Regular Meeting of the Board - February 26, 2026

001It is now 6 o'clock and I would like to call this meeting to order. It is February 26, 2026 and want to welcome all. We got a full house tonight. Um looks like a good crowd. But um before we get started, I want to as always we want to send out our prayers and thoughts still Dr. happener because she's still dealing with a lot. So, she's hopefully she's listening and know that you're in our thoughts and prayers. But with also with it being the month of Valentine, month of love, February, I started thinking I was thinking about back at Valentine's I said, how many of our students receives a Valentine's love card or anything from family? And I started thinking about how important these teachers are, these admins are for our students because you see

002a lot of them do not get the love that most people do. So they're relying on y'all. And while I was thinking about that, it was weird. I follow this guy. He came to one of our school conferences. It's been seven years now. His name is Hamish Brewer. He's known as the skateboard principal. He grew up in New Zealand in a troubled home, no family, bounced around and became a principal. He ended up being at the toughest school in the state of Virginia, a failing school. He went through and he loved on them kids. That school today is one of the top middle schools in the country, but it was one of the worst when he got there. And it was all about love. How he supported his students, how he supported his administration. And

003the day after I was thinking about that, he sent out this post and it's so true of what I was thinking. And he said, "The kids who need love the most will ask for it in the most unlovable ways. They'll push your buttons, test your boundaries, make you question if you're cut out for this work. You see, they put that shell up. They don't want you to break that shell. That's the way they protect themselves. And then he says, and that's exactly when love matters most. Leading with love doesn't mean being the pushover. It means choosing to see the human behind the behavior. It means understanding that some kids have never heard I love you from an adult. That's your presence at their and that your presence at their game might be the only adult

004who shows up for them. Love and education is strategic. It's intentional. It's the foundation for everything else. If we love on these kids, once you gain their respect and their love, the education is the easy part. So that's all the chat. We got all our principles in here tonight. Show the kids that we care. I know all these board members sitting up here care about the kids because we that's why we're sitting here. Show the love that we want Lex 2 to have. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Wooten. she going to introduce two students for us tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, we are delighted to have two Brooklyn Casey High School students with us tonight. We have Amy Lamb, who will be leading us in the invocation,

005and Mason Fields, who will be leading us in the pledge of allegiance. Amy is a senior in the current validictorian of the class of 2026 at Brooklyn Casey High School. She is a part of the varsity tennis team, president of the Latin club, vice president of national honor society, and an active member of the sustainability club, FCA, Bearcat Buddies, and the Honor Choir. She will be attending a 4-year university in the fall to study psychology, but has not committed to a college or university yet. Always good to be a Gamecock, Amy. Um, pledge of, um, Mason is a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School. He is involved in Bearcat Buddies and a member of the track and field team. He plans to attend college and study law at the University of South Carolina. We'll turn

006it over to y'all. Dear heavenly father, thank you for bringing us here safely today and for this opportunity to meet together. I pray that you will guide the discussion in this room tonight, allowing it to be productive and focused. Please give wisdom to these leaders to make decisions that will positively impact our district and community, uniting them under one purpose. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. >> Amen. Join me for the pledge of the United States. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America 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. Okay, we're going to move to the consent agenda. >> Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the consent agenda with

007the removal of item 7E regarding proposed revisions to board policy BEDH from the agenda and place it on a future agenda pending legal review. >> Second. >> I had a motion and a second there. Kind of discussion on that. >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. All right. Motion carries. Senate agenda is approved as presented. All right, we're going I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Cooper now with our honors and conference and and I would like to say we want to welcome Dr. Cooper and she is our new interim superintendent. Um you know it makes it so easy when you don't have to go out and do a search when you got somebody here in the house that's been here for years is that is Lex T. So, we just

008want to congratulate you. And Miss Hux is now our interim um HR. So, welcome both of y'all tonight. All right. I'm gonna turn it over to you. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, board members, and members of our community. First up tonight with February being Career and Technical Education Month, we have Miss Sharia Wilson, our director of the Lexington 2 Innovation Center, who will update us on the impressive number of certifications being issued this year. We'll also hear from some of our innovation center students, Miss Wilson. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Cooper. Esteemed board members, it is my pleasure to stand before you this evening to recognize a few of the many outstanding students that are taking courses at the innovation center. At L2IC, we champion the mission of Lexington 2 in preparing students to excel

009in their postsecary endeavors, which are enrollment, employment, enlistment, and entrepreneurship. These are the options that are presented to students at L2IC. The students that I will bring before you this evening epitomize the L2IC mission. The first student that I would like to call forward is Harley Foster. >> Good evening. My name is Harley Foster. I'm a current student at Airport High School in the Lex 2 Innovation Center. I'm on the path to completing the firefighting class. During the duration of this class, we earned a total of 12 certific certifications. This class has taught me hard work, determination, and discipline. My instructor, Chief Croslin, has mentored me through this class and given me advice that will help me in the fire service. The hard work, determination, and discipline I have learned will help me in the

010Navy as an aviation mechanic or as a firefighter. I often get asked how it feels to be a woman going into a male-dominated field. I will have to say it is tough, but the qualities I have learned throughout this course has helped me tremendously. My overall experience as a L2IC student has been amazing. The atmosphere is friendly and welcoming. Once again, I would like to thank Chief Crawlen for everything he has taught me, not just about firefighting, but also about life. I would also like to thank Mr. Thornton, the auto mechanics instructor. The skills he has taught me so far will help me as an aviation mechanic. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. Have a good night. The second student that we would like to call before you is Carol Graassette.

011Unfortunately, it looks like Kielle was not able to able to make it, but she is a health science completer at the innovation center. Next, we have Kia Campbell. Good afternoon. My name is Cadet Kia Campbell and I am a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School graduating in May. I am a double CTE completer in GRTC in family and consumer science and after high school I plan to enlist in the Navy. My favorite thing about ROTC is that it pushed me outside of my comfort zone and gave me the most support inside and outside of the classroom. My experience as a Kate student has been great because I learned that no matter how shy or awkward you are, that there is always a program personally suited for you and your interest. Thank you. Next, I would

012like to call Jaden Carter. Good evening. My name is Jaden Carter from Brookley Casey High School. I am not just speaking on behalf tonight. I'm also speaking for my peers as well. I am I currently attend the Lex 2 Innovation Center completing both firefighting 1 and two earning me a total of 12 certifications. My mentor, Chief Chief Crossland, has been an inspiration both in his training and his dad jokes. On a real note, you can tell Chief is passionate about his craft, going on to teach us next generation of future firefighters. It takes love and guts to work in a firehouse. My overall experience in this program has been um exemplary defined as of defined as of the highest quality of order the best of its kind. This program will help to get me career

013ready as I enter the workforce and the real world not just as a firefighter. As it has taught me dedication, commitment and discipline. It's also taught me about one's character, leadership, and bravery. After graduation, I plan on entering and applying to Lexon County's fire department as soon as I turn 18. Ultimately, Chief, I love learning how to tie a clove hitch all the way to vehicle extrication, but I may have to leave out hazmat. Man, that stuff is hard. Chief, you've been such a father figure to me, telling us funny stories to giving us real life advice on things that matter. I hope you are proud of how much impact you've made and are making on many others to come. Chief and all of the Lexington Innovation Center, we all thank you for the amazing

014opportunities you give to us students to build a brighter and better future. Thank you. >> I would like to now call Austin Rous. Good evening. I hope everyone is having a good day. I am Austin Rodus from Airport High School and I will be explaining my experience at the Lex 2 Innovation Center. I will be completing intro firefighter 1 and firefighting 2 at the end of this semester. Through this three-year long course, you can earn up to 12 different certifications. These certifications will be something you can add to your resume if you decide to apply to fire department. This class means so much more to me than just a class to fill some credits. It has got me work ready, but has taught me some good human attributes along the way. It has shown me

015how to work as a team and trust those around you, even if they scare you to death. It's also taught me how to use some critical thinking skills as well as how to use some pretty cool tools I didn't even know existed. Chief Crossson has been the best mentor we could have asked for. He loves to give you a hard time and point out everything that's wrong with you, but it's all out of love. I think he just likes to hear himself laugh sometimes. But aside from all that, he has set our minds straight and has us ready for the real world. He's been there for me through some hard times in my life and always lets me open up and have that serious conversation with him. I've always looked at him as a father

016figure for me and I know I can always trust him to do what's best for me. The funny thing about my whole experience though is I didn't even know what I was getting myself into. When I signed up for the class my sophomore year, I saw Intro to Public Law and Safety and I thought it was a class that has something to do with being a police officer because I saw the word law in it. And I always wanted to be a cop growing up, so I signed up for it. And sure enough, day one, I walked in and saw two big fire trucks. And I said, "Whoa, now this isn't what I thought it was." But it was the best thing I could have done. Now, after I graduate, I have a plan for

017myself, and that is to go be a firefighter and do what I enjoy every day. So, my experience at the innovation center has been amazing. It was a turning point in my life, and now has me set up to be successful. I want to thank Chief and everyone else along the way that has got me to this point so far. Thank y'all. There are two other students that I would like to spotlight in their absence. They had other engagements this evening but were not able to attend. You heard from one of our double CTE completers, but we actually have a minimum of 20 at this point from both airport and Brooklyn Casey high schools. But tonight, I would like to highlight two exceptional young ladies. They are what we call triple CTE completers because they

018have completed three CTE pathways. So when we say make your electives count, these students have taken that model very seriously. Reagan Dawkins is a JOTC completer, an engineering completer, and a digital art and design completer, completing three pathways. She also has certifications in OSHA 10, Stop the Bleed, and Career and Life Essentials. In addition to her CTE honors, she is she has a 5.0 GPA, and she does plan to attend a 4-year university in the fall. Mia Ethridge is our second triple completer, completing sports medicine, health science, and culinary arts management. Her certifications include health care providers BLS or basic life support, heat illness prevention, sudden cardiac arrest, serve safe food handler, and stop the bleed. Please join me in congratulating these CTE students for their wonderful accomplishments. Thank you, Mrs. Wilson. And what a

019wonderful showing of our students. I think we should give them another round of applause. >> And continuing, excuse me, >> you know, and that's kind of like what we was talking about. You saw students come up here and talk that 2 plus two equals four is simple stuff. But the real life things that they just learned in them classes is going to carry them throughout. So kudos our case to learn the kids learn that and to the teachers that became family to them. Thank y'all. >> Amen. Thank you. And next we're going to continue on with Miss Tiffany All Lexington 2 Innovation C Center's assistant director and director of dual enrollment there. She's going to introduce us to some of additional Lexington 2 students who have significant achievements this year. Mrs. All Dr. Cooper, members

