001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> It is 6:00, May 21st, and I'd like to call this board meeting to order. I'd like to welcome everyone here tonight. Um And today we had a graduation. It made me start thinking when I saw the graduates Some of y'all have already heard me say this earlier to retirement. But you had the students came across you'd hear cheers from different sections. And I'm I'm really saying this to the teachers and to our admin. Cuz you'd hear cheers over here and you'd hear cheers over here for each name. But then there was a couple kids that came across that was kind of quiet. It was silence. No cheering, no clapping. And I started thinking what motivated them to come across the stage? And it was the teachers. The impact that the teachers
002have, ones that are homeless. And I hope y'all realize the impact y'all have on these students. Because like I said earlier, we don't know what they come from. We can't change where they come from. We can't change their upbringing. But we can change their future, and that's what y'all doing. So I know on behalf of the board, it's our last meeting of the school year. Everybody's out tomorrow, half day. I know a lot of them's already going. But we just want to thank the teachers. Because y'all were the reason some of them kids actually get to walk across stage. Y'all provided the motivation for them to go. Y'all provided it. Whether it's the admin or bus driver, we thank y'all. We thank the teachers and thank all the admins for your year y'all had. Um
003cuz I know after tomorrow on their summer breaks and enjoying the summer. So, thank y'all and we'll get started with our meeting then. I'm going to turn over to Ms. Wooten. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are delighted to have two rising seniors from Airport High School with us tonight. We have Talon Harrell and who will be leading us in the invocation and Addison Herron who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Talon is a standout member of the class of 2027 at Airport High School, maintaining an impressive 4.3 GPA while excelling both academically and athletically. He is a dedicated member of the varsity football and golf teams and is actively involved in Beta Club and National Honor Society. He also participates on the school mock trial team and is an active member of Radius
004Church. Outside of school, Talon demonstrates a strong commitment to service and leadership through his work at Big Air Trampoline Park and his regular volunteer efforts at Midlands baseball field. This summer, he will proudly represent Airport High School at Palmetto Boys State. Talon's work ethic, leadership, and involvement make him an outstanding representative of the Airport community. Addison is an exceptional member of the class of 2027 at Airport High School. She currently holds a 4.9 GPA, ranks ninth in her class, and has been selected as a junior marshal for this year's graduation ceremony. This summer, Addison will proudly represent Airport High School at Palmetto Girls State. Beyond her academic success, Addison is actively involved in Beta Club, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Student Government, where she dedicates herself time to serving both her school and community. She
005has also applied to become a junior volunteer with the Junior League, volunteers through her church, and demonstrates a strong work ethic by balancing two jobs with Midland's baseball and Southern Way Catering. Addison's leadership, character, and service make her a standout student and role model among her peers. Y'all still step to the podium. All right. Um I'll be leading us an invocation or Is this better? All right. Um I'll be leading us an invocation tonight. >> I guess that would work, too. >> That'll work. >> There we go. Um I'll be leading us an invocation tonight. So, I believe we're supposed to bow our heads and pray. >> [clears throat] >> Lord, I thank you for getting us all here together safely. Um I pray that we can all just grow closer to you as this
006meeting unfolds and we all have good conversation. Lord, I thank you for the great school year we've all had and I I really just hope and pray that we all grow closer to you um as as peers and as friends, Lord. Um and in your son, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. All right, with no objection to consent agenda stands approved as presented. And we're going to move on into honors and accomplishments and turn over to Dr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board and our Lexington Two community. First up tonight, we are going to adjust the order
007of our honors and accomplishments program. Go ahead and bring up our class of 2026 members to the podium. I know we have at least one student who's not able to be here tonight because of because he is competing in the playoffs with the Airport baseball team. We've also got Brooklyn-Cayce High 2026 members who graduated this morning and they probably have other plans for with their family tonight. So, let's go ahead and invite to the podium Airport Principal Matt Shullit and Brooklyn-Cayce Assistant Principal Ms. Amy Rankin to do the honors of introducing us to just a small sampling of the outstanding graduates and members of the distinguished class of 2026. Thank you, Dr. Cooper, Mr. Mr. Key, members of the board, and Dr. Cooper, that was a perfect introduction to a sneak preview into Airport High
008School's graduating class. Tomorrow morning, 8:00, we're excited about it. Um I do have six amazing students that I'm going to present to you tonight and share a little bit about their accomplishments. There's going to be a lot of like wows when I share a lot about these students, but I want to start off with Samantha. All right, an act All right, there we go, yeah. >> [applause] >> So, this is Samantha Mendez Peláez and a little sneak preview into tomorrow. This is our valedictorian 2026. Uh she is currently obviously ranked at the top of our class, Airport 2026, with an impressive GPA of a 5.6. She serves as our vice president of the student body, recording secretary for Beta Club, and is the founder and president of our AHS STEM Club, which just started recently.
009Samantha is also a participant in our health careers program and an active member of her church youth group. In addition to her academic leadership achievements, she's an entrepreneur. She launched a small floral business during her sophomore year, which has since grown into a successful custom apparel and branding business. Samantha plans to attend the University of South Carolina to pursue a degree in nursing with a goal of becoming a diabetic nurse practitioner, and she will make a meaningful impact in the lives of so many others. Thank you, Samantha. >> [applause] >> Next, I'd like to introduce you to Emma Cook. >> [applause] >> All right. Emma is an accomplished student who truly embodies embodies what it means to uh for excellence both in the classroom and beyond. She earned all-region honors during the 2025 cheer season,
010and she was one of our representatives at Palmetto Girls State last summer. She proudly also represents Airport High School as our current and reigning Miss Aquilla. Emma's deeply committed to her community with a passion for supporting individuals with special needs. She is actively involved in our Wingman Club and Special Olympics, experiences that have shaped her future goals in her future career. This fall, Emma will attend Clemson University and major in sociology before pursuing a master's degree in occupational therapy. She has plans to specialize in pediatric special needs, and much of this is due to her experiences at Airport High School. She also hopes to continue her passion for cheer by joining Clemson's club cheer team. Emma Cook. >> [applause] >> I'd like to bring forward Aiden Vaughn. >> [applause] >> All right, Aidan is an
011exceptional student at Airport High School who consistently has demonstrated leadership, dedication, and a heart for service. She's an active member of Beta Club, National Honor Society, our Wingman Club, and also was a representative for Airport High School at Palmetto Girls State last summer. Aidan is also a committed athlete competing on both the varsity volleyball and softball teams while remaining actively involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Beyond school, she is deeply engaged in the youth group youth group at Trinity Baptist Church, and this summer she will continue her growth in faith and leadership as a Summersault intern. This fall, Aidan will attend the University of South Carolina with a major in biological sciences before continuing her education to become an orthodontist. Aidan Vaughn. >> [applause] >> Next up, I present Avery McCree. >> [applause] >>
012Avery is currently ranked second in the class of 2026, so there's your sneak preview for tomorrow as she is ranked number two in our class and is really excited to be our salutatorian and has earned every bit of it. Um she's an active member of Beta Club, National Honor Society, International Thespian Society, and French Club. Avery's a gifted performer and musician participating in both Honors Chorus and Orchestra where she has demonstrated exceptional talent and dedication to the arts. And hopefully you've seen over the years she has been a lead of multiple musicals and opportunities on stages at course at Airport and right here in this Performing Arts Center. This fall, Avery will attend the College of Charleston where she plans to double major in theater and computing in the arts, combining her passion for performance
013with innovative technology. Avery McCree. >> [applause] >> Uh next is Hector Hernandez. I get leadership standing to my left. Hector is an outstanding senior who will not only graduate with his high school diploma, but he absolutely has his associate's degree from Midlands Tech, as well. He is the current student body president and is actively involved in the art club, National Honor Society, STEM Club, and Beta Club. Hector holds the rank of Cadet Command Sergeant Major and is a member of the JROTC drill team, which recently competed in Nationals in Daytona Beach, Florida. After graduation, Hector will attend basic training and and will be going through the Air National Guard. Once he completes his training, he will attend the College of Charleston and major in business administration. Hector Hernandez. >> [applause] >> And our sixth student,
014as as Dr. Cooper said, was unable to be here tonight. He is currently warming up on the field at Airport High School. He is our starting state champion catcher and is Justin Sightler and definitely little go Eagles. We compete in game two of the lower state championship tonight at Airport, big deal. So, we're excited. >> [applause] >> And you couldn't ask for a better leader to be behind the plate. Justin Sightler, and for those that remember, he's who I had speak at convocation earlier this school year, which seems not that long ago, but it's going way back. But Justin is a standout student athlete known for his leadership, character, and dedication both in the classroom and on the field. He's a member of the National Honor Society, was selected as a junior marshal, and also
015serves as a student ambassador leadership team at Trinity Baptist Church. On the field, Justin is a standout varsity catcher for Airport High's baseball team. He's earned all-region honors during the 2025 season and obviously, as I just said, he played a key crucial role in leading his team to the 4A state championship, which was obviously the first in the school history last year. This fall, Justin will attend Columbia International University, where he plans to major in business administration while continuing his baseball career at Columbia International. And let's give a round of applause for Justin Seidel. [applause] Six amazing students of about 300 that are going to walk the stage and graduate tomorrow. These students couldn't represent our community and our school board any better and congratulations to the five that are here and the one that
