001Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I will now call to order the April 15th, 2025 work session of Georgetown County School District Board of Education to order. Thank you all for joining us tonight. At this time, I ask that you please stand and join us in the pledge of lead legion followed by a moment of silence. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. You may be seated. We are proud to begin this afternoon's meeting by celebrating several outstanding accomplishment across our schools. The next three will come uh one at a time and tell us all about those accomplishments. The FCCLA state champions from Andrews High School presented by Dr. Pamela
002Varin. The Walk School wind talkers state champions presented by Dr. Marvin Tut and our all state chorus and band students presented by Miss Gina Narrow. In that order, please. Uh, greetings chairman Moore, members of the board, Dr. Giles, district staff, and guests. This afternoon, I have the privilege of recognizing two students from Andrews High School who excelled at the South Carolina Family Career and Community Leaders of America State Leadership Conference, which was held March 10th through 12th in North Charleston. The goal of the South Carolina FCCLA is to promote personal growth and leadership development through family and consumer sciences education. Andrews High School principal Tashan Kahome will join me in recognizing the FCCLA students and their advisor. Excuse me. At this time, I'd invite the board members to come down to the for please. Okay.
003In the career investigation presentation category, Corbin Graham earned gold, which is first place. And in the focus on children presentation category, Candace Green earned gold again, first place. Additionally, Candace has been invited to compete in the 2025 FCCLA National Leadership Conference to be held July 5th through 9th in Orlando, Florida. I want to welcome Andrews High's FCCLA advisor, Miss Landa Smith, so that we can congratulate all of them. On three. One, two, three. Congratulations. Good evening, Chairman Moore. Excuse me, members of the board, Dr. Gals, district administration, and guests. At this time, I have the honor of recognizing the wind talkers competitive speech and debate team from Waka High School. The wind talkers under the guidance of coach Reed Lawson and assistant coaches Tiffany Niccastro won the 3A state championships held on February 15th at
004Greenville Senior High School. This is the team's 15th consecutive win in their division. Four wind talkers were also named individual state champions in their events. Sophia Niccastro and Delaney Tapowski for duo interpretation. Jonathan Tedro for novice impromptu and Ellaner Forest for original oratory. Coaches and Mr. Eddie if you will please join us as we congratulate your team. Team members, please come forward as your name is called. And if you please hold your applause until the end, we thank you very much. Adah Allen, Presley Bone, Jackson Bowen, Lana Coleman, Lily Danish, Lillian Dob, Elellanar Forest, Charles Gates, William Jack Hopkins, Riley Janssky, Jack K, Giovana Niccastro, Sophia Niccastro, Ella Peg, Jonathan Tedro, Delaney Tempolski, Rowan Trev Trevan. Hope I said that. Sorry. Jacob Wilkins and Dominic Yanes. In addition to being part of the state championship
005team, Lana Coleman, Charles Gates, and Elellanena Forest qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament. and Ni, excuse me, Sophia Niccastro, Delaney Tempalsski, Lana Coleman, Elellanena Forest, Charles Gates, Dominic Yanz, Jack Hopkins are National Individual Events Tournament of Champions qualifiers. Please join me in congratulating the wind talkers on their achievements. All right, hold on. Three. One, two, three. Thank you. And congratulations. Chairman Moore, members of the board, Dr. G's, district administration, and our extended GCSD family. Good afternoon. Um, I am Gina Aaron, the fine arts liaison for the Georgetown County School District, and it brings me pleasure to be here to uh present these these wonderful students with all of these fine arts accomplishments. Um, as you know, fine arts are not just about singing and dancing and painting and drawing. It's much
006much more than that. And I feel proud and blessed to have administration and board members who recognize that and support our fine arts in our district. So, thank you for that. At this time, I have the honor and privilege of recognizing our students who have excelled in music during the 2024-25 school year. Coastal Monasuri Charter School had four students qualify to perform with the South Carolina Elementary Honor Choir. I would like to call up Coastal Monasuri Charter School Director Chris Berseron to assist. And the music teacher there is Miss Tess Hummeitz. Congratulations to her as well. First, we'd like to recognize Samuel Garner, Sophia Cross, Maris Thompson for the second year in a row and Olivia Vanette. Okay. And if the Coastal Monastery Charter School students could come up and and have your picture made.