020of the board, good evening. I would like to take this opportunity to provide an update on our early college and dual enrollment programs. I'm pleased to share that we had a very successful turnout at our interest night held at the innovation center on February the 10th and the 12th. It is extremely beneficial to share this information with as many parents and students as possible as this program provides a tremendous opportunity for both. I would like to extend a sincere thank you to the middle school guidance counselors and teachers that helped us communicate this information to their students and families. Beginning next week, we will be administering the ACUPPLACER test to 68th grade students. Additionally, we currently have 21 9th grade students who will be joining the early college program. Students currently enrolled in the 10th

021and 11th grade have until March 20th to sign up for dual enrollment. interest continues to grow. Miss Summer, Miss Summer, come up here with me because I could not do it without you. Um, we receive a lot of emails daily um about the interest of the dual enrollment. So, we do anticipate um a significant increase for next year's enrollment. This year, we have a total of seven students graduating with their associates degree. We have 30 earning either a general studies certificate or a health science certificate. And then in addition to this, we have 71 students that are currently taking dual enrollment classes. Without further ado, the reason we're here tonight, I would like to congratulate the first set of students that you will um be hearing from are earning their associates degree. And then we

022have a few of our 30 that showed up this evening that are um receiving their general um studies or either health science certificate. The associates degree is a minimum of 61 credit hours and the certificates are a minimum of 18 credit hours. And in addition to this, some of these young people tonight are also completers as well as receiving their credentials from Midlands Tech. We are incredibly proud of our students and their hard work and dedication and we look forward to continued growth and success within this program. And I'm going to ask our associates um degrees to come up first. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Carlina Redmond Mario and I go to Airport High School and I will be earning my associates in art arts and associates in science this upcoming May. So,

023I plan to go to either Lander University or University of South Carolina and I want to get a degree in nursing and I want to do ROC and become an officer in the army. >> Good evening everyone. Uh my name is Hector Hernandez. I am the student body president at Airport High School. I am so excited to be here. But the main reason I am here is because I'm getting my associates in art um with dual enrollment which I'm very excited for. My plans in the future are to go to College of Charleston and I currently um have joined the Air National Guard. So I'm so excited for that career and I hope to get my bachelor's in business soon with College of Charleston. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Samantha Menddees

024Belise and I'm a senior at Airport High School. I'm also the student body vice president. I'm earning both my associates of science and arts with dual enrollment um in May. My future career plans are to become a nurse and later a nurse practitioner and I'm hoping to go to the University of South Carolina to complete this. Good evening. Uh my name is Prince Patel. I'm currently a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School and I'm getting my associates in uh science and after high school I plan on majoring in mechanical engineering at Clemson University. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Olivia Macintosh. Um I'm a senior at Airport High School and I'm receiving my associates in science. I am attending Western Carolina University. Um, and I'm will be majoring in integrated health science to become

025an occupational therapist. Good evening. My name is Erica Gonzalez and I am going to be earning my general studies certification for for dual enrollment at Midlands Tech. And after high school, I plan on going to Midlands and um doing the radiology program. Thank you. >> Hi. Okay, you hear me? Hi, my name is Harmony Jones. I am a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School and I'm earning my general studies certificate at Midlands and after high school, I plan on going to Midlands Tech for nursing. Hi, I'm Isabella Lynch and I'm earning my general studies degree. I'm most people know me as Major Lynch because I'm also an RTC as well and I'm joining the Army National Guard. I've already joined and I'm going to pursue my engineering as well when I get to college and

026I'm probably going to go to most likely University South Carolina State and go as an officer in the military. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Nicole Pac and I'm and I have already completed my general studies certificate at Midland's Technical College. I plan come this fall I've already committed to USC for a biology degree. >> Hello everybody. My name is Shania Rwendaris Chi. I already completed my general studies and completing my healthcare certificate and I plan on pursuing nursing. I don't know what university to go at, but I'm planning on going to USC. >> Hi, my name is Olivia Barbrey and I'm a senior at Airport High School. I'm getting my general studies certificate through Midlands Tech and I'm planning to go into early childhood education at USC. >> Good evening everyone. My

027name is Nigel Yomi. I plan on I just received my um general study certificate from Midland Tech and I plan on joining the Trojan family at Anderson University so I could pursue my cyber security degree. >> Hi, my name is Tiana Goodwin. I'm receiving my general studies certificate. I plan on listing in the United States Air Force. >> Good evening. My name is Stevie Benerman. I'm currently a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School. I plan to uh oh, I'm getting my general studies certificate at Midland Tech and I plan to go to the University of South Carolina to get my bachelor's degree in data analytics. >> Let's give these young successful people one more round of applause. Thank you students and thank you Mrs. All. >> Dr. Cooper. Yes, >> if I could. Miss all

028and Miss Wilson, I just want to say thank y'all so much for uh being here tonight and showcasing what a gem the innovation center is. We've all known it and it was just so great to see all these students and their accomplishments tonight and we look forward to the future. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you. All right, moving on. Next up, we have interim principal Alicia Dickerson, who's so excited to tell us about one of her students who has won a top honor at a recent Junior Beta Club state convention. Miss Dickerson. Mr. Mr. Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Cooper. It is my great honor to recognize Busby Creative Arts Academy student Khloe Lawrence for receiving the National Junior Beta State Convention Grand Champion Poetry Award. Khloe truly exemplifies excellence in both academics

029and in the arts. She is a member of the All Region Orchestra and serves as first chair violin and our district honors orchestra. In addition to her musical accomplishments, she participated in our VPAC dance program and is in and is currently enrolled in two high school credit courses. Khloe plans to attend Brooklyn Casey High School and is interested in pursuing the early college program through our innovation center. I heard there were about 68, so we've got one here. Miss Jefferson, our adviser, describes Khloe as humble, kind-hearted, driven, and focused. She represents the very best of Busby Creative Arts Academy and the promise of what is possible when talent, dedication, and opportunity come together. We are incredibly proud of her accomplishments and look forward to all she will achieve in the future. >> Good evening. Um,

030so the theme for the poetry was what would you do if you could do a whole day in reverse? and I decided to go with the topic of how we don't always get a chance to do over and if we do then we should be able to make the most of our decision and be able to move forward with a different mindset and attitude. Um I had a really good experience and I'm very glad that even though I didn't go myself to state convention that my twin sister was able to accept the award for me. Um and I'm very glad that you chose to recognize me tonight. That's a lot of wisdom there. Um, and finally tonight, assistant principal at Saluda River Academy for the Arts, Miss Jillian Stra, um, will introduce us to members

031of their showstoppers team who qualified for and competed at state this past weekend. Miss Stra. >> Good evening, Dr. Cooper, chairman, members of the board, cabinet, and guests. I am Jillian Strad. I'm the assistant principal of Saluda River Academy for the Arts. And I am very honored and thrilled to be able to introduce to you tonight our school's dance company, the Showstoppers. In only their second year of competition with other schools across the state, our showstoppers were able to qualify to attend and perform at the state competition this year. These incredible dancers are coached by Kayla Jennings and Stephanie Stury. They have devoted their time, resources, and passion into helping our students grow and foster a love of the arts. Please join me in welcoming Coach Jennings to share their outstanding accomplishment. you. Um so

032this group is third, fourth, and fifth grade students who stay after school to learn um competition um routines. We competed on the jazz and the palm category. We were able to travel um and compete at Newberry College. We competed at Riverbluff High School and then at Lexington High School where we qualified with our Palm Routine. And we just got back from Rock Hill where we competed that Palm Routine and we are named state champions >> um at first position. Um this is a lot of work. Um and I could not do it without um the help of she's actually our school nurse. Um Coach Stury. Um during the school day she's nurse Sturky, but as soon as you know school is over, she becomes Coach Sturky. and um a student from Brooklyn Casey High School,

033Emma Starky, who actually came through Saluda River, and I have pictures of her when she was in my my dance company. Now, she's being able to come back and she volunteers her time um to help coach this group. And yes, we made it. I'm very, very proud of them. Um they are going to come up and introduce themselves. They are going to say their name and their grade level. And they you can tell that they're dancers. They would rather dance than say anything, but I know they can do it. >> Emilyn, come on. >> My name is Emilyn Jennings and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Isa Snipes and I'm in fifth grade, too. My name is Amir Maddox and my and I'm in third grade. >> My name is Macy Lee and

034I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Macy Martini and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is AJ Czechovich and I'm in fourth grade. >> My name is Harmony Tanelli and I'm in fourth grade. >> My name is Emma Warren and I'm in fourth grade. My name is Tegan Bliss and I'm in fourth grade. >> My name is Siri Nurang and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Luca Rose Cray and I'm in third grade. >> My name is Madison Far and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Kira Harrison and I'm in third grade. My name is Z My name is Xander Nang and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Sophia Munos and I'm in fifth grade. >> My name is Aaliyah Gun and I'm in fifth grade. >>

035My name is Kaitlyn Martin and I'm in fourth. >> My name is Gloria Love and I'm in third grade. we need to stand up for having us and recognizing us. Um we are again very very proud of them. >> Yes, absolutely. That's fantastic. That concludes yours. >> Concludes honors and accomplishments. >> All right, we're gonna Our next thing is public participation. And I think we only have one tonight. Is that right, Santana? I think you >> think just one Santana, we just got one tonight. All right. Um, as said, we have one person signed up to speak tonight and we just ask that no profanity be used. We also ask that you do not use staff or students names. The board will not give feedback for policy and we'll receive all comments as information only.

