001Good evening everyone. Uh we need a motion to adjourn from executive session. I'll make a motion we adjourn from the executive session. >> I'll second. >> All right. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. The next item of business is approval of the agenda. >> U Mr. Chair, I'd like to request that the consent agenda be considered as individual action items. >> Okay. Those items on the consent agenda will be removed and treated as individual uh considerations. All right. Next, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Sanders. >> We need to approve the amended agenda. >> Okay. So, I'm sorry, Dr. Sanders. Just one moment. So, we need um to approve the consent agenda. And so, I'm sorry to approve the consent agenda. And so, we'll vote on that now. >> Uh I'd
002like to make a motion that we approve the agenda as amended. >> I'll second. All in favor? >> I. >> Dr. Sanders again. >> Please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. [laughter] Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Now join me for a moment of silence. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Chairman uh Sutton, Dr. Nutter, members of the board. Hope everyone is doing well. Tonight's student spotlight features Charleston Williamson from Sand Hills Middle School. Charleston is an eighth grade student on the eighth eighth grade serve team under the leadership of Mr. Paige, Miss Bryant, Miss McGary, and Miss Guavara. He is a proud son of Justin and Kirby Williamson. His commitment to
003excellence is evident in his academic and extracurricular uh achievements. He currently earns recognition on the principal's list and is an active member of the Beta Club. In addition, Charleston shares his talents as a performer in the Sand Hills Middle School Tiger Band and as a member of the Swansea Tiger Golf Team. Most recently, he earned second place in the woodworking competition at the State Beta Club Convention, an impressive accomplishment that reflects his creativity, dedication, and skill. Beyond his accolades, Charleston's hard work and funloving spirit both help him achieve at very high levels while positively impacting those around him. His school family is grateful for the example he sets each and every day. His administrator shared Charleston truly embodies what it means to lead, learn, serve, and excel. Each day he demonstrates kindness towards others, a
004strong growth mindset, and a deep sense of Tiger pride in both his work and his actions. He consistently shows care and concern for his peers, teachers, and staff, representing the very best of Sand Hills Middle School. We present Charleston Williamson. >> Hey, I'm Charleston Williamson. I'm eighth grader, which y'all already know that. Um, [clears throat] I would like to share my school experience and I would like to thank y'all for letting me come out here this evening and speak. Now, I would like to share [snorts] our class is history with coach Paige. He is a great teacher and we have similar interest. He cares about his students, is willing to help us at any time. I have always been intrigued with our country's history. My grandparents have told me I'm an old soul and I
005really want to be able to learn more about South Carolina history. My dad told me when he was in school he took a South Carolina history class. So, if there is any way for us to get this class, I would love to take it. Moving on to my most memorable moment. I dress up as Principal Evans [laughter] for Principal Appreciation Week. I dress up as him from the 2000s when he was a bit bigger than he is now. [laughter] He has always been special to my family before I was even thought about. He was my dad's baseball coach in school and was a person he looked up to. Principal Evans is now a person I look up to and is a role model to me. He has always encouraged me to try new things and
006has helped me come out of my social shell and it continues to help me achieve my goals. Now, speaking of goals, I have two goals I'm working towards for the rest of the school year since golf is starting. I want our golf team to qualify for state again like we did last season. Our team is ready to put in the hard work and make it happen. I want to thank Coach Hill and Coach Brad for um all their help. [snorts] So, if you would like to help the golf program out, we're having a golf fundraiser. [laughter] >> That's interesting. We would really appreciate the support. My second goal is to remain at the top of my class academically. My academics are very important to me. My parents have always told me that my education and
007hard work will take me where I want to go in life. Hoping between my golf and academics, my parents will not have to pay for college. You're welcome, Mom and Dad. [laughter] I was also asked to speak about what makes my school special. There's one thing that came to mind, Principal Evans. He has made just the difference between my seventh grade and then this year. The atmosphere and energy of the middle school has improved so much since he has became our principal. And I really want to thank him to for making this school experience enjoyable. And again, I would like to thank y'all for letting me speak out here this night. I just want to say Oh, sorry. I just want to say thank you for what you do for us as students. And one
008more thing, go Tigers. >> Tigers, >> Charleston, before you go. [laughter] [snorts] [clears throat] >> Okay. I have a question. What did you make in woodworking? >> I made like a I made a lamp that was working off of um a battery. Power drill battery. >> You definitely have a great sense of humor. [laughter] Why? Because he because Principal Evans is his mentor. [laughter] >> And that make that that really matters a lot to um staff, students, your peers, you know, because people may have a hard day and just you showing up and your humor is just like medicine. So, keep up the good work with that. >> Now, I want to know if you're going to talk Principal Evans to get a haircut like yours. [laughter] I I'll have to see about that. [clears
009throat] [laughter] >> Charleston, I just like to say, of course, I've I've known you since uh the beginning, ECC on up, and love the uh the growth that I've seen and how you're such a great example of academics and um all the other facets even with the band, all that you do. Uh, and I was going to ask that question because I promise you the uh art from last year, the woodwork from last year at Beta's convention, one state went national. I'm not sure what happened after that, but it was amazing. So, I didn't get to see it this year at the Beta Convention, but um very proud of the work that you're doing. Keep going. >> Thank you. >> All right. [applause] Thanks so much. Is there anything on the public forum? [clears throat]
010[clears throat and snorts] >> All right. So now we will receive a motion to approve the certified staff recommendations discussed in executive session. I make a motion we approve the certified staff recommendation. >> A second. >> All in favor? [clears throat and snorts] >> All right. Now we will vote on the individual uh items from our consent agenda. >> So first u you have the January 12, 2026 meeting minutes that you were sent in your packet. All right, receive a motion. I'll make a motion we approve the January 12th minutes as read. >> A second. >> All in favor? >> I men chair, we have uh four different student travel request uh student travel requests come to the board uh by board policy if they are overnight. Um we also have had a um the
011tradition of bringing ones that uh are extended day where students would be uh out of district uh at a later time. Uh and those are again uh we uh appreciate the clarity and communication with all stakeholders involved with that. So we have three that are overnight and then um one that's extended day. Uh so the first one that we would bring to you is permission for six students and two chaperones uh to attend the South Band Directors Association. Uh it's the region 2 Honor Band Clinic uh held on February 27th and 28th and that's at Lexon High School and this one again goes on a Friday and Saturday. Uh actually uh they won't be staying at the high school that night, but again um this is one of those that we're bringing because it's not
012during the regular school hours. Uh so we would ask uh that's been approved by their principal uh checked that all of the uh policies have been followed with that uh recommendation and uh we are asking for board approval. And can we receive a motion, please? >> I make a motion we approve the uh trip to Lexon High School for the band, honor band. >> Second. >> All in favor? [clears throat] >> The second U trip is an overnight trip. It actually is from March 13th through the 15th, 2026. This was permission for one student who earned all state band um for all state. It's being held at Ferman University in Greenville, South Carolina. And uh we have two uh school employees uh going as chaperons with this uh middle school student. >> A motion. I'll
