001Okay, it is now 6:30 and I will call our meeting to order. And just like over the last several meetings, we have been going around and stating a tell me something good. So Chip, you want to start? just throw me right in the bus. Um, something good. I'm loving the weather that we're having. This opportunity to go outside and just work in the yard and just It's been great just instead of being stuck inside just enjoying the weather outside. You can you can include that. You can copy. Yeah, it's my time of the year. Um, mine tonight is that we went to or I had the opportunity to go to the tennis match this last week where our boys won region champs. Now, you stole that one because you know I have a son that's
002on that team. Thanks. Well, shame on you for not using it. You did throw this right out at me here. All right. Who's next? I'll go. Um, excited to be able to recognize some students tonight. you know, the successes that we have for um just being able to share with our junior scholars, Marissa, our design for um STEM logo and our robotics team. So, it'll be exciting to share some excitement with them in just a few minutes. And for me, my health is great today. I feel good. Fantastic. Um fantastic. Oh, mine is it is April. It's also autism awareness month. Um I apologize for my voice. I'm fighting some type of cold. I was going to read a poem um highlighting kids with autism, but Kathy is going to read that for me tonight.
003So, the poem is just titled in titled Autism. I don't want to stand out. I just want to fit in. Yet, this world I'm surrounded in makes my brain spin. It might seem that I'm different, but I'm just the same. The way my brain works isn't a shame. Sometimes I seem naughty, yet I want to be good. But most of the time I feel misunderstood. I don't want to cause trouble or cause people pain. I can't help how I think or what stirs in my brain. Some sounds seem loud to me, but not you. Sometimes I seek touch to make sense of what's new. Sometimes I feel, sometimes I like to feel, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I speak, yet sometimes I won't. Sometimes I seek. Sometimes I hide. Sometimes I can't help what's on
004the inside. I might notice the details that most people don't see. I might say things I shouldn't and you might not agree. I might notice when people are being insincere. I might tell them things they don't want to hear. I might be autistic, but I want you to see I'm living in a world it's hard for me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing that, Heather. Mr. Carpenter. God is still in control. That's exactly right. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. I like the weather and the crab is bite. Who's biting? The crab. Oh. Oh, Lord. Okay. Um, thank you all and welcome to everyone that's with us tonight. 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 tonight. We
005will need approval of the agenda if we could have a motion. I'll make a motion that we approve the agenda. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. Any opposed? The agenda's approved. Um, and I've already welcomed everyone tonight. Thank you for being here. And I know we have a lot of people to recognize, so we'll get to that in just a moment. But now the student body president of the LDHS, Mr. Walt Addie, is going to lead us in our pledge of allegiance. Attention. Salute. Pledge. I pledge algiance 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, Walt. And now, Mr. Jenkins,
006if you would lead us in prayer. I'd be glad to, Miss Pal. Our gracious father, we're thankful for the opportunity for us to gather here in this place. We pray for the decisions that need this board needs to be made that you'll provide us insight and wisdom so we can make a decision that glorifies you, glorifies this district and helps to carry the district uh to the place where it needs to be. Thankful for this opportunity and ask you continue to bless this evening. In your son's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. And now we will need approval for our minutes from the March 24th work session and board meeting. I make a motion that we approve the minutes for the work session and board meeting for March 24th 25. I'll second. Thank you.
007Is there any discussion? All those in favor of approving our minutes for the March 24th work session and board meeting, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. The minutes are approved. And now we're going to go into our report for Mr. Lewis Compton with LDHS. Good evening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and visit with you tonight. Uh it it's really a pleasure and it's an honor to be here uh to report about the things going on at Lawrence High School. Uh Miss Little, Dr. Penland, thank you. And board members, thank y'all for giving us the opportunity to be here to just share a few things going on. There's a lot there's a lot that goes on up there. Uh and I couldn't with all the stuff y'all got going on
008tonight. and I'm going to make it as brief as I can, but I do want to share some of the positive things going on because I'm very proud of what we do. I'm excited about what we're doing. Um, and one thing I say is we don't get it right every day, but every day we do our best to get it right. And so, I think that just putting forth that effort each day, I'm proud of our teachers. They do a tremendous job. They work hard. uh and and and dealing with young people, you know, uh dealing with our young people of our community, they love them, they care for them. Uh and it's not an easy job being a teacher, it's a it's a tough job. It's a tough job every day because I tell
009them when you shut those doors, that's when the magic happens. And and and they go in and they they do that every day. And I'm very proud of our teachers. I'm very proud of our admin team that we have. I've got a great admin team that works with me. uh they make my job easier because of what they do. They they know they have roles, they play those roles, and everybody works as a team. Uh and so again, I thank you for giving us that opportunity to have that those staff members and to uh allow us to work and continue to grow our students of Lawrence County of Lawrence and Lawrence County because we want them to be the best. We want them to shine the best. Uh and we're going to continue to get
010there. We may not be exactly where we want to be right now, but we're going to keep working to get there. So, let me just share a few things that we have going on at Lawrence High School. Again, building on Dr. Penn's, you know, our five-star culture. There we go. Uh, our mission is at Lawrence High School is to graduate our students and equip them with the tools necessary to be successful in life. And again, I commit. We want to commit to being present, positive, productive, patient, and professional. I know you probably heard every school talk about this, but we talk about this in our meetings. We continue to have this in our forethought of what we're trying to do for our students. Uh our goals for this year with our our improvement plan, continuous
011improvement plan, is to create a positive school culture and climate. And that's something that's not going to go away while I'm there. that's going to be there every year. That's something I want to continue to build not only in our students but in our staff and allow that to permeate out into the community because that's where we want all of us pulling together is staff and students and community being being one. 6% growth in our EOC and 6% growth in CCR. Now that's not if you're if you are the age of not Credence Clearwater Revival. Uh that's our college career readiness and that is a part of our report card. And so that that is a those 6% marks are fairly aggressive. Miss Lacaro sitting right behind me has helped to instill those aggressive growth
012marks. Uh so I I'll give her kudos for that. But it is uh they are aggressive growth marks. Uh and some we want to achieve and some some we're going not not get there this year, but we're going to still keep aiming for that. Uh building a positive culture every day. We want to celebrate our students. We want to celebrate the things that they're doing. Um and and one of the things is important is to making connections with our young people. I think in today's age of our young people is relationships are very important. I think that's something that we all covet and and that's something that they need and and we all can build on that and building those relationships with our students uh to further our culture. just some of the things going
013on around our school, not only with our relationship with our teachers, I mean with our students, but also with our teachers to create a good working environment. We want our teachers to come to work that wants to be there. We want it to be a good place for work and we've had different incentives throughout this year. Uh the one in the middle we was a was during spirit week and and those are the three blind mice. Uh and we had the Halloween cart. Got Coach Porter there getting some snacks off our Halloween cart. And so different things throughout the year to celebrate our teachers to bring that positive culture into the classroom. Again, we must at all times unfortunately in this day and age is safety and that's something that we take serious every day,
014every single day come to work and we all feel the need of making sure that our students are safe. Uh Mr. Walker, one of our assistant principles, he does a tremendous job of ensuring that uh our school is safe. Uh and so he keeps that in our for in our forefront. One of the things that we've started this year is habitudes. This is a positive relationship during our advisory period. We partnered with the John Maxwell Institute at the state department. We're one of few across the state that's had the opportunity to bring this program into a school just to developing positive relationships, a higher a higher quality instruction. Again, this is very similar to what we've done last year. We want to continue to do this even through this year and going forward next year