036So with that, our first person tonight is Miss Melissa Go forth and she will be speaking on agenda 12E, which is the consideration of proposed revisions to board policy behel you have five minutes. >> Thank you. Congratulations and great job Saluda River. We had some of our Cub Scout family in that group. Very proud of you. Thanks for showing off for our district and doing your best. Um so glad to see when I came in today that the consideration of proposed revisions to board policy beedh public participation was pushed off the agenda. Again, I'm not sure if others realize it's the second time this board of trustees has added it to the agenda in less than a month. Why are we trying to change the policy so quickly? I don't feel like we've been in

037a rush. In fact, some months I'm the only speaker. Interesting. Less than two years ago, I remember struggling to get the Lex 2 agenda and its supporting documents up available on board docs earlier than the 24 hours required. That didn't go into effect until just November. Policy BEDB states the superintendent in cooperation with board officers will prepare the agenda for regular meetings. Since some of you all board members replied today emailing or messaging privately claiming surprise at these changes and not knowing where the proposed change came proposed changes came from. Full disclosure would be appreciated on which board members asked that it be included on the agenda without a foyer. You shouldn't make it more difficult for stakeholders to participate in the democratic process of public participation. Given this district's demographic breakdown, you all should

038be making every effort to make that process easier. You're in elections as board members promising to increase parental rights and accountability rather than run from it behind more red tape just to publicly participate. The idea that the board of trustees can decide if they have time for public participation during a regularly scheduled meeting is disgraceful. Parents, guardians should have the right to come and voice their concern cons about any issue, but especially if it's on the agenda. They should be able to reference previous board of trustees discussions and debate, including direct quotes from you all without the threat of intimidation or silly yet scolding certified letters from the legal department. I understand both boundaries and decorum. Instant memories reminded me just today with a picture of my entire Lex 2 family in the galley at

039the state house six years ago advocating for public education. Just last month I sat here as the only nonex employee in the room for hours during the budget workshop and did not speak a word. Thinking about it today as a parent I know that I have made a solid effort to communicate clearly. I came, I public publicly participated after that tried to schedule a 10-minute meeting with the superintendent, was declined, came back and participated again. But then I remembered that this is the school district that sues and serves trespass notices to stakeholders when they believe too many foyer requests have been filed. I'm referencing that 2017 lawsuit. Tomorrow is VIP day at Riverbank. It's a time for all of our students to invite their favorites, their VIPs to maximum from 8 to 10:00 a.m. If

040you're an early riser, even better if you want to help us come early to set up. I'd like to invite all of you to be my VIP. Perhaps then you can explain your reasoning to all those students and their parents, their grandparents, those that are just trying to take an hour out of their day to see their children and their school, talk to their teachers. Maybe you can explain the reasoning behind these BED changes while you're there. Jonathan Saxs wrote, "The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game." In regards to the subcommittee behind the creation of Lex 2, most were here at last year's budget workshop. The politics behind that movement is messes messy and discriminatory to put it kindly.

041Many of those subcommittee meetings took place off-campus without Alex to employee present. Luckily, I guess there are some participant notes, emails, and a few recordings to help make sense of it all. I'd like to note that if the proposed BED changes were put into place, it'd be nearly impossible to ever talk about that program critically without mentioning a current employee, board member, spouse, and city council woman. A former superintendent and a former teacher board member are also part of that group. If those if that policy went into place, I would not be able to ever reference them either. How do you expect to manage that without a conflict of interest? I'm going to leave you with a rhetorical question borrowed from Miss White of Lexington 2's legal team in her deposition with Allison Bars, the

042former Lex employer that's currently suing the school district over allegations she was wrongfully terminated up on a billboard. Would you be comfortable with what you said? Anybody could read, okay? Anybody in your life, anybody that knows you, people that you go to church with, if they read your comments, would you be okay with that? Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to have a report from superintendent report from Dr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair, board members, and members of our Lexington 2 community. As we've heard earlier, February is career and technical education month. And tonight I want to pause and recognize the significance of career and technology education and the important role that it does play in shaping the future of our students, our district, and our community. Career and technical education represents a fundamental

043shift in how we prepare students for life beyond high school. And today's graduates must be adaptable, skilled, and prepared for rapidly evolving workforce. When we think about Kate, a lot of times our career and technical education, one thing I would like to make clear is oftentimes our public thinks that it's simply a secondary primarily secondarily related programming and it's not. It's actually K12 programming and you'll be hearing more about that in the near future. But today my comments or tonight my comments um reference mostly what's going on at Lexington 2 Innovation Center, not necessarily what's going on K12 uh with career and technical education. Well, exciting things are happening at Lexington 2 Innovation Center. Students are not only learning concepts, they are applying them through hands-on experiences, earning industrial credentials, developing technical and employability skills,

044and discovering pathways that align with their strengths and their passions. Career and technical education strengthens our community. It's very important. Through partnerships with local businesses, higher education, industrial leaders, we are aligning student opportunities with workforce that's regional needs. In doing so, we are helping to develop that talent pipeline that supports economic growth across our region. So, we're learning that career ready CTE completion is growing. And what does that mean? You've heard this reference earlier with regard to acronyms and we're trying to make sure we don't rely heavily on acronyms. career in technical education. But this happens when students complete a career in technology education pathway and one or more industrial certifications. For example, a student who completes health science one two and health science clinical study clinical and is a CA a CTE or career

045and technology education completer will complete with an additional certification as a certified nursing assistant who's qualified to work in a healthcare setting. On the slide you see the pathways as a reference and health science is just one of them. Other certifications health science students earn include stop the bleed, OSHA 10 for health sciences and basic life support. As we celebrate career and technology technology education month, we also want to reaffirm our commitment to growing a culture through the innov growing a culture of innovation through the Lexington 2 innovation center. A place where creativity, collaboration, and problem solving prepares students not just for jobs that exist today, but for careers that are still emerging. We're looking at numbers here from airport high school two and a half year data trend and the first set of do

046numbers indicate that these are steady numbers with career ready and while we wait on the outcome of 2526 we can see that we're progressing forward. Same with total senior program completers with career ready certification. Career ready defined means a student who is a career in technology education completer with a credential has taken the ASVAB and has scored at least 31 has presented a silver, gold or platinum certification with the wind test or a student who has earned a career ready work-based learning credit. You can see that we are well you can't see but I'm about to tell you we are projecting right now 115 at the conclusion of the year that's where we are as we sit here today with over 96 at over 96 at the end of last year and of that number

04788 have certification and or have completed the pathway and 27 are enrolled in the certification or the final course needed in the pathway. Total students earning certification two and a half year data here shows as well as total certifications earned. You know CTE or career and technical education bridges educational and opportunity by connecting academic learning with real world application and meaningful career exploration. It's very important. Let's look at our CTE or career and technology education data at a glance with from Brooklyn Casey. We have our two and a half year data trend here with seniors and career ready. We just discussed what it means to be career ready and then we have our total senior program completer um ratings here with career ready certification on trend. This work directly does reflect our mission as champions

048for children because we are preparing students for graduation that is essential but preparing them for meaningful future is transformational. At this time we are projecting 118 at the conclusion of the 20 or as of today 24 2526 school year with 88 students having completed certification and or having completed the pathway where 30 are enrolled in the certification and or the final course needed here again total students earning certification trends from 23 24 94 to 2425 23 13. We're still pending that. But look at where we are with total certifications earned in that two and a half year data. We have already doubled plus four the actual end of the year data from the end of the school year last year. And we're projecting 64 right now in the spring. Kudos to to everyone. Lexington 2

049will continue to invest in opportunities that expand pathways, elevate student engagement, and ensure every child can see a future worth striving toward. And at this time, I want to just thank our career and technology education educators. I want to thank Miss Wilson. I want to thank Mrs. All. I want to thank Mrs. Baker. I want to thank the innovation center staff. I want to thank our business partners that we have now and those that are coming quickly and our students for the energy and drive and vision that they bring to this work every single day. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my comments on the state of career and technology education. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you. We going to now turn over into our finance and turn over to Miss Strickland. >>

050Good evening everyone. I uploaded the January financials last week. Are there any questions about the financials? Okay. Could I have your approval for the January financials? >> Without objection, the monthly financials reports are accepted as presented. Thank you. >> All right. Now, we're going to turn it over to Miss Hu. Welcome. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, board members, and Dr. Cooper. I do have your vacancy report for today. It has changed since the um board packets were put together. So rolling into the 26 27 school year, we have 16 support vacancies. We have 33 certified teaching positions that are vacant and 12 special education vacancies. Are there any questions? >> Mr. Brick. >> Thank you, sir. That includes um retirees that we'll hire back. >> Um yes, it does. Thank you. >> All right, that

051concludes that report and now I'm going to turn it over for instruction to Dr. McDonald. >> Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Um, we're excited tonight to share some updates with you about uh two initiatives that we started last school year. Um, as you all may recall last uh I believe in August, it's been that long. Um you all approved an opportunity for us to request from the state department permission to grant credit to high school students through an exam and that work yielded our ability to help students who are behind in their coursework but also help them get ahead in some things as well if they have that special unique set of talents or they have some extra opportunities um that they brought to our table. So, just wanted to bring this

052annual update as we promised you we would bring you some information just to kind of see where that project is going. It took us a while, of course, to get the logistics worked out with the state department last year. Uh, but we've been able to make some progress and we're we're really excited about where we can go next. Um, the first exams were actually given in the spring of 25. So, we had some kids who took advantage of this. And just as a reminder, in order to get a credit, a student has to score a 75% or higher on that exam. And these are pretty rigorous tests. They have been developed by our content specialists. And in some cases, we've been able to purchase uh an assessment that is um commensurate with the with the

053requirements of South Carolina in the standards. And so we have a list of these courses that we now have exam capabilities for. Um, our high schools asked us for for the courses they felt like students could um with with their requisite skills go in and and be able to great to get those credits through the exam. And you see here right now we're currently offering an exam in Spanish 1 2 3 and four. Uh government, economics, personal finance, uh English three, English 4, uh personal health, fundamentals of computing, and environmental science. These are these are it's a broad swath of courses, but these are all courses that kids typically have many of the the prerequisite skills already that they could in turn take these exams to be able to either get back on track if

054they're behind or to give them the opportunity to get ahead in some cases. Like I said earlier, just to give you an idea of some some data about this. Um so we've given a few exams you can see in those other um areas which will tie into what we're going to talk about with the LEX two flex. uh we have more students who'll be taking advantage of those courses in the coming year especially uh as they participate in that program. But right now you can see the the list of credits that were earned versus those that were attempted uh for those non uh foreign language classes on the left side of the slide. Um, so we have a few we've got some work to do, but but largely keep in mind that's an assessment that

055would represent the entire duration of the course in one test. And so it is not an easy assessment by any stretch of the imagination uh for a student to be able to do. Now, now that we've had sort of the first administration of what those runs look like, we already know that our students are talking about uh what that experience was like. They're talking about, hey, here's what I could have done to be better prepared for this. It also gives us an opportunity to look for some some prep opportunities um much like you'd prep for SAT or some other kind of test like that. And that's what we'll be doing moving forward uh to help our students be ready to to take that assessment. I it's a big deal when you think you've got to

056take a test that's going to capture a whole year of learning uh in that assessment. And of course um on the right side, this is the one we're pretty proud of. So, this is taking advantage of of the fact that our students have an interest in language or have those other skills and this is helping them get high school credit. So, what you'll see at at BC, we'll use as an example since it's first on the list, um we had three students who earned one Spanish credit, 13 who earned two, nine who earned three, and five kids who earned four Spanish credits. So from one test, because of where they scored on that assessment, they earned four high school credits for those for Spanish classes, which now gives those students the opportunity to either enroll

057in advanced placement courses or it gives them the opportunity to look at dual credit classes. So this in the long run will help us expand some of our offerings um to students who are in those higher levels. You can see very similarly at airport uh 2 12 12 and 12 that's that's huge that these students did basically three what could be sometimes four four years worth of work in one assessment and got that kind of credit for it. Um the state department of education has given us some guidance on um the the rigor of the test and how to count those um scores. So for this particular one for the Spanish we use something called a stamp assessment. a lot of colleges use those tests. Um, and so that the state department actually set the