016is not and we look forward to graduation tomorrow and go Eagles. >> [applause] >> Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board and Dr. Cooper. Um, this morning I, along with many of you guys, had the honor of attending the 2026 graduation ceremony at Brookland-Cayce High School. And tonight I have the pleasure of introducing just a a few of those outstanding seniors to you. Um, after I introduce each of them to you, um, they're going to come up and tell you their next plans um, in their future. First up, I have Leah Sullivan. Um, for four years Leah has exemplified discipline, dedication, and service through our JROTC program. As part of the Bearcat Battalion, she participated in the accreditation inspection just a few weeks ago, which earned an impressive score of 97%. Her commitment to
017excellence and leadership has made a lasting impact on both the program and her school community. >> [applause] >> I'm Leah Sullivan and I plan on enlisting the Navy and leaving for basic training next month. >> [applause] >> Okay, next up we have Bradlyn Starkey. Bradlyn is an honor of distinction graduate whose achievements extend far beyond the classroom. From excelling on the tennis court and navigating the challenges of the golf course to leading the senior class and maintaining outstanding academic success, Bradlyn has made a lasting impact in every endeavor, even in the extensive list of accomplishments. She's remained committed to serving others as a dedicated Bearcat buddy. >> [applause] >> Good evening. My name is Bradlyn Starkey, and I will be attending Clemson University in the fall to major in architecture. >> [applause] >> We do
018have one that could not be here with us tonight due to some graduation celebrations planned for this evening. Tia Sumpter is an outstanding student leader whose dedication to our JROTC program has exemplified discipline, leadership, and service. Through her commitment leading by example and inspiring those around her to succeed, she's made a meaningful and lasting impact on her peers. Tia's active participation in the Bearcat Battalion also played an integral role in the success of a year's of this year's accreditation inspection. In the fall, she will be attending the University of South Carolina where she will plan to continue their journey towards excellence in leadership. >> [applause] >> Next up we have Mauricio Ramirez Perez. He is an exceptional student leader whose high school career has been defined by academic excellence, determination, and achievement. From excelling in
019dual enrollment courses to earning the seal of biliteracy and becoming an innovation completer, he has consistently demonstrated a commitment to raising the standard in both academics and leadership. Through his hard work, talent, and perseverance, he's distinguished himself as a standout in every endeavor he's pursued. Hey everyone, my name is Mauricio Ramirez Perez, and in the fall I'm going to attend Midlands Technical College to major in writing. >> [applause] >> Next up we have Carter Bessinger. Carter is an outstanding student leader whose enthusiasm, talent, and dedication have enriched every aspect of school life. Through his service as a student activities director, his performances as a member of the honor choir, and his recognition as Mr. Bearcat, he's brought energy and school pride to the entire community. As a graduate earning honors with distinction, Carter exemplifies the
020powerful impact of leadership, character, and academic excellence. >> [applause] >> Good evening, my name is Carter Bessinger, and in the fall I plan on going to USC to major in education. >> [applause] >> Okay, lastly, but certainly not least, we have Nicholas Oliver. Through their hard work and determination and academic excellence, Nicholas has successfully completed the early college program where he's successfully earned his associate's degree. Graduating with honors with distinctions, he's just demonstrated an exceptional commitment to his education and has already built a strong foundation for future success. >> [applause] >> Hello. Hello everybody, my name is Nicholas Oliver, and in the fall I plan to attend USC to go major in statistics and minor in theater. >> [applause] >> Hello Miss Hooks. As I mentioned before, this is just a small group of our
021outstanding seniors. We are incredibly proud of the class of 2026. Go Bearcats. >> [applause] >> And I want to congratulate all of the members of our class of 2026. And as we listen to the stories of our students, it just reaffirms what we already know, and that is that our students can and do go everywhere when they graduate. Let's give them another round. >> [applause] >> Next, several of our welding students at the Lexington Two Innovation Center recently won scholarships during an annual welding competition. And we have some special guests from the sponsoring organization coming to the podium to help us with Director Sheria Wilson to hear about the competition and our scholarship winners. Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Dr. Cooper. Uh board chair and members of the board, we had seven students win Arc Labs
022scholarships, two of which are seniors and graduating seniors. They are Max Hernandez Vallejo, who won a $1,000 scholarship, and Mr. Brody White, whose scholarship totaled um 5,625. I would like to also invite our new partners from the Arc Labs to come forward to discuss how these students um compete and win these scholarships. They are Mr. Seth Rigsby. He is the director of admissions, along with the lead instructor, Shane Roberts. >> [applause] >> Good evening. My name is Seth Rigsby. I'm the director of admissions with Arc Labs Welding School. I oversee both our Columbia and Charleston campuses. Thank you for allowing us to be here and speak with you tonight. We wish we were visiting at a happier time, um and wanted to quickly share how much Beau Elkins meant to his students and partnering with
023us here at Arc Labs. Beau brought multiple students uh to our welding program or our welding competition this year, where their skills were fully on display, not only in the shop, but also in the written portion of the competition, where his students scored the highest of six career centers, uh, that competed with us this year. Um, it speaks highly to his instruction, um, that not only did he, you know, test with the students in the shop, but also the finer details of welding, which make a big difference in the field. This is a third year in a row we had our competition on our Columbia campus, and that's due to fact that school districts like yours are really pushing kids into the trades. Trades are very important for our young people. Opportunity is there. And
024thank you for opening doors for these students and providing these opportunities. We host four different competitions across the state, Columbia, Charleston, Rock Hill, and Piedmont. Our competition is not easy. This year in Columbia we had over 40 students competing tooth and nail. Everyone wins at our competition. You compete, you win a scholarship. Brody here won third place. That's very good in term of 40 students across six different career centers. We look >> [applause] >> We look forward to partnering with school districts more in the future and providing these opportunities for students to look elsewhere besides just four-year, two-year universities. The trades are happening now, and it is growing. To speak more on our competition and the testing we put these students through, the type of opportunities these career fields present to our young people, and
025the training our school, and the training they receive in our school, let me introduce our lead instructor in Columbia, Shane Roberts. >> [applause] >> Hey, how y'all doing? My name is, uh, Wait. My name is Shane Roberts, uh, I as well would like to speak on Beau. I met Beau, I went I taught at the high school the 2 years in Laurens, and I met Bo going through the wreck. Uh I knew I was going to like him right out the gate cuz he pulled his phone out during the wreck class. He said, "Man, we got to watch Carolina football game." I said, "Yes." But, uh it was an honor to have him up and his students to to be able to stand up here and speak on his back I mean on his behalf
026and and and let everybody know what he meant to us. It was it was great. But, I personally uh just speaking on the competition, I think it's great to see kids coming into the trade. I was a kid that grew up in high school, wasn't a great kid, didn't do didn't do good in school and coming through the trade I joined the union at a young age, 18 years old and I've got I'll have 20 years in the trade next year. Uh It does my heart good to see kids come in, especially troubled kids or kids that that people people give up on and and say say, "Man, they'll never make it." But, they come through our program and they send us pictures of our check stubs and they're making three and four thousand dollars
027a week, right? So, uh the trades is growing. Uh I personally think that we need to push people more towards it, kids more towards it because the industry is continuing to grow. The jobs are continuing to get more and more and more and I think there's a shortage of 50,000 I think it's 50,000, right? 90. 90,000 this year of welders in the United States alone. So, >> [clears throat and cough] >> it's a great thing. Trades is not is not a bad thing. It's not something that's going to go away. It's on Nobody wants to work hard no more. Nobody wants to put the work in and and we push our kids to college, but being in the trade is a success, too. Uh What I would like to say is our competition it brings
028different high schools from all over together. You kind of see it lets you see what kind of teachers you have, instruction. It lets you see what kind of devotion you have from the teachers and it gives every campus a chance to win a scholarship for that kid who may not can afford to go to school, right? And or have the opportunity to go to school because his grades ain't there because he just he he do he struggles in school. Uh I think it's a great thing. Uh so, what we would like to see is more high schools participating, bringing more people in. Funding those welding programs, funding those automotive programs, funding those programs for the kids that that may not go to college, that that are going to work with our hands and are going
029to do more with their hands in the trade and and and that's the path they're going to take because it's definitely worth it. We see the success. We see the success stories time after time after time. These kids come in and 6 months later, they're leaving and they're going to make three figures a year. I mean, six figures a year right out of school, over 100 grand a year, 19, 20 years old. So, uh the success is there. Just keep funding it and pouring into it and and and send them our way and we would love to have more people participate next year. I hope we have 400 kids. I mean, that's I would just love to see it. I love the trade. I love welding and I love that uh Brody's going to be