015is working with our uh NIT partners uh through our clusters. And I know that with the grant some of that dynamics might shift a little bit, but we're not walking away and we're not leaving the NIT the foundation, the teaching and excellence. That that's something that I believe in personally. I believe it brings good uh quality instruction to the classroom. So, we're staying with it. uh being able to have those professional leadership support and opportunities through our clusters this year and going forward next year to be able to um continue to build on what our teachers have learned this year and continue to build that through next year. One of the things and I I may mention a little bit later on is one of the things that I'm really excited about next year is
016our PLC's. We have able to put together a master schedule that has each department. Last year we worked on getting EOC teachers together like US history or algebra 1, English 2, getting those teachers together. Now we have for next year we have departments that's going to have similar or planning periods. So we'll be able to put departments together to work together to develop their curriculum and develop instruction and just to bounce ideas off each other that you're not isolated and everybody can sort of pull together. again putting together those common assessments where students uh we can sort of see across you know not only in my classroom but in other classrooms how our students are doing with the same assessment to get some better data there. Uh okay our teachers and support staff of the
017year Mr. Jawan Stevens was our teacher of the year. Uh he's also one of our football coaches and track uh head coach. So coaches do make good teachers. Uh, and I always believe that. So, coach and he does a great job with our in our special ed department. Uh, and and just really I'm just really proud of of coach Stevens because I coached him uh when he was playing football there. So, it's I really was proud this year that he was chosen as our teacher of the year and Miss JJ Richie with our support staff. She also does a tremendous job uh in our in our school. Uh going back to our high quality instruction, uh this year we have seniors to be completers in the CTE programs and just take a quick look there.
018You can see some of the numbers. You notice that health science is one of our biggest CTE programs. It continues to be strong every year. Uh Miss Gibbs who is here with the robotics and she's in the audience I think behind me somewhere. uh she has been a part of this program for a number of years and does a does just a really really good job of encouraging our students and getting our students uh prepared for life uh in the medical field. Our EOCC trend data um I'm just going to point out the obvious and as you look at it and algebra one I I put it on the front first row for a purpose. I didn't hide it in there somewhere. I wanted you to see it and that's obvious that it's not what
019we wanted. And just to sort of give you a little bit of explanation of why that is. Uh this is a transition year in math. The math standards are changing for next year. Um, algebra 1 will be a 10th grade level course next year, but for us at Lawrence High School, it's really going to be a two-year trans trans uh a two-year process because next year we'll have our ninth graders coming in taking geometry and our students that were this year, they'll also be taking geometry. And so many of these students, we had a small smaller group of students taking our algebra 1 EOCC this year. And some of those were ma students that maybe had struggled or had had uh were having to repeat that math. So our scores were a little bit lower
020in the fall. We still have our spring scores to go, but to give also give an opportunity. So many of our students will take algebra one two years from now and that'll give them two years to grow and develop math skills. So hopefully this will be sort of planting seeds and see it growth in the future. Again, we're going to continue with our 4.0 rubric. Providing professional training and learning for our teachers. Uh the common plannings by department is one of the things I'm most excited about next year as far as giving our teachers an opportunity to work together once a week to plan uh and to to develop their ideas together for in the classroom instruction. Again, we had lots of points of data, but one of the biggest points that we look at
021as a high school is graduation and continuing to move forward that as a measure of success. Again, we had our seventh annual winter commencement ceremony. Uh this has grown from six to 65 this past year. So, this continues to grow uh and be a program where students can take advantage of if they want to get into the workforce earlier. our dual enrollment 153 students in dual enrollment includes middle college. Um also we had one student in the 2 by two program which we pedmont tech and and uh Presbyterian College partnered with uh to graduate from that program and finishing that. Our student achievement we had 73 students this year to score 30 or higher on the ASVAB. I don't know if any of you took ASVAB when you were in school. I did uh the
022armed service vocational aptitude battery test. Um we have to make sure that students understand this is not you're not signing up for the military but it does give a very good indicator of maybe your career readiness but what we use it for is very important for our report card is if we can get students to score 30 or above it gets them into that CCR the college and career readiness u and that is a positive thing on our report card. So this is going to have an impact on our report card this year that we've been able to get this number this many students with a 30 or higher because many of these students were not CCR and this will get them CCR and we have a positive impact on our school report card. academic
023letters. Uh 320 students received academic letters. And this year we had a we had a we restarted our beta club with 104 students in grades 9 through uh 10. And just below the curtain, you can't see, but the National Honors Society had 38 members this year, and we're going to induct 21 more sophomores on Thursday. So that that continues to grow. Uh, one thing I've noticed there that I noted that we had 513 students as of last of two weeks ago with a GPA of 3.8 or higher. That's over a third of our student population. I think that that lends itself that was very positive when that was shared with me about the number of our students with a 3.8 or higher GPA. some of our student achievements. One of the first achievement that we
024have up there is something that is we made it up. The good Samaritan award and we had two students this year, Molly Molly Egleston and Braden Yarbor. They came to the aid of a former Raider student that was injured. He had cut his arm with a saw blade on a weed eater some kind of way. had cut the artery in his arm was at brother's gas station right above the high school and was bleeding profusely and when he had cut that artery they applied a tourniquet that they had learned and I don't want to say saved his life he said and that's his picture there in the middle with them he said it saved his life now I I'm not a doctor I don't know but I was so proud of those two students that
025had taken something they had learned and saved this man or at least helped him in a very critical situation. So, we awarded them the Good Samaritan Award and I thought that fit perfectly. Uh, as you can see, our orchestra, our band, our sporting clays team and our anglers all have been very successful this year. We have three of our fishing anglers that will be competing in the national championships of the different respective divisions of BASS and FLW. Our orchestra has done well with excellent rating. And our student council will receive the National Gold Council of Excellence. Um, and I was just very proud of the work they do is as the Walk Daddy right behind us is part of that. And they do a lot of work at Lawrence High School. They do a lot
026of work for culture, for our students, uh, pep rallies and the different activities they do throughout school. And they put in a lot of time, and I appreciate what all they do. Our FFA continues to be strong. We've had a number of students that received uh awards this year. Uh Allison Juel was our agricultural member of the year. Nate Campbell was a horicultural student of the year. Uh very strong in our program. And the last one is our state winner was our SCAE. This is our partnership with young farmers uh with adult ed. And so continuing this educational process postsecary. As we move to athletics, uh we've had a a successful year in athletics this year. Uh wrestling, if you follow that, went to the went to the state championship there this year and very
027narrowly by one point. Lost in the state championship, which we were all cheering very hardly for and but we were just so proud of what they did. Our boys tennis team won the region championship for the very first time in school history. And so I thought that would that was then I was we were there to be a part of that uh and to feel like you're part of history to being the first first group to win the boys tennis team who begins the playoffs tomorrow and we look forward to them being successful and hopefully I don't want to jinx them but we look forward for several rounds in the playoffs and and hopefully go as far as they can. One quick note, uh Tommy Spire is our athletic director and I cannot thank him
