001[Music] Okay. Are we are we on? Okay. Okay. It is 507 and I'll call our meeting to order. I apologize that we are running a little bit later than scheduled. Um, Miss Random, did we notify the media? We did. Thank you. And I do declare now that we have a quorum with four of seven board members present and we will need approval of our agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Thank you. I'll second. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Agenda is approved and we will move forward with Mr. Ben Thompson. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Jenkins. Sorry I'm late. Glad you can make it. I mean, we've been sitting in here meeting for like 40 minutes. I'm just waiting on
002me. We literally just got started. Literally. Yeah. Didn't miss anything. you didn't miss anything. Well, good to be with you guys uh this evening. Um I'm glad to to be here to kind of report back uh about our last uh board work session, of course, and uh kind of move us to the next uh step. I won't be as long-winded as last time. So, uh the batteries and the microphone are doing just fine tonight. Um but but thanks for for having me again to to talk about this exciting um next step. uh here if you'll remember we had a a couple of different uh scenarios that we talked about. Will you turn the air off? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. We had a couple of options that we talked about initially um and wanted to
003to just go back to those and we'll share a little bit about those um coming off off of uh our last uh work session together. Um if you'll recall, we also talked a little bit more about what the purpose uh of of the long range planning uh that we were doing. So I appreciate everybody's uh contribution and participation uh in that and what I've taken from from that is the beginning of really a mission statement for how the district might look at long-term planning uh overall. So from um the board that we created uh after that we we started to kind of generate a couple of different uh ideas about what you're looking for uh from your feedback uh overall uh for the for the facilities um for your for all of your facilities. So
004um you can see that on the screen. I'm not going to um quiz you on that uh today or ask for any feedback, but I think part of the homework um that we are developing together as we look at uh the long-term uh vision for the school district when it comes to all of their assets, all of their facilities is to really focus in on the purpose and and this is kind of the beginning uh the beginning of that. Um overall I think the only thing I would uh point out is maybe the last sentence that seemed to be in line with what you guys um all seemed to say which was the aim uh of creating something that's really dynamic and flex flexible flexible and high performing um so that you can inspire your
005students not only for for who's here now but for the opportunity that's to come for for them and their families and their communities. Uh so I'll I'll leave you with that and uh from and we'll talk a little bit more about uh any feedback that you might have uh on that. So uh in addition to that kind of overall global statement um this is just a very short list of some of the takeaway points uh that I had uh during during that meeting. Uh there's actually a much broader list uh of of that, but we'll be adding to this as we kind of go along in the planning process. This is to incorporate your comments um and really understand whether we're meeting the uh the things that you talked about uh wanting to get inside
006of a building program uh overall. So I'll leave you with those uh as well and that'll be part of the homework as we go into kind of next steps. So the the premise of what we wanted to talk about uh a little bit today was coming off of that uh workshop was was kind of how do you think about um long-term uh planning overall it's a matter of what you need. Uh of course uh then also a matter of how uh what it cost and then how how do you fund that over time uh it it's uh generally has two major parts. One is the ongoing uh tax revenue that the school district um gets every single year and then allocating that um um for for the projects in a in a given year and
007then anything outside of that from either local taxes uh or state funding uh for for a strategy overall. All of that to all of that to say is, you know, there are a couple of different things that we think about when we look at all of the schools in the school district, whether they are included in kind of the long-term plan uh or or coming up uh into the into the near future versus the the long-term uh future overall. That's an important point um because it does come down or it will come down to dollars um and and planning those dollars uh for for the future overall. Um many of you are aware of the economy. We try to predict that. We try to be um uh conservative when it comes to our allocation of
008funding and our prediction of our forecast for uh the budget of any major improvement into the future. So we'll define that a little bit more uh as as we go along. Um here you can see the best way for me to kind of approach it from a dollars and cents standpoint is to give you uh what we call a rough order of magnitude. Um it's based on uh several parameters um that are generally going on in the economy right now from a building um standpoint and then apply a couple of variables um uh contingencies and uh cost uh associated with escalation uh kind of overall in in this this just kind of gives you an idea. I don't want um um you're you're going to see some numbers uh attached to the things that we're
009going to talk about this evening. I don't want you to um to think that those are the absolute costs because those are just kind of rough order of magnitude. What do these things uh cost within the overall um picture of of the thing? Uh if you'll remember, scenario one was was really about just taking care of what your existing campuses uh were overall. When we completed the facility assessment, there are a number of items that were uh listed as just general maintenance that needed to be improved. Uh we gave those um a a rating or a priority over time over the next five to seven years. Um the facilities and maintenance department has been active and and working on those um kind of overall. uh this represents um uh some of that work, meaning we
010we do need to include some of the maintenance within your long-term planning uh of that overall, but we also, if you'll recall back, looked at what the needs are at each individual school from an enrollment standpoint. So, it's both uh both of those factors together. Uh you can see we've identified for um for these uh first uh groupings the elementary schools uh several classroom additions that were that were needed because of enrollment um and because of change uh over time and uh several um of those maintenance items uh that we indicated in the facility assessment uh as well. Uh there are some improvements uh to site uh that were al also noted by uh principles and staff uh added each one of those facilities uh and a couple of different features uh such as playgrounds
011and and the like uh that we captured in inside of these. So you can see the the kind of rough order of magnitude uh cost for for generally those uh elementary school projects. Uh what those would cost in in today's dollars assuming that we would design them uh and that they would be uh constructed over over the term of uh the next 18 to 24 months. Uh so that should give you a pretty good idea of um of kind of the baseline need from a uh from the K12 standpoint or sorry the K8 standpoint. looking at Grey Court Owens uh in Hickory Tavern. A little bit different here because Greycourt Owen Owens is growing uh so so quickly uh that it has a a need for additional classrooms over and above what was listed in
012the in the previous grouping. So you can see those um in addition to uh doing a few things that were noted out there uh by staff and by the use of uh their schedule uh meaning that they needed things like multi-purpose rooms. uh they needed an addition they needed to really look at the uh the auditorium and do some significant upgrades and renovations to to that um uh to that facility over time. So rough order of magnitude uh for those you can see starts to go up just quite a bit more as you add more scope as you add more um additions uh to the to the mix there. But again, just scenario one was kind of the pay as you go. Let's let's uh uh for each one of the existing schools accommodate either
013enrollment change uh or uh any code requirements that are that are required for um for the use of the facility. Any questions there before I go on to the next? That was really just scenario one. So, I know it's a lot to take in, but this is generally how we try to understand uh what the needs are and the scope of each one of these projects now that we've come to the end of analysis. So, from the middle school um standpoint, I would add add um to that is that you start to see a little bit more of a of a list of options um there. It's the for Lawrence Middle for instance, you've got a you've got some some improvements that were suggested either by the principles and staff that make sense in in
014terms of how they're connected to uh the maintenance plan. Um but not as high of a priority as some of the other uh projects overall. Whereas at Sanders, um you know, part of your your planning initially was to add classrooms out there, which you're doing um right now. So it may It may seem like a little bit less at Sanders. That's because those funds are not included in in kind of the overall capital improvements plan or long-term plan. Can you can you read um what bullet point number two is? We just have a copy that's not it's not a very clean copy for that. Just bullet point number two Under Sanders is address maintenance items identified in the assessment. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So that's really just the pay as you go. Um the the
015the changes to um to each one of those schools. Uh overall you can see rough order of magnitude uh is a significant amount of uh dollars associated with that. Um I would say that's just for your information at this point. Uh really the next step on that is defining when those occur uh over time. Um, and you can see does that does that need to be included in in kind of your planning on the district side uh or does it need to be included in the planning on on maybe a bond side uh as well. So still two open questions um there as we kind of move to the next step on on the existing campuses that you do have. Can I ask a question here? Sure. So if if this is what is needed
016to bring the schools up to where they need to be. And um in some of these scenarios, it includes additional classrooms and and whatnot. Um what kind of timing does it take for and this may this probably isn't a question for you actually, Ben, but what kind of timing would it take for the district to move through this without asking for additional funds? I mean, or is it possible. It's probably not possible. You probably depending on what your whatever your value is that you can allocate towards uh funding any given project, you would want to stagger those for the next several years depending on, you know, the highest priority down to the the lowest overtime. From just a design standpoint, it generally takes anywhere from for for projects like this, anywhere from 8 to 12
017months in design and permitting. Uh and then probably another 12 to 14 months in in um in construction. So you've got a a good solid two years, two and a half years of planning and design um as soon as you say go outside of funding. Right. Thank you. Okay. So that's part one. Uh part part two and this is where all of the uh the kind of questions as far as which direction um to to go um were was about the high schools. It the high school is obviously um um the the largest uh school that you guys have uh within your within your uh your district and uh therefore it it takes a lot of renovation andor addition uh or completely replacing that one. um that a couple of different features kind of arose
018as we took a look at, you know, thinking about how you how you might do that. You know, the easiest uh simplest thing to do. Um and this is just baseline. You need to know this. Maybe it's not the simplest thing to do, but it's it's the easiest way to kind of think about it is what would a new school cost uh today if we had to almost replace it um as as a as a new property into our into our mix. So did want to share with what a comprehensive new high school would be. We actually did run through uh what that program would be, the number of spaces that you would need, detailed each one of those so we could get an idea of what the size uh and scale of of a
019contemplation like that um would would would be. We also took a look at and it's not just the high school on any uh comprehensive high school uh campus. is what you do with your outdoor environment as well, both in terms of circulation um and and uh uh student learning on the outside um but also how you deal with outdoor athletics uh as well. Um in in one scenario uh we we initially uh entered uh we had the outdoor athletic complex um being brand new. If you were looking for a new piece of property, for instance, and you had to build that facility brand new, what would that mean? That's what we wanted to assess. We also wanted to make sure that we understood scale of value for what your existing um uh stadium would be
020or stadium and athletic complex would be if you had to just renovate that. Give it some um um new surfaces, new uh turf, new um upgrades to their facilities, new fencing, those those types of facilities over those types of features um overall in in the mix. So we wanted to evaluate that. We also wanted to evaluate um from our discussion uh at least not just what it would cost to build this new but what what do we what can we do on the existing campus um of the high school um that that the district um operates on now? How can we use the the buildings that are there uh to good uh to good use in in terms of adding uh to that campus over time, demolishing some of some of the uh older classrooms
