Lexington School District 2 Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees - September 21, 2023

001good evening everyone I'd like to call to order the regular board meeting for September 20123 I will now turn it over to miss Kesler to introduce our students from Brooklyn Casey high school it's our pleasure to always have students join us for the meeting and participate uh into this part of the Lexing education at this time I would like to introduce our two students from Brooklyn Casey high school first we have cydney artop is a senior at Brooklyn Casey at school she is involved in a variety of extracurricular activities and holds many leadership positions these positions include student body president captain of The Varsity soccer team and National Honor Society secretary Sydney is also a member of the cross country team sustainability club and the Latin club Sydney has been named as AP scholar and

002has received her AP Capstone diploma she has also received the All Region award for both cross country and soccer for the 20 21 22 and the 2223 season although Sydney has not committed to a college at this time she plans to study architecture and then for our pledge we have John Moore John is a senior at Brooklyn Casey high school he is in involved in many extracurricular activities and holds many leadership positions John is Vice President of the National Honor Society captain of The Varsity soccer team and captain of the varsity football team he has been named an AP scholar and has received his AP Capstone diploma John has also received the All Region award for both soccer and for football in his junior year an Allstar State award for soccer John was on the

003state championship team team and soccer his freshman year and the State runnerup team his sophomore year John has not committed to a college yet however he plans to play sports and study mechanical engineering at a four-year University thank you so much for being here and we'll have our in invocation would you please join me in prayer dear God we come before you today with grateful hearts for this opportunity to gather together as the Lexington 2 Community we ask for your blessings upon this meeting and upon each and every person here today as we begin our meeting we pray that you will guide our thoughts words and actions May everything we do be done with love kindness and respect for one another we ask for your strength and wisdom as we learn grow and connect with

004one another during this special time may we be open to new experiences and ideas and may we always strive for excellence in all that we do we also pray for those in our community who are unable to be with us today may they feel your presence and love wherever they are we offer this prayer in your holy name amen amen please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you Sydney and John appreciate you being with us Madam chair yes I have a point of privilege yes ma'am um as all of you know we had a terrible tragedy last Friday and we lost one

005of our former students um Leah Leverett and I would like for us to take a moment and have a moment of silence amen thank you Miss castles our consent agenda includes the approval of tonight's agenda and the minutes from the board meetings of August 17th 22nd 24th September 7th and September 12th as you can see we are a very hardworking and busy board um without any objections board members I will ask that the consent agenda stand approved next is the best part of our agenda we are here to honor our accomplishments of our students and staff we are so proud of everything you've been doing even this short of a time into the semester and so Dr heffer I'm gonna turn it over to you to celebrate with us yes ma'am thank you madam chair

006so let's move to that favorite part of honors and accomplishments first up we have a number of Lexington 2 students who achieved maximum scores in math on the SC ready assessment this past spring as Elementary Middle School students our director of instruction Dr Rob burgraff is at the podium to share a little bit about that recognition with us yes Madam chair members of the board Dr Hafner if you are in the audience and you are a student who earned that maximum score if you would come stand and I will have you introduce yourselves in just a minute on the state SC ready assessment for ELA and math there is a single scale of scores that ranges from third grade through uh 8th grade but at each level level there is a maximum score for that

007grade and that is the highest score that a student can attain um for their grade level last school year we had nine students who earned a maximum score on the SC ready math assessment many of whom are here tonight and will introduce themselves uh the school that they attended last year when they earned the maximum score and where they are now in the district and if you all would come stand in this green box here so you can be seen hello I'm Aiden Brittain from Busby Creative Arts Academy and I was in sixth grade when I received the score and I'm now in seven hi my name is H moso I was in fifth year at Congo Elementary last year I am now at sixth grade in Pine Ridge Middle hi I'm Ryland Henson I

008was in seventh grade at former middle school and now I'm in eighth grade hello I Matthew notter I was in fifth grade at spingo or fourth grade at spingo elementary last year and I'm fifth grade this year hello I'm Ellie I was in Riverbank Elementary in fourth grade and I'm still at Riverbank in fifth I'm Gary back and last year I was at Pine Ridge Middle fifth grade and now I'm I mean sixth grade and now I'm there at seventh my name is kayen Glover I last year I was in fifth grade Herber awood Elementary School now I'm in sixth grade Pine Ridge Middle School hello my name is Jack fiser last year I was in eighth grade at Northside Middle School and now I'm in ninth grade at Brooklyn KC high school and he

009disappeared one of the students who was up here Mr Nutter Mr Nutter he was standing here the previous year as well because this is his second consecutive year of earning a maximum schore so proud of them all thank you thank you yeah congratulations to the students and to the parents and students we want to see you all back here next year again in the same position that's right thank you thank you thank you Dr burra next we have two Busby Creative Arts Academy students who are being recognized by math Nation our k 12 math math coordinator Miss Jennifer wise is going to tell us about these students and their accomplishments thank you so much Madam chair members of the board Dr Hafner I am so delighted to be able to share with you this evening

010um many of you know the work that we are able to do with math Nation um due to um grants through the Department of Education so they provide that to us for our students in Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 um with workbooks and um electronic resources and then sixth through 8th grade for electronic resources as well so um you'all have been able to participate with us before in our test yourself challenge where students have received incentives within the building and tonight we're going to talk about the algebra wall so um this not only allows students to shine from an academic perspective but also in terms of community service so each day um in the afternoons a certified math teacher gets on she monit or he or she monitors the wall and students are able

011to ask questions and post post questions to peers and they get on and they assist one another without telling the answer but giving instructional support to one another and so I'm so excited to share that two of our students they recognize the top five in the state and two of our students from Busby Creative Arts Academy were actually two of the top five in the state we found out about this the Wednesday that we had to close early for the hurricane they were like make sure they're taking devices home um we've got somebody in second place that evening I'm excited to tell you that marcelus Mosley did take first place that evening and that Thursday as we were having e-learning day with the excitement many watch football I was watching the algebra wall and watching

012it go back and forth um with all the um great um with all the great conversations that were going so we found out later that or into the weekend that marcelus had um then first place which meant that he was going to receive an iPad Mini for the community service that he was able to provide on the wall and then we became doubly excited when we found out that railand deran was also in the top five so she also received a prize pack for math Nation so please join me and thank congratulating [Applause] them thank you all very much thank you Miss Wise and thank you students congratulations and now perhaps you were one of the 60,000 plus fans who got to see our Brooklyn Casey High School band Live and in person during the

013USC halftime show at Williams Bry Stadium our Brooklyn Casey band director Mr tyell James is going to tell us about that experience so Mr James you want to come on up with your team of students please good evening members of the board and District officials my name is Tyrell James the band director at Brooklyn Casey high school and yeah that was quite a night um about 880,000 people they said it was a sellout so we'll we'll take the higher of the two numbers so yeah um I'm close friends with both of the USC um band directors Dr J Jacobs and Dr quentis wrighton and they open this invite up to a lot of state level band students but they personally came over to BC one day and asked if our kids would love to participate

014because we are local they know the work that we're doing they know the time and effort we're putting into it so of course we jumped at the opportunity this was a lifelong memory that these kids will never forget getting to be in a full SEC Stadium performing in front of 880,000 people and you should have saw theid is on the bus that night cuz uh I don't think many of them slept much at all the next night so um with that being said I would like to have them come up and introduce themselves to all of you hello ladies and gentlemen my name is William Bautista I am equipment manager and percussionist for the Brooklyn Casey band my name is jge Vargas a senior percussion Captain is my name is keno and I play uh

015percussion Lama the captain hello my name is Ryan Knight I play alto saxophone and I am the Brooklyn Casey band's woodwind Captain hello my name is Donovan Norris I play tenis saxs and I'm the BC band captain [Applause] hello my name is Alexander leam I play tner saxs and I'm the band's quartermaster hello my name is Vanessa belon I play alto saxophone and I am the band's visual Captain hello uh my name's Keegan cumington I play the trombone and I'm BC's brass Captain hello I'm Mackenzie boat right I'm a senior and I'm a percussionist hello I'm Andrew Roberts I play flute and I'm high woodwind Captain once again thank all you guys for inviting us out tonight um we look to be back many times this year for more honors um if I may make

016one request though you can help us out a lot at Brooklyn Casey if you will consider turfing our practice field that will help us out a lot since um these kids are putting in a lot of time and effort and sometimes those lines aren't quite the way that they should be before we have rehearsals so if you would consider just uh making that practice field Turf for us it will help us out it will help out soccer other Athletics so please keep that under your hat for consideration thank you thank you and nothing like a teacher advocating for his students for sure thank you director James and thank you and speaking of Music Amanda Rona the coral director at airport high school is going to tell us a bit about some of the honor choir's

017recent successes good evening everyone my name is amandaa and I the coral director at airport high school first thank you so much for taking the time this evening to recognize the achievements and accomplishments of the airport High School honors chorus um we are very proud of our students and the hard work they put in on a daily basis to represent airport well um a portion of our honors cor chorus was able to attend tonight so first I'll let them introduce themselves hello good good evening my name is Naya and I sing the Alro voice part in our Honor Choir and I'm also co-president of our chus leadership coun hello I'm Landon Allison I sing tenor and I'm a senior and I'm co-president of the AHS cor program hello ladies and gentlemen my name is Isabella

018Fischer I hope you are all doing well this evening and I am a freshman and I second soprano and I'm an alto hello I'm Ang Hughes and iing one hello I am Payton Jordan I am a 10th grader and I sing Alto good evening my name is Harlem couch and icing [Applause] base good evening my name is Anna golat I'm in ninth grade and I sing first the Pano for airport High School [Applause] course AO at airport hi I'm Bianca Garcia and I'm in 10th Grade and I st Alto my name is Caroline zoer I'm a sophomore and I sing Alto good afternoon my name is sxie Dangerfield and I sing Alto all right we have a few things we like to highlight one of the big ones I'm just GNA take this one of

019the big ones being that our honors course grew in enrollment from 16 students in the fall of last year to 32 this year um which speaks to the interest of Arts opportunities at airport high school we have established a core Leadership Council which you heard some of the students say there on that membership to help students have a say in the coral program and take more ownership and value in the program as well um 24 students students are auditioning for All State chus this year which is up from five who auditioned last year um I sent in 32 auditions for acda Honor Choir last week which was up from seven last year so we have a lot more interest in auditioning and going out and doing all these extra honor choirs um all of our

020honor students were selected to participate in the South Carolina music educators Association region choir which takes place next month on October 24th so we're thrilled for that we're so excited um three students were selected for the USC vocal Arts seminar next Saturday um te of Graham Bridget pagua ilor and Landon Allison um we have been invited to perform for Conger car's Veterans Day program on November 4th we've also been invited to perform for the South Carolina Department of Probation Parole and pardon services for their Veterans Day program on November 8th um we will be partnering with pin Ridge Middle School to do a holiday Walkin sing which will start at the historic homes downtown visit some Churches and as a recruitment oport opportunity we're going to partner with USC as well so we have middle

