001Okay, I now have 6:30, so I will call our meeting to order. Miss Brandom, did we notify the media? >> We did. Thank you. And I do declare that we have a quorum with all board members present. Now we'll need a motion to approve the agenda. >> I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. >> Any opposed? [clears throat] >> I do want to welcome everyone tonight. I'm always excited to see smiling faces in the crowd. So, I'm glad that you're here. And we're gonna start our meeting with our tell me something good. Tabitha, I'll let you go first. >> Oh, we've had some great weather lately. Haven't had much rain. I like it.
002>> Mr. Jacobs. >> So, my wife and I have entered into a kitchen renovation that has been going on for longer than what we have ever thought, but we now have moved the fireplace and now It's built in now. So, we got one thing that's done uh in the kitchen. So, we have a fireplace. >> Check mark. That's great. >> Check mark. >> Mr. Car >> progressing. >> You're good. Um my tell me something good is my oldest daughter is home for one night from school. So, she's going to speak at the high school tomorrow. So, I'm excited that she's here. >> Um my something good will be that um you know, I'm coaching the sporting clay's team. So, we had a great practice on on Saturday. a lot of great guys that have um
003come out and it's going to be a great year for us. >> Good. >> My good is that God is continually healing my knee replacement. >> Nice. >> Fantastic. Amen. >> My something good is it is almost fall break. [laughter] >> No meeting in December. And a quick question. >> You've been waiting all month thing a little too serious. [laughter] I mean, it's Jesus's birthday. I pay for the lights. >> All right, you heard it. Mr. Hughes is going to donate some lights for this Christmas tree. >> Um my guess is that we might have run out of time. I don't know. [laughter] Um but I'm glad everyone's here tonight. Um I would like uh we're going to have some of our Lawrence Elementary students lead us in the pledge and I'll let Miss Bragg,
004the principal of Lawrence Elementary, introduce them. 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 so much for leading us in the prayer. Our excuse may not the prayer and the pledge. And now we will move to our prayer. And Miss Nance, will you lead us in prayer? >> Let us pray. Most graciously, heavenly father, we come this evening, Lord God, giving you praise and glory. Father God, we ask your presence in this board meeting. Lord God, give us the wisdom and the knowledge to make decisions for our district. Lord God, continue to cover us, this district, and keep us in your care in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. Thank you, Miss Nance.
005Now, we'll need approval approval for our minutes for the October 27th meeting and Miss Brandham did send an update to those minutes. Um, so they should be in your board packet. So, if we could have a motion to approve those minutes. >> I'll make a motion we approve the minutes. >> Thank you. Any question? All those in favor of approving the minutes for our October 27th board meeting, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. The minutes are approved. Thank you. And now I'll call up Miss Ashley Brag for our Lawrence Elementary School report. >> Hi, good evening. Good evening. It's always nice to come and share um the great things that are going on at Lawrence Elementary School. Even better when we have a packed house. Um so um thank you for
006your time. All right. So, I want to start off um obviously our um top priority at all schools are, um safety. So, I want to highlight a few of the um safety things that we have put into place this school year. Um we have alarms on our STARS classroom doors and delayed egress um that notifies um anybody as they go out and actually um keeps the doors from opening um without a fob. So, it's it's nice to be able to make sure everybody stays um where they're supposed to be. Um, we also have recently um for the elementary schools developed the a gaggle. We've I'm sorry, we've done some training on the gag a gaggle um monitoring system where um when students are googling things, putting things in documents, um if there's anything that um
007is troubling um per se, it gives us a notification so that we can kind of check on that, make sure everything is okay. Sometimes it's just as simple as they are doing a research project. Um but sometimes um obviously it may be something that we need to check a little bit further into. Um we also got the crosswalks painted so now teachers and particularly teachers but also adults can cross the road safely. Um this year we have put into place our safety patrol. So we have about 40 students that are fifth grade students. Um we are we have them on a four-week rotation. So um every week they change. Um during these times we have specific positions. Miss Curry, my assistant principal, did a great job of training these students um to know, you know,
008what is expected, how to stay safe. They have their bright colored vests that they love to get when they come in. Um they take this job very seriously, I will say. Um they are also um learning skills such as greeting others um the commitment to being there on their weeks and um you know being there on time so that they can get out to their duty spot. All right, my next slide is going to um kind of highlight our school report card information. as you guys know that we um just recently got our school report card um ratings and um I have just kind of put a a broad where we were before and where we are now. Um we had huge growth during the year prior to me coming last year as the first
009year principal at um Lawrence Elementary um growing 17 points and this year we did drop eight points. Um we went from average to below average. Um, I told my team that um, there were two things that I was going to say and one of those is the math ain't mathing and the second one is they're only one point away from being average. So, wanted to point that out for my team. Um, but in all seriousness, when these results came out, we took um, these very personally. Um, obviously at our school, we we aren't below average. Um, our school's not below average. Our teachers aren't below average. and um obviously the achievement levels of our students um so we just have to put in some work to prove it now um which we are ready and
010willing to do. So what are we doing to um to help that? Well um the first thing that we're going to focus on is student growth. If you'll look back at the um chart, our student growth as student progress is the main area that went down. Um so as we are working through um student growth we are looking at what we call um wind time or um enrichment time and during that time we are focusing on layering instruction um to give more intensive and explicit help um while also kind of saving that classroom um instructional time. So it it can get kind of tricky. We've had to be creative in some ways um as far as you know pulling groups to meet before school starts, pulling groups at the end of the day. Um we've
