001[Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] executive session go back into regular session second movement second movement second we go from executive session back to regular section all day let me know by raising your right hand proposals are the same we're now back into regular session no decisions were made no actions were taken while we were in executive session at this time is there anything we need to go forward with elections we have elections national one resignation one termination and three new house certified missions a second this is the second that we accept one termination of resignation and three certified hires are you ready for questions are you
002ready to vote all in favor you know about raising your right hand opposite of the same they have been accepted and now we'll be having comments um public comments and i'd like to say good evening to everyone there's something i like to read before we start with a public comment i think everyone should have got a copy of this we will be coming forward with public comments it is our public comment policy b-e-d-h-r and it states in order to ensure that persons who wish to appear before the board may be heard and at the same time allow the board to conduct this meeting properly and efficiently the board adopts the following rules and procedures pertaining to the public participation in its meetings speakers may offer objective criticisms of district and school operations and programs as
003concerned items however in public session the board will not hear personal complaints about district personnel nor hear personal complaints against any persons connected with the district other channels provide for board consideration and disposition of legitimate complaints involving individual employees persons wishing to address the board representing themselves or a group must complete an available card and that was done i hope the available card will ask for the individual's name address phone number nature of the issue being presented and where applicable organizations being represented this card will be available at the beginning at which permission to speak is being requested anyone needing assistance in providing this information will be given help the public participation portion of the board meeting will be at the same designated time place on the agenda for all regularly scheduled meetings each speaker
004will have three minutes to address the board appropriate language and decorum will be determined by the board chairperson the boom invests in his chairperson or other presiding officer the authority to terminate the remarks of individuals who do not adhere to the rules established above uh the first public request forum is mr charles graham good evening superintendent board chair board members uh my issue is um i just don't have to be sitting here on a meeting and um it's a large outstanding debt for the cheerios which has been there for a long time but my issue now is the current cheerleaders and chilean coach is having to deal with this large debt that was with a cheerleading coach from years ago i would ask that you make an appointment i would say if it's the high
005school with the highest school principal at this time and maybe with the superintendent or someone and maybe we can address that that way all right because i'd like to say but i i do it that way but my reason for coming is because it's been addressed before like say now you know i'll still take it i still take care of it for you but i just want to make it if it's not addressed then i would suggest that you come before the board the board and address that issue with the board all right thank you for all you do for our kids mr brown appreciate it miss linda collins good evening to the board chair and to the members of the board thank you for allowing me to speak tonight i am linda collins i
006have an adopted grandson who is in the 10th grade at marlboro county high school and i was a teacher in the county for several years when i went to the open house at the high school i picked up his syllabuses for his classes and one of them was a syllabus for a class english 2 class that was done by elevate k-12 which is an online course and in this syllabus there were several essential questions which really concerned me because in my opinion they could be used to promote critical race theory i spoke for a few weeks with dr bryant about this and he assured me that this was not the correct syllabus and he did bring out to my my house on saturday morning what he said was the correct syllabus for this class it's
007an english two class um and unfortunately this also had a lot of essential questions in it and i want to read some of the questions from the first syllabus the first unit is called dehumanization and one of the questions says what marginal groups in society are likely more prone to experiencing dehumanizing tactics by others and there are other questions similar to that that is in the first syllabus that i picked up at the high school in the second syllabus um i've got a list of the questions i think you've got a copy of it that concerned me there are many of them there are several of the first syllabus and then they're 19 and the second syllabus number eight what is humanity's responsibility to cultural atrocities and human rights violations number 11 what is oppression
008and what is the root cause those are questions that concern me in my opinion these questions do promote or can not necessarily do but can promote critical race theory and i do not believe that our students should be indoctrinated with this for the following reasons and i'm about to run out of time but you've got a copy of the reason um one thing number three says it demeans people on the basis of race and i do want to say that this was this critical race theory they tried to do it in the 1960s but even martin luther king said that he did not like it and that's why it didn't happen in the 60s along with other people didn't like it either because he said judge me by my character not by the color of
009my skin so this did not fly in the 60s and i don't think it ought to fly now or be and our students should not be indoctrinated with this so i hope you will consider this um they are seeking to indoctrinate groups i gotta stop pursue students and i hope they will not thank you thank you tim mcneil foreign tonight i come to you as an angry upset fan special education in marlborough is awful the high school those high school kids in special education have nothing nothing to get prepared for they have no transition services no career prep no learning labs no nothing my daughter has autism and it is shameful i see money flying out this door everywhere with special education and i am tired and patient but it ends tonight now we spent
010a million dollars on the field we know that we don't know how much this last executive hiring street coffee does so i asked you to release the salaries the position and the salaries of these executives if you're not willing i'll follow the freedom of information requests i'll get it and release it we gotta see where this money going special education is back two people a director and a school psychologist look at darlington just to figure throwing stuff they got the problems so much families coming to be crying children with iaps graduating they're getting no help it is time to fix it it's time to fix it and we got some other problems i wanted to two years ago about purple and gold coming into our school of color now this didn't stop we got a
011fresh house back there those students with special education could use that building so i'm asking you to fix it tonight any brave boy ask for a training table opinion if this is legal contact state department education legal affairs see if that's legal make a motion no more purple gold in our district it's black and vegas gold lastly i ask you that ability to be painted by five o'clock tomorrow it makes no sense another thing i actually take 345 off everything because you don't need it give me a report of special education in this county and you tell me you mean those words those children have nothing nothing and it's time to fix it but i will be back i will thank you thank you is flooding nan fleming oh and this law said i apologize
012thank you gee i got a nice chairs out there when i was someday you had those back breakers oh man oh man this is how you treat me good afternoon thank you for allowing uh us this opportunity we are probably ambassadors for the state of south carolina sacramento department of education along with south carolina department of health and environmental controls i'm going to read something to you that uh my daughter sent me 9 11 20 21 9 30 p.m this was friday night as a friday night at 11 30 we had 41 million zero 140 cases we've had that's nationally we have deaths that number of cases is bigger than the population the whole population of the according to the 2020 census california florida texas and new york which is our biggest states that i
013mean we have south carolina has as a friday night 784 052 cases 11 149 steps this is a this is the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life our our task has been to try to work to get along with the school district and anyone else to get people vaccinated and we've been doing that working very hard we appreciate all that you do we want an opportunity to work closely because this is the job that's going to take every hand on the plow to do what needs to be done to uh convince people to be vaccinated uh so that we can move forward i mean i could talk forever but i see i've taken that more time than uh has to say something oh my three minutes okay well then i can complain about
014that i thank you all for all you do for it i really appreciate it and dr mccord i thank you for all the work you do all the it's been a tough time and somehow we have got to harness this thing please let us work together let us anyway we've done vaccinations and head starts at tech and schools and we're going in a housing project and we're just going everywhere trying to get these shots in the arms and uh if we can just wait for this crib and hopefully we can do some more things so that we can um make it to get states back up make it make it better the cure is here um just somehow another find the words to convince people to get that shot so we can get back to
015normal [Applause] i thank you i would like my three seconds back on because i'm gonna use every three seconds i can thank you so very much for this opportunity this week thank you just want to reiterate what ms flynn said before you you have information about the vaccination rate in marlborough county you have information about the vaccination rate at the school as of september 10th you have a flyer that provides you with what we've been doing in the community in this particular fight to tell you about the vaccination event we're having on the 23rd and you also have a brochure about questions and answers about copic 19. one to quickly say to you that since the seventh information came out south carolina has at least it is at 58.5 percent with one vaccination 49.5 percent
016still fully vaccinated marlborough county compared to other counties within this district in the pd area chesterfield county says that 33.4 dollars in county sets at 48 percent dealing at 40 percent marrying at 47 percent and marlborough county is on the bottom at 33.3 percent we are at the bottom and we've been at the bottom when we got in this initiative we were number 26. we have made great gains in this county by providing information such as this and what we want to do is to move that needle up more than just an inch and an inch we want to move that needle up to where we can get at least another four percent 48 percent of our people vaccinated or more we want very much to ask that you understand that this is something that
