MCS - Board Meeting 03/04/2025

001e e e like the call the March 4th regular Mor count Board of Education made order session please the to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for thank you very [Music] much board members you do have an agenda uh with some personnel and also some checks you the agenda and agenda motion for approval as off line quick uh any comments or [Music] concerns all those say I I carries presentations we have a Full Slate of presentations tonight um I'm not sure you're the highlight of the night in M the city but uh welcome again to the meeting thank you very much High we here a i fre you to go is that okay you are please

002we all we all have your packet of information front of us yeah you got some of or page hand that we sent up this this morning and that's meant to complement the the audit documents that we sent up a few weeks ago after we issued issued our report uh and for those of you that haven't had a chance to meet yet in person my name is Michael mid I'm CPA partner with the five children group out of P we're one of the the few firms in West Virginia that provides a of services to lots of the boards of education and we're our our our contract our work uh is executed through through the board but it's also overseen by West Virginia state auditor's office so uh we kind of work with them but also with

003of course with your board on the execution of of our engagement um as we've done in the past just kind of a little timeline for you on the the 2024 single audit uh as I was up dating my notes on this I noticed that last year I think we had this discussion in April it may even have been may just kind of the way timing worked out so I'm very happy to have this a lot earlier in the year and of course it's also good to have it on the Eve I know budgeting is is is is happening for the upcoming year the 26 fisal year so the time tends to T to work up pretty well we initiated our audit formally toward the end of December uh we were on site uh and doing

004testing in January we uh wrapped up our report second in February and issued that on February 10th uh we issued what's referred to as an unmodified opinion or in other words a clean opinion we noted no issues on the governmental auditing standards which really talks about inter internal controls checklists time sheets things of that nature and we had no issues with the federal program uh this year we looked at the Child Nutrition cluster of your federal expenditures and again we had no issues there uh there were no new accounting standards adopted uh this year we don't think will have anything to significant over the next 2 to 3 years which is always very helpful for the finance office and not having been able anything anything new uh we talked about this over the past and

005I know uh you know Hannah and her staff try to do a good job of educating everyone on really what are your financial statements and uh I say a lot the financial statements of boards of Education in West Virginia and across the country really have two sets of of financials two sets of books that speak first are your fund level statements but your statements you probably see on a on a regular basis uh it's talking about really the handful of funds that that all counties in West Virginia operate mainly of course the general fund and their very special Revenue funds but separate from the fund level statements you have What's called the districtwide statements and the districtwide statements incorporate uh not only the fund statements but a lot of things that tend to be beyond

006your control things like the pitch and liability that it's out there that uh you have to book uh in in relation to your employees and also the opab liab ility for the insurance premiums that you'll eventually have to have to help service for your employees when they retire uh so what I have here at the first two pages of the presentation just talk about the statement of net position for the district uh which is another way to say the balance sheet for the district so you notice your total assets right kind of in the middle of the page for 2024 are about 33 million that's up from 30 million last year uh the majority of that is Du to just an increase in cash um um and we'll get kind of how that happened and

007why that's the case from 23 to 24 uh the liabilities are also down a little bit which is kind of the the the second half of this statement down about about $700,000 and that's due to to paying down some of the debt and also uh some activity that benefited you on on the pinching front so overall your net position which is the bottom line there uh your net position is up almost $3 million from 23 to 24 you'll see that on the bottom right it's up 2. 9 million the next page this is your statement of activities in the for profit world we kind of refer to the income statement the top half of the statement shows all of your Revenue uh the middle and kind of bottom shows your expenses essentially is is uh

008the net effect of that is what's left over so you'll see um the net position significantly increased from uh from 23 to 24 uh by almost $3.6 million so a significant increase again we also saw uh in 23 and I'm going to talk about that here in just a few moments the next few pages in the package you have on the screen talks about the fund level activity and mor county has five funds your general fund you have three special Revenue funds and then capital projects fund which is meant solely for Capital Improvements across the county you'll notice toward the bottom right of the page you'll see a net change in fund balance of just over $2 million I'm kind of cing it here with the cursor uh we saw a similar amount like that

009in 2023 and we saw uh a little bit lower amount but it's still an increase in in 2022 uh which really speaks to to what's going on with the finance office and also the communication with management and the board and finally I'm kind of doing this in a little bit of a reverse order what you see here is the fund level balance sheet and again you got five funds here this is as of June 30 2024 uh so the top half is all your assets what you have on the fun level statements the middle half is essentially all your liabilities or what you owe and then the bottom kind of third is really what's left over so you'll notice that the number that everybody seems to really focus on is your unassigned fun balance in

010your general fund and it's at a relatively healthy amount of just shot of $7 million uh which is really a significant increase over the past several years and I wanted to touch on that just for a moment because we've been talking for the last year with all of our boards about the the kind of the fiscal cliff that they're calling up with co co s money going away and I look back and uh at at the end of 2024 you'll see at the kind of bottom right here you got $14 million in your fund balance that's again after your assets are account for your liabilities are considered what you have left over at the end of 2024 is $14 million uh what you had left over at the end of 20 22 was $8 million

011so over the past two or three years you've done a good job of being prudent with your Co expenditures you've been able to uh use ASF money for good purposes but also for for things that I might have ordinarily come up you were able to to offset cost that you might have ordinarily incurred uh by using some of that seus money which is which is certainly good uh so the quick math on that is you're $6 million ahead of where you were 6 years or 3 years ago uh and I don't think as many counties across the state are able to stay that um and that's a testament to to not only an her Finance stuff but also management and the board for for listening we hear very often across the state where the treasurers

012are are trying to get uh you know super and in the board to understand the fiscal cliff and what's what's coming and uh really I think the proof is in the pudding right here that you can see that you guys have have done a good job and managing that and been able to uh to utilize resources to the best P you and uh with what you've been given like I said from the SF the SF money kind of wrapping up here on the number side um on the federal side um you had about $5.5 million of federal expenditures in uh 2024 uh that's about what it was last year was a little bit higher as we see that asset of money kind of slowly being spent down and uh both completely been exhausted in fiscal