013make a motion we approve the all state van weekend. >> A second. >> All in favor? [clears throat] >> Okay. The third trip is uh from Swansea High School, the future business leaders of America is their state leadership conference which is held in North Charleston on March 22nd through 25th um 2026. This is per permission for eight students from the FBA and two chaperons uh to attend this conference. Make a motion that we approve 2026 FBLA state leadership conference in North Charleston. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. And [clears throat] then the final is uh [laughter] one that is not an overnight, but again uh we want to bring it to you for approval on permission for 90 middle school band and chorus students and 11 chap rooms uh to attend the music
014and the parts performance festival on May 9th. Uh they leave early that morning. the festival, the the the um evaluated part is at South Point High School in Rock Hill and then they travel over to Carowinds uh for the afternoon performance and I'm sure that they will do some Careowins before they return. Um and again, uh like when we say 90, uh we are we are maximizing. I think the actual permission slip had less than that. Uh but we want to ensure that we cover that. And the 11 chaperons by board policy that chaperones all of these chaperrons do not include the sponsor of the trip because sponsors need to be available to uh respond to needs that type thing. So you can always add plus one. So at least so um we ask for
015permission for that trip. I make a motion um that we approve the music in the park performance festival for these students and chaperons. >> I'll second. All in favor? [clears throat] >> All right. Now we'll open for board reflections. Any of you have reflections tonight? I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the students every month, the student spotlight from all the schools, getting some because my youngest is 23, so she graduated a few years ago. But to see all these young people is so inspiring from middle school all the way down to what I think the youngest one's been five years old. >> And so it's just been a delight to see that. I really enjoy that. >> Um I'm sure the the students as well this as well as the
016staff we saw the joy that came from being out of school for the snow. Yay. And seeing all of the pictures [clears throat] um on Facebook, on social media of the students. Um I think I had I did a video of Swansea High School. I think I seen Francis um Mac school and just having the uh families seeing the pictures and everybody enjoying the snow. So that was a great day. Even though everybody was out of school, we were cold, but just seeing those smiling faces, the families, it was just amazing. So that's my reflection, the snow. The snow, we got snow, y'all. [laughter] We had snow. >> That being said, I want to thank Dr. Another Ford's leadership and decision making through throughout that process. Of course, I know everybody has an opinion about
017it, but whenever uh the hands of our the lives of our children are in the decision- making of of those who are in leadership, it's a it's a big deal and a great responsibility. So, thank you for your leadership and also for the communication. Um my kids kept asking me, are we going to school? Are we going to school? Yes, you're going to school. So, that was uh very good how we communicated that and spread that information. Also wanted to mention that very proud of our uh Sand Hills Middle B team basketball program. um that has filled my life for the last few months. But um we uh followed our boys to the second rounds of playoffs and we uh we let it go on Friday night, but it was an amazing trip and um
018amazing time for basketball and our boys got really far. We were that close to bringing the trophy back home, but um next year um they're going to be moving up, but just really excited about the progress that we've seen there. it just really helps with morale and of course uh our coaches and teachers are always pulling for that rigor for those athletes. So that's very important as well. So thank you all for pushing. Thank you for showing up for us, Principal Evans. >> Absolutely. >> Anyone else? >> I'd like I just wanted to say uh Mr. Sutton that uh Justin Newton as our chief operations officer and all of our principles and all of our maintenance crew and all of those individuals did outstanding job uh with the different uh issues with weather and m
019facilities that type thing. I want to be sure to give them the credit because they are truly helping us and engaging each of our schools during those situations. >> Absolutely. Another thing, I'm sorry. So, we had a blooper at one of the the football basketball games. One of the I don't know if they staged it or they if it was an accident, but somebody from Pion wasted a whole jug of water. And so, you had coaches and principles and board members. We were mopping the floor with towels. I mean, it was it was it was in between games. And so, one whole side of the uh gym was filled and me and uh Dennis, Mr. Wilson were running around with dust mops, mops, towels. We brought the lawn blower in to dry the floor off
020in between games, but we made it happen. We made it happen. So, um, it's just an adventurous time. All right, we'll be moving on now. And as we're moving on, if there's anyone that'd like to leave between now and and and the next, uh, part of our agenda, you can. We'll be getting into the more the more interesting facts now. So, [laughter] thank you all for coming tonight. >> All right. I'm glad to hear you all like to share about students. We have one more we like to spotlight tonight and she does an incredible job for our student body at Santos Middle School. And with that being said, Katie, will you [snorts] introduce our other student as far evening? My name is Katie Days and I'm the instructional coach here at Sand Hills Middle School.
021And we wanted to start off our presentation um by uh introducing our student uh Belinda Castillio. She's going to share her story and what um Sand Hills Middle School means to her. Um so Belinda is an outstanding eighth grade student who truly represents what it means to be a Tiger. Um she excels academically and consistently has earned a place on the principal's list this school year and last year. She is actively involved um in our school community both in and outside of school. She is a member of our uh soccer team and she serves as the vice president of the SMS Beta Club. This fall she was named as a first runner up in the junior Miss Swansian pageant, an honor that reflects her dedication and leadership. And we are proud to have Belinda as
022a part of the Sand Hills Middle School community today. And she will share what makes SMS such a special place. Thank you, Belinda. Good evening. >> I am Binda Castillo and I am proud to represent San Hills Middle School. During the 2025 to 2026 academic year, my favorite class has been Gateway to Technology. Not only because of my classmates, but also because of the class itself. I enjoy learning how to create new things, program, and put computer parts together. I never imagined I could learn something so challenging, especially in such a short amount of time. This class has taught me many new skills and how to work efficiently in a group setting with my peers. A memorable school event I participated in was a trick-or- treat lane. I helped set up, pass out candy, and
023cleaned up afterwards. I truly enjoyed this experience and would love to participate again. Seeing both familiar and new faces in their costumes, and watching everyone enjoy the event with their friends and family brought me so much joy. That happiness made me realize how special it really is to be involved in school events like these. My goals for this year are both educational and personal. I want to stay on principal's honor role throughout the year, improve my communication and leadership skills, and participate in more extracurricular activities beyond Beta Club. What makes San Hills Middle School special is our teachers and administrators. The way they treat staff, students, and each other shows how much they care. They support us, give us opportunities to grow, and encourage us to reach our fullest potential. They help us improve ourselves
024so we are better prepared for life after Sand Hills. They always make sure we feel supported and motivated to do our best. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share what makes Sand Hills Middle School such a wonderful place. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Um we have a pretty good president also. >> [laughter] >> Um Brian Evans, principal of Kansas Mills. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with y'all tonight. We're going to share some um things that are are new and some things that are different and some things that always stay the same as far as um student achievement, teacher ministry quality, and school climate. We've got some pictures here of our great arts and athletic programs uh at Sand Hills Middle School. And as um we've heard earlier, we've had a a great school