030with us in August and hopefully we'll be talking about him 6 months from now. Maybe he can send me some money. >> [laughter] [applause] >> Moving on, Ms. Amanda Poole, who leads our small animal care program at the Innovation Center, will tell us about the program selection for our special work partnership benefiting our students. Good evening. So, I, as Dr. Cooper said, I am the instructor for the small animal care program at the Innovation Center. Um this year, we had the opportunity to partner with CVETS, which is a specialty and emergency clinic in Columbia. Um the students were able to go in throughout the year and be able to observe all of the different specialties that they have. Um I have two students here with me today who are going to talk about their experience
031at CVETS this past semester. So, Lacy. Good evening. Um my name is Lacy Ziegler and I would like to start by saying thank you all for having me and my classmates speak about the plant animal program at listening to Innovation Center. Since I was young, I well younger, I have always dreamed about being a vet. I am embarrassed to admit I didn't really know what all went into becoming a vet and this program has definitely helped me figure that out. C-Vets has allowed me to see what I have learned in my class in real life action and see the teamwork and knowledge and passion that it takes to do such. I am eternally grateful for the experiences and I've seen things that I did not think I would in high school and it has definitely
032opened my eyes to some amazing experiences. I hope that this program stays open for younger people who come through behind me and get to experience such amazing things. Thank you all so much. >> [applause] >> Good afternoon. My name's Abigail Gartman and I was blessed to have the opportunity to go out to C-Vets and work and be around them. They I got to see radiology which was really cool. It actually helped me. I would love to go do that. Being able to see and ask questions while they're working was a major help in seeing everything and being able to find out things I may not have been able to learn by just looking at a piece of paper or maybe doing a worksheet. It gives you that opportunity to be hands-on and it was very
033helpful and I also enjoyed being in the emergency room. You see a lot of things come in and maybe sometimes you're not sure. Um you don't know if you actually want to get into this profession, how you're going to handle it when you get there. Being in the emergency room was one of those experiences where you're like, "Can I do this?" I think I can. I enjoy being able to see all of them and being able to help and C bets has really motivated me and pushed me even more. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you again for having us tonight. Thank you, Ms. Paul. >> [applause] >> And now Ms. Laura Roby, our technical theater manager with the Performing Arts Center will talk with will energize us to two students we talked some time
034ago about having a program that teaches back of the house management for a environment such as a Performing Arts Center. So, Ms. Roby. Thank you. Good evening, Chairman, Dr. Cooper, members of the board and cabinet. Um thank you for allowing us to recognize graduating seniors, Emily Crow and Seat Sed Peterman, who I've had the honor of working with and teaching over the last two years. Um I'm Laura Roby, technical theater manager at the Lexington Two Performing Arts Center. In particular, we are recognizing them tonight for completing their technical theater internship at the PAC this school year. And as a matter of fact, we have our very first intern from last year here with us tonight um helping us with the live stream, Rayland Arnold. >> [laughter] >> She's back from her freshman year in college
035and she will be working at the PAC this summer. During this internship, Emily and Sid have learned the basics of lighting, audio, rigging, set design and building, stage management and other aspects of technical theater and managing live performances. They have assisted backstage with our events at the PAC including Casey's production of Shrek Jr. Saluda River's Lion King Kids and Airport Cinderella that included students from Airport, BC and Fulmer. They also both presented at the Palmetto Dramatic Association Festival this year at Coastal Carolina University where they received individual superior ratings in stage management and set design. I'd like each of them to come up to introduce themselves and share their plans after graduation. Good evening. My name is Emily Crow. As Ms. Roby said, I was one of the interns. Um my plans are in the
036fall to go to Anderson University to study art education and hopefully after that get my teaching degree and certification and maybe even come back to Lexington, too. >> [applause] >> Hello. My name is Sid Peterman. In the fall, I plan to attend USC Upstate to major in English and hopefully get my master's in Library Information Sciences. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, Ms. Roby. And finally tonight, Dr. Burgraph will speak briefly about our ongoing assessment project regarding math training and 20 Excuse me, 25 of our Lexington Two teachers participated in this and how it's impacting their instruction in their classroom. Thank you. Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Cooper, um I'm pleased to share tonight very briefly about an ongoing partnership that we have with the State Department
037for this ongoing assessment project, math training. There are uh a handful of series of professional development offerings that they give, and most recently, as Dr. Cooper said, we had 22 teachers participate in the additive reasoning training. Uh it helps teachers understand the learning progression of how students think through analyzing their work samples and developing what are the next steps to grow them in their understanding of mathematics. So, we have the pleasure of one of our uh participants here tonight, Nikki Wojcik from Congaree Elementary, is going to share just a little bit about her experience going through those 4 days of professional development. Good evening. As Dr. Burggraf said, I'm Nikki Wojcik. Um I've been with the district for 20 years, all 20 at Congaree Elementary School. I currently teach second grade, but I've also taught
038third grade. Um I was very fortunate to attend this training. It was the best professional development I have attended, hands down, in my 20 years um as a teacher. I left every day of the four trainings with something that I could have immediately implemented in my classroom the very next day without a lot of extra work, a lot of extra planning. Um Again, I again, the um online assessment pieces that they gave us just ideas of just getting great information on this each student. Um the biggest takeaway for me was we looked at the progression and at how to the progression for addition, subtraction, and then base-10 knowledge for students. And when you analyze that student's piece of work, you were immediately able to see where they fell within that progression and know what those
039next steps were because we also addressed the big ideas within this program as well. And knowing where they fell in that progression, you also knew where their big ideas, what they had knowledge on, and what they didn't have knowledge on, and where to immediately meet that student where they were. Um it's a great piece to help plan your whole group instruction, but most importantly that small group instruction that we know is so important to each and every one of our students. Um moving forward, I think that this can transform daily teaching for all um that experience this training, and even those that are able to share with your peers and co-workers. Um I know that I came back very excited, had conversations with my math um coach. I had conversations with my team and like
040this is just a very powerful way to get easy data, and it's not a whole lot of extra work to get to that point. Um so it's something that again will guide that instruction for you next year for us next year, and help lead those and plan those small groups for your students. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, but most importantly I appreciate the opportunity to attend that professional development, and I hope that it is something that we can continue training other teachers on because it was so powerful. Thank you. >> [applause] >> All right, thank y'all. Um we are now going to move into public participation. Tonight we have three people signed up to speak, and they will each have 5 minutes, and we just ask that no profanity be used. We
041also ask that you do not use staff or students' names. The board will not give feedback per policy, and will receive all comments as information only. So with that, our first person tonight will be Brian Haven. He will be speaking on 7G, the uh recruitment and hiring and some of the harassment policies on under 7G. Thank you. All right, Brian, you have 5 minutes. As you indicated, I have some concerns about 7G on the agenda, which includes several changes to policies on recruitment, hiring, and harassment. In six of the policies, immigrant status is marked as being struck out as a protected group. Isn't immigration status still protected under US Code 8 1324B, though? And that law clearly doesn't protect those who are not authorized to work. If the concern is that the phrasing is confusing,
042I imagine the legal staff could find how to put in a parenthetical authorized, for example. Or is the goal to signal that the district intends to go with the option four under that law and hire citizens in all cases where people are equally qualified as they are allowed to? I wonder if the wording in any case is a little blunt, and the change could be used as evidence by someone who thought they weren't hired by the district because of their status in a lawsuit to demonstrate intent by the district not to hire such people. In four of the policies, immig- on harassment, immigrant status and English language speaking are being removed from the list of groups protected. Unless the district is attempting to condone harassment of our immigrant students and English language learners, why remove
043them from the list? Even if some other rules have changed, can't the district prevent harassment about anything it chooses since harassment is bad? Or is the district particularly barred from preventing it here? I wonder again if the parents of a bullied child who didn't think the district did enough would use this change as evidence of the district's intentions in this matter towards children who aren't native English speakers or who are immigrants. Finally, three policies had changes about whether sexual orientation was a category of person who harassment should be particularly called out against. I'm assuming the district isn't seeking to condone harassment based on sexual orientation. One of the policies with changes had the wording switched to non-conformity with sex-based stereotypes put in instead. Assuming the district reads non-conformity with sex-based stereotypes to also include non-heterosexual
044orientations, I wonder if that change could be put in all of the places where things are being struck out to make sure everything is taken care of. Finally, a few meetings ago changes to IHAMS were put through without the usual number of readings um on an accelerated schedule and I think that allowed some wording to come in that we might regret the district might regret later on um cuz it doesn't mention that things of scientific value or historical value or literary value or also protected. It just calls out the law on what counts as obscenity. And for things like 7G, I would hope that we wouldn't rush necessarily to push those through for any particular reason and that we err on the side of giving extra time to discuss things and make sure they have