01325 um we'll see it kind of come back to maybe that4 and55 million amount that we accustomed to previous through to the pandemic as I mentioned earlier Child Nutrition was the program that we tested and we're looking at things there from from meal counts reimbursement also all the way down to to time sheets and individual invoices and how they were paid so of your $5.5 million uh 1.5 of that was uh Food Service Federal reimbursement you get for your meal so uh you know certainly a big chunk of that and again that was the program that we uh we shows a test in 2024 again no findings no issues to report U we submitted this uh audit few weeks ago to the powers of B and then finished up on the federal side too was

014submitting to the to the federal government uh government there can of breef through that pretty quickly any uh any questions thank you very much I appreciate that thank you for the kind words about our staff very much so I think that's a mutually beneficial relationship according to an's nodding and what she told me in the past um I did have just two follow questions one's a naive question M maybe can you hear me yeah okay um an explanation possibly across the state across the country there's been a lot of headline articles made about the Way co monies were spent on in appropriate things whenever you pull out your one category I Child Nutrition or in the past do you look at the spending as a bit fits into guide rails or parameters passed down for

015those funds is that is this report something that we can rely on to say this is something that we can show our public that this is proof that we are spending the money wisely yeah absolutely uh you know our our our audit is not meant to be considered uh you know a complete audit uh we use the terms and this is not just our our audit our terms but uh but everybody um you know across all the Auditors um generally you know we we do sampling and whatnot but when we're going through our testing when we're going through our our individual transactions uh we're sending a lot of those back to the federal directors J explaining you why this was a a a reasonable expense within Co explain me why this was something that um

016you know came through you know Food Service um you know as you all know you see a lot of transactions that come through that are paid to vendors like apple uh that are paid to restaurants supermarket things that you might not ordinarily expect a school district to pay but we try to push that back to the federal directors and ask them hey can you can you give us an explanation on on what this was for and then when it comes back usually the answers are are well within the lines of of what's allowed we try to like I said really you know give the federal directors an opportunity to to represent us what what those finishes for for thank you thank you follow question was you already touched on the answer to it um in

017light of our 22 to 24 um conservative spending so our carryover balance are we falling in line with the average school system uh and how they are looking to the future with their carryover or are we kind of in the top 25% of other state other counties that you've seen you know I um I really can't speak to that we do a lot of other countes I don't have that data in front of me but but and I would imagine the States been publishing information that fairly regularly um but and I would think they' be given the budget season and the legislative session going on right now I imagine they would be they would have some reports that they're going out showing showing that carrier balance and maybe and you can speak a little more

018to to that part of it yes we haven't receive that yet typically we do get a list of all counties and their carryover balances and U kind of rank in some different formats I can I don't have for 24 yet but I can get that sure great board members any other questions comments on the a just glad to see the balances we have especially with the uh potential for uh tough Economic Times for us uh as a school board and federal programs and then I was just thinking about the tariffs going up and how that's going to impact instructional supplies and books and everything else down the road I'm afraid so it's good it's good that we have such a good balance and that a lot of us the credit ofand I always say I

019would question my intelligence if I didn't ask an about things first before I made a decision course some people question that anyway but it's another issue mine too people get here no sometimes but you sometimes you have to say it Jody Lucas and I used to have some interesting discussions but he was a good man sir I think um every time I see no findings we just get so used to that with Ann Bell being our treasure that we kind of just expect that it's always going to be no findings and that's not always the case in other places so I just want to thank her for her knowledge her attention to detail her you know riging us in when we need it and uh her communication she's just the best and I hope she

020never retires I know some at some point she probably will and all the other count going to be like we want some Ann Bell over this way but uh I just really appreciate her and uh she's she's she teaches us a lot too about how to B how to maintain our budgets and uh so just just thank thank you an appreciate thank you Dave I appreciate but it's a team and we all work together you know it's not just me it's the board it's everybody in this office everyone in the schools and I'm fortunate that everybody tries their best everyone has good intentions and you know we have great people like Michael to work with as well he's he's very helpful it's not just me she's very good like poor summer here comes into a

021new job with a federal budget and Ann's been mentoring her along the way so that's just the way it should work and just uh I know some's appreciative to so than it's a great place to work thanks for your time Michael appreciate it thanks for all your work thank you very much I like just add just just two things for a moment uh you know I Echo the thanks and for for all the the support we really turn her world and and her team's world upside down for for not just the two or three four days that we're there but the week clean up the week wrap up um so thanks to an but also thanks to the other directors and the board members because it's like an said it's truly a team effort and

022I know we we emailed L of the directors attender of course and the board members and so we really appreciate that that dialogue it's it's very helpful and allows us to to get in and get out and get what we need and then the second thing I feel like I say this every year I just try to remind everyone that you'll notice a lot of the documentation is addressed to the board and while that is uh you know somewhat of a formality it's also sincere we work for you we report to you so if you have questions if you have things that you would like to to discuss and's got my content information feel free to reach out uh Z said we try to be a resource uh when we can and we're not just

023there for for just the two months we' like to think of it is a partnership for the lall so we're here to help please reach out if you have any questions or or anything else thank you thank you very much than Michael thank you my was the H the meeting was next but Michael took it as he was the highight so he W differ now this tu's going to come and ask you for some playground okay we sted windmire playground equipment the other day didn't we yeah they said it was in great shape we didn't need it anymore that's because I had to replace every single you got a brim thumbs up two thumbs up that doesn't help your to the board I know go out there with that baseball bat and start tearing down

024just wait till next year oh uh the podium is I'm assuming you will be leading the show or passing this off you you come on up I did actually Bren apparently told Mr Keenan that we were one of the best schools that they've gone into in a while so I also ran around last week like a crazy person with bitboard of all the things that Rim nailed us on last year and I made sure every one of those things had some attention to them like I was at Hunters this morning buying signs that say uh employees only and sticking them on the shed so that g would not put that report again so I was determined I wonder if we talk to Mr Keenan if that's kind of a regular thing if you running around

025going I think that that's probably he probably agree that that's probably every day yes very much well you know what gold star I thought it would make Tammy P happy for us to not have a she's got a lot of she a lady so I thought she'd be thrilled with good report from school um okay so Springs med school thanks for having me this evening I guess we'll start with good things oh I have all right every year I like to talk about good things in the sense of academic accomplishments from students um so we had [Music] several oh they did they did they did sorry guys um we had we took first second and third and first and second alternate in fourth and fifth grade for math field day again this year um we've