058bar much lower than we had set it as a district. So we went back and said, "Okay, well, if the state department says this is where we need to be to give these credits, this is what we're going to do." Because initially we had given our our bar pretty high. Um, and so the the State Department lowered just a little bit, but nonetheless, we were still able to give these students credits. And it has been really exciting um to see that happen for these high school kids as they get these credits. uh some of them took the assessment but had already taken Spanish one and two. So, interestingly enough, now they have credit for Spanish three and four or in some cases a kid had taken Spanish one. Well, now they have all the rest

059of the Spanishes they need and so that helps them get closer to that high school graduation piece. This assessment is also something that we are beginning to give to eighth grade students. You can see here we've we've done it at one site already and we have the other three scheduled to be completed in the coming weeks uh as we get close to the end of the school year. Uh Fulmer, North Side, and Busby are next. But you see, we we wanted to include the Pineriidge results because it's pretty exciting to see that nine kids will go to high school with four Spanish credits already in the bank. So, they already have those those requirements for graduation and they have some additional elective credits um locked up before they even get there. So, it's pretty exciting

060uh to see that happen. Um here we we're talking a little bit about just what the next administration of this is going to look like. Of course, we'll give those tests again in the spring. Um the high schools are collecting those students who are interested in those assessments. They'll be looking at transcripts to determine which students would benefit from maybe taking an assessment. Perhaps they have strong enough results in their other coursework that they could do this. Um and of course, um we'll begin to look at other exams that we can offer as well. So, while some of those numbers on the earlier slide may have said zero, we're not discouraged by that because this was a first admin and now we're training kids what this process looks like and how to keep moving forward

061with that. They lose nothing by taking the exam. Um, they have everything to gain if they get that 75 or higher because then that is going to be the grade that counts on their transcripts. Um, and so for some students, they they may not be the ones who are going to be the 4.0 kid. We want them to be the 4.0 kid. um but they may be okay with that 75. We we do have a process in place where the parent has to agree to accept that credit. So it is something that that we're making sure they're very knowledgeable that that if you let this go onto your transcript, here's what happens on the back side of that. Should you go to college, should you look at taking an advanced class? Um and situations like

062that. So that's something that that we'll continue to to make sure that we're educating our families on uh about this process. But this is something we think will in the long run will continue to add value to to this experience to help kids get those credits. Um, and again, as I said earlier, we'll be expanding that work in the middle schools as well. Um, I'll switch gears just a little bit and then I'll answer all your questions that you may have about both of these exciting pieces, but I wanted to bring to you also an update on the Lex 2 Flex program, which obviously was something we put in place for this fall. Um, after an extensive work group, worked with the State Department very closely to make sure that everything that we brought and

063everything that we put in place was in line with law, with policy, with statute, uh, and all of the requirements there for us to be able to offer an opportunity for students to expedite their graduation in some cases and in some cases to give student the opportunity to um, shorten their school day so that they could take advantage of work-based learning. they could take advantage of of being the the older sibling who is the chief caregiver in the family or giving kids the opportunity to go earn real money in a job and still incentivize them to come back and finish their high school diploma. Um, and so I wanted to give you some initial results of what we're seeing there this year so far. Um, but I want to highlight two kids uh and and

064and just really kind of um celebrate and I think it got cut off a little bit, but uh this is Briana Frederick who is a student at Brooklyn Casey High School. And um she is currently enrolled in the program. Um Brooklyn Casey has five students who who are currently actively enrolled in this program. And uh Briana um I think if you read her quote, I'm glad I did the flex program because I thought I was a lost cause. I read this and I thought, "Wow, a student put those words into writing that she thought she was a lost cause." Well, this is proof that when we look at flexible learning pathways, we've got an opportunity to help kids who who think that they may not have a chance to graduate, now they can. Um or

065some of those other um some of those other pressures that they're feeling. This helps them be able to get to that next level to be able to really uh get toward graduation. Uh Airport High School currently has eight students enrolled in this program. They originally had 11, but imagine this, two of them already graduated. So, it actually helps students get to an early graduation as well. Uh, so that that we can get them further along. This is Christopher Vasquez. Um, and he talked about making bad decisions and making this helped him rethink his decision- making and helping him really stay on track. So, this is just two examples of our students who are taking advantage of this program to help them get back on track or get further on track toward graduation. Um some of

066our next steps right now the schools are in the process of recruiting students to participate in this program for next year. Um of course we have a capacity of about 25 students at each school but we also know that if we get that much and that big of a commitment we have the capacity to look at more ways uh to create that flexible learning opportunity. These students are are really in traditional setting half a day if you will. They're they're really at school about half a day. um and they're doing a combination of uh online learning sometimes in the evening independent learning um that some of them are taking advantage of of different courses. Some of them are taking advantage of their courses at the innovation center. So we're looking at just ways that we

067can be flexible enough to help them help incentivize them to want to stay in school and continue to make movement. So that's just a sort of a snapshot highle view of of where we are with those two initiatives and I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have. Miss Kessles, >> there you go. >> I don't have a question, but I will say just hearing feedback from two students shows us how important that is. >> So, >> all right, Mr. B, you had a question. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. uh the the testing uh pass their exam or whatever it's called. The kids who got four credits or three credits or two credits, did they take four tests or is just how high they scored on one test? >> Yeah, great question. So that

068so the the the tests on the left are one test. It's set up and it's basically for that course. So it's very specific. The Spanish assessment is designed differently. So it's a stampability assessment. Um really it just sort of assesses the overall language uh of a of the student. And so um it's still one test but because the way the score is scaled it gives the opportunity if you score this you get one. If you score this you get four. So we have that ability to offer from one all the way through four courses. I don't know why I turned that off. So what happens with your score? Let's say that you my world klep you klep all the way to the third credit uh and your score is a 87. Do you get three

06987s or do you get 200s and 87? >> That's what you get. You get you get that score for each of those credits. So yeah, the higher you go, the higher the higher that score will be. Um and we've had several students who scored I think close to perfect if not perfect or we had some some that scored up there, right, Denise Rob? Um we had several who scored very very high on this and so the parents were very excited to have the opportunity to get that added on a transcript. >> Yeah, it's fantastic. Great work. >> Metit. >> Yeah. I just wondered if you could tell me I I don't remember if we had any part in in choosing the subjects that could be used utilized this way but what I'm wondering about is

070um that some things are somewhat finite like government for instance it it might be you have to know the bill of rights you have to know the constitution etc etc but I'm just wondering about English three and four because most of the time in my experience at least those are credits where the teacher is assigning things to read. Students are giving feedback. They're writing papers. They're having classroom discussion. And um I'm just wondering how you actually test for that in in the capsule form. And I do remember that when my kids took like the the English AP exam, it was very specific to like uh tell me about Wordssworth and what have you. And if you didn't know about Wordssworth, you were sunk. And so so how does that work? It it it kind of

071concerns me the idea of people getting credit for two courses of English. >> Sure. So with with English, English English standards are pretty similar grade to grade. So when you do English one, obviously we want every student to have an English one real traditional class because that is the first typical English course you're going to have in high school. The second one is required for accountability purposes. So we can't offer a test for that one. Three and four, the standards are pretty much the same. So, so with there are a couple of exceptions, but for the most part, it's the same standards that you were held to in English one and English two. Um, yes, there there are very specific questions that are related to that content. Um, but most of these assessments are very

072broad as are the standards for South Carolina. So, um, each one of those English standards is represented in that assessment. And that might be a a piece from reading, that may be a piece from a specific author, um, it may be a specific timeline. uh there there are lots of things within those standards that a student is accountable for which could make it much more difficult for a student to have that opportunity. One of the reasons that we chose um three and four is because a lot of times those are some of the courses that students are missing when they're off track. So when they're off track for on-time graduation, I made a I made a 85 in English 2. I made a 90 in English two, but yet I I did something and I

073didn't get English three. So, this gives them the opportunity that if you had a good strong, you know, a good strong level of success in English 2, chances are high that you could probably do pretty well on an English three assessment. So, not always is a student going to take both three and four. They'd have to be pretty there'd have to be some pretty pretty strong skill there for them to get that that high of a score on both three and four. So, it'd be very rare that you'd see someone who would do it. Now, as I just said that out loud, somebody's going to try this next week and they're going to earn a 90 on three and four. Um, and you know, I think that comes back to that mastery method. If these

074kids can master the content, they can be highly successful. Which for some kids, if I'm if I'm behind, but I can master it now, I might be able to take an advanced placement class or do a dual enrollment class. So, now I'm going to get a college credit where in our current traditional model, I might not get that opportunity if I haven't been on that honors path along the way. Does that answer? I hope that answers your question. >> So when you say that the standards are basically the same as they were for English too, would you give me an example of a standard? Because see what I'm thinking is you broaden your knowledge of literature, you broaden your knowledge of writing, you have more complex thought, etc., etc. None of which can be measured

075on a test as you're describing it. So like what would one of those standards be? You know, I'm not going to pretend to know the wording of every standard in English because that is not my expertise. Miss Jones Sturk, can is there one that comes to mind that you and I hate to put you on the spot, but but I am. Um, is there one that comes to mind that you can think of that we see that duplicity across the curriculum? >> English, for example, may ask students to interpret an author's use of rhetorical devices and analyic type of literature but rather the understanding of that what an author. >> Okay. So in this test for instance, it would ask for both of those things, interpret and analyze. Yes. If you're doing it for the

076higher level. Okay. >> Correct. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Rucker. >> Um, thank you for the report. I don't have any questions on that, but I did want to mention that I was able to visit uh Springdale Elementary this week and um I I went to a tier three reading lesson and was so impressed. uh great work on that on our tier three and um I just would encourage my fellow board members if you can go to any elementary school and um visit one of those lessons I would highly encourage y'all to do that. It was it was awesome. >> Thank you. >> So thank you. >> Okay. All right. And we did give you all we did give you all a set of the requirements for the LEX two flex at your table just

077so that you could review what that looks like in case you you need that information again. Um the second item I have for you tonight in our report is um the homeschool report. As you all know, annually homeschool associations are required by law to report to the local school district um enrollment and uh student numbers of students. So um we are simply providing you the information that was provided to us. That does not necessarily mean that it is all encapsulated and that all homeschool associations have accurately reflected. But these are the numbers that were provided to us and as per requirement we are providing to them to you tonight. >> All right. Any questions on that? >> I just ask one quick question. >> Um Mr. Warren, do we take this into account as we're