021that are there on campus uh today. Uh and then with that u being said too, you always want to think about uh in that type of scenario u with the examples that I shared, you want to think about construction separation while kids are operating on campus. You want to think about fencing and you want to think about coordinating between all of the parties that are that are necessary to do that to do that work of course. So we did look at those two uh scenarios overall. Now this is you know just a just a general idea is that you've got about 2,00 to 2100 students in a brand new uh high school. What would that cost uh today? you know, if you're looking at just the building and some of the surrounding features, that's a
022very large uh expenditure, about 170 187 million um venture uh to really bring you a brand new um high school. Uh today, I did check on um um the high schools that are under construction right now um throughout the state uh and escalated those up to today's value. And that's generally in line with uh where where high school construction is um o overall. Now, for you to add um a new stadium, assuming that's about a 5,000 seat stadium, um and all of the fields uh for baseball, softball, um track and field, um soccer, all of the all the normal uh fields that you would get with that plus that stadium. um you know that's an expensive 40 to41 million um venture as well. So I'm not saying that that's the that's the direction that you
023were that we talked about last time but I I think you want to start with what does that cost just so you're aware uh of what that would cost um for for a facility like that. We did look at the the phasing of the high school and I'll show you kind of the thought process um there. There is I I feel like a fairly significant savings if you if you take the buildings that that are there that are useful to the overall uh what could be the overall master plan and reuse those for for new purpose while renovating those. There is that possibility um overall and you certainly have uh your fields and property already purchased um uh for for the high school now. So if you took those and really renovated those and added
024some additional features to them, how would we how would we look at that kind of overall um there? So um to get that phasing number, uh what I did was just do a very quick, this is not how it would be at the end of the day, but this is just a quick feasibility of what can we do on the high school uh campus overall. um you know for for for that you can see you know first identifying what's uh available to to really add to you know one thing that we um thought about you know internally is um instead of maybe a spread out campus do you go a little bit more compact one of the features of the high school too is not a lot of outdoor space right there near your classrooms
025or right near there near a lot of facilities. So, a couple of just ideas to kind of toss around as as far as how we might come through and uh and design something uh on on that property. Um looking at the facility assessment report, both the building on the left, the vocational building and the um pods uh seem to be in similar um uh condition. Um so we said all right well the other three buildings on campuses on the campus has either been recently uh within the last um decade or so uh been renovated or they've been it's been added um kind of overall. So we said all right well that could be uh the basis of using those facilities for what they're being used for now or inside of a master plan. Um, first
026step is all right, how do we build while kids are are on campus? And and so you just look for open area uh and and how that might make sense within a master plan. If you thought about building around the pods uh in this way, you know, keeping those where that number one is, those two classroom buildings in the back and then infilling in between um there you would want to locate probably in a phased approach uh your kitchen and cafeteria first. so that you could take care of of that overall within with any uh phase during the school day. And then the class um maybe a multi-story classroom building up up at the front, keeping that separate and apart from u the building and and constructing that while classes are going on on the
027inside. Um and then eventually at the end, you know, being able to take those um buildings down, first the pods, relocating once those uh buildings are complete, relocating those classrooms inside their new home uh and then starting the building process uh again. Overall, one thing that we found here too is just um there's there's an opportunity again that feature that I mentioned bringing the um bringing maybe a more of a secure courtyard approach uh might be one way to to kind of think about this one a little differently than uh the way it is configured um now right there in the center of the heart of the heart of the campus. Um that building on the left, the vocational um building could also be used for swing space. while all of these all the phases
028occur. Um so that at the end of the day you're rearranging all of your traffic, all of your parking um and uh improving those in addition to kind of getting a complete and comprehensive uh master plan for the development of that high school campus. So again, that's not totally designed. That's just thinking through is it possible to add while kids are on campus? Is it possible uh to do that in the minimal amount of phases that uh that you can uh to get to a reasonable uh approach? And the answer to those were were yes. It seemed reasonable. Um lots of things that we would need to do and confirm to to make that uh actually actionable. But uh from a feasibility standpoint, this seemed to be, you know, a fair uh and feasible uh
029approach overall that uses more of your facilities that you have. um in addition to adding for the future. So this was just the feasibility. Um we can go back to cost. We can talk through any of any of those um before we kind of get to what do we do with all this information next. I find it interesting about, you know, what what I like about renovating or or taking the high school that we have today and then doing what you're just talking about is we don't have to go and buy land to do this. It's already there and it's and serviceable, but it's going to be we go this route. It's going to be hectic. But this is this leads me to believe that it's doable, much more doable than than I think I
030initially thought it would be. what's an what's a time frame like what what's a general time frame if you do a phase approach um I would say kind of the over the overall um there would be uh five years from beginning of design through phase two I was able to group everything into two major phases uh kind of kind of overall um and that is actually pretty in line with a normal schedule for a brand new uh high You usually the ones that we're dealing with right now, they were anywhere from four to four and a half years. So just a little bit added time for the phasing aspect of it. And what are your recommendations as far as um next steps? because there's a few things that here um you know as you as
031we went through scenario one I noticed in the bullet points that we mentioned grade levels of each school remain the same. Is this should we go ahead and re-evaluate that piece of it? You know do we have the right kids in the right places? Do we have you know our our zones laid out properly? um you know, are there aspects of that that we could adjust? And if we did, would they dramatically change any of these numbers that you have on the table? You you absolutely should do that. I mean, I I I do recommend that you take a even if the answer is we're not changing. I mean, I think you ought to I think you ought to really look at and make sure you've got the right um staff, the right students in
032in the right place. um kind of overall will it change the the makeup of of those? Possibly. Um you know, you do have some underutilization in um in some of in some of your schools. You you've got um you know, when you look at Waterlue for for instance, you're you're underutilized um there. Maybe Hickory Tavern has a little bit of capacity um too. So, but that would take line changes and and a little bit of thought uh on on that. So, It could um it could you know eliminate some of that need. I we we did it this way just so you have a kind of a baseline of um all right well if we continue to operate precisely as we're operating right now what would we do next right okay so I I do
033want to come back to the next step because there's a next step to to that okay um as as well um So from from a next step standpoint on on that side of it, um you know, this is overall to the capital improvements plan to the to the long-term plan is what you really want to do is make sure that we've narrowed the right way. Um, so if we've if we're going in one direction or or the other, and it doesn't have to be the one direction, but if we're going to keep going down the direction of maybe looking at a phased approach at the high school um level with a couple parameters for looking at enrollment for elementary and middle schools um to to make sure we're sharing the right way, that's enough to
034to kind of move to the to the next step. um so long as it's it's nothing that's wildly different than what you've you know what we've seen on the um on on the list then then we can move to that next step. The next step would be probably organizing a group of um of teachers and or staff along with the district leadership to really go through the individual plans that we've created at least from that baseline approach. Validate those and and get the get those really estimated instead of just giving you a rough order of magnitude give you an actual estimate for each one of those parts. um um for the for the larger facility for the high school. That'd be the the easiest first step to take on on that. It'll take a little
035bit of effort from a curriculum and enrollment standpoint to look at lines um and and assess, you know, additions and renovations to your existing campus. But those those will come as you as you move through the process. So, the first thing I would suggest is yes, start that process and then form a a group and and uh let us validate you know the need uh the program and really come up with that master plan not just the blocks on the screen but what does that actually look like you know what's included in that and is that process that committee for once it's formed is that a process that you are involved in that you are having those discussions with or is it something that happens on the district side from from the master planning process
036I I tend to lead those um and but yes district is totally involved every single step of the way um but I'm going through things like like this like the program what are your educational objectives in there and how do we do that with the number of classrooms the any any number of the architectural features so if the board took a combination of high school and scenario one and kind of combined out that would it be kind of going through and line item some of the issues with the scenarios at each school. Um, how do you kind of address that? Do you have to address car loops if you add a building? Um, does DOT immediately get involved with that? And because that's a capacity increase, they they will get involved if you add um
037new construction on on the property, which is okay um because we did a we did analysis on that at the facility assessment side of it. So, we do know a little bit about what they'll what they'll require on that side of it, but you do have to run through the process on on that. It's less about that and it's more about well, if we're saying parking spaces, well, how how many parking spaces? If we're saying classrooms, well, what kind of classrooms? Is it a an enlarged classroom? Is it just a resource classroom? What type of um classroom to validate each one of those parts? Gotcha. really the trick on the the scenario one um side of it is prioritizing um those and that's an active process. It's not one one decision. It's an active process
038that you that you do over time. Well, and I think to prioritize those that we would need to do the re-evaluating of grade levels and zoning lines. Um zoning lines might not be the right terminology. Attendance lines. Thank you. Um that we would need to take that do that piece first before going through and determining priority there. Um what kind of workload is the attendance line re-evaluating grade levels um timing wise? Um there are a couple of companies out there that do that. Um but I don't know timing and how quick turnaround that would be. Okay. Um I know there's one that kind of syncs in with our other programs that would already be able to pull all the addresses and start mapping. So Okay. Okay. Surely there's an AI that can do that. I
039was about to say I mean do you not just sit you and Rhett sit in your office with the map? Is that not what you do? We we we go putting different color dots on um you know there's an elementary child, a middle child, a high school child and then we'll just go back and count dots. Yeah, it's perfect. Just ask chat GPT confident that and I guess for us it's a priority here too, right? Where is the biggest pain? You know, is it the individual school? You the schools or is it the high school? I don't know how how do we evaluate that, right? You know, I know some of it's going to be growth needs. Um, a lot of it's also safety needs and kind of just um dated facilities that um we
040need to address too. But, you know, that's going to be coming down. Do we have a facility? Is there a school out there that we it would be it wouldn't be to our long-term advantage to continue to invest money in. You know, that's the million. I mean, are we going to Great Court $10 million? I don't know. I I It's I've only been at that facility a couple times in the years I've been here. Yeah. I don't know the answer to that question, but we need to start thinking about whether it's time to retire some of these buildings and think about buying building something else differently. I think from past um past studies that have been completed, it has been determined that we've had some buildings that we don't need to have students in any
