001What's the number? It is 6:00 September 18th, 2025, and I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome everybody here. You know, tonight we had a a celebration of service of all the teachers, transportation, district education people, and we thank y'all. We see a lot of same faces in here. We thank y'all for the service, the principles, our district employees, the service that y'all do, the unthankful service that y'all commit to us. So, just know we this board up here truly appreciates the service y'all give us. Um, so with that, I'mma turn it over to Miss Rucker to introduce our BC students tonight. >> All right. So, tonight we have Caroline Boone here. I don't think Nigel is able to join us tonight, but Caroline is prepared to do the invocation and pledge of
002allegiance. Caroline is a senior at Brooklyn Casey High School. She is president of the National Honors Society. Caroline is actively involved with FCA, Latin Club, Sustainability Club, and Bearcat Buddies. She assists with the Stepping Out Dance Studio. After high school, Caroline plans to attend the University of South Carolina to pursue a degree in early childhood education. Nigel is a senior at Brook and Casey High School. He plays football for the Bearcats. Nigel's plan after high school is to go to a four-year college and major in either cyber security or mechanical engineering. So, welcome. We're glad to have you here tonight. >> If everyone will please bow their heads. Dear Lord, thank you for bringing us here today. We thank you for this opportunity to be able to come together as a district to celebrate the
003many achievements of our schools as well as make decisions that will shape our future. We ask for your guidance as those in leadership discuss and make decisions that impact our schools, teachers, and students. Please help them to work together for the good of our schools and community. May this meeting be filled with collaboration and a shared commitment for our district. I ask that you bless the board members, administrators, staff, and families. In your name I pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Caroline. >> Thank you, Caroline. >> All right. And I forgot to not mention that Miss Wooten is not with us tonight. And so we send our
004regards to her. Um, but we are going to move on with the consent agenda. And with no objections, the consent agenda stands approved as submit as presented. And now I'm going to turn over to Dr. Hefner for accomplishments and honors. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me make sure There we go. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. First up tonight, I'd like to invite Brooklyn Casey High School assistant principal Ryan Van Omen to the podium to introduce us to a BC educator who just received a national award. >> Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Hafner. It is my honor to be here with you tonight with this amazing special educator from Brooklyn Casey High School. Uh, the National Association of Special Education Teachers has selected Miss Haley Williamson as one of the
005winners of the 2025 outstanding special education teacher award. This award is bestowed upon special education teachers who have demonstrated truly exceptional achievement in the field of special education. It recognizes and rewards the special skills and excellence of special educators throughout the United States. We are honored to have Miss Williamson at Brooklyn Casey High School. She champions for unity. Um she leads our Bearcat Buddies group. She works tirelessly to make us a unified champion school. Uh we host events for um uh Unified Champions of South Carolina and we could not be more grateful and more proud of Miss Williamson. I have a list of people I need to thank, so let me get that up. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and Dr. Hafner. I'm humbly honored to be here and accept this award
006um at the national level. Being a special education teacher is something I've always wanted from a young age. So, it's truly an honor. Um my name may be on the certificate, but it doesn't belong to me alone. It belongs to my students who show up every day, show resilience and dedication and determination. It belongs to their Bearcat buddies who promote acceptance and inclusion within our school community. It belongs to my pair of professionals, Abby Van Omen and Thomas Yansy, who support our students tirelessly every single day. It also uh belongs to my administrators. They put up with our shenanigans way too much. Um I mean, Mr. Vanam getting pied in the face to raise money for us. Um Dr. Jones willingly goes in for a fist bump every day knowing he's going to get snailed.
007It's the little things from them that just mean so much to us. It goes to the parents of our students. Without them, we would not have this opportunity to even be where we are. Um, and this award also serves as a reminder to our community. Students with disabilities deserve not only recognition but also resources and opportunities equal to their peers. When we provide them, we empower students with disabilities to reach their full potential and lift our community. So tonight, I thank you all for the support you have shown me and my students and all students in Lex 2 receiving services. I also challenge us together to continue building and being a district that leads in inclusion and special education. Change begins with us. Thank you. Mr. Van Omen, did you have a guest to sneak
008in? >> Nigel is here. >> Nigel, give us a wave. Nigel, Mrs. Rucker read your your bio, so I want to at least recognize you and thank you for your representing of BC High School. Next, I would like to invite Mary Brooks, our director of parenting and early childhood education to talk to us about two recognitions. One another national award for one of our parent educators and the other a state distinction. So, Mrs. Brooks. All right. I'm tall, so I've got to adjust. Hopefully, maybe. All right. Good evening, Mr. chair, members of the board, and Dr. Hafner. I am thrilled to be able to stand in front of you tonight and share some wonderful exciting information about our Lexington 2 star family partnership program. This is the program that is funded partially through Lexington 2
009district and partially through First Steps, Lexin County First Steps. And in the past few years, our star family partnership has had three parent educators that have been recognized at the national level as national parent educators of the year by the parents as teachers association, which I feel like speaks volumes about our commitment to excellence with our program serving our families before our students even enter our schools. In 2019, Paola Adams was the first to or earn this honor for Lexington 2. She now serves as an interpreter for the district. You may have heard of her or from her. And then in 2023, Lydia Mayo was selected as a national parent educator of the year. And this year in 2025, Miss Rosa Contreras is our national parent educator of the year. And as a teen mom,
010Rosa received support through appearances teachers program with the oldest of her five children. As she had additional children, she got additional parent educators. And so she went on to have multiple parent educators work with her and her family over the years. She jokes, we joke that she's had lots of different role models and models because now she's giving back. And so Rosa is the perfect re representation of the power of this parents' teachers parenting program. She has a few words she'd like to share with you. So I'm going to step aside. [Applause] Thank you Mary for the introduction. Good evening everyone. I would like to share with you a letter that I wrote to my parent educator. Says, "Dear Maria, I hope this letter finds you well. I want to take a moment to thank
011you for everything you have done for me as a parent educator. Your support and guidance have helped me to reach where I am today. I'm receiving this parent educa parent educator of the year award proves that I have learned from the best you. When I didn't believe in myself, you always helped me overcome my fears. By believing in me, you have supported me through this journey and all these years. I often tell others that you are my role model in this job. Professional yet loving and caring like a mother. You truly make a difference in my life and in the community. You have genuinely red redirected my life and the lives of my children. Thanks to you, I have a first generation college student, Anthony, and Aiden is a high school senior, God willing, graduating
012with an associate degree. The three younger ones are in Spanish immersion to preserve our mother langu language just like you taught me. I became a US citizen on May 23rd at 9:00 a.m. in Charleston. And by noon, I had to leave because Anthony was graduating from high school with honors. It was quite an adventure. She really taught me the importance of resilience and to always concentrate on the good. I have always admire you for being there visiting weekly and bringing books for the children. Back then, you were my only connection to the outside world since I was new to Lexington. You share parks and community resources with me. Truly, the good children I had today are direct result of the teachings about attachment and social interactions you helped me develop. Thank you for recommending that
013I become an early care educator and work with the school. that opened the door for me to receive extensive professional development and eventually become a parent educator three years ago. Through parents as teachers, my goal has always been to meet families where they are and walk alongside them, helping to build a strong foundation for lifelong long learning and connection. Because of this are because these are moms like me who need a lot of guidance and are sometimes new to the country. I believe I owe a great deal to my parent educator and I want to share this award with her because her success my success is in many ways her success successes. I sincerely wrote that. That was a letter that I wrote to her a week ago and she was very emotional about it.
