001stand and Mr. Alock will lead us in her prayer. Mr. Hans lead us in her pledge. >> Let us pray, please. Heavenly Father God, we just just come before you now asking you to be with this group. What a group. And I just pray that you bless us. Pray that we do do your will and business of this school. Lord, as we as we come to you with a couple in our number for Miss Amanda, Amanda Hail, as she goes through the things that she's going through now, I pray you give her strength and comfort as she deals with all that. And my friend Todd, as she starts his treatments again, God, I just pray that you give him strength to to face all this again. There's so many things going on in this world.
002God, I'm so thankful that you sent Jesus to die for us. through his through him that we we can have you in our lives and have a home in heaven. That's tonight when I pray that we do everything according to your will. It's in Jesus sweet name I pray. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Welcome everyone. Appreciate everyone being with us tonight for our December board meeting. Move to item three on the agenda. Approve the minutes of the November 13, 2025 regular session as received. >> Motion by Mr. Weir. I hear a second Mr. H. Any discussion? If not, all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion passes. Item four, approve the agenda
003for the December 11th, 2025 regular session as you have in front of you. It should not have changed from what you received as well. >> Motion by Mr. West, >> second by Miss Weir. Any discussion? >> If not, all in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes. Item five are public comment period. Anybody sign in? >> Good deal. Keep rolling. Item six, approve the 2025 2026 general purpose school budget amendment number three. You have a copy uh of this proposed amendment in your packet. Actually, you just want to hit the highlights a little bit for us. >> I will. Um, I think I do this to you all about every time, but usually when we're doing an amendment this big, it's because we've got in an increase in revenues coming in. So, if you'll look
004at the bottom, um, we have a a a state grant that's called Project Rays, um, that's targeting uh, retention over the next three years of like our school psychologists. And then we have the Bragg grant, which is the one we've already discussed about the asbestous and cold removal in the gym. Then up go back up to the top the other those two total 220 which is the major part of the amendment for the 253 and then at the top you'll see the other contracted services that was network licenses that we needed for switches and access points and then some medical insurance that I needed to put in the budget for some people who have it that we didn't have budgeted for. So um I had the decrease in expenditures was just a couple places that
005I had to pull that extra 30,000 from that we didn't need those items. I'll make a motion a number second by Mr. Le. Any discussion? If not, all in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item seven. the following policy on second reading a revised policy 6.300 code of conduct you have a copy of this policy in your packet you can see uh page two lines 12 to 14 is the addition to this policy per ESBA I think we did discuss it a little bit last time so this is on second reading as well >> motion to approve >> motion by Mr. West second by Mir. Any discussion? If not, all in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Quickly brings us to our principal report. Mr. Maxfield right there. Hold position. >> Um, we
006had our annual literacy night last Tuesday. Uh, had a great turnout. Kids, parents, teachers, all had a great time. Um, I think that's something everybody kind of enjoys. It's just kind of laidback. really enjoy doing decorating up the place. Uh we are no longer on the PSI list. I laid that on each we got letter from the state department from Bill Lee saying that we're no longer. We're really proud of of our students and the hard work that are teachers and everybody did to make that possible. Uh our goal next year is to be a reward study. Uh looking at it where if we can do what we with 810 of a point we reward next year. So I think it's very doable. Uh the steps were taken to make that happen. We're doing classroom
007walkthroughs. We've got uh those groups that come in that through the grant a and lum they're coming through and they're really bragging a lot on our teachers on things they're seeing their students being challenged. uh teachers using great questions and I bragging on them lately and I told them that we'd be bragging on them tonight. Uh we're targeting students that are almost teach on track with small group interventions. Um we're making sure to value the instructional time so that we're not taking spend a lot of time pulling students out doing things and lot of other extra things going on so the teachers can actually focus on the education of their students. Uh rewarding student growth and achievement for maps testing which we'll be doing this uh this upcoming week. Uh we're using high quality instructional
008mater utilizing all data platforms communicating it with the teachers keeping chronic absenteeism and I do want to send a special thanks to Miss Mallerie and Mr. Up Church and what they what they do to make that possible and that was a big thing on our uh heat map when looked at those scores for the federal that our chronic absenteeism was way down. So we got high marks there. So that was really great. Uh and I want to thank them for that utilizing all staff members here to help small group numbers. And lastly, our basketball team doing very well this year. >> Thank you sir. >> Dr. You want to go stay in the same frame of mind? everything he said. Academically, we're kind of refocusing our energy on instruction and removed a lot of the