078having our discussion about the the number of kids we're anticipating over the next 5 to 10 years because we've got a 100% increase from 2019 to 2025. Um, do we take this into account at all? Yeah, I mean we do look at that in terms of capacity and you know as part of the cohort of students you know coming up it's hard to project really yeartoear because sometimes folks will make decisions >> that you're not necessarily anticipating but you know it does it does factor into some of the decision- making in regards of capacity and space available. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right we going to stay over there with Mr. Warren and get operations update. >> Sure. Uh thank you u Mr. Chair members of the board. Dr. Cooper, you have before you

079tonight another operations update and CPIF progress uh document. I want to hit a few highlights from the operations update um facilities and maintenance. You know, work continues there with a set several highlighted items for you. Uh flooring at Casey Elementary, you know, also wanted to highlight, you know, the Springdale roof replacement. Uh project was bid out and awarded came in under our estimated, you know, budgeted amount. So, that's always exciting. you know, we'll complete that work over the summer as part of the CPIF, you know, you approved uh last year. Also, in transportation, uh we celebrated bus driver appreciation week, uh February the 9th through the 13th. Uh it's a very very exciting week. Lots of celebrations honoring our phenomenal staff in that department. Specifically, you know, our our traditional pancake breakfast. Uh we did

080that on Thursday the 12th at the at the bus office. Um it's always exciting to to get everybody together and and have that meal. Dr. Cooper especially good manning the drink table. You know, she was there facilitating very well, making sure folks were hydrated. Uh so we appreciate you know other members as well being a part of that. So it was a wonderful event. Um technology we do have Wi-Fi now that is online for our activity buses um for uh students to utilize especially on long trips you know athletic trips. Um, so that that is online now for them to to utilize to complete work, especially on those long trips for, you know, whether it's, you know, North Augusta or, you know, Aken, you know, that does have some time on the bus there. They

081can work. Excited about that. Um, safety and emergency services. Uh, a few things there. We completed our lockdown drills already. We do one of those in the fall, one of those in the spring at all of our facilities. Um, also want to highlight that just this week, Monday and Tuesday, we hosted um, and I love you guys reunification training here on site. I'm not sure this is official, but I like to think of us as kind of the hub for uh, the SRP training, you know, for the Midlands. Um, so we're going to work to make that official because we do host that group a lot. And we had a lot of folks from out of uh district, other districts in the state uh emergency responders, law enforcement partners were here in our pack auditorium

082going through reunification training. So excited that we were able to host that and continue our work as our number one priority to maintain safety for our students and staff. Um student services, you see a lot of things there going on. um especially with with school choice being completed, moving that timeline up this year to give us a better idea of that uh before um you know we get much later in the in the spring semester. And then lastly, athletics. Just a few highlights. I wanted to make sure everybody was aware. Realignment has been completed for the 26 through 28 academic years. The high school league does this every two years. And airport and Brooklyn Casey will both be in region 43A for the next two years. Also in our region will be Camden, Gilbert, Richland,

083and Swansy. So, we're excited about uh those pairings and and what that'll look like for us athletically for the for the next two years. And then have a few highlights there with some of our middle schools performing very well in the basketball um athletic conference tournaments. And then wrestling, you see you see there we had some folks from BC and Airport both qualify for the state tournaments um and perform perform well. And spring sports underway, rocking and rolling. look forward to exciting uh spring athletic season. Um so that's our operations update. Happy to answer any questions about that or or you know the CPIF progress document. >> Mr. Rucker, >> um I just um I have a I know if I have a question or just a request maybe to be considered um for the

084um MUSA vaccine ban. It says that um parental consent obviously is required but I would like to see the parents present for those vaccines and I know that might be further discussions but I just felt like it would be important for the parent to be there. >> Something we can look into if you'll just give an update on the paving where those uh top spots are looking at. >> Yeah, we're looking at um uh the BC High School front parking lot. Uh also, you know, Bulldog Boulevard needs some work. That's something that's come to our attention that we're Mr. McFersonen has been evaluating uh the airport high school 700 parking lot and really just looking at some full depth repairs around the district. Uh we uh did some uh resurfacing here in the last couple

085years with um you know cracked ceiling and top coating that that has held up pretty well but really looking at mainly airport and BC those parking lots I mentioned. >> Any others? Mr. Just a comment on the um region realignment next year. I assume you can take some travel uh um bus schedules out of the budget. Scott can free that up for some other items, right? >> Keep them in athletics. >> But no, that that was a good process. You know, we went through an appeal process with um with Brooklyn Casey, Dr. Jones and his team. Phenomenal job. Coach Clber working through that and made a lot of sense for us, you know, to be in the same region, both airport and and BC. So, we're thrilled how that turned out. All right. >> So,

086I'll keep on rolling. >> Keep on. You're in your business. Now, >> I do have before you tonight a um really I'd like to ask for consideration for a first reading for this. Uh this is our uh revised uh capital project improvement uh funds, the long range plan, something we talked about last year. you guys provided some real good direction on what you would like to see in terms of this being uh more of a five-year plan and make it align with our CPIF, you know, request. It'll come to you for first reading in March and then second reading hopefully and approval of our of our updated plan. So, just kind of going through a few things. I know you've had this to look at. Um, but you know, our main uh project that we

087are working through right now is the replacement of Congre. So, making progress on on that. Hopefully, we'll have some more information for you here very soon. So, you see that there um in front of you with um just a few added things. You see the red items that I've added just most likely, you know, some road improvements will be um you necessary for that, you know, based on where that school sits. And then, um you know, the FF&E uh and inspections and fees to go along with that. Looking down, um, going down to our minor projects, the green items that I've noted for you are the the completed items. So, kudos to M. McFersonen, uh, his work. Uh, we've we've painted the schools you see there that are in green. And, um, so that's always

088exciting to check things off the list. And you see, uh, moving on down. We did a little bit of moving around with our our painting schedule. You'll see this, you come before you next month with CPIF. We're looking to hopefully uh, paint Brooklyn Casey this summer. And then following that would be Busby, an airport, and then Riverbank and on down the road. It's, you know, having these schools on a schedule is important so schools know when it's coming. We know when it's happening, they can prepare and plan because painting a school does create a disruption, um, you know, during the summer that needs to be prepared for. Um, and then I did add North Side is one that we'll look at, you know, for 30 and 31. So trying to maintain that five-year plan. Uh

089going down to roofing, north side and wood. Once again, excited to have those roofs completed. And then Busby will happen um uh this summer. And then we're adding Springdale. That was part of the 2526 plan that we approved last year. And so we'll get those we'll get those numbers in here very soon. We're looking to re to do some roofing at Springdale this summer. And then uh just you know, River Airport and Pine Ridge will be you know coming to your attention years down the road. but having those mapped out with five years as well. HBAC, you know, once again, not a lot of changes there except we did add BC High School East Wing and Wood Elementary classroom units to extend our pro our program to five years to make sure those are planned

090for and captured. Um, and then, you know, we talked about the paving earlier that was in the CPI plan. Still working through that just and making sure we're we're you know, clear on that scope and and have that uh captured. So once again, happy to answer any questions, but what I'd like to what I'm requesting from the board is a is a first reading on this, a motion for a first reading, and then we'll bring this back to you with any changes or modifications you you might look for in approval next month. >> U Mr. Chair, I make a motion that we accept um uh first accept uh first reading for the long range facilities plan uh as presented. Second um motion and a second. Any discussion on that, Mr. B? >> Two things. First,

091thanks for doing this. This is good. I think this is definitely what we asked for. So, that's good. Um, second thing was if a project is going to be bidded out, can we put a range on the price so that we're not giving the bid world, you know, a kind of a set number. Let's let's put a put a a good enough buffer that it still gives you a an ability to accurately project numbers, but also not to give a hey, you can bid up to this number concept. I don't know a good way to handle that, but >> well well that's I mean a good way to handle that would be to not put those numbers on there, you know, at all. We can manage that internally. I'd be happy be happy to to

092make that. >> I think that would behoove our taxpayer. >> No issue with that on my end. Thank you. Good work, >> Mr. Rucker. >> I just wanted to thank you for keeping the the paint schedule on there. I know that's easy to put in other projects and to kind of forget about, but 10 years ago or so, we got ourselves in a in a mess with our not keeping up with our painting. So, even though it seems minor, it it is important to keep up with. So, just thank you for that. That's it, >> Miss Castles. And if we could do our best, I know things kind of come up and but if we could keep it where our teachers will be able to get ready in their classrooms when it gets closer to

093the beginning of school just so they're not put in a bind and have to do all their things after they take it down. Just try to keep that in mind. Thank you. >> Any others? >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. Uh, >> motion carries. >> All right, I'm going keep it over with you again. >> All right, so next up, uh, we have a guest here, and I I'll I'll introduce Cameron in a minute, but um, we we did complete a demographic study for, uh, 2526. This really was initiated last spring uh, through discussions at the board workshop and and really u through the initial revamping of our five-year facilities plan. Uh the recommendation typically is to do one of these every three to five years

094and this hasn't happened since I've been here. Um and I this is my third year. So something to really get a handle on our growth as a whole uh specifically in certain areas we know through work with our county you where there's been a lot of development and projected development in the years to come. And so we felt it was important um to contract with an outside firm um to complete that work for us. And Cameron Arseno is here. Cameron is with MGT. Cameron's from Texas, just flew in today. I picked him up at the airport. So, appreciate him traveling to be with us, but but he has a presentation to show and Cameron's um will be happy to of course answer any questions you have, but but these guys have put in a lot

095of work. They started back in in April. They visited with me here on site several times. Him and his team work closely with our county and their planning office kind of looking at a lot of things uh in migration, out migration, birth rates, death rates, all those things that really help capture as best you can. He'll tell you there's there's no exact science to projecting uh numbers, but ultimately um we appreciate their work and look forward to Cameron's presentation. So Cameron, floor is yours, sir. >> All right. Um so, uh like I said, my name is Cameron Arseno. I'm a demographer with MGT. Been with the company for uh a little over three years now. Um based out of Texas, but we work with districts all over the country. We worked with uh we're working

096on a facilities master plan right now for Richland one. I've also been in uh projects multiple districts in uh Spartanberg uh county uh and other areas of the state. Um but yeah, like uh we've been working with your uh district since about April. I'm just getting the uh started with the spatial and tabular data setup just gathering all your student data and processing with our GIS software. Um, again, we researched active residential development projects that involve visiting on site. Um, discussions with the uh county planning department, make sure we're capturing everything that's happening now and likely to happen within the next few years. Um, we took the student data that we uh process and did some uh demographics analysis of it and then uh kind of at the end put it all together and develop