014She said to throw me back. With this being said, I believe we all have heroes who help us get where we are. I want to sincerely thank Sherry and Mary to for nominating me for this award and I'm so deeply grateful to Lexington District 2 for giving me the opportunity to be a champion for our families. Thank you. I think it's apparent that she is of the year and also Aiden and Bella are here. So I want them to stand up and see there's two of her children. that came out to support her tonight. Then also in the back we have Alda and Sherry, part of our star family partnership. These these ladies work diligently with our families visiting in the homes and as she said often are their connection to the outside world. So
015that's an exciting um it's an exciting program and it is I call it award-winning program. And speaking of award-winning programs, hot off the press while I have the microphone. Um, so I want to also um share with you that our Lexington 2 preschool inclusion team was recently notified that we have been um the re we are the recipient of an award called the growing strong district award. This is an award that's being um given by the South Car South Carolina Partnerships for Inclusion. The Lexington 2 preschool inclusion team includes myself, Sherry, who is our lead parent educator, Felicia Madden, our coordinator of elementary special services, Dr. Lisa Haye Adams, our preschool psychologist, Beth Montgomery, a lead speech language pathologist, Miss Kimberly Scaliz, our district teacher of the year, who's a preschool itinerant teacher, and Jan
016Scarberry, who's our district family services coordinator. We work collectively to increase inclusive opportunities for preschool students. We have many preschool students coming through that have some identified needs for support. And so we are um a part of a team that works collaboratively with members of our community and we work to in provide creative opportunities I guess to help those children get their needs met. I want to read to you what the um South Carolina Partnerships for Inclusion sent to us after our nomination. It says, "Your nomination demonstrated a long-standing commitment to building strong foundations to improve outcomes for young children and families, anchored by your preschool inclusion team's leadership since 2016. We were especially impressed with the impact of your itinerate teaching model, expanding access and meaningful participation for preschool students with disabilities in your
017community. Your bilingual parent educators such as Rosa and Alda, home visitation supports and inclusive playgroups reflect a deep commitment to intentional family engagement. The evidence of growth through communitywide professional development events and strong partnerships with child care providers shows the systemic and sustainable impact of your work. Your district exemplifies what it means to be growing strong, building systems to support inclusive, highquality early learning environments for all young children and families. And I just want to take this opportunity to tell you that I work with teams of people and we do that on a daily basis. That is our goal. So, thank you for the time and we appreciate your support and the support of the entire Lexian School District, too. [Applause] Finally, tonight, I'd like to invite up Newbridge Academy Director Kelly Reia to tell
018us about a recognition one of their educators received from the Palmetto State Teachers Association. All right. >> Good evening, um, Mr. Chair, board, and, um, Dr. Hafner. Um, I am here tonight to have the opportunity to recognize Dr. David Goff. Um, Dr. Goff is an English teacher at Newbridge Academy, and he's also probably familiar face to you as he just uh ended his tenure as the 2024-25 district teacher of the year. But tonight, I'm here to recognize him for being selected to the Palmetto State Teachers Association Star Teacher Fall Seminar uh cohort. This is a program that recognizes outstanding veteran educators and twice a year the uh PSTA in partnership with the foundation for professional development host a group of educators and um of leaders and teacher leaders from around South Carolina who uh for
019a week-long seminar on the beautiful island of or Seabbrook Island. During this time that he uh the teachers participate in a book study. Okay. He will also have the opportunity to take a beach walk which is led by a naturalist tour historical Charleston, okay, and enjoy some time to reflect, okay, and rejuvenate. Um, the best part about all of this is that it is all paid for him, including the sub that we will have for him by the foundation. So, we are very excited that um for him to be recognized this as he is an amazing educator and I'm super proud to have him in my building working with his children here in Lexington, too. Great. Thank you. >> That is that is all, Mr. Chair. >> All right. Now we're gonna move into public
020participation. And I think we only have one. Is that correct, Don? She in here. >> I think it's just one. >> All right. And you know the routine. You got five minutes. You got it. Take off. This is Melissa. >> All right. Good evening. Can't say enough about the 4K services in our district. By the way, both my children went through Riverbank. It was amazing. So, thank you for that. Um, tonight I am on my soap box as a Lex Lex two parent. I do my best to sit through every schoolboard meeting and the more I sit through these this year, it is very clear elections have consequences and that's beyond evident when I come to these meetings. Last month, one of our new Lex 2 board members, Mary Berquette, spoke on a policy revision
021for a field trip chaperones. Um, I was rather shocked at the comments simply in light of this district's recent transportation issues that from what I understand are pretty ongoing. Briquette said, "We're talking about doing a background check on every mom that gets on a bus with the third graders to go wherever. Is that correct? Do we have that money allotted somewhere? It sounds like potentially that could be a lot of people. You have a lot of different moms and people who go on things. I mean, are we going to have to do 30 different moms at school, etc." Superintendent Brenda Hafner asserted that the money was in the budget, but also said, "Typically, these costs are incorporated into school activity funds. That's something we feel is necessary to be with our children while they're away
022from the building. And you know, as as a parent, as a Cub Scout participant, the idea that one of our board members doesn't see the need for background checks when our children leave the building is rather infuriating. And those comments led me to believe that she wasn't aware that Lex 2 already requires these background checks for chaperones. Another situation that demonstrates she'll vote on changes to a policy without actually understanding the current policy in place. Until the 2024 to 2025 school year, parents that were interested in being chaperones absorbed that $25 cost of a background check. I do every year. Last year, I was actually pleasantly surprised when the district started to absorb that cost for parents. It is helpful. Then you all you have to do is pass the background check. Now, Miss Berquette
023was sworn as in as a Lex 2 board member on November 12th, 2024. And at her first regular meeting on November 21st, 2024, she along with the rest of you voted to approve $5.3 million in additional CPIF funds, 1.4 million for stadium turf. You've heard me talk about that before. earlier than the plan time frame of the 2627 school year and outside of the superintendent's annual CPIF budget presentation. I said the rest of you was actually a six to1 vote for once Mr. Bray and I agreed. I apologize for that oversight. Briquette said, "As a new board member, I and Mr. All are being asked to vote on $5.3 million and I would have appreciated having the information you just gave us prior to tonight. It would have been really helpful instead of just having
024these numbers on here for you to give us that information ahead of time. I haven't had the opportunity to see any kind of long-term capital improvement plan. So, I don't know what we have planned in that regard. If we could possibly possibly receive that on some regular basis, so that uh I feel like I'm sort of swimming around in the dark here, fellow board members. I mean, I have to bow to your greater wisdom about this. If you feel it's a good idea, I'm willing to vote for this tonight, but I'm not willing to vote for it in the future if I just don't have any information. It was pushed through anyway. Trey Bray was the soul nay vote. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But five months later on April 17th,
025a 13-year-old eighth grade student from Lexington 2 passed away in a tragic accident on I coming back from a field trip. Once it was reported, the Lex 2 board of trustees statement to WIS said Lexington 2 will not offer further comment on these records or the April 17th incident due to the ongoing investigation. The previous evening on April 16th, Miss Burquette was again confused about our school district. Can I get you to please not use names during presentation? >> Can I have my time back? And she's a board member. Can I not use >> You can't use names during >> your presentation. >> Okay. So, when I went to a FOYA panel last week at the state museum, I spoke about some of the Lex 2 board policies, including policy BEDI, which states that the