041longer. Um, and I think that but I think that our community we have there's such strong community ties to these specific buildings to just totally shut them down and move away. I'm not sure we would have community support to do that. Um I mean we may but yeah we may just some of those schools are what 40 years I mean more than that our newest school is 22 23 years old and that's the water um I think the center part of that is a 1928 um the threetory component of that so um Ford was in the 30s Sanders Sanders very I mean you can remodel and remodel and still you see the down all of the ford when I go in there. It was nice. I mean you know we did great you know trying
042to get it ready but you still see the longterm investment. Well, you know you can only put a band-aid on something so long. Yeah. Tough questions to ask. Well I mean even even with this even tavern, for instance, there's a building that's out there that's not being used at all. So, um, it would be useful if we tore that down and put back a a new something useful for for that school overall. So, right, you still have that ability. And I think tearing down pieces instead of completely eliminating a building may be a better compromise, I guess, from a financial standpoint, building standpoint, and the community standpoint. Um, so you know, and I'm totally making this up, so I don't want anybody to flip out if they're listening online, but you know, we tear everything
043down at Greycore except for the potato house and the center building and then rebuild, you know. So, you're keeping the you're keeping the the meat of it. You're keeping the historical value of it. Um, and I'm sure there's a similar section at Ford and at Sanders that the same could be done with, but you know, all of those things are that's why we need to find out how they see these scenarios, what they think. We need to present it to the communities. Yeah. In each area of the schools. So then from the next steps from that perspective, um, you know, I'll just I'll just roll this little bomb out to the floor. Say we want to do a referendum. Um how quickly can we start the conversations with the community and um doing the the
044validation with a teacher committee that you mentioned? Like how quickly can we do that and and how effectively can we do it but and not skip any steps but make sure we cover everything. Um but still keep in mind that at the end of the day maybe we want to go out for a referendum um if there's community buy in. Um you you have the ability to to start that right now. I mean for for sure. I mean I think before you're still defining what the need is and this would be the way that I would look at it is you're defining what the need is and you have to it's not just us looking at the physical condition of um the building is what are the actual needs the teachers should be involved in
045in that. But you and then and then the community members too because they're going to want to uh talk a little bit about um you know what the need is from a community perspective as well. So you can start that at each school right now and it's still the it's still part of kind of identifying what you need to include in a and I'm going to use the the words long-term plan because it is different if you go out for a bond referendum. Um, you know, those will be a certain number of projects with a value. Um, and that's outside of what you do day in and day out um within your yearly or annual um budget, you know. So, there's it's a mix it's a mix of of those of those two, but you
046should start with what do you need community involvement and staff at each school. So from an effectiveness um standpoint, you know, that you don't re you you have a lot of information. The district has a lot of information that we've shared and and really you can go out with a with a leadership group here and really have those conversations, you know, at least initially form a form a really good idea of what the options available are. Uh and then start to have those discussions in in earnest to to your to your community uh at each one of those uh facilities. very similar to um to our to the to the to the working sessions that we've had out of those schools before. Okay. Thank you. So, multi-step process on on at least this list um
047from a high school um standpoint. U not that they're totally different from each other, but it does that's a different type of um process slightly at least from a um design and program standpoint. What I would suggest there is that starting with um curriculum here at the district um with the leadership team here at the district and then a select number of uh folks from the high school uh including athletics uh to really go in and talk about what the the actual need is. I behind all of those numbers and behind what's on the screen there's a whole set of documents that I've created. is validating all of those um pieces and then bringing that to you in a digestible format and a right format and making sure that it's absolutely right. For instance, um
048I put a 2100 student um high school, you know, and and price that. Do you need 2100 students in the initial condition? I don't know if that's if that's right or or wrong. I think this year you may have had 1600 at the uh 1500 1500 at the high school. So maybe a little bit um more flexibility in terms of numbers of classrooms, but do you need to go all that um far? Do you need to go all the way up to the 2,00 number? Probably not. Uh but we need to validate that and that that affects the the cost and how you would lay that out on campus. Yeah, this is that's the hard thing. Talking about a four and a half year project. What's going to happen in this district in four and
049a half years? I know um Woodruff is building a new high school and they're already saying by the time they move into this new school they're going to be at capacity for that. We did that high school for that. Um we also planned for the future. So they also have expansion capabilities like built-in expansion capabilities. All they have to do in there uh we built kind of what's called a shell. Uh, so they just go in there and put up the walls, put up the, you know, the fixtures on inside, do the flooring, do the do the ceiling. Um, and they can do that over a summer and instantly have a fair number of new classrooms available for their population. So, we thought about that a lot because you you need to be flexible so
050that things can change. Impress, I didn't hear that part. I I I would venture to say there's a lot of people who wonder if they don't know that. Probably not. Yeah. All they know is like we spent all this money on that building and it's at capacity. Who figured this out? I was like, well, you know, it's four and a half years. You got your crystal ball to tell you how many students you need to educate in four and a half years. To your point, I mean, that's that's a good that that's a good road map though for things do change over over time. These are what we know, the facts that we know them as as they are. Continue to change. Yeah, we we certainly wouldn't build for 1500, right? I would think that
051we would have to have some number bigger than that, but what is it, right? Because every room, every hundred students you want to educate, it costs a lot of money to build that building. So, that's what I would suggest. Let's have that discussion as part of a a team um approach with the folks that are impacted by it. um meaning the teachers and the and the staff um select members of of kind of like a little committee of running through and validating that for you guys and then and then show you on the screen what that results in. Um and then pairing that too with an actual cost um assessment um that gives you a little bit more value than than just kind of a what is the rough order magnitude of it overall. got
052anything else? Anybody have anything else? I guess I mean our really next steps are then is to figure out where where's the biggest need which school we need to our next step is getting people involved the community and leaders at the schools find out you know from them the biggest need our next step get community involved in all of these schools Hickory Tavern and Sanders and let them know what our plans are and get their opin opinion. That's our next step. Well, and this won't be the first time that they've heard this or had this conversation because you know, you like you said before, you have presented at several of the schools um a few years ago. So, I do think that um yeah, but I do think that I think the community is pretty
053aware that you know we've got an aging school district. Oh, they know that and we haven't spent much money. I want to wait. We have spent money keeping this thing together, but it may again from a long-term investment, it's not it may not be worth it. Well, it's like we're trying to dry our hands at the same time we're washing them. Like as soon as one thing is fixed, 15 other things fall apart or you know, so there has to be something. It's just overdue. Yeah, I agree. They are. And Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Glad to be with you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. With nothing else on our agenda for the work session, I will adjourn us. Thank you. Thank you. We [Music] don't want some of these. around. Why
054does this have no service? When are they coming to help somebody do the pledge and then they Oh yeah, they getting what it is. Yeah, you're right. call. Good evening. It's now 6:30 and 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. We will need approval for our agenda. I make the motion that we approve our agenda. I second it. Thank you. Any questions, comments? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. I just want to welcome everyone here tonight and we are going to do the same thing that we did last month and I want everyone around the board to tell me something good. And I'll start
055today. If you don't want to participate, that's fine. But I'll start today and say that my something good was I got to have all three of my girls home yesterday for some birthday celebrations from college. So it's glad to see all of them together. So all right, I'll go next. Um in the next few minutes, I'll get to share a lot of um great things happening in the district. And so I'll um start and leave that for a few minutes. But it is very um you know proud and happy to be able to share some amazing things that have happened in our district and that will continue to happen in our district. So I'm looking forward to that. Something good for me is that you know God touched me this morning. I'm here. Um, it's
056board night and I don't have to cook dinner tonight. And your daughter is in the And my daughter is in the audience. Participate tonight. I had my grandbabies all weekend. I don't even know if I'm here or not. Oh, well, I just got back from a relaxing weekend, so that was good. Uh, something good. I am enjoying this weather. It is fun to be out. I spent Saturday just in outside doing yard work and just it's uh it's time to for the cold to go away and the pollen too. Well, that's that's what you got to suffer for spring. And I'm a allergy sufferer, but it's great weather. It's good to be alive. It's great to be alive. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Um, so in front of you, I had the opportunity to go this
057past weekend to um, COSBA, which is a kind of a national school board event, and it was in Atlanta. And one of the one of the things that uh, one of the sessions that I sat in on, it actually was put on by the South Carolina School Board Association and the South Carolina Munich Municipal Association. Obviously, I can't say that word well. Um, and they gave out these pins. So I brought back everyone for everyone including Dr. Pinland and laid it at your desk and it was just a good conversation about um and their three focuses are civility, respect and solutions. So I just wanted to share that and a couple of other sessions that I set in on that I thought were very good. Um, I think we're actually going to hear about one
058uh tonight which I said regarding background checks and safety and security in the district. So, I think we're going to hear a little bit about that tonight. And then one on John Hadtie's visible learning research and after talk talking to Dr. Pinland and Miss Lacrosse earlier this evening, sounds like they're already having conversations um regarding how that can be applied to our district as well. And then the last thing, which happened to be my favorite for personal reasons, was transitioning special needs students for success beyond high school. So, I'm excited. I'll share with all of you guys the information that I picked up there, the PowerPoint, also share that with you in hopes that maybe we can have some conversations about that. So, and thank you um thank you for the audience for being here
059tonight. So, now I will turn it over uh to Miss Mine with Lawrence Middle. Oh, well, we have to do the pledge of allegiance, Mr. Hughes. Oh, welcome. And so, she can introduce her student to lead us in the pledge of allegiance tonight. So, here I have Mrs. Payton Elders who typically does the morning announcements at Lawrence Middle School um this particular quarter. So, she's now going to site the pledge of allegiance. to the Ice 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, Payton. And um and thank you, Mr. Hughes, for keeping us on track. Um and now, Miss Nance, would you pray for us, please? Let us pray. Most graciously, heavenly father,
060we come this evening, Lord God, and just giving you all the glory and giving you honor and we said thank you, God. And Lord God, we realize that we're in the cross season, remembering what you you showed your great love for us. And again, we said thank you, Father. And Lord God, we ask that you bless our meeting, be in the midst, continue to direct our superintendent, Lord God, Dr. Penland and give him wisdom and knowledge, God, to make us the greatest school in the area in the district in the area. And we just ask you to continue to cover the district, Lord God, and help the board, God, and making decisions, Lord God. We just thank you, Father, in your name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Miss Nance. Now, we will need approval for