007All right, on three. One, two, three. Congratulations. Congratulations again. Next, I would like to recognize the band from Wakama High School. Um, I would like to uh bring up Hunter Eddie to please assist us with this presentation. The band director at Wakoma High School is Mr. DeAndre Preston. We would like to recognize Brendan McAuthor, a senior at Wakama High School. Brendan was named to the Allstate Senior Band. Brendan plays the bass clarinet and was selected to perform with the All State band. Congratulations. Don't forget to have your picture made. All right, on three. One, two, three. Congratulations. Congratulations. And if Mr. Eddie would stay up, please. We also would like to recognize Welcome a High School chorus. Um, we have all state chorus members and ACDA honor choir recipients. Um, our coral director at Walkaw
008High School is Miss Sylvia Plyer. We'd like to recognize Emmy Bestess, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Christopher Cox, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Mary Addison Day, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Miss Lillian Grant, All State Chorus. Miss Rowan Moore, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Anthony Stungarice, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Mia Walker, All State Chorus. Anna Whitesides, All State Chorus and ACDA Honor Choir. Jackson Rump, ACDA Honor Choir. Addison Skipper, ACDA Honor Choir. Kate Robertson, ACDA Honor Choir. Marin Cellinger, ACDA Honor Choir, and Miss Adeline Hepacius, ACDA Honor Choir. Congratulations to these Wakama High School Coral students and their directors. On three. One, two, three. Congratulations again. And the last group I would like to recognize tonight are seven students from Wakamon Middle who were
009selected to the American Coral Directors Association South Carolina Honor Choir. And assisting with this will be the music teacher, Miss Megan Clichch. First up, we have Henry Alman, Llaya Beck, Sydney Bower, Grace Chadwell, Nora Graowski, Riley Thompson, and Miss Grace Biruti. Congratulations to these Welcome Middle students and their director, Miss Megan Clichch. exercise. On three. One, two, three. Again, I say congratulations to all of our music students that were recognized this evening. charging. No, you in the wrong glasses. Thank you. April is National Poetry Month. A time to celebrate the power of words, the beauty of language, and the voices that inspire us through verse. Across our country, students, educators, and communities come together to recognize poetry's ability to capture emotion, tell stories, and spark imagination. This afternoon, we are honored to celebrate this tradition
010with an original poem written and performed by Sha Shakyra Williams, a senior at Carver's Bay Early College and Career High School. Shakyra is passionate and tal a passionate and talented young writer whose voice reflects the creativity and promise of our next generation. Please join me in welcoming her to share her work. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Shakira Williams and this is a poem that I wrote entitled For the Girl Who Love Too Deep. For the girl who loved too deep, who was blinded by love but now she can see. But not the intimate love people thought it would be. But the love between family, friends, and colleagues. For the girl who loved too deep. She would try to walk right, look right, live right, be right. All these aspects just
011to even seem right. For the girl who loved too deep. They said she would kiss tell. I don't know. I guess she was too afraid to fail. You would do her wrong, but she would hardly tell. What she mainly knew was to obey God. do what's right and don't go to hell and that she's the girl, the girl who loved too deep. And she'd be your friend until you lied. You know, showed your true self and gave up that disguise. You hurt her more than you know. And you thought to yourself, "Well, she'd be fine, though." When deep down inside, she was truly blaming herself and she chose to show it. She chose to cry. The girl blamed herself because she knew God tried. tried to warn her she was making a mistake, but instead
012she denied him and wasn't ready to accept that fate. So for the girl who loved too deep and could hardly feel comfort because she's too busy playing mother, too busy playing friend, too busy playing daughter, even the stress to play all roles made the girl's life harder. They had her go half so she never felt whole. She just always felt other. But these days she's been craving to feel alive. It's been raining way too long. She can't get this out no one week. She needs her whole summer. The girl needs her a break and something just a little more deliberate than how are you doing? Or hey, how was your day? Because she hardly tells how she really feels for she no complain and don't pay bills. And let's be for real, who's listening besides
013God anyway. She don't even listen to her own intuition. Whether it's falling 20 times, needing a friend, but no one seems to be relying or her calling up her friends like, "Hey, what's up, home girl?" giving out advice while she's in her bed crying. And it's not like it be that much time to break down. She got so much stuff to do. Maybe if she's lucky, she'll find time in the shower to squeeze in a tear or two. And she's not mad or angry. She's just tired, exhausted, craving the feeling to be selfish without guilt. It seems like almost everyone else is doing it without the consideration to her to how she feels. See, I'm formerly known as the girl who would give and give sometimes until she had nothing left. But these days, I'm
014selfish. And not selfish being in a mean way, but selfish being in a self-love way because that girl needs it. I'm learning. I'm growing. Learning to love myself unapologetically and unashamedly. So for the girl who loved too deep and could hardly feel comfort because she's way too busy playing your mother, way too busy playing your friend, way too busy playing your daughter, and has not yet found the courage to find her voice. I hope you one day finally find the courage to find yours. Thank you. Okay, I'm almost for a loss for word because Shakara, can I tell them a little bit about our relationship? So, I coached Shakira on the record level in basketball. She was the shiest person in the world. Now, look at her. Great job, Shakara. I look forward to reading
015your books one of these days. Yes. And congratulations to all of our honories on tonight. Your hard work and accomplishment makes us incredibly proud. And at this time right here, we invite everyone to stay because I know y'all are so interested in everything else we have to say tonight. But uh this time we'll be going into our information section. But thank you all very much for being here tonight. You just cleared the room. That's good. That's a good trick. You just cleared the room. Really good. Yeah, that was an invitation to stay though. Okay, we'll now have the approval of minutes. Board members, you have received the minutes from our April the 1st, 2025 meeting. May I please have a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Second. It has been moved and second. Is