026board chairman will be the official spokesperson for the board. That's extremely uncomfortable, especially looking at your campaign contributions before your amendment. Of course, Mr. Also, I spoke with Taylor Smith of the South Carolina Press Association about this policy. He said, "I can't think of any more grave failure by a school board member or any elected official of not doing the things you're elected to do in the most transparent manner possible. I have submitted a foyer for more information about those chaperoons and would appreciate that in a timely manner at no cost." Um, BED board agenda. Last month it was suggested that was Burquette's revision that was written on the agenda and perhaps this was voted perhaps board members missed that this was voted down last year. What is wrong with a majority of the board
027agreeing that something goes on the agenda? Why should one member dictate that? And finally, um, while I was speaking with Foya, I talked a little bit about the release of information as far as the PACE for Lex 2 group. >> Time. I'll save it for next month. Thank you so much for your time. All right, we're going to move on into divisional reports and we're going to move into finance. And as you can tell, Miss Kai Strickland is not here tonight, so we're gonna throw Miss Rose Anderson right into the fire. Come on up. >> Thank you for that. Good evening, Dr. Hafner, Mr. Chair, and members of the board. I'm Rose Anderson, the director of finance representing the finance department this evening. The Lexington 2 school district's August financials and other documents were uploaded
028to the diligent platform for your review. Are there any questions on the information that was submitted? >> Great job. Yeah, one question and but it's not for you. Um, Mr. Warren, we still have the pack on here. What's our anticipated date to finish close that out? That's all I have. We're getting very close. Uh we did make some um good headway here in the last few months addressing some issues that that we've been working through with our contractor. So needed to keep that project open, this project open to make sure we could get those taken care of, but um we are fast approaching that. I feel better about it now than ever that we can close this thing out very soon. >> Any others? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Without objection, the
029monthly financial reports stands accepted as presented. And now we're going to move into human resources and turn it over to Dr. Cooper. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll call up Director of Human Resources Stephanie Hooks to give our regular vacancy report. >> Yes. Good evening, Mr. Chair, board members, Dr. Hafner. I'm coming to you with some good news. We have two regular ed vacancies. one special ed vacancy and five support vacancies for this month. Are there any questions? >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Good job. >> Thank you, Miss Hux. That concludes our report. Thank you. >> All right. Now, we'll move into instruction. >> If you don't mind, Mr. Chair, I'd love to just say a word real quick. I know we've got some lengthy information that Dr. McDonald is going to provide.
030But I am happy to report that we've made some significant um gains in several of our core subject areas, but specifically in our two underperforming schools, which I know you've seen that data. And among the gains, our elementary and middle school students saw nearly a two double digit, excuse me, average increase across all grade levels in SC rated for ELA. And then uh we saw some improvements and gains in math in grades three, four, five, and eight. But we know we still have still have plenty of work to do there. And our high school saw an average increase in algebra, English 2, and US history at approximately four to 5%. So every little bit is a positive, but we again we know we still have work to do. But one substantial point that uh Dr.
031McDonald will speak to briefly um is a 500% gain in access, which is the annual English language proficiency test for identified K12 English language learners. So these results have been released by the state department. So Dr. McDonald's going to expound upon those, but we won't have official report card readings until mid-occtober and then we'll talk about it again in October. Dr. McDonald. >> Thank you, Dr. Hfner, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Um we're happy tonight to share with you um some performance data. Uh we we're going to talk some numbers tonight, so I will we'll forewarn you. We we may get a lot of lot of information, but we'll try our best to be concise. First up, um this evening, we are required, as you all recall, uh per state board of education policy
032that we report to you, uh four times per year on our underperforming schools. And in our district, we have four of those that are that are have either been a below average or unsatisfactory school um for the for this year. Um Casey Elementary, Wood Elementary, Airport High School, and Brooklyn, Casey High School are those four underperforming schools. And we provided for you tonight a presentation uh with those updates and I will will not go slide by slide tonight um because much of the the quantitative data I'm going to share in the next presentation but I did want you to have that update and to answer any questions that you might have. We have representatives from the schools here as well uh to answer any questions that you might have from this uh underperforming schools quarterly
033update. Okay, we'll have one more update uh prior to the state identifying the next list of underperforming schools, which we should know that information um shortly after the school report card is released in mid-occtober. Uh and then we'll be starting to to begin that we'll begin this entire process again and have one more report on this year's schools. So, it'll we'll we'll try to keep that as as clear as we can uh as we start to go through that. But um but we're happy to to report good progress there and you can see from the presentation a lot of examples from these schools. Okay, it's okay. We'll move to the next presentation which tonight will be to look at our state assessment data. As you all recall, um the the data that we're going to
034share with you this evening uh has been released by the state department of education uh that was done on September the 2nd um for public use. And those those data results have been shared pretty widely. There's been a lot of success across the state, particularly in the area of language arts. Uh and we will be no different uh from that success in our district this year. And I'll share that a little bit more thoroughly shortly. Uh but did want to hit on that. It's sort of an abnormal year. There was a a large spike in ELA performance across the state. And that's a good thing. Uh that means that lots of things that we're working on are working. We certainly are trying to pick that apart and look a little deeper at how we might
035capitalize on that and hopefully get us to move even further uh in the year to come. Also, tonight, just as a reminder, um sometimes this gets confusing. We're we're going to talk about data for all of our kids that were tested in the spring testing season. So, um this will look at every kid that's tested. However, not all of those kids count for accountability purposes, which will be reflected on the school report card. So oftentimes people say why don't these two sets of numbers match and it's because it's for two different purposes. One is to report who tested how they did. The other one's uh of course to meet those accountability standards uh for the federal department of education as well as the state department of education. And so we'll we'll talk about those next
036month. Uh but just to give you an idea um our goal as a district is to meet the requirement of the tw of the 2030 goal which has been set by the department of education and that goal is that at least 75% of our students will perform at or above grade level uh across the state. And so the secondary piece of that is that every student will also graduate college career college ready career ready or military ready uh when they leave our schools. And so we'll talk about the results of those testing programs tonight. Before I jump into those, I do want to just make a comment about SC Ready and our end of course test programs and as a state. South Carolina has historically been ranked as one of the most rigorous testing programs
037in the country. Um our tests put against other states are are pretty tough. Um in fact, at your place tonight, you have some sample questions for you to do for homework this evening. So, um, we hope you'll you'll enjoy working on on different testing assignments, um, that our kids actually saw over the years. These are real, uh, items that have been released by the state department for us to use to help make sure our kids are on track. So, um, we we've given you some of those to to look at. We also just want to make sure that we we speak to some other information that we see a lot of times is how do we compare nationally? So, what is South Carolina doing nationally? Um, and so the assessment program for for determining national