026had Mr Bo who is our gym teacher and a certified math teacher coaching students for math field day so I'm really hoping that we do well at regionals this year because we did have somebody plac last year which has been the first in a long time for Mor County that somebody places again this year uh we had 20 students place at Regional social studies Fair we have one student headed to States oh no that's science fair I'm sorry Regional science fair we have student headed to to States but we had 20 kids at the social study Fair which was a lot uh and then we took first second and third of the Young Writers contest for the grades 3 to four this year so we had a lot of academic success I'm super proud of

027our kids and then we have miss rero and miss elore completed their national board so you know we're going to celebrate our kids academic accomplishments because we need to celebrate our teachers as well they worked really hard for that and I know that they were very stressed and that was a lot for them but they did it and they did a great job so just kudos to them our leadership team here at the Intermediate School uh with Miss Elmore and third Miss Myers fourth miss a is a reading interventionist however she graciously stepped up and took over fifth grade team year which has really worked out well for that team she works really closely with them anyway so it was a good fit Miss rerro and unified arts and Miss Rose in special ed all

028of them have been team leaders for me for the last several years with the exception of Miss Myers she replaced Miss ditto when sheti last year demographics have not changed I mean we are relatively we're not very diverse um however with the 345 students that we have it isn't all this graphic but we are currently sitting at 65 students with IEPs which gives us 19% of our population having some level of intensive service I just wanted to point that out miss a lot of students on IEPs but as far as I not not a lot but that's okay um our poverty is is very similar to what it was last year um with 41% low yes and 59 not um it's an unfortunate thing however I did hear from our lovely Federal programs director that

029the overall Poverty of the county is going down so that's great bad news for federal programs but good news for our community so um it'll be interesting to see how that changes the dynamic of the school on to G scores my favorite um La intermed SCH have been doing well every year I want to say on our GSA so overall for reading fifth grade or I'm sorry third grade crushes it with 57% proficiency which was much higher than the district and the state average and then fourth at 50 and fifth at 41 so fifth had a shift in curriculum last year a little bit um we stopped using they had been using one model of delivery for their instruction and we shifted to the county adopted text so I anticipated a little bit lower of

030the score because they were getting used to all of that and how they structur their classrooms however as we go you'll see um I'm really proud of them because they've done a good job adapting to that so I'll speak that as we keep do overall our scores it's hard to tell by looking at this graphic but our scores hover most school districts you see how much lower math scores we're very comparable with math and reading um third grade kills it with math each year so that 63% is just a fantastic proficiency rate and that's across the board I've looked at other elementary schools especially here in the Panhandle and I sort of Branch down into Hampshire and mineral to compare us to them as well and our um third grade in particular crushes man so

031and science this is higher than it was before we up we 36% proficiency which the year before is 32% so we have gone up I just um we focus so heavily on math and reading that sometimes we tend to by the time we get to the science test the kids are fatigued and the teachers quite honestly are fatigued and so we do put lots of Hard effort it just doesn't get the love that it should compared to reading the math but we are hoping with increased reading scores we're going to see increase in science naturally this is the the good slide um so I think that we're headed to the right direction we're going up so over the last several years we've made significant gains in the 2021 school year obviously we've made a huge

032jump however I went back and looked our scores haven't been this High since 20145 and even at that in Reading we were only at 46% proficient in math only so I think that the Intermediate School teachers have done a great job of working hard to increase those scores and I give woodmire some credit also because our kids came in really strong readers this year so Kos to them also because there are feeders we need them to be strong so I think overall we're on the right track we got to work on science I know but that's even gone off in the last several years so for a decade science has never got any love it is never what a shame I know but as we see increased reading scores especially with the complexity of the

033text we should see an increase continual on in science um and I don't help the matter when I make our master schedule I may get structured so that there's huge reading chunks and writing and science just doesn't get as much attention in that either so I probably should restructure just enough to give it a little bit more time but um with the science of reading initiative that we're working on we just have to dedicate a ton of time to reading so but I'm proud of them I think that we're on track to continue growth I'm hoping to see another I mean I told them you're not allowed to backslide there will be no going down 48% or 46% we will only continue to go up even if it's a small we're still just going up

034so I think they're okay with that um discipline is an thing at the elementary level um if you myself I'm sorry yeah um so what um level one behaviors are you know your minor behaviors level two is a little bit more most of the things that we see at our level are level one behaviors like even if kids are using inappropriate language it's usually because they are just learning those words for the first time they don't know how to use them so they're just saying them it's not acceptable but it is there's no Mal intent behind it they're not trying to make someone feel uncomfortable so most of our behaviors are Level ones they're disruptive or it's a student that's had some level of trauma and that's why they're disrupting class they're not malicious behaviors

035so we always have a huge number of level one referrals it's just what it is this year we're sitting a little bit lower this is the data in front of you is last year's weas data the data what I can tell you right now is that we have a total of 53 level one referrals in weas for this school year which is a lot less than overall last year however I'm here this year in March I think I was here this year or this time like in M April or May last year I think we were here and that number is going to go up because now we're having we're going back outside at recess kids are pushing and shoving and saying more of the bad words they just learned while they were inside at

036recess so we're going to see those Spike however our teachers are doing a really good job of trying to control those behaviors in the classroom and do some preventative things so I think that as teachers get used to understanding what classroom managed behaviors are versus office referral behaviors we'll continue to see that number go down so um right now we're only sitting at 53 um if I came back in May I would probably be a little higher but um class just have pretty good kids I mean honestly I was there at that school back in 2010 11 these kids are lovely they are wonderful children those kids were lovely too it was just very different these kids are really good like we can't complain about their behaviors most of the stuff we see is disruptive

037disrespectful stuff and that's usually because they're mad about something that they just had a an evening the night before so I don't have a whole lot to complain about with discipline this is also fun um proud of our attendance my goal was to have us Below 177% on the Strategic plan um gosh at the beginning of the year we were sitting at like 22% I think and that was unacceptable so we are now at 17.84% because some of our kids that are chronically absent at the beginning for whatever reason Vacations or their flu or whatever those kids will start to fall out of that number the longer we're in school so I might be able to meet that goal this year which will be the first time I've ever met the attendance goal like hard