021school high school college students all working together to sing and recruit and um have some bonding time um for the first time this coming semester we've found ourselves in a position where we actually had to turn down events because there wasn't enough time for us to do everything and we are thrilled by the opportunities coming in from the community as well as the educational opportunities provided through acda and scmea and we appreciate your support and your support to uh travel compete and participate in so many learning experiences so thank you for recognizing us tonight and your support through all of that for our [Applause] kids okay thank you very much next I believe Dr Vance Jones is going to tell us about two Brooklyn Casey high school students who are among just 16,000 across the

022United States to receive a prestigious recognition as part of the National Merit Scholarship competition good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Hefner it is with great pleasure that I stand before you as the proud principal of brookin Casey High School um with two of our Scholars with two of our Scholars um Lucas Melcher and Carl Lawson um these students last year in October took the PSAT and they were among 1.6 million students who took that PSAT and in doing that they were in the top 16,000 so that is 1% they're in the top 1% of seniors in the country um and so we're proud of them for their accomplishments and the work that they've done in our in our school and the way that they represent our school and so I'll let them

023introduce themselves at this time and tell where they're going to school school and what they plan to major in hello my name is Lucas Melcher I go to Brooklyn Casey high school and plan on going to the University of South Carolina and majoring in aerospace [Applause] engineering my name is Carl awson I am a senior high school and I hope to go to Clemson University and put a majoring in [Applause] mathematics thank you all for recognizing our students tonight absolutely thank you Dr Jones congratulations to all of those young folks we appreciate your hard work it does pay off now we have to recognize a couple of adults at the table yes thank you Dr Hafner and by the way students we are so so very proud of you and your accomplishments and we look

024forward to hearing more about you as the as the year goes on um tonight we are going to recognize some of our board members just like we expect our students to go to school and and our our um Educators to go and take classes and be lifelong Learners our board members we expect them to be Learners as well and so what we do is we participate in training through the South Carolina School boards Association and depending on how many trainings you've gone through over the years you reached different levels based on I believe just the last two years so don't get confused by that in a minute um but what you do is you reach different levels of boardsmy and tonight we're here to recognize four of our board members for attaining a new level

025that doesn't mean that the rest of us haven't attained a level or already have a level it just means that they've moved to a a different level so we want to recognize them tonight and certainly applaud their efforts in being lifelong Learners and staying current on events so I'm going to make you come up here and shake my hand with Dr hner and first we would like to call up um Miss Linda Alfred Wooten Miss Alfred Wooten has received a new level three certification Miss Alfred [Applause] W all right thank you next I'm gonna call um Trey Bray up here uh Trey is also achieved level three Mr pray please join us take we are taking a picture thank you yeah Miss W we're gonna have to redo and then I'm going to ask Miss

026Christina Rucker to join us up front for level three Miss Rucker [Applause] and then last but not least we have Miss Kesler who has achieved level four and I believe you've done this before but she's back to level four [Applause] again and Miss would we need to retake our picture after the meeting thank you so much board members and appreciate your commitment to this district and your commitment to maintaining um your upto-date learning as well and board members you each were given a green folder at your table that will give you your current uh boardmy Institute calculations so you can have that for your records okay thank you and moving right along we are now moving into public participation and our policy provides that we set aside 30 minutes for public participation and so what

027we do is we divide 30 minutes by the number of speakers and we actually have seven speakers tonight so we're gonna ask Mr Atkins to put and I'm going to spot you a couple seconds we're going to put up four minutes and 30 seconds on the clock when I call the people up please again um I'm not going to give a long speech this evening because we're keeping on moving with our um our agenda but I remind you that we want to always remember that some words that we use or labels that we use can uh be harmful and upsetting to other people so I'm going to just quote Miss art lip who did our um prayer and ask that when you're making your comments please keep at the top of your mind love kindness

028and respect for every everyone and with that I would like to welcome to the stand a face we haven't seen around in a while our former Senator Mr Jakey knots welcome Jakey I appreciate you coming out this evening and I believe you're coming forward and you're going to talk with us about instruction so we're going to put you right up here at this microphone please sir and thank you for your service in the senate for so many years I promise you I will not fill the Buster tonight okay yes sir that's why I said four minutes you know I put a lot of kids through the honor roll for making the honor roll back my whole career in politics rented the skate and took a fishing party to start with that didn't work because they

029wanted to go swimming and catch each other's fish and to get up the line I then went the next time and I rented the three Fountain skating ring I started out with 78 kids to to to honor them for making the honor Ro send them a invitation everything I did that the entire time 18 years 19 years and you know it's good to come here tonight and see what my school district which I am a product of and I was not ever in line to get recognition when I was in school I was in the principal's office with Paul Ry singer and Mr pear but I want to tell you something I was in food line last week and I want to tell what the public is starting to get upset about and I felt

030tonight I've never been to your school board meeting to give you a problem anything I've always supported and voted for each and every one of you always will but I'm going tell you a lady came up to me and said hello Mr KN you remember me I said no I'd lie to you if I told you I did she said I went to the skating your skating party I said no you didn't you went to yours thank you for making the honor Ro she just a grown woman then she said ' this is my mother I said 'well thank you for bringing her' she said ' no I went to your skating party too so you honor kids for doing right things but then the conversation got serious they were both concerned about books in

031our school districts not just this District but other districts and some of the things that they were telling me I'm not going to repeat to y'all what was said CU I'm not going to use them type of words but it it appalled me to even think that my school board members that I know miss castley you raised my two daughters and and and one of them got a a a daughter my granddaughter going to law school started last week in in Charleston but I mean you know I'm proud of this school district and I feel our duty to come to y'all tonight and and tell you what they would what the public is concerned about and it's their kids getting books that should be in a adult library or in a filth store down the

032street I I'm just trying to give you a warning before the storm because I appreciated people com and telling me when I was in the legislature of things that was happening so I could address them but I don't believe that my School Board is in that situation that I was being told because I'm sure y'all will stand together and put put put this to rest but I did check with the uh with Ellen W's office and they have did uh disassociated themselves with some kind of Library board and I think that uh each and every one of y'all need to look at it and talk to your neighbors that's got kids in school and let let them tell you about some of the books that that they that I heard about on the aisle of

033food line while I was trying to buy some grapes I was sent there by my wife but I want to thank you thank you for all that y'all did tonight this it's a wonderful school boy and y'all have done a great job and uh I I tell you y'all produced some good kids in this school district I mean good kids and they can go anywhere from here I'm on the board at middle and Tech now and you can go anywhere from middle and Tech but most of them got the middle and Tech from getting sent through District Two right here and our kids now can get a college associate degree in high school when they graduate if they go through the program that we got started over there and these are starting out but thank

034you for letting me be here I I yield my time to whoever wants it thank you hey and thank you questions I'll be glad to ask you yes or you know you can always reach us and thank you so much for your service um All My Children went to your skating parties too so I appreciate you sir they did yes sir thank you so much they skate with me oh yes sir I out run I outrun Andre b in a skating contest uh skate skate race out there and the kids just they tripped him thank thank you so much good to see you sir um next up we have uh Katherine Buchanan who is also here to speak on instruction um I welcome Miss panan did I say that correctly good evening board Madame chairman

035Dr Hefner can you'all hear me okay okay my name is Katherine Buchanan I'm a proud graduate of Lexington 2 um and I've been to some of these recent appeals meetings about books um in the meeting I attended the complainants drew some conclusions that a children's picture book would lead to the hearts and minds of children being stolen by Satan and to girls getting uh assaulted I'll say in bathrooms the mental gymnastics required to make these leaps in thinking was astounding for me to witness and I am a mental health professional the claims were illogical they were bizarre they don't deserve a platform in Lexington 2o it's hateful to take away books that provide representation for children whose families don't look like those of the complainants hate has no place in Lexington District 2 it is

036apparent that pace in groups like them are aligned less with the all-inclusive love of God and more with the fear of Satan and less with the teachings of Christ and more with the moral Grand standing of the Pharisees this is bigotry cloaked in a religion that not even Jesus recognizes they want to create fear and undermine the community's faith in local Community Schools I'm here to ask the board to not give this stuff a platform any reasonable person can see the validity of ensuring we have a process to review books to ensure they are developmentally appropriate for children at various age levels but Pace Flex 2 did not use this process for a common sense good faith approach but to proel ties instill irrational fear and encourage the district to comp to create a discriminatory

037environment for already marginalized groups of kids what they're seeking is sanction bullying of children and it's cruel we have a wonderful School District here we employ certified teachers we have career in technical education you've heard the students studying things like Aeronautical Engineering we have an amazing School District we're still offering five days of dactic instruction in a world where it's cool for kids to not go to school at all or take some online courses the indoctrination of children by public schools is manufactured nonsense and it is being used to undermine the faith in our public schools and should not be given a platform since they can't really attack the merits of Lexington District 2 they attack book collections and they try to funnel students out of our schools and into Choice options here is what

038truly the community should be clutching their pearls over South Carolina taxpayers are on the hook for a comb 81 years of debt accured by two local charter schools that I will not name according to the Center for immigration studies these two charter schools have received 8.9 million and 3.5 million in foreign investments these investments in schools are coming almost entirely from Chinese billionaires in return for the 10% High interest loans that are slowly paid back through after being filtered through out of state for for profit companies these foreign investors and their families get FastTrack citizenship to this country and outof State Corporations get to built South Carolina taxpayers out of millions of dollars in profit I want the public to know that South Carolina has have 35 Charter Schools closed their door their doors in

039the last five years so it is not your local community schools that are the problem here research has looked at school voucher programs as well and found them to be devastatingly harmful for students academic progress and that the damage to their math scores was the same or greater as the damage caused by the pandemic so when the academic studies don't support school choice they turn to attacking books and we really should not be giving this a platform I would like the board to consider two things if we have board members who are actively engaging with and interacting with this group about board business outside of board time should those board members have to recuse themselves from voting on such matters to avoid the appearance of bias and secondly I think Lexington 2 should consider following

040precedent set by other school districts and only allowing parents and Guardians to serve as complainants but the because the complainants that I heard do not have children in this District the last thing Lexington District 2 needs as outside agitators working to cause disruption other districts don't allow it neither should we thank you so much thank thank you Miss Buchanan um next we have uh Mr Tommy Thomas King I'd like to welcome you to the podium and you're speaking regarding board policy BC welcome Madam chair members of the board Madam superintendent it's been a while a lot of you I see some snickering some of you know a lot of new faces here some behind the arc table and a lot in the audience don't know but this was my position monthly for going on 20

041years so uh a lot of familiar faces a lot of things have happened since then I thank you for giving me the opportunity tonight um when I came to this school district there were several things that really impressed me before I came to work here I came to board meeting somebody didn't know that I uh was really impressed that we began each board meeting with a prayer many times involving the students when not the students a member of the board and I really was impressed by that another thing that impressed me was the way that we recognize our kids I came from another school district it didn't do those things it was our opening and I really was impressed and the thing that really sold me on this school district was a motto that was