097resident forecast u by grade and by attendance area for the next 5 to 10 years. Um, excuse me. Um, so this is just kind of a quick overview of like what our uh our process, our formula looks like. Essentially everything you're seeing here, that's exactly what I'm putting into our software to generate your forecasts. Um, the core building block is your current and then uh three years of historical student data. Um, we use that along with uh birth counts by uh zip codeing your district to uh predict the size of future kindergarten classes. Um, we kind of analyze the uh mobility, the movement between grades to predict the uh how what's going to happen to those classes sizes as they move through as time goes on. Um, and then we'll also generate uh we also

098generate unique student yield factors for your district based on uh the new homes that have been built within the next the past uh five years. Um then you put all that together uh and then use generate your forecasts. So to start with the student data analysis piece again we have a very extensive uh verification process just make sure everything that's accurate we have a consistent time stamp the trends that are uh being shown those are accurate uh trends from the same point in time. Um then we go in and geocode the students. We kind of you can see them right there that's four years uh of student data points um that we've mapped and then we use that to kind of break your district up into uh studies. we make cut about 202 for your

099district of about um 25 to 50 in some cases up to 100 students each. Um that's the level that we do our analysis at. So like um any residential developments that's going to impact the forecast in that study area. If a neighborhood certainly has like low turnover, high turnover, that's going to get captured at the study area level and then uh combined to create the forecast. Um, so this is just kind of a density heat map showing where the most dense pockets of your students are. Um, as you're probably expecting a lot, uh, in the northern part, especially right in the center, I believe there's a decent cluster of apartments up there. Um, and then kind of a little bit more sparse as you get further south, but still some pockets of uh, dense students

100where you still have some kind of traditional suburban style neighborhoods down there. Um, so this we call this an attendance matrix. This just kind of uh gives you the opportunity to compare where students reside within your district versus what schools they're actually enrolled in. Um so if you look at that first row um in the KC elementary boundary there's about,039 preK5 students that reside there. Um of that if you read across the top row there's 871 students that actually attend Casey. Um and then 12 that transfer to Congereie um 15 that transfer to Herbert Wood. uh 40 riverbank and so on so forth. This could be for programmatic reasons if they're uh children of a teacher um any number of things. And then if you read the enrollment columns down so for example for Casey

101there's 800 stu 871 students enrolled that live in Casey, seven students enrolled that live in Congre, 14 in Herbert Wood and so on. Um and then at the end we add in uh 16 students that are transferring from outside your district where whether another district in Lexington County or somewhere else. Um 14 students that are enrolled in your uh 3K uh program. Um for a total enrollment of 940 students at KC. Um we perform the same analysis for your uh middle and high schools. And then now this u is a utilization analysis. This compares those residents versus enrollment numbers looked at um examines them through the lens of what your school's actual capacity is. So for example, uh Casey um has a capacity of 1,250. Um if all of the students that uh reside in

102the KC boundary attended, um you would have utilization of 83% but in reality with the 940 students enrolled, that's about 75%. You can see there's 39 uh students that transfer in from within the district, 168 that transfer out to other Lex uh Lex two schools. Um and then 16 students that transfer in from outside the district. Um and now we're going to get into those three factors that we uh discussed earlier that go into creating your forecast. Um so here we have this is all of the bursts at each of the zip codes that make up all or part of uh Lex 2. Um you can see uh and this goes from uh students are born in 2015 to 2023 which is the latest year that we were able to get data. Um so you

103can see overall uh in total it's been pretty consistent. Not really a ton of growth, not really a ton of decline though which you're seeing across a lot of the country. Um overall um this year actually is kind of uniquely a little bit low. Um but outside of that it's pretty uh consistent. Um in the meeting next year goes up a little bit then up a little bit more back down a little bit and then after that we're projecting uh that it'll kind of stabilize. >> So that's going to uh cause your future kindergarten cohorts to be um roughly before taking into account uh residential development roughly about similar sizes to what they are now. Uh so ability factors um this is determined from that four years of historical map uh student data that we

104processed. Um it kind of tracks the percentage gain or loss for each grade level um and we apply it at the elementary attendance area level. Um so if you see right now for example if you start with 100 kindergarten students um at KC um with a mobility rate that we determined of 1.07 07. Um that means that um applying that to the forecast gets you 107 first grade students um in the next school year and then so on. Um you can see uh kind of similar trends that we've seen uh a lot across other districts we've worked with in South Carolina. It's kind of a mix in the uh elementary school growth. Some uh some attendance areas grow a little bit, some shrink. Um but then once you uh the trends kind of solidify um

105significant growth from 8th to 9th grade that's uh pretty standard students uh they might have attended been homeschooled or attended private parochial schools but then are transferring to attend public high school but then drop offs from 9th to 10th and 10th to 11th uh students potentially uh go to alternative programs. Um student yield factors. This is the final piece. Um again this is determined looking at um homes that were built in the last 5 years across different housing types. Um so for single family detached homes we generate a yield factor of.347. Um that means Lexington 2 could expect to gain 34 students for every 100 new single family detached homes that get built in the district. And then that's broken down by uh grade group. So about like 17 elementary students um seven uh middle

106schoolers uh and then nine 10 uh high schoolers. Uh and that's again pretty consistent probably on the lower end um what we see which is kind of typical. You're a little bit closer to uh downtown. So that's oftentimes people that are moving there are uh potentially empty nesters, not necessarily families with children as much. Um, and then MFA, um, that's essentially your town homes and, uh, like small cottage developments, which are, uh, are typically seen more in the, uh, like kind of northern part of your district that, uh, generates a lower yield factor of only about 15 students for every 100 homes. Uh, and then for apartments, u, which you're not really seeing much of anyway, that has a much lower yield factor of only about three students for, uh, for every 100 new homes,

107for 100 new apartment units, sorry. Um, so looking at the actual residential developments that we've identified, um, we kind of start in the upper part of your district, the west cities around the cities of West Colombia, KC, and Springdale. Um, there's over 600 units, uh, that are expected to be built over the next 10 years in those areas. Uh, and it's a roughly even mix of uh, single family detached homes, town homes, cottages, and apartment units. Um but if you look kind of at the table, most of the uh single family detached homes are kind of developments that are happening right now. Um mostly uh the biggest numbers are coming from Pinerest and the cottages at RPS Pond. Um kind of towards the future stuff that hasn't started yet but will in the future that's

108more uh subdivisions you've identified as being in the pipeline. Um that's leaning more towards those town homes and cottage developments. um got a few identified trail head uh Saluda Village, Comanche Trail. Um and those are projected to generate uh fewer students. All right. Now, where residential developments are going to have the biggest impact is the lower part of your district. Um so that's the uh Herbertwood and Congre areas. Um so like cities of South Congre and Pine Ridge. Um, so that's going to generate over 2,000 units um in the next uh over the next 10 years and most of uh some of that is from developments that are active right now. We there's uh Heron Point and the village of Glenn Hills Lenar is pretty active down there. Um but then uh in the future

109we're projecting it to start around uh 2829. Uh we got some pretty uh two extremely large developments are uh planned. We have Arver Meadows develop proposed by Lenar about uh almost 700 single family detached homes. And then Pleasant View it's a mix of 400 uh 400 single family uh 200 duplexes. Um then there's another uh slightly smaller one about 200 homes um also along the Edund Highway there. So that corridor is projected to generate quite a few homes uh into the future and that's going to impact the forecast especially for Congre Herbert Wood and uh Fulmer airport. Um and yeah, you can see um right now uh almost all of this is uh almost all the developments you can see over 16 uh almost 1,600 single family detached units plus the 200 duplex units are

110going to be in uh Congere uh attendance area. So a lot more all the other attendance areas you can see are closer to uh around the 200 mark. So those are going to have impacts, but pretty much the biggest impact that's going to like outweigh all the other factors that's going to be in concrete. >> Just to make sure this is units. This isn't multiplied by the the variable to predict kids, right? >> No, this is just units. That's correct. >> All right. So let's getting into the uh the forecast projection. So this is just uh the number of students that are projected to reside uh in your district over the next 5 to 10 years. So you can see right now you have the impact of mobility. It's pretty uh again you can really

111see that towards the end where you have the big across all years there's going to be a big jump in 9th grade and then declines in 11th to 12th grade. Um but then the uh impacts from new residential developments that's going to show up kind of all across that's going to cause the numbers to trend uh higher um get more blue with how we've symbolized it across pretty much all grade levels. Um and then you're also going to see the impact from birth rates. Um so again like I said pretty stable but then because of those residential developments we are projecting a little bit higher future kindergarten courts into the future. Um so overall if you look at the totals um right now you have 8,200 students that reside in uh Lexington 2. Um that's

112projected to grow pretty gradually over the next few years to just under uh to around 8,500 um in 2030 and then up to just under 9,000 uh in 2035. Um so you've added it back in the uh students that were not included in your forecast. That's the uh students that transfer in from outside the district. Um, so adding those back in, that's uh brings the total students that are enrolled in Lex 2 to 8,442 students. Um, again, that's going to grow to um 8,700 in 2030, uh, 9200 in 2035. Um, breaking it down by the uh, elementary schools, the great groups, um, again, pretty steady growth over the next uh, few years. Right now, you're at about 4,000 students. And that's going to grow to about 40 uh 4,500 um over the next five years.

113Um 68 again um that growth that's happening uh the next few years are projected to be pretty stable with more that growth more kind of over showing up in the future as those larger kindergarten cohorts eventually move through. um 912 actually you're projected to see a little bit of a dip um in the next few years kind of from right now total of uh 2420 students going down to about uh 2300 students um between now and 2030 but then that trend is going to reverse there it's going to pick back up in the future um so this is what the uh those trends look at at the study area level what I mentioned earlier just over the next five years you can see it's kind of uh scattered a lot all across your district with

114no like huge like uh trends in any one area. Um again you can see some of those areas that have development now. Um again like her point uh Glenn Hills those study areas are projected to see some growth. Um but then this is just looking at the uh fiveyear mark. So once you get into the 5 to 10 years, some of those areas in the uh kind of in the furthest those like really large ones in the furthest west part of your district, those are going to see tremendous growth and would be read if we were looking at this through the 10-year lens. Um so now at the uh elementary school level, um again, pretty stable uh over the next few years. pretty much all of them are expected to either be stable or grow

115a little bit. Um between like uh about like 1% or 10%. Um the exception obviously as you can see is Congre. That's projected to grow and this is only looking at uh students that are currently zoned. So only students that are in grades two through five. Um that's projected to grow um by 30% over the next 10 years. uh and it's projected to exceed its capacity of 450 in 2030 and then go almost 100 students over uh by 2035. Uh middle high school again uh seeing decent amount of growth especially at Fulmer because of those residential developments. Um but again nothing all of the schools are projected to still be operating under their capacities. So stuff that's uh relatively manageable. All right. So overall looking at the total just to uh reiterate looking at your