017we're not here for show we want marlboro county to be on the top sometime right at the bottom all the time the other thing i want to say is we've been working with a lot of providers and we thank the school for working with us but we want you to work closely with us let us help set up vaccination events in the school we've been working and i want to show honor and respect to this young lady she's a member of cvs this is jenny suthers jones she worked with us very closely to make sure that marlboro county get vaccinated she took days off to work with marlborough county to help get us vaccinated she was scheduled for this event on the 23rd but unfortunately god had another plan for her so we want to
018ask you we want your staff fascinating we want the students vaccinated we know that you can't mandate this we appreciate that you have mandated max because we want children safety at school we want the staff safe at that school we want students safe at that school so i ask you to please work with us we want you involved we want you to know the school vaccination rate if those figures are correct we want you to be concerned about that we want you to understand that we are tired of margaret county being on the bottom we're working hard we're in this to win it we're not in it for sure i tell you that now i'm working hard and miss him fling is working hard we want marlborough county to be first in something sometime thank
019you for this time and thank you for the opportunity to speak have a good day thank both of you for what you're doing thank you dr ripley mcleod good evening mr chairman members of the board i'm back again and i've noticed it and a couple of times i've been here it seemed like it's been a concerted effort to silence me first time superintendent sitting over there eating potato chips second time uh the technology wasn't working well i'm not going away and what i'm here about tonight is you know i brought you the information about the omega hood shack back there and as of right now seems like nothing's been done but bottom line is and the thing that amazed me you all went in the executive session and called me and after i gave you
020the information of his misbehavior because some of you didn't even know about it you all come back and give him a ten percent raise now what what's with that he's not even worth the salary that he gets let alone a ten percent make way oh you wanna try to silence me now okay what no one said anything yet but i'm asking you to be careful about how you direct your yeah and my my time is i don't understand that but your time also has to do with the way you do things yeah well like i said i'm just putting it down front where it needs to be the other thing is he gave him a 10 raise this time whenever he got into it with uh the fella that was doing the bathrooms and we
021got a hundred thousand dollar lawsuit you gave me mr two more than mr two four years old i know you shouldn't do that i know you know that huh well please you responded i am because you're not supposed to do it we all know that you said that we're supposed to talk about stuff that's in the board's control superintendent is in the board's control and i told you all the last two times you all are his bosses and you all need this time to ask you to stop well that's okay thank you sir but i'll be back okay because like they say you can't silence us like no one's trying to we just wanna but that's okay because he's gonna get his thank you mr cloud that sounds so great matter of fact [Music] okay
022so you want to defer yes okay thank you sir celebrations we have a few that we're going to celebrate tonight and uh mr chair and to the board if i think i do expect for everyone to respect decisions that are made because they're all made in the best interests of kids and so i say that before we move into the celebration portion thank you for allowing me a character education student of the month we'll have bps and blenheim middle school professional based and when you become a google certified educator you get to proudly display a badge on your email signature line and also you receive a certification a certificate our target when i spoke to you several months ago was to have a hundred percent of our teachers certified by the year 23 24. since
023then we've had have extended that certification opportunity to all staff members when they attend the google bootcamp for those days of service beyond their contract days they receive 100 per day per session and when they become google certified they receive an additional four hundred fifty dollars for their certification totaling six hundred and fifty dollars we've so far had five google boot camp sessions and those five sessions are two days each which is a total of 10 days we have two upcoming certification sessions one beginning this saturday september 18th and september 25th and then october we will begin our first level two certification for those teachers who were be who were certified level one earlier the reason why we wanted to do this is to increase awareness and increase precipitation participation for those that were a
024little leery about why should they spend their time to become google certified at today 93 passage rate we currently have have a total of 67 certified teachers level one and two and in that certified teacher list we include paraprofessionals teachers a nurse administrative assistants and all of this has happened since spring of 2019. currently marlborough county has one google certified trainer who facilitates all the google bootcamps and this is just a snapshot from our google boot camp that was held on april 24th at our local schools our mccall elementary middle school leads our pack with 17 certified teachers with marvel county high school following close behind with 14 the district office has eight bis six glendale middle school discovery 2 and coyote elementary school 1 and wallace elementary middle school with 5. we have our
025session coming up on saturday as i mentioned and we actually have 26 staff members enrolled and 40 40 plus on the waiting list which those teachers will be giving first dibs on the next next session any questions i'd just like to publicly acknowledge the hard work of you as well as those that have come in to take the course teachers that have been successful as well as those that are waiting to take the test are being more successful in classrooms as they integrate uh google as a platform in the classrooms and i think that says a lot about you and your work so thank you you're welcome thank you very much now we'll bring up joy rankin george rankin has a student who recently scored well i've done that cooper is a fourth grade student
026at mccall elementary middle school and in the spring of this past school year cooper made a perfect score on the sc ready math test now to tell you what kind of feet that is a typical third grade range of scores is 250 to 575. cooper's score was an 8.25 i think i need cooper to tutor me in math um so i asked uh his mom and i asked his teacher to share a little information about cooper so we can give him a good shout out tonight but so they shared with us that cooper is an avid gamer and he loves to watch youtube he's very inquisitive and he enjoys figuring out how things work when cooper finds himself needing a break from the screen you can find him buried in a book he loves to
027read cooper has always had a knack for puzzles as well he enjoys a good challenge no matter where they may take him and in the 2021 school year it was anything but normal but despite all the challenges cooper obviously rose to the occasion and excelled he's very driven when it comes to his education and he strives for the best and always does what is expected of him i want to say congratulations to his dad who's his proud dad who's standing over here beside of him and his mom who is also a third grade teacher over third grade hill second grade teacher over at the municipal primary school ms brandy bullard so we're very very proud of cooper congratulations [Applause] uh [Applause] revolution i'd like to have this dr jermaine watson come to the front as
028we give him an opportunity to make a few comments first of all for the first time in the past four years marlboro county high school has reached a graduation rate above 81 percent let's give him a round of applause i have dr watson speak on that but again some people focus on what's not being done i'm excited about what is being done so dr watson if you care to share a few words and congratulations to you and your staff and the class of 2021 for the hard work and effort it's not a hundred percent but it's better than it's been and we're looking forward to it continuing to get better each year board chair dr mccord members of the board members and guests virtually here at present um so when the graduation rate is basically
029tracked from their freshman year to name grade year so all the students that came into marvel county high school in those that graduated in the four years that's how that graduation rate is is gauged um we started in november taking a really bull's-eye approach to looking at what's really going on and in november we had 55 percent of the high school student seniors at the class of 2022 the nine gr 18 we had about 55 percent of them that were off track meaning they were failing one or more classes they failed of course their freshman junior sophomore year they're all trying to graduate so we had to implement some things my staff and the students really work hard to hold each other accountable i was given a task of giving each senior each teacher three
030seniors to make sure we hold those students accountable um dr mccarthy and i did it and we did it one of the things we did with that we created the art program art stands for academic recovery piece i think i mentioned that at another board meeting we had students that were struggling academically in courses that they were in so we kind of gave them a lifeline like dead relief why would we leave that student in that class struggling if they are already sinking pretty much with an anchor on their legs so we gave them a lifeline removed them from those classes gave them use of program ingenuity to help better assist those students and make sure that they were academically uh successful so when across that stage received a high school thing you know job
031level you're doing a very good job but i also want to bring want to try to reign on parade or put anything negative on it but i know we've been dealing with coping yes sir and dealing with copenhagen uh is it the way that they score the graduation rate during covet that isn't something that all students passed no no no surprise i was asking questions no grace over grades no those are that 81 of students they earned every last point grade point average a grade they scored they earned it wasn't any grace over grades they earned this well job well doing congratulations thank you thank you sir thank you i'm going to ask for for them to watch the video of one of our staff um while playing accidentally my son um fell into the
032swimming pool and um for a few like one or two minutes he was like i was not paying attention to him for one or two minutes i just was looking somewhere else and when i turned around i found him in the water of swimming pool floating and he was unconscious um immediately the mother instinct kicked in i started calling 9-1-1 i started asking my friends to call 9-1-1 and one of my friends helped me to take him out of the water i wanted to hear him to talk to me and the only thing that came to my mind was before ambulance comes before 9 months when people are right i have to make him wake up i have to somehow try to talk to him he has to talk to me and before that all
033this month we were doing safe school training videos on various subjects and one of the one of the videos was about cpr training which which we might use in the classroom if god forbade we have to and i will not say it was planned but immediately i started doing cpr i have never done this before um this was my first time and how i came to know about cpr is through safe school training videos like many other teachers um i i used to feel like why we have to do all these videos but trust me since that day i have been telling all my friends i have been telling even the people who are not teaching who are not in marlborough county school district if you can go through those videos some of those videos