042on the wall in the boardroom that said Champions for Children I don't see that I hope that it's not gone away I hope that we still have that in our heart as well as in our mind and on paper I chose to speak tonight on board policy BC coming from a little different angle there are a lot of bullet points in this particular policy there were two or three and kind of struck me the very first one says that the first and greatest concern of the board must be educational welfare what is that any aspect that has to do with a child's education anything anything at all that has to do with their education we have a responsibility to live up to that most of us that are let's just say open four grew up

043doing Reading Writing and arithmetic writing it down off the board we didn't have iPads we didn't have laptops and we did pretty good because our generation made some of the most amazing accomplishments in history maybe we need to look at that again some of those things there was a wise man named Edmund Burke some of you may have heard of him some of you may know his works he had an outstanding quote that said the only thing necessary for the Triumph of evil is for good men to stand by and do nothing what is evil it's a matter of perspective I I'm I'm grateful that tonight we have an opportunity for a viable discourse between different opinions but it's your responsibility as a board to choose what actually goes on in our school district it's

044not an easy task and you're not paid well the other thing we need to remember is that Abraham Lincoln also said in another quote that has been on my mind for years and years the philosophy of the schoolroom for one generation is the philosophy of government for the next what we're doing today is just for today it's going to follow us it's going to be in our children and our grandchildren and I do have two grandchildren in the this District right now when at Springdale one at airport I'm not a parent no but I am a grandparent and I'm not a product of this District I moved here by choice and I'm glad I did I've enjoyed every day that I was here sometimes it wasn't pleasant standing at this Podium because I had to

045bring bad news and people didn't want to hear it but you can never say I didn't tell the truth there's one bullet point the 12 one that's in this particular policy that's being proposed and to me it was very fortuitous that it was duplicated on the second page now I'm sure that was a you know a clerical error however that drove it home to me I'll be quick it said a board members to respond is appropriate to the wishes and desires expressed by the community and to educate the people the public on the district educational program and policies in such a way as to promote Community interest and support the only way you can be successful is for the community to support you and the community needs to know what's going on in our schools

046to do that you can't follow blindly and be successful no one can thank you for letting me speak I appreciate the time and I wish you well in your efforts as we venture forward with these challenging times thank you thank you Mr King and actually uh take a moment to thank you for your many many years of service um there's a lot of buildings standing today because of your work so thank you so much sir yes sir we expect to see you there when we open um next we have uh Jamie sers and um you are speaking or sign up to speak on Esser funds Jamie sers my name is Jamie cyers I went to school here a product of this District I also still live here in this District married to married and have

047two kids aged five and three over the last few years and especially within the last year my confidence and Trust in lexon school district 2 has deteriorated to the point where my wife and I are seriously questioning if our children should attend public school in dist District it is a great disappointment that our children may not be a third generation of both of our families to attend school in Leon District 2 I am here tonight and will be coming back to express my deep concerns involving instructional material that has made its way into our school district I'm the head coach of my boy soccer team and I am Miss en coaching their practice tonight because of the actions and lack thereof of this school board after watching many district meetings and following the many appeals

048involving countless instructional material I have come to the conclusion that a few members of this board do not have the same values Morales and ideals that the majority of not only the taxpayers of this District but of the parents as well during this time you have lost at least 10 Educators to a new Charter School just outside of District Lines along with numerous students to the specific charter school and to other Charter and private schools within this District a majority of these schools are either close to to capacity or have waiting lists this is direct directly correlated to the standards and environment in which you are allowing to slowly dis disintegrate you allowing the retention of sexually explicit material has begun to wake up the silent majority in this District recently Ellen Weaver our state

049superintendent cut ties with the South Carolina Association of school libraries and what she called a continual a continued lack of discernment when it comes to the books that is being promoted to be placed in our school district like super intendent Weaver we as parents in this school district believe that that that the materials that have flowed from scle to our schools are of great concern your instructional material that you have allowed in our schools gives us only a glimpse into the overall environment in which you are allowing in our school district today I specifically want to focus on instructional material involving sexually explicit material and blatant pornography pornographic material which you have allowed to slowly seep into our district some of you seem to want an environment that degrades the value of sex promotes self-serving

050behaviors and instant pleasure pleasure-filled gratification these materials teach absolutely zero self-control little to no boundaries and zero self-respect and for some reason the scast that our school district not only provides but promotes graphic detailed scenes between minors and to be read my to be read by minors so I will be back to talk more about this stuff but this is not okay and I expect y'all to do something about that thank you for thank you for my time thank you Mr sers next we have Miss Dawn Pierce who is here to speak on Esser funds Miss Pierce good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is Don Pierce I stand before tonight as a parent a taxpayer and on behalf of moms for Liberty Lexington chapter I've been following closely all the school

051board meetings and even had my child removed last December I've been involved in challenging four books and use your ke policies that started in March of 20123 I've sat through numerous book challenges at many different levels I feel this process is flawed and biased while sitting at lower level meetings between employees I was told I was only allowed to sit and listen and take notes when I asked asked the names of who was on that committee I was told they did not need to tell me so much for transparency not to mention the egregious things they said about such obscene materials you've attempted to silence parents in many ways when the book process gets to the district level we get 15 minutes to plead our case of why we feel this book should be removed

052this committee makeup is unfair in many ways lack of consistency of how many people are required to serve and vote the inconsistencies of no parent committee members on Zoom even vers uneven numbers of people on the Committees questions about the books that were not on the forums filled out but were proposed to the board for them to answer but worst of all is having the Committees formed of those who purchased the materials in question I think everyone who has spoken has been respectful but I can't say the same about the Committees we even had one who was a school counselor make comments to inflame situations and then insult Us by saying even though he doesn't have children he is our children children's parents he also made a comment saying that we were there was no

053other races represented in the room I was the representation my children are biracial my husband is black and does not agree with the materials either also one of the Lex two employees husband posted to my personal Facebook page and berated me for his wife having to do serve on one of the Committees I was not at the last book review but I did watch it on YouTube one of your members attempted to take time from speak speakers telling them them they could only talk about the book and not make a parallel to real life situations You' have stopped us from reading the materials and showing pictures because you say it goes against board rules being for being obscene but funny enough it's okay for a minor to read and there is suddenly no problem Lex

0542 has blatantly ignored the state of South Carolina laws regarding CRT you've gone against your own board policy relating to the use of laptops IGN and DB regarding child protection and OB seed material stating that the district laptops will not be used for these purposes you have ignored the recent lawsuit that was waged against Lexington District 1 by the South Carolina Freedom caucus in which the caucus won but yet here we are waiting for Lexington 2 to clean this all up and get their act together before the same happens here thank you for your time thank you Miss Pierce next I would like to welcome to the podium Miss Melissa go forth Miss go for if you make your way to the podium um I'm sorry and you're also speaking on a number of things

055um I didn't read it Esser uh and policy Casey and something B we'll get to it in four and a half minutes I hope if not I'll email as elx two parent I have read every book shared in the classroom for my child that includes Stone Fox third grade angels fourth grade rats and our current book called crash reading these books alongside my child is my responsibility and has increased our bond each day we discuss chapters read in class our biggest takeaways from them Stone Fox has been read in South Carolina classrooms for decades I remember reading it as a child when he told me it was a classroom read I checked it out again and look forward to sharing that experience as an adult I've noticed several rather uncomfortable references to Native Americans within

056the text I'm not the only one that noticed the American Indians and children's literature does not recommend the book for inclusion in the curriculum because of violent connotation surrounding the Native American that doesn't speak at all until the very last line of the book I read read Stone Fox in a couple hours then shared it with Jack and told him that while I remembered the end I had totally forgotten the last sentence where Stone Fox draws a Line in the Sand and says anyone crosses this line I shoot I sh shared that it made me tear up a little bit I'm not a crier but even in the last line of the book the first and only statement made by Stone Fox violence is present but instead of filling out a ke form and demanding

057that the book be removed from curriculum I chose to discuss the book that was written with my son I pointed out some of the misconceptions about a Native Americans I pointed out that it was written in 1980 before I was even born it was a different time we decided together that both characters were misunderstood and discussed how kids can be called to action to assist with bigger problems even when they don't understand larger issues in this case it was property tax delinquency and foreclosures KC policy gives complaintants 15 minutes to voice their concerns sometimes spew their hate and even attack District employees and policies parents are given zero opportunities for inputs other than right here right now other than sending an email that isn't ever published for the public to see it was infuriating last

058week when complaintant number two Whitney Hendricks was allowed to appear remotely by speaker phone you are catering to these complainants if I couldn't make it tonight or got a flat tire along the way I would not be offered the same opportunity for remote communication as a parent she went on to complain that one of the Librarians that houses the book was able to serve on the committee stating it's a blatant conflict of interest undermining the impartiality of the committee result as a parent I have my own concerns about blatant conflicts of interest in this policy two quick examples one school Review Committee Member the only parent representative voice on a school review panel for books like unicorn playlist and Born Ready is the vice chair and parent of the sraa please be careful not to

059specifically identify okay as well as a spouse of a current board member both husband and wife are active participants in the pace for Lex to Facebook group liking and loving comment ments from other book appeal complainants like Tuesday Street no book challenges at Conger wood and Casey elementary schools as if they get to De to decide of the 30 books challenge the complaintant number two submitted the challenge for 10 of them her spouse has served on four committee review teams as a sic parent they have moved on to a district that is not Lex 2 and yet his name is still on the SIC page for Springdale Elementary I hope that these books will also bring attention to sic representation throughout the district these are the only parent opinions welcome to the review process unless

060you're a complainant and elect St parent which many of the six complaintants are not by the way last October I received an email I love my school by the way but I received an email Riverbank families each year we elect two parent representatives to serve on our sic these Representatives will serve a two-year term we currently have two parents that have expressed interest in joining this team if you're interested in serving please let us know no later than Friday OT October 14th at 12: p.m. with the vote taking place on October 15th that's less than 72 hours without an actual job description attached to decide about the nomination and for the vote to take place talking with other Lex two parents they were told me that they've never received notifications about the school Improvement Council

061which is supposed to be an elected position also the SIC membership page is out of date for almost every Lex 2 School in the district that site has all members highlighted because they've yet to be updated for the new school term sic membership should be updated as soon as possible with the list of all current members dates for the school year and minutes from previous meetings furthermore the process for sic membership selection should be clearly posted on the school's sic page with appropriate deadlines for applications nominations and the final vote Esser funding we receive federal funds therefore we should make sure that we are complying as suggested by the scasl letter with both both Title Nine and title six Provisions that are guaranteed to students in school districts that receive federal funding much much more

062to say as I'm sure you guessed I'll be sure to email it but I do hope that emails are included on the Pol public policy when email to public lex2.org as it stated in previous Communications from the district thank you thank you Miss go for and our last speaker of the evening um please come to the stand the podium Miss Jennifer Markham Miss Markham and you're speaking on instruction as well hi good evening Madame chairwoman Dr Hafner and Board of Trustees thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight can y'all hear me okay I usually don't need a mic but just in case um in Matthew 5: 16 Jesus says let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in