028enough for the job that he does with our athletic programs. Quick stat here. We've had 445 athletic events so far this year. Of the 445, and this was last Thursday, and there's more adding to it right now while we're speaking there, we have events going on. Of the 445, 195 were home events. That's more than we have school days. And if we don't think athletics impacts our students and our community in a very big way, I think these numbers lend itself to that. Uh that athletics is is I like to call it the magic triangle. Academics, arts, and athletics. We want those three to be strong in a high school and we want the best and they all play a part and they all are important in our in our students and in our children's
029lives. Our playoff qualifiers, uh we've had 10 teams qualify. We're counting on baseball and softball. I went and put those up because I know baseball's in and confident softball will be in. Our student athletes, uh, we've had 29 student athletes to earn all region honors with more coming in the spring. We will definitely have adding to that number with spring sports and spring athletes. So, that has been a a blessing this year. All state uh with Sakari Davenport in volleyball. our tennis and cross country. Our wrestling team had quite a number of all region athletes. Dakota McCall was a 2005 state champion in his wrestling class individual, the first time since 1974. Uh state champion and then uh coach Lawson Jordan was our region coach of the year. Our basketball We had three boys that
030were all region. Coach Flood was the all was the all region coach of the year. They had a very successful season. In our girls basketball, Zoe Young was all region. She was all state and she was the MVP of the North South All-Star game. So, we're very proud of Zoe and all she accomplished. And Nyrie Allen was also in all region. picture of our wrestling team uh when they clinched our region championship at the high school and then our tennis team clinching the first ever 4A region championship at Lawrence. So, we're very proud of all of our teams and all of our athletes and the work they put in. They put in a lot of work and it is a year round sports is year round now. Um, it's not just in season, it's year
031round and our coaches uh and our athletes put in a lot of time with our student athletes and develop those relationships with them. Congratulations. Also, and you just in a moment, you're going to see our robotics team. They're going to have some of their wares on display and be recognized. Um, if you if you've never been to a robotics competition, I went to in Anderson this year and Dr. pilling out and to see this little machine they're going to bring in on this truck run around the the the court doing its thing of picking up balls and shooting them in holes and canisters and all kind of things that it does. It's unbelievable how fast it I don't see how it operates that fast. Even the controller to run it is just amazing. So, it's
032it's it's from engineering to video game control. It's got it all. Uh, and it's a lot of fun to watch those guys and and they do a great job. As educators, we don't just teach subjects, we shape futures. Every child who walks through our doors deserves to be deserves to feel seen, heard, empowered to reach their full potential. I believe that. I believe that's what we have to do for our students and that's what we're trying to do every day. And as I said earlier, we don't get it right every day, but every day we make our best effort to get it right. I've got a very short video that I want you to just see some scenes around Lawrence High School and and I I'll stop and then I'll turn it over to Dr.
033Penland and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer those. Does anybody have any questions? Thank you, Coach Compton. I appreciate that. Thank you all very much. And now we have recognition of student success. And we have quite a few to uh get to tonight. So, I'll turn it over to Dr. Penland. Um, Danny, you have my slides. Right. Yep. That one. So, okay. So, um first we'll recognize Marissa George. She was a um high schooler and she in her digital art three course during the fall. there was a competition that we put out for um to be able to design our steam on the square um logo and this is what she designed and she was selected as the design winner. So, if we can have Marissa George to come up and
034um accept her um certificate for successfully winning our Steam on the Square um logo [Applause] design. Next, we'll um recognize our South Carolina Junior Scholars. The South Carolina Junior Scholar Program was developed by South Carolina uh Department of Education during the 8586 school year to pro um to identify and provide the needs of POS showing that the students possessing exceptional academic talent. The purpose of the program is to identify these students and to provide opportunities that will facilitate their intellectual growth, broaden their individual interest, and promote their scholastic achievement. Students must be enrolled in the eighth grade in a public, private, or home school in South Carolina. And these students also scored either a 550 or higher on the PSAT um writing or evidence-based reading and writing or a 530 or higher on the math
035subset of PSAT. And so now we'll recognize our junior scholars and I'll whenever I call your name, come up and get your certificate and stay up for a picture. We have Emma McGa from Greycord Owens. [Applause] Cadence Glenn Hickory Tavern. Christian Hart from Hickor Tavern. [Applause] Carolyn Reid from Hickor [Applause] Tavern. John Field or JP from Lawrence Middle School. Carly Hannah from Lawrence Middle School. [Applause] Carson Hawkins from Lawrence Middle [Applause] School. James Hayden from Lawrence Middle School. [Applause] Olivia Peninszi from Sanders and Chloe Roel from Sanders [Applause] Middle. So, we're very proud of all of our students that um scored so high on their PSAT and all four of our middle schools are represented. So, congratulations to all four of our schools and um please give them another round of applause. How did you
036Get out. Thank you. Next, we'll recognize our Robots Garage 4451 who had an amazing season this year. Robots Garage is a proud first South Carolina district member. Mentor Mike Bryan founded it with the Vawren High School in 2013. In 2023, the team expanded to include students from Fountain High School, creating a dynamic dual school collaboration. In 2025, the season highlights are overall record of 53 15 and one. They were ranked number one in South Carolina out of 34 district or 34 schools. They were a two-time innovation and control award winner. They were an autonomous award winner at the state championship. They're playoff champions at Hartsville and North Charleston events. They're again the state champion winner. They're world champion qualifier. D the Dolly division with a um round five finish in third place. Mentor David Alred
037was recognized as the Woody Flowers finalist award winner. And the stat bots rankings again have them first in South Carolina out of 34, 148th out of 2,927. And in the world they were 181st out of 3,690. So again, congratulations to the robots garage. This journey wouldn't be possible without the incredible support of their sponsors. Bosch Rex Roth Michelin Lawrence Proving Grounds, Lawrence County Water and Sewer, Palmeta Air Solution, Promac Pharma Solutions, Stuken First, South Carolina, and both high schools, Lawrence and Fountain and High. And also as we recognize the adults tonight, um this is um would not been have been possible without the huge support of their mentors and an awesome set of adults that support them. So we will um did y'all want to demo anything or y'all just have it for Okay. All
038right. It's it's showing show and show, right? I think it's worth pointing out. Don't make the same mistake I did. I thought the whole thing was the robot, but this is the cart and the robot sitting on top of the cart. Yep. The robot starts at the red 4451. I was intrigued by the cart. I mean, this is how simple minded I am. Yeah, it's very clever. Yes. But y'all need to find some videos of this thing work. It is amazing. It is amazing to watch. Congratulations everybody. Um everything that they do and you can kind of see on the screen a little bit of the course that they um have. Um this year their um task was to be able to um take PVC pipe and actually put it on the um the kind
039of the purple um kind of it was a kind of a nautical theme. Um so they were a reef. So they were actually supposed to be able to put that on um that device at four different levels to actually lay it in or actually be able to ring those. and they were very quick and were very successful at um being able to lift those pieces up and get them all the way on the top. And then also they had the balls there that they had to put up in the um reef area too. So that was um very good um to watch and very fun to watch um actually in person and while they were competing at worlds. So, we'll now um acknowledge our um students um for the robots garage F FRC 4451 and
040again they're 181st out of the world out of 3,690. So we'll have Coleman Alexander from Fountain In, Lewis Aras from Fountain In, Jace Back from Fountain in Caleb Callahan Fountain in Destiny Collins from Lawrence High School, Destiny Cook from Lawrence High School, Thomas Crane Kay from Lawrence High School. Kate and Ruffer from Fountain In. Caleb Giri from Fountain In. Cole Gibbs from Fountain In. Balen Harland from Lawrence High School. Devin Hill from Lawrence High School. Joshua Jenkins Bellows from Fountain In. Payton Lzroof from Fountain In. Zachary Melton, Lawrence High School, Joseph Alexander from Fountain In. William Nores from Fountain In. Charleston Nordes from Fountain In. Ethan Patterson, Lawrence High School. Lane Sanchez, fountain in. Maddox Scott, fountain in. Ian Seranchi, [Music] sorry from Lawrence High School. Quinton Small, Fountain in Noah Smith, Lawrence High School.