038so I'm excited um we have fantastic communities and schools lean on she is phenomenal kids like her they want to come to school she makes contact all the time she has has a case load of 42 children that she works with Which is far above the recommended case load number and she does it with absolutely no problem the kids love her so between her and my attendant secretary Miss Melinda parents pick up the phone for Miss Melinda they will call her back they will absolutely pick up the phone for her so um and she send that little postcards with the days that you've been absent and then within hours of those kids home our emails blow up with the job forms where parents are quickly sending excuses in so she does a really between the

039two of them they're rock stars with attendance we've only had two we had three children at MDT meetings this year I mean that's incredible in the past we've had I've sat there for a long time with Mr LLY in the past but so far this year we've attended two meetings and we' only had three kids that we've seen so that's it's pretty good my strategic plan goals um for reading and math by the end of the year I'd like to see an increase on the GSA by 16% that's we can do it um it's a decently lofty goal very it's behind it um but I have told my staff from day one every time I present data to them I say to them this is what I want I want to see this and they

040say oh my that's a lot I don't know if we're going to get there and I say well yeah we are we're just going to do it and every time they do better than they did the year before so we actually walk out and roll our eyes at I mean I feel like it works I mean they do well so we'll see U we'll see how we get there right now we're sitting a little bit behind where we were with the I assessment last year but we came in just a hair lower at the beginning then so I think we'll get there it'll be fine um and between the beginning of the year Benchmark and the middle of the Year there was breaks there was snow there was some I mean holidays crushing up school

041we're learning in the month of December but in reality we are singing Christmas carols we are I mean it is a lot of fun an elementary school in December so and that's around when we took the middle of the Year assessment so I really anticipate seeing an increase but I do think I'm going to meet our attendance goal or strategic plan here so that's exciting so beginning of the year reading I um overall we were summer will tell you how yellow is not bad yellow is actually good it means you're approaching in very close to grade level however I really focus on green so my world um 29% to start isn't awesome because we had those kids for third and fourth grade now fourth and fifth grade and so our third graders came in pretty

042decent third grade breeding was strong at the beginning of the year so it's concerning I think when we're only starting at 29% however we did jump to 42% green so that's early or above which is a good jump I think in Reading um math came in considerably lower than it had before within the 18% in the green but we did get it I mean we had a nice jump up to 35% so it is a little bit lower than where we were sitting this time last year for middle of the Year math and reading but I think it's okay I'm not too awful worried um I'm not I'm not too that's all I have to say I think that we get where we need to be um and third grade uh reading is looking great

043they are killing it with 54% so I very confident that third grade will be where they need to be for the GSA fourth grade that's a very similar number to where they were this time last year just a couple points below but then fth grade is what I'm incredibly proud of like I mentioned earlier they had shifted in their curriculum delivery where they had been working on novels at the beginning of last year and we shifted to the curriculum they started using H hmh in reading and they had several trainings with our coach from hmh and um when I showed this to my lsic I have the fifth grade teacher on that and she was like oh that's great and I said what do you think that it's all about and she smiled and I

044was like it's we're using the curriculum the research based curriculum it's a lot more difficult it's a lot more intensive I they're good teachers but I think this is helpful that they're having to use a more it's a vocabulary to them which I think has been very helpful because that's an area that we struggle every year on the GSA and vocabulary so I think it's been good for them and you can see with there it was a 44 they went from was the last one very low of the year they went from well I have the fifth grade but they were I think it was like 20 something per to 44% in the green so that's a great jump that's the largest jump I've seen them have from the beginning of the year to the

045middle of the year on any of the Diagnostics that they've taken so I'm incredibly proud of fifth grade and then math um beginning of the year third grade started at only 12% so to see them jump up to 35% is impressive um that I me that's a pretty good jump too um fourth grade fourth grade is tough for math um we this is an area that we have focused on a lot and I'll talk about some of that as we go but fourth grade math they go from having 25 standards that have to be covered in third grade to fourth grade they have 28 standards and they become significantly more difficult you know just learning multiplication in third grade and now we're going to hit fractions in fourth so the math does get a lot

046more difficult and so we always have a little bit lower fourth grade math but that's some something we've been focusing on and the teachers have been working through so we're hoping that that will pay off um and then fifth grade um they started at 29% they jumped to 40 so it's pretty good uh capturing kids Hearts survey so that's a lot of information on the slide and I apologize but I think that the thing to that catches my eye when I look at that is it's three years worth of the capture and kids Hearts survey data for um campus-wide and I did student survey data because as much as I love our parents and as much as I love our staff like the overall Joy of this program is to help kids and so it's

047for me it's what kids think is the most important part and so we had aoup couple of the green areas which means that we're above Baseline for National showcase status the first year we did it we picked up several the next year and this past year we picked up several more so um our strategy said today that we would find out later this month if we were um if we want National showcase status again so I mean looking at that if we had it last year and looking at that I would think that we would be a good candidate for that but maybe they expect us to really game or something I'm not sure but I think it's looking good uh parent Community involvement so we've had um several activities we have learned um the

048first picture there is of missile and her family helping out a family math night and we learned that you cannot plan a family activity for the week of before holiday so like that week before Thanksgiving is not an ideal time to hold a family math night you only get like 30 people come instead of like our normal like hundreds of people that like to come to our event so we'll know better for next year that we won't do that again um but below that is a picture of a family that came for our Veterans Day breakfast that's we've done that a couple years now it's been really successful the pictures besides so up and down um the one is Nicole H son and right above is Miss from she is a part from the ice

049house and she comes and does Ceramics in Miss roer's class and she has been that for years now so M fer probably has one of the strongest Community Connections in our school system I don't know how many other people have Community people come to their classroom as often as she does um she's always bringing people in so that's been great because miss Lynn is really sweet and it's great having her with our kids above that or right beside it is Christmas our Christmas drive-thru event has been really good the community likes it it's fun it's really always cold we never get great luck out I it's always like freezing cold and um every year at least a week leading up to it I swear we're not doing it ever again and I'm canceling Christmas and

050then the night of I cancel Christmas and then when Penny Brothers rolls in with a big Christmas float and the guys from the three or four hall come and start making hot chocolate and then Christmas is back on and we're going to do it again next year and packing up Christmas lights and so that'll probably be something we do next year even though I hate it every year say Middle School in the dust that's right that is AB I'm going to need another shed just for Christmas decoration my school um something that was fun this year right below in the middle there is a picture of Becca Griffith our social worker and myself we we stood in the elf Village at the Christmas Market for several days uh freezing and we almost burnt it down