063heaven my name is JJ Markham Jennifer Markham most of you know me but for those who who do not I was raised in West Columbia and continue to call this community my home I am a proud product of Lexington two schools and a former educator and parent in this district and when I say former parent I mean like last May was when my child was in school she just graduated um two schools of Lexington two schools and a former educator and parent in this district and I love Jesus I have taught some of your very own children in this room about him I have had discussions with many people in this room about him I love Jesus one of the greatest passions of my life is that people would know and love Jesus too as

064our personal children's first teachers my husband Brian and I we were respons we knew we were responsible for what they read and learned when it came time to send them off to school we trusted the educators many of whom we knew from our neighborhood and Community to keep us updated on manners academics and their social activity while at school we wholeheartedly believed it was our responsibility to be aware of what our kids were hearing reading watching and taking into their brains it was our job to teach them right and wrong according to the truth of the Bible if things were taught at school that we disagreed with we had discussions about it at home always pointing them to compare what they had learned to the truth of the Bible we discussed how to navigate things

065we viewed as untrue or inappropriate these were fabulous teaching moments on how to defend our faith and the truth of Jesus because of my love for Jesus I believe his word should be present in all of our libraries and even the classrooms of our schools but not everyone who sends their child to Public Schools believes the same things that I do and while my desire is for all to know the truth of Jesus it is not my job nor my right to say what other people's children can or cannot reach just like it's not someone else's right to say what my children could or could not read we live in America where we are given the right to read and write what we choose when we choose to remove books with ideas that are different

066from our own from schools we are allowing even our Bible to be removed if books that have content some would deem not suitable for children are present in our libraries parental permission can be sought before the child is able to check that material out but children whose families have given them permission should be allowed access to these books otherwise we are no different than any other group that tries to keep opposing views hidden parents advocating for children's education and I would argue what parents and which children um a local and strong oppon opponent of certain books being in our libraries believes that families should introduce and teach social topics to their children I could not agree more however having these books in the library is not introducing or teaching anything it is the opportunity to

067read stories and other people's ideas and perspectives the argument that only the public school should um the public library should house or individuals should simply purchase these contested books in my opinion is inappropriate for several reasons less fortunate families may not have access to transportation to get them to and from the public library to check out these books two parents and caregivers may not know how and are afraid to ask or or are unable to sign up for a library card for themselves or their children for various reasons three parents caregivers and even some of the children themselves may be working multiple jobs and do not have extra time to get to the library during operating hours four families may not have additional money to purchase their own copies I think we can all agree

068reading is important I mean I think all of us would agree that studies by Cambridge and Stanford universities and Carnegie Mel and scientists have shown reading for enjoyment relieves and reduces stress Alters brain structure like actual brain structure and cognitive development for the better makes people more empathetic inspires creativity develops vocabulary helps students score higher on cognitive tests and has even been shown to lower blood pressure and fight mental health and depression symptoms I spent my spring and summer this year reading books I'm pretty sure I never would have read otherwise listening to 120 Minutes so far of complainants opinions about the subject matter and spending countless hours thinking about and writing responses to questions pertaining to them books that are not even being taught but are simply in our Lexington 2 libraries where a

069child may or may not decide to check them out I'll close with two things and I'm leaving out a paragraph that I'm not happy about but that's okay thank you one is a fact check I have now heard two complain and state that South Carolina is 48th in education in the United States as one proof of why these books need to be removed from from our libraries while I am very aware that statistics can be skewed many ways I would respectfully disagree and have the 2022 kids count data profile for the state of South Carolina right here with me which clearly shows we are ranked 43rd in education and 39th overall and according to wallet hub from July of 2023 this year South Carolina ranks 42nd in education in the United States while this may

070seem like we have a long way to go to catch up if you take the time to research the numbers and what criteria is actually used you will see a much different picture South Carolina I'm asking you to wrap it up I'm sorry I've given you a little bit of latitude I'll send the rest of it and an email yes ma'am thank you so much thank thank you Miss Markham okay um next we're moving on we have our administrative divisional reports uh superintendent Dr Hafner I believe we're you're going to tell us about the exciting things we have going on with the Performing Arts Center yes ma'am thank you madam chair I will ask Mr Jim LeBlanc to come forward and share some of the research that he's been working on for us as we

071look forward to the opening of our Performing Art Center coming very soon yes thank you madam chair Dr Hafner members of the board and our guests here this evening it has been a busy and productive month in the Fine Arts and lexon 2 um just want again congratulate our our students and Educators that were recognized earlier and thank you all for the opportunity as you can see there's some really good things happening in lexingon too and it's awesome to get our students out into the community to be able to Showcase their talents well uh today I bring before you uh the draft rental guide for the new Performing Arts Center this draft was created after an extensive U bit of research of both School District school districts and Commercial Performing Arts centers across our state

072across Georgia and North Carolina fees for these facilities have a wide range from school districts to commercial commercial um buildings for example in school districts for a 4-Hour minimum it could go anywhere from $500 um for four hours up to in primarily commercial venues up to 3,000 or even more depending on the time of of the week that those events are are held on as you are um well aware we have a unique and awesome situation and that our venue is somewhere in between most school districts being larger than most school districts um and um also has state-of-the-art equipment like many of our uh commercial neighbors around the southeast um so at this time I'll be happy I hope you had an opportunity to review the draft and I'll be happy to entertain any questions

073that you might have at this time okay board members and I know this is the first time we've gotten to see um this and we appreciate obviously your hard work on it and everything that you've been doing to this point to help get us ready to roll and for pulling double duty for a while so thank you so much um Mr Bray Madam chair thank you the only two question first it's fantastic great work the only thing I couldn't understand is does does Class A automatically get to Trump Class B when it comes into scheduling so our students in District have number one priority no matter what and is it same for B to C to D to E when it comes to scheduling the way that we'll um schedule the calendar is schools and

074district will have the first opportunity um and then after everything solidified for lexingon two then we move on to other perfect it's Fant fantastic I think you all did great work board members any other questions uh comments concerns about this item okay thank you so very much and appreciate your hard work um Dr Hafner moving right along policy KF yes okay thank you Mr Lan for that um opportunity that you put together for us it was a great work and we appreciate everybody's uh focus on that but as Mr LeBlanc worked on suggestions for the rental agreement um we began to it shed light on some of the issues that we will need to consider as we update our existing policy KF I've listed some of those for you that we were able to identify

075there may be more as we begin to walk through it this is not an obsolete list by any means but that's up on the screen there um policy KF is not before you this evening but the policy the K policies will be before you next month so I wanted you to have an opportunity to note the items that we're already aware of start to look for other things that you can see and um we'll have KF before us with the K policies next month so just wanted to share that as a point of information and I I believe Mr Bray has a question M um thanks Madam chair Dr Hafner have you thought at all about breaking out KF to like a KFA and then kfb so that the Performing Arts can be kept completely

076separate especially when it comes to like alcohol or any of those things is that something we have thought about yet yeah we can certainly consider all that and put it on the table um it's there's been so many changes in our facilities and we've grown and added you know improved Arenas and things of that nature and Performing Arts we'll probably need to do something along those lines while you're including Arenas you might want to include the stadiums as well yes ma'am okay for members any other um questions about this I believe Dr hner is just highlighting for us some areas that we need to have on our Horizon and be aware of um board members we I'll also be sending you uh an very aggressive plan to finalize all of our policy review that we

077would hope to have completed um by the 1 of February believe it or not so I know you know how many policies we have left so um I I'll probably run from all of you later because you'll be chasing me but we're going to be looking for some dates and asking for your calendar dates later to add additional meetings to try to get all of our policies updated next we're going to move right along along for um U Miss Strickland our monthly Financial reports under Finance good evening Madam chair board members guests colleagues um tonight I would like to join in the recognition of an employee um we have a new member in the business office Miss Rose Anderson she is our Director of Finance Rose if you would stand she she is a graduate

078of the University city of South Carolina go Gamecocks y um she comes to us from Barnwell County where she was the Director of Finance for seven years and before that she was with Richmond County Board of Education where she was a senior accountant she has been a huge asset to our team um today marks one month she has been with us and we look forward to many successful years together and moving the district forward so thank you Rose thank you for what you've done so far thank you okay yes on to our financials for the month the first financial report is for the month of July and we of our general fund local budget of $4 41.4 million we have received $9 which is 1.8% of our general fund budget for local sources State sources

079the budget is $ 65.8 million we have received $3.4 million which is 5.12% our total budget for general fund revenues 107,2 163 107 m263 719 we have received as of July 31st 4,118 781 which is 3.84% of our Budget moving to our expenditures for the month of July our total expenditure budget for the general fund is 107 million 26371 actual to date spent 2,110 767 that's 1.97% of of our budget I'm going to move on to our August statements again our local general fund budgets $ 41.4 million as of August 31st we have received 1, 185 that's 4% of our budget State sources the budget 65 million 846 441 as of August 31st we have received 6, 941,618 4% of our budget total general fund budget 107 m263 7119 as of August 31st we have

080received 8,611 19106 that's 88.4% of our Budget moving on to the August expenditures our total general fund expenditure budgets 107 m263 719 as of August 31st we have spent 9,467 878 that's 8.83 per of our budget next I have for you the pupil activity fund balances you will see I have what we have um in fund balance as of July 31st and well that and August 31st um and you see the change between the two months after that I have the referendum project commitments you see the Performing Arts DEC the greatest maximum price is 52 million4 59 273 and what's remaining on that project is 15, 458 389 okay the last report I have are the Esser expenditures and I have both July and August the sr2 um Grant ends September 30th of 2023 the

081award amount was 10 milon 2151 192 and we have spent 99% of that that was as of July 31st the ARP sr3 the award amount was 22 m983 343 and we have spent 47% of that in the middle of the page August 31st the same award amounts and um remaining in eser 2 as of August 31st is 90 excuse me the amount spent is 99% we have spent of Sr 2 and sr3 we have spent 47% are there any questions board members any questions on the financial reports Mr BR Madam chair thank you uh first one Dr Hafner can we add on the pupil activity um we used to have on the far right side what if there's a large expenditure or a large Revenue kind of what that was just so that we see

082if there's a 40K hit kind of so that we're aware of it if we could add that back and then um that Esser the 109k left on sr2 that has to be encumbered and spent by the end of this month yes sir and we're fully prepped to do so good yes sir we're down to 65 at the end of rock and roll and lastly even though it's not right on this one but cpif I'll wait till we get to that one thank you okay any other questions board members uh thank you so much Mr Strickland what what Mr Bray is referring to in case you don't prob know because you weren't here it's just like if like there was a big expenditure because we had to make an annual payment like annual payments or whatever

083yeah like if it had to do something like it was a big item okay um all right moving right along then to Human Resources uh oh sorry I didn't realize we were moving out of uh Finance completely are we going to start putting cpif back on monthly meetings so we used to keep those we don't do a monthly cpif we we approve the CPI budg as I was the Esser so ARP so Sesser 3 um we typically had line items for what future expenditures were going to be and we do not have those we we did have that plan last month we do have that page and we can continue to clean that up and scale it down as we go yes we just didn't include it this time any other questions yeah the what