025year. um in the arts and in our athletics um with pictures in the middle there. Those are our Tigers to talk about and we'll be talking about them a little bit later, but we kind of recognize our our our tigers that are doing really well and lead learner and excel and they get to take a picture with the old guy and get a get a little wristband uh for their troubles as well. So, we're really excited about um all of our students and all that they do to help make us great. This is our staff this year. We took a our new staff picture uh in front of some of our um school branding that we have uh there at the middle school and I thought that picture uh turned out really well except again
026for that old guy in the back right [laughter] outside of that school. Um some things that we um experienced so far this year, we have a very young staff. Um 65% of our staff is either new to education from an alternative certification. They are either new to uh education through their um four-year degree or they are an international teacher at Santos Middle School. So you can imagine um we have a very uh diverse uh team at Santos Middle School and it's very important when you have that much diversity and newness in your building including me uh that you start to work on creating foundation for continuous improvement. For us um it is about making sure that we align everything that we do to our purpose and our purpose is to be a high functioning professional
027learning community. We have a process for that. We have correlated questions that drive our actions through that community. We have principles such as our core values of lead, learn, serve, and excel. And we just want to make sure that our people and all of our resources understand that and are aligned to that purpose. And with that being said, as we talked about earlier, for us to have a pathway to growth and a pathway to success, there's three big rocks that we are always looking at each year. Student achievement, teacher administrator quality, and school climate. And so when we when we answer those correlated questions that I spoke about earlier, uh what do we want our students to be able to know and do? How do we ensure they have the opportunity to know and do
028it? When will we know they know it? What do we do if they do? What do we do if they don't? Those are the answers to all those questions underneath those big rocks. And I won't get into the other uh layers of that, but we'll talk on that and touch on that a little bit throughout the presentation. But this is our pathway to helping our students [clears throat] grow um in our building. that starts with that PLC concept, a student centered learning environment, one that focuses on the collaboration of our experts and our ability and one that's results driven. Also, for our teachers, we need to know what good looks like. So, in order to be an effective teacher, you need to make sure you're using a gradual release model and you have an instructional
029framework that is student centered and we have to understand what that means. Um, so we spend a lot of time talking about that through professional development and then you have to keep a scoreboard. So, for us, we inspect what we expect. We want to make sure that we know where we're at throughout our journey and we take A to B steps to measure and evaluate our progress over time and some of these A to B steps that I'll be sharing with you guys tonight. Um first and foremost we have some achievement data that you might be interested in. Um each year uh we have a comprehensive assessment model where we have an interim assessments. Those interim assessments for us are I ready assessments based off our curriculum and they happen to align to the SE
030ready test at the end of the year. So uh we give three snapshots of this a year. We do a premid and a post. Our most recent was in December. And so for ELA after we took our uh midyear um snapshot um 53% of our students are on track to meet their individual growth goal. um that means that they are going to grow at least a year of growth for us this year. That's 53% of our students and at the December [clears throat] mark we already had 41% of students they've already met or exceeded their growth goals uh there in the month of uh by December. So um those that exceeded if you look at the top right that's called an ABT goal. That is about a year and a half worth of growth. It
031can be up to 1.75 years. So you can imagine our teachers are doing a really good job for those kids. They've already grown over a year and a half in December. So, we're really proud of that. You can look and see the MAT goals in the top left side there. Those are the one-year goals. So, 53% of our students are on track to meet their goals. 41% of students, and this is in December, 41 of our student percent of our students have met or exceeded their individual growth goal at that point. And 17% of our students have improved their placement, meaning they've moved from either does not meets into approaches or into meets or into exceeds. And we know also that our varian our students have shown at this point in the year for ELA
032and also for math, there is a 4% increase that we've seen um throughout those placement levels for our students. So right now in both the subject areas we know that 65% of our students are approaching to exceeds uh versus 35% not met. And so we're hoping obviously as the years go on that we can continue to improve this. The two boxes at the bottom there where you see the little verses. [clears throat] Last year's growth through I Ready. Seventh grade was 57.6% for the entire school year. Eighth grade was 38.1% for the entire school year. If you look up there, you can already see that by by December, this cohort has already um achieved more than last cohort for the entire school year. So, a lot of our teachers uh uh have a hand in
033that and should be very proud of those numbers. If you look to the far right there, you can see what our projection scores are based on if we take the difference between the 41% and the 53% and we go dig down a little deeper on those percentages. We have a projection that we're going to uh overperform compared to last year with 51.9% of our students uh meeting their goals, 15.85% uh meeting their strict goals. So achievement ELA what we were projecting is that we're going up from last year um with our with our achievement levels when we look at this high rating school and how it compares to rating. Um any questions? There's a lot of blues and yellows. So same thing for math midy year December if you look at math u 53% of
034our students again are on track to meet their individual growth goal of a year of growth or or more 36% of students have met or exceeded their individual growth goal at this point 19% of our students have improved their placement. So within that that cohort um again we have that displacement of 4%. [clears throat] Um 65% are approaching to exceeds and then we have a 35% group of students that are does not meet at this point. Of course we want to try to make that better each and every day each and every year for us. Um you can see last year's growth by the end of the year 47.5 for grade 7 30.5 with a total of 395 and you can see when we project out with the difference of the percentages there we're anticipating
035454 and 599. So again, you'll see in math, we anticipate our scores to go up, our academic progress, and also our growth score to go up. But most importantly, we want to make sure we're trending in the right direction and we're definitely moving students forward um in the right direction here. U one thing I've noticed with this eighth grade cohort, that's it's a very high achieving cohort. Um and we're very proud of them. Seventh grade is also a high achieving cohort, but when you compare them to the eighth grade, the eighth grade is is is really stretching. Uh, and to be honest, if you were to ask me if I would have which ones I thought would have been stretching more at this point, I would have told you seventh over eighth. Um, I won't
036get into all those reasons, but um, but I am pleasantly surprised and excited about the opportunity for our kids um, as they continue to stretch and exceed beyond their year worth of growth. Um, any questions for any of this? So, I love data and I, you know, back in the high school days when I was the principal at the high school, it's you know, it's all about your graduation rate. So, I I want to make sure our kids are passing their classes. I think there's a lot to to look at if we know we have these interim assessments. Um, we need to be able to look at some grades, too, and make a comparison. So, as you can see here, quarter one passage rate for ELA, math, science, and social studies was 90 to 98%.