061our minutes from the February 24th work session and board meeting. If someone could make a motion for that. I'll make a motion we accept work session in the board meeting. I'll second. Thank you. Is there any discussion or questions? All those in favor of approving our minutes from the work session and board meeting for February 24th. Please say I. Any opposed? The motion carries. And now we will move on to our Lawrence Middle Report with Miss Michael. Do you want me to click or go to click or rather? All right. Lawrence Middle School. This is what we've done so far. Um, at Lawrence Middle, we have we're obviously the home of the Tigers. We have four things we're going to mention today. One, our school goals. Uh, things we're doing for school improvement. All the
062great we have going on at Lawrence Middle and where we going in the near future. So, our school goal one, as with most schools, we have a goal uh for SE ready testing for ELA and math to increase both scores by 10% when we take SE ready in May. Our first day of testing as of now is May 5th. School improvement goals. Couple of things we've done so far this year is require all teachers to attend PLC meetings. Our PLC meetings are structured based upon content. So all our English teachers meet together, all of our math, science, social studies, and of course our fine arts. Um that way they get opportunities to learn best teaching strategies by our master teacher which is Mrs. O'Brien. Uh we have pushed and will continue to push student centered
063classroom and student le classrooms. For example, we pushed one new initiative this year about learning targets where they'll know what they need to be successful by the end of the class period. The goal is when anybody enter a classroom, anybody can pull a student and say what are you learning today and how do you know you have it? which in educational jargon it is just learning success criteria. Uh we've implemented a few student initiatives. I was just telling someone earlier today that we did quarterly awards. Every quarter we honor our A students and our AB students. And I think it was in quarter one we recognize students who've made great gains in MAP testing. Um we also done student of the month and of course we've done perfect attendance. Uh so for each one of
064those things we've kind of given kids pins. I'm actually wearing a little tiger part now. This is for all A's. Uh AB receiver certificate. Um perfect attendance. In some cases they got little bands or they got some type of gift certificate that we reached out to others in the community to give us different incentives to help reward our students for the great things that they're going on. Uh hopefully next year we would then invite even more students or at least live stream it. So all students can be a part of it versus just recognizing the students that's receiving the awards but we want everybody to be motivated to make sure they receive a reward whether it's perfect attendance whether it's student of the month etc. Also for student of the month is voted among amongst
065our teachers each one of the content teachers sixth seventh eth and of course monastery just making sure we're pushing out the profile of a high school graduate. So they look at all of those qualities. They come to a consensus as a team and they vote on two students. Whichever two, it doesn't matter by gender. It doesn't matter about grade. Each grade level, including monastery, of course, pick a student, and they receive a picture. Sometimes it's taken with me, sometimes it's taken with my assistant principal, Miss uh Jackson, and of course, we post it on social media. So all of these things are just some of the things that we've highlighted. Um the last thing is we added was our community outreach. We have a couple of things that we have in play that we will
066try to manifest even more. We have a partnership with a lot of our local churches. We reached out to United Way and I met with her um I forgot the actual date but I met with her. So we have a couple of more initiatives that's coming up for next year such as the garden, the fresh uh bag of vegetables. I think they give out maybe twice a year and ways that we can do more things not just to help the students but also our parents specifically our ML students or any student who needs help with assistance. Um, one of the things that I reached out for United Way and we'll work to collaboratively with them is being able when we have meet the teacher that our ML students will have somebody right there live in
067the flesh to be able to walk them through the building and they even if they don't understand one language in English they will be comfortable to meet and mingle throughout the entire building with having some type of support. Um we've also have partnership with uh NAMI Irise was a mentor group. We I have in subscribed us to join South Carolina Alliance for Middle School Educators and we sent four teachers this past February to a conference also just trying to continue to develop our teachers. Um and of course we have an active SIC committee. So going with the fivest star experience of Lawrence Middle School, our teachers met at the very beginning of the year and we came up with our big things that we want to push out within our school and of course within
068the community and as a consensus we came up with these particular things. Uh one, we wanted to improve on communication with parents and staff. So parents receive a weekly bulletin bi-weekly bulletin every week with all the things that's going on in LMS. Staff receive a weekly bulletin every Sunday at 4 o'clock. Every Sunday at 4:00, of course, PLC meetings where our teachers learn best strategies and of course every once in a while we bring in different speakers or different people throughout the community who also can help them and give them assistance. assistance. Attendance was another big initiative with teachers and students. I will tell you guys firsthand that attendance for teachers at our building have been great this particular year. Me being new, I don't know what it was like last year. So this year
069we've continued with instruction as best as we can. And then of course academic growth was another big thing. Hence why our PLC's are led towards it. And for academic growth, even if a student hasn't met the standards, we want them to continuously to improve. So doing our quarterly award doing MAP test as we just finish up we're making sure we highlight that they have grown. For example, I pulled the student today and he grew 94%. He went grew tremendously just from him actively trying and a lot of it is because of the incentives that we have given to them. So for example, we have our MAP incentive uh program. I'm assuming sometimes either later this week or early next week where they get bag, chips, Takis, uh stickers, whatever else. And then of course we
070have a lot of those same incentives going on for as we get ready for SE Ready testing in uh May. And more importantly, we want a positive school experience for all. We want students to feel welcome to come to school. Uh they will hear me frequently say, "I'm the parent in the absence of your parent. So come to me. come find me at every lunch shift. You will find an administrator. You will see us constantly in the hall. Just making sure they always have someone right there all day, every day. This next slide is a couple of things that highlighted a lot of our things that we've celebrated. Obviously, we had Mr. Grinch um in the carline early in the morning. That's the teacher. Uh we have Miss Cohagen who was literacy teacher of the
071year. Then of course we have our staff and teacher me teacher of the year. Then two students I think we were doing red ribbon week which is why everybody have on red and at the very bottom we did some like a card a Valentine's Day card for just giving our teachers a little treat throughout the school day. But more importantly as we continue to grow throughout the school year we want to also make everything feels love welcome. And one thing they've also heard me say tremendously is all means all. So we had uh the Rei Greenville Drive Frog come and visited a lot of our special education classes and the one in the middle is probably the most one true to me is because that's him who has sensory of course and given a high
072five to the frog and smiling etc. Then of course we had twin days at the bottom and then up top in the right it'll be our students uh working in maker space in the media center making sure all students are pushing reading incentive to make sure we continue academic growth but also making sure we give them incentives to continue to push to be the best Lawrence Tiger they can be. Any questions? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank Thank you. All right. And now I will turn it over to uh Dr. Penland for district updates. All right. Um thank you. And so kind of going along with the theme, tell me something good. Um it is my turn to kind of share a lot of the um outstanding works that we have um going on
073in our district. Um first we'd like to recognize our Hickory Tavern um team. Um, we would um like to congratulate Miss Stling, Miss Britney Schaefer, and the Hickory Tavern Academic Bowl team. Hickory Tavern Middle School won the Western Piedmont Education Consortium Regional Academic Bowl in February. Um, as the winners, the team um advanced to the Academic State Finals um on March 7th at Lander University and finished third. One of the things that I noticed whenever I was sitting there is the teamwork that those um kids had. every time that there would be a question that they could kind of have a few seconds to answer, they would always check with each other. They would always um really just check to make sure that it was the right answer. So, it wasn't somebody taking over and
074answering everything. It was truly a team effort and that was one things that I was um very um proud to see as hardworking um young people that you are. So, I'd like to thank Coach Britney Schaefer, who was responsible for training the Hickor Tavern um academic bowl team. And Miss Schaefer is currently a fourth grade science teacher and social studies teacher at Hickor Tavern. I would like to um now recognize the team. And if Miss Schaefer and Miss Starling will come up as um we give certificates to each one of our um academic bowl team members. When I call your name, if you will please come up and um receive your certificate from the board. Liliana Almanza, Randy Ashley, Cadence Glenn, Team Captain Hyatt Reed, [Applause] Andrew P, Nate Green, Christian Hart. I will have
075to also say that I think Nate gave the most high fives of everybody um during the um event that he was always the encourager of the group for sure. Um, so if you'll um get together with Miss T, we'll kind of organize you to take a picture. [Applause] And the next thing we had on March 18th, Fox Carolina covered our STEM bus visiting Sanders Middle School. The students were able to experience several STEAM activities. And I now would like to share the news clip with you. Um, Miss Wendy Burgess and a couple of our students were interviewed. So, if you'll just take this minute to um watch our video, if you'll right now um we're glad to have you guys here today and of course in Lawrence County School District 55 our goal is to
076have a five-star culture and part of that culture is having a highquality education for all students and so what we're really working on building is building those 21st century skills with those soft skills so the STEM bus brings the two worlds together and helps to grow our students in a in an amazing way because they have hands-on activities while also building things like collaboration and focusing on building things together. So, yeah, let's see. So, uh Ruben's going to show us at the very end over here. You have a a printer. We have a 3D printer there on the end. Um kids can code and create things and then print it out on the 3D printer, which is really exciting. And of course our goal is that um all students would have access to this. So
077we needed to have things that were developmentally appropriate. So when we think about our earliest learners, we start with the Legos because kids then can that's where they begin those engineering skills, thinking about how things build, measurement, all those things. We have robots which can be coded. We use the iPads and the monitors there for the instruction and we use that for the coding. The kids can code. We also have another uh what we call makey takey. This one's really fun. It can be used for a couple different things. Um we make instruments with this, but kids can learn about circuits and relays with this. And also this is another robot kind of bringing the two pieces together. So kids can build the robot from the bottom up and they can put in their relays
078and their circuits and timers and lights and it creates this amazing robot that they then can uh you know drive. And then here's another developmentally appropriate robot. So, um the kids the the color of the tile actually allows for the coding of the car. Yeah. So much your AI drone. Yes. Some of the students here are getting their first look here. We have Jaden and Chloe. You know, I know this ties in with what you want to do when you grow up, right? Tell us about that. I want to be a mechanical engineer and circuit like this will help me like learn more about it so I can be better in my career. Yeah. How about you, Chloe? Um, I want to be an educator and I want to be able to understand things like
079this so that I can help other people to understand them as well. And I think that that would definitely benefit my future. And I think that this is a wonderful thing to add to uh Lawrence District 55. Yeah. Well, thank you both and thank you, Miss Burgess. So, this is a bus stop that is putting students on the path to a high-tech career perhaps. Reporting live in Lawrence, Maya River, Fox Carolina News. So again, we'd like to thank Fox Carolina for doing that, but I'd also like to take a special time to thank Wendy Burgess and her team in teaching learning for learning all the different components of that and all the new technology that we have um that's available for our um students in our district. Now, um the next thing I would like