084we accept the financial report and they stand approved um all right next we'll move to the Staffing update yes Madam chair members of the board Dr Hafner uh for your information and in your packet we have our current vacancies listed we have hired 241 staff this year that number does not represent staff that have been hired and then they declined at the contract and we had to hire again uh for your information we have 21 vacancies of those 15 as you can see are Regular Ad and six are special ad are there any questions I apologize for members any questions about our vacancy updates I love this look thank you I love the look too and we're going to keep our upcoming events over here to to remind everyone our public uh and our board

085um as we go those are just the event the events we will be putting on not all you know not our recruiting campaign in itself but that's in addition thank you so much great and thank you so much for your hard work and keeping us staffed and next we move on to instruction Dr Brooks Madam chair members of the board Dr Hafner the first thing I'm going to talk about tonight is our Elementary School and Middle School uh results a state assessment results the reason I'm not talking about high school is many of them were not the EMB go wasn't lifted until Monday which would have meant I would have had to upload some of that information before that embargo so therefore I'll talk about high school next month for you so the charts all

086look the same and I want to uh just lay out for everybody what we're talking about here Elementary School is grade three four and five you'll see that green is uh where we made improvements and if it's gold that means that it's at or above the state level you can see also that I've included all the way back to 2019 because we all like to talk about prec coid and so it gives you an idea of where we were back in 2019 and then obviously uh 2021 was the first year that we tested after all of the different testing cycles that we went through or schooling Cycles from virtual to hybrid to all of that and then you can see last year in this year as well so you can see also the schools you

087have the state I mean a Lon 2 average and let me point out here when school report cards are released and you see Lexington 2 it will look a little bit different here because what I chose to do with elementary and middle school is to provide you the average for elementary schools and then middle schools will have the average for middle school when you look at the state report card the Le to average will be three through grade eight so hopefully that makes sense to you and the state average that is presented here is three through eight it is not broken out elementary and middle school hopefully all that makes sense so um this is Elementary School Ela 3 four and five so you can see um in most of our schools we made improvements

088in the far right you can see what the difference is in that and you also see that for lexon to to Elementary as well as the state averages might be easier if I'd take any questions per slide versus going back but all of them will be laid out board members any questions on this slide um and congratulations Star Elementary School uh Ela it looks like we've made some really significant gains and some schools have a lot to um celebrate it looks like with some very significant games thank you Dr yes so this one is Middle School Ela and it is laid out the same just middle school again green is Improvement none at the state or above in ela Middle School we move into math this is a three four and five also so you

089can see that we have several schools um that are at or above State average you can see that we um Riverbank for example did have a drop but they remain above the state average so that is gold as well but you can see those look pretty good our middle school math does not um look as good as Elementary and we continue to work here and and I'll also point out that last year was the first year we started seeing teachers leaving during the middle of the year and we'll talk more about this when we talk about um school report cards and I can break out grade levels but that really did impact us with some of our state assessments and also just as a reminder last year we had cognia the first part of the

090year if you remember as well as um teachers and our Atta process and having lots of conversations about that and allowing teachers to have flexibility um so all of those things um were at play so I'm I'm pretty ecstatic about the work that our teachers did last year and so this is science this is SC pass this is fourth grade remember when it comes to science it's tested in fourth grade and sixth grade so you can see there that we um have some schools that are at or above the state average as well sixth grade and then we move into our MLL um population our English language Learners and this is progress toward proficiency remember that students have 5 years to reach English Prof proficiency and so this is toward those targets and so you

091can see how um elementary schools performed here and I believe the L to average here is um I think I did it the same way where it's just Elementary School here's Middle [Music] School and then we move into growth if you remember our um growth scores are weighted where all of our students get a score and then our lowest 20% um lowest performing 20% students are recalculated and we get additional points for that so all is all of the kids and the additional of the 20% how they performed and then the total so again here you see green again is Improvement and gold is at State average or above just so you're not confused you see um last year on the left and the right side is 2023 it's laid out just a little bit

092differently here is uh Middle [Music] School and then we have the new growth model that's going to be uh changed this year this is the last year when school par card is released that you'll see the model that we just talked about this year's uh moving into um next year school report card we're moving into an added value growth model and so essentially what happens here is that u based off previous test scores of a student they set a score um a Target score for that student and we receive uh points based off of that if you want more information I did include the link so that you can go to um the education oversight committee who is the one that formulates that and then it gets approved I wanted to try and help everybody

093understand how this works this year so I put this chart in there this comes from that uh material that I linked for you so let's say that a third grade student scores 100 so that's the first one on there the mat is the median annual Target that's a 50% growth and so you can see that a student who scored 100 in third grade and fourth grade to reach the median would need a 226 and then for the added value Target would be 307 and so that added value target has to do with the goal of helping students by the time they get an eighth grade be on grade level so a student who doesn't perform as well is has to obviously have greater growth and so um you will see in the next slide that

094they start with a 80% at the top then there's a 75th percentile a 70 a 65 a 60 and a 55th so that means that a student who uh performs pretty well falls into the 55th percentage which means their target is about 55% in order to reach that goal so this chart is an example of this year's growth that we had and they provided it to us so that we would have some idea of what it would potentially look like next year they have not finalized points and and all of that but I wanted to show you this and trying to explain how this works this is our Ela uhart part at the bottom is the mat or the median average Target so you can see that all of our kids 100% of them on

095the left hand side that's all of them on the right hand side it shows you out of those students the percentage of that group that met their target so out of 100% of our students all of our students that were tested in other words you can see that we had about 55 56% of them met the median Target and then based off of their performance and their upcoming Target for this coming year or what their target would have been for this year you can see that if we look at the top at the 80th perc that's the kids to had to grow 80th about 80 being in the 80th percentile of growth in order to meet eighth grade proficiency you can see that we are at about 25% of our students fall in that population

096and you can see out of that 25% of our students roughly 26 27% of them met their growth Target so we'll get a point for median the median and then we'll get additional points for them meeting their added value Target so this was the ELA one this one is the math one it is laid out exactly the same and that is it as far as the assessment scores go so I'll be glad to try and answer any questions that you might have Mr Bray Madam chair thank you uh when we talk about the scoring from this new EOC model is that eventually going to be used as part of school report cards or yes next year school report card gotcha yes and so they're putting more emphasis on growth specific Target growth instead of just

097overall mean scores right the the the issue with the current model is students are compared to other students like them and so there's always a moving Target and you don't know where that Target's going to be with this one because of the chart that had the score we know that if a kid hit had a 100 on their third grade for example we know that they needed 226 so we know what those Target are that doesn't really help teachers or us I mean we know what their targets are but that doesn't really mean anything but what it does do is it sets that Target so it's no longer moving and growth it doesn't matter if a kid is a low performing or high performing they all matter which they should that's another benefit board members

098any other questions okay next so my next item is indiv unit assessments and before I move into that I wanted just to share that as the instruction team we modeled um and tried to do exactly what we asked schools to do and that is we came up with our own mission and vision statement I wanted to share that with you because I think it's important that you know what our goal is and our mission is to Prov provide Educators with tools to Foster student learning with our ultimate vision wide ranging is to guarantee high levels of learning for all of our stakeholders so that's what we aim to do when we meet and talk about all the things that we want to do I wanted just to remind everybody that the purpose of the end

099of unit assessments which um a lot of times you'll hear people talk about common Summit of Assessments or csas as they're um becoming known as there's several reasons for those and I listed them here just so that you have them and that is is that it's about checking consistency across the district it helps us to be able to identify where we have issues whether with our outliers whether it's lower sco scores or higher scores it's really about consistency I know teachers when we talk to them get concerned about it being part of their valuation or about us having conversations about their scores not being good that really is not the conversation that we have we're really looking for consistency because that helps us know where we need to provide additional professional development clarifications all of

100those things it really is not meant to be evaluative at all is it is truly about student learning for us and then lastly it helps us um or next to last it helps us identify those strategies that are working for kids and it also helps us identify those that are not so that we don't continue to repeat things that aren't working that aren't helping our kids learn in other words and then also it is a way to allow u schools to be able to put together intervention and enrichment groups so that we can Target specific skill gaps that we have to to better close those so as we looked at those and and honestly as we started having some evaluation principal evaluation conferences um Dr Carrero shared one of the things that her teachers were

101doing and I was super impressed with that and so I wanted to share that and have teachers from Fulmer Middle School come up and share that as well so if they'll start making their way to the podium um one of the things that they started working on last spring and this isn't just this group of teachers but all of the teachers um are what they refer to as student guides and so I've asked them to talk to you tonight about those student guides and to make the connection from our skeleton plans that we talk about to our Summit of Assessments and how they use these items in order to help their students be more successful and so in your packet uh you have the ELA one the other cool thing about it is whether it

102was social studies or math or science they all look different they all have the same um pieces on them from the the target to the vocabulary to the student reflection which is the absolutely best piece of it um but they all had um the autonomy to make it theirs and so with that we have um three of our sixth grade English teachers from Fulmer Hannah McGraw Madison Southerland and Mar Sarat so I'm going to turn it over to y'all hi I'm Madison southernland um the first thing that we are showing you is our stud thank you so much for this is some examples from our sixth grade students for different skill checks that they have had so the initial goal for students is to be able to track their own progress so they have their

103initial scores that they originally get when they take their skills checks and then following after they're able to report their Corrections so they can choose an emoji to describe how they are feeling and then they have an explanation that they write about how if they felt confident during the exam or during the skill check and then um how they can improve on it as well so the goal for it is to create an intrinsic motivation by allowing students to access and improve their executive functioning skills so we're wanting them to work on organizing processing their learning and motivating them to figure out how they can improve their scores we also have been scating it by giving the students Senate starter this will help them in scaffolding how to create complete sentences for further assessments and

104the connections between the student unit guides are with the skeleton plans it's a kid-friendly version of the skeleton plans that we use for students to make an interactive way to understand their process of learning and it has an avid correlation with organization skills and executive functioning hi I'm Miss mgra I am I'm a smidge taller than Miss Southerland will you go back one slide Miss Southerland please thank you all right so our goal with these is how can we improve our students how can we get them focused and ready for their IND of unit assessment which they will take in a couple of weeks so we've been working with their student unit guide since the very beginning I think their first time they did a reflection was the second week of school they reflect on

105any assignment so any formative assessment whether that's writing or as Miss Southerland mentioned skill checks our goal is to get them one writing complete sentences um in sixth grade subjects verbs capitalization is still something they struggle with so that's something we work on daily in warm-ups and that's something they're working on with their Reflections we're trying to get them to think critically about their own learning and where are they now where do they need to get as they're reflecting on their learning the if when you look at that student unit guide you you will see the terminology so the key words with each standard the words that they need to know and be able to apply so who's a protagonist who's a flat character what is an exposition what's a climax of a story all

