked to participate in this council just a little bit about the council it's made up of 14 administrators from across the state with the purpose of providing feedback to superintendent spearmen about their schools communities and hot button topics principals will also provide suggestions to superintendent spearmen about how everyone can work together to improve south carolina's public education system aside from the principal advisory council principal dukes works on various local and statewide committees such as the
009charleston southern university's teacher fellow advisory committee the citadel's national council for accreditation of teacher education advisory committee and berkeley county strategic planning committee she's currently the president of the berkeley county association of school administrators the south carolina association of school administrators middle level executive committee district one representative and she was selected as secretary of the scassa middle level executive committee in 2008 miss deuce was elected as a council for exceptional children state administrator of the year and in 2010 she was chosen as the berkeley county middle level principal of the year she she was also named the south carolina association of school administrators state middle level principal of the year for 2011. we are so very proud to have you represent us on this new council and we're excited to witness and feel the impact
010that you and the council will have on education in south carolina so now if you would principal dukes please come forward to receive this certificate and be recognized [Applause] a few words 30 seconds i i'm incredibly humbled to be selected to be on this principal advisory with superintendent spearman i will tell you that never in my 28 years in public education yes you heard 28 miss our chamber have i ever had the opportunity to sit in a room with the state superintendent and and actually talk about policy and how it's impacting schools when we met for the first time our inaugural meeting the first question my superintendent spearman said to us that she said tell me what we're doing that's getting in your way a collective gasp in the room from all those principals who
011went somebody really just asked us that question so um it it seems really small probably to have that question asked but it's huge in the eyes of public educators and i will tell you that for the first time in many many years i feel extremely hopeful about the state's direction and positive feelings and support for public education in south carolina largely due to ms spearman and her support for public schools so i'm thrilled to get the opportunity and i will do my best to represent middle schools and all schools in south carolina thank [Applause] you so much thank you so much yeah 83 [Applause] our last recognition for the night is an awesome organization made up of dedicated and selfless men the dad's club that serves the j.k gordyn elementary school community is one of
012a kind the club is made up of nine men mr louis mayrant mr sheldon jenkins sergeant samuel middleton mr james wilson mr james jenkins uh mr benjamin bryant reverend ronald casey and mr mr john mustafer and mr henry griffin they volunteer at the school as class monitors lunch buddies and cafeteria monitors they've even established a boys club made up of fifth grade boys and they teach them how to be gentlemen currently they're working on the art of tying ties the dad's club built a gazebo at the school and they work in the garden there as well not only do the members of the club donate their time but they also donate their resources they've donated money so that the fifth grade students could go on field trips their donations allowed the fifth graders to go
013to adventure children's museum in columbia two years in a row this year the fifth graders are going to visit the state house the club also sponsors field day because they want to extend their support to more than just the fifth grade students finally the dad's club hosts an annual honor banquet on a rebank excuse me members of the club publicize the event throughout the community and sell ads to be placed in the events programs this year's honoree banquet will be this saturday march 28th beginning at 5pm at jk gordon elementary school the money received from the ads will go to the school for new playground equipment basically whatever the school needs these gentlemen make sure it happens for all the things that you do and how you're making an impact on the students and the
014faculty staff and community at jk gorden and for everything else that you do we like to honor you today we appreciate everything you're doing and your tireless work in the community has not gone unnoticed so at this time would you please come forward to receive this certificate and be recognized for all the things you do [Applause] hi everybody good evening ladies and gentlemen we're so happy to be here with you today and we thank you for taking time out to honor us this is the dance club in every home there should be a dad of course sometimes there's not dads so that's why we saw a need to form this club because we realized that it's not only about us but it's about our young kids they must be educated they very soon they're gonna
015take our places they're gonna be the teachers the preachers the lawyers the doctors and whatsoever so we see a need for that these young men have volunteered and they're not looking for any accolades they're not looking for any rewards but they just volunteer their time they're good men hard to find we thank you again pray for us that we'll be able to hold out until the end thank you [Applause] absolutely absolutely in just a moment dr murray will give our guests an opportunity to leave but i would just like to from the superintendent and the district administration once again thank all of our honorees tonight but um when i see when i saw the j.k gradon dads club i knew it existed but last month when i was touring the principal with the school with
016the principal i saw your picture on the wall and i took a photograph and i put it back in my notes to the principal and miss bradley showed me some of the things that you were doing for the kids first hand so i just want to tell you thank you you truly are making a difference in that community for what you're doing for our young [Music] that's people this more i'd like to give you the opportunity to address the dad's club from jk yes i want them to know that i'm very proud of them so many times the ladies take over but you step up to the plate and and we need you the young people need you very very badly so we appreciate you doing this and we won't continue to do well and
017work with the children and also under the leadership of ms miss bradley a beautiful job thank you thank you miss moore and i would like to echo those comments as well first of all recognizing dr charlene zeiner it seems more often than not an employee is being brought before us for being the state employee of the of you know the reward for the state employee for whatever particular position they hold whether it be middle school high school principal media specialists etc so congratulations to dr zaner i've had an opportunity to work with her in her library and i will be back next year miss zener because the baby will be your freshman mr ray croft you i hope you'll be prepared sir uh he is more like me than the previous two angry dukes class
018of 1983 we've come a long way baby but we're not getting old um now you you gave a shout shout out to one of our legacy award winners mr shambo and you you spoke to her about being in education for 28 years when i because she never taught me she did well well when i saw her earlier ingrid the first thing i said was miss shamble i apologize for misbehaving do you forgive me um to the dad's club uh everybody needs a dad you said it perfectly and thank you so much for filling that role um if i can remember the country music song i think i've got it right but daddy's hands weren't always gentle but i learned to understand that there was always love in daddy's hands so thank you well done well