016there any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposes? Nay. Thank you. The the minutes are approved. We will now adopt tonight's agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposes? Thank you very much. We now move to our into our information items. GCSD building program funding report presented by Miss Lisa Johnson and Mr. Bob Damron from Compass Municipal Advisory. First up, Chairman Moore, board members, and Dr. Giles. Um, Mr. Bob Damron, and he's been with us a number of years now. I probably should have checked to see how many, but we've been working with him for for years. Um, is here to give you an update
017on our um, building program funding and debt service and debt payments and so forth. So, I'm going to turn it over to him and I'll be right here for questions. Okay. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Uh before I start with the presentation, uh I know Lisa has probably already told you all, but the district, excuse me, the district staff um and our firm went through a ratings call with um S&P and they reaffirmed your uh A+ rating, which is good. Uh and also reaffirmed the double A rating, which is part of the state intercept program. So the good news is even with the uh closure of the steel mill and the paper mill um they still gave you maintained your rating of an A+ and that says a lot because of the efforts of
018the board and also the administration and doing all the right things and taking care of those uh first page on this and I guess do I just click hit this. There we go. Uh, this is the debt capsule report. Uh, and as you can see, it's very small. The only debts that the district still has uh obligated to pay are the referendum debts from the previous referendum. I think that was in 2016. Um, and as you can see, the um bonds are paying down. They're down to about one point 147 million. uh at one time they were uh about 195. Uh the u we're proposing uh this year to do the SKGO go bond uh for $20 million. You'll have a resolution that I'll talk about at the end of this. Um and for those
019of you who've been on the board for a long time, that's a lot more than what we usually recommend. That's the amount that's available for the district, maintaining your mills at 28.5, which is kind of the target uh that's been the millage target here for as long as I can remember. Uh so you haven't had a millage increase uh for debt service or capital uh construction projects uh for many many years. And so we're doing that. The reason that the amount is larger is that after the payment of the qualified school construction bond uh that was taken out in 2010 uh there was a lot of money left over in the debt service fund. These were property taxes been collected over the years and that fund had built up. um IRS rules uh takes a
020pretty hard look uh at debt service funds to make sure that they're adequate but not excessive that's in that amount of money and the reason is uh today we're able to because of the high interest rates we're able to re invest those monies and make a good solid return for the district where the where elip I think is probably 5% um and so when it was onetenth of 1% the IRS really didn't care But now that it's 5% and the earnings that you're making uh off of those funds and not paying income taxes, obviously the district doesn't have to pay income taxes, then the federal government looks at that as being a loss for them. So they want you to either use them or spend them down in some other force fashion. So we're going
021to finalize that number. The referend uh the resolution tonight will be for a not to exceed of $23,500,000. Uh but the reason that is that we're pulling down that excess in the debt service fund and then we'll go back to what it normally is after that. Uh moving kind of forward, we've got a graph that you can see on page two. Uh and this reflects what your debt service payments are each year. And you can see they've been growing a little bit uh each year. And then we've got a big spike in uh this year of 2526. uh and that represents pulling down those excess debt service fund balances and put them back into the operations of the school district for capital purposes. Uh so I know there's a lot of capital purposes uh that
022around the district that need to be done uh and so this will help fund those without a tax increase. The uh page behind that is the debt structure report and this is just the numbers behind the graph. Uh what I would like to point out to you is in column G this is a amount of annual bonds that we think you can issue after this one big block of bonds that gets issued uh going forward. So as you can see uh you're about 8.5 to $8.9 million going forward uh that you're going to be able to count on for capital construction, capital projects, uh technology and various other needs around the district. uh you uh you can do uh you can use those funds uh for anything that has a useful life of greater than
02312 months. It can't be used for operations. You can't use the money to pay teacher salaries or uh operational cost around the district, but they can go for anything that has a useful life for over 12 months. So from a planning standpoint, I know you all have got a fiveyear and a 10year capital plan. you you can see the amount of money that's going to be available under that 28.5 mills each year for the district to be able to utilize. Uh the next page is the millillage levy or the millillage cash flow report and uh this is an analysis of how we get to what's the value of a mill uh and looking at what the growth has been and as you can see uh when we forecast we're using the finance director in the
024state in one one school district. So, you know, her leadership uh has always been let's be conservative when we're when we're forecasting out front and then when we have more growth and what that 1% is, then it'll be good news for the board. You'll have a little more money to spend each year. Um but if you can look back uh for the last five to six years, you've averaged well over 2% growth. So, using 1% is a very very conservative factor. Uh the next page is the constitutional debt uh constitutional debt limit report. And as all of you know that have been on the board for a long time, you can borrow money in two ways. One is to do a voter referendum. You did that in 2016 for a lot of projects. Uh the
025other way is through your 8% debt limit. So, the district has under your vote the ability to issue debt up to 8% of the assessed value of the CA of the school district, which is about $54 million. So, you could borrow up to $54 million without going back through the referendum process. Uh, but what limits you is how much you can really pay back each year. And that's what uh this 28.5 mills goes to pay for. um you have to use part of that to pay for the previous referendum, but you do have the flexibility if something should happen uh that you could go back into the market and and do that up to that amount. Uh the district has uh will have 100% of their capacity back because all the other dis all the
026other bonds are referendum. So that's a very very positive position for the school district and one that Moody's and uh S&P certainly always recognize when they look at your uh bond rating. Last page is kind of our worksheet that we use and looking at how much money can we borrow. Uh when we ran this number, we were estimating that June 30th would be about 17,600,000 in that debt service account. that needs to be pulled down to at least five. Uh probably no more than that because that's 50% of next year's payment on the referendum bonds, but we like to keep some extra just to make sure if taxes come in late, uh if we have a hurricane and people are not able to pay their taxes uh on time, we've got to have that hedge.