034are life saving videos and [Music] those safe school training that cpr training in safe school helped me save my son's life and he's with me today and i'm so glad i hope those day school training videos that we do as teachers we don't have to use it like we i pray we never have to use it in our classrooms but if we have to those can actually save someone's life when i took him out of the swimming pool he was still unconscious and with the i started giving cpr because that's whatever i learned from the safe school training videos um and after two attempts i was able to make him wake up he started coughing up water and he was awake he was crying he started crying he started breathing and when the ambulance arrived
035because i was still in panic mode ambulance like the doctor said you don't have to panic you have done the the 99 person part you have done he's awake he's talking he's breathing we just that's what they said that you saved his life um even the doctors when he reached to the er um the doctor said that because of the cpr you gave you saved his life and and i could do that only because of the training i got from the safe school videos and i told you before i have never done this training before and it was virtual i saw the videos but practically yeah i could do it and save my son's life [Music] [Applause] so i'm going to ask uh whether chairman you know i'm in the front as we give the
036certificate recommendation to mr rasheen singh in recognition for her ability to calmly put the use life-saving skills learned from the district's safe schools training and she has a family [Applause] no no thank you my phone [Applause] oh patricia bennett and kate knight to come forward this is our district teacher and district staff person of the year and on behalf of ours those are the same the minutes have been approved [Music] i'm sorry is it possible that we moved the men of omega to the top of this list and then we'll come back to coke with capital improvement yes okay so we'll start with minimum vegas sci-fi good evening to the chairman of this board good evening to the members good evening to the community as president my name is gregory kane i am a proud
037graduate of marlboro county high school right here in this district i'm also a proud member of omega's top five fraternity incorporated tonight we understand that there's this conversation and we even heard some tonight a mega hut and that fraternity house where we want to ensure that we're here standing as a group able to change that narrative and make sure that it's clearly known and conveyed who we are what we do what we believe in most importantly what we don't do we'll start there that's okay so just kind of recapping while we're here tonight we understand that there's been some expression some concern about what we do with the property that we share with the school district we want to make certain that we're clear that we the members of this great organization stand here to
038oppose that we stand firm in our beliefs and our principles and we'll talk more about that tonight indeed for confirmation we've partnered with the school district we've offered to reimburse the portion of the monthly utility fees yes we've painted and performed facility improvements on that property this property others have allowed or have been allowed to determine as they see it fit this is not a fraternity house in terms of that common thought this is actually a mentorship center to the states we've had one official event there and that was a chapter meeting amongst the men of this retainer also tonight we're here to express our desire to continue with this partnership in just a moment we'll talk more about the organization and our belief system but i also want to start with and i think
039sometimes it's faster for understanding to tell you what we aren't we are not abusive to the property that we share based on this agreement we are not in violation or in the terms of this partnership agreement we do not condone the sale use distribution of any illegal drugs tobacco or alcohol we do not condone any activity that's going to violate the terms of this agreement jeopardize our reputation of our organization the reputation of any of our partners we will not take on any risk that may inverse adversely impact our ability to perform our community service and the mentorship programs that we've established you've heard me mention omega software opportunity incorporated you've seen on screen lambda iowa iota or li squared i want to provide some explanation because others have had the opportunities to create this
040narrative we want to take this time to make sure we are able to settle that omega scifi fraternity incorporated is an internationally recognized recognized fraternity established in 1911 on the campus of howard university our chapter lambda iona iowa as of december 7th 1991 was founded here in veniceville we serve marlboro chesterfield richmond counties we're approximately 35 to 40 members of our group once again these are college educated men that are seeking to make a difference in their communities relative to the school district and our community who is glenda iowa once again chapter of omega sapphire fraternity incorporated we're an effective partner with the school district we also are an effective community service provider relative to the school district we are collaborating to host the members of mentorship program and to be fully accountable due to
041pandemic and other reasons we do not maximize our ability to use that facility however we're planning and we'll continue to move in that direction we're an effective community service provider as we have 30 plus years of giving thousands of dollars in scholarships to young men and women of this region for academic for pursuit of their academic goals we've been collaborative partner we've also hosted many community-based events coat drives back-to-school drives mentorship programs vaccination routes voter registration campaigns and other matters at hand that are impacting our community as we get into more of the individuals that make up the lambda io diode chapter of omega scifi fraternity incorporated i would be remiss if i didn't take just one moment to mention the loss of one of our dear brothers yes he served in richmond county he
042was a sheriff but as an organization he's very important to us very important leader very important man very important bridge builder you'll see the excerpt of that poem on screen w a drawing hole bridgeville so we've talked about what we aren't we spend a few moments addressing who we are why we exist how long we've been here i think it would be important for spending just a few moments to talk about what we believe in our cardinal principles as you can see on the screen manhood scholarship perseverance uplift these are principles that we believe in and also we want to use to help others not within the community but the youth that we serve as well in terms of manhood being able to develop more in terms of responsibility and love for god and family
043and unselfish living being quality being an exemplifying manhood scholarship as i mentioned earlier we're all college graduates we're here and we understand the importance of continual and ongoing learning we are here we understand the importance of being able to pay it forward and help others out we understand how important it is to persevere and to offer uplift as other principles we have heard mention several times tonight there's a lot going on there's a lot that's happening through covert before cover there's a lot that we're still planning perseverance is what i'm referring to very important key not only do we believe in but we practice and we also teach it our motto friendship is essential to the soul we don't believe that is optional we don't believe it's a choice it is essential we also believe
044the structure of all communities most importantly our community is built on faith and the elements that it is so very important that is personified is in the realm of commerce our business as we're talking tonight in the realm of our school and our entire school system our places of places of faith or worship and as i'm sure a lot of parents will attest everything starts in the home this is a part of our belief system as we talk about what we believe in and who we are i also wanted to take a few moments to personify that as you look at this listen i want to link you here for just a moment you may recognize a lot of these names in your community in your city in your county we're here and we're serving
045in the realm of faith education athletics community leadership even here on the board tonight i'm very thankful very grateful that i have brothers and opportunities behind me in support i've got brothers directly in front of me i'm grateful in addition we serve in school boards outside of the county in richmond county i hate to relate with this point but i think it's very important as i move on to the next slide there's more ladies and gentlemen we serve in the realm of law enforcement in many capacities as listed above county commissioners we have a series of entrepreneurs in other words those that are able to take the principles that we believed in the education received the experiences that we all go through and then come back to begin organizations to go out and solve problems
046in and outside of our community as i've bridged the organization our chapter specific individuals roles that we play in the community i wanted to ensure that we spend just a few moments illustrating this we are a pillar in this community as an organization the men that we've spoken of or listed earlier comprise this organization i understand i know many that are in this community and county have seen our presence over the years and we will continue to do so as illustrated we serve it is quite important due to time constraints i chose not to include all of our photos i understand we don't have all that we have other groups that you want to hear from but i want you to those in the audience those of you on the board to see the variety
047not only are we out in the community present but we're collaborating we're working with others we understand the importance of back to school we understand the importance of coats during as far as coat drives and things of that nature the last time we gathered as a group was in this very room some of you can recognize that from the photo on the far right vaccination hours one of the points that was made by our community members tonight so from a number of perspectives we stand and we serve there's more on the next slide not only do we have presence but we're not empty-handed of ourselves of our organization we're purchasing supplies and materials we're serving food and drinks and treats at the back of school rally in here marble county so i don't want i
048our president we don't want this community to feel as if we're just here and we're messing around at the old frat house we're preparing to serve to leave to take charge within this community if you would spend just one second looking at the picture in the center at the lowest point those three gentlemen have 125 years of service in this fraternity omega south by continuing incorporated if we worry about some of the things that were labeled those gentlemen wouldn't be a part of this there's more we're still serving and i wanted to ensure that we saw additional images even from this very room here where we're standing behind the young man supporting them the event pictured on the right is within the county cloudless south carolina community leader requested assistance we're there we have plenty
049or much more additional info and insight in regards to our ability to serve historically currently and as we move forward this is what's in a lot of what you're talking about right i've heard what we're here tonight we've heard fraternity house freight house this is a mentorship center ladies and gentlemen we want to establish that for the record tonight this is what this facility is about and for everyone who may be wondering and i know i'm looking at the board but i'm addressing the community on this one in terms of our activity we've had one official chapter meeting and that's it as we move ahead into this fall there's the outline for our mentorship program we would love to have community involvement certainly your support in terms of being the board members here at the