019done all right miss murray do we have some more recognition this evening oh no sir that was it but well hey that's enough i just wanted to remind everybody to pick up a copy of legacy builders um and then like i said that concludes our special recognitions but there are so many great stories in the legacy builders publication in this particular one their stories about quests and how our students participated in quest and then also principal of berkeley high school steven steele won the national speech and debate association's principle of the year award for the state of south carolina so when you get a chance please pick up a copy and take a look thank you so much miss murray we appreciate you and once again thank you to all of our folks who were
020recognized this evening as is past practice of or any of our visitors would like to take this opportunity to exit to get home to their families we'll give you the opportunity to do that at this time but once again thank you for being with us way to go dads all right way to go guys jk gordon is a lucky place excellent as our guests are exiting we'll go ahead and get ready for citizen comments this evening we only have one comment tonight and that is from mr ronald nelson so mr nelson if you'll approach the podium i'll do what i have to do and read the citizen comment procedures all right in order to conduct the meeting in an orderly and efficient manner we ask that you honor the following guidelines stakeholder comments are welcomed
021and encouraged however the board will not take immediate action on public comments at this meeting any person wishing to address the board must register prior to the meeting comments must be regarding programs policies or procedures comments regarding complaints against employees other than district level executives or references to students other than the child of the speaker will not be heard in public session groups addressing the same topic should select one speaker comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker and finally the board chair reserves the right right to a lot additional time or halt public comments that do not adhere to these guidelines thank you so much for your patience mr nelson allowing me to read those tonight mr nelson would like to give a few words of thanks for the bwp and associates as
022well as the berkeley county school board that's a pleasure to read that mr nelson thank you thank you for being with us this evening the podium is yours sir good evening sir good evening good evening board members and guesses if i were to share it was able to stop you of letting those gentlemen exit oh i apologize but at this time [Laughter] following such a dynamic recognition on the legacy builders and of course you know that we have to register prior to the meeting so none of this was orchestrated prior to what i'm about to do here first of all i must give miss amy murray a word of thanks for on january 28th she was there assisting pw and p an associate on the presentation on the community or should i say public forum
023of questioning and answering for selecting a superintendent he did a very outstanding job and it was very enlightening to see that such a professional group in place to in search for our next superintendent saying that to say this as i look around the audience i can only remember seeing i've only recognized five new faces in here or should i say five old faces from 2006. and those five will probably remember a comment of 2006 that i made in a presentation that i gave right here and the presentation was one day i would like to see berkeley county school board be number one in the state how many of you remember that and i must say thanks to dr thompson i believe we are on the way thanks to that previous bond referenda that passed although
024we are hearing a lot of negative publicity around that as i look around visit the schools we are being equitable and that was one of the hot topics of and those you remember and as of course we know it's not going to be easy it's not going to be easy road you're looking for some challenge you'll invite some challenge sometimes the challenge will make you sharpen up your belt you'll be able to look around see what can you do to improve but i must say to the berkeley county school board i believe we are on track following after now hey here i am what a coincidence i'm following dr charlene miss duke and the men's of jk garden it all felt it's all fall right into place it fell right into place so it's just
025a matter of us keeping our shoulders to the wheel and keep our focus on the students for tomorrow because we know that i would definitely like to see bertley county school district be number one in the state and i believe we are on track and i'd like to say again thank you board members to continue being focused being diligent village to what is happening around us because there's a lot can be done there's a lot has been done and a lot in the future looking bright thank you well said mr nelson well said thank you thank you mr nelson we always appreciate hearing from you and you certainly have been with us a long time and and we're going to continue to improve thank you so much for your comments all right now we have
026the opportunity uh mr nelson what a great segue because we're now going to hear from bwp and associates so with that said i will defer to my colleague mr jim hayes mr hayes if you would on behalf of the committee if you would uh introduce bwp and associates gladly we have with us this evening one of the members of our bw associates team who is going to to update us as to where we are in the process at this time so at this time i'd like to introduce miss mary blaskowitz and she will at this time give us an update dr blasquez welcome thank you thank you very much appreciate it boy this has been great just being here and seeing all this wonderful stuff that's going on in your district and i needed my
027kleenex there it was really touching and and uh very very impressive for what's going on here so thank you very much and uh thank you mr nelson for your comment too and we certainly want to fulfill all of those wishes and help you fulfill that mission mr chairman and board members tonight i bring you greetings from your bwp search team dr simons and dr stuckey send their very best to you and i bet as i speak they are at home on the computer researching candidates i can guarantee it tonight i just want to give you a brief update for where we are in the search process and then review with you the results of the online survey that you posted on your website since we were with you last time we have implemented the advertising
028plan that you approved and we of course advertised in the professional outlets education week of course we had the print ad in february and then we had 60 days online and it will run through april the 3rd which is your deadline we also advertised in double a essay and that's the american association of school administrators for 60 days and it too will run through april 3rd also we advertised in ascd which is the association for supervision and curriculum development and they ran an online ad for four weeks for on your behalf and then of course we also advertised in the south carolina administrators association the skasa website and that ad ran for 30 days in addition to running those ads we have contacted those mentioned to us during the community engagement process and we have