027So that that hedge is there, but we're even pulling this money down, we're going to maintain a hedge of between five and $7 million. So you're still very very conservative, still very very solid in the amount that we can pull down. So that kind of ends my financial part of the report. U this is something we do every year. Uh you all are in great shape. U your you know debt has been issued under referendum debt at very very low interest rates. Uh and you're using the SKGO program. Uh the money will be available about the 1st of September. Uh you'll pay it off 1st of March. So your debt service payments, your interest on that is going to vary very very small. And you're participating in SKGO, which is a a an organization that
028collects and helps issue debt for a lot of school districts all over the state of South Carolina. Uh we expect about 32 to 34 school districts will participate in that program. And by joining together, while you still stay good for just your portion of the debt, you're actually spreading the cost of borrowing that money, spreading the cost of legal fees, FA fees, marketing, going to the stock, going to the markets to actually sell the debt. All of that is spread across all of those 34 school districts. Uh so it is absolutely the lowest cost of financing that school districts can achieve by going through the program. And because you all have done that in the past, your interest cost has been very very low. So, I'll be glad to answer any questions. The resolution uh
029was prepared by Miss Heiser. She got called out of town tonight uh on an emergency, but um she will be glad to answer any questions if you all have any. It's the same resolution other than the dollar amount that you approve every year. This is something not anything new. It's something that you all do every year. Do I have any questions? Sorry for my voice. I've been fighting allergies. I think I have a question. I apologize for coming in a few minutes late. Uh but did we actually um discuss where the money that we're going to borrow where it's going to be dispersed to? Uh that will go into the capital projects fund which I think the board approves. Uh you all they give you a list of where those projects are going. Uh, but
030it'll fund the capital projects fund that you all have already in place and and we're updating the five-year and 10-year plan now with all the departments. Um, so we will bring that back to you. This money wouldn't be available till September. So, we'll have plenty of time to get that for you. Okay. Any other question? Yes. Um, since we won't know what it's going to be used for until September, how long do we have to decide this? Does it have to be immediately? We usually in bond proceeds, we'd like to see them uh what we call spend down or utilize those funds over a three-year period of time. No, I'm talking about for us to approve it. Do we have are we limited? There'll be there'll be certain items that will actually be approved, but
031we also have recurring like onetoone devices for students, teacher laptops, things that we have on a rotational basis that will be included as well, but I mean you can I suppose you can take as long as you want to approve it. It would be brought to you as as information in there. Our goal is to bring forth a plan for what it would look like. We've been talking in smaller committees, okay, as to what our needs are as well as receiving requests from our principles and administrators. Um, certainly from our district point of view, we see things that we feel are needs, but we are asking for the input from principles consistently through capital requests and different items that may be needed on their campuses. So, these are the bigger ticketed items um that would
032allow us some flexibility to be able to afford um as well as some things that that may give us a little luxury in our facilities and and being able to see that our students are afforded some other opportunities. So, so we will be able to see all that prior to making our decision. Okay. Is that the decision? The decision to approve bringing down the funds would need to be made, but the decisions on what we will spend the funding on certainly you have that flexibility, but we would need to move forward um tonight. No, not tonight. No, ma'am. This is just information. Okay, good. No, it's not an action item. It's anformational item. Yes, ma'am. Oh, good. I think the action item would be next board the next board meeting. Yes, ma'am. And then those
033funds once they're borrowed in uh available in September, they go to the district's uh project fund balance. So, they're not spent out from the proceeds out anywhere. It goes to the project fund uh for that the district has and then they're available for projects that are approved by the administration and the board. Any other question? What I hear you saying, I guess 30,000 foot view, is that approving this is not taking on undue risk. No, in fact, uh, approving this is probably um avoiding potential risk of having to pay arbitrage on that excess money that's in the debt service fund. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dron. John security to elaborate on the resolution at all or are we good with that? Uh I can answer any questions that you have. Uh I'm not a
034member of the South Carolina bar. I want to make sure everybody understands I am not giving you legal advice tonight. Uh but uh I can answer any questions. It's it is very much the same reg uh resolution that you all have adopted every year. It's a standard resolution that's used for all SKGO bonds. Uh it we basically insert your district's name and some information about the district and then the amount of the bonds that'll be issued and the not to exceed amount. Um, as I said, we anticipate issuing 20, but I think we felt like it was prudent to put 235 as a not to exceed amount so that when Lisa closes the books on June 30th and there's even more money in that fund that we need to pull out, we'll have to we'll
035be able to do that without coming back to you and getting another approval for another $2 million or so if it happens to be there. I don't anticipate that, but you know, to be on the safe side, getting a not to exceed amount is what we always do. Uh, and then true it up or size it up with her 630 books uh when they're released. So, um, if you have any legal questions, uh, Misser can certainly answer those if you'll submit them to, uh, the superintendent or finance director and then Franny will respond back to those. She just got called out of town on an emergency tonight. She wasn't able to be here. I know she always likes to come. I think uh I've been doing the work as your financial adviser since 2001. Uh
036and Franny was old hat at that point in time. She's been here I think since 88 or ' 89. So, uh Georgetown's been a client for our two firms for many, many, many years. Thank you very much. You have any other questions about the resolution? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Next for information, we will hear from Planetro Digital Emergency School Quality Updates. Mr. Stan Daryl Stanley will present. And just as a reminder as uh Mr. Stanley comes forward, this report is based on a rating um for Plannersville School. However, this is a part of the requirements that he present a quarterly report. This is the first of his quarterly reports. The next would be in July, October and January. And again, this is not um something that states that they are
037performing unsatisfactory, but this is a requirement state law that he bring forth this quarterly report. So, we're looking forward to hearing the progress that uh Plannersville is making and the steps that our team along with his leadership team are making in order to um improve that rating. Mr. Stanley. Good evening, Chairman Moore, Vice Chairman Walker, and to all other distinguished members of George Lake County School District, and to Dr. Giles. As I stand before you on behalf of my staff, my school, and community to present our continuous improvement plan, please note that it is our sincere intention to move beyond this onset designation. I have challenged my staff, community, and families to control the things that we can control. These things include the learning opportunities that we give our students each and every day, our
038attitudes, and our commitment to improve. So, as we talk about our update, our continuous improvement plan, who are we, what are we doing to get the job done, where are we, and our progress monitor. The first thing you have here is our enrollment summary, which means our demographic information, which kind of breaks it down into our, as you know, we are the smallest school in the in the district. Breaks it down for our male, female, and our ethnicities, and our free and reduced lunch. And our school report card, the two things that we have to improve on is of course our free and reduced lunch and our African-American population, which is most of our school. Uh we also have links for our data and our climate survey. We have a strength, weakness, opportunities, threats analysis.