050school district level we are grateful we thank you for the opportunity to work with you and partner with you and we want to continue to do this great work we certainly want to take time tonight to come in to address these matters at hand as i conclude we aim to continue our partnership with walmart county school district we do not will not shall not condone any of the activities that have been reported disabled i also want to make sure that it's clearly known that there's no limit in this community i'm sorry i'll make sure i'm clear there is no member in this organization omega south opportunity incorporated that stands to personally or financially gain the benefit from any of the activities that we perform we want to ensure that we continue to communicate openly transparently
051with the board we also want to challenge the community get to know us work with us we're here we're serving and we're not going anywhere and i don't mean that with any home or with any mouse but we're here that perk on the goal we were referencing a few times tonight i said i'm graduating tomorrow kind of high school i have a great appreciation for the black and gold yes i do but this portland gold is also here in this community as well we want to work as we're doing currently work with you we're here about the youth the students and the community at large we will continue to stand as residual men serving in this community in this county we may not ask if there are any questions or concerns or issues please contact
052us let's have a conversation otherwise let's work together to make sure that we can do everything that we can to benefit the youth of this community i thank you for your time and your attention [Applause] i want to commend your organization for the good work that you've done in the community i've seen you out of the community do good work thank you all over the place uh mr chuck graham is the most visible one the maker that we have seen in the school district and he's been here for over 10 15 years sir and when chuck graham came first came into you he came to this very board meeting asking him to come to mentor our children he did things by going into the schools all over the county and he's still continuing to do
053the work now of course the partnership and for the trailer this board had no knowledge period and as far as the property out there in any school property in the in this marlborough county the board has to approve [Music] for any anything other than a school being on the property as far as men are not kids man that's a blessing in disguise but here's the thing we had maybe 10 or 12 of those trailers out of school property we auctioned them all off and to get rid of them and we spent probably 7500 million dollars updating the schools in this community and our superintendent said the trails were in iso and they were because now we're sitting here on a 15 million dollar facility here at bis but if that other trailer for the eyesore
054any trailer is an eyesore and it may looks like because of the paternity paternity that there's a conflict the interest and there may be but first if you want to murder our kids we have a protocol to follow because you have to have background checks and everything in order to meet our kids in our school i don't know nothing about the partnership because it's we haven't heard about it as a board and if you want to meet our kids you can use this auditorium the cafeteria or anything we will set you up a minute and seven because we want you here but to have a frat house or what everybody calls it on school district premises i just don't think it's a good thing because here's the thing we can't trust anybody with our kids
055alone especially not in the back when we have a school facility attending our renovation that we've just done to bring you we will give you access to any and everything you need so that being said i just want to say like who gave you authorization to have the trailer on on the school district prop because again we are paying the likelihood of the water business i can speak to them uh doc i think that you need to recuse yourself from this you know to answer the question respectfully i'd like to answer the question the answer to that question is me you came off and they said okay all right well that's good to know because they they didn't bother anything because you gave them authorization correct without without preferring the board okay now do you
056own the do y'all own the trailer do you own the trailer well let my officers speak to that okay well let me just ask somebody do you have the property title for that trailer yes you do have it okay we would like to ask the board see the title but we're liable for anything anything happen to our kids on that property on that trail and i think that's a liability that we don't need to be outside or it could be any other implications because again everybody needs to have a background check if they're going to mentor our kids here on this project and and i'm so grateful for that response and your question but i also want to know the audience to know the board to know we share the same sentiment it makes no
057sense to have what what we could mean would turn to be a fraternity house on school grounds as i mentioned to you that's that's the neighbor to start outside of us no one came and talked and asked what are you doing what types of activities are being healed that's just the word that's floating around which is why we want to take this opportunity absolutely we're grateful for this time we thank you again any other questions the other side is a member of marlboro county school board of trustees this shall serve as notification of my recusal of the following meeting date and matters september 13th 2021 men of omega psi 5. the reason of my recusal is as father i am a member of the organization while i do not believe there is legal conflict of
058interest i wish to recuse myself from participation in the discussion of this matter as well as any vote to avoid of any appearance of impropriety i asked that that a copy of this written document be attached to the minutes of this board meeting indicating hearing as public notice of my recusal and my reason for doing so mr as it relates to i don't have a decision to make tonight if there is a motion because i'm not a member of the board however as superintendent i always believe that i make decisions that are in the best interest of serving students as you all know mentorship is one of our three initiatives in the district and that is something that we'll continue to do we'll continue to seek out partnerships with individuals that want to mentor our
059students i also want to acknowledge the fact that no volunteer has been or will be allowed around any of our students without going through our volunteer process i too am a member of this organization and i too do not believe there is a legal conflict of interest i would like for it to be noted in any means from tonight that again i support the efforts of any group willing to partner with the district to support our students for the purpose of mentoring them to become better whole well-rounded students thank you thank you mr scott i'd just like to say that i too want us to continue with mentorship with the american guys and i think it could be a great asset to us in that way but again the trailer been there for a year
060and a half the board had no idea of what was going on until one person brought it to attention and then the whole community is because we have rules and regulations the guidelines to follow and this board has to take responsibility for anything that happened i like the group to be meant to follow up and continue building our kids but we just cannot have a fraternity house on school grounds because of the liability that it could cause us fraternity housing free housing uh are majority of 97 on college campuses this is a public elementary school district and we want to educate our kids and mentor our kids but we have the facility inside to do it yeah like they can make a motion that we give the fraternity opportunity to move the trailer off of
061our school premises but continue to mentor our kids and we work with the organization as a whole i'll say isn't it movement second that we instruct am i saying this correctly the fraternity to remove the building from the facilities in my currency is that the proper way yes okay are you ready for questions are you ready to vote all in favor got to be known by raising your right hand opposes so moved um so reading the german new members of the board the staff of the marlborough county school district and schools most of all hello to all of you public that are present tonight uh what we try to do as we've done in the past is to make sure that whatever we're dealing with you have ample information concerning the same you will notice
062the packet that was given to you contain a correspondence data today also a correspondence that referenced the request for our appearance before you it dates back to the 12th of july at any rate we still appreciate the opportunity to cite a few things that may or may not be of interest or the same level of interest shall we say but it's very important to the group of committed community folk better known as the east side preservation okay east side school preservation alumni association now having said that in the interest of time [Music] uh i want to direct your attention again to the letter dated the 13th today and the letter attached to that was sent to you earlier dated the 12th of july a picture included in there of the eastside school in this pristine
063beauty days take a look at that also we had an advanced copy of a letter [Music] that in fact was asked to be shared with you and you should have that it is from um the daughter of the longest prevailing principle of that school we're just going to refer to her as we always do our beloved muriel walker uh i don't know frankly uh some of the rationale behind some of the accusations that are alleged in the letter all i can tell you is that i hope they're not true and if they are i hope you will take the necessary precautions to make sure our preventative measures to make sure that they do not materialize dr walker mcfarland now is as we've heard from many many many this is just a sampling of things to
064come uh i'm very concerned about the issues that we're trying to bring to the forefront for you to act on please understand this i am by no means trying to negate or belittle the efforts that were made on the 17th we appreciate that very much and what i'm talking about is the fact that we agreed to enter into an agreement however that agreement was and is to focus on a property used for designated folk points or locations of the of the of the uh school site namely the auditorium which you saw a picture of being transferred around and by the way that's what that beautiful uh picture could look like if we're allowed to proceed this is a possibility okay sit you over here you've seen it before we've been doing our work for and
065we expect the continued cooperative relationship that was established with you to do just that continuum now the issue that needs clarification stems on basically two venues if you will you gave your commitment approximately a year ago will be a year in november to postpone any actions involved with that site out there for one year we asked in the 17th should we continue our plan you gave us the response that yes we should all that being said notwithstanding the fact that we are at your insistence you're the ones that said we need this legal whatever uh involvement at this point so we have our designated attorney on board to work with us on that particular side of the issue that does not preclude not engaged nor stop our efforts that we've committed to and bring to