037And then on the second column there, those are our students that that was the percentage of students that scored an A or B in that subject area for that. to 56% ELA was an AB student, 60% etc. Quarter two, you can see we had a high passage rate again for our classes and you can see the uh AB rate that connects with that. And uh for grade eight below quarter one passage rates 91 you see an 80 in math 99 and 90. You also see that in math we also have our lowest AB scores there. So right now we already kind of are zeroed in like math. If you look at the previous slide, we looked at our I Ready data and you start to look at the grades of [clears throat] how do we
038play school? Are we playing very well? We have an alignment to a viable curriculum and how do our kids do with that? You can start to see if we're going to start providing supports. Math is where we're going to start really utilize what we call our win time as a tier 2 support model. And then you can see on quarter two there as well. I'll spare you the the rest of that, but obviously quarter one and quarter two equals a semester and um you can see there's some good numbers there. So, we feel really good about the passage rate for our students. Um and um the number of students that are getting A's and B's in that class, but we would like to see the AB level go up as well. You'd like to see
039a nice bell-shaped curve with that. Um some classes or some subject areas has that, but you can see in math we have room to grow there. So um so it's important to have a conversation with [clears throat] teachers when I [snorts] talk to them just about the correlation between what is already showing us what are our grades showing us do we have a gap and how do we fill that gap for our kids any questions for this um this is this is some really exciting data [clears throat] here and um and and this this is great data if your achievements going up this is bad data if your achievement is going down, but our achievement is going up and our discipline data is going down. So, we I went back and looked at the last
040seven years prior to this year at SMS. Um, the average number of referrals at SMS was 900 referrals a year and the high was 1,154. I think that was in 2017. And then the lowest prior to this year was 756. Last year was 820 referrals for the year. So this year for 2026 7th grade, we've had 101 referrals. 2026 eighth grade, we've had 173 referrals for a total of my math is right, 274 referrals as of February the 2nd when I did this when I made the presentation here. And in 2026, we have 370 of our 497 students have zero referrals. >> And so we have kids, we have great kids at St. Jose Middle School. Um, I can break that down even more. Zero to one referrals, we got about 96% of our students,
04195% of our students. So, kind of had some high flyers. And the reason why um well, and so you take the projection of 2.49 uh referrals a day and you go ahead and project that out for the remainder of the school year, we're projected to have 447 total referrals. And if your achievements going down, your referrals are going down, it's probably not good. So if your achievement's going up and your referrals are going down, you can feel it in your building. >> I feel like things are really hitting in the right direction. I think the credit of this goes to student engagement, improved student engagement, student relationships. Um Mr. Tulle, Miss Stonehouse provides excellent support in our alternative school. Um and we have a number of other things as far as creating conditions for success
042and a culture for success. I think has led to that. Um and so with that being said, um you have to have these conditions in place before you can build a climate. And so for us, some of the conditions, the first and foremost thing that I wanted to make sure that we did this year is we wanted to ensure safety [laughter] and operations. And that was something that was really big that when I came in and I spoke to stakeholders and I looked at things, I felt like we needed to change some things in our model. So we have a new team model. Uh we have a seventh grade hall, we have an eighth grade hall now. Um we have two bell systems going on, excuse me, in our school. So a school within a
043school model, eighth graders have their bells, seventh graders have their bells. And and it's not that we don't want them coming together, we just don't want them coming together all at the same time. 500 kids walking that campus and those halls are not real wide. So we can control the environment, ensure safety in our operations. We also were able to hire more teachers thanks to uh Dr. Nutter's approval with that to make sure we had a true middle school model of six houses and that took class sizes from 26 if we couldn't have done that down to 21. And as you guys know, I think a smaller class is a little more easily managed by [snorts] closer you can get to one to one. Um this year also with our time as supporter of tier
0442, what we call win time, we wanted to give a little more choice to students. The students that are operating on grade level, there's 37% and there's 41%. They have a choice during that time. They can go out and go to clubs and it makes their day a lot more enjoyable. We want eighth graders and seventh graders to enjoy school. I mean, that's a big deal as far as wanting to come attend. So, we know that our overall attendance rates roughly 92 to 93% for our students. Um, and our attendance rate for our teachers is much better and it's over 95% for them. And so just the fact that we feel like more people want to come to work and come to school, I think that's a good thing. Um, and I think some of
045that comes from this safety and operations. And I will I'll give a plug here. The last one is our smart pass system. We piloted the smart pass. It's basically an electronic pass system. So kids have to go into their Chromebook and they have to request the pass through the Chromebook electronic and and it keeps up with you can only have three students in a bathroom at a time. So it will not allow students to go beyond three in the queue. And I had a kid the other day, I looked over his shoulder, he's going to do a pass, was 14 students in the queue. So if you didn't have a smart pass system, you might have 14 kids out of one bathroom. >> So that's why this comes into play. And I think it really
046helps keep our hallways clear, keeps everything organized, and that data, it keeps up with every um pass that a student has uh in our building. So we can see when they took when they had the pass, where did they go, how long um we allow our students to get 10 passes a week and um and if they go over, then the teacher has to call for us to go escort them to the restroom and we've had less and less of that go on as the year goes on. So they utilize it appropriately. So this is just an example of some insurance and operation [clears throat] that we think is going the long way to help with some of the scores and especially um with [snorts] those with those discipline numbers. Um so with that being
047said, there's not any questions. Um so we're going to talk a little more about educator quality, some things that we're doing to help us get get results and get ready to graduate and go off to high school. So with that, I have, let me just say this. I have a great team. [clears throat] Kristen Bishop, she's a big Alabama fan, but we won't call that. [laughter] Jill Tulie, Ohio State Buckeyes. Forget that. Katie Day Xavier. So [laughter] anyway, I have a great team. I'm very blessed and fortunate to work with them every day. and I forget a lot of stuff. So, they always make sure I remember things that they they help me out so much. They care about our kids tremendously, do an incredible job. Um, the car and concern they show for our
048kids is outstanding. And I think Katie's one of the best instructional coaches I've ever had a chance to work with. She would be very helpful to know that she is. With that being said, Kristen, if you'll help us with a little educator. >> [clears throat] >> I'm going to go into our educator quality. Um like Mr. Evans already explained, we really uh we call it teacher administrator quality that we um are always talking about in the school. At least once a day we're talking about this. So the three big aspects that we're going to look at tonight are curriculum, instruction, and assessment. And Mr. Evans has already really covered all the things. We're just going to go just a little bit deeper. But with our curriculum, the two big things that we use are Study
049Sync, which is for ELA, and then we use I Ready for Math. And we use those things with Fidelity. The biggest thing that you're going to hear me say multiple times is these are high quality instructional materials and they also align with the standards for South Carolina. So these things we use each day to, you know, really progress the kids on their path of growth. Um, so the first thing we're going to look at is our curriculum, um, which we just talked about, uh, with I Ready for Math and Study Sync for ELA. Um, these resources really just lay that foundation that our seventh and eighth grade students need for student learning. Um, and our goal is really for us to be able to create um, a cohesive learning environment for our teachers so that