029also contacted others to tell them about the position and how to apply so the recruiting efforts have been ongoing and those i'm proud to report that those those efforts have resulted in a very healthy pool of candidates and we will add more i'm sure as we move toward the april 3rd deadline we're pleased with the quality of many of the candidates in the pool and we're diligently working to screen each applicant who applies and find those who best meet your leadership profile our goal is to bring you is still to bring you a slate in mid-april of those that we believe are the best or the best and of course the final decision as far as who you interview from your pool is yours but we will help tell you what we know about any
030of the candidates in your pool what we have learned about them we're currently reviewing candidate materials and you know there's a pretty extensive application process that they have to go through and we're currently reviewing their materials and evaluating their references and we're doing phone interviews as well as google searches on the most promising candidates so that's where we're in the midst of all of that research at this time and we will continue to assess all candidates who apply by april the 3rd and go through that process we really don't want to mention any specific numbers right now because the search is still very much open for another week and a half and so we don't want to discourage anybody from applying i will say however again that we are excited about a number of the
031candidates who have applied and um or who have applied or have started applications for your position we're looking forward to bringing you that recommended slate on april the 15th and sharing with you the specific information that we have found about the candidates and also specific information on your pool the the final number how many were held this position how many held that position where they came from all of that information will be shared with you on april 15th when we meet we're using your leadership profile if you'll remember that was written from the community engagement activities and the interviews with the board and so we're using that leadership profile to help us assess candidates as we will encourage you to do during the process as well and tonight there's what i want to share with
032you are the results of your [Music] search i mean your survey that you published as a result of our community engagement activities here and you have a bright green i tried to match your district colors but i'm not sure i hid it exactly right but you should have something in your folder and we will leave some copies of this for the public over there too when when i leave but i'd like to share you the results of the search survey if you'll see the survey the purpose of it of course was to give everybody an opportunity to participate in some way in this in the search and many people came to of course the community engagement activities and this was a follow-up activity for whoever wanted to participate uh the survey was open from january
03326 through march 15th and i want to express appreciation to the communications department here and amy murray for helping advertise it and help get it up and all the folks here who had who assisted us in getting it up on your online i want to express appreciation to them you had a total of 735 respondents now of course you always want more you always want more but if you think about it if you held if you held a meeting or a forum and 735 people came and you were able to get some feedback from 735 people that's a pretty good meeting so that's the way we're looking at this it's a big meeting okay and um you can see on your sheets that i gave you who the who the survey participants were um there
034was a question on the survey where you could check all that applied to you if you were a teacher if you were an employee or a non-employee if you were a parent and so forth and so you can see the breakout on the sheet we had 336 employees who took the survey and a hundred and ninety five nine employees you had 422 parents of current students and um 157 parents are former students and then you can see the breakdown for the other character other groups the students the non-child household volunteers retirees and political office holders now if you add that column up i want to note that's not going to be 735 because some of those people had um you know checked more than one box like they were employed they were a parent you
035know so um i wanted to clarify that if you look at a breakdown of your employees who answered the survey we had 222 teachers 36 administrators 67 support staff and 24 other who could have been other job descriptions that didn't fit so those are the folks who took your survey now your report sheet has two pages and the first page covers the overall results of the survey in other words for all 735 participants who attended the meeting okay the second page breaks down three groups it we filtered out these three groups and got the responses of employees parents and non-employees feeling like those were the three critical groups that you would want to analyze their thoughts [Music] so if we'll go back to the front page you'll see the section under the top three choices
036in the areas indicated under that section each question had of course a menu of choices and what you have printed here are the top three choices chosen by the highest percentage of respondents so if they would if they answered what characteristics do you desire in the next superintendent these are the top three choices the most people chose these three and of course you can see there number one was integrity number two commitment to the community and number three good judgment so those were all the qualities that the of that group chose under the skills desired what were the skills desired number one communication skills communication and we heard that too during our community engagement managerial skills and interpersonal skills those were the top three we also wanted to find out a little bit about the
037perception of your district how was your district perceived what were the strengths and then what were the issues the strengths of the district number one loud and clear 70 percent said and i believe it tonight after what i've seen excellent teachers and staff number one number two good school facilities good school facilities and number three believe it after tonight too supportive community a supportive community so that's a very positive reception of the district from those that took took the survey and then the issues facing the district okay those are great but what what are you having to deal with now what are the issues of the districts and number one was growth and of course from what we understood that would be very accurate growth it's its challenges the good things and the challenges of
038growth number two curriculum number two curriculum as far as issues facing the district and i think probably facing the state would be true now so that's understandable and then number three was funding also facing schools across the state so those were the top three choices in those areas overall the next session there was a menu where your respondents had to choose whether something was not important important or extremely important and there are a list of experiences there in your next superintendent now the truth of the matter is all of them are important you know if you look at the list they're all important but in analyzing this what we look at is we look at which ones had the highest ratings as far as extremely important because you know when you do a survey too
039extremely important usually has a little passion behind it so that's what we look at here and of course as i said they're all important but if so what we did is we took um in that category of extremely important anything that was where 50 or more of folks said this is extremely important we highlighted that so you could see what those items were and extremely important experienced superintendent with a proven record of success was extremely important to 53 experience as a principal and look at that experience as the teacher had the highest rating experience as a teacher experience as a principle was 55 and then next highest to experience as a teacher was experiencing instruction experience and instruction and then experience in strategic planning was important and like i said they're all important but people