041Benjamin Strait, Fountain In, and Jay Williams from Lawrence High School. Now, for our adults that are um present with us today, Michelle Gibbs, she's the team mom. Jeremy Gibbs, David Alred, Marty James, Gracie Ashley, Rob Sheffield, and Willis Long, the team photographer. Did I miss anybody that showed up? Joseph Thcker. Yep. Sorry. All right. Will you everybody give them a huge round of applause? And y'all have done amazing job getting everybody in a picture before so y'all know how to hop on the floor and everything. So, back it up a little bit. So, while you're doing that, who gets to take it home with him now that the season's over? I wanted to vacuum my house. [Applause] cheer bond. Do what they can make up. Yeah, they do. They come out and shop a while.
042hard work. Okay. Um, now we do have an early executive session on our agenda. So, um, as we approve to move to this executive session, anyone that is here that will be attending that exe executive session, if you would please go out the back door and meet Officer Richardson in the hallway and he will escort you to the conference room that we will be in. Okay. Um, and if we could get a motion to end, I'll make a motion going into second session. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right, we're moving to executive session. Are we ready? We are back in open session. Uh we do not have any any um action to take from that executive session. And so now we'll move straight
043into the superintendence report. So Dr. Pendler. Yep. So, um just very quickly, I wanted to um kind of share some highlights. We did have steam on the square. Um just wanted to kind of share some um pictures with you on that. We had a great um showing. We had several people um out there, a lot of um student participation. They were able to do artwork um there with one of the vendors. We also had art on display at the museum um to where that was actually displayed upstairs. We also had the core I mean the strings um with each one of the school strings performances happening and then all um five schools um perform together and we had over 400 people upstairs in the museum. So it was a great um presentation. We also had
044um several of our bands um present on the square and had a great day of everything. We also had um also had animals um on the square so I got to hold the snake and but I wanted to give a shout out to the teaching learning department and everything they did to make that happen um with um their department there. So did the screen go away? Okay. All right. Um also want to um do a shout out on our district math challenge. We had that here last Friday. We had third grade won by um Hickor Tavern, fourth grade Lawrence Elementary, fifth grade Greycourt. Um we had about 75 students here um competing on their math challenge and their math facts and speed. And so um it was really great to see those students um really
045diving into and their knowledge around their math facts and then some fraction work that they had to do there. Um so we had a great day. Um it was um very exciting to see all their excitement there. Um we have already mentioned that this month we're celebrating and um acknowledging the autism awareness month. On um Wednesday we'll be doing a purple out for or purple up for military kids. Um that'll be celebrating the month of the military child. Um, we also had NIT video series happening at Hickory Tavern over the um, last week where they were um, requested to be a showcase for um, NIT and to be able to update several of their videos that they use for the 4.0 rubric through our state and also um, their national support system. So, Hickory Tavern
046will be showcased on theirs. Um, did also want to just mention we already did a shout out about the um, tennis team. will have um first round of playoffs tomorrow at 5:00 pm at the high school. Um did want to do a personal shout out for our um Clay Crushers team, our Raiders um our sporting clay um shotgun team that um they competed this past weekend. Um we had several we had I think eight of our 11 make it to state. Um and then um these three actually came in third um which is their middle school um team um intermediate advanced team and they placed um third out of um I think it was 25 teams um throughout the state. Um this um event has about 700 shooters on site whenever they in your packet
047you have the calendar. I think several of you have already found that. Um, but this was just some highlights of the we've been trying to compile and condense a list of all the events that are happening over the last next couple of months. So, I think you have now until August. We'll be updating those as we add dates um to that system. Um, we go into the calendar. Any questions about the update? All right. Um for the calendar we have um we did push out a uh school calendar survey. Um you have in your packet the survey results. Um we asked about the feedback if they wanted to include um inter session dates. I do have an updated um packet that um what you received was on 350 um responses and um it was pushed
048back out this afternoon. Um from um the update we had another 120 um responses um come in today um for this survey. Um you can see the percentages whenever on the left hand side was the 350 responses. Whenever you're looking at the responses for do they want um or are they okay with the inclusion of inter session not intercession days early release days um to be able to provide professional development and the percentages by parents and guardians. So you can see over the um course of today all the percentages actually went up that they were okay with it. So 82 to 83, 72 to 74, other went up from 81 to 82 and then the grand total 79 to 80%. Um we are proposing two change I mean several changes um to the current um
049calendar um for the 2526 calendar and I'm going to try to get to those. So the 2526 calendar, the one that you've already approved last year. Um there were some changes that we wanted to make to um the beginning of the school year um due to the state requesting that or the probable passing of the EAA educator uh accountability act or assistance act or something like that. um where they're going to request that the teachers have two full days um of work in their classroom versus professional development or be tied up for anything else. Um that includes being tied up with um open house, anything like that. So we did want to um go through there. We have met with Lawrence 56. We had representations from every school there and um which went from administrative
050assistants to um principles to teachers to instructional coaches, APS um all um served on um this calendar committee. So that was one change. Um the change also to bring u makeup days inside the calendar for the November dates. um also the change in April and I mean March and April to um kind of fix the beginning of the year and then move the makeup days out of June um into the school year. Um so those are the proposed um calendars for the 2526 um no change 2526 2526 it's not 2024 anymore 2526 changes for next year and we also have the calendar for the 2627 school year. So, we'll take those in different um votes, but we'll need to um or we requesting approval on both of those. I have a question. Let Oh, may
051I say something first? Can we can we address our calendars in order that they are on the agenda so we can follow? So, first up would be the 26 27 school calendar. Can we address that one? Sure. First. Okay. So, I'm sorry. I just my question was this is just a recommendation from the department of education the department of education. Sorry it's late. The department of education to move those into the middle of the school year versus them being at the end. It is not a requirement. Correct. They want you to make up the days as close as possible to the days you miss them. Um, so that's why they've asked for them to be built into the school year. Um, it's not that they'll kick your calendar out if you don't. Okay. Um, um,
052and so that's kind of the kind of the guidance that we provided the calendar committees between Lawrence and Clinton. Um, there's about 20 of us there that um, came up with these recommendations and these changes. So the starting with the 2520 Sorry, 26 27 calendar. Um, that's based on those same recommendations. Is 56 potentially going with something? We do a we do a um joint calendar. Okay. Yep. So, they're they're taking theirs to the board um today, too. Okay. Well, we do a joint calendar, but then they decided not to go back to school on April 21st. What was that all about? They they chose to make up different um days. they had an additional day to make up. So, I think they chose to extend school days. I don't know exactly what they did