050they can produce these highquality instructional materials for our students each day. Um, let's see. U, next really is our instruction. Um, here our focus is really consistency. And if you're able to look at each school really across Lexington 4, those are the things that you're going to see throughout the district. Um especially, you know, like when it comes to I already everybody's trying to piggy back on each other across the district so that we can grow strong foundation for these students so that they can be successful. Um we work to ensure student experience again with that high quality instruction. um strengthening and aligning our instructional practices. And then the teachers are really good about finding ways to engage that student learning so that if they're engaging the students, like you notice with our data, it's
051obvious that the teachers are engaging the students and then the students are having that deeper learning that goes on. And that's exactly what we're looking for. And then finally, we have assessment. Um here we're definitely regularly checking in um for student understanding, analyzing results to see how students are progressing and then how we can really support the students. And this is just a huge thing. Um Miss Dave does a great job um in doing this to make sure that our teachers are really working together. They're collaborating and they're being able to pinpoint different growth points for our student to know what those next stops or steps are. But of course, our work um doesn't stop there. After reviewing the data, we take action um which was what Mr. Evans was talking about earlier. We review
052lots of data. We all love the data. [snorts] Um and then we provide those interventions that students need. reteing um making intentional instructional uh adjustments. And that kind of leads us into what's next, which is when um during our win time, we do this once a week on Wednesdays. we have a little bit different schedule and when stands for what I need and so basically in the first semester we really started with um triangulating our data from SC ready I ready and then the coursework and so like Mr. Mr. Evans already talked about for um our diagnostics for ELA and for math. We use that data to figure out what exactly students need and then we were able to the teachers decided who needs what support. So just like Charleston and Belinda were mentioned earlier
053for for the four subjects that they have the teachers on that team are able to decide well specific students need to be with math or ELA that type of thing. So they really have that flexible grouping. Students are able to do some I Ready My Path lessons, which really guides students for exactly what they need in math. And then the coolest thing this year has really been that students that meet, we call it the green level, but they're basically on the um grade level that they're supposed to be in ELA and math, they get to come out and kind of choose a different club that they can be in. um and they get to go out during that time for whim. And then for semester two, we've really worked with the I Ready Growth and
054the coursework as well. Some other things that I didn't talk about earlier, we have um we're partnering with Gear Up this year. And so with Gear Up, they're using um SC camp. And really that's just to prepare students for the um path for college. And so they're getting to meet with um an adult who's gearing them up basically for that path. And then another thing that we started this year is varsity tutors. And this is for our ML students. They have two students who pair together and they get to they all have headsets and a mouthpiece and they get to meet with a tutor that can gear whatever they need for math and they get to talk to them and work it out on the computer. and they do that in their ML classes. Um,
055they do that twice a week and it's actually been really cool to see because everybody's like super quiet and listening to what's going on with with their tutor. But I mean, you can see different kids doing different things for each class in math. So, that's been a neat experience as well. And then next, moving into culture and climate. Mr. Evans already talked on all these, but every single day he over our announcements talks about how to empower students. And I think that's one of the biggest things that we can do is for our our kids to really know how what they have inside of them and their potential. So of course you have our four lead, learn, serve, and excel. And he always says, "Are you doing what's right? Are you doing the best that
056you can? Are you treating others the way you want to be treated?" That conversation probably happens multiple times every single day. And that's just something that we're constantly doing. We in life want to do the same thing. Next for learn is really our habits of learning that we go over every single day. Being present, prepared, participant, perform, and professional. And and then as well at the um alternative school, they're using those things to be able to re-evaluate to see if students can come back to be with us. And then of course, we're just trying to constantly have the service aspect and get these kids to really see, you know, what they're passionate about, how they can serve other people. And then last, of course, is how are you excelling? And just trying to push the
057envelope, especially for them in seventh and eighth grade, just reminding them how can you show kindness, how can you show empathy, using [clears throat] that growth mindset and taking pride um in quality work and actions. >> [snorts] >> Good evening. >> So, we're going to talk a little bit about positive behavior and supports. And so, we have recognized our students with our purple shirt tradition. And so, we celebrated students who are on the honor roll and principal list. Each student has received a certificate and a teacher prize shirt that we've asked them to wear on Fridays. And so we have recognized 31% of our students on the honor role and we had 6% of our students on the principal list. And so those are our recognitions that we did um for seventh grade and eighth
058grade. We also have something called tigers to talk about. And so Mr. Evans has kind of briefly talked about this earlier. And so we've asked teachers to write weekly positive office referrals for students who demonstrate positive behaviors through our core values of lead, learn, serve, and excel. Mr. Evans actually reads these positive referrals in the morning on the announcements. And then we take a picture with them with Mr. Evans and they also receive a bracelet and on the bracelet it says, "Go Tigers." And then it says, "Our core values of lean, learn, serve, and excel." So every student gets one of these when they get their tiger to talk about. For the upcoming semester, we're looking at different ways that we can reward our students for honor role and for principal list. And some of
059the perks that we've kind of talked about was to implement a purple and gold card system. And so that would be based off of the ABC data, their attendance, their behavior, and their academics. And so for a gold card, we would talk about two or less absences, all A's and B's, and no referrals. And some perks we've talked about for these students is Miss Days and the Beta Club students. They have worked on our courtyard outside. So we have picnic tables and we have umbrellas. So they will be able to eat outside at lunch. Um we know that kids like to go in the gym and so we would give them some gym time during lunchtime. Um going to lunch early. So if they have a gold card, they would not need to go with
060their class to the lunchroom. They would just walk down to the lunchroom. They would be first in line to get their lunch. And then they would be able to bring a friend with them outside or to the gym. And very similar for the corporal card, um three or less absences, all A's, B's and C's, and then two or less referrals for that particular quarter. And so they would have um you know be able to eat outside at lunch and then for gym time. So, our pathway to graduation. And so, we know that these actions, our future actions with educator quality, student achievement, and culture and climate will also have an impact for our students to graduate. And so, we know our ultimate goal here at the middle school is to prepare them for high school,
061to get them their 24 credits they need to graduate. And so, that is what we are trying to instill in our students at San Hills Middle School. >> Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] >> All right. It was good seeing [clears throat] that purple card for the students that make A's, B's, and C's. >> Yes, that matters. I have a student now that I'm working with and she's not making A's nor B's. We're pressing for C's, she's making below. But I've been working with her and showing her that you can do it. And so I love that when I saw that A's, B's, and C's. Thank you. >> I have a question. So with the goal card, if I get to bring a friend, >> how does that does that friend have to qualify? >>