080to kind of share some information about our steam on the square. Um if Cindy Wright is still here, I saw her earlier. Yep. Cindy, right? Um she has um been the spearhead of this and this past summer I met with Main Street Lawrence and we discussed the possibility of using the square for a steam event. Um I mentioned it to Cindy Wright and the planning is now history. Um she jumps on it and she um takes care of it and she is um full of energy and she is um a wealth of information and has made um tremendous contacts um for that. So on April 5th, several our local partners will come together to host um the Lawren County Steam Day on the square. This free community event will take place from 9 to 3
081on the courthouse square. And we're partnering with Lawren School District 56 um to showcase um our county's creativity, their talent, and their innovation. Um at 10 a.m. we'll be sharing some of the awards for five individuals for their lifetime support of the arts and for our districts. Over 30 businesses and organizations will share various activities and learning stations including the Joadair Education Center, the STEM bus will be there, Kemp Fellowship with science activities, the artist coupe, um the robotics team at the high school, big air inflatables and activities, and also um artwork will be on display in the museum and many student performances by our 56 and 55 um students. A huge thank you again to Lisa Kennedy, um Cindy Wright, Folly, Jenny Carti, and the teaching and learning department for planning this event. Um
082I'd like to invite the board members to um join us at the stage at 10:00 a.m. for the kickoff ceremony where they will be recognizing some important community members um who have supported steam um learning. Um Cindy, would you like to um share anything? Of course I would. This is something no one person could have done. I'm going to brag on three people that I see in this room right now. Um, what Dr. did not tell you was about eight months ago, he said, oh, about eight months ago, he said, Cindy, what do you think about this? And we didn't stop. So, I'm going to put all the blame and all the credit on Dr. Pinland with this. Um, this is the first time in the history of Lawrence County that we have combined district
08355 and 56 for a community event honoring our students. Um, board members Kathy, can I approach this and give out this to the board? Absolutely. This is a Okay. Um, every single school in district 55 will have children performing. And what I have here, this is a schedule that is soon to be released. Thank you, Amanda. Amanda's another one of those that I she handled all the money for this event. So, she's one of the heroes that are hidden in the back. But anyway, 8,000 students have been invited to this event. 8,000 students have been invited to this event. Everything is free. And I've had principles contact me, what do we need to do for our school? Nothing. The district has covered everything for you. Um you have been I would like for and this
084schedule will be released to the media but I wanted the board members to know who is presenting what and where who will be singing who will be um performing. What Dr. Pinland has not told you is tomorrow morning. Can I share this with him? Sure. Tomorrow morning he's going to WLBG with Nathan Sin, our mayor, and they will be recording an advertisement to go to be aired on WLBG on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Also, the advertiser at no cost to us will be um printing on this week's paper a full page advertising this event. And the following week, the advertiser at no cost to us is going to generate a flyer that will go out to everyone in Lawrence County who has the who gets the appetizer. So, thanks to Dr. Pinland's simple comment. What
085do you think about this? It's going to be a great event. Come out. Please honor our children. This is a time that we will celebrate the great things that our students have done. The community is behind this. I can't qu I've talked about this. Wendy knows this. I've talked about this and I've talked about this and I've talked about this. This is a great event to celebrate the awesome things that are going on in district 55 and I'm just glad district 56 has chosen to join us. That's right. Yeah. And so we do have several community partners. The city of Lawrence has been a huge partner. Um Lawrence County um has also been a partner partnering with First Steps and also with um Lawrence School District 56. So again, we are very excited about this
086event and do hope that you will all be able to come out. Um would like to also mention a congratulations to our Lawrence District 55 High School Symphony and also their honors orchestra group. So this will be some of our students that will be on showcase at the um steam event that also um received an excellent rating and superior with distinction rating at their concert performance on March 8th. So again, we do have many, many um different student groups that will be performing, but also um showing off the high quality talent that we do have in our district. Um again, um we had Beta Club induction um last week. Um we this was the first time we had it in a few years, so we were able to induct about 35 per grade level in
0879th, 10th, and 11th um grade. It was a um great event where um Miss Etha um the LDHS science teacher um was able to um lead the group and induct 105 students. We had a great crowd of parents um to come out and enjoy their um proud moment for their student to be able to be inducted in Beta Club. Um would also like to um and I'm quit clicking. Okay, there we go. Um would like to also congratulate Bryson Stewart who is a Grey Cord Owen student. He um finished fifth place in the um national archery I mean he in the state archery finals and he's qualified to compete in the national archery competition um from Grey Cord Owens. So very proud of him. Um we also have um coming up a behavior intervention strategies.
088Um this will be our session two. It's on April 1st um from 6:00 to 7:00 and the focus will be conscious discipline. Miss Amanda Lacarose will be sharing information on how we're implementing that and the strategies that parents can take back um to their homes to be able to um help with behavior intervention strategies with their students and their children. All right. Also, congratulations to our Boy State um selectees that um congratulations to the following students. I'll just read their names off. Robert Bradway, Jordan Straoud, Price Turner, Braden Yarbor, Logan Galt, Hunter Richardson, um Zalon Williams, Cody Patterson, Ryan Nichols, Max Martin, um Austin McCall, Jackson Cole. I'm so proud of these um young men. I know several of them. And whenever um the American Legion said that their their wits, presence, extracurricular activities, academic
089record, and most of all their citizenship um caused them to be selected. um they are truly all of those characteristics. Some of them are very witty, but they also have some um very high academic records and um are involved in a lot of things. So again, congratulations to our pilot of boy state selections. Um couple of staff highlights I'd like to do is um congratulations to Victoria Jordan. Um she's from Grey Court Owens. She was selected as education week and featured um as um for her classroom mindfulness practices. they aired um a video on her um a couple of weeks ago and um just have not had a chance to congratulate her. And also um Danette McClinton um was one of the emerging leaders um and part of the class of 2024 2025 um for
090the South ASC. I would now like to take a moment to um congratulate Lewis Compton. Um he is here in the crowd. Um, so Lewis, if you'll just um let everybody recognize you. Um, and the South Carolina Athletic um, Administrators Association awarded Lewis Compton the Braveheart Award. Um, the Braveheart Award is given in recognition of an individual who has exhibited a spirit of bravery and courage while enduring trying personal experiences. I have personally known Lewis my entire life. We grew up in the same church. Lewis is a few years older than me, so I grew up seeing his competitive nature and his athleticism. I have a vivid reme memory of him as a coach for our ladies church softball team. He had an intense competitive nature and expected excellence from all of his players, even
091in the church league, and yes, his now wife. Fast forward a few years. My wife and I had not been married long, but my dad my dad called and said Louisis had been in a hunting accident and didn't know what had happened. But he knew it wasn't good. I remember going to the hospital and first seeing your mom. She's always had it together, but visibly upset just saying, "I need you to pray. That's all we need is prayer." My wife and I went into the room to see Angela Lewis. And even in that moment, I could still feel that competitive nature and how you both had that we're going to win attitude and we're going to beat this. Not knowing what the beat would look like, but God only bless not only blessed you with
092the fight and competitive nature in athletics, but also the competitive nature and the winning attitude that you would need to beat this. Um, he also blessed you with a life with that same competitive drive, knowing all the time this was what you needed to come through this and be able to inspire others. He can now fly down the halls much faster than we can walk. He is going to be at as many athletic events and every event that is possible and on the sidelines. And it is my privilege as superintendent. I not only get to see a great principal and leader, but I get to see a great friend inspire our student athletes, our student body, and the staff, not only at his school, but in our district. So, congratulations and welld deserved on the
093Braveheart award. [Applause] Louis I I want to make a quick comment. Um just my deep respect for Mr. Compton. And if if you go in the church parking lot on Sunday morning, you you're not going to find Lewis truck parked in a handicap. He's parked in the back side of the parking lot and comes all the way from the furthest part of the parking lot. This is a man who just does not say quit and doesn't let any handicap hinder him. It's just an amazing story. I appreciate all that you do for our students, this district, and just the the inspiration that you give me. Right. So, our learns update, you know, last month y'all did approve to um allow us to utilize some funds to um keep the um staff employed that we had
094in the grant. Um but in the um in your packet, you will in the paper packet that you have, you'll find um an education week article that was um is provided for you in there. These pictures are also at Ford Elementary um education week wanted to highlight um Ford Elementary but also our work toward our learns grant and they focused on the grants across the nation. So our within our board meeting last month we have gained um national recognition. We have um worked hard um throughout um the country and also in our state um to helpfully get our funding reinstated. So, um, again, just kind of a recap. Um, we've met with Cherry Bigs and some of her staffers, the House Appropriations, um, staffer in DC, Senator Claburn, we've been in email contact back and
095forth with Tim Scott's office, Lindsey Graham's office, been in contact with Ellen Weaver, and also Dr. Penny Schwin, who is deputy secretary of education um, pending Senate um, confirmation. Um we've also worked with NIT staff and other um TSL grantees to share information and also submit our um amen I mean our appeal for reinstatement. So I do want to thank um Amanda and Wendy for all their work and also FA for um managing all the press releases and all the um interviews that um came with our last board meeting. Um but again um we do are starting to get some very good vibes hopefully getting our money reinstated. Um that is something that whenever we spoke with um Dr. Penny Schwin, she was talking a lot about um her job um once she's confirmed and
096how that would work as we move forward and um kind of got some good feels throughout some of our other conversations that um it is very possible that we will get reinstated for our funding. All right. May I inter interrupt for one second? So last month when Miss Brown uh was presenting uh along with Miss Lacarose uh Mr. Dawkins got up and was trying to show that little short fold out of what this data wall looks like. Well, this is it. That's the picture of it. And Miss Nance, you've probably seen it because you've been infor so much, but that is what they were trying to describe to us and what I was so excited about. So yeah, I just want to point that out. And I will just have to say that Education League
097contracted with Bryant Kirk White to take these pictures. So we were very excited to have um one of our own sharing um the work with Education Week also. So um again, early childhood registration, if you have a 4K 5K that needs to register for next year, please register at your child's own school. And um this thing's glitchy. Okay. So, now I'll turn it over to Danny. Um, if nobody has any questions. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Uh, following up on Lewis getting the award is a pretty tough act to follow and thank goodness I'm much better looking than he is. But anyway, it's March, guys, and you get to see me again. Um, I have to do this to make sure that we're in compliance with our children uh internet protection act. Uh, it's