040were sort of passionate more people were passionate about those things being possible qualifications um if you look at the the next page what we did as i said is we took everything that um we took the whole the whole group and we filtered out these three groups employees parents and non-employees and here's what we learned on the characteristics desired if you'll look all of them were in agreement every single group and they were all in agreement with um the overall results so these three things are important to everybody okay and that's integrity commitment to community and good judgment ranked number one two three with employees parents and non-employees and non-employees we're considering as community you know people who are not part of the school district under skills desire there was number one for every group
041was communication if you look at that number one for every group was communication and then employees had one thing that was slightly different there number two for employees was interpersonal skills and as a former employee i certainly understand that too you know you want your boss to have those those types of skills as well and then number three managerial and you can see with the parents and the non-employees organizational skills and managerial skills were very important to those groups under experience is desired look at number one in every group experience as a teacher experiences a teacher experience as a teacher everyone in every group and then the other choices different slightly among the groups but basically the topics were they may have been two here and number four here but you'll see experience in instruction
042experience as a principal and experience as a superintendent with proven success you can see the the variation there under strengths of the district you can see that across the board the number one response was what we had said earlier with 70 percent of the people strengths of the district excellent teachers and staff and then good school facilities came in again as one of the top three in every group and then employees said the third thing that was important to them were educational options and programs that you offer within your district so that was number three for the employees and then parents and non-employees said supportive community and good school facilities they both ranked those as in their top three and then finally as as issues facing the district you will see that growth was number
043one for all funding was number 2 for employees while curriculum and educational programs and options were number 2 and 3 for parents and non-employees so what can you do with all this information okay as you're interviewing your candidates you will want to look at these traits characteristics and experience is most desired by those who responded to the survey and hopefully this information and your leadership profile will help guide you through the selection process and if you go back and if you look at your leadership profile i think that you will see that these two share a lot of similarities if you'll remember the four major topics for your leadership profile were leadership communication instruction and management and so everything that's unfolded here through the survey i think you'll find in your leadership program profile so
044in summary your search is progressing well we're on target as far as your approved timeline and we'd encourage you to check your calendars again with those dates that we said and be sure that you have those clear and um then we just feel like that we are very much looking forward to coming back and being with you on april 15th and so if you that's that's it from us if you have any questions i'll be glad to answer any if you have any at this point thank you we appreciate all the information uh dr blasquez uh we certainly appreciate all the efforts it's once again a great experience as it was the last time you were here do we have any questions or comments for bwp regarding the survey results again i think we were
045asked earlier to hold off on the applicant's questions until april 15th so i'll entertain any comments or questions you may have hearing none that's a satisfied group of customers before you go i would like to point out to ms wallace if you would if you would share with the teacher forum uh once again uh the number one strength in the district let me hear you say it what's our number one strength in the district our teachers and staff amen thank you thank you so much well done all right now we'll move on to agenda item number nine uh tonight for we have two items for action uh first up is dr levine she has the second reading of policies gaga staff conduct jbd school attendance compulsory attendance ages and student absences jcdb student dress code
046and km visitors to schools dr levine the podium is yours yes sir good evening dr murray dr thompson and other members of the board at the march 10 school board meeting the policies listed under item 9 of tonight's school board agenda were approved for first reading at this time it is the recommendation of the administration to approve the second and final reading for policies as listed under item nine of the march 24 2015 board agenda thank you dr living do i have a motion in a second regarding the second reading of policies as listed in agenda item nine yes sir i move that we accept the recommendation of the administration to approve the second and final reading for policies as listed under item nine of the agenda tonight second second thank you miss moore mrs
047lee has made a motion uh to approve the second reading of agenda item nine that motion was seconded by mrs moore do we have any questions or comments regarding this motion i did have miss walford i did have someone call contact me about rotc uniforms that have a question gun on the patch or rifleman on the patch and i feel like we exhausted that last week but i for that person who contacted us i wanted to ask that question again um that those things will be decided on by the principal yes thank you miss wofford for bringing that up and actually those are actually school issued so anything that the school would issue in form of what's appropriate for dress already has the stamp of approval from the administration just beat that dead horse one
048more time thank you for asking you know i'd rather you ask because i definitely understand that there would be some concerns about some things and also just keep in mind that the principals the administrators have at their discretion to say what's appropriate at their schools based on the policy as well anybody else all right we'll call the question a motion was made by mrs lee seconded by miss moore to approve agenda item number nine to accept the recommendation of the administration to approve the second and final reading for policies that once again is listed under item nine of the agenda all those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye aye all opposed same sign that motion carries six to zero dr levine the second reading of the policies have been approved thank
049you so much next up is dr o'gorman we have two items for information this evening it's the strategic planning process and the human resources report contract renewal update dr o'gorman i'm gonna ask miss snyder to come up and talk to you about something very exciting near and dear to my heart strategic planning process so mr chair members of the board ladies and gentlemen ms snyder's going to talk to you about our district strategic planning process just want to uh and you'll see this in a presentation but this is not specific to uh instruction is for the entire district good evening i'll move this down i feel kind of short this evening um good evening board chair dr murray dr tops i tried to slide that through there i knew mr francini would say something and