039And what we looked at as our strengths is our small class size, our technology access, curriculum resources, community partnerships, our professional dem offering, teacher support. Our weaknesses are student engagement and diversity. What we're talking about is we're trying to encourage our students to be important that they want to achieve. So when our student engagement, our students have to be interested in learning. They have to be wanting to learn. They have to be motivated to learn. We talk about diversity. We need to diversify school. When we look at things like not just ethnicity, but we look at things like ge geographic uh regions or family things that maybe kids come from two parents, most come from one parent. So those type of things are kind of things that we're looking at to help and recruit to
040our to our uh school. are opportunities, student engagement, professional development for teacher support to ensure implementation with fidelity and we have no threats at this time. What are we doing to get the job done? To ensure that Plannersville instructional and practice are aligned with researchbased standards driven practice, we are conducting fidelity checks. What that means is we're looking at all the resources that we have, everything that we're doing and making sure that we're doing it to the fidelity to the level that we need to do to move our students forward. So that's things that we're doing on a constant basis. Uh especially uh this year. These things that we're doing did just happen now. They happen in August. So we increase our monitoring. We evaluate our current program implementation uses and alignment. We revised our
041master schedule to include intervention blocks. This year we have actually two intervention blocks. We have one in the morning time geared toward English language arts and one in the afternoon. I think one of the changes for that with master schedule was to make sure that everybody had hands- on deck. So what we're doing is in the morning time when we have a interventional block for language arts not only on our regular teachers have our lowest performing students even our exploratory teachers which is our librarian our art teacher and our music teacher they have a targeted group of students also that they're working with so everybody is working towards making sure we improve our school. We also had the mounted number of test students continuously enrolled in our tested grade. Last year we didn't get any
042points for that. We we will get points for that this year because we've been um making sure that diligently we've been monitoring that our progress monitoring where we are where we or where we were and where we are developing MTS team monthly meetings held holding regular PLC meetings create um c um bi-weekly progress mon student performance tracking attendance administering Irated growth monitoring and teacher made collaborative assessment ongoing professional development literacy math and technology training staff on um data analysis goal setting and collaborative action planning. Schedule time for teachers to review data and guide instruction. Our progress modeling results, our first progress modeling results uh for the whole school from fall to the winter uh from this year. What we saw in reading was an increase in our green and a decrease in our red. And
043that's what you want. You want to increase your red, I mean increase your green, decrease your red. So we did that for reading and we did that for math. And we just started taking our third progress monitoring for I Ready um today and um when we come with our next presentation, we are very confident that we will even increase these scores based upon recent progress monitoring reviews and our continuous improvement plan. Goal one SC ready science. We have progress monitoring. We have a new um program. goal two I already math went from beginning of year 13 I mean ELA 13% to middle of the year 21% and our right now our goal three math beginning of the year 1% right now we're at 10%. So those are the some of the um progress mon that
044we're doing uh for as a whole school but we also have progress monitoring in our individual classroom with our intervention groups. You have any questions, comments? I have a question. Um, given where you are now, where do you need to be to not be in the unsatisfactory category? What do these what do these percentages need to look like? We need to move up probably another 12 to 15 points. Um, that thing is kind of hard to judge with our school because we've never been in this situation before. I will say that having a small school helps and it hurts you. Last year kind of hurt us in certain grade levels, but this year we have the most students we've ever had in the past four years that being tested. So that's a positive thing for
045us. So you'd have to prove improve 15 points by the end of this school year or when? Well, we have our state testing in the spring. This is based on our state test. Okay. keep in mind is state testing, but it's also the report card ratings. So, report card ratings typically are not um brought forth until the fall, latter part of September, October. Okay. Um and it's not just the state rating on um assessment, but considering your climate surveys and from our initial reports, you all did a great job with getting it completed completed. Yes, we had a uh I will say it was outstanding this year to have our climate surveys done. Uh we had a very uh big increase in our parents um increasing because we've kind of been um meeting with them
046and turn the importance of making sure they do our climate survey um even giving the kids incentive to help their parents get it done. So that's been helped out. I have another question just out of curiosity. What happens? Cuz I don't know if you don't get out of the unsatisfactory rating, what does the state do then? There's not one answer to that. However, measures that they could include would be um what is deemed a takeover um of the of the school or a turnaround of the school in which they would take controls of certain measures or where they would provide certain state department um supports. Okay. Um whether that be with personnel, staffing or just resources. So, it it's several measures that could or could not be. Um, but speaking in the affirmative and in
047the optimistic, I feel that we are moving in the right direction at Plannersville. So that that is not an option. Yeah. I have a question. Um, I see that there's um 17% disabled. Is that a physical disability or most of our students in the disabled population are resource students? Okay. Any other question? Comment. Yes, ma'am. Uh, I'm excited that your climate survey numbers are good because I think it was important for us to note as a board that last year your school didn't get any points for the climate survey due to the numbers which will really help to bolster our scores there. and secondly that your math and reading counted uh for 50% and 50% which was not the kind of thing that happened at all schools. So we're excited to see that with the
048climate survey and the participation of your whole community and the buyin at your school, your plan certainly looks like one that's going to cause us again to have positive results. So hats off to you for working on that climate and that climate survey. And I'd like to say that to our whole district right now. It is very important that you buy into doing climate surveys and to doing things that we need to do as school communities because report cards are not just the reflection of academics, but they're the reflection of a lot of different measures put into one. and our communities being involved positively with our schools is very important. So, thank you, Mr. Stanley, for that. Thank you very much. Also like to thank uh Miss Verer, uh Dr. Barono and Frederick Horn for