098a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about addressing uh offensive content over the internet on school and library computers. Um, there's three criteria that we have to follow. First, we must uh provide protection filtering or blocking uh internet access by protecting against access by adults and minors to visual depictions or or harmful uh images to minors. this board. There's three board policies that address this uh uh board policy JNDB technology resources sub uh directory R1, R2, R3 and R4. Uh the second one is GB internet and electronic communications and the third one is GBA social media. Lawrence County School District 55 employs IBOS web filtering, crowd strike fi falcon antivirus protection and Palo Alto firewall with trustify in conjunction with our Cisco umbrella. Um the second criterion is uh this uh this must
099be discussed in a public hearing which we're doing tonight. And third, uh, we must include monitoring and when available, prevention of online activities for our minors, uh, access by minors to inappropriate matter on campus as well as off-campus. Uh, safety and security of miners when using email, chat rooms, and other direct electronic communications. Unauthorized access, including hacking or unlawful activities by minors online. unauthorized disclosure, use uh and dissemination of PII uh such as name, address, phone number, date of birth, and images, and then measures uh designed to restrict miners access to harmful material. Monitoring appears uh to require only supervision, not technical measures. Specifically, SIPA does not require tracking of internet usage, but Lawrence County School District 55 has this capability. We also utilize Gaggle as a partnership with SC Kick as uh a department
100of the South Carolina law enforcement division. Are there any questions about the SIPA requirements? Right. I'd like to briefly uh celebrate some things that we have accomplished. Most uh most recently, we added Trustify to our uh email support for our school district. And I would like actually take a moment to commend three people in this room for being cyber vigilant. Um just last week uh we had a spear fishing attempt in our school district which is not like a normal fishing attack. Uh normal fishing attack is mostly bots and it's just bombarding your email accounts. A spear fishing attack is actually uh identifying an individual or two in this case and uh trying to compromise their accounts. And in this case, this actually happened to our board chair as well as our superintendent. And it
101was uh quickly identified by uh Mrs. Little as well as Dr. Pinland, but the key person I believe was uh Mrs. Leair. She uh she was right on the spot and called us out on it. And thankfully, we were able to utilize Trustify and our cyber vigilance to stop this attack. This is again not a normal uh fishing attempt. this was specific for these two individuals and I just wanted to commend you guys. I appreciate everything you're doing and uh it takes more than just a a software package to keep our our personal information safe. So um just a short little synopsis on Trustify. Uh we have a,100 I'm sorry,1 email accounts in our district on the faculty side and out of those email accounts uh just last week alone there was 21,721 emails scanned
102in our school district. That is in one week. And in that one week, 20,564 of those emails were blocked because they were malicious. So that's saving us right at the front door of our email accounts. um in that 121,000 um emails, 266 of those emails were actually uh emails trying to impersonate a user in our account and they were stopped by Trustify. So very very proud of uh our our school district, thankful to to Dr. Pendlean to allow us to utilize this tool to keep our school district safe. Uh real quick, some summer projects we have planned. Uh we're upgrading the ninth grade devices at the high school uh with new devices. Uh Lawrence Middle School, ironically here tonight uh they're getting all new Chromebooks at the beginning of next school year. And if you
103don't mind, I'd like to take a minute. I believe that every uh every meeting is uh is divine intervention. Um I've I've mentioned this to uh Mrs. Mavine before uh but uh I'd like to commend Mrs. Mavine as well as Miss Jackson. One of our computer technicians just recently mentioned to me in the last few months that he could see a night and day difference in the the the atmosphere and everything at Lawrence Middle School and he wanted to just commend uh those folks about that. So, I just want to take that moment to mention that since since I've brought uh the school into the mix here. Uh we're planning to reimage our labs uh because the state of South Carolina has purchased Class Link um for all the school districts. We will be transitioning
104from Clever to Class Link, working real close with Miss Burgess and the teaching and learning team to uh to transition this summer so that we'll be able to start fresh with Class Link in the in the new school year. Um we are adding uh new machines as point of sale machines in the cafeterias as well as the manager stations. And lastly, we're using a - project to um upgra the access points at Grey Court Owens. Um I think it's like 62 access points that we we will be upgrading in that school. And lastly, I would like to in the uh the moment of education, I brought a uh public speaker to uh to my podium here. So, I'd like to introduce this is special agent Lee Rankin. He is with the FBI and I just
105wanted to kind of give him a moment to kind of talk to you guys, introduce you guys and let you know understand that we have a working relationship not just with our state law enforcement but with the federal law enforcement as well getting appreciate the time. I did not game plan my talking points with Danny before this. So, it's just coincidence or maybe it's how important it is. But unfortunately, we have the um the task of addressing cyber security, cyber threats throughout the state and the nation. And a large portion of our incidences deal with school boards and public entities because the funding that's available to uh these entities is public. So that makes you a big target for cyber intrusions and account takeovers. If there's three things that I've seen in instances where the
106organization was able to survive a cyber attack was one, they created a culture of vigilance. That's both on the IT side. That's that's also with the users. That's anywhere from students to teachers being cognizant of what links they click. We call it uh think before you link. Okay. Um, I think everybody has seen the mail package been delivered, click here, so forth. But a lot of times, if you think about it, you probably never even had a package being sent to you. But this social engineering is very, it's very effective. A lot of people sense that uh sense of urgency and will click on things they wouldn't normally click on. The second point is uh partnerships. Um, I work with all the school districts, SC Kick, and we have monthly and quarterly meetings on what
107we're seeing out there, what cyber actors are doing, their techniques that are being used. And um lastly is to always have a backup plan. Schools have existed before technology and we can continue if we need to uh temporarily without technology, but it's always good to have backups that you can obtain pretty readily if your systems are encrypted. Um, a lot of media reports you hear a system was affected, a school district was impacted and will be offline indefinitely. If you read between the lines, that means all the information they had stored has been encrypted and they can't access it. So, this can be very um catastrophic to a organization. So, I would much rather be here today talking about this to prevent any incident than having to do a whole bunch of paperwork and trying
108to track down cyber actors that have encrypted your data or stolen data. And just lastly, data today is a commodity. Um, it's being sold. So, if your data is taken, there are um responsibilities for you to report that unfortunately. And it can be leaked on the internet. And um you know if you have any questions here I am. I'm open for uh any comments or questions you may have. When those uh when cyber attacks come through are they wanting money to release your information back to you? I mean is that the primary source or is it just to disrupt your life? Mainly it's a monetary business now. It's it's not as much the technical actors that are doing it, but kits are sold on the dark market now, which will enable any u thief to
109deploy this and try to solicit money. Uh initially it will be you will pay a ransom to have your information decrypted and then you'll pay them have that decrypted and then you'll get hit a few months later saying your information was actually exfiltrated from your system and we're going to leak it unless you pay yet a second ransom. So it's a very lucrative business but uh monetary incentive is what we found in most cases. Yes. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just uh one thing I failed to mention uh we also asked uh SC kick with SLED to come and speak to the principal meeting on March 4th. So we have that working relationship with all those folks to try to to do as
110much as we can to protect our district. Wow. That's good. Thank you, Mr. President. All right, we um you ready for me to go into the Okay, so we'll um now go into board operations. Um in your packet, you will see the 2526 schedule of board meetings. Um they are um listed here. They are t um typically the fourth Monday of the month. You'll see that we have a couple in the month that are third Mondays. We have a couple that are marked tentative um until we find out what the actual high school homecoming schedule is so that we can um participate as a board because that's typically when they do the parade is during the board meeting. Um it's only been a couple years. Um, so, um, we went ahead and put those in
111as tentative dates and then if the homecoming week falls on that, we will, um, notify everybody to make sure that we swap that, um, date so that we can participate. Um, so with this one, we'll need board action. Um, do I have any questions or concerns? And then I'll need a motion to approve. I'll make a motion that we approve the schedule as presented. I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor of approving the school board schedule of meetings as is, please say I. Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Next, we have Miss Wendy Burgess, director of teaching and learning, and this will also need board uh approval, but she will um present on the approval of our math um curriculum selection. Correct. Good evening. Um Good evening, madame chair and Lawrence 55 board
112members. I am Wendy Burgess and I'm here to present the math adoption. So part of your work as our um ones in charge is to make sound instructional decisions. So in South Carolina we have the South Carolina college and career ready standards and as you know that there's a rotation to update those standards. So last year was the year for those to be updated and along that comes with that is a curriculum review process. So the department of education leads the state through that process and then at the district level we mimic that's a very similar process. So here is what our adoption process looked like in Lauren's 55. And I want to say a huge thanks to Lee Sever. She is our math coordinator. She's done a wonderful job in making sure that we've
113um rolled out professional development wrapped around those standards so that then our teachers could then make good choices when they were thinking about um which of these curricula best fit the needs for Lawrence 55. And so, uh, last month when we had professional development, we brought in the various vendors and they were able to, um, share out to our teachers and then they were able to submit their votes. And so, what that curriculum process also what we were looking at was the alignment to the standards, but also are our students going to be engaged? Are there technology options? Are there hands-on activities? What do the assessments look like? Is there professional development support moving forward? And so, of course, those are what we're looking for. What are the benefits of the adoption? At the end
114of the day, we're looking for that five-star culture. And so, does this align with what we're doing in Lawrence 55 to grow our students and make them college and career ready? And so, where we landed in the K through eight um curriculum space is a recommendation to approve the South Carolina reveal by McGraw Hill. and that is grades K through eight. And then for grades um 9th through 12, there's a a myriad of different secondary math courses. But what we landed on there was the Savas Learning LLC. They had a very a wonderful continuation of support across all of the resources that were going to come in that were going to meet our needs. So here's just a breakdown of the votes from our teachers across the district. grades six through and then here are
115the a couple of the great reasons why grades 9 through 12 um selected SEO. And then of course your next question would be well what is the implementation plan? And what that looks like and feels like is we would do some summer training for each of the grade levels and we would provide that ongoing support during the year that will be part of our district leadership team, instructional leadership team and making sure there's a seamless implementation process um across the next school year. And so it is um our recommendation that and and if you in your packet you had a memo that was very robust along with these slides to to preview ahead of time. And so it is our recommendation that the board approve the South Carolina reveal math by McGraw Hill for grades
116K through eight and to approve for the secondary level which is grades 9 through 12 um SIS Learning LLC. And so with that, Dr. Pinland and Madam Chair, I'll throw it to you. Um can I ask a quick question? I saw that you the math teacher is going to require part of their summer to train on this the new curriculum. So teachers have to do professional development and so what the district does is they will try we will try to use those professional development days over the summer as time to train on the the new math resources. Are these different than what we are we currently have in place? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. At all grade levels there. Yes. So, it's going to be a totally new math curriculum across the board.