062Awesome. >> Okay. >> What' you bring me? >> We trust We trust [laughter] >> We trust their judgment. >> Okay. Don't want to ruin it for the the whole crew, you know. [laughter] >> But it shows that friend if that friend doesn't qualify, right? >> It shows that friend what they can do. Yes. >> Yeah. I I love the idea of the golden purple card. >> The ABC data is triangulated. So you might have someone with a C, but they come to school every day, >> right? >> Giving their best effort. They're not in trouble. >> Yes. >> So why why are they not a purple car? They should be a purple car. So >> Sure. >> Well, I just want to say thank you guys. Um I volunteered in middle school a couple years
063ago and I God bless you guys. [laughter] Thank you. And uh Mr. Evans, thank you for stepping up. I know uh you've been all over the district and we appreciate your service to the district and willingness to to go wherever is required. So, thank you. >> We got great kids at SMS. Do our best to get the most out of them. And I think for our school, we got to get great and that's the goal. Trying our best. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, we'll turn it back over to Dr. Sanders. Good evening again, uh, Chairman Sutton, Dr. Nutter, members of the board. It's a pleasure to be here with you tonight to share um a little bit from, uh, human resources regarding the Sarah supply and demand uh, report. So
064as you are aware this report uh is produced every year offering us a comprehensive snapshot of the uh teacher recruitment and um retention efforts across the state of South Carolina as well as uh to provide us uh some challenges that uh we all face across all of our our districts. So, um, tonight we're going to share, um, the results of this report. Uh, this year particularly, uh, all of our, uh, public school districts in South Carolina completed with the exception of one. We don't know who that one is, but it wasn't us. I I can tell you. [laughter] Um, and so, uh, in, uh, September, uh, we were asked to, um, submit this data to Sarah for them to compile. in this report. Um when we refer to or see teacher uh not only are
065we referring to those certified teachers in the classroom but also those service uh uh based uh educators such as our school counselors, librarians, uh psychologists and uh speech language pathologists. So uh first in the report is um uh details on teacher vacancies. uh and these vacancies uh were uh reported at the beginning of the uh this school year. So 2526 um we are seeing or saw a uh 32% decrease in teacher uh vacancies uh across the state uh compared to last year. here. And if you look at the graphic on the right, uh districts total um are reporting um 76 vacancies at the beginning of this school year compared to um the 1,043 vacancies last year. So we are uh trending uh down. So for the second year in a row, we are again uh
066trending down across the entire state. Uh some of these vacancies may have been filled uh and then um new ones added since. So uh the numbers are are fluid you know a after the report uh but these uh capture uh the data that was presented uh in uh September and October uh potential causes for these uh uh the decline um and it can be a number of different reasons but um to think um one may be the alternative certified pathways that we all are um and I presented in August and shared that information with you. Uh so uh with the number of different alternative pathways into uh the teaching profession uh that is definitely uh can be uh considered. Also um there might be a um if we look into uh declining enrollment in certain
067uh districts based on um students transferring out going to charter schools uh with fewer students that will equate to fewer teaching positions. So that also might be a cause for that. On the teacher departure side, uh these are referring to the departures uh of teachers leaving um the profession in the at the end of the 2425 school year and not returning uh for 2526 which was this year. Districts reported a 5% decrease in those departures uh compared to last year. Um it is important to note or great to note uh very encouraging that teacher depart uh departures are down for the third year in a row. Uh so again those are trending down as well. Uh across the state of those departures 19% of teachers retired from the profession and did not return and 25%
068so about a fourth transferred to another South Carolina public school district uh in in the state. So looking at our numbers specifically, at the end of the 24-25 school year, we had a total of 25 uh total teachers uh to leave our district. 14 of them transferred to another public uh South Carolina district, seven retired, and then um the remaining uh resigned for other uh reasons. So, and I want to uh be very clear uh that seems like a high number u of of teachers uh transferring to other districts, but I can assure you that that is not because they're not happy. Uh and I'll share again a reminder in just a minute on why that's the case. But when we look at our data specifically, um our departures um typically are uh teachers getting
069married and relocating. Um we have a few that uh have military spouses and then that also is a relocation um some fa family matters here or there um and they may have to move to another part of the state again relocation uh those piece. So um reported to uh Sarah um again 25 were was the total number uh of departures um for last from last school year um and you can see the breakdown of the experience level um as it relates to those those uh teachers. So with this data uh it's not just about us looking at the report and it um sits on a desk. We are actually analyzing it and working uh with our principles. Uh so as we plan for the 2627 school year, we are definitely engaging in uh systemic uh
070retention strategies where we're providing our principles with guidance and the resources that they need to be successful. Uh they're doing a great job and again I wanted to uh go back. This data on the right was shared uh by Miss High Tower a few months ago and as you can see from the climate surveys on our report card, our teachers are are pretty happy. Uh and so uh I do want to commend our principles. They do a phenomenal job um making it hard for our teachers to want to leave. every uh resignation letter that I've I've reviewed says I I'm after a long uh you know prayerful consideration I mean I really don't want to leave but due to whatever the situation is I have no choice and so that speaks to the great work
071that our principles are doing uh and our leaders providing that support to them u uh as we work together to make sure that um we are doing the best for our our system. One of the things I also want to share is that uh retention is our best recruiting strategy. Um as we uh look to next year and this is the case across the state. Every HR professional that I'm speaking with uh we are trying to find ways to better retain our folks that we have uh in in our district. Uh one of the things that we are um doing also is as we're working with our principles uh we are um implementing what's known as state conversations uh with teachers and this is a pro a proactive conversation u with our our principles are
072going uh to and and this is just like we interview new hires um our teach our principles are interviewing our our current teachers and it's not anything formal it's I'm walking down the hall I go in the classroom during planning period and have a state conference and ask uh uh proactive uh questions on uh job satisfaction. What do you like about this school? You know, what what is keeping you here at this school? Uh to get that feedback. Also, professional growth. What can we do to better assist you grow and develop uh as an educator? Also, uh work workplace support. Um and and you know, we've heard tonight from Mr. Evans and his team about the support, the tons of support that that's there. So having those intentional conversations uh and again making it hard
073for them to want to leave. Um also um we noticed at the on the previous slide there was a a larger number than we would like um exiting in the years one through five. So um really having a strategic focus on retaining those early career teachers. Every one of them uh in the first and second year actually year three as well with some of them have a mentor uh and uh that mentor is providing support uh alongside of the principal and administrative team instructional coach. Um we also offer um some uh support here at the district level as well. Uh and we're also working with those mentors. We had a a training um back in November, December u on how uh to sharpen the work that our mentors are doing with those early career teachers.