106of those things so that way they are comfortable with those words we keep using and it's all in one place all the key wordss they need for a unit are housed in that place that they can go back and review at any time they can see the learning Target so yes it's on our board they can see it every day when they walk in what am I supposed to learn today but they also have a map of this is what I was supposed to learn this unit I'll wait for that to maybe come back thank you um our hopeful go goal is that it will continue to help us boost our unit scores as the students are we're not just reflecting on their data and where do we need to help them where do we

107need to revisit but they're individually thinking where do I need to revisit which of these skills is the area that I need more work on our next goal uh Mr Sarat will touch on this too but we keep thinking of how can we improve this because this is the first unit we've done it this is the first year we've done these students unit plans and giving our students something they can have one of our next thoughts and helping prepare them for the unit assessment is using this document as our document that we link resources for them into so here are here's a Quizlet here's a quiz is here's a review game here's another resource and if it's all linked in that one place and they're not going all over Google classroom for the last two

108months worth of skills it's all linked right there when they go to study yes we'll give them other resources but they've had that since day one of school so that they can study all right thank you for having us tonight um so one thing when uh we think of this it comes to mind like power school and to me this is like a personalized Power School uh kids really do pay a lot of attention students pay attention to their grades and they do check power school very often but this is there's more to this there's more meat to this um instead of just seeing the number numbers they can really personalize it apply it and it gives them more ownership over their learning and really the um I think one of the best parts about

109this is there's an idea of where they can go from here they can track how they're doing look at their weak points and they have their own reflection within this uh form to so they can see hey I may need to go back and practice this more I may need to ask the teach for help rather than just a bad grade in power school if it was a a grade that a test that they just happened to bomb or something like that they can personalize it and say why did I struggle with this write themselves a note just like we reflect in our own life it's teaching our uh students the skills that they can reflect at an early age and build some of those great habits uh for later on in their education uh

110one thing that's really cool about our um reflection forms is all of our grade levels are doing this and we're all working together we're all sharing we're making it a collaborative effort so that we are able to improve upon this and uh like Miss Southerland and Miss McGrath said it is a work in progress but so far we've seen a positive response from our students they're engaged with it they enjoy the reflecting they enjoy looking back at it and I think that's affirming to us that we're going in the right direction for them taking accountability of their learning and building their own self-efficacy um I think that that's all about all I have I would wrap it up uh thank you again for having us thank you Dr Brooks Dr burgera uh for inviting us

111to speak tonight absolutely and before we open up for questions I also want to make a connection to um the end of unit outcomes or overviews that we ask teachers to complete complete and submit it's much like what he's talking about with the reflection piece so many people think that we're looking at the numbers that's really not what it's about it's about the conversations and do they know where their kids are struggling and what the game plan is going to be to move forward and so that's the important piece of that I would also like to to point out that Madison is a first year teacher and I would imagine that as a first year teacher coming into a a team that has this going on is provides her a new level of support which

112hopefully helps her take on the challenge of Education every day with her students because as we all know it's not an easy job to do but we um congratulate all of you and the rest of our teachers who are working on this and I hope that this will spark other ideas across the district because it is about student efficacy that we all talk about and that just simply means our kids taking ownership of their learning um which is a major skill that we want them to learn so with that I'll open open it up to any questions that you might have for members any questions yes Miss castles um first of all I would like to be in y'all's class y'all have a lot of energy and I love to hear y'all get up there

113and explain this stuff to us but don't say power school to me as a parent my blood pressure just goes right up through the roof y'all probably know what I'm talking about all right I'm gonna ask this I don't think this is on but anyway what does what does it look like let's say we looked at all these scores and all of our um schools are different some have more multil language Learners let's say I'm teaching math and everybody's consistent what happens if I'm like okay my a large portion of my class does not get it how do they like how do they handle because some things you just can't move on or it's going to show up because you're building on it so what how do you handle that if there's like a big

114like a group of kids kids that is very weak in an area I don't know does that make sense well it it all depends because as you just mentioned there's lots of variables that come into play and so that's the cool thing about the team and they've talked about this and and they might want to speak to this too because they live it every single day but ultimately what happens is when the assessment is given any assessment whether it's um formative which means it's during and we're we're really using or if it's end of the uh end of the unit when you look at those scores as teachers just like us with everything that we do there's some things that we excel at and some things that we don't do as well in and so

115sometimes teaching those topics is part of that sometimes it's that some students in our classroom didn't get a skill that they need and so all those different variables come into play so you have to really have conversations about it and when it's a a teacher issue meaning that some somebody taught it a different way than I taught it then we have those conversations and what we encourage our teachers to do is if somebody else's classroom kids really excelled in that classroom then let's send them there for intervention so that that teacher can then work with those students to see if they can have the same results with them so it's about working smarter and using each other as resources to help students learn so hopefully that that helps but it really is about teamwork y'all

116want to add anything y'all do this every single day I could add two parts to that specifically for sixth grade ELA because I can't speak to anybody else's experience um a lot of times when our kids struggle we have a morning tutoring intervention three days a week for 30 minutes and I will say we handpick what students we need and we try and keep those groups smaller than our class size um and we have various supports in the school how we can make that work so every child is supervised and with a teacher and that really helped because then I can pull the group that truly needs me to teach it a different way they need more practice they need more exposure before they move on if we don't have the flexibility to take an

117entire class period with all my students or not everybody needs it uh and the other beautiful thing of the way that Lexington 2 developed a lot of our Ela curriculum at least is that the skills spiral so it is not just that you see this standard in this one unit but a lot of the standards repeat so we know that they need a lot of time writing citing evidence and explaining evidence and writing summaries they're not going to get it the first time perfectly it comes back unit after unit and we approach it differently with different texts and so by the end of the year our students Master it even if not everybody got it the first time around excellent thank y'all so much appreciate you also staying late with us tonight so I know

118you're ready to get home thank you so much for your hard work on behalf of our students Dr Brooks is that the all right we're going to keep moving along um and for those of you who might be squirming a little bit in your seat I am planning to take a break before we hit the policy so I'll give you a five minute Matthew Comfort break before we get there but we're going to do operations first so um Dr he is that going to be Mr Warren yes ma'am it is Mr Warren if you would please Madam chair members of the board Dr hner excited to be here this evening want to provide you an update on construction with the Performing Arts Center and District education center I have some recent photos like to talk

119through those um as well as provide some information about key milestones and other items uh starting off here you see the front entrance of the pack is um coming together nicely really turning the corner uh nearing the Finish Line uh the Key activities going on this week on the construction site in include um grading work in the parking lot preparation for curb and gutter um and pavement also the SCD deceleration Lane is nearing completion um want to speak to our construction team there getting that offsite work done is is critical a lot of times that work can hold up a project at the at the conclusion so for them to be on site uh now taking care of that off-site work getting that deceleration done is is a a very good site to see um

120the left photo here on the screen you see going awful quick there Mr Atkins go back one for me thank you appreciate it um you see the inside part of the uh secure entrance earlier this is an exterior view those gentlemen there on the left I gave them a chance to get out of the photo but they wanted to be in the presentation I asked them and they said no we want to be a part so so they're there tonight for you to see um the the right photo references my comment earlier about the the final grading you see that site there looks like it's prepared for for asphalt very soon and it is so we'll see that asphalt start to go down that'll be a big milestone for our team on site I want

121to speak to the site how clean organized you know I've been on the job since July haven't heard one comment from from anyone really about you know a um disorganized or unsafe job site they really keep it clean and neat which is critical for safety uh for their workers and our staff that go and visit the site um on the next slide we see uh some interior work uh going on uh at on the the dec side uh really getting close to flooring here carpet's going down in two weeks um in the district education center we'll be excited to get back on site and see that um that go in the the um four four base and the carpet on the left you see the casework going in in the mail room um and some

122other workspace areas areas are um you know near in completion shifting now to the Performing Arts Center lots of work currently taking place there you see on the right continue uh work continues prepping for the tiered Auditorium seating uh was on site yesterday and there's Concrete in a lot of those spaces where you see the dirt these photos are about a week old uh so a lot has happened even the last week uh getting prepared for the seats to go into the auditorium which will be another another wonderful site to see um on the left the lobby area of the pack you see that currently finalizing overhead work right now we have sheetrock going up was there yesterday once again and so you don't see those those beams now you see the and the steel

123you see sheetrock going up on those walls and being finished you know ready for the next phase of the project on the left side here this photo you see one of the uh interior group restrooms floor tiles in um partitions are in all you need in that space is a couple mirrors and that that restroom will be will be complete so once again exciting to see um to the right you see some Milestone work going on those Auditorium uh sound clouds are going in now are beautiful design really adds a lot of Aesthetics to the space and they provide a a purpose as well um you know for the sound mitigation um very skilled labor securing setting those clouds so nice to see that work uh going on in the past back next you see

124one of the hallways of the DC uh final paint will be happening here soon you know once again flooring in two weeks you'll see carpet down the next time I show photos you'll see carpet which will be wonderful and you'll see some final paint there on the right one of the mechanical rooms you know that's the heartbeat of the of the structure so glad to see folks in there I really put in some finishing touches in that space this is another angle of the um Auditorium clouds you see on the left just once again lots of cranes lots of lots of Staff in there um getting that work done um on the right you see actually what that is that's a counterweight uh system to get uh the rigging that allows us to get the

125material up to the grid iron you know grid iron is not just a football term they also use that term for Performing Art Center it's up there at the top where you hang all of your uh cables your scenery your lights are hung from that so that's a system that allows them to do that safely and efficiently um did want to provide you know while I had you here tonight um some information on the issue uh we are working through currently with our construction and our design team um the storage room uh if you're looking if I have a pointer on here do I right yeah we do we do right behind this space right here this is the back of the of the theater is you know storage areas office areas and by the

126design team early in construction or early in in design that was consider considered to be um a part of um the stage well in a in a recent OSF um um tabletop review OSF came back and said no that's actually needs to be separated by two our um barrier wall so working with our design team working with our construction team um just trying to find ways to to mitigate that and be efficient with that work it may add a little bit of time to construction but it won't do it is you keep us from you know moving in you getting Furniture installed in January um getting you know being fully complete with you know construction and March and then allowing our um you know time for our ribbon cutting and dedication whatever whatever you want

127to do with that um in during the April April time frame um so it's just something that you know our design team is is aware of we're working through we met yesterday about it talked through it they're finding ways to be efficient and creative to get that done no demolition is involved in this work um it's just you know added work that that we're going to have them you know get done to allow us to stay on schedule as best we can so miss Kesler yeah when the completion date get moved to to April no it's not April I said April would be when we do the ribbon cutting or the dedication we're still looking at a March March completion what happened to Fe January J January is when you know we're getting all the

128furniture moved in fiture was completion dat we were told that at some point we we've never been told anything else but that well and and that's you know we're very diligently working with our team there to to I mean everybody wants to be finished we want to see that that project completed and and and be moved in you know Furniture we've we've turned loose to have in the site both on the pack and the D DC side in January um and then February March you know have the the final inspection done so just putting it out there is something we're working through with this construction team and um just didn't want that to be a surprise later on in the project but they understand how they understand how critical it is for us to get