011all had to work as a team to make sure that um the times that we're giving that extra instruction is not taking away from that tier one um instruction in the classroom. So we have taken an all hands-on deck approach with that. Um everybody in the school um is responsible for certain students. Um and you know even from the administration to interventionist to um reading coaches, we are all pulling groups um to help kind of um give some more support to those students. So our schoolwide content goals um we have two for reading, one is literary text and the other is vocabulary. Um in math we are focusing on patterns algebra um algebra and functional reasoning. Um this comes a lot with we have noticed um some fractions are some issues especially in our upper
012grade so we are focusing on that. Um the goal is for us to have high quality instruction obviously. Um, we have a weekly ILT that meets. Um, I did not put myself on this chart, but um, obviously, um, I lead the ILT's um, weekly. Um, my ILT is made up of my assistant principal. Um, Miss DS, our reading coach. Um, Dr. Harris is our district representative. And then, um, we have five teaching specialists. And I wanted to make sure that I mentioned my teaching specialists because um I wanted it to be clear how awesome they are. Um they teach classes full-time. Um they do some observations and they also lead their planning meetings. Um they also are part of the ILT that comes. So they are basically the funnel of the school. So they take
013things and give things to me. They also take things that we say in ILT and push them out to their um teachers. So, it has um really been beneficial for um us to to have our teaching specialists on board. Um one of our teaching specialists is also um the district teacher of the year, Miss Jamie Flanakin. She just went to a conference. Um, so we look forward to meeting with her and and getting even more strategies that she can bring to our ILT and then in return um push out to our um other classroom teachers. So I mentioned already but we also have um cluster meetings once a week. Um these are grade level bands um that come together and meet um with this cluster meetings. Um, a big thing that we have focused on
014last year, we talked a great deal about what good teaching looks like. We used the South Carolina 4.0 rubric. We talked about what modeling looks like. We talked about what good teaching look like using the curriculum that we have. This year, we're ready to go deeper than that. We know what teachers um should look like. We know what the teaching should look like. Now, we're focusing on what it is that we're teaching. Um, we've we're talking we're looking at student work analysis, bringing in what our students are doing. um taking a look at that making sure it matches the rigor of the standard um was it was the mastery achieved and if not what are we going to do in the classroom during our tier one instruction to move those students um I have been
015particularly impressed with my teachers um the language that they're h the conversations and the language that they're using um you can just tell that they are very deep in thought um having those conversations with each other about what our students students need um where they are and what we can all do as a group collectively to to push them. Um so there's there's no doubt that that growth is is taking place. Um and I can't wait to see um where that goes. So next is our school culture. Um we have a wonderful school culture. Um related arts this year is taking a big um role with our school culture planning culminating activities that include all of the arts. Um and then obviously when are having those activities and events. We're inviting all stakeholders. Um right
016now particularly we we have kindness turkeys going on. So we had turkey bodies outside doors. Um each staff member got several feathers with staff names on the back and they wrote gratitude letters of gratitude and put them up. And um we also have a kindness bulletin board. As you can see there, three of our students are stopping by the bulletin board to write something kind to share it with each other. um they have loved this time. Um it has been it has been very very beneficial. We also have Friday line dancing that is led by um Melissa G. If you guys didn't know, she is a pro at line dancing. So in the mornings when you come in before school starts, you may hear a little tune. Um and um that has been lots of
017fun. Students look forward to that that Friday line dancing. Um, also we have birthday shoutouts each morning and we've also started doing some positive um behavioral shoutouts. So, um, that's been awesome to hear. Um, the kids come in smiling really big. So, they they enjoy that. For community and family engagement, obviously these are some pictures from our open house in our Title One community presentation. We in October, we had a family craft night where it was bring your own pumpkin and we spent time um decorating pumpkins. Some of us even decorated their own faces and it was it was good time. Um we had a really big turnout for um the family craft night. Um we just had our Veterans Day program. This year we did three different programs. So we did one um the
018evening before Veterans Day at 6. Um, we also did a program during the day at 10 and then we did another one at 1:30 just to make sure that we included everyone um and that everybody was able to come. All right. Um upcoming events, we have a Christmas ornament night um Thursday, December 11th. So if anybody is interested, please join us for um the Christmas ornament night. Um and I believe that concludes my presentation. Are there any questions? >> Thank you, Miss Brager. Appreciate your report. >> Thank you. >> All right. Now, I'll turn it over to Dr. Penland for district updates. >> Sure thing. So, um, again, we are still building that five-star culture of excellence and focusing on our academics, arts, athletics, attendance, and atmosphere. So, we're going to start off with our
019academics, and it is my pleasure tonight that we're going to be addressing our living the five-star culture writing contest. At the beginning of the year and over the summer, we talked about being able to um see how our students were living the five-star culture of excellence and really wanting them to be able to express themselves um with this. So, we had a writing contest all the way through um preK through 12th grade. Um and these are the people who came in and judged and they gave a lot of their time. We had a lot of um writing um responses for students to be able to come in. So we had Miss Lis Compton, Theresa Crabtree, Elma Madden, Edna Matthysse, Lisa Chris, Eden McCarter, and Harold Lian, and Miss Susan Kelvin Wear all came in and