066bring before you on the our time of november 2nd one day after of course we'll try to make those dates coincide but moving along i think the agenda is long enough as it is i don't want to you know just just make it that much more shall we say um uncomfortable in the terms of the time that you're that you're spending or the time that that we're spending we narrow down [Music] our focuses into four primary areas of the things that we would undertake you've seen this before you have copies of it and again please at your leisure or at least your first opportunity re-read this stuff so we are on the same page um some of you i know we're paying a lot of attention to it but there's evidence that maybe it needs
067a little more tension at this time we were to physically evaluate the building's conditions okay we're into that very very appointedly we're to [Music] look at optional uses of the available so the available facilities excuse me to look at uh the overall site situation try to maintain the pristine beauty of that eastside campus etc and then looking at resources that might be brought to bear we've taken this one step further and we've looked narrowed it down now to basically three uh if you might say pointed uh approaches one being the history and uh mr cleve jenkins has a few comments he wants to make about that he's a active and uh energetic member of our um organization but he controls all the money um so i'm going to briefly pause and have mr jenkins come
068up and make his comments or so if he doesn't mind we'll go from there thank you good evening to you all for the ones who don't know me my name is cleveland jenkins i am citizens marlboro county well i live right across the street from the mexican restaurant okay uh i'd like to share with you all my perspective of the history of east side high school won't take long but let me go ahead and get started eastside high school was one of the many schools that was built as a result of the 1954 supreme court ruling brown versus the board of education there are good marshals successfully on the vacation for the supreme court i started school at the eastside elementary school in 1954 the first year that it was open if you imagine a
069little country boy going to a school downtown for the first time with inside plumbing that's what i did uh many did the same okay i graduated from eastside high school in the middle of the class of 1965. i can remember trading industrial conventions south carolina school bus drivers training for the entire county the district national honor society conventions county basketball tournaments county spelling bees and other programs in events that were held right there at the east side high school if i remember correctly the last graduating class was the class of 1969 from 1982 into the early 1990s the ujamaa drama club used the auditorium and adjoining classroom the band room behind the stage for rehearsal production and presentation of community please eugene drama club was the marlboro county first african-american community theater company the auditorium
070was also used for plays performances gospel singing events and other programs during the mid 80s the event was always a giant success right here in marlboro county you could pass and see the cars out there if you didn't know better you may think you were at madison square learning about the crowd they had out there moving on in the mid-90s sororities and fraternities the gymnasium for churro leading camp basketball volleyball and other sports competition the east side school was known as a beacon a drawing card for many others because you knew whether it was academic sports competition or any other programs or event eastside was a classic that would offer the very best eastside produced many great people that contributed greatly to the success of the county city the county the state and the country
071through many walks of life a few that i would mention at this time would be miriam wright element dr james boston patricia him and our district representative and our own mayor carolyn prince we were right there together a year or so ahead of her we were all right there together just to name a few we know we have a great opportunity to become a class that began that would offer great value to many citizens along our county i sincerely hope that with a joint effort between marlboro county school board and espa es fpa we would do the right thing and seize on this opportunity if you don't look around you know you got more people here than you normally see some have already later the reason they are here not to come in out of
072the summer they're they're too concerned about where we're going i stay on the phone meeting people from time to time asking questions what's going to happen we're going to do the right thing we're going to do our part we're reaching out to you you all everyone help us in this joint venture we can make this a class at beginning for the old east side school we need your help let's do the right thing and get it done folks [Applause] thank you so much um and really um you we talked about the pristine nature of that site and what it could be again and uh notwithstanding that amount of dirt out there cutting the core um this overgrown now looks like a farce but uh it could it could get back to what it was we
073want your help we're gonna work with you i'm gonna address i'm going to address the second focus of this deal the challenges ahead and there are many the buildings are in dire need of maintenance and other related uh actions uncollect in a collective manner but that's not we're not here to complain so much as we are to say look are at a point now where if you will allow us we'll continue to go down this road and that road is going to end up with a well thought out plan for the entire 30-plus acres that you will have an opportunity as you should but the public will have an opportunity also as they should to determine exactly what happens to that valuable and if you're not talking about the dollars and cents that's not the
074issue here emotionally valuable from a legacy standpoint on and on and on people work with us this is a remember this is a progress report this is not the mandated in a sense or agreed to agreement that's going to involve our attorneys working out a an initial if you will use agreement for those designated components of the school starting from the auditorium around the band room down around the old shop area down to the gym and on down to what we call the old walker sanders wing i saw a handguard without the answer of course you asked me yeah uh mr johnny i heard you say something about you know about the plan uh do you have anything that you you already already written out as far as the plan or anything uh that's where
075we are exactly at this point and that's to do that final deal unless we miss queued and miss that's due on the second of november or before you will have that in addition to that the second let's just do a little modification here for a minute the agreement we agreed to have worked through deals with those pointed locations okay from the from the auditorium down to the what i call the sanders of oliver wing there's still much more to be done out there in terms of agreed upon approach that the community is going hopefully going to have a big voice in and hopefully you're going to we're going to reach an agreement that everybody finds something you want to do um i think the word was i believe uh um board member branch and i
076think uh we were coachmen in particular we're searching for a win-win okay all right i'm gonna pause the game and then wrap it up in a minute uh our illustrious member mr samuel bass we'll come before you now and talk a little bit about some of the opportunities that specifically we can deal with out there mr bass good evening mr chairman members of the board and dr mccoy we appreciate the opportunity to speak before you know tonight i would be remiss if i didn't mention the fact that uh i come from i graduated personal college elementary school i helped with my caller alumni folks supporting us in this effort we would like to feed a program to the great east side and we contribute greatly to the academic success of that school from stanford about
077academic acumen and the training that we received at college school so saying that i want you to know that we have tremendous support for this for this effort and as a result of the association each side preservation association initiatives the public interest in this reclamation and renovation of this 33 acre properties has increased exponentially we have gained support from survivors of the first graduating class how about that survivors from the first graduating class have called us and supported us in this help we are also uh getting support from successful businessmen and women in clergy and legislative sororities fraternities attorneys and other non-in non-government organizations and non-profit organizations such as the marlborough school community center such as the mall borough development corporation such as the alumni association so that's just a few of the people that
078we have in supporting us now there are many opportunities that we have here and i'm telling you they are tremendous but we can't i can't have i don't have the time to mention all those opportunities but this is an opportunity for a strong partnership and coalition we can't do this this is a monumental effort and we need your support we need more support and carrying out this effort not only do we need before support we need the support of other organizations in this community especially the development for the barbara county box council the south carolina department of natural resources who has a great interest in that lake paul wallace there and the big paul wallace authority and working collectively toward a common goal to serve the community at large this is an opportunity to create
079and operate a business event and one of the wings of that school on the east side problems we can create a business occupation incubator that will help jumpstart or upstart businesses by reducing their overhead startup costs and operating costs by putting in a central communication system and other support technology their opportunities are bound to implement a diversity of programs to address the many needs of our youth and our citizens and our senior citizens for example the boys club a stem school a stem organization for our kids to serve our autistic kids when their school is out of session doing during the summer months our reading is fundamental tutoring head start for example one of the largest premier early childhood education in the city of south carolina and in the nation opportunities for engineers there are
080opportunities for yesterday to cooperate with the city of peninsula and again the south carolina department of natural resources and the late paul wallace authority and mitigating mitigating the flooding and stormwater runoff that begins at the spillway of nepal wallace and at the pond that's just below lake palm walls that's a part of that 33-acre track we want to be a part of developing that so that we can help contribute to making crooked creek copy creek a safe place to live and as well as help relocate those people that are that are living in that flooded area this is an opportunity to develop an affordable housing program i guess you actually know where would you put affordable housing program on the football field on a 4.5 acre football tree we would be able to help you
081locate those people that need to be moved out of crooked group areas and this place that community has been that's who has been used to expand our recreation program but it's that has not happening now but we can contribute to to the recreation program for peninsula as well as barbara connor again i want to reiterate that that and you've heard it from my my colleagues we can't do this alone and this is not going to happen in one or two years we're going to do this in phases and we're going to do it the right way but we can only do it unless we have your continued support thank you for your attention thank you [Applause] thank you uh mr bass um sam that was remarkable all folk you ain't cleave uh uh sometime when