049helping me put this together. Uh they were very instrumental. Thank you for the district staff for making sure that we are on the right track. Yeah. I I would just like to say I don't I'm not trying to rain on anybody's parade. I just I'm just curious because you're moving forward and you're making progress, but I would say that in your SWAT analysis where you don't have any threats listed. I mean, there are always threats and I think the threat for the school is that you don't get out of this an unsatisfactory realm and the state has to come in. I think that's a threat that everybody needs to keep at the top of their mind as they're working on this continuous improvement. You are making progress and that's great, but there's always that threat
050if you don't get up there and I guess you get points for continuous improvement. I guess maybe the state would look favorably on, okay, you don't get out of the unsatisfactory, but hey, look how look how far you've come. That would be good news, but to say there are no threats is not realistic. Just for a little bit more clarification on what a SWAT analysis is. Um, in this case, it looks at classroom walkthroughs. So, it's more tailored to classroom instruction versus the overall situation that the school may be in. Okay. So because the rating is one thing but specifically um what I leader the the consultants did along with consultation of the school leadership team is look at teaching and learning classroom instruction and so when they say there are no threats that means
051within the classroom environment at this point we do not see any threats that would hinder continued progress. Thank you for clarifying I misunderstood. Not a problem. Yeah threat would be if we're not teaching the state standards. That would be a threat. Well, I will say this. I think that when the new standard is in rolled out and the new curriculum is rolled out, we're going to see a difference in a lot of schools. I think we're going to see a positive difference. It may take a while, but I think there will be a positive difference. And I certainly like to add uh Mrs. Stanley because you're not giving yourself and your staff enough credit as far as I'm concerned. I've been to a couple of meetings at night where Mrs. Stanley is meeting with the
052community to make things work at Planville Elementary School. You and your staff, you're doing an outstanding job. I understand why the improvements are there because you were putting the work in. Uh he's actually going to community events before the U male choir anniversary or program. They had a community event. He's taking his kids out on Saturday just so they can be motivated and have fun. And the parents can buy when they see what the kids are doing, the parents are more likely to buy into it. And he's doing that on a Saturday. It's it's all hands on deck. So, uh I just want to let you know that I see the work that you're doing and I appreciate you and your staff very much and I thank you for what you're doing as well. Thank
053you very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And you have an additional thing. You're not just the principal. You're a father figure. You're everything else. You're you're the person that they look up to. Yes. And that means a lot to a lot of children and we thank you for that. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Miss Barono, strategic plan update. Good evening, Chairman Moore, Superintendent GS, other board members, and members of the audience. I am before you this evening to present the 2425 strategic renewal updates. Strategic renewal plans are developed every five years and updated annually as required by the Early Childhood Development and Academic Assistance Act of 1993, the Education Accountability Act of 1999, and the State Board of Regulation 43-261. Plans as well as
054updates are due April 30th of each year and plans become effective July 1st of each year. Annual updates include the committee review completed for revisions and or changes. Um action steps are clarified or renewed um revised, edited if needed. uh timelines are adjusted and adjusted costs and funding sources if needed. Needs assessment and executive summaries are updated with the most recent state data and any um beginning of year data for many of our schools. beginning data would would be your KR which is kindergarten um assessment, your my igdes is which is your 4K assessment and then um some schools also use I ready within their needs assessment and we typically use our fall um I ready data. All goals are updated with the most recent um actual data placed into the chart. If goals have
055been met, then the goal statement is updated or um a new goal is written with a new plan of action. You have two links available to you. The first link is the actual state guidelines for strategic um for district and school and then there's a link to the district and school plans that have been updated for this year. Uh Georgetown County School District is on the third year of a five-year cycle. Components of the plan include a needs assessment, an executive summary, performance goals with action steps to accomplish those goals over the five-year cycle. Before you you see snapshots of the district's needs assessment and these can be found on pages 12 of 17 of the full district strategic plan for any data not reported on the state report card. We are required to provide
056data charts as well well as data analysis for our district plan. We have provided data on fall I ready spring dibbles, our 25 um gifted and talented parent survey, our ATSI updates, GTS achievement as well as data from our MTSS database RTI stored. The next section is the executive summary and just like it says it summarizes our needs assessment. One thing we are required by our state reader is to also include percentages or numbers within each section. You have um required sections that we have to uh write goals and action steps for. That's student achievement, teacher administrator quality, school climate. If we have a district priority for us, that's our disabled population. And then the district itself is required to have um gifted and talented for academic and social and emotional. The actual executive summary
057can be found on pages 18 and 19 of the full strategic plan. This chart provides you with a flowchart to show you how we go about with updates as well as um collaboration with our stakeholders. The planning process involves a commitment to continuous improvement and responds to accountability requirements in both state and federal legislation and is a collaboration effort that includes multiple stakeholders at the schools as well as the district level. Are there any questions? Any questions? I have a question on the page with the different graphs for the needs assessment. Yes. Um I see the pie chart with the strongly agree agree disagree and strongly disagree. Uh what is that pertaining to? Um if you look on the actual plan itself, that is the parent satisfaction survey for gifted and talented. And if you
058notice, we actually had a decrease. Um that was an overall definite area of need was parent communication. Um based on the last two uh parent surveys for gifted and talented and for that survey um our state um representative for gifted and talented um advised us to um only survey our third through fifth because that's the designated um model. when you get to middle and high, they're more um coursebased models. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other question? Thank you very much, Miss Marino. Next up, 135th day enrollment report and that's by Miss Beth Gout. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Evening. Uh Dr. Guiles, Chair Moore, members of the board, I'd like to share an overview of our 135th day counts, as well as projected student enrollment for the 2526 school year. The tables I'm sharing