020gave their time to judge our um writing contest. So this year's and I'm clicking Danny and nothing's happening. Oh, there we go. So, um, living the five-star culture. So, we did a K2 writing prompt and then a 312 writing prompt. So, the preK through two, they said, "How do you show kindness, teamwork, and responsibility at school, at home, or in your neighborhood? Tell a story or share a time when you or someone you else made a good choice and helped others." And our 312 was, how do you live the fi the five-star culture of excellence in Lawrence 55 in your school, home or community? Tell a story or share an experience that shows how you demonstrate or see these values in action. So what we did is we had um everybody um had the opportunity
021to write um this for this writing contest and our schools did not have to judge them. They actually came to our district office, teaching learning, went through the first um round of judging, read them all, and then had a smaller stack for our judges to come through and judge. So, whenever we're looking at um some of the stories that were winners, we had things that um our K2 or our prek said, "I'm helping my mom up the stairs." The next one was helping a friend pick up books that they had dropped in school. Another one was packing packets and gift bags for prisoners. One was to visit men and women at Martha Franks and spend time with them. Then it was also spending time with your grandfather to show love, support, and connection to give
022your best during most difficult times and how to take those lessons from the classroom from home to the classroom and to athletics. And Nora, which was our middle school winner, made a statement that stuck out to me. And she stated, "I've learned that kindness does not have to be huge or complicated to matter. sometimes just listening and sharing a smile is enough to connect with others in a meaningful way. And so, um, I really wanted to share some of the, um, highlights of their writing. Um, and it's all on display out in the lobby. Um, we will put those on display here in the district office over the next several, um, months. Um, but please take time to see those and read those as, um, you get ready to, um, leave tonight. Um, but I
023do want to um recognize our winners and we're going to come up one at a time so we can try to get some pictures and then we'll do a group picture um as we do that. So um if anybody from the board wants to join me that would be great. >> So we'll start first with our prekk winner, Miss Emily Davis. >> [laughter] >> I'm with you, babe. I'm with you, babe. I'm out, too. [laughter] >> So cute. >> Next, we have Simon Cheeks. Um, for our second grade winner from Great [applause] All right. Now we have Miss Alla Bryson Jones. [applause] All right. Next, we miss have Miss Norah Grace Cody. >> [applause] >> and Miss Maddie Lawson through [applause] 12. You did a fabulous job. Your mom helping your mom. Congratulations again to
024our awesome writers. [applause] Last Friday, we were um had the pleasure to um have our NJOTC um present their pass and review at the high school. They did a fabulous job and I'd like to commend um Commander Bordon and um Senior Chief Flood um for their work with um our NJOTC and everything that they did to make it a special occasion to show off um everything that they've been um doing with the NJRTC at the high school. I would like to um showcase the arts. Um we had our region um we had region orchestra this past um weekend or actually yeah Saturday. So we had um eight students make region orchestra. Mr. Will Brink from eighth grade um was part of the region orchestra and selected there. And I want to um share this is
025the region orchestra for their middle school. And I just want to share a little short clip of them. So for region orchestra they have to try out through um their the school that they will go to and then there's five regions in the state and they're selected based on their quality and um 12 chairs for each one of those sections and Will was um fifth chair and selected in our region and um they had a day and a half to practice together. So they were sent their um music ahead of time and they had to practice before they went and then um the um orchestra leader there um put them all together and had an amazing um time. So that was um our one um student that made middle school um region and then we
026had our region orchestra um seven students from the high school um made it. So we had Jaylen Jones, Dylan Eklave, Corbin Hilton, um Jay Williams, um Ladia Morris Gomez, um Dylan Brink, and a Avery Burrell. And so they um that's their pictures there. Um and so that's Dylan. I mean, sorry, that's um um yeah, Dylan Eklave, and then you have um Jaylen, and you have Dylan Brink. And I couldn't get the rest of them um from where I was sitting. And then you have the group again over there on the right. And so, um, Saturday I had the pleasure to go watch them. And this was, um, a little snip from the high school group. And like I said, they had um probably 36 hours to practice. I practiced um Friday and then Saturday morning
027with um all the groups together and um it was an amazing um concert for all three levels. Um we didn't have anybody participate in the 910. Um but our highest ranked chair here was Jaylen Jones and she was third chair. Um so very very um well performed and um very great um performances by our students. >> That could have been our prelude music. Our prelude music. >> That could have been our prelude music. Yeah. So, we're talking about we needed some music to um start the meetings with. So, y'all y'all y'all remind me for January. Um so, some five-star um athletics um where we're looking at we had um senior Nemo Fernandez um make the touchdown club player of the week um for October 31st. Um our cross country team um competed in state. they
028finished um 14th as a team and Cody Patterson finished um 16th as an individual and Hunter Power as 19th as an individual. Um so very good showing for our um state um for our cross country team at the high school. We also have um Statebound our cheerleading competition team. Um they um um performed this past weekend at um the state qualifier and they um met the state requirements to be advanced to next weekend I think Saturday at 10:30 or 12:30. I'm not sure which when they compete. All right. And so just a reminder about our November December attendance. Um today is the 17th. So this time next week we will be off. And so we'll have fall break all week next week and then we'll come back and have three weeks with half day being
029the 19th and then our two weeks for um Christmas break with teachers returning on the 5th, students returning on the 6th of January um with our next um um early release day on the 27th of um January. All right, and I'm clicking away. Um, I did want to highlight our um, Veterans Day. Um, Miss Bragg did say that they had their um, performances um, at their school, but whenever you I was able to make it to four or five different schools to see how our fine arts um, group um, honored our veterans and it was very well um, done by all of our schools that we were able to see and we had um, our cabinet representatives at all of our um, sites too. So, it was just very good and um I appreciate everything