050members of the board this evening i would like to revisit our strategic planning process something that we do continuously every year the state department of education mandates that districts and schools participate in a strategic planning process and something that we look at we work on our district strategic plan and the schools work on their school renewal plans as well and then we have to upload our our application and our plan into an online state application system with the state department these plans are due every april on the same day every year on april 30th once we've submitted our plans uh the state department the division of of the office of accountability looks and through our plans and reviews them and then gives us feedback regarding our strategic plan let me share a little bit of
051our journey with the the strategic plan the school of renewal plans districts and schools create five-year plans for continuous school improvement five years ago we created this plan that i'm speaking of this evening and now we are finally in year five of our strategic plan i know the schools and myself were saying yeah we're glad so we can kind of make some major revisions as we move forward for the next few years we have six district goals that fit nicely under our overarching goals of student achievement school climate and teacher administrator quality the schools and districts have the option of having a district priority goal and we have chosen that option for several years last year we chose our district article to be professional learning communities and we're going to continue that option this year
052for our district priority our planning process is a collaborative and a continuous cycle improvement and i'll share a little bit more in depth details regarding these steps and on the next slide this slide shows the specific components of our planning cycle our improvement process includes creating smart goals which are strategic measurable attainable reliable and very timely we also put strategies and action steps together to support these goals that we've created and the focus areas that are part of our plan something that we continuously do we look over our action steps and our strategies to see what's working in our plan and what's not working and then we make sure that we take no and we make adjustments along the way something that's very crucial is that we continuously gain feedback from all of our stakeholders
053and that information use that information to put into our plan something that we will be putting in place again is our district improvement council mr davis has formed that again and we are meeting on april 16th to look at the process that we have in place and to share our district strategic plan within that group mr davis has invited one person from every school that is part of their school improvement council to be part of that team so there we'll share information after we gain the information regarding and the feedback regarding our plans we'll make some final revisions to our plan again these are our goals that we have in place for our district for the next for the next month during april we will continually look and collaborate to make revisions in our plan
054we'll continue to analyze our information to see what's working what's not and we'll reflect and share our results with lots of different stakeholders including yourselves the schools and other community members one thing that's important is that we work closely with the schools as we develop our strategic plan and as they put their school renewal plans together as well the schools their plans pretty much mirror our planning process with their school or no plans the school renault plan is the foundation for all the plans that the schools have to put together for example the foundation of their school renewal plan should help them if they are a title one school and as they put their title one plan together and the good news is that we've created and we're working on our school renewal plan and
055as we go through the advanced ed process for next year we will be able to utilize the plan that we have in place in that process as well we work with the schools we go out to the schools we work with them during principal breakout sessions and we provide workshops as well to help them and assist them with their school or no planning as well we also try to give them reflective feedback regarding their plans so during the week of april 14th through the 25th we'll be looking at the school renewal plans and then going through them as a team at the district and share feedback with them regarding their plans and then they'll be submitting their plans to us at the end of april and today we had a workshop so here are some
056pictures of some of our administrators working real hard on their school renault plans at men rib this afternoon are there any questions regarding our strategic planning process i do have any questions for miss snyder regarding the strategic planning process we're in year five of a five-year plan if i recall all right ms snyder you were very thorough you have no questions thank you so much next up is uh mr jerome davis mr davis will be giving us a human resources report specifically contract renewal update mr davis welcome sir [Music] good afternoon chairman murray dr thompson ladies and gentlemen of the school board tonight i want to give you some information about contract renewals and updates because in a few moments we'll be re-electing uh certified staff and i needed to give you some background information
057to help you base your decisions so that's the purpose of my presentation tonight all right how this come about is that we have regulations and guidelines which govern what it is how we make our decisions so section 9 section 59 25 410 it sets the date for contract issuance to april the 15th and what that section reads is that on or before april the 15th we must notify our certified a professional staff uh about their employment status for the following year and if that that criteria is not met what we have to do is understood that that our employees will be employed for the following year in addition to that um section 59 2630 establishes the regulations for teachers and their contracts and how we govern this this matter is that we use the adult
058regulations to govern the processes as well as the contract advancement as you'll see later during the presentation so when we're looking at our contracts if you look along the slide and i'll kind of point to these is that we have a there's three contract levels in our district when you think about the process i don't know if this will reach i'll try if not three contract levels you have your induction you have your annual and your continuing contract and we're looking at our decisions the regulation reads that our induction an induction contract teacher can have up to three years on that particular contract and the way it is designed in our district if you look at this the first year is induction contract is assigned to our first year teachers who are new to the
059profession they just graduated from college and they're entering the profession and during that year we'll provide what you call assistance and support to help them to help them enter the profession and so they're successful throughout their teaching career so at the end of that year there's a couple of options for those at the end of that first year there's a couple of options that we can actually uh that are that are determined based off of feedback observations planning their instructions so at the very end after the teacher has completed all of those those different steps they can either meet their evaluation criteria and be moved to an annual contract and the next year they'll go through a formal evaluation process if they're not successful at the end of that year the teacher is judges and