045the exact wording that you want so we don't regret it later. Thank you all for all you do. All right. Thank you and next up we have Melissa Goetzinger and she is speaking on 7G also. Melissa, you will have 5 minutes. Good evening and happy summer. With testing end-of-year accomplishments, it has been a month for our Lex Two staff and parents and I cannot imagine doing both at the same time. Tonight, I'd like to firmly speak against 7G. I am rotating off as a parent from the my two-year term on the Title One Committee. The audacity of this Board of Trustees to try and eliminate protections while also trying to promote a new English-Spanish immersion program and promoting our Title One, Title Three achievements, those applicants are often part of our community, the Lex Two
046family. Why remove a policy protection already in place while also being a party to the ongoing lawsuits against this district? This week, I checked the federal courthouse for updates on the latest lawsuits It's Lex Two or against Lex 2. Allison Barr's plaintiff versus Lexington County School District 2 defendant. I wonder if FOIA requests can shed light on the most recent audio recording added to the docket. Are these changes the result of those lawsuits? Surely the immigrant ones are not. We will be keeping an eye on those over the summer. I learned today that our librarians media specialists work a 195-day contract, five additional days, but do not get compensated more. Other districts, however, typically pay a stipend. I hope you would consider that in future budgets. Ms. Rucker, I saw the announcement that you serve
047as a member of the South Carolina Board Advisory Committee, School Board Advisory Committee, to Carolina's Academic Leadership Network, CALN. So, I attended their SC School Board Candidate Training Workshop at the Flight Deck Class Weekend. Thankfully, there were no potential Lex 2 School Board candidates there. As you serve that entity in our school district, I believe it's important that you were publicly made aware that that training was anything but non-partisan. And I'm happy to share a recording of the entire >> Point of order, I don't think this is to 7G. I'm moving on. Lastly, while I'm concerned about the lack of leadership and empathy with the Lexington 2 Board of Trustees, it is infuriating and rather anti-public education. It in no way reflects on the incredible service and care we've been given at Riverbank. Just this
048week, a teacher teacher suggested that I come work for the district, and it is a fantastic district to work for, but I wouldn't be able to speak freely here. That's the only reason. I want publicly what an absolute joy it has been for our son Jackson to attend Riverbank Elementary School from 4K to fifth grade. Yesterday was graduation, today they did their fifth grade walk walk through hallway march. Yesterday, we also saw our other senior graduates walk through, which was awesome, too. They had a lot of fun, and I look forward to Jackson being one of those graduates someday. We love our sea turtle family, appreciate their hard work, their patience, their motivation to make a difference, and not just my children, but about a thousand more each year in our school alone. I've seen
049so many things these past few years at Riverbank, but most of all, I've seen that staff pour their hearts into these children. And yet, their cup still always runneth over. Thank you, Riverbank. We're going to go forth in Lex, too. We're excited to learn and make a difference at Northside Middle. Thank you. All right. Next speaker we have tonight is Jackson Goforth, and he will be speaking on 7D. Good evening. My name is Jackson Goforth. I go to Riverbank Elementary. Tomorrow's my last day of school. I have gone to the school since 4K. That's 7 years. We Yeah. I've gone for 7 years. I've had an amazing time at Riverbank. Our the staff is phenomenal. We have everyone everyone is really kind. Um The lunch we Sorry. Lunch we um we are allowed to talk
050to our friends most of the time. We um we I'm going to move on. Um we're allowed we have I have a bunch of friends that I've made over the years through the Launch program. When which is uh an advanced learning program that I will carry to middle school. And [clears throat] hopefully lead to AP classes. Um what I wanted to speak about tonight is a policy at lunch. this where they play this music and when the music's on we aren't allowed to speak to um each other. This music goes on for more than half of lunch and it it we just can't talk to friends while we eat. This is to They say it's to stop um they say it's to help eat help kids eat lunch instead of um talk and waste all
051the time. But this policy is entirely unfair in my opinion because we we need to be able to talk because we have a limited recess of only 20 minutes or less and lunch is only 20 minutes. Usually the music goes on for about 11 to 13 minutes from the timing that me and my friends have done. But like I said we have an amazing facility with amazing staff and um a bunch of opportunities in the school to for moving on and also making friends. Thank you. Mr. Chair if I may. Jackson, great job, bud. Standing up in front of a mic is hard as can be and you did it with grace. So, good job, bud. All right, we're going to move on into our administrative divisions and I'm going to turn over Dr. Cooper
052for superintendent update. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board and members of the Lexington 2 community. As we enter the month of May, I want to take just a moment to reflect on a theme that is present across our district right now. And that is new beginnings. This is a special time of year in the life of a school district. Season filled with celebrations, transitions, accomplishments, reflections, and anticipation for what's coming next. Across our district, our youngest learners are preparing to move from kindergarten to first grade. Our fifth graders are preparing to take that next step to middle school. Our eighth graders are looking to take a bigger step into high school. And of course, we met some of our elite graduates, some wonderful students this morning getting ready have already or getting ready
053to walk stage and begin the next phase of their journey. But these new beginnings are not limited to our traditional ceremonies. This week, we were able to celebrate a wonderful group of students with the adult active Excuse me, the adult ed community. Our students there have shown extreme perseverance and determination, courage, and their educational journey. And they've just simply overcome more than some of us have even ever thought of. Their accomplishments remind us that learning is lifelong. It is never easy and is never too late. And we applaud them. We also spent some time last week with our target graduates with which is always a special time of year. We and a very deeply meaningful experience where we look at our students who have disabilities and special needs and how they move through with pride
054and independence and perseverance at the promise of a continued opportunity for them and their family. And all of this matters. Each one represents a student who has grown, a family who has supported, and a teacher or teachers who have encouraged, support a support staff member who has come alongside, and school leaders who have created the conditions for success, and a community that always continues to believe in the promise of every child. As we reflect on these milestones, we're also reminded of something that we know to be true in Lexington too. And it really and truly does take a village. The success of our students is not the result of one person, one program, one classroom, or one school alone. It is a result of the many people working together with shared commitment to our children.
055It is our educators, our staff, our families, our school board, our business partners, our local businesses and industries, our retirees, volunteers, our civic organizations, our faith-based partners, and community members who continue to show up for us in meaningful ways. They give their time and their resources, they offer their expertise, they mentor, they encourage, support, they volunteer, they partner and invest in the future of our students. So, whether they're helping create workplace experiences or supporting school events, donating supplies, encouraging our teachers, assisting families, reading, mentoring, serving on committees, attending celebrations, or simply asking, "How can we help?" Their presence makes a difference and that is the village. And in Lexington 2, we're very grateful for that. On behalf of our district, I want to express my sincere appreciation to every business partner, local industry leader, retiree,
056civic group, our faith-based leaders, our volunteers, our parents, our guardians, our community organizations, our supporters who walked alongside us this year. Your partnership has strengthened our schools in support of our staff, expanded opportunities for our students, and this reminds us that public education is at its best when the entire community can come together and surround our children. When we meet again in June, many of these celebrations will have taken place. The tassels will have already been moved to the left side of the cap. The certificates will have been awarded. The hugs and the photographs will have been shared. Families will have celebrated milestones that they will remember for years and years to come. And by then, this school year will be coming to a close. At the same time, we're already turning our attention toward
057what comes next. The planning, the preparation, the positioning of Lexington 2 for a strong new beginning of our own as we look into next school year. That is the rhythm of our school district in public education. We celebrate what has been accomplished, and then we immediately begin preparing for what's ahead. We honor the endings, but we do not stop there. We use those moments to build momentum for the future. And as interim superintendent, I am incredibly proud of the work happening across our schools in this season. I'm proud of our students for reaching these important milestones. I'm proud of our educators and staff for helping them get there. I'm grateful for our families and community partners who continue to walk beside us in this work. And I am proud that in Lexington 2, we continue
058to be guided by our commitment to be champions for children. Not only at the beginning of the journey, but at every transition point along the way. May is a month of endings, but more importantly, it is also a month of beginnings. And as with our students and as they move forward in new chapters, we do so too with gratitude, hope, and a continued belief that when a village surrounds its children, the future is full of promise. Thank you, Mr. Griffin. All right. We're going to move on into finance now, and I'm going to turn it over Miss Miss Tricklin. Good evening to everyone. Tonight, I have the April financial statements, as well as the pupil activity funds. They were uploaded last week for your preview. Are there any questions? Mr. Chairman. >> Mr. Chairman, I've
059got uh two requests. If either the June, but probably more of the kickoff August meeting, if we can get a report of the the cleanup the year end closeout of the people activities, you know, to make sure that those things that should be rolling over or rolling off or cleaned up. So, just a report by school of kind of where we're starting the year. That's number one. And then number two, with the [snorts] new um the PTO uh whatever that give backs program, if we can make sure that it's aligned with JJE and the start of year budgets. My big thing and I I've mentioned this here and in prior, but I want to make sure that our fundraising through PTOs, etc. relates to an actual need. And that need should be stated at the