030that the veterans do. All right. Um any questions for me? I'll turn it over to Miss Lacrosse. [clears throat] >> All right. Good evening. >> Good evening. >> So, I'm here just to talk about the 2025 South Carolina report cards and what they look like >> [clears throat] >> uh for Lawrence 55. Um, I thought I'd talk a little bit, give some reminders of what the South Carolina report cards are, why we have them. We'll talk a little bit about our 2025 ratings and how they're different from 2024. Um, and a little bit of some hidden picture and then next steps. So, that's the plan. Um, so just as a reminder, the South Carolina report cards were established in the early 2000s. Um, they were redesigned in 2018. And so that's really when this format
031pretty much started. Report cards are updated annually. Um they're updated to reflect obviously changes in state standards but also in accountability requirements. So there is a new accountability manual each year. Um because they change things just a little bit every year. Um we have different performance ratings. excellent, good, average, below average, unsatisfactory. For any school that is either below average or receives a rating of below average or unsatisfactory, they then are required to do a school improvement plan. Um, all of our schools do school improvement plans. Um, but this report guard helps all of us, all nine schools to really identify our areas that we want to target for this coming year as well as tell us where we're doing really well um and highlighting those strengths and then um giving us some guidance when
032it comes to planning for a variety of things whether it's for funding or whether it's for professional development or staffing or anything like that. So um just to give you a little bit about um how this is figured each report card you can get up to a hundred points. Um this is in the the packet that we sent out last week. So if you want to dig in there at all um I did provide a lot of background to you last week with the um addition of the district report card piece which I believe starts on page 31. Um, and that goes for several pages. But at the elementary school and middle schools, they accumulate points towards their overall 100 points the same way. Um, in academic achievement is 35 points. Um, and I'm going
033to jump down to student progress is also 35 points. Those are both directly tied to English language arts and mathematics achievement and how students grow in those. So that's 70% of the ratings. Um there is there are 10 points for preparing success which is the science. Um and so we have science in fourth grade and in sixth grade. Um we have English learners student progress and those are 10 points for any school that has at least 20 students that are multilingual. If they do not have 20 students that are taking state assessment that year, then those points are divided up between academic achievement and student progress. So again, there's a large chunk. Then there's school climate which is 10. Um in order to have a rating of say average um at the elementary school they
034have to have a 42. At the middle school I believe if I can see on my sheet I can't see from here. Oh, I can see it right here. Sorry. Um, they need to have a 36. So, it's a little bit different and those are based those are identified by the state. Um, each um each accountability manual usually they stay relatively the same. At the high school, you notice is completely diff not completely different but very different. Um, they have academic achievement which is 25 of their points which is English 2 and algebra 1. uh preparing for success also is science but it also includes social studies. They have English language learners, they have school climate and then they have three other categories and these are really these other three categories are are very significant
035indicators when talking about a successful high school graduation rate, college and career readiness, and then of course high school student success. In other words, how on track are students to um being ready to graduate on time? So, with that, um I'm going to share with you our ratings for this year. At the top of the chart is where we started in 2023 with with ratings. Last year's are right in the middle, 2024, and then 2025, you can see our ratings for this past school year. Um we went from uh 55% of our schools being average or above last year to 64% um being average or above this year. So um we were pleased with that. You'll notice that both EB and Lawrence Middle School were identified as underperforming schools and needed to do an improvement
036plan last year. Um they did that and they are no longer in the category for um needing to do that. uh improvement plan that has to go to the state. Um we have you'll notice we have two schools that are right now identified as below average but they're as Miss Bragg pointed out they're there by one point. So um we're really close u making a lot of progress. So we're pleased with that. Um, the biggest differences I would say for you to know between 2024 and 2025, and then I'll stop for a minute to see if there's questions because some of this can get a little bit confusing. Um, as far as I mentioned at the beginning that the accountability manual is done every year and there's some some changes that are done. Preparing for
037success last school year, which was 10 points if you refer back to the previous slide here. preparing for success is science at the elementary middle school. Um and this year prepare preparing for success we were able to get points for that either for fourth grade science or sixth grade science. Last year there were no points for preparing for success because that was the first year that we gave the science assessment with the new standards. And so um it was a pilot and therefore those 10 points were split between the academic achievement and the student progress. So some of that is not as comparable. Um but as I mentioned we have these situations each year. Another major situation for us this year is onethird of our ELA student progress points are missing from the calculation because
038there was no baseline because they were brand new standards. So half of the 35 points for student progress in English language arts middle school are calculated the 35 points 17 Half of them are for English language arts, 17 and a half are for math. Of those 17 and a half points, I believe it's about six points were not calculated the same way. And that's important to note for when I get to my next um my next slide. As far as improvements, as I mentioned, we had 55 to 64 um percent of our schools are average or above now compared to last year. Um Laurens Middle and EB are no longer identified as underperforming schools. Um, Lawrence Middle led the pack this year with a five-point improvement in their uh South Carolina report card rating points.