116resident students about uh 8,200 in uh 2526 what we have now uh that's going to grow to uh 8,500 over the next five years and then almost about 9,000 over the next 10 years. Um so that's kind of uh steady growth. um just about 10% of what your current uh size is between that 10-year time frame. Then um as I said, nearly 30% more students are expected to reside in the Congre uh attendance area by 2035 from those large proposed residential developments that we've uh added to our forecast. And school is expected to exceed its operating capacity because of that uh its current capacity in 2030. Um other elementary schools expected to remain stable or grow slightly um due to those kind of like steady uh but slightly higher birth rates and the impacts from

117the smaller residential developments that are still active and still bringing families in. >> Um middle and high school populations are expected to remain pretty stable uh over the next five years just because the cohort elementary cohorts are kind of similar in size to what those schools are seeing right now. Not going to see too much change there in the immediate term. All right. Now, I'll turn it over to uh you all. Any uh happy to answer any questions? >> Any questions? >> I have to. >> Uh first question is, is the capacity presumably that's from us. Is that meeting our current ratios, student teacher ratios that we have in policy, the building capacities? >> Um >> because I can see that being a number we set seven years ago is just sitting there and I

118want to make sure we're operating. Well, are you talking about the the building capacity number? >> Yeah, when we were comparing the building capacities on these slides, each school had a a capacity. I just want to make sure that that is a feasible number to what our ratio student teacher ratios or expectations. >> Yeah. And you know, capacity is always a very much debated. It's a very arbitrary number. I mean, it's all based on programs you have at your school. I mean, you could have a, you know, 30 student classroom that becomes a, you know, a special needs room where you have, you know, six students and then it's no longer 30 capacity. But I mean, right now, we feel good about our ratios and being able to maintain those under those capacity numbers. >>

119And then the next thing, you can close your ears if you want on this one, but I think it would behoove us since we have the same taxpayers as all our municipalities to share this data with them. Uh, just proactively let them have this because, you know, there's no reason for them to be paying for the same thing when we could be sharing it to to each of them. >> That's all I have. >> Question. >> I say that with all love. Yeah, >> Camera's fine with it. >> Yeah, I'll take whatever. >> I had a question on with Congre's growth. >> You showed huge growth at Conary. >> How come it don't reflect Pine Ridge and Fulmer into airport? Where are the kids going after they get out of Congere? >> Um, so it

120does reflect in uh Fulmer. You can kind of see that is projected to grow to gain 147 uh students over the next uh 10 years. So that is 28% growth. just doesn't kind of show up quite as much just because it still has a high capacity, has plenty of room to grow. >> Um and then airport again that's >> it's projected to see um numerically the second largest number growth at about 100 students. Um but that just kind of overall gets diluted because it is a high school. There's a higher population overall. Um, generally I believe like in relative terms the yield factors tend to be a little bit smaller for high schoolers just because families are le little less inclined to kind of uproot their high school kids, move somewhere else. Um, so that's

121kind of the reason why the trends don't show up quite as much with those schools, but they are definitely still there. >> Okay, any others? >> Just thank you very much. It was very detailed. >> Very helpful. >> Yeah. Thank you, Cameron. Safe travels back to Texas. >> Wait, wait, one more question. No, >> we'll let you come back in five years and see how close the number >> That's right. I'll be >> I'll keep his number. >> We're gonna keep this sheet. >> Yeah, keep his number. >> That's right. >> All right, we're going to keep it over with Matt. >> All right. Um, first off, I don't believe I see any uh roof family members here. I want to make sure there's not any here. >> Um, okay. Um, so uh Mr. Chair,

122uh, members of the board, Dr. Cooper uh school administration respectfully uh presents for your consideration a recommendation to name the performing arts center lobby the long branch lobby in honor of the roof family. In 2020, the district purchased uh this property for our new district education and performing arts center from the roof family. And as you are very well aware, we are currently sitting in Springdale, formerly known as the Long Branch community. Uh the roof family owned this property for more than a century. And in 2007, it was actually recognized by the state of South Carolina as a century farm. Known as a long branch dairy farm, this property played a significant role in the local community supplying milk throughout West Colombia, including the schools that now comprise part of our school district, Lexington 2.

123Four generations of the roof family attended Lexon 2 schools, and several family members later served our district as educators. Uh, in recognition of the family's long-standing contributions to this community and to Lexon and two, the administration respectfully requests your approval to designate the Performing Arts Center lobby as the Long Branch lobby. And uh, just as an aside, we have met with the family um, talked them through this. Obviously, they're they're very excited about it. We look at looking to do a um a some signage right across from uh where the dedication plaque is right there in the lobby with some photos of the dairy, a little bit of narrative about the dairy. And so uh very excited about this prospect and and look look forward to to any any questions you have about it. >>

124Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we um accept um the recommendation and um name the uh performant arts center lobby the long branch lobby. >> I had a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. All right. I think we're going to give you a break for a little bit. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Cooper. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Warren. That was great. >> Um there's been a lot of discussion about e-learning lately and I wanted to provide a point of clarification with regard to the um requirements of the school district. It is our responsibility to comply with the state department of education requirement to have um a thorough plan of e-learning that can be rolled out at

125any point. Um and we will continue to do that. It is our preference though that when we have inclement weather that we make up those days um and so that is our preference. board members moving forward. The only caveat I would guide you with is that if we have if you know if if we have another hurricane, for example, uh we've already utilized our days, the only option we would have at that point would be to add days at the end of the school year. So, I want you to know that we'll continue with our plan, our thorough plan um of e-learning. We will continue to provide professional development to our educators in the summer before school starts so they know what to expect. and it will be our preference to make up days rather

126than roll out e-learning. And that if we do utilize all of our makeup days and we do have additional inclement weather, we will come to you asking you for additional days in the academic year. Are there any questions? >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> M. Do we practice the e-learning? Because that's some of the feedback last. Okay. They were at home and parents couldn't get signed on and all that. And >> Dr. McDonald. Thank you. So that is our request. Um this year with some of the changes that were made into our e-learning plan, we asked schools to educate teachers to talk with students. Um we start watching that weather a week out and so if there's any chance we start telling schools prep devices, prep kids, get things ready. So it's in a

127perfect world that's exactly what would happen. Um, so that that is something that we've asked our schools to make sure that they consciously do that they that they're logging in, they're checking devices, they're making sure that things are working so that when we send them home, they'll have some level of success at that opportunity. >> I just had one one other thought what and this wasn't the last time, but another I guess it was last year on the e-learning. Some of the complaints I heard was uh apparent I had to work on Friday, but the assignment was due Friday and couldn't I had all weekend to do due. Is that who makes the decision on when when the e-learning assignments are due? >> So, so students always have time after the e-learning day. They have

128a timeline to be able to complete those assignments and and materials that so there's not due immediately the end of that day. Um there is always an extension because we recognize that sometimes families don't have power. We recognize sometimes there's not an adult that can help them finish. So um so there is that flexibility that there's always that additional time after. pass. >> Dr. Cooper, I believe you said it, but I just want to make sure. Yes, ma'am. >> You also said that maybe we will brush up on some >> because we have many teachers that have never taught, >> you know, online before and that we're not here during COVID and I think we gave a lot of support then, but just to, you know, >> Yes, ma'am. I did say that. So, that's

129good. >> And with our preference being to make up days, we have to be even more careful with being ready for things like this. >> You heard me correctly. Thank you. Dr. McDonald, the feedback that I got from teachers was that uh parents at home, many of them could not figure out how to log on that there was a real breakdown in that. I mean, is there any way that we could just sort of print up a one, two, three, four, five, this is how you do it and send it home at the beginning of the year and maybe send it home again halfway through and say, "Keep this sheet of paper in case we have to do an e-learning day. This is how you're going to kind of thing." >> Sure, we can certainly

130do that at the district level. I believe most if not all of our schools have done that or in some fashion uh work with their teachers to put that together. But we can certainly come up with a consistent simple step by step to to help our families for sure. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Any others? >> All right. Well, I'm going to keep it over Dr. McDonald. >> Okay. Uh tonight I have um some course requests for you for next year. Um the first set that we're going to look at uh are for middle school or actually for Fulmer Middle School. Uh as you all may recall last year we made a strategic change to move away from um from more of the um project lead the way engineering in our high schools

131which has now taken time to metriculate down to our middle schools. And so we've been looking at the middle school programming that we offer in that program. And we want to start with with Fulmer Middle and refashioning the uh engineering courses that kids have access to at the middle school level with an ultimate goal that this will now feed very cleanly straight to those core engineering classes that we are now offering at the innovation center in our high schools. So this will these courses that we're asking for your approval tonight will do that will open that pathway. This is something that eventually we'll take across the entire district. So, as we as we do this, you see Fulmer this year. Next year it'll be open. Uh we'll be looking at that pathway at Busby where

132we have the Project Lead the Way program. Um as we're phasing that out and ramping up these offerings. These courses um of course are not credit bearing courses. So these are not for high school credit. This is what kids are taking in middle school. Um and they include things such as introduction to automation which we know is a is a pathway for core engineering piece. There's a 3D design feature in there, which is something that that not a lot of middle schools offer. Um, that would be something that would feed into those higher level courses when they get to high school. Uh, additionally, the design two, design three, those are pathways to get us into that. And then, of course, we've got the uh introduction to architecture and electricity, which are both pathways when kids

133get to high school. So, we're trying to clean that pipeline all the way up. Um, kind of had to start at the top. Now, we're starting to see the residuals of it going down. So, I would ask for for approval on those. The second uh approvals um for you to consider tonight are for the innovation centers as we've been evaluating our staffing and looking at some additional opportunities to expand programming there and really looking at some ways that we can even extend programming for uh in this case really to start um with our 10th graders because um as y'all may recall um students who want to enter our cosmetology program or our barbering program, those are 11th and 12th graders. What we're proposing for you tonight for approval um is also um natural hair braiding

134one and two which is a career pathway so students can become industry endorsed certified to be professional hair braiders. And while my hair clearly cannot be braided, it is a very lucrative um uh u role for for folks who do that. And um I I have learned a lot through this of looking at this course of what people really charge to do that. I was shocked. Um but also what people pay for it is amazing. Um so um we have the opportunity to to look at this program. Uh and there is interest at at the schools of course after you approve tonight. Now the job becomes to go to the schools to recruit the students to fill this program. Um and we have that without it's just basically reshuffling some of our current staff um

135a staff vacancy actually to be able to offer this. So if I'm a student, I can I can take care of braiding one and two in 10th grade and 11th grade I can go to barbering or to cosmetology and now I have two industry areas that double certify me in the state to be able to do that. Um so that's why we're bringing that to you tonight for consideration and approval. >> I was say you have a better shot than me at getting here. >> I think so. I think so. >> Amen. >> So it's a total of three >> courses if I'm reading it right. high school. Um, for the hair, >> we have one at Fulmer and two at the high school. >> It's a packet at Fulmer. So, you've got several courses