060beginning of the year per our JJE and our policies, so that we are not just chasing fundraising just to do it at the expense of kids in classrooms that can't pay for this or that, etc. So, what however we want to do that come August, I think that we need to start as board, we need to set the expectation that fundraising is going to have a purpose, a valid needed purpose. Um that'll also help us in future years to make sure that our budgets make sense. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other questions on finance? All right, without objection the monthly financial reports are set as presented. And now I'm going to turn it over to human resource to Miss Hooks. You want? Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, board members, Dr. Cooper, um I do
061have the um vacancy report for you as of this afternoon. As you know, contracts and worker letter uh letters of intent were due back last week, so we've been really busy in our department. But I'm happy to report that we have um currently 28 support staff vacancies, 22 regular ed vacancies, and eight special education vacancies. Any questions? All right. Thank you. No questions, we're going to move on to Dr. McDonald for instruction. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Um tonight I have just one thing to share with you, um which is very unusual, I might add. Um we are beginning the um oh, for lack of a better way to describe it, autopsy phase of the year because now we've got to go through all the data and the
062numbers, and soon we'll start to to figure out where we landed. Um but tonight I did want to build on what Dr. Burckhalter has shared with you earlier, some of the work we've been doing in math all year. Um the document that you have basically gives you an overview of um some things that we've been doing to enhance math teaching and learning. Um you heard about the OGAP, the ongoing assessment project, uh through the state department. That work has been made possible through um something referred to as the Palmetto math project, which the state of South Carolina kicked off this year. Uh we were fortunate to have three schools that were selected to participate in that work directly, but because we were so excited about the work that they were doing, the state department allowed
063all of our schools um to do some partner work, which is how we were able to provide that very expensive training for our teachers free of charge. Um thanks to the state department, they really helped us with that. I will continue that work this year with some additional pieces and some more training um related to that same kind of um that ongoing assessment project. You also see in this document just a reminder about Zern math, which we're using district-wide. That's used K to 8. All of our elementary and middle schools are using that program. Um Casey uh Elementary School was able to receive some additional coaching and support this year through the state department, and now we've been allowed to apply for some additional uh schools to participate in that more intensive coaching work. But
064our teachers have all been trained in that program. Uh we've been very excited to see some of the results that we've been able to get this year and look forward to to really being able to share some of that out. And the best part is our kids will have access to that over the summer. So, if our families want to put kids on Zearn over the summer to get some extra math help and support, they can still do that. Uh and that work will continue in the year, but just wanted to provide you with with that overview of some of the the intensive math work that we've been doing this year. Mr. Chair, uh three things. One, Zearn over the summer is awesome. Can we make sure that we put something out that's very easy
065for parents, uh like me, to be able to when the kids are annoying you 2 weeks into summer and you want to really use their brain. Uh one. Two, the 26 27 Zearn application, when will we find out about that from D? Um I don't know that we have been notified of when we'll find out. We we've basically asked for additional support for all of our elementary schools and and hopefully the middle schools as well. Um but we don't have a timeline from the state department yet. Hopefully before next week. And then last but not least, I know it we don't have uh it on here, but in the world of instruction, K-12 tech plan, whatever, fantastic work on that. So, kudos to you and your team for staying on the uh the top of
066this crazy fast world we live in now. Thank you. We expect to have an update on that K-12 in our June meeting. So, Fantastic. Any other questions? All right. We're going to move on to operations and turn over to Mr. Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Cooper. In front of you tonight as is our monthly standard um operations update with uh CPIF uh ongoing uh projects as we move towards um completion on the on the vast majority of those, and also an update for uh what's going on in the world of operations and facilities and maintenance and safety. And also student support services this past month, just hit a few highlights. We have a big training coming up uh the 1st of June uh that we lead here with multiple uh
067jurisdictions coming and training and learning with our school administrators. It's a great opportunity to kind of continue to fine-tune our emergency response protocols and procedures. And also, you know, good things continue to happen in facilities and maintenance that you see listed before you and student support services. The summer is always big for training, continuing to to get better in all areas. I'm excited about a lot of the growth we'll see, you know, this summer with some some good things we have going on in in our departments. So, happy to answer any questions. No questions? All right. Since we have no old business, we're going to move into new business now, and the first item of business be the consideration of the first reading of the proposed 2026-2027 general fund budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members
068of the board. Um At your places, you have um handouts regarding this presentation as a follow-up from our last budget workshop. You have here a presentation that will present to you a balanced budget. Um Um as a reminder, our board policy DB guides our work with regard to bringing a recommendation for a balanced budget. And then the next slide, as a reminder, um the text box on the left is a summation of the board trust board of trustees priorities. And then on the right is a summation of the district and school priorities. As you'll see, they are almost identical, not exactly line for line. And at this point, I'm going to ask Ms. Strickland to begin discussing the budget calendar. Okay, the budget calendar, um May 7th, we had a board work session on the
069budget. May 21st, which is tonight, will be our first reading on the budget. Also in May, the Senate passed their version of the budget, and the House passed version two of the budget. Um wait, May, we will finance department will publish the notice of the public hearing. Um in June, any conference committee meetings necessary by the state will be had to determine the final budget. And June 18th, we will have public hearing before our regular meeting and our final reading of the budget. So, the items included in the 26-27 budget for consideration. Approximately $3,000 was added to all cells on the teacher salary schedule. We added $3,000 to teacher assistant, computer lab managers, and additional education assistant salary schedules. We added $2,000 to other support staff salary schedules. Those include physical therapists, occupational therapists, maintenance,
070psychologists, nurses, career development facilitators, interpreters, office support, and computer technicians. A 2% increase to administrator salary schedule, a 2% increase to bus drivers and aids on the minimum bus driver salary schedule, and all eligible employees receive a step increase for their year of experience. Also included were increases to academic and athletic supplements, and increases to the hourly hourly rate for extra work. You should You should have copies of those salary schedules at your places. Part of this budget also provides for additional academic programs and supports. Uh this year, we will be purchasing and providing a robust, uh specific curriculum for our multilingual learners that will provide us additional support in those classes across the district. That is a K-12 investment. We also will be providing and implementing the full curriculum for our reading intervention services
071in our early grades that will actually extend through upper elementary and into middle school for next year. So, we will have that program in place and that is a a very intensive reading focused initiative. This also increased our hourly wages for teachers who engage in after-school activities such as Lex 2.5, our summer curriculum writing, and other areas by $5 per hour and it adds additional positions in the academic world for a school counselor at the Innovation Center that will focus on career development and and also working with students to do that long-term planning, a multilingual support teacher to help lower our average class sizes for those programs, and an additional speech teacher to also lower our student-teacher ratio. As far as athletic programs, we continue to make that you know, a focus for us. Obviously,
072one of the areas we continue to focus on along with many others, but really want to focus this year more so on middle school stipends for our athletic coaches. So, you guys will see a 10% increase in the stipends there. The stipends, you know, do do range between the you know, 1,000 to 2,000 dollar mark in there. So, that 10% isn't a substantial monetary, you know, hit to the budget, but definitely provides some much needed um you know, support and kudos for the work they put in, you know, with their student athletes. And then a 2% at the high school level and also additional days, you know, for our coaches at the high school level that we do distribute amongst all sports, male and female sports. We do that equitably. That's a priority for us.
073And then some more funding for our high school athletic programs you'll see and also athletic trainer supplies was something that came to our attention from from the board so we responded to that. And then continuing to make after school security a I I focus for us and making sure SROs we have funding to have folks at games, at activities to make sure we're covered as safety is an utmost priority for us. So on this slide you will see the line items for the additions. I'm not going to read them each amount for each one. Um it includes increases to instructional salaries, support salaries, supplements, positions added. Also we were able to reduce these costs by transferring career technology education positions to state funds, phase one of staffing alignment, retirement rate adjustments and adjustment to the
074insurance. The overall change of salaries is 2,150,571. This is our fiscal year 2026-27 general fund projected revenue. The revenue is listed by line item to show the variance from the proposed budget to the current budget. The proposed budget is based on the House Ways and Means projections. The local revenue increase had an increase of 1,088,157. State revenue had an increase of 2,000,000 211,613. The total increase of 3,299,770. The fiscal year 2026-27 projected general fund expenditures of the requested general fund budget 84% is salary and fringe. Of this percent 65% is instructional salary and fringe, and 35% is support services. The remaining 16% of the general fund budget is programs and operations, items such as energy, substitutes, custodial services, software, supplies, etc. And now we're going to talk about local local revenue and our operating millage.