129this project finished and we want to see that happen as well so we are you've already put surprising we don't need anymore where's Jack tonight how about how about how about we can maybe get an update on some of the delays and stuff that might have created a delay to two months wise because this is at least I think it's the first time we're all kind of hearing that we're not January no it is it's still that's what he's saying that the plan is that it's still January that we hopefully get the completion from OSF but what he just told you about the wall was the new information that they're make having us put in that extra barrier up top after OSF came in it may not be a delay at all but if the

130can't get the Tradesman then they're lined up appropriately it may add a couple weeks to that so that's why he's sharing that to it's just you mean it's it's very complicated trade work to get that in and it's something that can be that really can't be done until all the old work is completed so you know just putting it out there now for everybody's you know just um consideration understanding you know we I hope to come back with better news later on as we you know still are trying to find ways to be as done as soon as feasible to make sure we have that OSF um occupany certificate to be able to get moved in and have the furniture in in January you know get the get all the the work completed February March

131um for a final inspection um during that time frame Mr Bray Madam chair thank you two questions the the wall that we're speaking of is it the block wall from the back of the stage area to the back hallway it's there there's a I mean the Wall go back here I can't is it directly to the back is or it over on the left where the uh the ring is say go go forward one more for me it wants to get there you forward one more slide for there other way so this is the this is the back of the stage here this wall so right now this wall does not go all the way to the deck um and that's something that was brought to our attention through an OSF overhead um uh you

132know visit that they consider that to be um a totally separate space so because of that this wall the top has to go all the way up it's a it's a fire barrier and so that wasn't brought to when you're saying wall the block wall goes all the way to the top there you're saying the sheetrock on top of it well it's just there's there's a um the word is Apper tenant which is the word that Osa uses but the block wall goes up but there has to be you know an additional it has to be totally separate by fire barriers so the wall is there it has to be fire rated and it has to be a fire barrier there to separate those spaces um doesn't involve any demolition doesn't involve anything coming down

133that's already up there it's just installing that fire barrier that totally separates the the the stage from the um storage rooms and the office space behind that wall not to get too technical but the um the little pit where the acoustic Shield tucks into that spot because that would be in that area does that count as part of that or no no that doesn't really count really it's it's just a fire barrier that you know has to separate it so it's a two-hour barrier that totally separates those two spaces um and it's just work that's going to have to have to be done for us to get an occupancy to to occupy and can we put the last question is can we move furniture Furniture prior to the certificate of occupancy furniture will start showing

134up in January perfect thank you any other questions board members all right thank you Mr Warren tell us about Bud group survey so uh Madam chair members of the board Dr haon once again you know was asked at the last meeting in August to bring forward some information you know about the bud group and um and provide some feedback on school and District experiences since the start of summer uh so what we did was we provided principles and directors uh seven statements for consideration and asked them to collaborate with their teams and provide us really one one response per site uh to these uh seven statements uh we asked them to rate one through five uh with one representing strongly disagree and five representing strongly agree so like to walk you through those responses we

135received now you know with with that input the first statement was summer custodial Services were completed and the work was high quality on this question we had an 80% rate the white represents a three um and the light green is a four and the dark green is a five so um the dark green being strongly agree the light green being agree and then the white you know it's neither agree or disagree it's a three rating so it's a rating where um is there room for improvement in that in that area yes but it's not to the level they feel like you know the work isn't occurring it's just something that we're continuing to to navigate and make sure we're seeing improvements in that area so overall only 20% um of the responses disagree with that

136with that statement question two uh stated um there it is classroom and office TR trash are being emptied at an acceptable rate um strong responses to this question with over 90% rating this at a three or higher three the restrooms are cleaned on a consistent basis um once again you know 80% you know scored this a three or higher which we felt like a pretty strong response from our from our schools and and but buildings number four we asked uh if schools at the bug group responds to issues quickly and effective received very good responses to this question uh less than 10% of the responses disagreed uh with this questions really of all the questions we generated I think this one speaks of the commitment you know of the bud group and Lex and two

137for this relationship to work and work well we are seeing improvement with their Staffing structure and responsiveness to putting the right people in place you know to get the work done and get the work done well slide five or next slide please the bud group team is in uniform and conducts themselves appropriately you know once again 90% um you know scored a three or higher on this question statement six was when issues are addressed with the bud group they typically do not arise again uh once again you see you know there was 80% uh a three or higher on this question questions you know things are going to happen you're going to work through issues if you try to navigate and and um you know work through problems the responsiveness that we've seen to these

138issues is good um and you know our goal as we continue to work you know with the bug group in Lex and two is to um you know see more green and you know less less red as we move forward and look forward to asking the same questions of our schools and staff later on in the school year the last statement um provided to administrators was the overall performance of the bug group has improved since the last school year much like the responses we received to their um responses to issues we received very high remarks on this statement over 90% scor this a three or higher which we felt felt really good about the last slide I wanted to show really is just more of a visual for your for your reference um you know

139you see the light greens and the dark greens those are your fours and your fives so uh very much um offset the the Reds but you know the Reds would be our Focus moving forward to move a lot of those to the green side um I did want to take some time and and close you know with this we did reach out to our schools and and got some feedback from them wanted to share some comments about the bud group and experiences since the summer uh Mr Dicky congree principal this is the cleanest the school has ever been uh Mr Dicky said that for us miss Henderson director of adult ed Bud group is the best we've ever had I've seen a huge Improvement and overall cleanliness of the facility Mr Sims at Riverbank out

140of the all the custodian contract groups we have had the Bud group is the best and Mr bowan former superintendent principal I've been walking all the schools and the bud group I did a good job the schools look great so you know happy to get those responses you know always looking for ways to improve but overall want to provide this um for your information happy to answer any questions board members any questions comments concerns yes Miss Rucker it looks like there was a lot of improvement since last year and I know that's what we were I think all wanting to see so thank you thank you board members any other comments questions concerns all right is that everything for your report Mr Warren all right board members um we do still have a pretty hefty

141amount left on our agenda so I'm going to ask you I know we need a comfort break so I'm going ask you to take let's let's say s minutes so we're going to start back up at 8:08 so if you can take a quick Break um this is not we're not moving to Executive session we're still going to do policy so you're welcome to stay but I do need to give everybody a minute to stand up um take use the facilities and things like that so board members we're going to start back at 80 thank you we're back from our comfort break and we are now moving on to item 11 unfinished business under Section a um I'll entertain a motion Miss Kesler Madam chair I make a motion to approve first reading of proposed

142revision to board policy JJ Student Activities proposed addition of board policy JJ AB limited open closed Forum proposed addition of administrative ruling AJ a rjj a r-r excuse me I I messed that up a rjj a-r limited open close form uh I have a motion by Mr Kesler do I have a second okay second by Mr Bray um board members this is a first reading but it's under unfinished business because these are policies we've dealt with before several times we were asking for first reading on this tonight it's been through up several divisions yes and this is a different version than what you saw before so I hope everyone had a chance to look at it so tonight we're just asking for first reading I have a motion and a second do I have any

143questions comments concerns for first reading of of these policies Madam chair yes ma'am um for the for policy JJ I would like us to look at keeping the words wholesome and good um in the first part of that policy instead of replacing with positive and strong so I would like to look at that and then the bottom of um page one that perpose changed I would like uh to look at using the board also supports teachers in using non-instructional time during the school day to host academic enrichment activities the board authorizes the superintendent to create procedures and um Implement and regulate these activities so I'd like to look at possibly um between first and second reading making those changes to policy JJ okay board members any other questions comments or concerns Madam chair yes Mr

144Bri would this be in a first reading do we need to formally amend those types of things and have a vote on it or are we going to use this i' probably wait and ask because there may be some questions or debate or whatever and we're going to have workshop on it anyway way and so just that she's noted um her concerns on that so I believe that will be appropriate for us to take up at the workshop between first and second reading and then if her change is not made then during the second reading I would recommend to her that she might would want to amend it at that time but I'mma ask that for right now we just leave it as perfect so I just want to add the note on um the

145end of the first paragraph to dito what uh Miss Rucker said for JJ are we just doing JJ right now or all of the JJ that whole group under a JJ JJ a JJ a b-r let me pull up JJ jjb real quick any questions or concerned on this end okay so Madam chair yes ma'am um I for policy JJ AB um the port of the policy that talks about equal access act it notes that it's grades 9 through 12 but then the last sentence or the last sentence of that same section says sixth through 12th grade I would like to see if that needs to be um grades 9 through 12 9 through 12 is the required uh grade levels to address but it can include others and since we do have sixth grade

146and up that's why it's uh has it with six through 12 but your correctness might be confusing so maybe add some yeah I could see that maybe between first and second reading we might want to clarify just so anybody grabbing this policy and reading it doesn't think we um can't add 9 through 12 and 6 through 12 okay thank you that's it thank you okay um first I have a motion in a second all those in favor of first reading of these policies signify by saying I and raise your hand I I any oppose motion carries we're going to start trying to raise our hand because I think it makes it a little bit easier for our secretary to take down um what we're doing for votes all right Miss Kesler the long one I'll

147take a motion on B motion to approve second and final reading of proposed addition of board policy BC board member conduct proposed revision of board policy bdd board superintendent relationship bde board committees BDF advisory committees propos deletion of administrative ruling BD f-r advisory committees proposed addition of board policy bdg board attorneys Legal Services proposed addition of administrative ruling BD g-r a board attorneys and legal services proposed addition of board policy bdh board cons Consultants proposed revision to board policy EF Food Services proposed addition of board policies e competitive food sales vending machines ehb data report retention ihcf Child Care programs proposed revision to board policy ihd adult and Community Education proposed addition of board policy jja comparability of services review of board policy ik promotion retention of students proposed revision of board policy iil re

148uh evaluation of instructional programs review of board policy I lb test assessment Administration proposed revisions to administrative ruling ib-r test assessment Administration proposed revision to board policy IBB State program assessments proposed revision of administrative ruling i l bb- State program assessments proposed addition of board policy IMG service animals uh thank you Miss Kesler I have a second by Miss Miss Alfred Wooten um for those watching at home the board took up extensive discussion on all of these policies and went line by line with each one of these policies under review at one of our last workshops and that is online for you to peruse to um hear the disc discussion of these policies that board members had um with that is there any other questions concerns comments on these policies are we ready to vote

149to pass second final reading of these policies M Kesler Madam chair on BC we still do have a duplicate policy yes ma'am that needs to be struck and that would be on page two of BC respond as appropriate is on first page okay so and I think one of our speak that's the third bullet P speakers Did note that for us tonight so um uh do you want to make that as a friendly Amendment friendly Amendment yes I did so we're going to strike that duplicative language it was pointed out to us tonight as well by a speaker so board members any object objection to that friendly Amendment okay then moving right along all those in favor of passing second final reing reading of these policies um under Item B signify by raising your hand