117It will be. Yes, sir. Any other questions, comments? Um, as Miss B just indicated, we do have we do need board action to approve the curriculum, math curriculum adoption. So, if we could get a motion. Yeah, I'll make the motion that we adopt the curriculum as it's laid out. Second. Thank you. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor of approving the math curriculum as presented, please say I. Any opposed? Thank you. We're approved. Thank you, Miss Burgess. Right. Our next item on the agenda is um for board operations is milestone towers. The last two months we have had them here pres or they were here last week presenting. the week month before um we did a presentation to talk about the tower that they are requesting to for us to sign a lease agreement
118for them to put a tower on the back side of Cer Park which is kind of at the back of EB Mars. If you see this site right here, you can see the track and how it's um down toward the lower side of the um both ball fields um near the entrance of Carside. Um the site view you can see barely see it over the tree or the top of um Lauren's middle. Um here's another view of it if it'll click. Um coming down beside um EB Morris where going into CER Park and then looking over EB Morris um in the skyline there you can see that. So, um that is um where we have um kind of looked at the uh the lease agreement over the past couple of months. We have that um
119kind of coming back today for board action. Um does anybody have any additional questions? Just a reminder, this is a 10-year lease with four or fiveyear extension options for a total of 30 years. Um with that, that's how long the lease could last. will get 40% of the revenue. Um that's above the um cap of their kind of cost. We'll also get $25,000 and $5,000 per carrier um that is um leased on the tower. So this would be um revenue for the next 10 up to 30 years. And correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. land. One of the reasons for the need of this tower is that water companies decommissioning the water tank tow their water tower which has cellular radios on top of it. So which is right across the road from Lawrence. This
120is a community need if they're looking for a way to um when that before that tower is torn down before the water tower is torn down, we have something in place to do that. So I think this helps out the school district with at least they're paying us as well as the community and make sure that that we they have cellular coverage in this area. So, any other questions? This one will need board approval to assign the agreement with Milestone Towers. Would anybody like to make a motion regarding Milestone Towers? Yeah, I'll make the motion that we assign uh we sign the agreement with Milestone for to build tower. I'll second. Thank you. Any further discussion or questions? All those in favor of approving an agreement with Milestone Towers, please say I. Any opposed? Motion
121carries. All right. The fourth item on the board operations is inclement weather day. Um we have been waiting on legislation to go through the house and senate at the state level to forgive that day. Um that is kind of held up currently. there is some movement, but that still could take a couple of weeks to actually make it through. So, we will um go ahead and say April 1st will be a student day as makeup day. If legislation passes before spring break, we'll call a um special called meeting to allow you the opportunity to forgive that day if you so choose. Um, so we would need to make um this move as a board um action to approve that the inclement weather day will now be made up on day six of um which is
122a purple day currently in the calendar for April 21st, 2025. And the makeup day would be what day again? 21st. April 21st. It's a Monday. That's the Monday when we come back from spring, right? So, you'll have the week of spring break, then come back on Monday versus Tuesday. It's the day after Easter, correct? Okay. Um, so we will need a motion to approve that the makeup day will be April 21st. I'll make a motion approve makeup day April 21st. I'll second. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the makeup day is April 21st, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. The motion carries. Our next item on the agenda is um naming of athletic training room per policy FF in your hard copy packet that you received today. I
123just went ahead and put a an additional copy of policy FF for your reference. Um, we did receive um the request from Miss Elizabeth Franklin um who I'll ask to come up and if we have any um questions there. But in your packet you received um letters of recommendation from Miss Elizabeth Franklin. You also had um a letter from Ed Prescott. We also had a letter from Mark Fes, a letter from there, Eric Sullivan, and Stan Whitlock. Um, so these letters are in there for your consideration as and also Stacy Evans um who is um who are all requesting that um the board consider the naming of the athletic training room in um honor of Barry Atkinson. So, anything you would like to um share or if anybody have any questions um for Miss Franklin?
124Go ahead. Okay. Um before I begin on this, I would like to just piggyback real quick on your kind remarks to Lewis Compton. Um, I always have referred to him as Coach Compton as um, we were in a family of of coaches and and athletes and I too sat in that waiting room when that call was made about you, Coach Compton. And I cannot say how many, you know, just how much it means that you are where you are and the impact you've made on so many lives. And and I say that because my request to re or to name the training facility, the athletics um training room at the high school in honor of Barry Atkinson simply um means that he too was there with Coach Compton when that incident happened. and those men
125and what they've done in all of these years for each other and for the athletes and students at the high school have meant so much. Um, so it was my idea to bring this to your attention and request that the athletic training room be named in honor of Barry Atkinson. I had much support from, as you mentioned, Ed Prescott, Mark Fes, Stan Whitlock, Eric Sullivan, and Stacy Evans. I could have continued on um with the positive response with others, but you would still be reading, I believe, um from those who were in big favor of this request. So, I hope that you have looked over um those supporting my letter and the supporting letters from those who've also written to understand why we feel that this would be such an honor to him. For those
126of you who don't know, Barry Atkinson um spent many years at the high school from 1981 until 2017. To do the math, that's 36 years. um not to tell on myself but I was one when he started at the high school. So for quite a while that is where he spent his time. He not only um helped student athletes of all kinds but he helped just students, teachers um spouses of teachers, family members of teachers, and even those in our community who needed his assistance during those times of need. So, I hope that you will consider this request um and that we can make this happen in honor of Coach Atinson who's given so much of his time to the school district. Thank you, Miss Franklin. Um if I could, I'll take just a moment.
127I'm going to read um a bit of the letter that Miss Franklin sent in um for those in the audience and then those that may not know Coach Atinson. Um, Coach Atkinson has been honored with numerous prestigious awards throughout his career, each serving as testament to his outstanding character and exemplary leadership. In 1994, he was athletic trainer for the North team in the South Carolina Baseball Coaches Association. In 2000, he was awarded the South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association trainer of the year. In 2003, athletic trainer for the South Carolina Shrine Bowl of the Carolas. in 2004. Um really to present, he currently is on the medical committee for the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas. In ' 08, he was inducted into the Delaware District 55 Hall of Fame. In ' 09, he was the first
128athletic trainer to be inducted into South Carolina Athletics Coaches Hall of Fame. In 2016, he received the Fred W. Hoover Award presented by the South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association. He was a threetime north north ath athletic trainer for South Carolina Football Coaches Association for the North South All-Star game. In 2019, he was inducted into the Shrine Bowl of the Carolina's Hall of Fame. Longtime secondary school committee chair for the South Carolina Athletic Trainers Association. Um longtime South Carolina Athletic Trainers Association liaison to the a South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association board of directors. Um, let's see. Longtime South Carolina Trainers Association representative to the high school league board, a member of the sports medicine curriculum committee with the South Carolina Department of Education. He was the athletic trainer for non-state championship teams at Lawrence High School.