039Lawrence High School and Grey Court Middle were not far behind with an additional four points. Um, I think the biggest improvement especially at the high school was our graduation rate and our college and career ready ratings and how I mentioned that those three categories are very important um because they really should are reflective of the entire prek to 12 program and are our students ready for college? Are they ready for careers? Are they graduating and are they graduating on time? So, um you'll see those a little bit how they've um they've really jumped. Areas of concern obviously are we still have four schools that are um identified as underperforming. So, they will need to do a continuous improvement plan. The designations from the state were held off for about an additional three weeks. Um they
040did not release them. If you recall, they were supposed to release them in the middle of October. They didn't release them until the beginning of November. By doing that, we were not allowed then to release what our ratings were. Um, and so one of the things that we need to do is we are currently notifying all schools, um, all parents of designations in any of those four schools. Um, we have school plans that are already written as I've mentioned number of times that I'm up here. We have school improvement plans. We start writing them in July. um we revamp them again in um October when we get our final SC ready and our school report card ratings and then what we do is we send them out to the community and for feedback. So that's
041what's going to happen when we come back from Thanksgiving for these four schools. Um another area and I talked about this September when I was here for assessment math achievement is obviously an area that that we need to focus on. uh multilingual learner progress as well as some of our subgroups. And those would be um our race groups or our multilingual learners or special education subgroups, things like that that we want to really focus on. Um so I'm going to stop a second right here to see if you have questions about these pieces or if that makes sense because I know you had some of this before. I think you stated that the um Lawrence Elementary was improved had from the unperforming list to performing, right? >> No, the so back in 2023 um they
042[clears throat] were an unsatisfactory and they went to average last year and they slipped a little bit this year. So they're just below average by one point. So then that's what Miss Bragg was talking about earlier is that now they know this is what we need to do and they know they're not below average. They know that their students are not below average. Their teachers aren't or their school isn't. Now they're just going to prove it. So that's kind of what she was talking about today. All those things that they're going to do um to address that. And that's really very similar to a lot of the things that you'll find in the improvement plans or the different things that they're talking about. You'll notice that her presentation today was very heavy in the academics
043and what they're doing to improve instruction, what they're doing to better meet the needs of the individual students. Um, and that's what um these plans are designed to do. >> Um, so question. >> Yep. Um, for Ford, GCO Elementary, and LDHS, >> um, the past three years they've been below average. When was the last time I you know we don't have access to the data prior to that in front of us. When was the last time that those schools were at any higher rating? And if you don't have it in front of you, that's okay. You can, you know, follow up with that later in an email. Um I'm just curious. >> Yeah, I'll have to check because I don't have I don't I'm not I haven't gone all the way back to >> 2018
044in front of me right here. Okay. >> I have it on my >> Yeah. No, that that's not a problem. I was just curious. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, so I mentioned student progress is 35 points. So that's just as much as proficiency. And student progress is calculated a couple of different ways. They compare them. They compare a student to other students that started at the same place as they are. So there's really no way to predict that. But then there's also another category that takes um our lowest 20% and then compares them to the same lowest 20% and how did they grow as well as um they will predict out if I'm in third grade and I am not proficient and I need to be proficient within two years, what do I need
045to be the next year? And so that's [clears throat] the piece that they weren't able to calculate. What I want to show you right here is this is a graph that you're thinking, oh, this looks up. This doesn't look good, but this is actually what we want. So this is our does not meet um group of students. So let's take Eie Morris all the way over on the left hand side. Eie Morris did extremely well. If you recall back in September, they had some of the highest growth in English language arts um as far as proficiency. What this graph is showing that EB and third grade in 2024, that blue bar was a little bit over 40% of their students were in the lowest performing category that you could have. So that's not good. We
046don't want 40% of our students in does not meet. This past year they were all the way down to almost 10%. That is huge growth. They didn't get credit for about a third of that growth on this year's report card. And so, you know, we were all feeling as administrators that we really felt like our schools did a really great job in growing and our students were moving and our map data was showing that they were improving. And we were surprised at first when we looked at the report card and then when we dug in, we realized they weren't getting credit for a third of all of that growth. So you see that pretty significantly in EB, in Ford, in Greycourt, in Hickory Taverns, third grade. You see it in Lawrence Elementary. Um there are
047some significant growth of decreasing the number of students that are in does not meet, which is exactly what we need to do and we want to do. Um they will count double for us when when we make that improvement. Um and the whole reason for that is there was not English language arts standards where to establish a baseline last year. So those were established this year. So moving forward we will get credit for this kind of growth. Okay. But also our groups are smaller. So you know they're not going to they're not going to drop as much. I also want you to realize that this year is our first year of math and this is going to happen again next year but it will be in math. So >> can you can you explain for
048me what's you see EBC 3, four, five. What >> that's grade three, grade four, and grade five. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> So um I did talk a little bit about the um Mr. Carpenter. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> So So next year we should really be up >> if we continue on this trajectory. Absolutely. >> Okay. I'm saying that because When I went to the national in when everybody was doing all discussing about how cooling schools were doing that was a national >> and the experts were saying it would be three years coming off of cooling because the schools were closed down. So it would take at least three years to get those back up. So next year I expect those school to be market. >> It's sounds great to me. We're
049well on our way and and they're right. It's three to five years whenever you see a change. Um I think the other thing to note that you'll see here is third grade is the first group of students that have had letters every year since they came in. Kindergarten, first, second, third. So, um, we're seeing that that transition of the curriculum to that approach to teaching reading is making a significant difference for our students. So, that's good. Um, I did talk a little bit about the high school as far as college and career ready. And you will notice this thing cuts [clears throat] off a little bit of the bottom, so you can't see the the bottom of the slide, but um, our graduation rate increased to 84% um, this year. from last year we were