074Um we're also reviewing uh regional salary uh competitiveness competitiveness. We um first want to thank you for the great work that you've done passing a budget um where uh we are very highly competitive when it comes to salary. So that again speaks to your support from uh from the the leadership uh all the way down. and then continuing those ongoing uh recruitment uh efforts that we have to obtain highquality candidates. Also, thank you so much for your flexibility and what you allow us to do to go after those highquality um candidates uh that we uh are already running into. Uh and so uh that leads me to our next piece. We are uh very much busy in the office of human resources uh with recruitment efforts. Again, we are we strongly believe in retention is
075our greatest uh tool for recruiting, but we also know that, you know, again, some sometimes uh you know, for different reasons, people have to leave. And so, we want the best of the best. So, these are just a few snapshots. We've been around the state. You'll see USC um we've been at Newberry, Lander, uh Clemson, uh Winthre was a couple of weeks ago. We have some others uh lined up. And again, I want to commend our principles as we go out to these fairs. Uh we engage with these candidates and um it's to the point now where we are I'm actually sending resumes straight from the the recruitment table to our principal. Shout out to Mr. Evans. Um because I sent him one and within probably I want to say 15 minutes he had already
076had the interview scheduled. Um and so that is uh that's the hard work that we do. Um, so we're at uh recruitment fairs. Also, uh, alternative s uh, certified pathways are an option. So, we're looking at that list. Uh, we have teachers of tomorrow list as well as the Carolina cap list uh, that have been produced for us. So, um, we have a plethora of resources for our our principles as we uh, engage with them to find the very best because we want the very very best. And again, um the last thing that I'll share is uh uh also working with our principles as uh they work with instructional assistants who um have degrees who are looking to get degrees because again as we are growing our own that is important for us as well
077to uh help them. They're already in the classroom helping them to transition into the teaching profession should they desire to as well. All right. So that concludes uh the Sarah uh supply and demand report. Uh, I'll entertain any questions if you have any. [clears throat] >> All right. Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Right. I will jump right on in to the financial update. Um, this is we're get approaching the time where we're going to start getting some of our tax dollars in. Um, so I think you'll see these numbers shifting as as the next month or two goes on, but as of the end of January, we've collected a little over 22.6 million in revenue year to date. This represents 50.8% of the annual revenue budget. This is a little bit under our prior
078year's averages of 54.6%. Um I'm anticipating at this point that when we get the January collections in the next couple weeks, hopefully that's going to level out. Um we are looking at that though and and very um I'm not anxious but um anticipating getting those numbers. This past year, as you know, we went through reassessment. Um, the county also implemented a new financial system tracking all their assessments and and that sort of information. So, just a lot of newness going on with the estimates that they gave us. So, I'm just really looking forward to seeing those numbers in black and white when we get those. So, we will continue to monitor that um and and be on the lookout. So, hopefully next month we'll see a jump in that in that revenue. Um, as far
079as state revenues go, um, we have seen a decrease in the state revenues based on what we budgeted and what was estimated originally. Uh, approximately $275,000. That's primarily due to the 45day updates where they get 45day counts. Um, our count our our student counts did go down slightly, but it is also impacted by overall changes throughout the state. Um, so that has temporarily gone down. We will see potentially another change when they factor in the 135day numbers. That could be, you know, an increase or a decrease. Um, fortunately, our interest revenue is coming in a little bit higher than we originally budgeted and that's going to help offset um any decreases hopefully in that state revenue. But just continuing to watch that. I don't anticipate um there being any issues, but just keeping an eye
080on it. Um with regards to expenditures, we've expended a little over 25 million year to date, which represents 51.9% of the annual expenditure budget. This is actually above our prior year's average expenditure um year-to- date totals of about 47.2%, but that is related to the fact that we did the transfer over to capital projects. So that's going to skew those percentages. Um, if we take the the transfer out and do comparisons, we're actually coming in below on our expenditure side year to date around 43.7%. So I feel good about where we are with the expenditures at this point. Um, any questions about the monthly report? I'm just going to briefly give a update related to the general fund budget timeline. You should all should have received that in your packet. This is pretty much in
081line with what we've done the last several years as far as the timing. Um, you know, we'll go through in the next month, February, March time frame and we'll start looking at um, you know, different needs throughout the district. We'll start monitoring monitoring state legislation to see, you know, where things are going um, and what our revenues are looking like. and we'll start updating you, I know, at every monthly meeting. Then we'll determine if we need to have any additional budget workshops. Um, so I have a question mark there on the April 27th. We'll just see where we are at that point in time. But that's just a recap for you to kind of know what our plan is. Um, just a kind of a reminder, unfortunately, the budget process happens very quickly and it
082has to happen sometimes more quickly than the state budget process gets completed. So, just wanted to kind of remind you that it'll seem very slow at first and then we'll get into that last month or two and it it'll all be happening very quickly um because we'll start getting those um revenue projections finalized. But along the way, we'll be monitoring and and talking through what that looks like um as we go. And you know, we're here to answer any questions or or support you guys as we go through that process. Um wanted to mention just a couple things. Um it's still very early in the process. I think uh finance committee is meeting some RFA's given some updates at this point. Um, but really we don't have a lot to go on, but the governor's
083budget recommendations are out there and the state department's um, budget recommendations. So, I tried to just look over both of those to figure out what matched [clears throat] because the likelihood of it getting through if everybody's agreeing on the front end is, you know, a little bit higher. So, both um, of those budget recommendations have a $2,000 per sale increase to the teacher salary schedule. Um the governors had an additional $500 for that starting salary to get it up to 50,500. Uh so they're they're fairly close, [cough] which is a good thing. We'll see how much money there is to divvy out, but hopefully they'll be pushing up the teacher salary schedule again by by 2000. Um also monies go into the education scholarship trust fund. They both were in line with putting $61 million
084towards that. So, we'll continue to look at that. And both had instructional materials budgeted around $50 million as well. There were several other common areas, but some of the numbers may have been a little bit different as far as what they were putting towards it, but we'll continue to watch that. Just kind of wanted to hit those few things. Everybody's always interested on what the teacher salary schedule is looking like. So, just wanted to give you that that brief update, and I'll continue to bring legislative updates as as they come over the next couple months. So, any questions on the budget timeline process or update? >> Any concern about uh the collection? Is that across the state that it's down or is that >> as far as the t local tax collection? Um I haven't
085really talked to the Lexington school the other school district. So, it would just be a county um thing we'd be looking at. probably after we get this first um payment for the January collections, we'll have a way it'll it'll look way better. I look back at last year and we at January were also behind a little bit from what I would have expected from prior years. That could be a shifting in how the bills are going. I mean, there's lots of factors. So, again, I'm not concerned about it. I I will just be looking at it as soon as it comes in. Um, but if those numbers when we get January revenues look a little low, I will be talking with I'm meeting with all the finance folks in the next month or so, we're
086going to have a a um meeting with CFOs and so we'll be discussing that to see are they seeing similar things, but we'll we'll definitely keep an eye on it. Don't worry. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you so much. >> [snorts] >> I'd like to uh provide an update on mental health services. Uh we talked about this back in August. It was a area of need and interest to the board and also to our community. I know that um Miss Dibble talked about it again last month because of a session and information was provided from the conference that the board members were at last month as well. I want to give an update. Um again, why is mental health important? Uh this slide is one that uh we provided back in