060not met and we have the option to give them an induction too or they can be terminated at the very end okay all right the next step typically when a teacher has met the requirements and the majority of our teachers do after the first year we move them to an annual contract and during the annual contract status we they go through what you call formal evaluation i'll explain those steps further as we move along in during the presentation so if they at the end of that year after they go to formal evaluation and they meet the standards then they can be moved to an annual two and their status will be goals based evaluation all right and uh it continues on throughout the life of if there's if they're if they remain on an annual
061contract they can move to an angle two for annual three and annual four um not met what the regulation reads is that if a teacher is not met on a formal evaluation for the first time we can they have we have an option to move them to what you call it diagnostic assistance and during the diagnostic assistance year we provide additional support and to the teacher to help prepare them for another year formal evaluation and hopefully with that support and assistance they'll be successful at the very end the very last one is what you call a continuing contract teacher the continuing contract teacher has full procedural rights and usually a continuing contract teacher is on what you call a continuing summative gpe where actually they use we offer professional development they take professional development courses
062to continue improving their craft as a teacher the things you need to remember about an induction contract teacher are that the employment dismissal procedural the employment and dismissal provisions of article 3 it does not apply to these contract teachers they have limited very really no due process rights at all annual contract teachers during the annual contract figure the employment dismissal procedures do not apply to them go back do not apply to them as well however they have a right to a hearing they can request a hearing with our superintendent and um continuing contract teachers when you're thinking about making your decision about reelecting them they have procedural full procedural due process rights okay mr davis and forgive me for interrupting on that previous slide what's the minimum number of years that would require a teacher
063who were successful at each stage to get to the continuing contract status minimum number of years it can take up to seven years if we provide support that's maximum but the minimum number of years um three three okay so it has not changed okay all right sorry i didn't understand your question okay maximum is seven so they can have up to seven years sorry all right when you're looking at that depth continuum when you think about this process i want you all to look at the very center formal evaluation is only one component of the adept continuum i want you to understand it's only one component of it remember we talked about providing assistance and support to our teachers as they move throughout the profession so high quality professional development must be available to every
064teacher so that they are successful the research shows and when you think about a risk from lipton mcrael and danielson states that comprehensive systems of evaluation must provide professional growth certain teachers can one master content so they can refine their teaching skills and they can critically analyze their own performance and their students performance as well so as you look at our continuum you see the error at the very bottom throughout our system it's very robust we're constantly providing assistance and support throughout this evaluation process the purpose of the evaluation when you look at the overall purpose of evaluation remember i said it's only one component of the evaluation piece the core purpose of evaluation and i know you see those things where you say determining individual individual strengths and weaknesses finding the right see helping
065the teachers find the right sitting on the bus and taking those off when they're not in the right seat as well as facilitating their professional growth the overarching thing of evaluation and the core purpose of evaluation is teacher assessment evaluation it's to strengthen a teacher's skills in that classroom his or her knowledge their dispositions their classroom practices as professional educators we want our teachers to be the best and we've always as demonstrated tonight we do have some of the best educators in our system and we constantly work hard at helping our teachers develop their professional skills so when you look at the components of evaluation there are four components of evaluation you have your planning you have your instruction classroom environment and professionalism what's in the center here at the very core of our evaluation
066process it focuses on student achievement student achievement we have great teachers in our classrooms and when you think about our school our district report card it was excellent excellent and uh that a lot of that hard work most of the hard work was done by our teachers in the classroom and we need to commend all of our teachers for the great work they're doing so lipton mackrell and danielson the researcher state advocates the development of robust evaluation systems where teaching and learning are at the forefront and it's also aligned to this to teacher assessment with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement and when you look at our current system of evaluation it does that so let's talk about the contract levels if you can think back to the slide there were three contract levels
067induction annual as well as continuing our induction contracts are given to teachers with less than one year of teaching experience these are the teachers who are brand new to the professions sometimes they're straight out of college they can enter the profession by way of pace our abc teachers there's various routes we can have when an induction contract teacher enter our enter our system our districts may employ our district may employ districts may employ beginning teachers on our induction contract for up to three years we talked about that earlier and it's a non-renewable agreement with no hearing rights again employment and dismissal provisions data on apply and so when you look at our system currently we have 165 teachers that we're supporting on an induction contract 159 are involved in the induction program pride and six
068are involved in the induction ii program so looking at that continuum that i showed at the front this is how that looks on it for a deduction contract teacher and this is how we're administering that process in our district so looking at this remember we said it's very robust we providing a support and assistance so from the month of august up until this point when you look at all of the support that we've provided in august there are five five prior orientations and i'm not going to read all of these to you but um this is the work of our full release mentor teachers as well as our evaluators that are in our office lots of support to get them through the evaluation piece again at the end of the induction year our teachers can
069either be rehired on an annual contract and they go through formal evaluation the second year typically if they're not successful they can be rehired under the current plan on an introduction to contract with an induction to plan and they're not rehired and we still provide that and at the end of their year if they're not successful again typically they're not rehired in our school district two years of support okay annual contract teachers again usually given to teachers in their second year it's also annual contract contracts are also given to teachers who are hired from out of state and that's in accordance with the regulation that we have from the state regulation the debt regulation um private school teachers that entered a profession from a private school these teachers have taught before however committed to the