05083 something but we got an additional 0.55 points um believe it or not that's very important court is off by 02 I know you all see a 41 but they actually have 41.8 8 are their number of points for the report card. Um, and they need a 42. So 0.55 is is significant number because it it helps um overall when we're adding college and career readiness, we went up by 2.11 points and then school student success went up by 1.42 points. And what I want to really say about that is the high school made a major effort last year to focus on college and career ready to make sure that they were following up with their students on a monthly basis to identify who had met the standards for college and career ready. encourage them
051to take those exams, whether it was ASFAB or ACT or PSAT or to enroll in dual enrollment courses to make sure that they had those credentials and certificates and things when they left the high school to demonstrate that they are college and career ready and it shows right there on the report card. So, they went up a total of 4.08 points on college and career ready um factors and that's what the big difference was in their growth this year. So, um, we were really pleased to see that and expect it to continue. Um, you know, we don't always look at what's great, we also look at where we need to improve. U multilingual learner progress is definitely a area that we need to focus on. Um, and we need to see some marked improvement. Each
052year, the students are given an exam. It's called the access test, and it it assesses students in four different areas. Anybody who's a multilingual learner is someone who in the house they speak something other than Spanish or they speak something other than spa I mean sorry than English. Um 98% of our students that are multilingual learners do speak Spanish or some form of Spanish. Um but our multilingual teachers we need to assess them each year and they're assessed in four different areas. Listening, speaking, reading and writing. >> Miss Lars, what page are you on? I don't see that in the slide deck that we were sent. >> It's what page >> 29. >> Thank you. We're we're not in order so I was 29. >> Number nine. >> Couldn't find it. Thank you. >> [snorts]
053>> Um, so in multilingual learner progress, you can see and and I went, this one I went all the way back to 2019 because I think it's important to kind of see the the pro the trajectory of this. The first graph really talks about when a student starts the multilingual program, whether it's because they started in kindergarten, because they just started with us, or they moved into the country, they have five years to demonstrate uh proficiency in learning the language and that would mean they would get a 4.4 or higher on the access test. Um when students do that then they've met progress towards proficiency. So each year there's a certain number of points that they should get um to be able to reach that and that's what that first chart is. And this second
054chart is how many students actually reached proficiency um each year. I also have on the bottom that is the state average. So you can kind of see where um the predictions are of what might be reasonable in what others are experiencing in the state. Um and so we're still below that state average as well. So that this is definitely an area of concern that we will uh work on this year and continue to work on. Um so what are our next steps? I had mentioned that all schools are updating their school improvement plans with this additional information. You know, we start each year with school plans. Um our school improvement plans are also our strategic plans that the schools do. Um any school that is labeled underperforming are currently sending the letters home to parents
055if they haven't already. A lot of them did it last week. um where we will be sharing improvement plans with the community for input and then those finalized plans, excuse [clears throat] me, will be presented to the board in January. The plan was they would come to you tonight, but when the state pushed off that rating, we weren't able to go to the public and we don't want to short shorten the time that this can go out to parents and let them have some input. So, um, districtwide, our focus is definitely on the new South Carolina mathematics standards, the curriculum alignment, and then the instructional strategies that we're using to support that. Um, also, uh, I was just talking about how we're focusing on multilingual learners in their language acquisition. We're taking a look at
056the delivery model that we currently have as well as general education teacher training because multilingual learners may have 30 minutes with a ML teacher but they're in the regular classroom all the other times. What other things are we doing and supports do we have in place? And then finally um our schools are beginning to identify the various subgroups that are showing that they need some improvement um by creating action plans to improve their performance. So last week we had um representatives from every school at a collaborative training with Lawrence 56 to start to look at our subgroups and identify um who are our students that um are in our subgroups and whether we're perform if they're performing close to their peers and if they're not what can we do differently to better help um them
057have the same level of achievement as their peers. So I talked a lot and I know it's a lot of information. So >> do we have a heart rating of where we are in the state? The state does not um publish a sum of I mean they publish a district report card but they do not rank you or give you an excellent um unsatisfactory for district. So they have not done a district level report card I mean rating they we have ratings on each one of those subgroups and that type of thing but I mean we would fall in different areas. Yeah. I understanding 1 2 3 4 5 >> um they they rate based on like number of points and that kind of stuff. I have not looked at that rating to see you
058know how number of points for each which we don't get points for um district report card. So um they will do some ratings for um different groups will do that rating but they have not actually done that through the state. >> Okay. Well last year we were complaining about being somewhere around 2530. Have we increased that? >> Um we were never 2530. I think last year whenever we looked at I you might be talking about school digger. Um, School Digger is a um, one of those that um, kind of rate based on the data that they get. So, they issued another um, rating back in September, which was before the report cards were um, pushed out. Last year, we were 63rd. This year, we're 61st. So, we >> 63rd. >> Yes, sir. So, we did
059improve two two, but not nearly as much as we did. And so, I don't know if they utilized all the data that was already released um, or that was going to be released from the state report card or not. Um, I know that there have been a lot of changes with budget cuts and teachers, but are we making sure that these schools that are below average that they're getting the support that they need? >> Um, so I do know that we did a lot of um kind of deciding, you know, do we keep teacher specialists, do we keep um instructional coaches, do we keep interventionists? And so we tried to balance that based on, you know, the needs and um trying to allow that. But do we have the level of tier three supports that
060we had? No. Um because we did cut some of those. So that's just something that we'll have to continue to look at as we move forward for those um lowest um performing students to see if there's additional supports we need to put in place. >> Yeah, we may need to go back to drawing board and look at that. >> Okay. One of the things I did notice in looking at um online at the state report card was the information related to inexperienced principles or teachers in underperforming or below average schools. And our numbers from what I can recall, I don't have it in front of me, went up in that area. Um, and there's criteria listed there, um, as far as what they consider inexperienced. Um, so >> I'm just pull I was just reading