082you come up with these methods of delivery that makes it so crystal clear just how important this whole business is um and you've heard about the opportunities below and before we conclude uh as a matter of a question if you will if i'm allowed to do that we have the understanding we're on the right path okay we think we're doing what you asked and approved us to do now we're not we need to know we need no right way i would love to have somebody react to that to assure us do you feel we're on the right path do you feel we're doing what we agreed to do because things have a way of somehow getting lost in the shuffle we've asked for the copy of the minutes from the 17th in writing several times
083i know you just approved them tonight but we need to see those we need to look at them and make sure our reflection from the 17th in particular because you know that was a call meaning or handle accurately you had to hannah uh you asked a question mrs young and i i just want to answer the question for you uh based on what i've heard uh tonight uh from you uh mr jenkins and mr bass uh uh and finally i think i see a clear plan that you had in a plane that thinks they'll fit marlboro county so we know where you're at and i appreciate the update so that definitely helps out a lot explaining exactly what's going to happen what's going to be done on there what type program is going to be
084benefiting our community so thank you for that let's want to say that thank you well with that kind of a comment um my own man always told me quit when you're ahead so thank you again we're here we're here to do right by you and all of us especially the general public thank you again [Applause] thank all of you again for coming for your support on behalf of eastside and hopefully we'll continue to go forward with that with that project thank you very much i'm trying to actually so this is uh marlboro county school district on september 10th uh what we look like as a district uh on the tenth as it relates to copic positive cases and quarantine students and staff some of you may recall back in late august the board courageously approved
085for a mass mandate here in barbara county our numbers at the time were significantly higher if you take a look where we were august 23rd prior to the mass mandate we were over 650 cases of students and staff having to be quarantined since the mass mandate those numbers have dropped down tremendously now i can't 100 clearly say that the decline is due to the mass but i can tell you that the efforts of this school board our students our staff have worked to the positive in a reverse way we are now one week beyond labor day and so we're going to see how these numbers continue and i wanted to be sure to share this information with the board and with the public because again one thing i i can tell you we we can't
086beat comments on facebook but what we can do is provide truth truth and accuracy in our reporting uh it doesn't matter how many likes you get it doesn't doesn't make it right this is this is the truth and if you dispute it that's something that you have to take up with yourself i am proud to say that i work here in marlborough county and we're doing our parts and ensuring a safe environment that does not mean that it won't go up we're one week beyond labor day as i mentioned and so we'll have to see if our efforts will continue mass plus vaccinations help ensure that again we're creating a safe environment and we'll continue to promote that i think uh the presentation uh earlier today these two young ladies have done a great job
087in our community and i stand with them 100 some of the incentives that we have put in place to encourage and promote vaccinations include the 500 assignment that employees received two weeks ago again being innovative and creative in our thinking helps us in our efforts to not only ask of our employees but to also provide them with a resource to continue where the place right now is and it may not be a big deal to some people but being able to attend athletic events for free is a huge deal to young people if you want to do the math on that we have five football games at seven or eight dollars a piece i don't know how many basketball games we have but i think that's going to equate somewhere around 150 or more when
088you include track and field uh baseball softball et cetera probably a couple hundred dollars so again we'll keep this going another thing i'd like to do is take my hat off to our staff if you take a look at this we have over 80 percent of our staff that has received one or two shots to make sure again that if and when there's an interrupt thank you thank you i want to go to school and don't just take my word for it i speak to individual students yourselves don't take the words of some that haven't been in schools come and talk to kids come and talk to teachers again you get a mixed bag of reviews but at least you'll hear it for yourself you'll know where we are i also would like to acknowledge
089a couple of things that i'm going to need your support on board i heard earlier someone mentioned that there's a lot of money being tossed around we are doing everything that we can to support our staff this next recommendation for me is going to continue along those same lines contact tracy has been a tremendous task our nurses are are working early late and on the weekends to make sure that they are reaching every student and every family accordingly i'm going to ask that they receive a 25 stipend per day through november until we can get a better handle on where we are as it relates to contact tracing and uh code and this very i also uh before i finish with that we'll make that same recommendation for transportation our transportation workers are going to
090work early and working late doing double and sometimes triple routes imagine that triple rats it's not a secret across the state and across the nation there's a tremendous shortage of certified bus drivers uh our bus drivers go above and beyond and i'd like to have and we've done this previously at a extended to them as well through november we'll see where we are after we come back after the break but i'd like uh someone to support me with that at this time dr mccord uh i heard the list that's your name it's one group in particular that i've been seeing and hearing about and watching doing a whole lot of work and that's paying teachers coordinators uh i like adam in that group they're doing a tremendous job they're doing a lot of hard work
091especially with copenhagen doing a lot of things that they don't normally do you know i just like to throw them in there you can throw wherever you want you in the group if we're going let me say this um with all seriousness they okay with all the issues i think an argument can be made for everyone um and so i don't disagree uh i i would like to uh say this this is new terrain for all of us and so i don't want anyone to think that uh just because we're we're acknowledging this uh by uh providing some type of financial uh incentive that we're saying you're okay or you should be okay uh because again there's a tremendous amount there's a tremendous amount of work that's been done so i have no problems with
092you suggesting parent educators i just need for the board because this is coming out of extra funds i just need for the board to uh support that yeah all three all right i agree maybe we can look at things going budget time and look at okay we've been good stewards um you see emotion i make mostly that we approve the uh the uh 25 dollar bonus what's that it's just a again for those that are working above and beyond uh we we have something for the three listed that have been working beyond through november november right okay three minutes can i get a second second this movement second that we provide a twenty-five dollar stipend per day for those that are involved right now with kovic when it comes to uh transportation the nurses and
093the parent-teacher coordinators are you ready for questions parent teachers i'm sorry parents per day or per week this is 25 percent per day that's impressive that not only is there absolutely it was parent parent teacher parent no no it's not the coordinator is an educator parent educators i know the group that you're talking about parent educators coordinator would be i want to pay the wrong person i don't want to make sure what i'm saying yeah okay it was per day yes okay all the things let me know about raising your right hand my poses have been approved thank you and thank all of you that's doing all you can to make sure that we are being as safe as we possibly can and i can't say that without looking at this man thank you um
094moving along we're at an improvement plan i'll ask um i noticed mr branch has gone with mr branch early on objected to the high school stadium renovation because he wanted to see a parking lot first and of course we we disagree as we sometimes do but we were united in the fact that it was a tax that was given to me and mine was to see that it was done again i know he is gone right now this is the parking lot at the high school and you have you have in your board packing miss hubbard if you would help me with this if you have the paperwork um initially when this project was proposed to you it was coming in uh somewhere just shy of one million dollars in your board package and you'll
095see a recommendation from the superintendent and our cfo for pages let's see and i i want to make sure i get the number right and so i'm going to ask sharon hubbard to come up and talk about uh what we have successfully been able to do and what we need for the board to do to make this possible good evening to our board chair for trustees and superintendent of court in your board packing tonight the recommendation to allow the superintendent to take funds from our fund balance for the difference of this causative project on july 12 the board of trustees approved a resolution to authorize the issuance the sale of general obligation bonds not exceeding 1.25 million dollars the sale took place already on a august 31st and the end will close on september 25th
096which would generate a profit of 643 000 in new money now this uh as a result of this our debt service meals were not changed it will remain at 33 meals the funds will be used to pave the parking lot at marlborough county high school the cost of the project is approximately 797 000 leaving a balance of 155 000 and the recommendation of the superintendent is to allow him to take it from our fund balance which we have over 7.3 million dollars currently we need 155 000 again i'm proud of the work that we do here marco county i think uh more than anything else we we seek out best cost estimates we've been great stewards of taxpayers money is this a money that is needed to complete this project though has to come uh
097with your approval your authorization but if you recall just a few months ago the cost was going to be just under a million dollars i think it was 960 some thousand dollars and so i think we've come a long way uh by being able to accomplish this and we can get this work done if you approve it uh between now and the end of the year or the start of the year depending on the weather mr chair i'd like to make motion that we moved 100 500 the superintendent to move 154 238 from the fund balance for the purpose of completing the cost balance of repaving or the paving of the parking lot which is seven hundred ninety seven thousand two hundred and thirty eight dollars are you ready for questions a quick question so
098we're just moving it right now and we're not starting anything as far as we give them approval so we've already picked out the company and everything so today will actually be approval to go forward and start with the project yes okay all right that's more clear yeah that's there all right are you ready to vote all the tables it has been approved let me if i can assure the board and the public that we are continuing with the works uh that have previously started the slowdown has been to issues related to manufacturers across the country not being able to get production lines back up to normal since the start of this pandemic speaking directly to those that are concerned about the ac hvac units at the high school that have been on order for some