059with you tonight represent the four main attendance zones in Georgetown County, Andrews, Carver's Bay, Georgetown, and Wakama. The tables are broken down by school, as well as totals for each attendance area. You'll find that the columns in each table are labeled from left to right as follows. The first column is the 2526 projected. This column is a representation of projected student enrollments for next school year. These projections were determined by rolling up current grade levels. And by that I mean, for example, this year's fourth graders, we're taking into account those numbers will be next year's fifth graders. So, we're rolling up the numbers. Um, when doing this, we did take into account graduating juniors, and they were removed from next year's 12th grade numbers. And the only other grade level that the formula doesn't really
060work for would be kindergarten because our preschool would be combined with those that are in private preschools this year going into public schools. So, what we did for that is we kept our current kindergarten enrollment and just use the same number for next year. The next column is the well the next two columns are the 2425 actual and the 232 24 actual. These columns represent the actual student enrollments from the 135th day for the last two school years. And then the next two columns are the projected changes for 25 versus 24 and the enrollment changes for 24 versus 23. These numbers are a comparison showing either the increase or decrease in projections and enrollments from the previous school year. All right, we'll begin with a look at the Andrews area. In 2024, we had an
061overall decline in enrollment for this area of 87 total students. And based on our current projections, we anticipate a decrease of nine students overall for next school year. The increase that you see in projected student enrollment at Andrews High School is due to a larger current 8th grade group from Rosemary Middle that will be replacing a smaller 12th grade group that's graduating from Andrews High. We do anticipate a slight decrease at each of the other schools in this area with Andrews Elementary projected to have the largest decrease in enrollment in the Carver's Bay area. In 2024, there was an overall increase of 36 student enrollment 36 student enrollments. And based on the projections for next year, we anticipate a decrease of 22 student enrollments. The outgoing eighth grade class at Carver's Bay Middle is slightly
062smaller than the graduating senior class, while the decrease at Pleasant Hill Elementary can be attributed to a larger outgoing fifth grade group than their projected kindergarten enrollment. And the same is true for Plannersville Elementary, while Browns Ferry Elementary will be sending their largest class, their fifth grade class, to Carver's Bay Middle. The Georgetown area showed a decrease in overall enrollment last year compared to from last year to this school year. And unfortunately, our projections show that trend for next school year as well. Georgetown High School is projected to show an increase in enrollment next year due to a significantly larger outgoing eighth grade class at Georgetown Middle compared to this year's graduating senior class. And both Kensington Elementary and Mville Elementary have larger outgoing fifth grade groups, while McDonald Elementary is projected to show a
063slight increase in student enrollment. in the Waka area. The Waka area schools also showed a decrease in overall enrollment from 23 to 24. And based on the projections for next school year, we may see a larger decrease for this attendance area. The high school has a significantly larger graduating class than the rising ninth grade class. However, that group, that eighth grade group that's rising up is larger than the seventh grade group that's going to be moving up to them. So the trends the same for both Waka Elementary and Wakai Intermediate. However, their outgoing and incoming groups are slightly closer in size, which means that their projected decreases are not quite as large. And looking at Coastal Monasuri, Coastal Monasuri showed a small increase in student enrollment as compared to last year. They're expecting 245 students
064for the 2526 school year based on their current enrollment and anticipated student registrations. And that would mean a projected increase of nine enrollments for next year. And looking at our areas as a whole, overall Georgetown County School District had a decrease in enrollment from 23 to 24 of 164 students when comparing the two years 135th day enrollments. This trend matches our 45day comparisons from the same years. And based on our 25 26 projections, we are anticipating another decrease of slightly over 200 for the district. Any questions? I do have a little I I do have some positive to share. Um, as I wrap up, I'd like to say that registration opened yesterday for the 2526 school year, and as of 5:00 p.m., we already had 647 students registered. So, I thought that was pretty good
065for a 24-hour period, a little bit more than 24-hour. And uh kudos to uh all of the school level data quality clerks and the staff in the schools who are pushing parents to create parent portal accounts. We have over 98% parent portal participation. So, that's amazing. That's really good for them. And um at this time, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Any questions? One question uh for registration uh these these uh announcements go out to the parents. Yes, sir. Um at this time of year. Yes, sir. So everybody's aware that it's taking place. Yes, sir. Miss Kipler pressed the button yesterday morning and we pressed the button as well. I already received the text messages and we will continue to send reminders. Thank you. Appreciate it.
066Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss G. Now we move to our action items. Uh first up, personnel list presented by Mr. Scott Batton and Mr. Richard Neil. The administration recommends approval of personnel list as presented. May I have a motion? So moved. Second. It has been moved and properly second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposes? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Next, out of town out of district transfer request presented by Miss uh Barono. The administration recommends approval of the out of district transfer request as presented. May I have a motion? Move. Second. It's been moved and properly second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposes? Motion carried. Thank you. At this time, I invite any comments or requests from our board members or our
067superintendent, Dr. Gaus. And I think I'm going to start the comment part, Miss Patty, if you don't mind. Thank you. I want to read this right here to to my board members. And please um take this the way it's intended. During the month of During the month of May, school will be getting ready for testing and final exam preparation and taking tests. Since this is very important and focused time for our students, teachers, and administrators, I'm asking that members of the board do not visit school after spring break. Any distraction of a daily routine may cause anxiety to our test takers and administrators, and we do not want to contribute to this. Amanda has a list of programs and awards ceremonies that she will share with us. We encourage you to attend some of these
068to celebrate the achievements of our students. Thank you very much, Miss Patty. I'd like to just say thank you to the outstanding activities that we've had over the last little bit. Uh our students have done an excellent job. Special services and special Olympics was outstanding. The students enjoyed it. It was remarkable to see the collegiality of all of our people work together to do that. The tech fair was enormous. We had so many projects and so many children and parents, so many community members and so much participation that it was just an overabundance of excitement all around. our volunteers of the year. We couldn't do anything very much without these folks helping us and thank you to the district for their actual work in recognizing these folks and thank you for allowing us to get