009distractions during the school day and school year that didn't really reflect the academic needs that we have and the purpose that we're there for. After talking with numerous students in their classes, they acknowledged taking test but never really talking about it. There was a disconnect as to the purpose and what it meant. uh we're sharing with students what their predicted scores are and how close they are to reach the next level. There are a lot of students that are only one or two questions away from hitting that next level and we're really focusing focusing on those. We can get a lot of growth uh by raising those up. We're trying to create a discussion about not only their individual performance but the school as a whole. Teachers have been encouraged to dig in the TAS
010data on their students and share what is there with them. We created a data wall showing those students who met their predicted scores or show growth on the spring teaps. And we didn't just want to throw numbers at them. So, we used Wildcat PS to show the data. And instead of the actual numbers, they colorcoded sections on the paw representing the different tests that they took as well as any growth that they've had. This generated a ton of discussion among students and questions about how can I get that next one? How can I why why do I only have one color and that one has two? How can I get more next time? Uh and that served the purpose that we were looking for. We had a couple reward days for students who met or
011exceeded the state test levels on those same tests. We split them in grades six through eight and three through five. They got some gym time, snacks, played games, watched a movie in the theater. We splurged for some pizza and some ice cream and things like that for them. I've completed all the fall observations for all teachers and as well as multiple dropins. There's been significant discussions in the classrooms about teaching standards, rigor, keeping students engaged. And to address chronic absenteeism, which I think a couple years ago was a huge issue, we're continuing with the incentive program where each class who has perfect attendance for the day is acknowledged on wall display and whichever class has the most in the nine weeks is rewarded. It's created a bit of competition between classes. Right now, we have
012three classes. They're just a couple days apart. So, we're reminding don't burn your parent notes. You might you might win the awards this next time. Uh, and it's really one of the bright spots in the latest report. Fourth grader Jace Justice was named SRO student of the month for November. High school FFA came. They read to the prek through third grade. Kids love that. Basketball's rolling along. There's a game at Union Heights tonight. Homecoming was last Thursday. had extra students in it than what we've had in the past. We're hosting the pee-wee basketball playday tournament this Saturday and holiday parties are next Thursday afternoon, but every day in December is a holiday dress. >> Kids are always checking out what kind of tie I have on. I've got a lot of Santa. >> Thanks, sir.
013>> Um, got several things, uh, talk about here with the high school. Uh, one of those is the high school along with communities and schools are partnering for food drive December 17th. So, uh, if you know you want to donate food for food drive school, um, we've got a couple of grants come through. Uh we had an AP grant that uh our counselor uh Miss Brookke received for $492 which we're going to put toward calculators for those AP classes. Uh Miss Tan Drum applied for and received the Twin Lakes grant for $5,000 and she's going to one of her biggest concerns is maintaining enough calculators for the entire school of tests uh in our math subjects that are tested. Um, so she's going to apply that $5,000 to, you know, make sure we have quality
014calculators for our students going forward. Um, we uh recently had cadet Brady Cartman from West Point come and present to several of our students about the application process and and just various things about West Point. you know, he was telling us that, you know, areas like this are under represented there and there's actually some opportunities for students that are interested in going that route. So, um, and it's not, you know, I I would assume it was very expensive, but it was not. Um, we have, uh, couple of individuals I want to recognize. One of those is Reese Adams. On Saturday, he will be competing in the Tennessee East West Allstar football game. Starts at 1:00 at Austin P. I tried to find a place where that might be um where you might be able to
015watch that. I thought it' be on Federation Network. I couldn't find it. If we can find that, we'll put that on our Facebook page. But looking forward to seeing how he does that among some elite athletes. Also, one of our teachers, Matt Craighead, was able to conduct a workshop at the National Association of Agriculture Educators uh at their national conference. It's a it's a big deal among agricultural teachers. Um and is what our students here were telling us that they heard that his work he was standing room. So, a lot of people were in there. So, Matt, you know, his walking down, you guys know they do a plan for the school. Uh, next week we'll be um giving our finals and benchmarks. Our semester courses, half year courses, they'll be taking finals. uh in