070system we can just place them on a continuing contract so they're usually given an annual contract as well teachers can have on an annual contract they can have up to four and they have very limited due process rights and that's a hearing before the superintendent and currently we have 472 teachers on an annual contract still providing assistance and support so here's what our three options are at the very end of an adept at the very end of an annual contract year if and when a teacher goes through a formal evaluation he or she is not successful the state regulation allows us to give them one year of diagnostic assistance and we can only give that one year of diagnostic assistance and one time throughout the lifetime of a teacher's contract so i'm looking at this
071the diagnostic assistance it's similar to what we do for an induction teacher we provide formative assessment we provide support we give feedback to help them improve their teaching skills so that they'll be ready to go through formal evaluation again and currently we have 16 teachers receiving support on diagnostic assistance plans and i just want to take this time to thank you school board last year you approved two full release mentor teachers for us to actually help us help with this process and we've been able to provide more support in this particular area with those four release mentor teachers so again thank you for that and our teachers out in the field i really appreciative of what what of the work that they're doing for formal evaluation showed once again they go for formal evaluation is
072comprehensive evaluation based on all the adept standards it's a team-based process there's three people on that team as while we're when they're going through formal evaluation annual contract teachers they have to pass this evaluation to gain continuing contact contract status you cannot move from an annual contract to continue unless you demonstrate proficiency on your formal evaluation so currently we have 221 formal evaluations this year so the evaluators thank you miss taver and our staff they're working really hard miss table actually she's the coordinator of that processes you stand i appreciate it and recognize myself she works really hard [Applause] they do like three-man teams all right goals based evaluation um a teacher can only move to goals based evaluation after they've demonstrated proficiency on um on an on on formal evaluation so you have to
073pass your formal evaluation to move to goals based and um 257 annual contract teachers on a gbe right now okay rgb okay so keep going so the end of the annual year this is what happens success is determined by the evaluation team which usually consists of three people um the principals make contract recommendations based off votes makes a contract recommendation usually that's based off of the results of the evaluation is in a series of other things if the teacher is successful he or she can be rehired and again you can have up to four years on an annual contract continuing contract is a little different if you look at the very bottom this is where the majority of our teachers are currently we have one 1 480 teachers on a continuing contract so the majority
074of our teaching staff is right here in order to be in a continuing contract you got to first pass formal evaluation you need to have a professional teaching certificate you will have to meet all the requirements that are required by the state department of education in order to move to a continuing contract status continuing contract teachers have full due process rights they have full procedural rights so here are the here's the support that we provide to annual and continuing contract teachers this is what we've done thus far in addition to what's been provided to our induction teachers so from the month of september up until now you have one-on-one consultations again the work of our teacher evaluators as well as well as our full release mentor teachers we have really utilized those people that we
075were able to hire we would like more but um to increase the support that we give so one-on-one consultations they conduct observations they review planning documents and things that teachers have to turn in for for former to get ready for formal evaluation to prepare themselves for formal evaluations so lots of support provided by the evaluation team as well as our full release mentor teachers again so first semester 22 pd sessions and our professional development sessions range anything anywhere from planning anywhere from classroom management strategies we work in collaboration with instruction and accountability to provide strategies to deliver the core core curriculum as well as to help with assessments and the like there is also classroom management sessions that are also offered and we also offer self-help sessions sometimes we're we're just there to be a
076listening ear to help those teachers who are having difficult times through their first year as well as teachers that are already in the profession so again second semester 20 pd sessions we really want teachers to be successful in our district so this is why we do what we do in our office letters of agreement you have your grant agreement is given to employees whose positions are funded through a grant that may or may not be renewed annually because it's based off of that grant then we have our retirees and letters of agreements as well i'd like to end this presentation with this cool work the purpose of value evaluation system and i like i want to iterate this it's not it's not a gotch it's not punitive it's not a got you we really support
077our teachers and we really want them to be successful and when we have to let someone off the bus it's very rare and we've done due diligence to try to save that teacher thank you any questions yes thank you mr davis do you have any questions or comments from mr davis regarding the human resources report uh specifically contract renewal update ms lee yes sir when the teacher comes to us from another county in south carolina do they come with that same type of contract do we maintain that same type of contract our board policy gives us typically if they're on a continuing contract they're going to remain on a continuing contract we can't move them back from a continuing con from a if they come on a continuing contract then the state regulation requires us
078to keep them on a continuing contract so does it answer your question it does yes and is that the same thing like if one of our teachers chooses to go from berkeley to greenville county or or someplace else do they get to maintain that is that statewide or is that just statewide okay you answered mr davis i know where you're going go ahead yeah the only time there's a chance let's just say a teacher moves into our district from out of state what the regulation reads is that if teachers out of state they can be on a continuing contract out of state however our state regs allow us to move them back to an annual contract because we have to formally evaluate them to make sure they're successful teachers all right okay thank you all
079right as long as they go through an evaluation that's similar to our right state approved evaluation we can transfer that contract absolutely all right any other questions or comments hearing yes doctor i'd just like to make a comment we um recognize margaret tabor um an outstanding job or our teacher evaluators i think we have eight or nine teacher evaluators and that is a luxury that our district has not all districts have those teacher evaluators but as 70 of our surveys indicated earlier excellent staff and this board has made a commitment that supporting the teachers is important but there is an expense to that with eight or nine evaluators and our 89 evaluators for those 220 former evaluations i think they have a case load of about 30 each right margaret and that allows us to