038rankings is is called NAPE. And NAPE is given annually to select schools. It's not given to every kid in this state. It's not given at every school in this state. And so those results come out usually in January. And South Carolina has actually defied the odds for a couple of years now in performance increasing as a state, whereas most states are seeing declines uh over the last couple of years. So we see some really good movement and we think that's that's something that's sort of showing up in in our local data as we start to pick that out. Uh the challenge of the NAPE assessment is that we will never know how our kids and Lex 2 perform because that data is never shared with us. We only get state level data uh when we're
039looking at those national assessments for SC ready. Uh SC ready is of course given to kids in grades three through eight. Um, and they must take a test in ELA, writing, math, science, and only science at either grades four or six, not both. So, you can see I put in parentheses there for you, so you can see how many days it takes us to administer these state tests. For 2026, uh, ELA will continue to be three days. Math will now be two days, and they'll, of course, still take a one-day test in science at either fourth or six. But for our kids, for our kids, for our district to be on track towards that 2030 goal, we have to do all of those things. And most importantly, we have to make a score of meets
040or exceeds on that test. So when we look at these these results tonight, you'll kind of see what that looks like. The first graphic that I want to share with you is is sort of a comparison to show you how we performed as a whole compared against the state. And you can see our English language arts scores. We have 40 47% of our students who are meets or exceeds this year compared to the state average of 60%. So we're still behind where we need to be to be in line with the state average. Uh in mathematics we had 30% of our students who uh collectively were meets and exceeds and 40 compared to 44% of the state. And for science this was a new test this year. So whole new standards, new assessment program. Um,
041so there won't be an applesto apples comparison for for another year. Uh, but science we our students performed at 36% were at that meets and exceeds mark compared to the state which was 49%. You can see that reflected a little differently here in this next page where we look at it against last year to kind of see where we are. And so you can see straight out that we're we have seen some growth in our English language arts area. uh we saw some growth in our math area which across the state has been a little slower than language arts and then of course science. You won't see a comparison because we're not there yet. So first up tonight I just want to share with you what this looks like by grade level just to to
042kind of talk with you about how we performed. So we we look at these data sets in in several different ways. Um we want to look at the grade level because we want to look as a district how do we perform at the third grade level. That gives us a lot of indication about what we're doing in the early grades, how we're how we're working with some of those basic uh reading skills, those basic math skills that a kid has to have to long-term be successful. And so we look really hard at where those are. And you can see here in third grade that we had, if you look at those, that last column is really what we're looking for, that level of success. And you can see each of our grade levels where they
043scored. Again, the state is scoring um a 60% average across the state. uh that puts us in line with every other district whether whether they are uh already a higher performing district or not. And you can see that as a as a school district where our individual grade levels have broken out for language arts. You can also see that similarly for and it stopped working not clicking anymore. You'll just advance the slide for me. There we are. Um, so you can see here how we perform with math. And you can see we we know that our third graders have done pretty well. They're they're right in line with where we would expect them to be with the state average. Uh, certainly we want that number to be higher. Uh, and you can see where we
044take some dips. Typically speaking, middle school math does take some dips uh, in terms of that overall number of students who are meeting that grade level benchmark. Um, and certainly we want to continue to increase that and um, that happens for a lot of different reasons. we're we're still seeing a lag and that's a nationwide trend to see that lag in math score performance um due to a lot of the the the challenges of of 201920. So um we're still seeing the residuals of those march across our schools uh in our district. And finally, science. This looks at our science fourth and sixth grade, how we compare uh to the state average uh where we are in both fourth grade and sixth grade. This gives you sort of an overall look over time. So that
045I wanted to make sure that you were able to kind of see what we looked like in terms of performance over over several years. And here you have six years worth of data uh to compare to. And you can see that same information by grade level where we are. So you can see up from last year in language arts we we we have grown by by 9.19% from one year to the next. And you can see some grade levels have much higher growth than others. And you can certainly look back if you go all the way back to 2019. So before we even knew what COVID was, this is where our district was. These is where our kids were scoring. And so you can see we've actually made some pretty considerable progress even over 2019.
046So if you take out all of the the challenges we've had over the last few years, we're actually still moving uh in the right direction. Certainly want that to be expedited, but we're we we'll take these gains and we'll continue to capitalize on those. Same thing for math. This gives you a look of where we are with math. We had two grade levels that that um that did not show that improvement that we expected to see. Our third, fourth, seventh, and eighth grade students all showed positive growth from from last year to this year. Uh as well as um getting closer and closer to where we need to be uh to be in line with the state expectations, but certainly we're a long ways away from that 2030 goal and science as well. This although
047not an apples to apples, you can see here what we were looking like with regard to science uh from way back in 2019 all the way to the present. Now the next way we look at this is by school. We want to make sure that we're looking school to school, how we're performing and what those resources have looked like from one school to the next, how we're utilizing different tools, how we're how we're helping our schools um to to grow and to be more successful. You can see here in language arts that at the elementary level all of our elementary schools made great gains in the area of language arts. So we know that some of the work we've been doing with literacy. We know that some of the the clear focus that we've put
048in some of our lesson planning uh and other things are really beginning to take hold and we believe that will continue. Uh we've also um again you can see how we compare uh to both the district. So, when we look at our district average, that does include grades three through eight because we we we use that average for all of our SC ready uh assessments. And then you can see how we compared to the state. Our middle schools similarly showed all improvement. So, we're very proud that all of our schools uh all of our elementary and middle schools showed improvement in the area of language arts this year. Uh ranging from from as high as 13% all the way down to three. But all of them showed improvement in language arts and we're very pleased
049with that performance. Our math shows a little different story. Again, not quite the growth that we wanted, but also in line. If you look that the state uh saw 1.76% uh growth this year in math, uh our district saw a 1.49%. So, we weren't far off from where the state uh growth measure looked like. So, when you take us compared to all the rest of the districts, we're we're pretty much in line. Um, now we still have a long ways to go in math. And if you look, we had one school that did or two schools that did uh go backwards in math and um we're continuing to work with those schools to put plans in place to to to really look at how we can move that the opposite direction and how we're going
050to support teachers to ensure our kids are getting what they need. And then also our middle schools. Um, three of our four middle schools made progress and showed gains in the area of math. uh and those range in difference from from 04 all the way up to to uh 3.06% growth. We also look um at science for fourth grade. And again, it's the first year for this assessment, so there's nothing really to compare it to yet. But you can see here that we had at least one school that scored above this at or above the state average. And in sixth grade, we still considerably lag behind that state average. And that will be one of our critical work areas for this year. So what are some things that we're doing to help improve these results?