053um versus um doing a makeup day or utilizing the makeup day. Okay. I um would like to request that this 26 27 calendar be tabled till next month because the calendar that was presented in the survey does not match up to the calendar that's presented to the board right now. Okay. And I think the differences that we discussed were that the um early release days were not included in the 26 27 online calendar. Correct. Yes. Okay. But that to me portrays to the people that took the survey that they weren't they're not going to be in there. And now we're being asked to approve a calendar that has them in there. Okay. Would you like to make a motion? I would like to make a motion unless somebody else has something else to discuss. Then
054I make a motion that we table the 2627 school calendar to next month. I'll second. Any questions or concerns? Did you want to redo the survey? I I'm You know what? I feel like we're put something out there that's not true and you're want us to vote on it. I I think the mentality that we went from with it being an 80 to 82% um approval rate of um early release days on the upcoming calendar that that could be extended to the following calendar calendar. And that was an assumption that um we made and that may um if y'all don't feel comfortable with that, we can definitely table and either do an additional survey or um go back to the committee. I also don't feel that the survey portrays the entire you got well let's
055just look at it. You got 238 parents that took this survey where you got five almost 5,000 students saying that 80s something percent agreed to this. That is nowhere near the amount of students and parents in this district. Now, how you get them to take the survey, I don't know. But in a personal outlook on having a half day on a Tuesday, I can see where that could be extremely inconvenient to probably the majority of parents in this school district, especially for younger children. With younger children, they have to take off pretty much a whole day of work in the middle of the week to get their children or to take care of them when the bus brings them home. And I don't think that's right. Um, so I have a question. Under teachers, it
056doesn't Why don't we have a 100% participation for our teachers? We push it out and they choose to take it or not. So, okay. Any additional questions regarding Miss Kit's motion? Okay. So the motion on the table is to table the 2627 school calendar until next month. All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? Okay. So we will table the 2627 school calendar. Okay. So going into the changes for 2526. Um those were the ones I ran through earlier. Um the committee did recommend that we make those changes and tweak those and the survey did also address the early release days for 2526. Okay, here's my question. So you you put up some changes a minute ago. Those aren't listed here in our packet. So I just want to make sure I understand the
057changes. We've got currently approved proposed changes for beginning of the school year. There was kind of a date in the middle there and Thanksgiving. Um, so were these early release days on Tuesdays already in this calendar? No, that would be the that's why it was requested in the survey to say if we made the changes, would you be um okay with that and 81% said they would be. Um so that's the um that question reflective of the current and proposed or are they and I'm not yes I mean they are not the those are not all the changes is what you're saying. So we did this as two different survey questions. Would you be willing to accept the um the changes for the calendar and then would how would you feel about early release days?
058And so that was two separate questions for um on the calendar survey. Um so whenever we're looking at the calendar survey, you can look at that as two separate things. So yes, they were fine with those changes. Um and 81% are fine with the um All right. The the calendar that I'm looking at, I don't even see any early release days on Tuesdays. They're actually in colored red versus orange. The colors didn't get colored correctly. It's red. Yep. So, it's um they're not supposed to be red. They're supposed to be orange. They're kind of the orangeest red. Um let me see if I can get orangeyish red. Mine are just red. September. On your computer, they are red. Yeah, on the computer they're um orange. So September 9th is red on your calendar, but it's
059um orange on this one. And then also the um two days end of January, first part of March, November. Okay. Is there any further discussion regarding the 2526 modified calendar? I would go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Um I would um the I would like to explain the reasoning for the request for early release dates whenever we're looking at the um amount of professional development that needs to be done with new math standards. We also have um and we put them on Tuesdays because that is typically the day when teachers have their teachers meetings and so they're already kind of expected to stay till 4:00 or 4:30 based on um the expectations in the school. They don't have to stay every um Tuesday by any means, but this would allow for the 2-hour block of
060time for early dismissal and also an hour for teachers meeting to give a three-hour block of time. um we have very limited um times throughout the year that we can get all grade level teachers together. So this would be ideal for us to be able to have um time for all first grade teachers across the district to meet um where we may not have that throughout the school year. Um but also kind of looking at that. So um we would not feel like we could keep teachers till 4:30 on a Friday if we did bump those to Friday. Um so that was the reason for the request for Tuesdays because you already have an hour window um built in for um expected to stay for teacher meetings. So the expectation here is that you're not
061going to have a teachers meeting those days. You're going to go into a threeh hour you would have a three-hour block of professional development time before early release days. How was it doing? Um well now having to move one of the additional days up to the front for pro I mean for teacher work days. Um we're now required through the EAA to now only limit professional development days to four days um than they have for um days that can be tied up with um kind of open houses, parent meetings um you know report card meetings, that kind of stuff with um two days required to open school that they are unencumbered. So um based on the moves and shifts that the state is making, you also have that um we have looked at doing some
062virtual and all one grade at one time um with some um things that we've done on Tuesday afternoons that all first grade teachers log into um the same room and have some discussion there. So, um, that's kind of where we're headed to be able to provide, um, more supports and more training for our teachers that are more specific to grade levels. Other than 56, are there any surrounding districts that offer early release dates as well that you know of? Um, I know several have over the course of the years. I don't know who's got them built in. Okay. I'm right now. So instead of doing it on a Tuesday, could you not do it on a Friday and just have early early release at three and a half hours early instead of two and a
063half? You're only allowed by law to have three half days um which are the three and a half hour days. So you have to still meet all the other days um a daily minimum or a weekly minimum minutes and so only taking um two hours or two and a half hour release time. um based on the number of minutes that we have in our um school day um still allows us to stay within reason of um what's required by the state for each week. So we can only have three half days legally. I I still stand by my statement that I think Tuesday's just it a good day for parents and I think that would be difficult for them. Um I make a motion that you approved the calendar with the changes except for the
064Tuesday half days except for including the early release days. Yes. So those would come to solid green days if the motion passes. So, in order to even move forward, we would need a second um to be able to discuss. Yeah, I'll go ahead and second so we can discuss because I'm I'm a little confused here. So, your your motion is no h no early release, right? She would remove the four orange days side of the calendar. How what does that impact your the professional development? we would have to go back to the drawing board and reschedu and just use one hour blocks of time versus having an extended period of time. And so we'd probably not be able to travel to have groups alike because whenever you're looking at that time there and in a