080have a three-person team in most cases and it takes a lot of pressure off of the principles because we have 221 formal evaluations we have 41 schools so if you do the math we have schools that could have anywhere from 8 to 15 formal evaluations that the teacher or the principal is responsible for that evaluation so we we're appreciative of the support that we get with it from those district evaluators but it does come at a cost as our surveys show it is important all right thank you mr davis we appreciate you up next agenda item number 10 the division of administration and facilities up first is dr o'gorman dr o'gorman has an item for action tonight agenda item 10a which is the second reading of the 2015-2016 instructional calendar dr o'gorman thank you mr
081chair members of the board dr thompson ladies and gentlemen i'm here on behalf of mr jackson um you should have two calendars available in your packet one is a draft of the 2016-17 instructional calendar if you could just put that aside that is there just for your information we are only here to discuss the 1516 calendar dr murray as you said this has made it through the first meeting and i'm simply bringing this to you for the second reading tonight's the recommendation to approve the instructional calendar for the 2015-16 school year as presented thank you dr o'gorman we've heard the administration's recommendation regarding agenda item 10a do i have a motion and a second mr chair i make a motion that we accept the administration's recommendation to approve the second and final reading of the
0822015-2016 instructional calendar as presented in agenda item 10a thank you mr mcquillen do i have a second second all right thank you i'll yield to mr hayes uh mr mcquillen has made a motion that motion has been seconded by mr hayes for the record the motion has been made to accept the administration's recommendation to approve the second and final reading of the 2015-2016 instructional calendar as presented in agenda item 10a do we have any discussion regarding this motion hearing none will call the question all those in favor of the motion made by mr mcquillen seconded by mr hayes to accept the administration's recommendation please indicate by saying aye aye all opposed same sign the second reading has been unanimously approved dr o'gorman we have an instructional calendar thank you sir up next is agenda item
08310 b dr mclaren it's entitled summer programs uh dr mclaren the podium is yours welcome good evening chairman murray dr thompson members of the board in the blink of an eye we're going to be on june 4th 5th and 6th celebrating graduations and shortly after that we hope to be starting our summer programs for berkeley county school district you have a handout in your pocket covering this i am not going to begin to read all of that handout we're going to give time for report cards to get home and registration for summer programs this year will be on june 10th and 11th for middle school they will run june 15th through the 21st of july the cost is not changing from last year and the process and program is not changing from last year the
084cost per course depending upon the level of enrichment the child needs will range anywhere from seventy five dollars to a hundred and fifty dollars for high schools registration will also be on june 10th and eleventh the first session will run june 15th through july 14th eighty percent of our students will finish during that time those who need a second credit recovery course or who are trying to complete a initial credit course through south carolina virtual school with district support will run all the way through august 4th the cost for credit recovery again this year will be 175 and initial credit is 325 if they do it through the apex program what we are recommending is that the board approved the administration's recommendation for the 2015 summer programs as presented thank you dr mclaren you've paul
085heard the administration's recommendation regarding summer programs do i have a motion regarding this recommendation mr chair i move that the board approved the administration's recommendation for the 2014 summer school programs as presented in agenda item 10. thank you mr hayes do i have a second second thank you mr mcquillen uh mr mahays has made a motion to approve the administration's recommendation for the 2015 summer programs as presented did i get the year right dr thompson all right uh and that motion was seconded by mr mcquillen do we have any discussion regarding this motion all right hearing none we'll call the question all those in favor of the motion to approve the administration's recommendation for the 2015 summer programs as presented please indicate by saying aye aye all opposed same sign the motion carries unanimously dr
086mclaren we're having summer school this summer thank you so much next up is agenda item 11 superintendent's report dr thompson thank you mr chair members of the board just a handful of items tonight first of all last week we announced that standard and poor raised our rating from an aa minus to an aa some of you may not may not understand what an aaa means but just in short summary this rating potentially will have a major impact on our taxpayers as a better grading attracts more investors which will lead to better rates on our long-term debt mr thomas is currently away meeting with potential investors on a refunding that will take place in a couple days but i would like to congratulate our board over the last year we established a reserve fund policy that
087contributed to our increased rating from standards and poor so congratulations to our board for being part of that rating just a couple of announcements tomorrow's march 25th we will have a tornado crisis simulation at kane hawaii elementary middle thursday thursday these glasses weren't working earlier thursday and that's rescheduled and just like to thank all of our emergency management officials for taking part in this as we work to keep our environment safe we do crisis simulations throughout the year to prepare our students and our administrators our parents and our law enforcement emerging manager officials that take part and that is well that is thursday what's the time dr mclaren from 8 30 okay so if you hear some sirens in the area it is a drill at the school cane hoy elementary middle then a couple
088of other dates i'll try to get these right thursday april the 9th we have our turn around achievement awards that will be at west view middle at 12 o'clock and i'll say to our board members if you've never attended this turnaround achievement award for our students i encourage you to attend as we recognize some of our remarkable life-changing experiences of some of our students that's thursday april 9th at west view middle 12 p.m lunch will be served and then finally on friday april the 10th our teacher of the year ceremony will be at triad tech the program is organized by the berkeley chamber which begins with breakfast at 7 30. and please join us as we announce our berkeley county teacher of the year thank you dr thompson uh we'll now entertain a motion in
089a second to move into executive session prior to requesting that motion i'll we'll uh state the reasons for executive session tonight the board will hear student attendance appeals student expulsion appeals personnel considerations specifically the re-election and non-renewal of certified staff as well as contractual matters and a legal briefing although excuse me i do have a motion and a second to move into executive session thank you miss lee i was beginning to get a little tired myself colleagues all right i've got a motion do i have a second sec thank you mr hayes mrs lee has made a motion mr hayes has seconded that motion all those in favor of moving into executive session please indicate by saying aye aye we stand in executive session