051So, I want to make sure that we we share with you some of the things that we're doing um to challenge these results, but also to make sure that we're continuing to keep that laser focus on those key critical areas uh to help our schools be successful. First and foremost, as you all remember, uh we launched a new learning framework last year to help all of our language across our division and across our schools to be similar uh to make sure that we've got strong processes in place to to to guide the work that our teachers are doing with students. Um we have uh of course been working very hard at our letters training for our early grades to ensure our teachers have access to really science-based methods to to teach reading. Um we launched
052a brand new uh ELA curriculum last year uh that had a lot of great supports that were not available to teachers before. Uh that has been in place now. This is our second year with that. Uh this summer we have revised all of our curriculum to really refocus it back to really critical basic pieces for our teachers to use, but also to ensure that we include more supports and resources for teachers in the area of of supporting our ML kids as well as our students with disabilities specifically. We want to make sure our teachers don't have to go find things that they don't have to spend their time looking for it. We can put it in there for them to be able to access it easily. We've also um launched this year a retraining of
053our reading and instructional coaches. Uh so those folks that are supporting teachers in the building, we're spending a considerable amount of time working with them to be stronger and also making sure that they're able to support our teachers needs. Uh we are we launched our our district problem solving team that continues to help schools think through some of those critical challenges they have and how we might be able to pull our resources together to to help those. Um all of our schools are are working on student goal setting. Um, we're going to get those numbers to move because our kids are going to begin to understand how important it is for their own performance to move. They understand a video game. They know what happens when they get a better score. We want them to
054think like that when it comes to math. How do I get my math score to be better every year? And also this year, uh, we're doing a considerable amount of work on revisiting our MTSS and intervention process and making sure that those are all aligned with rigor and high quality assessments throughout, uh, what our kids are experiencing. So, if I might, I I don't mind stopping here. I can continue to the high schools. Um, if you if you want to hold your questions or I can answer any questions you may have about SC ready. >> The high schools and then stop. >> Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Um, for our SE ready for our SC end of course exam program or EO not right C too many letters tonight. Um, we'll we'll talk with you about
055our high schools. And of course, when we're looking at this, our goal to be on that 2030 goal is that students must earn a C or better on that EOC exam. Uh, those tests are given in grades 8 through 12 last year. Now, they will only be given at 9 through 12, but they're given in classes of algebra 1, English 2, biology 1, and US history constitution. So, students are going to take all four of those. Some of the data tonight you'll see is from middle school because we did give algebra 1 in middle school. Um so that will look at it from two lenses from our high schools and from our elementary or from our middle schools. So this gives you an idea. This this shows you where we are with algebra 1 across
056our district um with all the schools that that give that exam. We wanted to make sure that you had a historical look at that as well. So you can see here um we go all the way back to 2019 and we look at our success and we look at our movement and we look at at at declines. We see a number of different pieces of data here that are very important. Um I would encourage you to look very closely at that district number at the bottom as well as the state uh to look at how that has either increased or declined uh and where we are in comparison to that. Uh this year we're we're pleased to see a 5% growth in in algebra 1. Uh getting more and more kids to that C mark.
057While that may seem difficult when we talk about a highly rigorous test, it is it is difficult for many of our students, particularly those that may lack those foundational math skills to be highly successful uh on that test. English 2 was a new test in 2022. Prior to that, it was assessed in English one. And so you can see here there are now four years worth of data uh to help us understand what our students are doing. And we are seeing that growth uh return in the area of English 2. And so this year we we had the most growth of the two schools at at Brooklyn Casey. And of course uh airport also showed positive growth. So we're very pleased to to continue to make that movement. And you can also see here that
058we actually uh we outgrew the state growth in this particular area. Biology one um continues to be a challenge. It's not just a challenge for us. You can see the state average when you look at it. It is well below 50%. Um it continues to be a challenge statewide, but certainly for us continues to be one of our areas that still needs additional support and work. And you can see our performance here over history. Um and both of our schools did see a decline in biology one this year with US history and constitution. Uh, Airport High School had an 11% growth from from last year to this year. Uh, which of course was a higher growth than the state. And, uh, you can see where we are in comparison to to our state and as
059well as looking at um, what we've done kind of over time uh, in that course. So, what are we doing to to support the growth in our EOC classes? First off, again, we talk about launching that framework that's been critical to to helping our teachers understand what are those basic pieces of planning as well as what are those those essential elements of of a good quality lesson. Uh we launched new English curriculum for our high schools last year as well and have now revised that again for this year as well as launching our instructional blueprints. So those two also include that those same supports for our high school teachers that we put in place for our elementary and middle school teachers. Uh we launched a new benchmark assessment program last year for us to be
060able to know faster where our kids may be but also to be able to acknowledge those things that our kids already know before they even arrive in those high school credit classes. Um we've been providing much more structured focused professional development for these four areas. Uh we know that these teachers are going to need more focused support on things such as assessment on developing highquality access to materials. Uh and so we've been working to provide that. We are conducting monthly data reviews with our high schools to look at what they're doing to look at what impact it's having uh to make sure that we're monitoring where they are growing or where they may still need to see additional work. Um we also have have implemented our panorama our grad tracking software to help us really
061be on top of of who's making that progress who is not looking at the of course creative pathways and more flexible learning opportunities for our students uh to be able to get or to make up for credits that they may not have earned. And again, these schools also participate in our quarterly problem solving team uh work where we're looking at what they're doing and how they're growing. Um I do want to mention uh one one piece that I think is not showing in this slide and that is of course the access data that Dr. Hfner spoke to earlier. Uh as a district just to give you an idea that data is available and we can get you the slide for that. Um, our district saw a really strong growth uh in the assessment that students
062take each year. All of our ML students take to Is it it's not showing up on the presentation unfortunately, but if you have it, great. Um, >> we're able to um to to to chart these kids' progress. They they take this assessment in multiple parts and so our district did see a giant gain uh in the area of just that one assessment alone. Um, we spent a considerable amount of time every school last year. We trained teachers again on what to look for, how that test is presented, uh, things they could do in their classroom to help kids uh, prepare for that. It's a very tough test. Kids have to record themselves speaking. um most elementary, middle, and high school students, they will talk loudly everywhere, but when it comes to an assessment, and so
063we've seen historically that's been a challenge for our students, but we've asked teachers to start practicing that more in their classroom, giving all students the opportunity to speak more. And so, we're very pleased to see um almost 140 kids who were able to meet that benchmark requirement of proficient uh on the access test compared to to a much lower number last year and a much lower number for the last several years. So, we're very pleased with that progress. >> So, that that those are the numbers. Um, again, that's a lot of a lot of information and a lot of data, but I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have. >> Mr. Brick, >> uh, on the access, thank you. Great presentation and there's some awesome stuff in there. On the access for proficiency,
064is that a four on the one through five or is that out of They've tested out of it. >> These students who who perform who become proficient have tested out of of the program those requirements. Yes. Gotcha. >> Direct services. >> They're not one through five anymore. They're correct. Now they're just >> monitored. And then they need to monitor. >> Gotcha. Thank you. Um like I said, there's a lot of good stuff in there. I would be remiss, you know, we can't go pull out everything, but kudos to Casey. Um plus 14, plus seven, and then the plus seven all by itself. So that's that's fantastic. Obviously, there's plenty of stuff to improve, and we're on track for that. I would be interested to know. I looked at some of the other district results and