051at one point with our protane heater but luckily the fire department everything worked out um and was great we sold popcorn and um little ornaments that our kids made raising money for our playground miss you don't want me to freeze next year we can playr you saf for here there you go say Peter W we were able to do this because uh Becca and I went and spoke to the rotary about raising money for the playground and need and they offered um Stacy rone from Boys and Girls Club offered to do a partnership with us and we had our own little village and we shared with boys and girls club so which has been a great partnership so Stacy and I have talked about doing some things together where there don't have as many kids

052go there as we used to we have tons of children go and so that would be a good thing for our kids to get them back there some of them should be going there after school instead of just home so um Stacy and I have talked about a couple different projects we might like to do together to try to help increase their um enrollment and just it's a better it's a good Community Partnership to have so that was fun and then there are you got Miss Rose who is running to Inspire that young man to finish the 5K that we held at the intermediate this year third grade team decided they wanted a different type of fundraiser and they didn't want to just sell stuff so they had 5K and it worked out really well

053like lots of people came kids ran it was awesome there was like a fun activity in the back like a hay maze and all kinds of like neat stations with pumpkin themed things and they miss rer ran with the child kid to finish it was great we had a good time okay um so I didn't write a lot there but I was just going to talk about it so talked about math and how that's an area that we focus on especially like for fourth grade Mr Banks approached me earlier this year and asked if I wanted to do like a more intensive math standard break down where the teachers would unpack each math standard prior to teaching that standard we started doing that third fourth and fifth grade third grade they're gogs they're like working

054ahead but it's been very good because there's been comments from all three grade levels oh I didn't realize that I wasn't teaching this correctly or oh this is a better way to get this done um one teachers told me she didn't realize that she wasn't supposed to teach unlike denominators in fourth grade and she had focused on that for like a month because that's a hard concept for kids is and she's like I had no idea that that wasn't one of my standards anymore and so she was able to cut that from her curriculum and focus on some of the other standards that they aren't strong at so breaking those down have been really helpful for my teachers so we talked about continuing that next year with reading and then I want to focus I

055redid our entire master schedule we have dedicated 60 Minutes for reading and a dedicated 60 Minutes for math prior to to redoing the schedule kids would come out of the back end of each one of those classes if they had intervention or special ed now they do not they stay for all 60 Minutes for both subjects and then I have two separate blocks one for reading one for math that is just 45 minutes of intervention special ed students and intervention students receive instruction during those times and then the kids that are left in the classroom with their Gena teachers that's when those teachers can do more intensive groups with those kids either enrichment groups that kids that need push or kids that they're concerned about and they need to collect some more data on hopefully

056they don't need intervention so I want to PD needs for me next year and I've already worked with Miss mclin talk where coming up with a plan on how to make this happen isn't difficult it's more standard unpacking and reading and then working on how to really take advantage of the resources that we do have like I ready and hmh and structuring those intervention blocks effectively and teaching teachers how to collect the data that they're looking for from those intervention blocks so we're going to focus a lot on that next year and then um number two my counselor and social worker and I have been talking a lot about this um younger and younger our kids are on social media it is a problem um Snapchat's a huge problem Facebook isn't as much that's just

057an us thing that's not them people yeah um roadblocks I guess it's like video games that's an issue um these things it doesn't matter these third graders know how to do all of this stuff also and what we're finding is either they're talking to people that they shouldn't be talking to online they're talking about things they shouldn't be talking about online um we have done several suicide assessments this year uh thank heavens they've all been okay um we've done several threat assessments that have had something to do with social media I was able to have um Adam come earlier this year and do a presentation for parents on the dangers of social media but I'd like to do take that a step further and have somebody come with a Nintendo switch and show parents because

058you can talk about it but you have to show them like if um grandparents are raising their kids now if my father was raising my daughter and you told him you better check her Nintendo switch she can get online my dad wouldn't have a clue he's waiting on me to come help help him with his Netflix account like he doesn't know how to figure that out that's a lot so these grandparents need to show them like take your Nintendo switch hook it up to something and show them this is how your kid is accessing the internet on this this is how you can turn it off I want that I don't know I need to figure out how to find that but I that's what I want to focus on parent education and practical parent

059education for next year and things to look for for in little kids because we don't think about it as being as big an issue as it is at the secondary level but it is an issue so um I'd like to focus a lot on that I think my um communities and schools being on will help a lot with that so I think um those are the two areas of needs otherwise I think we're on the right track we're doing okay we don't need much we try not to bother anybody get yourself at the market right right right and I am one of those people that Ann has to tell no often she doesn't bother we we Friday me we get together and commerate about tell no you should add me to that yeah I've told

060thank you for touching on the standards that was actually one of the questions I had about we were talking about your redoing your master schedule and you didn't sign a little bit more and um I believe my personal opinion more than anything will probably be Reading MA is what fundamentals that we have to have these kids know order they can catch up in science something that just a truth if they don't have the Bas fundamentals of what you need to get in front of them so my question was are we getting are we getting all the standards in front of them that need to get in front of them each year whether it just be a week of touching on it just something to expose them to it as then is the next Lev like

061not not dear headlights yeah I would answer that question a little differently a couple years ago because now I don't think that we were I mean we were trying our best but I don't think that we were getting enough um I do believe that they have increased uh we have solid pacing guides now where before we we had them but people weren't following them um I think that they're doing my teachers are doing a much better job of getting through things faster because you can always spiral back right like if you're teaching play Studio don't spend six months on play stud spiral back to it and I think that you're doing a much better job doing that so I do think that we are touching the all now do I think that we're touching the

062ones that we need to long enough we still need to work on that but we'll get there um time to day your test scores are reflecting don't don't just glance over your test scores it is a very commendable and we thank you for your efforts down your test scores for the past year it was very nice highlight so than thanks I good job I'm really proud of they work hard there poor folks and God love them they trust me when I say like let's do this that they'll tell me if they don't like something like my somebody laughed the other day and said I can't believe your stx's so mean to you sometimes I said I know but they're not afraid they're not afraid to be really honest with me like if I have an