065meeting and time to have any quality time. I mean you could move them to a Friday but I just Tuesday is just that doesn't make sense to me. Have y'all tried this before? Yeah, we've done this several years in the past. Have they always been on Tuesday? I thought it was a Thursday. It was typically Tuesday or um I know one time it ended up on a Tuesday of Thanksgiving, but then everybody expected you to give them that day off to go ahead and go home. Um, and so if you do that on a Friday, that's kind of what we're afraid will happen also is that they'll want you to uh just let us go. Everybody's tired. We've done this and that kind of stuff. So really trying to schedule it to where we actually
066have um good quality time to where teachers are not as tired whenever you're um grabbing them at 12:30 versus um 3 3:30 in the afternoon for an hour. Yeah. So we're weighing here the cost of parents having to deal with picking up their early versus giving teachers a opportunity to have some a different type of training and interacting with one another. And some of the comments um that you may have read was um if we do this, make sure it's quality PD. you know, we've already had the um conversations with our teaching and learning with Wendy and I'm really looking at making sure that if we're going to do this, then this has got to be good and it's got to be purposeful and it's got to be on the spot for these teachers. So,
067um that's our goal. So, if if Sorry, go ahead. So, we've done this in the past and it's been four Tuesdays during the year. I'm pretty sure most of them have been on Tuesdays. I have to go back and look, but yes, I I always got the impression that half days just caused a lot of disruption within the schools and that there was hardly ever anything done on those Tuesdays. Early release. Yeah, that's our goal to fix. Okay. I think it's worth a try if it helps to sharpen the teachers up. All right. Well, the motion on the table currently is that we approve the calendar without the four early release days. And then you have to go back to the drawing board. um for PD to for PD. Yeah. So, um to approve it
068without them to approve it without those those are the that's the motion that Tabitha made. approve it without those early release days and then we could at least well at least at that point we're getting the the new start date out there because I know that's important. I don't want anybody to not know the first day of school. Um so that would be out there and then we could just regroup on the early days. We could also if there's a motion on the table to do that we could or get more input. Yeah, we can say no to that motion and then make a motion that we accept it as as drafted here. We can do that too. Okay. So, there's no further discussion. I'll call for a vote on um the motion on the
069table is do you approve the calendar as presented with the exception of the What? Early release. Oh, what did I say? Chip seconded. It was second. Yes, chip seconded. That's what will give us the opportunity to discuss it. What? It's late. Appreciate you keeping it straight. We did. I'm like, what? What is Dr. Harris motioning me over there today? Peace, man. Peace. He's g out to CCR by there. Okay. So, all those in favor of approving the calendar um as is with the exception of the early release days, please say I. I. I. All those opposed. I Okay, so we've got four to three on that. So the motion carries and then we'll circle back with early release days. So um just for clarification, we have passed the amended days without the early release days
070and we have tabled the 26 27 calendar. Correct. So our first day of school for 2025 will be July 28th. Is that correct? First day for teachers. Well, first day for teachers and then first day for students August 5th. Yes. Okay. So, the first day for teachers did not change. It's just the first day for students has changed. Okay. It went from the first to the fifth. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Um, okay. Now we will move forward with the Dr. Harris and the facility update. Thank you. Um, Dr. Panin just asked me to report on the Sanders project, the building project over at Sanders. So, I'm just going to go through that very quickly. Um, just wanted to let you know our our contractor Edcon has has done a great job uh staying on schedule um
071in this project. Um, they they've been a great partner so far. We expect to have this building done um by the end of May. We're still on schedule for that and so we will be u we've got furniture on standby and we'll be ready to move in this summer. Uh do all that stuff. We'll be ready for the beginning of next school year. Um so that's um the new building stuff at Sanders. We'll also have this summer um several more things going on over there. Um, we'll replace the covered walkway, the existing covered walkway that goes from the building to the Monasuri building. That will be taken down and replaced. Um, and um, we'll also have fencing being done in the back. Um, we will update the the existing portables back there. Um, we'll have
072uh, new siding, new underpinning on those, new ramps put in for those two that were left. We have new roofs on them. Um, compliments of Helen. We already have that done. We'll be be replacing windows in the old storage facility back there. We're going to start working on that building and getting it tightened up and and and maybe put it to put to a better use than it's being done right now. We'll be repairing the loading dock um out by the kitchen at Sanders. And then um finally, last two things, we'll be adding security fence and gate and entry to the kitchen area in the back. So that's that's something we're doing with some grant money that we got. And then um we got to replace the cover over the outdoor freezer. So several things
073going on at Sanders this year. Um and I've got I'll go through this real quick. Are you messing with that? I'm not. I was getting ready to clean. So, I think Danny's trying to get it going. There you go. Wrong button. Hold up. Okay. Press here. You may advance it. There you go. All right. Here's the here's the building looking from the monastery building towards um the side of the building and you see there's a new canopy there and the one to the left can to the left is the one that will take down and replace that one's leaky and old and needs to be replaced. This is just from the back of the building. There's a retention pond right there where that picture is taken from behind them. And so there's that side and
074then looking storage building. And then from the the main building looking out the back of the main building, that is the front of the new building. It's a very nice very nice structure. And you can start it. And this is this is the building as it is right now. This is the first big classroom. Then a smaller classroom maybe for a special needs maybe a resource room. A second big classroom here. Third, there's some office space. We do have restrooms. Back down the hallway here. This is the bigger classroom, the biggest classroom. This is the science class. And you see the cabin there. Very nice room. And that's looking out towards the main building there. The same same space on the other end. Bathrooms on the other end. And then there's more office space just
075like the other. So down that hallway is just like the other end. I said so this will be ready for students to move in in the fall. That's right. So that's um that's it. It's going to be it's a very nice facility and I think that that school is going to like it a whole lot. Any questions about that? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lacrosse. Hello. Hi. So, I have a a number of things tonight. Um, the first requires board action. So, each year we have to talk about federal programs and the allocations that we get. They are entitlement grants from federal government that go to the state. We apply to the state and then uh we do need board approval in order to apply for them. in order to determine what we're going to
076apply for. We do a comprehensive need assessment. Um that needs assessment is done through a variety of ways. We use our school improvement uh plans as well as our school improvement meetings throughout the year to gather information. Our instructional leadership teams are uh integral in helping to focus our needs and our discussions about what we need specifically with academics. Um then we have federal program meetings. I've met with all principles uh with bookkeepers throughout the year. And then we have our annual stakeholder meeting which was on April 8th. At that meeting we have teachers, parents, community members, school leaders, district leaders, all nine schools including Lawrence Preparatory Academy are um are represented at that meeting. So that was on April 8th. At that meeting, we go over where we currently are spending money for 2425.