075On this slide, you will see our mills compared to our surrounding districts. I did I add on this um slide the approximate value of a mill for each of the districts, so you would have that for reference. The the legislatively imposed millage cap, the consumer price index increased 2.63% from calendar year 24 to calendar year 25. This tracks the cost of living. The estimated population of Lex School District 2 increased 0.31%. Combining these two components yields a cap of 2.94% on the millage rate for Lexington Lexington 2 for fiscal year 26-27. That equates to 5 mills. Also available to us are 4.8 look-back mills. U- Utilizing both of these allows us to capture 9.8 mills, which would increase our revenue by approximately $2,649,000. The recommended budget uses the current allowable plus the look-back mills. At
076the workshop, um Ms. Burkett asked about the impact of the operating millage. So, increasing our current mills millage from 171.3 to 181.1. The secondary legal residence, which would be like your rental properties, um if the appraised value is $250,000, the approximate um cost of that increase of millage would be $147 a year. On a car or a boat with a appraised value of 38,000, that cost would be 22 approximately $22.34. And you see for a commercial property as well. Our fund balance, we're sitting at a good position as of June 30th, 2025. I I will not know where we are currently until we have our audit for the current year. Um but I want to remind you the State Department of Education requires that 8.33% the GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, recommends 16.7% fund
077balance. And I did add on here our board policy DIB says 10% of next year's approved general fund budget. So, if this budget does pass that would be 13,215,496. So, we are sitting at a good place right now with fund balance. So, we offer you a balanced budget at 130 132,154,962 by utilizing 9.8 mills generating 2.649 um in revenue and then dipping into fund balance none. And with that, the recommendation of the administration is that you would consider passing first reading of the budget as presented. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move to approve first reading of the proposed 2026-2027 general fund budget with reducing the millage increase from 9.8 mills to 2 mills and using the remaining remaining funds from the fund balance. I had a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have
078a second from Ms. Woodfin. Any discussion? Um yeah, I just when I looked at the first of all the budget that was submitted, I I feel like it does a good job starting to close the gap between our teacher salaries and our neighboring districts. Um in the budget workshop, we were 36 on average teacher pay and we were you know, a good bit behind our our neighboring districts. So, I wanted to make sure we close the gap with our especially with the face-to-face teachers that are in the classrooms as well as the teachers' assistants. Um so, I think we did a good job there with Ms. Rucker's amendment. I looked at the budget workshop and here's what we've added each year to to the general fund balance. Uh in 2023, 4.8 million. And um in
0792024, 1.9 million. 2025, 3.4 million. So, we've submitted balanced budgets all of those years. But, what hap- is kind of what I've said before though. What happens is we have I think what do you say? 90% of our budget is salaries. People leave and and they're not replaced. There's you know, I call that a little bit of float. So, I even think with Ms. Rucker's motion that that at at the end of the year, there's a possibility we don't use any of that general fund balance and it stays at the levels that that was presented earlier. So, I I'm excited about um you know, for motion and I think um it it does a a good step again. The other thing we talked about in the budget workshop is closing the matrix. The you know,
080we're not quite there yet. It takes a while, but there's too much discrepancies between one level in the matrix, and we want to try to start you know, close that down. You you can't do it overnight, but I think it does does take a step there as well. So, that's why I support Ms. Rucker's motion. Is there any more discussion? Mr. Chair. Go ahead. Try to be quick. Uh couple of questions. First one I would love to see it maybe in the off season the board consider our BD, I think it's BD policy, putting a fund balance max so that we don't have to kind of have this conversation over and over. I don't think we should be in the 25% 26% maybe. Maybe we determine it should probably max at 22. Something of that.
081I just think that makes a lot of sense for the budget world to be able to say, "Hey, this is not where we're going to grow the fund balance to, especially with the float or the vacancy management world." So, just something for all of us to kind of consider. The look back 4.9 mills, especially now if we're looking at two. Do you happen to know those by year right now? Um And if you don't, that's fine. We've got time. I just want to know which one what if that 4.9 is all 3 years ago? How much of that's use or lose look back? We would not lose any. Without So, 3 years ago we had we used everything up. >> Yes. Okay. That's great. Yes. That just means that if we don't use those 4.9
082mills this year, we don't lose those 4.9 mills. So, something crazy changes in 2 year next year, those 4.9 mills are sitting in last year or the year prior's bank, not the third year. That's that's really important because if we do, life can change quick. If we do have to come say, "Hey, taxpayers, we need more of your money." Which hopefully we don't have to say that, we at least have that mechanism next year. That was super important to me. The retirement rate adjustment, can you give me a little I was if y'all spoke about that at the workshop I apologize but I apologize but if you can give me just a one sentence on on how we're doing that or if it was just something through PEBA that benefits us. >> The current I'm
083trying to find my slide. The current um the current retirement rate budget for this current year was 25.91% and when I did the budget for this current year that's all I could go on. Okay. But we've received the rate for next year which will be what it is this year at 24.66% so that is And if I remember last year we were kind of concerned that was probably going to bump back up. Right. >> So that's a win for us. >> at 24.66% >> Fantastic. If we reduce the the overall revenue coming in from non and non 8 mills to 2 mills um the we have done good in the past 2 years making money off of our float, our investments. Is that going to make much of a difference to that line item in
084the revenue? I have increased that line item in the in the on the revenue budget. If you look >> it to 1.5 now. Is that it now? >> In currently it's 1 million for this year. >> Right but we ended up being >> it half a million dollars. >> Are you worried about that dropping it all if we drop from 9.8 mills to 2? It should be pretty pretty minimal but I just want to make sure we're catching that. If we're having less revenue coming in and we potentially taking money out of the fund reserve, the fund balance. >> We'll be fine? Mhm. Great. I think that was the only other kind of big concern is if we cut it. And then lastly on our hourly uh our changes to our hourly FTEs. To make
085sure I get that right the $5 that Dr. McDonald spoke to those are that is kind of like pre-allotted money because we know exactly how many hours we're going to use for like 205 and that's like an allotment or an additional pay that's not an hourly employee, correct? They're just getting hourly supplements. >> [snorts] >> Now, for our hourly employees getting a pay increase, which we don't have a ton of those, how do we as a district manage that we don't get into a a kind of a red space with a lot of overtime? Is that something we have to worry about or is that something that we have pretty good internal controls on? We have pretty good internal controls on that. We payroll manages those timesheets. Okay. Um so when we see an hourly
086person going into overtime, we reach out to the principals and try to address the situation. >> My only concern was there is if we if we're doing a large increase to hourly, which I fully support, I just want to make sure those controls are in place that overtime doesn't one and a half kneecap us on every one of this. Uh I think that is all I have. I appreciate the hard work on this and uh it's exciting stuff. Good work. Thank you. Um Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of concern about this budget. Um I'm going to round the numbers off, so please forgive me. Last year our budget was about $124 million. What we're proposing tonight is a $132 million budget. It increases by almost $9 million. Um um of that, Mr. Strickland was
087kind enough to tell us that the increase in salaries, which is what we were concerned about, is $2,150,000. So somehow we have already found we have found another $6.5 million that we would like to spend. And it's been enumerated to us where it is. And if you paid attention to those uh charts that we were shown, it's increase, increase, increase, increase, increase, increase, increase, increase. Um we and I'm talking about all of us in this community that are involved in Lexington, too. We do not make any money. We don't sell a product. we don't sell a service. Okay, we don't make any money. The only way that we get money is that we are given money or that we request the taxpayer to pay in more. And so we're it's kind of like a kid
088in a candy store. You know, I can kind of come to you and say, "Well, you know, I would like to spend this much more at Target and you have to give me the money." You don't really have any choice about it. And so I'm in total agreement with the fact we would that we want to raise our teacher salaries, that we want to have a good pay scale. But as I said, we're only talking about 2.15 million dollars that in in that category. So I'm not really sure how we managed to come up with all the rest of this. The other thing is this, the the economy affects everybody. It doesn't just affect teachers and we have talked a lot about that that we would like our teachers and and the employees of the
089district to make more money. But I mean people who own businesses, we just really quickly went by that little thing that said that's an additional $477 on every so much that a business owns in property or what have you. I'm sorry, I don't know all the details of that. But the point is the economy affects everybody and everybody is feeling it. Now, let me just say that the previous budget that you gave us we were able everybody got a $2,000 raise. There was no millage increase. And we had the option of giving everybody an additional $1,000 bonus to come from the fund. And as you've seen, we have millions of dollars in the fund. And so we actually could accomplish the same thing without any millage increase at all. And so I don't know I
090don't know why really in this economy sitting here tonight that we are talking about increasing our budget by almost $9 million, which is about 6.45% Um, there are very few businesses that could could manage that. If they came to you and said, "Hey, by the way, you know, a Spectrum came to you and said, I'm raising by 6.45%." You'd probably pretty unhappy about that. And so, I just have concern about it and I I I don't don't know the answers to these questions, but the concern is there. Are there any other questions? I want to say something. Um, I I think it I think it's great that we are taking the steps to take care of uh, the teachers and our support staff. And and I fully agree uh, with what Ms. Rucker said going
091into general and and not raising knowledge as much. And Mr. Hall, thank you so much for explaining thing with numbers because those of us that are not math geniuses, it really helps to explain with the general fund and all of that. So, I I think it's great. I think we have it, you know, the economy is bad every everywhere, but with that being said, you know, some of our support staff and our teachers um, are are struggling even to buy gas, buy groceries. And as Mr. Key said today, it was great being at Brooklyn Casey this morning and seeing all of those kids walk across that stage and and the love and everything that was there with the community and our staff and everything. But, at the end of the day, if we are not
092competitive with our front line, and those are the people that have our children walked across that stage today because of our teachers, and because of our support staff, and then because of the support that our administration and this board gives them, and we have to stay competitive. We've had and to do that, sometimes you just got to take a leap. And so, I applaud that we're doing this. And I'm I'm grateful that our teachers that stay with us for as long as they do, and are loyal, and our first-year teachers, that we are able to give them somewhat of being competitive with all of our surrounding districts, because we did have some that weren't able to return to us this year, cuz $300 a month or $200 a month is a lot when you're on