065the state's results for ELA and this uh you know I'm going to lose a little humility here, but I would love to know what cell phones being out of classrooms did to ELA because I've never seen a jump as much as I've watched it across the state and now we take a device out of a kid's hand. That leads me to the next point that we brought up a while back. I wonder if we start taking more electronics out of little kids' hands and putting paper back in their hands if we continue to see that increase. Something to think about. Y'all are the experts, but I I tried to find some wise to differentiated ELA from math across the whole state. Like, you know, it just is it is an anomaly that one just jumped
066so much higher when you look back for years and years and there's nothing else I can find to it. Um, until the results come out across the board, do we have GT growth at all? I know last year we had, you know, probably one of the best in the state. How do we do this year? >> So, so those numbers we're still crunching. So, there's still a lot of that work to be done with looking at the different subgroups and all of that. So, those are things that we'll be doing and working with our schools because we want to make sure that a we celebrate that, but b we also want to make sure that we can keep that moving. Yes, there'll be more work with that. >> I mean, obviously, it'll probably level out
067some, but if we can keep stay on top of the wave. Uh, next is I don't understand. I went to Lexington, too. Um, and that I feel like I should know this, but if I look at district state comparisons and we look at uh, ELA, it says that our district is 47%. But if I look at three through eight, our average is like 59 and a half%. >> Great question. >> And then I look at English 2 and we're at 61%. So our our district average is way below the two numbers that I see here, two average. >> Help help me understand how that works. >> So the average is is comp it's very complicated. Let me see if I can do this. Rob, Dr. Bergraph, jump in if I've misexplained this. So to get
068that average for SC ready, um it takes all grade levels. So three through eight are averaged not together, but averaged by the percent of students who have scored meets and exceeds at each grade level. So um it is a a complicated formula that we use to go back and figure that percentage out. So yes, it will not average the way that you would think it would average. You have to pull the average from the number who are meets and exceeds for each grade level for each year and the number of students who tested in that particular area. >> Yeah, that sounds exciting. Um, I guess my question is is how do we figure out like obviously the in ELA 59.6 is awesome, English 261, we're moving up, but I want that 47 to keep doing
069that. is maybe in a workshop. Can we get in? Can we like really geek out and see the the individual levers that we need to pull here? Just nothing more than my edification. Like I it intrigues me to not be able to get to a math answer. >> So So if that's the wish, we we can certainly help you with those data points. What what we look at a lot is is how do we grow those individual subgroups to grow that to grow that average number. We know that every time the average number grows, we've grown we've grown significantly. So we want to continue to do that. >> The only other thing I have and then right there is I think it would be fantastic in a room of educators if we could work on
070getting this data into some type of dashboard >> so that we can you know let's let's get it out there and let it be seen and touched and felt and tinkered like we would in any other agency. That is all. Thank you. Great work. >> Thank you. >> I was just going to say it would help me you show the average. I'd like to see the number of kids. >> Mhm. >> That way on this chart. >> We have that. >> Miss um a couple things in the high in the high school like for instance with the uh percentage of kids that are passing algebra one that are uh getting a C or higher. What happens to the kids that aren't doing that? Do they take algebra 1 over? >> So typically they would not
071necessarily take it over unless they have failed. Remember, this is just the test portion. So, this exam counts 20% of their grade of their final average. So, a kid could in theory have a much higher average and fail this test and still get credit for a course. Um, it's rare. I mean, it's not as it's not as normal, but um but typically we would want to see if a kid can make that C or better that they also get a grade of C or better. Um, but we know that that sometimes grades don't don't always reflect that the way that it should. And so um so it doesn't necessarily mean that they fail because they get that DRF on this. It just means that they're not they're not technically making enough progress per the test.
072So again, they may very well get all those four credits but fail all four of these tests. That is possible. >> That's really disheartening to me because the whole point is to educate the individual child to be able to go on and do something in their adult life. And I I just disagree with us parsing the numbers so that things don't look so so dire. Um in regard to um the elementary and the middle schools, I just want to congratulate uh you principles and uh your teachers because these numbers in English English language arts are just fantastic. So just kudos to you because I know how much work went into that. I'm super proud of you. Um I am I continue to be concerned about these math scores uh simply because you know in some
073of our schools, two of our middle schools, 17% of the students are meets or exceeds. That's that's not even two out of 10 children that are able to do the math on grade level. Well, just think about that a minute. I I I to me that's an emergency. That's not let's just try something new next year and kind of see what happens and we're trying something new this year. We've already talked about that. Um but that is um to me that's a crying shame. We're preparing kids for a future and if they can't do middle school math only less than two out of 10 of them can do it. Well, where are the engineers going to come from? Where are the pharmacists going to come from? Where are the doctors going to come from? We
074are taking away those opportunities from them when they're 12 years old. And so I just would like to see us, and it is a national problem. I understand that. We're not alone in this. It's a statewide problem. But that doesn't mean that our individual kids don't matter. So, I would like to see us consider it a a true emergency and say, "What can we do to change this?" And I mean, we did that in English language arts. I mean, last year we said, "This the numbers are terrible. Let's do something about it." And so, we have to figure out how can we get that same kind of result going uh in terms of math. >> Miss Bquerette, I will say to you, it is as much of a four alarm fire as it can be
075um for us. We in fact I think I had two different meetings today about math alone. So every day we're we're working and putting things in place. Our team has been out working with our schools to to to change the to change this narrative. Um we've got to keep our foot on the gas. To your point about the language arts, you know, we we know that there was a change in standards. Anytime there's a change in standards, we're going to see it impact. You're going to see an impact one side or the other um when it comes to this uh math change this year. Standards have changed for this year. So it could be that in a year we come back and say look we we didn't get any growth we went down but we
076wanted to say yes we made some growth we had some gains because we're in a new because we have new standards we have new assist new systems in place um so those things are constantly changing and we're constantly looking at how do we move that number um so yes it is absolutely a top priority for us the none of us are happy or satisfied with where we are we know we need to perform better because we want our kids to be more successful. >> Well, you know what? I know that and I appreciate that. But when you look at the five-year data, I mean, we're basically kind of hanging around the same place. Maybe three out of every 10 students are successful on grade level. Well, and yes, COVID happened. We all know that. But
077nonetheless, that's five years worth of middle school students who went through middle school and into high school unable to probably accomplish the high school math. And so, um, I just think individual kids matter. I just think that their lives matter. And we we can't just say we're hoping next year something will look better because you've got a whole crop of kids. That this year matters. Um, is is there any possibility of us having uh, you know, like community mentors in math? I'm thinking about all the retired engineers and what have you that might be willing to come into the school and mentor an individual child, etc. I mean, could could we think about doing things like that? >> I don't think there's a school in this district that wouldn't welcome a community member or members
078or groups that would like to come and help do that critical work. Um we've been partnering in some some of our two of our middle schools right now and one of our elementary schools um have been fortunate to benefit from a large grant that we received from the state department last year um to provide highdose tutoring. Um it's a very costly program, but we're using it. We were very fortunate. It was just over $200,000 that we were able to put in place in three schools. Um I don't think there is a school in this district that would deny folks who want to come work with kids on math um or or basic reading skills. We we certainly would welcome that. Do you think we could advertise that some way to the community? But because I