077Title one is primarily focused on students, and this is where we fund some of our parenting work, our reading and math interventionists, instructional supplies, field trips, professional development. Um, it also is some of our homeless set aside money for students. Title two and title four are more um I would say staff focused. Um they we have used money for class size reduction for induction programming again for professional development whether it's graduate classes whether it's ongoing uh professional learning through workshops or conferences. Um and also in title four this is where we fund a lot of our mental health counselors and things like that. Um and then we have title three which again is focused primarily on students but it's for our multilingual learners. Um we have used it this past year primarily for our Lexia
078English which is the individualized literacy development program that we're using uh professional development and some family engagement type things. So that's how we've spent it primarily this year. In the past it's looked very similar to this with the exception of instructional coaches were also in here. um we were able to take those out when we had the learns grant um and they were our master teachers. So um with the current situation that we have, we obviously had to look at what resources do we have available to us. So when we did the annual uh needs assessment, we broke the information down and it primarily fell into four different categories which helps us also to target how we apply for grants. And so here are the really the three major needs or opportunities that were identified
079by the process that we used in academic achievement. It was felt that weekly cluster meetings are a significant um has a positive impact on academic achievement. We need to continue that class size reduction. We have two teachers that are funded through uh class size reduction which is our title two. Um and then a focus on the new math standards is something that definitely needs to um continue and happen. As far as teacher and leader quality that we wanted they wanted to continue instructional leadership teams. Um they too talked at that point also about the weekly cluster meetings. This is where our master teachers are providing ongoing professional development that's targeted and focused on what the teachers are teaching right then. Um and so the teachers are finding that very valuable. Uh multilingual instructional strategies which
080then of course leads right into our professional development needs for multilingual learners. Um over in the on the other column um instructional coaching for how to better meet the needs of our multilingual multilingual learners both in our pullout program as well as in the regular classroom. um family engagement. And then uh the safe and drug-free schools are really looked at um attendance and how to increase student engagement as well as um enhance the understanding of the importance of attendance at school. Um and also looking at extended learning opportunities for how to remediate some of maybe the gaps caused by um attendance and things like that. So those were the primary priorities that were um that we will we're proposing that we write our grants to target um for this coming school year. So that would
081look very similar to what we have done in the past although you will see instructional coaches teachers back on this list um which is what you've seen in the past and now we're talking about placing that back here again. Um, so I'm looking first off for authorization to apply for federal funds with the targets of the identified areas that came out in the district needs assessment. So I think that's in the um in that memo. Does anyone have any questions? No. Okay. Um, so Miss Lacrose need we need a motion in order to um give her authorization to file the 2526 federal programs filing report. I'll make the motion that we authorize superintendent and or the superintendent's designate to file for federal programs funding for the 2526 school year. I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion?
082All those in favor of authorizing the superintendent or his designate to file a federal program file for federal program funding for 2526 school year. Please say I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay. I had a couple other updates on here, so I'll try to be pretty quick and tie them right back into what we were just talking about. Um as you know the learns uh grant was um terminated on um February 18th and we have filed an appeal. Um but just as a reminder, the major areas of the learns grant were designed to develop teacher leaders to provide job embedded professional learning um to use fair evaluations in order to increase um effective teaching and then also provide salaries and bonuses um tied to additional responsibilities and student achievement. So right now where our appeal
083stands is we did submit that on March 4th and it is still with the US Department of Education. Based on um guidance and information from our state representatives, we anticipate that there will be no movement on that appeal until the matter proceeds through the courts and we have no idea what the timeline is for that. Right now, there are a number of lawsuits whether they were allowed to hold the funds or whether they're allowed to hold funds for specific reasons and those things are going to have to play out. At least that's what we're hearing until our appeal is going to be acted upon. So, um but with that, we have submitted a request for reimbursement of all of our expenses up through February 18th. Uh we heard back from the US Department of Ed
084late last week asking for additional documentation to process that request which we have that documentation. We just want to make sure we put it together and give it to them in the format that they're looking for. Um so we'll finish that up this week to get those funds back. It's a little over $200,000 I believe is the first one. Um when we look at the multiple career paths, the teacher leaders, um we expect at the district level this year, we're going to move forward with um the fact that we're probably not going to get our funding back at this point. So, we need to move forward anticipating that we're not and then if we get it, we can make some adjustments. And so we expect to be able to retain 13 of our master teachers,
085which is a reduction from 18. Right now we're targeting about five teaching specialists, which is a reduction from 34. So that's a significant change. Um, but we will we're doing that in order to at certain schools in order to provide some targeted support in schools that will have fewer master teachers. Um and then of course we're looking at alternative funding sources um to potentially increase the number of teaching specialists or master teachers that kind of thing because we really feel that the teacher leader piece is a significant part of the success that we've seen um with what I like to call the learns model um which is based off of the TAP model um which is part of the grant the um ongoing professional development and so when I talked about the federal programming master
086teachers. We're talking about placing those into some of the federal grant funds because that came out in our needs assessment. Also, what came out in our needs assessment was the desire to continue instructional leadership teams, the desire to continue weekly cluster meetings. So we will continue those um because we do feel that these structures really have been essential in improving student outcomes in increasing achievement through across all the schools. Um we will continue to have an instructionally focused accountability. So, with the master teachers, our instructional leadership teams, our teaching specialists, and weekly cluster meetings, we're going to be able to continue to do evaluations, provide specific actionable feedback to teachers for coaching purposes. Um, and that's what the focus will be. Again, that shows up very loud and clear in our needs assessment. Um, and
087then as far as performance-based compensation, we also have requested from the federal government $547,692 in performance-based compensation. Where that number came from is from October 1st to February 18th is 38.6% of the time frame um of year two of the grant. At that point, we had been approved for a little over $1.4 million for performance-based compensation. that total represents 38.6% of that. So we we really believe that our teachers and our school leaders completed the necessary work in order to earn that merit pay. Um and so we've requested those funds. So we will be sending that as documentation as well. Um, if we receive those funds, we have been collecting the data in order to be able to award those performance-based compensation bonuses to our teachers and to our school leaders based on how they
088did on their evaluations and their attendance piece, which is that 50% we were going to do at this time of the year if the if the grant had not been terminated. So, if we don't receive the funds, obviously, we can't allocate the money. Um but if we receive that that amount of money, we will then um follow through with our performance-based compensation model. Um and then just very quickly, our turnaround plans are very similar. They were embedded with the um the learns grant and we have not stopped doing that work. You heard um Mr. Compton from the high school talking about the cluster meetings, talking about how they're grouping their subject areas together next year to help further facilitate that process because they found a really um positive benefit when it comes to tracking students