093a budget. So, I understand everybody's concern, but I applaud all this budget that we got. I applaud everybody that has worked to kind of make it work, and I think it's just it's just it's just a good thing all the way around. I just have one point, I'm sorry, one point of clarification, Ms. Burkett. Our current budget is 128,855,192. So, the budget we're asking for is 132,154,962. That That difference is roughly $3.3 million. Okay. Thank you. >> I just I just wanted to make that clarification. What was the value of the mill for us right now? 277. 277K? Mhm. Yep. Yeah, I was just going to just suggest the chart you had on the millage with with with Ms. Brooker's emotion for the second reading, updated was based on the the two mills cuz it's
094not it wasn't the $440. It'll be something as Brooke had said it'll be somewhat less than that. You know the one I'll Yeah. Quick math showed that I was going to drop us by 2.16 million. Putting the raise to 1.2 1.14 million. Repeat that. It's going to drop that 132 number down by 2.16 million. Putting us at You go back to the uh other slide. Total budget slide. Yep, that's the one. That 132 you're going to take that down by 2.16 call it 2.154 and it'll put it right at one 130. And the And the balance would be funded with fund balance. >> Fund balance, correct. Okay. Could I just ask uh Does anybody have any concern about funding through the fund balance for a recurring expense? I know that we run over on our
095fund balance all the time, but we're talking about a $3,000 raise that we give this year that will go on into perpetuity. And so that means that hypothetically every year we might have to dip into the fund balance. Yeah, yeah, I think that's an excellent point, but when I looked at it every year we're over we're submitting a balanced budget, but we're really submitting an over budget cuz we're growing the fund balance. So I I think if we you know something we can discuss going going forward. Let's see where we end, but I don't think we're going to be dipping into it. I think the the I think at the end of the day we're not really going to be dipping in that fund balance cuz I think we kind of over budget have the
096taxpayers pay more than they be they should to and it's going in the general fund. So I understand your point, but I I truly believe when I see the history of this that that that not might not be the case. Uh just one additional question. I mean, since we have this huge fund balance, why don't we utilize that for things like our $50,000 for each of the high schools for sports? I mean, why don't we just take that out and use it? Uh why do we build that into a new budget that that were were having to increase millage on? Why don't we just use some of it? That's going to be a reoccurring expense each year to keep the schools up And so are the salaries. To your point though, Mrs. uh Birkett, that's
097what we're doing with this one cuz we're saying, "Hey, we're going to pull it out of the fund balance." And to Mr. All's point is if if we're doing a not to call it a sally, but if we're doing the same as last year plus budget every year, which that's for the most part what we do for better or worse. But last year we're we're putting a burn rate of 97% when we're budgeting for 100, which is typically what happens year over year over year, even with our people activity fund. That's why I bring it up every time. That 3% or 2% of kind of float is is what we should be taking that out of instead of just asking for millage increase and then watch to Mr. All's point 3 million get added to
098the fund balance. And because when we start getting that reserve fund at 23, 24, 25%, we're basically saying, "Hey, all you wonderful people in our district, we want to levy more taxes on you, but we're not going to spend those taxes. We're going to go put those taxes in a bank account. We're going to take it out of your paycheck and we're going to put in our huge paycheck, and we we're going to get a little bit of interest on it. We are we doing good on our interest? So, we're at least good stewards of it, but that's not what we should be doing. I I think we need to spend 2 or 3 years Trey's opinion getting the matrix cleaned back up, which that's the biggest thing this one does and it makes me
099super excited. 6 years now of pushing hard for that, but also cleaning up that budget. I know you always want to be conservative cuz it's it's been good. You know, we have one bad year and that conservative conservatism comes out well. Um but let's really start cleaning up so that we know our same as last year isn't increasing that fund balance an extra 2 or 3% that we didn't budget for. Is that I totally agree. Yeah, I totally agree. And and that's why I asked the four the look back question. This two mills, I don't want to tax anybody. I mean, I think most people know kind of where I stand on taxation, but the two mills we still have a bank to go to if something goes crazy next year. If the world turns
100on its head. If we didn't, then I'd be kind of concerned, but adding a 2%, that's that's almost to kind of cost of living set. I don't want us to constantly be like we are where we're asking for millage. I would love 6 months into this budget to really look at it and determine if, you know, you don't see it around here often, but we can always give back mills. That could happen next year. We don't have to come to the constituency and say, "Hey, we we need more of your money. We're going to give you some back. We trust you to do what's right with it." So, um I've talked too much. Thank you. Um Ms. Strickland, did we do the It isn't 3,000 in every sale, because didn't we start on about 21
101and we adjusted? Um yes. >> Because we were trying to get the bottom and the top numbers closer. >> 3,000 on every sale. On every sale? Approximately. >> The teacher salary schedule, approximately. I want to make sure about that. I don't want it near summer being taken away. Approximately $3,000 on every sale. >> But we did take some of them that were kind of out of line down. Remember we where it was a little >> a max. Yeah, we started on about 21. Uh and 21 through 30. And we were we were not going to do that across the board because we were trying to bring them closer to the to the middle. Right. So, did that happen? Yeah, we had a scale each scale was anywhere from range from 3,000 to 4,400. Correct. 4,400
102was the cap. Correct. 4,400 was the correct, the cap of it. Yeah. Okay. But, everyone got Correct. Everyone got Yeah. Okay. a bump. of at least >> of at least three. of at least 3,000 plus a step. I think we need to make sure everybody understands that. Okay. Cuz if not We got to we got to regroup. Okay. Ev- approximately 3,000 plus a step. Correct. Everyone got close to 3,000 plus a step. >> Yeah. Correct. Which is what the bottom raise was. We went from 51 to 54. Yes. Starting salary >> zero start at 54,000. >> Thank you. All right. Is there any other questions on the budget? All right. Clear as mud. All right. All in favor say I. I. All opposed? No. All right. Motion carries. 6-1. All right. We're going to go
103down into still a new business, consideration of forgiving staff work day on March 16th, by a memo that was sent out. Chair, I move that we forgive the staff work day on March 16th as noted. I second. I have a Motion and a second. Any discussion on that? All in favor say I. I. All right. Motion carries. Next one is consideration of 2026-27 release time for religious construction. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we approve the administration's recommendation for the 26-27 release time for religious instruction. >> Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? I just had a question. I don't know if I saw it anywhere. Is it all schools? I know that for a while we were It's all schools. It's all schools. Thank you. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. All
104right. Any nays? Motion carries. All right. Next one is consideration of 26-27 course approval for middle school new course request forms. Mr. Chairman, this is as we earlier this year approved some additional middle school course offerings. This is another set of those. This is helping us get it more of a variety of courses for our middle schools as we build out pathways from elementary to middle to high. This is helping us build those out. And so these are the next five of those courses that we're asking the board to approve for us to be able to offer potentially some of these as early as the fall. Mr. Chair. Uh I sent it to you. I don't know if you got it. I think you did, but I would love to see some type of typing
105proficiency added to at least these base levels. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to have a a second level IT type of class in seventh grade if you're still pecking versus actually typing. Um I don't know how what verbage we would do. I don't want us just to gloss over it and not take it serious. So I will happily approve these classes. I think they make a great foundation for what we've got building on the cape and all the other stuff that we do. Um but we 100% need a typing proficiency pre-requisite classes. We we can certainly look at, you know, what what kinds of materials are put into these curriculum as we build them out. Um typing itself is actually not something that the state department even for the last 10
106years has not even been a thing. Um in fact, you know, you used to be able to take a typing course. Those aren't even offered anymore. Um and we don't even offer a Google basics anymore because we've gotten so advanced. To your point, yes, we still need to teach kids those skills, um, but that is not something that is immediately as a course that we would offer in middle school. Now, can those types lessons be added into some of these introductory pieces? Absolutely. To your point, um, that last 10 years it wasn't just South Carolina, it was the whole nation. And as someone who hires a lot of people right out of college, we have people that their salary should be reduced because their efficiency at working is is highly degraded because they can't think
107and type. Um, and I don't want us as a district to be setting our kids up for failure. I want if a Lex Two kid gets hired somewhere, I want that hiring manager or program manager, whomever, to say, "My goodness, we got somebody who's more bang for the buck. Let's hire more Lex Two kids." Um, and I think even if federal or state DE don't push it, it's something that we we must do here. So, be it a prerequisite for this or be it figuring out how we have our, you know, Tuesday morning class, whatever, we've got tons of we've got a lot of white space in in there. Let's let's make it to where our kids know how to use the computer and have a foundation for typing and navigating Google or Microsoft Office
108or having 75 tabs open on their Chrome, etc. Is there any other questions on that? I'd like to make a motion. Well, we we don't need a motion on that. That's just information only, right, for the board? We need to vote. We have to We I think we do need to vote for that. Yes. You all do need to vote for that. Yes. For the consideration of the course approvals. Mhm. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we approve, um, for the middle schools 2026-2027 course approvals for to include introduction to computer science, introduction to coding, robotics one, robotics two, and computer repair. All right, I had a motion and a second. Any more discussion on them? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right, next is out-of-state travels. Mr. Chairman, I
109make a motion that we approve the administration's recommendation for four out-of-state overnight at four out-of-state overnight student travel requests. Um Airport High School and BC High School golf to attend Lower State in Hardeeville, and we're ratifying that. That was May 10th through the 12th. BC High School theater students to attend Backstage Broadway, New York City, February 11th through the 16th, 2027. If y'all need a chaperone, let me know. Um BC High School orchestra to attend Disney Im- Imagination Campus, Orlando, Florida, March 24th through the 29th, 2027. All right, had a motion to have I had a motion and a second, and we're going to have one recusal on this vote. So, all in favor, say aye. >> I have a question for you. Go ahead. Uh fully support it, and I'll be voting yes. I
110just want to make sure that fiscal law-wise, we don't have a budget approved. Is it okay that we're approving an expense and a trip in the in a budget that's not approved? Fully support us doing it. I just want to make sure that legally, we're not setting ourselves up for any kind of hole. I think that those will be funded through people activity funds. Thank you. All right, any other discussions? All right, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, motion carries 6-0 on that one. I'm sorry, Miss Castle. >> Okay. All right, thank you. And then I got one more on the for the We have a consideration for one out of state overnight staff travel request BC High School teacher to attend AP Summer Institute in Athens, Georgia June 22nd through the 26th.