079don't think people are aware that that would be a possibility. I think if you sort of put it out there and said, you know, we've got a crisis and we need for people who can do some basic math to come to the middle school and help us. Um, I mean, would that be possible? >> I'm sure I know our schools request that all the time, but I'm sure they could could ask again. >> Okay. Thank you so much. So, so as we were flipping through the slides, there was, you know, typically a school or two that really had a lot of growth. So, could y'all please report to the board what we attribute that to in each category? because I would like to know, you know, what's um Casey doing? What's North Side doing? What's,
080you know, Airport BC? Um, you know, in the areas that they saw the most growth because I think that would be val I'm sure you all know, but it would be valuable for the board to know what we attribute that to because if one school can grow, typically the others, you know, could too. I would love to see that. And then we are early in the school year. Clearly, we have, you know, some work to do in math. Um my I just wrote down math boost camps. Like let's get creative. Let's you know carve out a couple hours a week dedicated to you know math camps and you know do something fun but als you know in a way that really you know make maybe can help us make some gains this year in math
081and um to the a to the ABC report that's that we got. Thank you again. um super helpful. Um course progress uh um map, it was 2020, no it's 2025 fall map was on there. It would be great since we did map last year. It would be amazing to have the comparison on here for um 2024 map to um fall to 2025 like compare where >> so we could do that. The the challenge with that is it's really not an apples to apples. So it's it's not even a apples to to apples to lions. It's kind of a it's two different things because it's two totally different groups of kids and as well as even the numbers this year because of the change in how the state calculates. Um MAP has also introduced a new
082calculation for how they project. So um so it's yes to your point I think that would be great. you know, we provided you with um the the comparison of how our kids did on SC ready versus how they did on the spring map. Um but it's harder to to do that apples to apples projection. Now, when we get that midyear data, we'll start to see the trend of where kids really are. So, we'll be able to compare that fall to that winter. That's where that really sweet spot comes in of who's making progress, who's making enough progress to be on grade level uh or to be closer to their target goal by the end of the year by that third administration. And you know, we've spent a lot of time working with teachers on how
083to interpret those data points, but more importantly to look at what kids still need. How do they build into their lesson planning what a kid still needs to be able to get there? That's our heart and soul is to get them to that goal. Um, and I think that belief piece really happened uh in language arts better than it maybe happened in math, but it certainly happened in math as well that we set those goals for for kids to really to see how to move uh and how to make that growth. >> Okay. So, regarding that report, anything that we could easily show are we making gains or not? That's that's kind of the heart behind it. So, yeah. >> Thank you very much. >> Castles, you have a question. You say math and I
084start cringing. But I will have to say again. I think this comes back to retaining not just hiring but retaining our great teachers. It will be interesting to see now that we're changing ge geometry and the eighth grade. I know two of my own kids needed some more maturing and thrived even more whether they did you know as well in middle school. Um, an amazing teacher is not just going to put slides up in math. An amazing teacher is going to recognize that you still need to hit all those modalities. Mary can probably look at those slides and get it like that. Liz needs manipulatives and to move around and and there's a young man out in that I shouldn't say young man in the crowd now that is now a principal that was phenomenal
085because he knew and remembered each child is different and they learn a different way. But I think maybe having some maturity and doing some of these classes in high school, it'll be interesting to see if some of that changes. But >> thank you. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I just want to say I when I was congratulating the middle schools and the elementary schools, I was looking at the SC ready scores. So high schools, please don't feel that I was leaving you out of the kudos. You guys have done a great job as well. Thank you. There any other questions for Dr. McDonald? >> Thank you. >> All right, we'll move on. Thank you so very much. >> Very informative. All right, we're going to move into operations now and I'm going to turn over to
086Mr. Warren. >> Uh thank you. Um Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Hfner, uh provide as you do every month a CPIF update. You see before you, you know, once again, we continue to move on projects that you approved for this year. with the green ones being complete uh yellow being in progress and then uh that number of us to begin is shrinking by the month. So Mr. McFersonen and his team continues to plow forward. Also um technology and transportation working on some of those items as well. So u continue to make great progress with our um CPF work for for this year. >> There we go. Mr. >> Thank you. Um, I apologize for some of the I've got four questions here. Typically in diligent, I could go back and look back, but
087I feel uh slightly lost without the computer. The locker removal, what what is $70,000 worth of locker removal? Is that painting? Is that cleaning up the walls? >> Well, that's um first off, removing, you know, removing the lockers and demolition, >> but we pay full-time equivalent folks. Did we pull that? Was there a contract with that? >> That was contract work. >> We contract that out. Okay. to remove. And then also when you do that work, you have to go back and repair the walls, drywall. In some cases, we had to go back and actually build a wall. Um, you know, because of that separation that occurred when the lockers came out. So, lots of lots lots of work goes into that number. >> The next one, I apologize. I probably missed it last year.
088Um, I just I wanted on record that I am not a big fan of buying brand new vehicles over and over. You see that in every municipality around right now. The average person driving in our district has, you know, a seven-year-old vehicle, but if you go to every municipality, all of the just daytoday driver cars are like brand new Taho and Escal not Escalades, but I just that that's not a great look. So le let's make sure that we're this is done in I it's silly for me to even kind of bring it up, but as we look at CPIF for next year for regular daily driver vehicles, um I I would think we could probably go a few years without having many of those pop up there. Uh and then if you go to
089the white section, the last slide, I guess depending on how it shows up, the paving for district, where is that? That 50k mean 500k? Uh I know we're looking at doing some work at uh Brook and Casey in their in their parking lot. Um really just trying to do a little bit of that uh bit by bit. You know, you can spend a lot of money on asphalt milling and resurfacing, but I know that's a focus for us. Um initially is Brook and Casey. >> So it's just I mean presumably not half a million dollars of paving it BC. I mean I can't think of half a million dollars worth of >> No, no, that's >> square footage there. And it says district >> district I know well BC is where our focus is and
090outside of BC I know we're just we looked at some other facilities as well >> airport high school as well and so you know that that money doesn't go very far when you look at the milling and the paving and the striping and all that goes into you know resurfacing a parking lot. So I know those are our two priorities right now. >> Gotcha. if maybe on the next one now that it's coming up, we can start breaking that down by at least the the site instead of just half a million dollars sitting in one kind of fund without it being broken down >> that work >> is definitely something that's going to be questioned. And then uh and maybe we can hit this in offline, but property acquisition I I don't remember that at
091all. That last line item maybe maybe it does. I'm getting older, but I I don't remember that. Is that something that we've had on here? >> Yes, that's been on the start. Yes, sir. >> Touche. >> Thank you, sir. >> Mr. Rucker. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I just wanted to mention about the um our um children's school devices that we issue. I just want to make sure we have the highest security possible on those devices. We just haven't gotten an update, I don't feel like, in a while, about the devices. I just want to make sure. I'm sure we are staying on top of it, but I would just like to know a little more about that. >> We can definitely make that a a point of discussion at our next meeting. Absolutely. >>
092I appreciate that. Thank you so much. >> Miss Castles, you had a question. >> I love that we have been having mock uh hearing trials to get people ready for that. I think that will be very beneficial. And I meant to ask this last time, but what do you know what we're lacking for the the BC athletic medical card? Is it just like one or two things, but what are we lacking to have that complete for the year? >> Yeah, it just hasn't come in yet. Just hasn't come in yet, but it's been purchased. It's a replacement for what they currently have. Um, right. >> For the trainers to use and uh carry equipment around. Um, but it hasn't hasn't arrived yet. It'll be >> at Oh, it has arrived. Yes, sir. >> Okay, perfect.