087August. um primarily it improves not just academic outcomes but if we have early identification and intervention then it can help um support the whole child right and uh Cindy you spoke very passionately and accurately about that last month and it's definitely a need for um all of us and and our students and it's a way in which uh we can not just improve school climate behavior but also O uh provide support to our families and staff. If you remember back at that time, we said that we would be conducting a program review this year uh approaching next year uh as far as budget and looking to see how we can be as effective as possible. So, we have had a Lexon County Mental Health Services partnership for many years. It's very valuable to us. Um
088but we have experienced uh where just like a teacher shortage, there is a mental health uh services shortage and we have experienced this year where we can have up to four um mental health counselors through our agreement with them [snorts] and we uh consistently throughout this year have had one. That's not uh a a detriment to them. It's again uh the challenges that are involved in that. So we have experienced those coverage gaps to our students. Um Dr. Maddox uh has led uh us looking into a doing a deep dive into uh effective ways uh to engage mental health services. And um so we have been investigating what some would call a hybrid model that some of our uh partner districts around the state and even locally engage where uh we don't just have uh
089the relationship with Lexon County Mental Health, but we also hire one or [clears throat] more of our own uh to uh help with that uh transition of students and provide services with that. So, not just district but also contracted clinicians. So, um I wanted to provide an update as well uh that not only are we looking at that and you'll hear about that as we approach budget and look at those needs uh but uh we have also uh currently uh found and submitted a uh grant proposal uh it's the 2026 Stronger Connections Grant. Uh and the um proposal that has been submitted just this month uh it we entitled it mental health bridge program and it is focused on the rest of this year if it were accepted and we were awarded that but it
090would provide us with a full-time contracted clinician for the remainder of this year. Uh and that allows us a pilot to see how does this work, how would it work, that type thing. It also provides us or would provide us with being able to purchase uh the billing uh uh program and that type thing because that's one of the heavy lifts that like Lexon County Mental Health can help us with uh with the whole billing for Medicaid and and reimbursement and that type thing. So, um this uh grant can help us with that. So, just wanted to not uh just to give you a heads up on that that we're continuing to work on that in multiple avenues as we move towards uh the future and uh we look forward to seeing uh what uh
091may come with this grant. Okay. The next item is athletic training and we talked about this in September and we shared about uh what we currently have as far as athletic trainers within our district. We are fortunate to currently employ two fully certified athletic trainers. uh one uh is our own employee who is our full-time head athletic trainer and the other is through USC is a graduate assistant that they work full-time with us as an assistant athletic trainer and you remember if we went over uh why these athletic trainers are important to us uh their credentials their certifications their expertise and uh we also talked about how that partnership with USC sports medicine is very important to us as well. Um wanted to give you a heads up that um USC within this last month
092has let us know that they are not going to be able to fulfill uh that partnership that we've had for a long time. Um it it will end in May 2026 and that is because um they had there are new certification requirements for athletic trainers and uh the individuals that we were getting uh had already been been certified. A lot of them had worked in in the profession but then were going back and getting their master's degree, right? And so they were there at USC for a year within that master's program and need to engage a internship and that's how they are embedded with us and other districts around Colombia. Well, uh the the law has changed with the certification of these athletic trainers and now you have to have a master's degree to even
093become certified. So therefore, the pool of individuals that would be certified and then going to get a master's degree is going down. So USC um their program is changing to where it will be an online program [snorts] uh to get the master's degree. And so therefore uh having individuals they they will recruit people from across the country. Uh but having those individuals relocate here for a year and then be involved in the local community. uh that that pool is going to go down because they can be in the program elsewhere and be involved in the community where they are. So uh that also includes our access uh to the uh athletic training uh medical documentation software that we use. >> As we look at our uh our athletic department has great participation and and we
094are doing very well with that. You see the data that we have uh from athletic participation in fall, winter, and spring. That spring doesn't include track and field at the moment because they they are still finalizing their rosters. And then you look as we talked about back in September as we were looking at athletic safety, the number of events that we have in Lex and a lot of [clears throat] times as you know especially in winter and then some spring a lot of those are duplications. we have baseball and soccer and softball and all that going on at the same time. So it it is imperative uh in our uh perspective that we need to research and find how we can find additional an additional assistant athletic trainer. We don't feel like that's something that
095we can just do without. Uh so we will have some of the funding that we have engaged with uh the contract services with USC but just giving you a heads up as well that we will we will be looking at how we can fund that additional uh the rest that will be needed for that position and if we look for quality candidates we will we will be posting before uh we're not going to wait till um July with the to to engage that if that makes sense. >> Yes, sir. >> Questions about that? >> We have to look into purchasing the software as well. >> Yes. >> So, so any other questions about that? Just wanted to give you a heads up on those two things and both of those serve our community, serve our
096students. >> Absolutely. >> Uh they're not classroom, but they are uh very important to the >> Yeah, I I agree with that. um just incidents on the football field this year alone I think is >> necessary. So >> we also item 12.3 is the notice of special election [clears throat] uh which uh we do have a vacancy and uh the filing period ended today. Uh we'll be working with Lexon County Election Commission on that. The um notice of special election is uh on the uh election commission's website and also our website. The the current um uh election is scheduled for April 14th and again we'll be working with them on that. >> Do we know if anyone's registered? Uh, as of uh early this afternoon, the last time I checked, uh, there were there was
097not a name on the website. Uh, but I don't know when they update that, but the deadline for filing was at noon today. >> And if there's not a name, then then we will work with we will uh work with Lexon County Election Commission to see what the what the next steps are with that. I see some great candidates for that position right here in the in the room. So, >> Charleston, I don't know if he fits. [laughter] >> And um item 12.4. I want to remind you uh March 30th. Just want to give you a heads up as early as possible. Uh all of us need to uh >> complete our statement of economic interest. >> Mine's already been done. and uh then went to remind us of uh we very much appreciate the
098uh professional development and the commitment to professional development that our board has. Our board is uh very uh engaged and focused on uh serving our public and our students in every way that they possibly can. And uh you see that through the future board events uh not just our board meeting coming up in March when we'll have the freshman academy uh highlighted but also the u annual convention with uh the school boards association February 20th through 22nd. I know our chair will be actively involved in that within his leadership role within SCSBA and others. And then uh March 12th through the 15th [clears throat] uh the uh CASPA uh conference in Louisville. So, uh again, we appreciate um the fact that our board not only engages that, but as you all saw last month, uh
099actively engages it and comes back and collaborates and shares and uh is very informed as far as the things that matter uh within education. Uh chair, I'd also like to recognize that uh John Linger um is here. Uh he is uh our House of Representatives uh representative for this area from district 88 in Lexon County and we appreciate him coming and uh being with us tonight. >> Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. >> Yes. >> He got here a little earlier and we shake shook hands and we got contact information. So we do appreciate you for showing up tonight. >> Yes. >> Also want to thank again the families that came to represent Sand Hills. We love Sand Hills. Anything we can do, let us know. And with that being said, we need a motion to
100adjurnn. I make a motion we adjourn. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Everybody have a good night. Drive safely. I'll see you next month. Come on back. [laughter]