150saying I I um all those opposed signify by raising your hand and saying no motion carries okay Miss Kesler under section c we have a bunch of C policies motion to approve second and final reading of General school administrative policies proposed addition of board policy CA Administration goals and priority objectives b c B school superintendent CBA qualifications of the superintendent proposed revision of board policy CBC superintendent powers and responsibilities proposed addition of board policy CBD superintendent contract proposed revision of board policy CBI evaluation of the superintendent proposed dele of administrative ruling cb- R evaluation of superintendent proposed revision to board policy CC administrative organizations proposed addition of administrative ruling cc- administrative organization and organizational charts proposed deletion of board policy CCA or formerly cc-e organizational chart proposed addition of board policy C CB line and

151staff relations policy CF School building Administration policy CFA School principal buildings administrators CM School District annual report proposed revision of board policy CFC an assignment and transfer of building administrators review of board policy CH policy implementation I have a motion by Miss Kesler and I have a second by second by Miss Alfred woen board members any further discussion question comments on these C policies if not um all those in favor of uh Second and final reading of the C policies as indicated by Miss Kesler signifi by raising your hand and saying I I I oppose signify by raising your hand and saying no and motion carries and Miss Kesler um d section D I do not have a section D the second and final reading uh fiscal oh the fiscal management weren't we holding some

152of those we were holding some of those I have them you want me to read them yes but we got to make sure that the on DM and DM they they were pulled they those were pulled okay excuse me I'm sorry motion to approve second and final reading for fiscal management policies proposed addition to board policy da fiscal management goals priority objectives proposed revision to board policy DB annual budget proposed Del of administrative rule db- budget process proposed Del delic of board policies DBI general fund budget implementation and monitoring d DC taxing and borrowing DCA tax payer millage protection ceiling review of board policy dcaa tax advantage Bond compliance DCB continuing disclosure DCC debt management proposed revision of board policy DFG tuition income DGA authorized signature deletion of board policy DH bonded employees and officers

153proposed revision to board policy di fiscal account accounting and Reporting DBI dib types of funding res um evolving funds did inventories proposed delis of administrative ruling d-r inventories proposed deltion of board policy D audit Financial monitoring proposed revision to board policy DJ purchasing review of board policies DJ GA sales calls and uh demonstrations DK payment procedures dka payroll um procedures and schedules proposed delution to board policy dka D payroll procedures and uh schedules proposed revision to board policy dkb salary um deductions dkc expense uh authorization and reimbursements I have a motion by Miss Kesler do I have a second second okay a second by Mr Bray um board members you'll remember we do we did pull some of these for Miss Strickland to concentrate on and bring to us later and also even if we

154pass second final reading just so you know since this is your section um if you find other things as you're learning our district that we need to change you certainly can bring amended changes even though we're doing second final reading um board members that said any questions comments concerns okay all those in favor of second final reading of the the D policies as indicated by Miss Kesler raise your hand and signify by saying I I all those opposed raise your hand and signify by saying no and motion carries okay on to new business um next we have certification of delegates for the South Carolina School boards Association um a delegate assembly that is also does an advocacy conference at the same time which always has some pretty interesting information for us and um so this

155is certainly not to discourage anyone from going for the advocacy part or sitting in and listening for the delegates we are allowed three two two two three votes I three votes um sometimes we let just one person do all three of our votes but we can send up to three members of the delegate assembly board members before we just Vol and tell you do I have anybody who would like to um ask that they be or who who are willing to go and be a member to delegate assembly okay Miss castles anybody else want to be a delegate if not what we're going to do is make um give Miss castles all three of our votes does anybody else want to go and be a de voting delegate okay so um we'll put um why

156why don't we put yeah let's put Miss um Rucker back up but also put delegate alternate with x's you see what I'm saying so we can X both of you as delegate and X both of you as alternates so that if one of you can't go the other one gets the other votes okay board members everybody favor of that all right I'll entertain a motion to approve um Miss Rucker and Miss castles as our delegates and alternates for the uh uh scsba delegate assembly in December motion to approve Lis castles and Christine Rucker to be um the delegates for the South Carolina boards Association for the 23 uh delegation assembly okay I have a motion to have a second second M Miss Alfred Wooten um all those in favor raise your hand signify by saying

157I I all those oose raise your hand signify by saying no and that was unanimous okay next we have our consideration for overnight and out of state travel um Miss Kesler yes ma'am motion to approve out ofate overnight travel for airport social workers to attend annual conference for advancing students um School mental health for December the 4th through the 7th of 2023 to New Orleans Louisiana okay um I have a motion by Miss Kesler second by Mr Bray uh any questions comments or concerns there being none um all those in favor signify by raisis your hand and saying I I all those opposed raise your hand and signify by saying no and that was unanimous now we have the overnight an out of state uh student travel Miss Kesler motion to approve out ofate overnight

158travel for airport High School core students to attend honors Choir in Francis Marin University January the 19th through the 20th 2024 airport uh course students to the South Carolina All State course in winrep University on February the 29th through March the 1st of 2024 for Brooklyn Casey High School course students uh to attend Crossing Borders in New York uh February the 16th through the 20th of 2024 and the last for Brooklyn Casey High School um BC English two students to attend a midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare Academy in Atlanta Georgia October the 25th 2023 I have motion by Miss castler a second um by Mr Bray board members any questions comment concerns before we vote um super excited that our students are going to have some amazing um opportunities I know that's always uh enhances our

159learning that they're doing in the classroom so thank you to our administrators for putting those forth and thank you to our teachers for being willing to take our students places um all those in favor signify by raising your hand hand and saying I I all those who POS raise your hand signify by saying no and that was unanimous um and then next we have consideration of first reading um on just a few policies and then I'll tell you how we're going to move going forward board members that's the DAT consideration FR did I not just do that no we did we did the D's okay y I'm sorry that's okay Miss Kesler you are carrying the all the workload for us for this meeting so give me one second I've gotcha GB yeah motion to

160approve first reading for proposed revision to Administration rule GBA a-r sexual harassment and retaliation information for the board proposed revision to the board policy ikf graduating requirements proposed revision to administrative ruling ik kf- R graduating graduation requirements uh proposed addition to board policy JF a BH military temporary remote School enrollment proposed revision to administrative ruling j a a-r sexual harassment retaliation for students okay I have a motion by Miss Kesler a second by Mr Bray uh board members any questions comments concerns being none all those in favor signify by raising your hand and saying I I all those opposed raise your hand and signify by saying no and that was unanimous motion carries um board members uh had a couple Family Matters to deal with this week so I was not able to get um

161prepared for y'all our plan moving forward I have uh talked about that with Miss Kesler and Miss castles and we're going to give you a very aggressive plan I'm trying to get a lot of of this policy pass with a goal of of getting them all done by February 1 of February so you're going to be getting a stack of of policies to be looking at with a lot to review obviously over some breaks Christmas breaks and stuff and um a schedule of when we're going to have those meetings and continuing to use the workshops as well that you didn't get anybodys days I did and I do need you to reply if you have dates you know you are not available in October I think I've only gotten specific dates from about three board

162members so if you've not told me I might end up picking a date and I may just have to reach out to you individually if I didn't hear from you okay so please please give me your dates that you're not available in October um September 27th we're on to announcements early release day October 5th board workshop for um at lexian 2 Innovation Center where we'll be looking at a lot of these um starting to address a lot of these policies and packets um October 11th Believe It or Not guys we're at the end of first nine weeks uh then October 12th will be our inservice day uh October 13th is a weather makeup day do you want to say anything about that Dr hner weather makeup day uh no it is we have good weather

163yeah hopefully it will be good weather and we won't have to use it as the first the other day was a e-learning day okay and then October 17th report cards will be coming home so all you parents watching from home be aware of that date October 17th and October 19th we'll be back here for our regular monthly board meeting at Lexington 2 Innovation Center at 6 PM I will also remind the audience watching at home that um even though it's not required by law we are televising our board work Workshop October 5th just like we have been doing because we do think it's important to keep our public informed of our policy uh discussions so um please tune in on October 5th if you are interested in hearing more about what we're planning to do

164moving forward with that I'll entertain a motion to enter executive session I make a motion that the Board of Trustees enter close session to consider personnel and appointments and resignations receipt of legal advice regarding social media class action lawsuit uh receipt of legal advice regarding a settlement and consideration of deed and easement to the sore lines on Dunbar Village motion by Miss Kesler second by Mr Bray all those in favor signify by raising your hand saying I I oppose um motion carries that was unanimous and we are now an executive session thank you for coming this evening um we appreciate those of you watching at home we appreciate those of you stuck around with us to this point uh thank you so much we have just finished with executive session and Miss Kessler has a

165motion I make a motion that the meeting be reconvened an open session and appropriate affid executed Miss Kesler made the motion um Miss Rucker made the second all those in favor signify by saying I and raise your hand I oppose raise your hand say no uh unanimous motion carries we are now um out of executive session and I'll entertain motions um on anything resulting from executive session uh I make a motion that we report breach of um contract for candidate number two okay and a second motion by Miss Kesler second by Miss Rucker all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose raise your hand motion carries unanimous motion to approve resignation retirements and termination for the 2324 uh resignations for the 2324 recommended teacher appointments 2324 recommended teacher appointment retirees 23 24 recommended

166support appointments and the 232 24 hourly paid time sheets I have a motion by Miss Kesler second by Miss Rucker all those in favor signify by saying high and raising your hand I oppose raise your hand and say no motion carries unanimous motion to approve administration's recommendation for the principal at Busby Samuel Mason I have a motion by Miss Kesler I have a second by Miss Rucker all those in favor signify by saying I and raising your hand I um oppose raise your hand motion carries unanimous I move that the district join the lawsuit against the social media defensive Defenders that are currently pending in the federal court I also move that we authorize the superintendent to execute the appropriate re repres uh re representation agreement to join the lawsuit a motion by Miss Kesler

167second by Mr Bray all those in favor raise your hand signify by saying I I oppose raise your hand say nay motion carries you name animous these are two different ones uh you me I'll entertain a motion to accept the settlement with atrial group pursuant to the advice of council and to authorize the superintendent to execute the required settlement documents I'll entertain that motion by Miss Kesler absolutely thank you a motion by Miss Kesler second by miss aler woen all those in favor raise your hand and signify by saying I I oppose raise your hand and signify by saying no uh that motion carries unanimously and then I will entertain a motion to Grant a sewer easement to the city of Casey for Dunbar Village property and to authorize the superintendent to execute the easement

168documents um and Mr Bray has submitted a recusal to that vote and I'll entertain a second second by Miss Rucker all those in favor raise your hand and signify by saying I I I oppose raise your hand signify by saying no um that motion will carry six uh to0 with one recusal for Mr Bray and board members one other announcement is I think I read the incorrect date for the October meeting we did move that because of the uh BC Foundation dinner and it is going to be Tuesday October 22nd so I'll ask that our minutes actually reflect that change and that we make sure we update um upcoming agendas and we'll be sure to notify the public again about that October 5th and with that I'll entertain motion to adjourn by Mr Bray second

169by Miss Alfred Wooten all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose motion carries We Stand adjourned thank you