069a snapshot of just some of the things that happen on a daily basis. but to all the people that have worked so hard for these things to come to pass and and for us to be able to enjoy seeing your hard work and the work of our students, our teachers, our community members, our staff members. Thank you so much for all of that that you do. I had the wonderful opportunity of being able to participate in some of these events as well and it has been such an honor to get to know some of our teachers throughout uh our district and to see the passion that they have for their students. Um I will say that uh we have thoroughly enjoyed the plants that Mr. West uh with the FFA. He uh has been very
070helpful and when we saw them on a Saturday, uh I was really impressed with some of the students and the leadership that they were developing uh along with the other talents and gifts that they were bringing forth to the table. And uh I would also like to um thank the Food Lion manager uh who was kind enough to help us at the last minute for the Special Olympics when we were in need. he was able to come to the task and and assist us with giving us what we needed to provide uh and give a wonderful experience to all the children and the families and the volunteers and the teachers and staff. Uh but overall it's been a wonderful couple of weeks and excuse me I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. So I'd
071like to thank the district and the people who are think that everybody truly understands being a teacher and being a coach and being whatever in the school systems that each person is a role model and that role model speaks a lot to a child because these children often come from very difficult situations and they need that. And y'all, every one of our teachers and our staff and our administrators are filling that role. It's a double-edged sword. I mean, they have to teach, but they also have to have the compassion of understanding the needs of that child. And that's huge. And I thank each one of you for doing that. Anyone else? Well, I'm I'm going to just say for Special Olympics, I got to say Miss Johnson, Miss Fallon, they not only got the drinks,
072but they were physically moving some heavy stuff. So, when I saw that, I had to go and join them. I felt bad, you know. I said, "These women are moving these heavy drinks and and we appreciated that." And you guys did a good job with that. Just wanted to point that out. Thanks, Kathy. No, I just wanted to jump on about um our people we recognized tonight and um obviously they're fantastic and Miss Williams, Shakira Williams who performed and not that they're not all rising stars, but she we will see her again somewhere. She I saw her at Title Tales back in February, I think that was or maybe January, and I was blown away. I mean, there were eight or 10 other performers. She was the youngest one there. there were adults, seasoned adults,
073and she got up there and just stole the show. So amazing. And I was just and I'm so glad we were able to get her to come and entertain us and just share with us her talent. On that same note, I would love to get a copy. I want a copy of I want a copy and an autograph cuz she's going to be famous one day. Make sure let her know that. Yes. Yes. Give her gifts for us. Yes. And before Dr. guys um give us closing remarks. So this was my first year during the welcome at the tech fair and I was a lot nervous doing so and in my nervousness I I forgot to thank Miss Bon Mrs. Bond and staff for the work that they do with getting that together. This is
074a huge event and and so you can understand why I got nervous cuz all these folks are there and I'm not expecting that. I'm thinking I was going to be behind a podium where I can hide my hands from shaking and stuff but that wasn't the case. So, just want to say shout out to Miss Bonds and staff uh for putting together such an event and uh hopefully if they invite me back to do the welcome next year, I'll do a little bit better. Um so, thank you very much, Dr. G. Thank you, Chairman Moore, members of the board. Um certainly you all have said a lot and I echo many if not all of those statements. Um thank you for your support and extra effort. I do have that in my notes for what
075you did at Special Olympics and that cannot be forgotten and that just goes to show that you are a part of team GCSD and you're all in. So, thank you for that. Um on this week, Junior Achievement or JA achievement um finance is at Georgetown High School and auxiliary gym. um that is funded through a a a collaboration with the Banell Foundation and our students are getting a touch of what it looks like to be financially literate. Um as adults, we probably need to take this uh opportunity as well, but to see our kids engaged um with mentors and volunteers um it certainly would be worthwhile a visit if you could get to Georgetown High School um auxiliary gym this week. We're halfway through the month of April. Last week, I visited a classroom to
076read and it was a countdown posted on the board. I couldn't believe they're already counting down to the end of the year. But this week, I encourage you again to stop by Georgetown High School. April is volunteer appreciation month. We recognized our volunteers of the year on last week. So, thank you to those who could participate in the luncheon and we certainly will continue to salute our volunteers on next week even though we'll be on spring break um as it is the week of volunteer appreciation. We're also thankful for our partnership with HTC. They held or they have a program entitled the real kids. This honors students who demonstrate leadership excellence while overcoming life challenges. I think it's important to note that again they are overcoming life challenges and excelling. Um the recognition was take
077uh took place at medieval times in Myrtle Beach on last Thursday. It was an honor and a privilege to be with those students as well as their parents and guardians as they were recognized. So we salute HTC for their partnership with us. These students also received an iPad from HTC. So that it was a real um reward for the real kids. Continuing student recognitions, our students participated, as you said, in the annual tech fair. We saw many incredible projects. They were all winners, including our teachers who were superb as well. Thank you to the members of the team, the volunteers, as well as the sponsors for making this event happen annually. Often behind the scenes are our administrative professionals um who make things happen. Your official day for administrative professionals is next week, but we
078want to salute them right now as well as every day for the work that they do. Um Georgetown Middle School chorus received an excellent rating at Carowinds on Saturday. So thank you um Miss Anderson for chaperoning also on that. Yeah. If y'all don't have anything to do sometime, go and chaperone 23 middle school students at Carowinds. It was a lot of fun, but we were exhausted. Carowinds itself is exhausting. Yes. But they're great kids. Again, we thank our administrative professionals. And lastly, spring break is next week, April 21st through the 25th. So, we wish that everyone has a safe as well as restful and enjoyable spring break. And it's much deserved. As always, thank you to all our members of team GCSD who are going above and beyond. And I I I don't know why,
079but I feel the need to thank those who are on the outdoors. Now, this time of year, we often um overlook the fact that our grass is cut and things are neat outside, but we thank our facilities department and the members of that crew that ensure that um our playgrounds are safe and our outdoors are prepared for our students as we enjoy this spring weather. Thank you again all members of team GCSD. Thank you very much. This concludes our agenda for tonight. May I have a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. All in favor? I. Motion carry means adjourned. Thank you. 7 o'clock. We're out of here.