063idea and I think it's going to be great they'll tell me yes or no they did not like my master schedule if you made this year like I heard more about that for a long time I heard about that however had some Believers here recently say to me I'm very glad that we have that extra 45 minute walk for intervention so um plus my letters for admin training manual says that I have the correct master schedule so that's not going way that's so um C CK is it still being beneficial or is it getting to be where it is not as productive um some of the things are very routine for the kids so like at the beginning when we got kids to be quiet by doing this it was kind of a newer so

064it immediately worked and now they just sort of they just know to do it so I think we take that little those little pieces for granted because it's just they naturally know how to do it I think um there are some classrooms that it will it is very very beneficial because classroom management isn't as strong and they're able to reflect and point back to the social contract and they're able to do those things so I think for those classroom teachers that struggle with classroom management they need a program like that that's helpful for them for our other teachers that have really strong classroom management they're doing it because I've asked them to to do it but they're doing their kind of version of it which is sort of similar so it it's Funk um and

065I'm not going to give a t-shirt a hard time who has like amazing classroom management and is pumping out great test scores like they can do I mean and most of those fol anywh just follow rules but um it is helpful for your young does it help withm having something already buil in to refill one it does help um it's WM I think kind of fell into the same Bo there were a couple little pieces of the management thing like the fouls that doesn't work at the element I don't know if it works at secondary either I haven't asked but it does not work at the elementary level because you foul every person that gets on your nerves throughout the day and so we had to put an end to the fouls right at the

066beginning because it was turning into a thing and I think that RM had to also sort of do that you can't let them fou everybody because then they're f for everything otherwise um um so I think we kind of found what worked and what didn't work to be about the same last thing I got one I keep asking bu you have building capacity what you're at 345 now what could your building capacity be yeah I have one empty classroom in fifth grade uh which is like hold 28 kids I have uh empty well I have a empty classroom it's not used fulltime it's only used for UniFi class down in fourth grade not going to come and take your classroom no I'm just thinking how many extra that's like I can take three or four

067additional classrooms yeah so I can take about that maybe another yeah what numers I got two things just curious do you guys see any students with cell phones um we will have one or two kids a school year with that as an issue usually those are our kids that have to go somewhere or theirl homes or cell phones are not an issue for us yeah that's good yeah and one other thing you you guys consistently do well and I don't hear anything bad from employees they like working there you know so it's got to be you right I don't know you know what they are a good group of people who um genuinely like kids and want to do a good job and I think that they they just like each other and I that's

068I can probably leave tomorrow and they probably still be there just they're just good that's good yeah I'm just really lucky good job I'm not terrible for yeah sure I I don't know if it's a thing Becky but I've noticed several school presentations last couple years and it seems like if you have three or four grades it seems like the oldest kids in the school have less academic uh prowess and have more behavior issues I don't know if that if if you've noticed that if that's a thing or not I know we used to notice it uh actually in the intermediate and uh the U Middle School but I don't know if that's research based or it's just something I picked up on you know I taught Middle School like I started at North Middle

069School in Martinsburg actually and taught there for a long time um fifth grade kids you I don't think I'd want to teach fifth grade like those kids it's a whole different ball game with those little guys they not only have the on the skin the school mentality these guys have access to cell phones when they go home they have access to online when they go home um and they don't understand how to process any of that so like their emotions are all over the place and on top of a lot of them are raised by grandparents or split homes or whatever they've got all kinds of emotions and the physical aspects of kids change a little bit earlier now than what they did before and I think hormones play a big role in that yeah

070it's it's a lot different when when I started Greenwood we had very few young ladies even in sixth grade having and by the time I left we were sing it in fourth grade um it's after Christmas every year it doesn't fail fifth grade has a different and I said this so lovingly so the fifth graders are watching um they have a different you can smell body odor when you walk holy moly I walked down the hallway the other day I was like oh what is happening down here like oh Middle School's and I I was going to mention several other things because I I wrote like a mad man for once but um it's all all complimentary I'd like uh the decoding we we're doing now in in our reading language arts and I think

071you're going to see a lot more benefits next year which will help your science and also um the vocabulary based curriculum in in your reading language arts um I was the same way you know let's face it reading's the key to everything if you can't read well you can't do nearly as well on standardized test because you don't know what they're talking about right that that's all that was always a gripe of mine for a long time and we fixed it and then the math issue you know I like um your scheduling where you have a certain amount of time for it and then you take some of your pullouts and then you have um activities for richm for for the other kids I think I think that's a spectacular idea I'd have loved to

072have used that matter of fact it sort of did but not as well as you're using it um let's see checking off my list here incorporat and and the other thing is I'm really glad you're mentioning trying to help parents and grandparents get more of a grasp on what they they need to do it's boy it's tough I remember one time I had a parent come in child was a handful and she said and and she was you know and she just she grabbed me when she said she says you know the trouble with kids is they don't come with owner's manuals and so true and a lot of times they're they're they're raising their children the way they were raised and sometimes that was not necessarily a good thing so uh I uh I

073can I can identify with grandparent raising child because my grandmother took me when I was three and she was 60 oh and we made it work and she saved some of heard me say before I think she saved my life um of course it was it was an easier time but she had to raise me during the 60s and early 70s and I can tell you I'm sure that was a lot of fun different challenges yeah different challenges um but the recognition that maybe some of our parents would be um I think very receptive to getting some more advice and looking at some data I think I think would be a really good idea yeah I want to make it tangible because you can give them a flyer that says monitor your kids activity check

074who they're talking to that is fantastic and that's like step one but showing them how to do it I know when I help my dad with technology he has a little book he gets it out and he's like all right start over I got to click on the X okay and then what and my dad's not as old as some folks that are now raising the grandkids so and he keeps his little book so we need to do that for our families I even have parents that come into the school that have no idea what their kids are doing online so or that their kids up until 2:00 in the morning and sleeping all day because they were playing video games so it's really important I think that we do that and we've had a

075couple kids even somebody I guess I don't know if you call it catfishing or whatever you call it these days um where somebody online has reached out to our students and used somebody else's profile picture and the kid thought that they were talking to another kid and it was an adult so that's scary so I would like to try to figure out the best way to do that um but that's something I think it's a real need I just get real excited hearing you all talk I think uh you know you you folks your staff back there I would love to teach with you folks I really would and and I've done practically everything in the system at one time or another and still being a classroom teacher is the most rewarding thing I think