099time but uh we we are continuing with our efforts to get that task done this will just be an addition to you thank you i'm glad to mention that so the hvac units are all back order and as soon as they get here our condition units we are continuing with the efforts to get those units replaced yes sir we now have two delegates and two alternates for the south carolina school board association delegate assembly we'll need two delegates and two alternates i had that so much and that is on november normal december december the 14th december 4th december 4th i'm sorry yeah that's the end i know december 4th i would like to go see anyone else that would be able to work december 4th on a saturday it's um the villages they only get
100assembly where any laws it's being held in charlottesville [Music] we have two votes the purpose is that we have two votes two delegates two votes and then we need two alternates in case someone can is there anyone else [Music] don't hopefully we both will be able to go build okay mr coachman be one alternative first weekend of every month is usually my drill date if i'm known in a good enough time i can make preparations so i i'll be another alternate as well but just it can't be known all the time so well i appreciate it okay we've done that and we're at superintendent's report student achievement yes sir i'm going to talk about opening school i just gave a clicker away right now as it stands today the enrollment of the enrollment marvel county
101school district enrollment take a look uh our three-year student enrollment trends and this is very important because again we're coming off of and moving through a pandemic our enrollment as of today and i'm going to go school by school and just go to the cluster schools the bennettsville area schools were 802 and as of 9 9 21 they're at 756. so a slight d crop decline in the number of students but there's an increase with those that were in attendance last year the blenheim area again you see a decline from 2019 20 again from 2020 and 21 that actually went up but it has since declined decline of about 30 students in the blending area the clyo in 1920 there were 260 students that number dropped in 2021 and it has since dropped more to
102189 mccall elementary middle uh 650 three years ago 6 31 this year so about 19 students uh different from three years ago and then wallace the number of stairs showed from three years ago to now uh just under 20 students difference and that's for the wilds area marlboro county high school that number has actually gone up and we're we're trying to uh get a good understanding of that because that's an anomaly uh it's gone up significantly uh more so than it was three years ago i think uh but do my numbers right somewhere around the neighborhood of 80 students as a school district we have lost approximately 103 students from three years ago but we gained three students from last year during the pandemic i bring this up because some of you may have seen
103the recent census data 2010-2020 there's about a 9.7 percent decline uh decrease in population in marlborough county if you look at the numbers for those that are school age students is similar i think it was about seven or eight percent decline these are these are numbers that we all should pay particular attention to because if that trend continues not just with the adults but it will continue with the students and so when we talk about building infrastructure that's going to create more opportunities for families to move and live and enjoy being in marlborough county then we continue to say that all parties are going to have to come to the table and collectively have conversations on how we can make this occur i'm not sure if you have any questions but if you do i'll
104take those at this time no questions okay all right we're going to turn it over to uh dr bryant and dr walsh we're going to continue with the academic horizon for our visionary scholars and and before they start uh dr brian is going to include a a briefing of the summer map data so that that presentation won't occur tonight by don hood just so that you know that'll keep us moving along good evening good evening chairman mcneal members of the board donald mccord we appreciate y'all having us tonight this is a good time uh we're glad you are still here as we bring the important information about what's going on with children here in the marvel county school district one of the things i want to make sure that we are talking about some of
105the things that i think came out that you have seen school report cards they were released on september 1st 2021. uh there's the website these report cards were given out there's a variety of information as you saw in those reports about financial data student enrollment achievement and survey results as you know there were no ratings this year for schools that used to rate you know excellent good average below average and unsatisfactory or whatever needs improvement those ratings were not done this year due to code as we also need to know that is still up to for discussion but when that will start again some of the discussion right now it may be another two or three years before we start having ratings again so we'll be keeping you informed on that as we move through
106state report cards an overview overall digital cost of staying soft decreases through the achievement due to changes in attendance and a new learning environment caused by covered 19 pandemic uh molly spearman she spoke on that at her press conference about how you know results of the annual assessments given to students at the end of 2021 school year aren't where education leaders want them to be but they need to be taken with a grain of salt because they were so many variables one of the things i will point out and that's one of the things that we were talking about as far as keeping students in school you know one of the things that last year if you remember attendance was all over the place not just for marvel county school district but for all districts
107i'm coming to you most recently from chesterfield county our attendance was the same way we've had various forms of attendance hybrid three days a week four days a week two days a week same thing here in marvel county so that i think what uh my spirit was saying it's hard to measure those results uh based on our attendance also uh as you were noted you were given this data map analysis down in april uh our scores of the state assessment were very consistent with our map results however one of the good news about it is our students actually scored higher than the projected scores of our map assistant this goes to the work of our teachers and our schools and doing their work to build those students up before they took those state assessments also
108again overall they were decreasing cost of boards compared to results in 2019 no state assessments in 2020 due to the pandemic so again we know where that stands some highlights again uh dr watson we celebrated the marvel county high school bulldogs on their uh increase in graduation rate that needs to be highlighted as an important uh thing i know one of the things that i will say mr coach me had a good you got a good remark but one thing about high school you have to earn credits so then you got you got to earn credit so you got to pass and you got to have those credits for graduation we can't we can't fudge on that yes sir uh parent opinion survey surveys and teacher opinion surveys i think that's worth noting i put
109that in there because there's a lot of data in there sometime in the back of the back of the report card if you got a chance to read that you know you look at 83 of the parents satisfied with the learning environment 91.2 percent of teachers were satisfied with social and physical environment also very proud of our biology one eoc they increased from last year and also our absentee chronic absenteeism decreased also one thing i want to say now is uh bill gates said this one time he said headlines in a way are what mislead you because bad news is a headline okay and gradually prove but it's not let me say that again i want y'all to hear because i think sometimes we want this quick fix and we want this uh thing to
110come overnight but headlines in a way are what misleads you because bad news is truly a headline and gradual improvement is not so i think one of the things i can take from this pandemic we were learning a new way to do school through the virtual platform we were doing a new way of keeping up with things with children who may or may not be in school uh so i commend our our staff and our uh our students and everyone who worked hard on that also again in response to our results one of the things we you know you will see uh very very soon after school tutoring we've already talked about mentoring programs those are important we if we make children feel uh supported and feel that they are doing what they need to
111be doing in school and feel some success improving our technology infrastructure and integration with the curriculum that's one thing mr davis to my right he's helping with that office of instructional technology implementing our initiatives with fidelity and providing support to our schools through the office of curriculum instruction and assessment one of the things that we will be doing my team and we are doing right now we came on board here in july our our goal is to support the efforts of our schools continue to offer face-to-face learning for all students and also we will be starting our new strategic plan process because we have a new strategy plan coming up because our old one at this point kind of hard when everything's going on with coven we need to go to a new starting point
112and uh kind of recalibrate moving forward again the results emphasize the importance of face-to-face learning across the country uh we saw a different evidence for students to be that need for them to be in school and we are very proud of the efforts we've had so far in the marvel county school district to stay in school to this point so again uh i'm going to uh after after i asked if you have any questions i'm going to turn it over to dr walsh she's going to tell you about some of the things that are going on because what we will do each month we'll give you our principles chance to tell you about the things they're doing in their schools to address learning loss and also to increase student achievement so at this time are
113any questions from the board i don't have a question just want to acknowledge the fact that you are doing hopefully all that you can and we can see that to make sure our kids are getting the best education but not only they're more informative about what you're doing and how things are going to be working we appreciate that just hearing that the principles will be coming forward and letting us know um and yielding this washing on your team letting us know to us that's important that's one of the things that we've been talking about for the past two or three years and more we know the more informed we can be to everybody else and also i want to add as dr of course that i would talk a little bit about summer reading camp
114and the uh soda school one of the things i wanted to point out in the four weeks that we had the summer reading camp uh just a just somewhere summarizing some of that data uh we saw in our pre-k through five students we saw sixty-two percent of them that we saw gains of growth in their map testing uh during that four-week time period that's from one to 27 points and also in the middle school grade six through eight uh we were very very proud of that because not only did we have a three-point average gain in reading and a three-point average gaining math we also had almost a 90 attendance rate for those students who chose to be in the summer school program so i commend our staff commend the leaders of those programs because