111Second. All right, I had a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right, now we are now at 7G, consideration first reading and approval of some proposed revisions to board policies. All right. Um, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to make one motion. I'm going to read all of the policies that are being requested by administration for first reading tonight, and then if there is any questions about any one individually, we'll just take them one at a time. Um, so we're not making I believe it's about 12 individual motions. >> out. Okay, we'll pull it out at that time. All right. I'll make a motion that we approve the administration's recommendation for fourth first reading of the following policies. Policy AC, non-discrimination equal opportunity, policy GBA, open hiring equal
112opportunity and affirmative action, policy GBAA, sexual harassment and retaliation, policy GCE, professional staff recruitment, policy GCEC, posting and advertising of professional vacancies, policy GCF, professional and support staff hiring, policy GDF, support staff hiring policy IHA basic instructional program policy IIA grouping for instruction policy JB equal educational opportunity non-discrimination AR GBAA-R sexual harassment and retaliation AR JIAA-R sexual harassment and retaliation All right, I had a motion. Do we have a second? Second. I had a second on Ms. Rucker. All right, any discussion? Yes, sir. Uh first question is did these recommendations come from board member, SCASBA, um internal counsel, or external counsel, or something else? Mr. Bray, these recommend Every year the EEO language is visited with our administrative attorneys. Um this uh recommendation comes from our administrative attorneys White Story as it does every year.
113And that's been shared with Mr. Edwards. Mr. Thank you. Uh Mr. Edwards, question for you. Not to put you on the spot cuz I didn't get a chance to send it to us ahead of time. But um if you are so willing to answer now, it seems I have You probably know that I've been frustrated that every year we kind of chase case law. And so every year we're paying to change things. And so one of our earlier conversations or one of our public speakers are we setting ourselves up for failure by constantly moving chase law I mean case law chasing case law because somebody whose protected status that we'd felt the need to nuance into a policy was either pulled or put after the fact versus following what the typical state and federal world
114does is say we're going to follow state and federal law. That's the opening any question to you. Um if you would like to opine, great. Uh if you want to look back at it and kind of get us something, is this frustrates the heck out of me because we do it every stinking year and I just feel like external or administrative counsel is just going to get us in trouble. Um when we could very simply say, we're not going to discriminate and we're going to follow state and federal laws, period. To Thank you. To that point, um I don't think that we need to have the most nuanced policy for everything at the board level. I think we hire a great superintendent who hires great employees and makes great handbooks for through the HR world.
115These nuanced items, we're paying Whitten Story, I guess, at this time or whomever each time to go give us these case law changes and redline uh scroll to the bottom of that, please. It every one of these, you're going to see the red marking is based off of Keep going. All right. Well, uh keep going. You'll see where it references whatever the the case law is. Um, don't worry about it. This one must be really long. Um, but you know, it there's a change to the case law. So, if a a case happens in wherever court next week, then realistically we have to keep updating this. And so, we've got to have a whole discussion on it. We've got to have uh legal counsel to it. Whereas if we keep the policy, "Hey, as the
116board, we want our district to follow the law, plain and simple." Then it becomes an administrative thing for the district to follow the law. So, I'm asking our board to consider doing that. Um, but we don't have to make a decision, you know, if you like that idea, I would say don't vote yes or no anyway right now. Go look at so many other entities that do this. Outside of South Carolina school board, I can't find entities, public, you know, tax levying entities that get into this nuance over and over and over. To include corporate bodies that don't do this. So, I would you know, I don't think it's nefarious. I think it's just we've gone down this road and it just becomes how it goes. But I would like us to really really consider
117that. That's all I have. Thank you. Mr. Brick, could I just ask a question just for clarification? Like for instance on this policy AC when it says the purpose is to establish the basic structure for conduct of district programs in compliance with applicable laws, we would just say >> Period. We follow all state and federal laws. >> as These are all board Absolutely. These are all board policies where us seven-member political board are telling our superintendent what we expect to happen in our district. And so, these policies, I mean, we there's some districts in the state who have kind of broken from SCASBA and they do much more kind of refined different policies. I don't say one's right or wrong. It's up for us to determine, but those policies simply say, "We're going to follow
118state and federal law. We're not going to We're not going to discriminate in our district." Which I think we all agree we don't want to discriminate in our district, but when we start getting nuanced and say we're going to not discriminate against this or that and we're going to change it based off of case law. This is exactly what happened. 6 years in, we're changing these constantly. We're not kind of We're Instead of chasing a goal post that's moving, we're just chasing case law when we could very simply say as the board, we want our district to not discriminate. And we're going to do that by following state and federal law, period. And that whole policy is now this big. That's That's my point. That's why I'll be voting no to this because I think
119it's time for us to kind of take ownership of saying, "Hey, we're the board. This is what we want of our district. We don't need to put 77,000 words off of a mock based policy that, you know, one or two councils push out across the whole district and bill for it." Well, and I will say, I mean, it does leave room for asking the question like, "Do y'all, meaning us, not care about non-English speakers?" Right. >> Well, I mean, of course Of course we care about them. I mean, this has nothing to do with us making a decision about that. It is the the EOC doing something and we're just trying to get along. And so, I think it's easy for people to read into that we are saying something about our school district when
120in fact we're not. 100%. Mr. Hall? Uh is there And I totally agree. Um Is there any risk that we still have this policy here that maybe doesn't have the same word wording that the case law has, you know? I mean, till we get to the time where where we can shorten the policy like you suggested. But I totally agree. I I We These kids come before the board every other meeting and I really don't know where they come from if and the public thinks board members are pushing these changes. Right and then we get calls and emails and they see it the first time I see it, you know, and I I totally agree. If the question's open-ended versus going towards will, I will take in that chance to answer and say, "We have
121to follow law." There we don't have to have 77,000 policies. We can have one policy saying we want this. We want our this metric to be this. That's our policy. Everything else always reverts to the law side. So, that's why I think when I say use the word nuance, that's what I'm saying. We're getting into administrative world when we should just say follow the law, don't discriminate, be an upstanding district. Let's do the right thing. But someone's got to take the effort in to go through that and Absolutely. And and the to the good part of that, EOC and different groups do that and it would be on the administrative side. I don't personally I don't believe in ARs really. I think we should just have administrative side of it. But to your point, that's
122exactly what the administrative side has. They they get all these new changes. All right, we update our employee handbook. Our employee handbook's what's going to the legal side's going to look at when there's a case that goes anyway. Um I I just don't know why we want to make our policies get in the weeds. Without a discussion we're having and back and forth, I'm going to just table this item and we'll come back next time and have administrative council come to us with some counsel on that. I can I don't know if that's a motion, but I'll second it if it is. That will be a motion. All right. Well, that wraps everything there. We will move on into announcements now. Did we think of vote on this? tabling Did I miss it? We have
123to Will, do we point of order? Do we need to make a vote on a tabling action with Robert's Rules, do you know? Should we look it up real quick, Take a 30-second pause. The action item was the motion to approve those. We had a motion. Do we need to have a vote on it? I second. We'll go ahead and vote for it. Yep. Yep, all in favor of table table in the least. I second the motion. All right, we got a second. All in favor? I second. Right right second it. We just need to vote on it. All in favor, say I. I. All right, motion's to table. All right, now we're getting to our announcements. Tomorrow tomorrow, May 22nd, the last half day of school. Graduation Airport High School tomorrow morning 8:00 a.m.
124And May 25th is Memorial Day holiday. May 26th, teacher flex day, and that is their last day, and then report cards coming home May 27th. And now I will entertain a motion to enter into executive session. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that the Board of Trustees enter in our closed session for the following. Consideration of personnel appointments, reappointments, retirements, and resignations. Contractual matters regarding new Congaree Elementary project. Consideration of request for early kindergarten admission. Second. All right, I have a motion and a second. With any objection, we will enter into executive session. >> Mhm. >> I make a motion that the meeting be reconvened in open session and the appropriate affidavit executed. I have a motion and a second. All all say aye. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we accept the administration's
125recommendations for resignations, retirements, terminations, and reappointments. I have a motion. Second. And a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that uh we accept the administration's recommendation for motion for consideration concerning property transfer. I move that the board authorize the administration to finalize the property transfer agreement with Lexington Health Incorporated contingent upon the successful completion of the due diligence process. The properties involved in this agreement are identified by Lexington County as TMS number 00 5738-05-014. Comprising approximately 12.57 acres owned by Lexington School District and TMS number 006798-07-004 comprising approximately 4.23 acres owned by Lexington Health Incorporated for the purpose of constructing a new Congaree Elementary School. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that? All right, being none, all in favor say aye.
126Aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries 6-0. Motion to adjourn. Second. All right, we are adjourned.