076I've ever done so so thank you so much no doubt and you can see the enthusiasm thanks I just say wow I mean I'm just so impressed with everything the school does the staff you can tell when you walk in the building it's just a great place to learn it's a great place to be a kid you have the perfect combination of the structure that's needed and the support that's needed it's not a place where kids feel like they're there's too many rules and I can't be myself um but the structure that's necessary for kids to respond is there and Becky's leadership she'll downplay it every day she says she can walk away and everything will be fine and it probably would be for a few days or a few weeks or whatever but we'll

077see um she just has a unique combination of keeping expectations really high at her school and offering support that's needed when people can't get there and that's a very uh good balance at the school and then lastly I would say I I talk to our principles about two things that I asked them to kind of rate themsel on it and she'd probably rate herself very low because that's the Becky is but your knowledge and what I mean by that is when you walk into a classroom can you tell if the students are learning if engaged and if the teacher says they're teaching the standard are they really and that takes a a lot of training a lot of uh time for a principal to learn that and she's got that she can walk into a

078classroom and tell if that's happening and then the other part of it what I call the UMP is when someone's not meeting those expectations being able to nudge them and nudge and nudge and support them as they as they get better in their profession because teaching is really difficult across the board at whatever grade level it is and Becky's got a knack for again the knowledge and then when she sees somebody that's struggling she knows exactly how to handle that maybe it's nudge and maybe it support but um her people respond to her leadership and that's why her school is so successful and let's not forget our people don't leave I mean that's very uh underestimated but her people want to be there and they see how hard she works she's there on the weekend

079she's there at night she's got the greenhouse going everything and I think people respond when they see that their leader is working as hard as they are so thank you for coming tonight thank you to the Entourage for coming tonight thank you for relenting and coming seeing us again I know it's not your favorite place to be but you very much just be support all the time a girl was a right you all are free to gos pretty funny 50% of I'll get you the half 50% I'll get you the other half okay it's on now and I'll tell you something that's how I got a lot of things to agreen with I would come to Laura probably heard it I said I can get half if record problem it's online it's it's forever so

080whatman said the other day wind Myers was what 600 and something w00 yeah I don't know what these playgrounds are made out of but oh they they the prices on playground equipments have always been outrageous you know we made a lot of our own and did it for very little and of course we didn't send out 5,000 or 50,000 cataloges every year to everybody you know that's my big I think they have you over a barrel yeah I mean it's not like you can go to Walmart and pick it up give give him a [Applause] stick there's a imit I'm when to get out of my head does anybody need a Sabbath stretch or a break or anything before we keep it going on got to be all right yes sir I get it all

081righty then so this is our midyear financial review which is the uh first step in our budget process uh we're by state Cod we have to ascertain the physical condition of the board so we're going to be ascertaining tonight that's what we're doing um your handouts let me explain those uh there is this is the uh that's the outline I'm speaking from that's also repeated in this uh PowerPoint which is your other handout so I separated it out so you didn't have to flip back and forth and then you have all the pretty colors that you guys are used to seeing so without further Ado as always uh please stop me and ask questions if you have them or tell me to speed up and get moving um what we're going to be doing primarily

082here is comparing the general fund to uh from January 25 to January of 24 to see where we're falling in line let's see how this oh that's hard to see is can you guys see that any better than I can no that's why I got a screen so yeah use your hand up yeah okay the first handout number one is our year to dat revenue report uh what I'm going to be mentioning here is what's highlighted in kind of the pinky salmon color which is the prior year variance between 24 and 25 as you can see our local uh tax collections in both the regular and excess Levy are up compared to the prior year uh I would attribute that to that our property Val values were higher and we just actually had more to

083collect um and also our bank interest is up a little over $57,000 and that's again primarily to that fund balance we have and also having the eser funds in our accounts that drove our account balance up which led to more interest so our total local sources are up a little over 562 th000 uh going on down there uh state aid uh that has increased about 65 uh that's primarily due to our uh uh addition of the ecats for second grade so we were funded for more people and also the legislative salary increases that occurred last year on down our Medicaid uh reimbursements are down a little bit uh I think that's attributed some to some timing of this report and also we've had some turnover at Epic of the folks who uh process our Medicaid

084reimbursements for us they just got a new person in place so I think maybe that'll start gting some ground now so bottom line at the bottom we have um 1.18 million to collect uh yet this year uh over or I'm sorry let me say that again we've increased our collection 1.85 over this time last year um that represents we have about 35.6% of our Revenue yet to collect and at this time last year it was 37.3 so we're right there in the ballark okay next is our colorful list of expenditures here um this is a summary by our object codes of our expenditures uh for year to date and comparing it to last year uh up in the Le hand corner you'll see my Legend of if a number is circled in red it means

085it's an increase green is a decrease and I also have some uh red and green arrows that mean the same either an increase or a decrease to kind of point you to where uh where I'm talking uh the first the pink and the yellow are our salaries and employee benefits if you remember from the budget process that represents about 80% of our expenditures of our and of our budget um they are up 835,000 over this time last year and if you look at the top of the pink on the far right uh that's our professional and Service uh salaries again for those same reasons that legislative uh raises and also uh we we have more people uh we added the ecat and we just have more people and so the corresponding U benefits they they

086are up as well for that total of 835 um at the bottom on the green that's our this is always a topic of Interest those are our professional and Technical Services and they're actually down 98,000 and if you look in the middle of the green that is our we always interested there those are our professional service such as legal fees our contracted special ed services um our audit fees um and they are down significantly right now so that's that's a good thing and hopefully they will say that way we'll have any big legal expenses and and that'll continue [Music] um next SL is our blue that's the rest of our purchase services such as our utilities and what have you um they are up really not a significant amount 35,000 that's just circle in red

087uh the green era is of Interest our Construction Services are down over 100,000 and that's because in 23 24 we had paid for the uh woodmire safe schools entrance so that's what kind of jacked up the prior year and we don't have any projects like that right now and our pre numbers our pre cost you knew those would be higher U they're offsetting that a little at 83 um in the kind of medium light green color our supplies are up 310 uh and in the middle you see I have uh highlighted the error there according to our books and periodicals and also right below that is technology supplies and both of that is uh the purchases this early this year for our math adoption um so and the technology is the online portion of those