129He received the South Car South Carolina Athletic Trainers Association's founders award. and he had six Lawrence High School athletic training students assistants that participated in the Shrine Bowl and had one Lawrence High School athletic training student assistant participate in a North South all-star football game. Um, I ran through those really quickly, but it is a testament to coach Atkinson and what he has provided for this district. And I know personally of stories of him interacting with athletes to make sure they get the medical care they need, even if they couldn't afford it or their parents or family members couldn't drive them to an appointment. I know he stepped up to take care of many of those things for those athletes. So I I just want to comment how much I appreciate your effort in this
130day and time where it's we live in such a negative culture and people seem to find a purpose in tearing people down. having this is just a breath of fresh air to see that we have people in our community that are are worthy uh and need to be recognized and so thank you for your time to do put all that together and I I did not know I don't know coach Atkins and so I don't I I can't testify that I'm married and so this I've made this my home but I certainly trust your judgment and the judgment of those that hope appreciate you taking time thank I do know Doc. I got hit by a car as a junior and never missed a football game as a senior. Doc done a pretty good job
131on his right knee. So, I'm in um is there any other questions or discussion? Okay. Um, based on the information that we've been presented with tonight, per policy FF, um, if anyone would like to make a motion regarding naming our high school athletic training room for coach, I would be honored to make the motion. I'll second. Thank you. Any further discussion or comments? All those in favor of naming our high school athletic training room after coach Barry Atkinson, please say I. Any opposed? Motion. All right. And now, uh, we have had an ex extensive amount of board action tonight. Um, Mr. Lis, it's your turn. You know how I like to follow uh touching and important stuff with more mundane financial report. So, thank you all for organizing the agenda in that way. Your financial
132report didn't fix my knee. We'll we'll do it again. Don't worry. All right. You should have received a copy of the financial report for February of 2025. Our balance with the treasur's office at the end of the month was 11,52,564. General fund revenues for the first eight months of 41,614,237. and expenditures for the same period of million82,767 for a difference of 5,531,470. Tax collections for the month of January were $1,142,89. Anyone have any questions about the monthly financial report? Thank you. Mr. Lawless, are you going to speak on the page 40 for the general fund? I can. So I I did share the question you had with him. So he is prepared to um so he is prepared to um um address um Yeah. I wanted to a followup question from the from last month's
133from last month's yeah from the the auditor's report on page 40 um could you just explain um that last column so on page 40 it talks about budgeted amounts original final and then it talks about actual amounts bud budgetary basis and then a variance from the budget and it shows the general fund at a negative 2.7 seven. Can you just tie that back into everything else that we've talked about? Sure. Okay. So, the budget, the final budget is what was approved by this board. Okay. That this schedule is presented in a different basis than what we than the document that I prepare and the document that you approve. Okay. We our expenditures for instance are not to get into too much of the the nitty-gritty of it but an account number is broken down into
134fund function object modifier and location. That's how we observe and measure uh our expenditures. We present the budget expenditures on the object basis. So that would be salaries, benefits, supplies. That's how we That's how we frame it up. That's how we utilize it primarily. This view, it's on the function, right? They break it down between instruction support. That's the second group of numbers in our account number. So, it's just a little different view uh than than the but the total should agree back to what the board approves. Uh this is something that's more meaningful to the Department of Ed. This schedule is a required component of a audit report for a school district in South Carolina. So I have provided you should have received copies of that same information right the same budget to actual
135uh with the variance along with how how we budgeted that for the following year uh in some additional schedules. Does everyone have those? Yes. Okay. So you can see um on the revenue schedule you know we we budget try to be very conservative right. So on local revenues we exceeded we've collected more than we budgeted. So that was a favorable thing which was a good thing because the new funding model is extremely volatile and you could see it kicked us in the teeth to the tune of about 700 grand. And our estimate was based on the lowest projection provided to us by the state during the budget season last year. We rounded down from the lowest projection to get to where we were and it was still a $700,000 miss. So overall, we were above
136budget on revenues by about $1.1 million. Uh on the schedule page 40, that's a combination of the the variance for revenues and the variance for other financing sources and uses. Okay, that's kind of those are all revenues. And then on the expenditure side, you can see we really kind of took it on the chin last year. It was 3.8 8 million over. Uh primarily if you look at the schedule that I provided that hit in salaries and benefits. Some of that is um just positions that had to be funded uh based on enrollment. Some of it is uh you know a lot of it was in transportation salaries and benefits where uh we have kind of a driver shortage and when that happens our drivers incur overtime which is paid at 150% of the regular
137rate and then you got the benefits on top of that. Retirement is paid as a percentage of the salary and the uh taxes are paid as a percentage of salary. So that was the biggest single hit. Uh also if you look at the section 313 speech uh learning disability and psych services are what make up the majority of that. Those are contract positions. I don't think any of us are blind to the fact that it is increasingly difficult to hire those positions in house and they get contracted out and that comes at a significantly higher price tag than the employed positions that we've enjoyed in the past. And then the other significant hit to us really was more of a timing issue and that's in 395 for other professional and technical services. The lion share
138of that group is student uh resource officer services. Um and about a million dollars of bills came to us attributable to the 22 23 year we actually received in the spring of in March of 24. Um, so we kind of ended up with a double hit on those. So we took a we were significantly overbudget on our expenditures and so our general fund fund balance for the fiscal year of June ended June 30, 2024 actually decreased by 2.7 million. Now over the course of the last three years were still to the positive and uh like I said you know we've had a a million dollars of that was attributable to 2223. 22 23 we had a 1.9 million surplus for the year. We had a 1.8 million I believe surplus for the year before that.
139Overall we're still positive but as additional funds have rolled into the general fund from our restricted funds at the state level the size of our general fund or the amount of money that gets accounted for through the general fund um has grown without an increase in expenditure but just by virtue of rolling other funds into that general fund. And what that does is it means that it our requirement for maintaining a general fund fund balance grows as a necessity uh just to meet that same demand. So to get that 8.3% which is the equivalent of one month of your estimated general fund expenditures we have to actually grow our fund balance. So you know we are still in safe territory at about 11%. We were shooting to be in the 20s. You we were in
140the 15% range a couple of years ago and this hurts since hurts us certainly. You know, in addition to the fact that we have the deficit budget for this year and if we're not able to get back to learns grant that hurts us again, we still should be above that minimum threshold that a staff, you know, the where you start getting that second look for fiscal watch by the state. I don't think we're going to hit that. Um and that's certainly something that we have to avoid. I think the administration uh under Dr. Pendland is keenly aware of the constraints that we have and we're taking some fairly evasive maneuvers to try to recover from that and uh get this district on a more sustainable course going forward. But I think I don't know if
141I answered your question. I just well and I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to throw that extra piece in tonight. But did I? Yes, we're good. Yes, I did. You did. Thank you. Great. Um the second um thing item under finance and operations is facility study update. Um we did have our work session this afternoon at 5 um where we basically came out with no board action. Um but we will be working on begin to discuss and have um additional community input and teacher focus groups that we'll be developing and also hosting to look at some of the um options as we move forward with the facilities. and we'll be begin discussing um with the high school a master plan if we were to kind of move forward
142toward a um kind of a rebuild replace um on site campuses and the options there. So um there's not really any type of board action other than that we will um begin those processes um in the near future. All right. Thank you. Um, oh, it's still So, let me see if I can get there. Yep. All right. So, um, under the finance and operations, um, we are, um, requesting for authority to be given to the superintendent administration to begin the negotiations to purchase a piece of property for a bus lot. Um, this comes in order to concern some um, and address some safety protections and some concerns. This would alleviate the bus gate having to be monitored and open and closed three times per day. This would allow for buses to move um if the
143high school were on lockdown or in need of reunification. And we'll look at um into options of rerouting car lines and routes to try to get more cars off Raider Road if we were able to do this. So, the piece of property that we are requesting um to start negotiations with is on Anderson Drive. The bottom right corner is PRTC. The bottom left corner is the YNCA. And so this is the piece of property that has kind of a fence around it and is being utilized as kind of a work site um currently for a utility company, but that's the entrance of it. We have discussed this with South Carolina DOT, the Office of School Facilities, a few council members um because we were thinking it may need to be a zoning um question, but
144um we think we have that worked out and that's not going to be an issue. So, whenever we are um looking at the purchase of this, you know, we've just finished talking about general fund and the money that we um don't necessarily um have a lot of access to, this is actually out of capital money. Um that's another component of the budget approval process that we go through um which is um part of um bond selling um what we call the 512 8% capital fund. Um this will be included in the 2526 capital improvement budget. Um but if we see the need to purchase this um sooner, we will come back to you with a reimbursement resolution where that would allow us to purchase it this year to know that we would be reimbursing next
145year. But we are coming right now with the um question to um ask for authority to start the negotiations for this process. Is there a cost with it? Um yes sir, but we don't know the total cost right now until we finish those negotiations. Um we do have kind of a funding amount that we purchased the corner of 221 at Ford whenever that was PNT Hardware. So we have some type of um kind of guidelines of kind of how much that would um be working at. They've given us kind of a tentative um price to start with, but we kind of want to go through the negotiation process versus putting that out online right now. So right now you just need approval for to go into negotiations. Yes. Then once you kind of finalize the
146price then you come back and say we want to buy it at this price. Yes. Um because where we are, we wanted to make sure that with DOT office school facilities, it was going to be a viable piece of property for us before we even went into negotiations. Would everything go there if you purchased it or would the bus shop still stay out there at the highway department? Um that is not our facility. So that is actually the state facility. Um so that is the maintenance shop. So that would still stay there. Um this would be removing all buses off of um the high school campus. Um, we would probably still leave buses at Waterlue and Hickory Tavern just due to the amount of travel that they would um need, we would need to bring
147them back into town. But we're hoping that this would um we know this would be big enough to house all the buses of the high school. So, if the high school goes on lockdown and the bus is being at the high school, they are not allowed to go to because all gates are locked and so we can't release them until we get clearance through um our SRO's or our county city um that we're working with to be able to release those buses because everything's nobody's moving. Gotcha. On lockdown, but if we needed to do a reunification, you know, this actually happened probably two years ago. we were in the middle of lockdown around 3:15 at the high school. We needed buses out to go pick up elementary kids, right? And so we um could not
148do that um until so we were a little bit delayed um starting um or running pickup. So thank you. And just to reiterate, this is not this is not accessible monies that we could use to hire a teacher. We we can't pay salaries with this money, right? Just making sure that everyone's on the same page with that. That's correct. Okay. Um any additional discussion? Um so we would need board action for this. So um we would need a motion to um grant authorization for the superintendent and or his designate to uh negotiate a contract and then they would bring that back to the I'll make a motion negotiate a contract. I'll second. Questions, comments? All those in favor of granting authorization to the superintendent to negotiate a contract regarding this property for the bus lab,
149please say I. Any opposed? Thank you. The motion carries. Uh, Miss Brandom, do we have any public participation? We did not. Thank you. And at this time we do have a executive session on the agenda. So we will need a motion to move into that. I'll make a motion go in executive session. I'll second. I'd like to invite Rene Madden. Okay. [Music] Oh, thank you. Okay, I will. We're ready. Yes, ma'am. Okay, it's 8:22. I'll call us back into order. Um I'll call us back into order. Miss Elders, we do have um we do have board action from our executive session. We need to improve approve the certified employee contracts for 2526 school year. We do have uh two lists. So right now, if we could get a motion to approve list A. Yeah, I'll
150make a motion that we approve list A. Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion or questions? All those in favor of approving list A of certified employee contracts, please say I. Any opposed? Approved. And now we will need a second motion for list B. I'll make a motion to approve list B. Second. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor of approving list B for certified employee contracts, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. And with no further business on our agenda, we will adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.