061it off the state report card. So, I'm not sure what data we put in for them to make that decision. >> Yeah, I have to go back and pull that matrix >> summary. It's the school summary and the district summary. So, um but you know, I mean, we had a a first year principal who had the highest growth in the in the district um in their their school and then the second highest in the district um was another first year principal. So, you know, statistically, Lawrence Middle >> was a first year principal and had the highest growth in the in the district on the state report card. and then at great court was also a first year principal and they had the second highest growth along with the high school. So statistically like research- wise
062yes that is usually true and I just don't think that was the case here um in Lawrence 55 based on that that data. >> Well, if that is the case then I do think that's what the report card states though. So whatever we gave them, that's what it spit out >> that are >> that we experience level of our principles went down >> in the lower performing schools. Yes. >> Yeah, that would be true because at the time the Lawrence Middle would have been a labeled an underperforming school when they became the principal. So that might be where they're counting it. I can go back and check and where they're counting that from. Um, so if they were counting last year, then I would say yes, that's true. >> That makes sense. >> Right. So
063in 2425, an underperforming school had a first year principal at Lawrence Middle, but ended up with the highest growth. So next year, it won't say that, I think, because they'll be looking at at the 2025. >> I'll go back and check. >> Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? >> Thank you, Miss Lro. I appreciate your report. >> Thank you. >> Now, we'll move on to board operations. So, we've got two items from Dr. Penwood. >> Okay. So, the first one is um an update on administrative rule J A-R. You were sent this one in your packet. is for information only, but we have made one change um since you received your packet um so that we can just clarify a timeline. But this is the field trip one on the administrative rule. I'm just
064cleaning that up to match our admin I mean field trip form based on approvals of who has to approve the out of county out of state um trips if it's overnight. um putting some timelines in here for making sure that they have approval before they send it home to um the parents asking and telling them that they've already have it. Um including the information on sled checks and um the requirements for that information. Um if you look at um the teacher responsibility which is um page three um the last bullet um where it says in the event of any unusual circumstances occurring on the trip um we have put in there the teacher will call and report to administration and a written report will be um submitted the next day that they are returned to
065school. So if it is an overnight trip you know whenever they return to school they have one day um from returning to school there. So um that is the only additional change that we made in that section. So that one is for information only. Um the next um policy that you have in your packet is um actually referring to policy EF food services. Um that is one that we approved um second reading last month. But in that second reading it stated that we had to um come up with a resolution basically saying and stating that we would be um pro participating in C the community eligibility provision which provides um free lunch for all of our students. you will find the um resolution in your packet that um basically says that we will as a
066district be participating um with C. You also have listed there all of your um districts pupil and poverty index um which has forward at 89.8 EB 89.3 all the way to Hickor Tavern at 73. our district um C or actually our district pupils in poverty index is right at 79 um two or three which rounds to 80% um and um we would need board approval on this um resolution. >> Is this a resolution that we will need to do every year or is this a one-time resolution? This is a every year and this is an annual resolution that we would typically have done during the summer to participate for the school year but with the update from the policy just coming out from school boards association we went ahead and um just did this resolution
067after we approved the policy. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, so with that, um, if there's any questions or discussion, otherwise, if we could get a motion to approve the C resolution. >> I'll make a motion that we accept the C resolution. >> Second. >> Any questions or discussion? All those in favor of approving the C resolution related to policy EF, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? All right, it's approved. Thank you. >> All right, your next item on the agenda um will be our finance monthly finance report. Um if you turn to the cash flow page in your packet um you'll basically see that as of 10312025 the end of October we had 5,146,818 um dollars on hand with the treasur. um our general fund revenue and expenditure report. Um we had revenues
068of 14,28,13 with expenditures of 15,916, um783 with a difference of 1,888,680. Um you can see that we had a little bit higher revenue than last year and a little bit lower expenditures from last year. And so that's almost a million difference in revenue versus expenditures from um year to date last year. You can see our tax um collections as of 1031 um from we are 1,611,249 um dollars. Any questions on the cash flow statement? All right. Um next page you'll see budget to actual. This is your expenditure page. This is the one that has the pink and yellow highlights on it. We'll start with the pink and red highlights first. Um those are the areas that um as of 10:31 we should be at a goal remaining of 66 um 7% remaining um would be
069the goal is if everything um was kind of divided equally. You can see that there are a few that are under the 66 um% um which one being workers comp at 50%, we make two payments each year on that and so we've paid half of that already. The other half will come due in the spring. You also see um in the repairs and maintenance we're at 60% and a lot of that was beginning of the year um maintenance at the um that we were a little bit below there. You'll see um other purchase services at 390 um is at 58% that has a lot of the trash services included in there that we've already prepaid um for pickup and membership organization dues down at the bottom is at 37% and mostly those are one-time payments
070at the beginning of the year to become members and so that um does not feel like that's going to be um out of line for the year. um the tort liability insurance um that is a um 0% remaining um I am going to request in just a minute whenever we go into the budget amendment um to move some funding for that um to make that at a 0% um which would um be a $29,000 move um because of that included the um schisbbit insurance and also student insurance and we were 28,000 and something um short on that whenever we did our budget. Um so any questions on the expenditure the pink notations or the red notations >> the liability and tort insurance is that a one-time payment? >> Those are >> so once this transaction
071is made then yes ma'am we would have paid schis and for our um annual school student insurance. >> Okay. Um the last page in your um is your budget to actual revenue. You can see we've received 23% of our revenue for the year. Um and most most of those come in at different times throughout the year. And so don't really have a um true that's not a true 66% I mean a 33% of what we should have already received. Um but you can see where our revenue has been coming from and where we are with each one of those. I know a lot of um local funding will be coming in now because everybody's received their tax notices and they'll start paying um November, December, and January. So, those will be our um biggest tax.