016our testing courses that go year round. Uh they'll be given benchmarks kind of a you know get a feel for where the students are on the standards to see what they might be missing, what they're doing well in so they'll know how to move forward in January. Um you know also just uh to talk about on the academic side some of the things we do um one of the biggest things we do is our third period they can ask for help also during seventh period as well but either the student can ask for extra help or the the teacher can and we have a screen out in the hallway kids check it every day and you know they're if that teacher's room number is by their name they know they need to go and get
017some extra So that's a that's a big benefit. Of course, we always have our RTI classes to help students with skills and um you know, teachers are always willing to help a student. You know, sometimes I talked to a couple students this year, you know, they might have an issue. I said, "Have you gone to the teacher?" They say, "No." I said, "Look, they're going to help you." I said, "They don't come back." And so, you know, our teachers are always looking to help our students. So, thank you. Is there any questions for any of our principles? >> Okay. Well, in response to um um a question that we received last month at the board meeting in November, you noticed I've asked the principles to let you guys know what you all what the principles
018are doing in the three schools to improve and advance the test scores. And they can do that again next month if you all need them to. Um, Miss Misti is going to make a presentation here in just a minute as well. Um, at the at the board at the November board meeting when the question was asked, federal and state accountability information was embargoed by the Tennessee Department of Ed. That meant we could not discuss it at that time. That's against the law to do that. Uh but at this time the TDOE has released federal accountability not state but federal accountability for all school districts. After December the 19th TDOE will release state accountability district and school letter grades and we will discuss them at the January uh board meeting. We'll be ready to to let
019you all know about that. And on the on the front page and the second page of the director's report, notice we've got some real good news about uh the two elementary schools, we've had participation from the third grade at Salana K8 School and some of the other classes and the fifth grade at Hermitage Spring School and some other classes. They've u sent notes, uh made drawings, sent cards to veterans, and that's been very well received. So, I want you to know how proud I am of all of them. And again, I wanted to add my congratulations uh to Matt Craighead for presenting at the National Association of A. That was that was a real unique and real good opportunity. U we all all the teachers and staff want to thank the board of education for
020November the 20th, Turkey Day. That's always a real good day and it was an outstanding meal again earnest for you guys and everybody wants to say thank you all. Um the SRO's have finished teaching vape education classes at Salina K8 in Hermitage Springs. Uh that's a major problem at all elementary schools across the state of Tennessee. And we've asked the SRO's and they have already presented the vape education classes. Um Jeff Allen has now he's the SRO. he has completed the firearm safety training classes that the Tennessee legislature had the new law starting July 1 that all classes have got to have a pre-approved class and uh SRO Jeff Allen presented those for us and he's finished um uh special education uh Miss Alicia attended the annual 3-day TAS conference and got the latest updates
021and changes and all the sped requirements and that just changes a lot guys. It really does. Notice your current enrollment on the second page. That's very important for you to see that. Um we're down probably close to 50 students so far in this school year. Um and thank you all for the new phone systems in all the schools. Okay. Um I think are we about done actually getting them all installed? And that's been a real good update. We appreciate all of that guys. Any questions? Miss. >> So, I gave you several packets, but the one I want to start with first is titled December 2025 Klay County Schools Board Meeting. Um, as Miss Monroe said, at the last board meeting, um, both sets of data were embargoed and that means it's against the law to
022discuss. Um, and basically, we have to wait for the state to announce first and then it becomes public knowledge. So within your packet, um, starting at the top, state accountability data is what we commonly refer to as a district and a school report card. It's a letter grade. Um, those are still embargoed, but we will discuss those in January because next week the state is going to release those. Um, but just to go ahead and preview that for you, I gave you a packet of what that state letter grade calculation looks like. So you'll see a letter grade come January for each of our schools and the district as a whole. U but just to let you know what data goes into calculating that letter, I went ahead and gave you that packet. The second