093We We need to change that one. So, that has arrived. Mr. Al, >> I just had one thing. I know we we're doing a lot of the the drills and stuff and I applaud the district for going through that, but I have at least heard and one of the schools that the Wi-Fi or the you know the access to their phone for the alarms um you know was was spotty. Uh so so maybe I can talk to you off off time about it, but >> I don't know if you have that's in the operating budget when you have a computer budget for something like >> you mean in terms of um >> having Wi-Fi communication. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. >> I know schools are always a challenge, you know, any buildings uh with, you know,
094with cell phone, you know, communication with your, you know, block walls and mason walls. But we can look at that and see what kind of issues we're having. But it's if it's part of the drill, the emergency, you know, lockdown drills, it's I think it's very important to make sure. >> Okay. Okay. We can we can we talk more about it and look into that. >> The one thing I forgot to mention is the and I apologize, but the tip line was mentioned in your first report and I think we have seen it successfully used multiple times this year. And so like this is my PSA for on behalf of all of us. Tip lines work when people use them. Like we can't we can't do anything. It's parents. It's friends. And the fact that
095we have a fantastic tip line that is working should be better proof than anybody else who wants to use it. We'll never have a perfect society. But if we have a tip line that's being used and acted upon, so kudos to Dr. Hefner and you and Santana. Like that is nothing better than seeing a good tip traits down and saving and making a difference in kids' lives. So kudos to y'all. >> Thank you. >> Any more questions for Mr. Warren? >> Thank you. All right, we're going to move into um old business. And >> Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the second reading of policy JA. >> All right, we got a motion. Do we have a second? >> Second. Any discussion on that one? All right. All in favor say I. I. >>
096Motion pass. Mr. Chair, I move that we uh approve the second and final reading of board policy KFD. >> Have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a second by Miss Rucker. Any discussion on that one. >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Mr. Chair, I move for second and final reading of proposed revisions to board policy B E DB. >> We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that one? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. All right. We're going to move into new business now. And >> Mr. Chair, we're going to turn over to >> I move that we consider amendment 2627 school calendar as shown in calendar amendment 2627. >> Got a motion.
097Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a second. Any discussion? >> Just miss Rucker. >> Quick note. The it starts with during the 2026 South Carolina legislative session. I think that should be 2025. >> That's correct. >> And so we'll just if we could just re-upload the form. Okay. My question was a point of order. Does it need to have a second reading? >> I felt like on the on the calendar we had to have two readings, didn't we? >> We did have two readings on the initial calendar. Um, this change is something that we have to do by law based on the provisions from state legislature to provide the teachers two days of professional development before the school year starts. So, we want to make sure that we we put that in
098there and then that gave another day to spring break if I remember correctly. >> So, >> if if we end up needing to change it next go round, we can. But this motion just says consideration, not first or second. So, we should be fine. >> Okay. >> All right. So, we had a motion and a second. Any more discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the first reading of board policy G C L E and propose uh proposed revisions to B A R G C L E- R. >> Second. >> A motion and a second. Any discussion on this one? >> All right. No discussion. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Mr. Chair, I move for that we
099approve the first reading of proposed revisions to board policy BE and the proposed addition of board policy BEA live streaming board meetings. >> I had a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> I it's probably worth going through these fast. It might be worth people noting that these are all laws that state changed at the state level. So it's not like we're just shooting through them. It's catching up to the law. >> Correct. >> All right. All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Mr. Chair, I move that we certify delegates for the South Carolina School Board Association's 2024 delegate assembly. And by 2024, I think it should say 25. So, >> yep. We had a motion. >> Have to second. We need to go >> at this point. We
100need to discuss it. Right. >> Right. >> Not a December 6. >> Yep. Saturday, December 6th. >> I'll be glad to go. >> I've been I've been the last couple. I I can go to this one, too. >> Awesome. We have Miss Burke. >> Mr. Chair, I amend my uh motion, hopefully a friendly amendment to nominate Miss Rucker as primary and Miss Burquette as an alternate. >> That will work. >> I do have a quick question. >> Somebody needs to second that first. >> Okay, >> just Okay, cool. Can >> Thank you. >> Both can still attend. >> Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. >> We all can attend, right? We just have to have >> We have to have >> You got have I think we got three votes. >> Mhm. I >> think it's three.
101>> Yeah, it's three. >> Votes. That's right. >> Yeah, we got three votes for our district size. >> I mean, I can go. >> So, are we amending it to include? >> Mr. Chair, I amend my motion to say Miss Rucker, Miss Burquette, and Mr. Key. >> All in favor to amend the motion. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I ask a clarifying question, >> please. Mr. Chair, >> Mr. Bray. >> Yes, ma'am. >> You talked about it saying 2020 >> where which which document >> on the agenda? So, I think we're fine. It's just the agenda. So, I think we're fine. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> The documents are correct. >> I struggle to read paper. >> Uh, Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the three recommended travel
102request, which is the superintendent and chief of human resources and organizational development officer to attend AASPA in October 7th through 10. the airport course to attend the all-state course at Winthre February 26th and 27 and L2IC cosmetology and barbering students to attend the international beauty show in the Big Apple on March 7 through March 10th. >> We got a motion >> a second and a second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. All right, that moves us into our announcements now. Um September 24th, 2025 is early release day. October 9th, 2025, end of first nine weeks. Boy, that flew by. October 10th, 2025, inservice day. October 13, 2025, weather makeup day. Um October 15th is report cards issued. October 16th, 2025, fine arts hall of fame reception in a pack lobby
103at 5:00. And then following that, October 16th, uh regular monthly board meeting, district education center at 6 pm. We will entertain a motion to go into executive. >> Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that the board of trustees enter close session for the following consideration of personnel appointments and resignations, legal advice regarding incident reporting. >> Second. >> Got a motion and a second. All in favor say I. >> We are now moving to executive. I make a motion that the meeting be reconvened in open session and appropriate affidavit executed. >> Second. >> I have a motion in a second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Was any action taken in executive? >> I move to approve the administration recommendation for resignations. New hires and appointments support employees and new hires and appointments temporary
104part-time employees. >> Had a motion in a second. All in favor say I. I. >> Motion carries. >> Motion to second. We are adjourned.