072>> Well, we're looking for a FEMA reimbursement. >> Um FEMA reimbursement, we have gotten part of that, but we have not received all of that yet. Um and I was trying to see if that was in here. I know we've received some of it, but we have not received it all. >> I don't see anything. >> What line item would that hit to? >> Um, it would be an insurance. Um, I'll have to get with um Brian on that one or Debbie to make sure that I let y'all know that one. >> All right. Any other questions about the revenue expenditure monthly financial statements? >> Yes sir. Um that job has been posted and so um it was posted um end of last week, first part of this week or end of last week sometime
073and so um hopefully interview in the next week or two or right shortly after Thanksgiving. All right. So now I'll go into the um budget amendment um request. If you go back to your budget to actual comparison um based on board policy um I'm allowed to make transfers within the same um let me find this um function but would need um authority to change that to um different um fund I mean a function object codes and so um these would be object code amendments. It is a zerobased um budget amendment. Um and most of these the top um yellow lines that you see there are um changes from a salaried person that we have hired in house versus changing and swapping over to a contracted service person. So you can see that that's why you
074have the 100s and 200s which 100s are salaries, 200s are benefits. swapping over to 300s, which would be student services and instructional services. Um, both of those would be um contracted services. So, you can see up top we're making those swaps from a hired person through our own department versus having to contract with them. And then at the bottom you can see that um the 29,000 to cover the tort insurance that is actually coming out of a 690 other object where we had a little bit of reserve um for things that would come up and that 690 covers um drug testing, academic um athletic supplies, accreditation, driver physicals, and also had a little bit of reserve in that. So that's how we're able to move that 29,000 there. um that would need a an approval
075for an amendment to the budget, but like I said, it's a zerobased um amendment um to just swap from um object code to object code. >> Okay. Based on the information in front of us under the budget to actual comparison, um Dr. Pendle is speaking specifically regarding those line items that are highlighted in yellow and it list as the November amendment. Um, if we could get a motion. >> Yeah, I'll make a motion that we approve the budget amendments as outlined. >> Second. >> Any further questions or discussion? >> All those in favor of approving the budget amendment that is outlined in our packet. Please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Thank you. The motion carries. Okay. And uh Miss Brandon, just to confirm, we had no public participation. >> That's correct. >>
076Okay. So, at this time with no public participation, it's time to move into executive session. If we could get a motion for that, please. >> I'll make move in executive session. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor of moving into executive session, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> I'd request Dr. Harrison, Miss Magna, join us. Thank you. Sure. Okay, it's Oh my gosh, it's 9:27. >> Uh, >> I'll call us back into order. Um Um, okay. We actually have a few things to handle from executive session. Um the first order of business, we do have some certified contract employee uh certified contracts and retirement list that we need to approve. If we could get a motion for that move, >> you Mr. Carpenter. >> Thank you. Any questions,
077discussions? All those in favor of approving the certified employee contract list and the retirement list that we were provided, please say I. I >> any opposed? >> All right, those are approved. Um the next order of business would be the superintendent's annual evaluation and we completed his evaluation and we came up with an evaluation of minimally effective and at this point we will be um maintaining his contract and his salary just as it is. and we look forward to the next year and the improvements and the um momentum that we're going to carry on in the district because we know that Dr. Pinley can do it. So, we appreciate everything you do and um that's it. Anybody have anything to add? >> Yeah, I just I'll just acknowledge too it's been a tough year. >>
078I mean, can always say that there's some un >> um circumstances that were we could have never predicted and I know that's it's been tough. There's a lot of things to learn, a lot of things to grow, and I'm I'm confident in Dr. Pendlean, the staff, our teachers that we're going to get this thing turned around and and it's I'm hoping that this time next year, there's going to be a very different outlook. >> Absolutely. >> Counting on it. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank everyone. And with no further business on our agenda, I will adjourn us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you very