023set of data that we have to deal with for schools and for the district is federal and that's calculated by the US Department of Education and that's what we can talk about today. Um so part of that Mr. Maxfield preview was the great news about being U off the target list for Salina K8 and the high school maintaining. Um, but I want you to realize with each of the domains that go into that score, we're talking about data that may not have been within this last year, that may not have been within even two of our three principles. And for the high school, it's even two years delayed. So they take a group of students that come through two years ago and take their ACT scores, their attendance and their postsecary opportunities to calculate that
024grade. So to say that it's a domino effect that it's going to be immediate, it's not because it's almost a year before you get all of those results calculated by the state or by the federal government. The same thing same things come with our changes as our principles have said when we make a change in administration when they make a change in staffing when we make changes to class sizes at schools curriculum we don't likely see the outcome of that for at least a year or two because when we're looking for that progress for a change that we have made to see if it was effective or not then we have to wait a year or two to see if it was successful or if we need to go back to the drawing board and
025replant. Uh so just keeping that in mind that the state kind of lags delays the data for at least a year or two. Um so another thing that we need to recognize is that when we look at data we want to look at trends what happened over time. And so in the past years as your heat maps say and that's the only packet that's color that I provided for you. Red, yellow, and green are their indicators there um for those domains. We're looking at progress over time. So, we're not only looking at achievement from our TCAP and EOCC test, but we're looking at attendance, as the principles have noted, our graduation rate and how many opportunities we give our students to be ready graduates at the high school. So, I want to commend the board
026for amending a policy that I think all three schools have seen positive outcomes for, and that was when you decrease the number of parent excuses from 10 to eight for a school year. With that, all of our attendance and our chronic absenteeism improved across the board. And I think that our teachers feel more confident in delivering instruction when they can have as many students in seats as possible because always hard to catch a student up if they're absent from school for a long amount of time. So, I I do want to say that that was a positive that we saw across the board. Herman Springs School has been a target school in the past. They were not last year uh two years ago, sorry, but from the 2425 school year, they are a target school
027and that's on page two of your packet. Salana K8 was a target school of improvement but from 2425 they no longer are and are very close to being a reward school as Mr. Maxwell said. In a summary statement, I think we can say that Clay County High School maintained with a small small percentages um of variance, but they maintained from one year to the next. Um on district designations, which I think that's what we prefer to talk about because when we look at all of our students together and all of our staff and all of our faculty, uh we are one big school community. So, I gave you those lists just so you can see how Klay County pairs up with all the other counties in Tennessee. So, on the bottom of page two, that
028first label they give you is exemplary districts and that's a short list if you notice that. Page three is your list of advancing districts and that is the second highest label you can receive and Klay County Schools is among that list. which I think is a celebration considering how many factors go into that list. Um the LA on page four the last two district designations are satisfactory marginal and then at the bottom you have in need of improvement. So if you notice there are several counties in Tennessee that are performing less than Klay County. Um overall um I think you can say that when we look at all of our students that's how we get that label of advancing. But then if you look at our subgroups and page six tells you how many students
029Klay County has when we look at specific groups and those two groups are economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities. When you look at just those two groups and the achievement and the growth of those students, we are an exemplary district. That means we may not be at the top of the achievement, but we are growing and we are making progress. And I think those are two celebrations for all of our teachers because that's what we try to do every day is to take students as they come to us and do better. Make them feel safe. make them feel comfortable and try to get them to grow in all the areas that we have. Um, I would also invite you that if you want to do a a data dive into talking about details um within
030each subject and each grade level that we would be more than happy to do a meeting with our state data analyst where she breaks down all of Klay County's data by school, by grade, by subject. Um what we tried to do for you tonight is give you an overview of where we are now and the steps that we're taking considering what we think our needs are um as the data shows it to us. So I know I' I've thrown a lot at you. Uh but um what you have in your packet that has six pages um is all federal accountability data. So as far as being on list, that's part of that. having a performance label, a designation. Um that's part of that as well. Um and then our state letter grades can be um