089progress, making informed decisions about what students need. We're really focused on analyzing student work. When Kelsey Brown was here as a master teacher, you saw some of the real analyzing of individual students. they continue to do that even though um the grant was terminated, the work has not stopped. Um and so and then of course we have school climate is another big piece and uh one of the biggest indicators in school climate is attendance. Um and that came up also in the needs assessment. So um the work that we've been doing there is um is showing some progress. We expect to see some increase in school climate um on our school report cards. So, um, hoping that that plays out based on the preliminary information we're getting. And finally, the last thing on our upbeat
090survey, which also was sitting in some of our turnaround plans, is we've seen an increase in um, teacher satisfaction with the maintenance and the updating of our facilities, which Dr. Harris just talked about some of that um, at Sanders. So, that's it. Unless you have questions, I know it's Anyone have questions? Thank you, Miss Lis. Um, okay. Now we turn to Mr. Lawless for our monthly financial update. Good evening. Good day. Good evening. We'll keep this brief. Uh, you should have each received a copy of the financial report for the month of March 2025. balance with the treasur's office as of the end of March was 13,56,158. Uh fiscal year to date general fund revenues for the first nine months were 45,531,72 with expenditures for that period of $41,274,813 for a difference of $4,256,889. Our
091tax collections for the month of March were $1,119,759. Anyone have any questions for the month of March financially? Are you surprised with the the difference in our revenue and expenditures up to this date? I would say it's it's a big difference from last year. So I'm the reason I'm asking is I know we have a you know we went into this budget into the deficit and then with the learns we created another deficit but are we it looks like from our revenues are we gap this is just through the end of well we're we're doing we're doing our level best to control expenditure. So Oh right and you spent less this year you know that is that is that's a con that's a concerted effort to make that happen. uh you know but really this
092is just through the end of March. So we're just now picking up all of those learns the the the salaries that were in the learns program. So that won't be we won't be able to sustain where we are right now. U but but no and and in terms of the the general fund revenues we we've received more than the prior year although less than we budgeted right so we less than 23 24. So, uh, on the state side and then we have experienced good collections on the local dollars. Okay. So, no, I'm not I'm not shocked. Uh, you know, we want to try to sustain that. Um, but, you know, we really want to have a a sustainable financial, but these numbers make me feel better than what I, you know, going into an ending
093this year in in the red would be very alarming. But the fact that this leading up to this point, we're we're $4.2 million difference. what we've earned. Keep in mind that a lot of our salaries, teachers, their their contracts run, it's not just through June. It also would cover what they pay make in July. So, you've got another year, I mean, another month of salary uh for a lot of our employees. Correct. So, you know, it it it will be tight, but we're going to we're doing our best to try to contain the damage. Any other questions? Okay. Uh just real quick, uh tonight we also wanted to take an opportunity to introduce our energy specialist, Robert Bland. He will be managing our district's energy conservation efforts as part of the partnership with Synergistic. Uh
094we're excited to have Robert on our team uh so we can retain the momentum that we built uh under Philip when we started the program. We also have Shannon Smith from Synergistic with us this evening. So, I wanted to give them an opportunity to tell you a little bit about themselves and fill you in on what's going on with our energy conservation program. Uh, oh, they already called you up. So, Robert, I'm going to turn it over to you. Uh, if you don't have any additional questions for me, I'm gonna go ahead and step aside. Oh, thank you. Sounds good. Welcome, Mr. Bland. Hey, how are you? Good to have you. I'm sorry that you're here at 10:05 and probably your first order of business is going to be able to tell us have shorter
095meetings. so we can turn the lights on. It's okay. Um, first of all, I'd like to thank Mr. Lawless, Dr. Pen, and especially Dr. Harris, and also Mrs. Smith from Senistic about giving me this opportunity to help come to you guys wonderful district here at Lawrence District 55. Um, just a little bit about me. Um, mostly my career has been in IT for over 15 years. Um, I have a strong background with working with different vendors. Um, especially with the maintenance guys, um, from HVAC vendors to, um, access control vendors to, um, um, you name it. Um, currently I'm a system administrator here at Fujifilm down in Greenwood. Um, I've been there about five years. Um, I have a bachelor's degree in marketing management from Lander University. Um, also have associates from Pate. Um, as
096well, I recently just received my um, associate degree in building construction. Um, hence why I was interested in the position here at Lawrence 55. Um, I'm a proud father of two children. Um, my eldest, he's at Lander, so he followed in his father and his mother's and his grandmother's footsteps. Let me see. Oh, I got it. Um, that's a picture of my family. Um, but yeah, I'm excited to be here. Um, feel free, don't look at me as the guy that's coming to turn off your lights or unplug your fans. I'm here to save the district money. Uh, anything that can help bring down those costs uh that will better provide the district those extra savings, I'm here to do it. Um, I want to turn over to Miss Smith now as I'm still getting
097acclimated with everything. So, she's going to better explain everything. So, I think in your packet you've got just an update um some some just some updated numbers for y'all. So, going through the December uh 2024 billing period, y'all are at um almost $380,000 saved. So, we are thrilled to have Robert here and stepping into this position. He's already done a really great job kind of embedding himself and and building some of those relationships not only with facilities teams, but the uh the administration and the custodial staff on site. So um you guys are at 380 right about for um through uh December of 2024 which is your third performance year, third month of the third performance year. Um if you Thank you. Um you've seen a nice energy use uh trend reduction. Energy use first
098square foot is what we're looking at here. Um so that's your KBTU um not including your water. So you've seen a nice little reduction and that reduction just from your base year to PY2 was a 29% reduction. You'll see that I think on the next slide. Oh no, there's your comm cumulative savings. That's just showing how month overmonth you guys have increased your savings um with the energy program. You've got you all have had um over 1,600 audits done. So that's when your energy specialist is coming into the building after hours or during um the school day to check on comfort complaints if it's an occupied or just to make sure that your building mechanicals are set back in the in the off hours. And there's your um your EUI or energy use intensity um
099reduction down 20% um from 29.2 to 23, which is really really a great um number for this region. And then lastly, we just want to um give you guys a shout out. We haven't had an opportunity to do that yet this year, but you all have had nine schools that were Energy Star certified this year. Waterl is new on the list this year. So, congratulations to the district. All the hard work that you guys and the staff has put in to uh to earn those certifications. Thanks y'all. Thank you. I appreciate you guys coming tonight. Miss Brandon, if you would um Did you have a question, Mr. Hughes? Uh did you have a question? I was going to ask Robert, don't we need to cut these lights out and get out of here? We need
100to save a little time. Just hang on. We're almost We're almost to the second page. U Miss Brandon, would you mind emailing the board their information? I can't find it in my in the paper packet or the online packet. I did not see it in my I didn't see it in mine either. Yeah. So, okay. And now with that being said, we do have a second executive session um for uh certified employee contracts and legal matters and discussion of a personnel matter. If we could get a motion to go into executive session, please. I'll make the motion we go into executive session. I'll second. Thank you. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. I'll call us back into order. Um, we have one we have one item to vote on from our executive session
101and that is our certified employee contracts for 2526. If I could have a motion. I make a motion. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? No. All in favor of the certified employee contracts for 2526 as presented, please say I. Any opposed? No. No. All right. With no further And for or no further business on our agenda, I will adjourn us. Thank you.