136at Fulmer that we're asking. It's one Make sure I got the numbers right. One, two, three, four, five, six classes at Fulmer and then two at the Innovation Center. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I make a motion that we um accept the administration's recommendations for the new course request, a total of six classes to uh include Fulmore Middle School and the Lexington 2 Innovation Center. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. There's some discussion. Miss Perkit, >> I just wanted to ask Dr. McDonald. These sound these sound great to me. These sort of pre-engineering courses. I have I'm an engineering mom, so I totally get it. And I really do think thinking back many years to my son who was bored to tears in middle school that that this would have

137been really intriguing to him. And I just want to make sure we have something for them like in ninth and tth grade if they can't start at the innovation center until later. >> So, so there are those courses, those core engineering courses can begin early. So kids in ninth 10th can start taking that pathway. Um and and a lot of this is about modeling out how that looks. So when I go from 8th to 9th, there's still some class for me to take. And so we'll be looking more and more at that sort of not really a gap, but but making sure that there is that progression all the way up to 12th grade because ideally we're going to get them into college level credit classes by the time they're in 11th and 12th grade

138in that engineering program. >> Yeah. Because I think if we've got them kind of hooked and interested in middle school, we don't want to lose them in the ninth grade, you know, before we give them something else to do. So absolutely, that's fantastic. Thanks for coming up with this, >> Miss Castles. I certainly appreciate the hair classes because I was asked and had to try to do it the two twist braid. Come on, Miss Liz, just do it. I'm like, it is not that easy. So, anyway, I think those are great programs. But I would love to see us sooner than later get them in all the schools because I was one of those moms before. Sometimes you miss out on stuff, but I don't want to miss groups of kids that are going to

139miss that experience to do some hands-on things. And so will they with they count like as an elective or >> so. So in the middle school courses, these are all these are their related art classes if you will. So like they might take band, I would take the engineering, um or you know with their pees, all of those courses. So it's part of that package. It's it's not as as specific as it is at high school, but this is just sort of the you know, our elementary kids have old label being specials or their their activity kinds of classes. It would be the same thing in middle school. So again, they can take different courses that we would offer >> and it would be done at their home school or they're going to be bus

140to the innovation center. >> Oh, you're referring to the grading class. I'm sorry. >> No, no, I'm going back to the the science classes. So, so all of the the the engineering the the core engineering middle school program, those would be offered at Fulmer this year. Um, we or for next school year. So, we would look at ways in the future that we'll expand that out to all four middle schools, how we can get that pathway to grow there. So, it would start with one um but then would eventually grow out. The hair braiding class of course would be just at the innovation center. >> Right. Well, I really would like to see us just not one at a time, but try to and I know I'm just saying like it's just just do this.

141It's not that easy, but I really want us to grab on to those kids that could go very far and may finish school for that reason, be motivated and not miss out on some of them. And another great thing that Lexon 2 offers in our middle schools would be great. So, thank you, Mr. Rucker. >> Yes. I just wanted to I was so excited to see the 3D uh modeling and manufacturing. It's kind of my thing. Um so, in 1998, I learned um a 3D modeling program, Solid Edge. And I'm not kidding when I say it transformed our company, and we still use it to this day. So, I would love to even maybe see that 3D modeling move to the innovation center and maybe have our if we have room have our eighth graders

142maybe go there so our other middle schools could participate and then of course carry that into high school so when they graduate they're ready to go >> just wanted to share thank you so much great courses >> 3D modeling was the only class I liked in engineering so I can agree with you there uh three things uh as we moved from project lead the way at at the high school L2 to IC World and now to Fulmer. Is the idea to uh let that keep flowing down and eventually replace project lead the way in elementary to some type of more engineered base. >> So, so we are working um we're getting ready to pull our elementary principles together and start really examining the project lead the way in the elementary pathway. There are some more

143broad applications I think we could look at um that aren't as cost prohibitive but also give us still that product. that's what we're going to be looking at. So, it's kind of worked its way down and now we got to go back up. Um, and that's really kind of how we're we're going to look at that. But, we are going to be spending some time examining that whole model that we started a few years ago to figure out how we can shore that up so that we we need to get more kids to the end. And the end is to take those core engineering classes. And so, we want to figure out how to really do that in a nice planned out long-term way. >> Perfect. Next one is uh this might be kind of

144counter to what I typically say because I typically love piloting. I say we got 14 schools. There's no reason we can't take an innovative idea, pilot at one school and then grow it or not. However, are we piloting this at Fulmer or are we just doing initial roll out and the goal is for this to go across the board? >> This would be our initial roll out. So, it's less of a pilot, more of a moving these courses to these topics. And this would is what those those elective related art classes, if you will, will be. Um, the goal would be to look at where else we offer Project Lead the Way in middle school and mimic these same courses over time. So, we're we're working that direction and it's about having enough staff, the

145right staff, the right courses, and really having the the the focus group of kids that we can do that. It also allows us to really look at some specialized programming within a school. So, you know, yes, in a perfect world, we'd offer these in all four, but also we have a wonderful middle school arts program that we also want to sort of have parallel. So, as we're looking at choice models and how we can can sort of expand into that, we're also sort of taking all of that into consideration as we look at this piece. My ask I'm I'm good for voting for this the way it is, but my ask is can we at least of the six former ones, can we at least find one, if not better two that we could come

146back and then some meeting prior to summer and open it up for all these schools. I just hate thinking of a kid at North Side or pick, you know, pick any of the schools that are like, "Oh my gosh, I wish I could be doing pre-engineering or 3D modeling." And if it's just one class, I get trying to roll up six classes. That's really difficult. But with this being the elective, the specials kind of thing, I would love personally to see this have at least one offering for each of our middle schools. At least with a very deep push for it. May it not happen based off of who you got and what we can do. Yes. But I don't want you to be hamstrung by us by not requesting the class when we could

147feasibly get a great teacher who's been teaching this as we hire and then we're rushing at the last minute. I don't want to do that. >> So, Mr. that that the request came from this specific school, but if if it's the will of the board and and your decision is to allow us to to look hard at the opportunity across >> um I Dr. Cooper, I'm not sure how she would respond. I I would have no objection to that. >> Fundamentally, if I to do that, >> fundamentally, if I amended the motion right now to include all our middle schools, worst case scenario, we just don't use it just like many of our other classes, right? >> Uh I'll come back to that. Uh, the third point is, and Miss Castle's hit on it, I

148love the idea. Obviously, I think we all do. It seems like the crowd does as well. Um, but getting the kids to actually get their little middle school bodies into the L2 IC has a ton of power. I get the logistics of moving a whole bunch of kids from Fulmer next year to L2 IC weekly or monthly might be difficult. Um, but I would love the curriculum to try to figure out certain times that doing a an experiment or end of segment would be better done at L2IC and let's get them over there. And then vice versa. If we've got really strong kids at L2IC in 11th, 12th grade, then let's send them over to a middle school once a every two weeks or so and teach the skill um to these middle school kids

149so that they can say, you know, there's nothing more exciting to a middle school than a high schooler telling them something's cool. Like that's that's they'll listen to a high schooler way before they'll listen to a teacher or a parent. So, I would love for us to get that as we're kind of laying these out. Let's let's be intentional that we don't just say we're going to do it, but we actually either put it in the skeleton plans or put some type of requirement. Um, with that said, I move to make an amendment that the seven, excuse me, the six former classes are authorized to all middle school classes. >> Second. >> Had amendment in a second. And along them same lines, I was in a session with Pickkins County this past weekend and Pickkins

150County is starting their innovation center with all eighth graders are in their innovation center and third through 7th now they visit once every nine weeks to get them interested in building and hands-on trades. and that they're saying that's getting a real big push for the kids younger learning that stuff and they want to be in that program. They want to learn that type stuff. So, but they they got all their schools same same schedule so they can work them elementary schools in there and they found a huge interest once they get eighth grade they're getting their credits. >> We'll be in touch with them. >> All right. All right. You had a question? >> Well, I just wanted on Mr. raise motion is going to make sure it's it's given the option to the school.

151It's got to have interest and staffing and and all that to work through. >> Just put in the course catalog. >> All right. Any other question discussion on the amended motion? >> All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. Now we need to go back to original motion. We had a motion and a second. All in favor of that say I. I. Motion carries. All right. So, >> now we're gonna move down into some tribal time. >> And Mr. Chairman, if there's no objection, I'm going to combine item F and G. Wonderful. >> And um there is uh 10. So, I'm going to abbreviate a little bit as I go. If everybody will just bear with me. Um, so, um, I'm going to make a motion that we approve, um, the consideration of six out

152ofstate overnight student travel request and the consideration of four staff travel requests to include Airport High School and BC High School wrestlers to attend lower state championship, airport high school wrestlers to attend state championship, BC High School theater students to attend the Palmata Dramatic Association Festival. Airport High School JROTC to attend National Drill Competition. BC High School student council to attend. South Carolina State Convention. consideration um for the staff for staff travel request is the DEC staff to attend insights for leaders conference. Pineriidge Middle School staff to attend RTI behavior solution conference. Airport High School staff to attend SCOL conference and DE staff to attend Scazbo Vaspo scoring inservice conference. >> Second. >> Got a motion and second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> All right. Motion carries. >> Now that moves us

153into announcements. Um March 12th, 2026 is early release day. March 12th, 2026 is the end of third nine weeks. March 13th, full day of school. That's a weather makeup day there. March 18th is report cards issued. Oh boy. March 19th, heroes and heroins reception at 5:15 in the pack lobby. And then following that at 6 PM will be our regular scheduled board meeting. And >> Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that the board of trustees enter close session for the following consideration of personnel appointments, retirements, and resignations, and Cong status update. >> Second. >> Got a motion and a second. Without objection, we will move into executive session. I make a motion that the meeting be reconvened in open session and the appropriate affidate executed. >> Second. >> Had a motion and a second. All

154in favor say I. >> I. >> We're back in open. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we accept the administration's recommendations for uh appointments, resignations, certified teacher appointments, support appointments, and temporary employee appointments for 2526 and one for year 2627. >> Second. >> Had a motion, a second. All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. make a motion that we accept um the administration's recommendation to report employee 20 for breach of contract to the department of education. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. >> Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we accept the administration's recommendation of candidate A as principal for Busby Creative Academy of the Arts. >> A motion. >> Second. >> Yeah. Second. >> Second. >> All in

155favor say I. >> All right. Motion carries. >> Mr. Chairman, I make a recommendation that we accept the administration's recommendation of candidate B for principal of Pine Ridge Middle School. We >> had a motion and a second. All in favor say I. >> I move to adjurnn. >> Second. The objection of me.