031announced in January. Um overall, I think that when you look at our heat maps, and that's the only things that you have in color that you can see from one year to the next. Um we are making gains. Are we perfect? No. Um but I think it's a short list of any counties that would be. Like I said, I know this was a lot of information for you, but this is what our principles, our teachers, and our district staff consider when we make changes to curriculum, to staffing, and to basically the needs and resources of the schools. >> Does anybody have any questions at this time? >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Um, I would like to thank all of our teachers and our board members and our parents because it's not one person that
032accomplishes anything. It's all of us together taking care of each other. >> Thank you, ma'am. >> Any questions for Miss Monroe or Miss Misty? >> Student board members. >> I'll keep it brief, but I just want to hit on a couple things. This first one here, teaching as a profession in family and consumer sciences, visiting tech. Obviously, that's a great way to engage with their future and uh see what a real classroom is like in college and uh here the second item teaching as a profession student certifications and uh literacy tutoring. Um that's that's really what's you know really influential in raising like our next generation of teachers and educators and u hopefully that'll that'll come back to us one day and uh I think it's really useful to get exposed to that. And uh
033as Dr. T mentioned the guy from West Point that came, I attended that and I'd say it's really informational and uh I'd just like to you know highlight that and say it was a good experience and I think it's nice for people from here to get exposure to things like that that you know we typically haven't seen in our classroom and learn how we can get a path to that. >> And then I'll cover on the same newsletter. I'll just the FCCLA portion. So that's going to be your future teachers like Whit said. So family consumer community leaders of America. I think that's what um but they had an ornament making workshop. You know it's holiday season. I didn't get to I was studying for my college classes but um it did look really fun.
034I did pass by in the hallway. And then they are studying bold and subtle patterns and cool and warm colors. I believe that's so um I am I did not attend that class that's not part of my thing for the high school but definitely will be a full class to take and then before Martina covers nursing I'd like to highlight another club that's not on here business leaders of America our advisor is Mr. Brown and I think he's trying more to at least get more people involved. I know we've had a couple meetings and most of the clubs most I took my test today. It was an online testing tournament and I think we had about 10 people. I know the youngest ones were people like Jes and younger kids like that just it reminds
035me of myself and I wish I had more opportunities like that when I was a freshman but that was super fun but I just like to highlight that and you know shine light on what he's trying to do for reports. It was a leadership conference over a lot and abandast and for nursing. There was nine of us yesterday and we need all these skills that are on the back for a very very long time. We'll find out our results very soon. So let Austin visit there that came and there was probably students that which was really great because a lot of us officers are up and next year. So we just want to carry on the club as much as >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. Uh couple housekeeping items. Uh is if it
036uh is acceptable with board. I know maybe Mark has a conflict, but uh we would like to uh push our board meeting back a week for the month of January 2026. Um it will help assist us in getting in some bids of the project that we requested bids for. um with the holidays and everything the way that's all fallen. Um our schedule board meeting was supposed to be on the 8th uh been the earliest it could be of any month. Uh so now that will if it's acceptable with the board, we'll push it to January the 15th. Uh and that way it'll help us consider those bids that we receive back on a project that we sent out for kids last month actually. So, if that's okay with everybody, we'll we'll do that and advertise
037accordingly. Um potentially uh we may consider a planning meeting before that, but uh we'll let you know on that. We still do the same night. So, not uh not anything that should uh require anything additional, but uh it's okay with the board. We'll we'll push that back a week, accomplish that, make those bids. Um, and then is it okay if we come to the high school for the CTE building in January and meet there and give us an opportunity to tour that new facility there at the high school and have our meeting in there. So, if that works for everybody, we'll do that. Our meeting at the will be at the high school January the 15th. in the new CT building. Yeah, you guys know kind of where the tennis courts are around back there.
038You park around back and enter that way. >> You get a second meeting. Where's