115the have students come in this summer which speaks to the the fact that kids do want to be in school again to have middle school students our attendance was over 88 for the students that were in school we 177 students that were enrolled in our six through eight program average attendance is over 156 and that translated to growth in their map scores during that four-week period which is pretty uh speaks to not only the kids the kids want to be in school but also speaks to the work that's being done during the summer program at marble county high school so that also helps with transitions as we move those students from the middle school program to the high school program okay any other questions before i turn over dr walsh to kind of summarize what's
116highlighted here at bis a lot of good things going on here that she can tell you about all right hearing none i'll turn it over to dr walsh dr walters our executive uh director for elementary education and she'll fit you in on the happening at mississippi thank you yes he is a great leader and we are doing some great things with with him as our leader thank you so much um board chairman um mr mcneil board members and dr mccord thank you for allowing me to be here tonight so very quickly i'm only going to take a few moments of your time but i do want to point out some of the wonderful things that are taking place at bennettsville intermediate school um this just shows some of the things that they're focusing on their
117leaders are focusing on i'm not going to read all of them to you but being team players being dedicated being determined being unique confident trustworthy this is a picture that shows you some of the stem activities that are taking place at bennettsville intermediate school as well as the student in the right corner she received a positive office referral so they're working very hard to reward students for good behavior who we are at bennettsville intermediate school building innovative students that lead and league stands for leadership excellence achievement and determination that's what they're building in our students and then at bis they believe that every minute matters all students receive the same opportunities i'm not going to read all of these to you but they are all focused on focused on our students achieving and then to
118summarize all of that they are working very hard um to become a stem school to develop future leaders of our schools communities and world and that goes right along with the profile of the south carolina high school graduate there's a picture of our lovely team at veniceville intermediate school the goals this year are engaging in lessons and lesson plans literacy is a huge focus and then they are working on the stem certification for fall 2022 and i'm proud to say that 100 of their staff are google level 1 certified this just talks about instruction they're working on explicit direct instruction through grade level planning through learning walks through ongoing coaching and through plc's every week in reading we are following through with our fontes and pineal and we're making great games we were all together
119today working on that from 8 30 until about 12 30 today including our principals our reading coaches and our instructional coaches um and then we are working very hard at bis on reading writing and sharing across the curriculum in classrooms to address learning laws they are they have a win time every morning from 7 50 until 8 20 tuesdays through thursdays and everyone is helping students um they are tiered based on the instructional groups that they fall in and all teachers whether they're home room teachers or not related art arts teachers are participating everyone in the building is helping with this win time to help our students gain that loss that they have that has occurred and then mentoring is a huge program um at bis they have lunch buddies with the minnesota police department
120they have morning meetings family matters mondays through friday mondays and fridays and then community service clubs by homeroom the first and third friday continuing with mentoring on the first and third wednesday of each month the girls participate in the pearls club through one of our sororities and then the boys participate in the bow tie bow tie club through omega men and the mission of that is to help all young men and women to enhance their emotional social and academic growth and development and then these are this just kind of reiterates all those initiatives that we just talked about celebrations there there are a lot of community service projects taking place at venezuela intermediate intermediate as long and as well as the stem fridays and this past friday they had the earthquake building challenge and that
121was a lot of fun it involved engineering collaborating communicating and innovating lessons this is a picture of a stem activity and then remember at bennett school intermediate we are building innovative students that lead thank you so much any questions that i can answer for bennettsville intermediate school thank you for allowing me to be here thank you ms let me uh just reiterate again this is something we're going to do with each board member at each board moving forward that is have a school present where they are and what they are doing academically to help our students achieve at the next four meeting we will i can tell you we will identify our special needs department led by stacey barrell now we'll come in and give a comprehensive overview as to what's being done in our
122schools again we want everyone to have good accurate information so that when they talk about marlboro county it'll be factual thank you yeah right that's going to be doctor and kakila robinson let's talk about that good evening chairman mcneil board members and dr mccord before i present this month's vacancy update i would like to share with you some trend data from my exit interviews as you may recall beginning in 2018 the hr department began conducting exit interviews as employees left the district over the last three years the number of certified employees that have left marlborough county school district district has declined if you notice on the slide in 2018 1974 certified employees left the district in 1920 62 and then in 2020 2021 50 certified employees left the district during the exit interviews and in
123court according to the information that we receive the top three reasons for employees leaving the district number one 38 percent to teach in another south carolina district due to retirement and 14 to teach in another state also as we prepare for the 22 2022 recruitment season hr is mindful that three percent of our certified staff is two or two years or less away from retirement and 11 of us current certified staff are already at retirement age meaning they could leave at any time while our 21 22 school year is off to a phenomenal start we unfortunately do still have a few certified vacancies in our schools at veniceville intermediate school we are currently looking for a gt teacher and a media specialist at bps one media specialist at blenheim middle school of discovery one gt
124teacher one steam teacher and one theater teacher at coyo elementary school one elementary teacher at marlborough county high school one media specialist one guidance counselor we are thankful and grateful that we have no current vacancies at mccall elementary school middle school and no vacancies at wallace elementary middle school i would like to point out however that while we did have two core vacancies those vacancies have been addressed by consolidating classes and then using programs such as elevate k-12 or another partnership so all of our classes are covered any questions how many certified staff do we have district-wide um not exact number but approximately 279. that may be 276. but it's like 270. you said certified correct yes you said all right thank you hey can i come and get the financial report [Music] trustees and
125superintendent mccord i'm here tonight to present to you our august financial statements you have any questions regarding the financial statements that's in your board packet at august 31st our cash and investment balances were 1.5 million dollars and also the district spending october excuse me august 31st uh three million seven hundred and ninety six thousand dollars of a thirty eight million five hundred and four hundred sixty thousand even eighteen dollar budget or 11 of the budget and as you see in your board packet uh cash transfers for the month of august total about 7 million dollars and we had a couple of budget adjustments for the august 2021 month you have any questions regarding the financials for august 31st 2021 any questions thank you safety guidelines okay this is uh [Music] a policy recommendation from uh
126south carolina school boards association i think that's included in the past on behalf of mr mcneil and ms ellison they asked me to share with you the model policy which is in your board packet which is model policy for fire safety guidelines the state department of education the office of state fire marshall developed the model of fire and safety program guidelines that must be made available to each school district and charter school in the state each school district's board of trustees and governing body must adopt this policy and program both for school facility fire and safety including inspections the program which you have been provided must be adopted in open meetings in which the public may provide comments on the terms of the policies and programs including include routine self-assessments and be published on the
127district's internet website in a prominent location it is doctor it's mr mcneills it was held miss hazel ellison's recommendation that the proposed policy which is in your packet be adopted at night yes mr i'll make the most of it we adopt the modern fire and safety program guideline for the state of south carolina school districts and charter schools second it moved in the second that we adopted a recommendation that's been made by monroe county school that our that we will i'm sorry adopt the model fire safety program guidelines that have been developed by the office of the state fire marshal and southern department of education are you ready for questions are you ready to vote all the tablets you know by making your right hand closer to the same head my salad was a little
128bit bigger earlier um good evening chairman mcneal board members and dr mccord i am here tonight to ask for board approval for a two thousand dollar donation given to wallace elementary middle school from miss trina spite of priority one health care she provided the donation for supplies and celebrations for students and staff and we are very grateful for her generous donation to our school and i ask for your approval tonight this jail make a motion that you we approve the 2 000 donation to the bad cat country wild elementary middle school from priority one health care policy kcd and we thank you it's been moving second that we approved two thousand dollar donation to the wallace volunteer middle school given to given to them by the priority one health care all of it let me
129know by raising your hands proposals are the same it has been approved thank you so much [Music] say again the donation it's a thousand dollars that will be used at the school to further enrich programs at the school related to students i'd like to make a motion that we approve the thousand dollar donation uh to be msd from maplewood new jersey uh lj curtin for one thousand dollars it removed in a second that we approved the one thousand dollar donation made to a given to the gun middle school discovery from l.j cureton of maplewood new jersey all in favor letting me know gdr gerald made the motion that we approved the second final reading of all the policies stated g-a g-c-a-n-g-d e-n-g-d-r with the amended version of keeping the staff leading sickly the same as
130adversary second second movement second that we approve the second reading of g a g c a and g d e [Music] g d r with the exception of the changes that was made during the first reading all i think let's be known by raising your right hands opposes are the same has been done is there anything else that needs to come before the board at this time during the meeting we are here