088so that's what has attributed to that uh as you know math and Ela are two most expensive text book adoptions so that's explainable um right below that plant equipment has come down 151 and again you can see that's in our bus replacement is down 228 and because in 23 24 we had to pay for four buses because of Le the lead time on buses we paid for our 22 23 buses in 23 24 so that's what's kind of skewed that a little bit uh other is our uh debt services and also our transfer to uh Child Nutrition and that is up slightly primarily uh because our debt Services increase every year that payment goes up and also we're paying more into from the general fund from Child Nutrition most because of food costs everything remotely

089related to a grocery store cost more money uh so bottom line is our expenditures are up uh a little over a million dollars but if you remember our Revenue was up almost 1.18 million so we're holding steady keeping up with that increase so we're just kind to status quo um and the other thing our overall budget is up about 2.6 million from last year and that is due to our carryover and again also state aid allocations for more employees and P costs and all that all right the next uh next pages are the detail that made up all of what I just talked about if you want can't sleep at night and you want something to put you to bed you can read those and I'm just going to skip ahead to page nine which

090is the bottom line of that and the number circled in blue the first one is at the bottom there at 19 million that is what I have uh projected just based on uh past expenditures and just kind of pass knowledge of what we will spend the rest of the year between February and June uh which gives us a total projected expenditures of 3 $ 34.7 million which leaves us a budget balance of a little over 7.1 Million last year that was 6.99 so that's only 138,00 increase and I'll just point this out we estimated 6.99 and we finished with 6.98 before you leave you get that down to I'll get that within $5 I'll need a couple more play vales all right uh this next page is uh again just looking at the other funds

091I'm not really going to talk about that much either um our capital projects fund is the B Springs and WM HVAC projects and you can see the revenues and expenditures there and then our federal s and stabilization fund is the art money that is now gone so like I said those those funds are both kind of hold their own and they do with revenue and expenses all right all right um this is a a form you're used to seeing this is uh comparing looking ahead a little bit this is comparing our uh first round of preliminary State a computations to our final comps of 25 we I received these in December so they aren't very recent I think some things have changed since then but hopefully we'll be getting a new set soon uh but

092this is just something to look at at the very top in the small numbers is our enrollment uh you can see and again that is FTE that is not head count um waren County schools and our prek through 12th grade we have FTE of 299.8 students which is down enrollment times are different from ours so we don't get this shed up till later in the year that's up 12 students to 31 which gives us a net funding of uh 21308 students which is down 17.8 three to because we are our charter school funding is in these calculations um there's nothing really too exciting to look at here on the first page our as you know we have a decrease in enrollment we have a decrease in funding uh the allowance for professionals shows that is

093down 129,000 uh the allowance for service Personnel in a typical year would be down as well but because we're adding in third grade ecaps that that inflates that number it gets harder all the time to compare one year to the next because things change um so the rest of the uh the allowances there in blue it's a slight increase red there's some slight decreases uh till you get to to almost to the bottom step 8 which is our total basic Foundation is up 118,000 but as you know they deduct uh 85% of what's collected locally from our state aid to arrive at how much we get our local share our tax values and again this is an estimate uh is up so that means our state a allocation goes down it's not a good thing

094with state aid when your local share increases other than that does help your step seven so bottom line on this first page is our total basic state aid is down $ 6,48 after you factor in the local share looking at the next page and we'll be really quick and I'll just look at the number that's highlighted there and two numbers above it uh our allowance for Charter School students is 24735 and in case you can't do the math in your head that's just short of $8,000 per student um that Charter Schools will receive that marks a $98,000 increase in how much will be taken off the top two charters so when you net all that together and the line I have highlighted our state aid is down 769 um I know something that it's usually

095of Interest we are over the formula for professionals 15.51% and service 13.35 this with these last year was 14.15 and 10.24 so it is I'm sorry you need this year or last year professional this year is we're over 15.5 one and 13.35 service and last year uh those numbers were 14.15 and 10.24 and they assist included in the budget as a as a um including the formula no they they are not State a eligible employees so they're not in there was a conversation about them being put in the state budget as what I was asking really heard that it was so what I was asking yeah yeah the only yeah only state a eligible employees are included in that over the formula in any formula so all of us who are not included and um

096one thing I kind of fail to mention sometimes is we are funded at the state minimum we aren't funded at our salary scale so our funds have to make up the difference between the two for everybody okay I forget I have this say uh Mr Banks is on top tap now you are on top let's talk a little bit about F 26 budgeting and what we've done so far and all that can so I this is not in your presentation but is up here on the screen um so just a few anticipated uh increased cost for next year and this these are just big ticket items there's obviously some smaller things but um peia uh we do anticipate that as in reference salary increases so obviously salary increases are good for our system and every

097other system in West Virginia but when you have positions over the formula then the district is on uh the district must pick up the cost of those salary increases as well as the benefits that go along with that uh as you know we were unable to acquire or receive the funding from the SBA for roof replacement so uh we still have that we have a a a pretty good plan we think moving forward but we're obviously um need to uh get on those pretty quickly and uh apply again next year to for some SBA money and then initiatives formerly paid from eser funds well since I've been here we've been talking about this we know that some of those things that an referenc that have been paid we want to continue to maintain and those

098are the things that I talked about with throughout our committees and throughout with board and those are our instructional empowerment capturing kids Hearts our letters training for K3 and cl classroom management so those are things that we definitely want to work into the budget at the same time we're meeting with each company to try to reduce uh the support that they give we want to try to increase the support we give to our staff and decrease the support that the companies give to us so we can maintain these uh moving forward and then finally we're currently working on a budget process uh the directors um have a a worksheet that they're working on to um submit and that includes expenses that they have within a budget uh expenses that may not be in their budget

099they would want to add to it and maybe um some unanticipated there's always things that come our way that we don't anticipate and and then uh next Tuesday we'll do the same thing with the principes at the principales meeting so we're working through that so we can get a really good handle on what the needs are and then start to prioritize based on the the uh money that we have so I know that's very generic at this point but I just want to let you know process-wise where we are will the roof projects be a recommendation from your uh buildings and ground or or is that a a composition of different things I'm just ious not to put you guys on the spot but really interested in seeing what we're going to do on that

100yeah we we talked about uh roofs at building the grounds and as you know we had a a match that we had set aside for if we would did get the SBA project so we are talking right now about using that match to at least tackle our our most needy roof which is Berkeley Springs High School building a so that's kind of the direction we're leaning right now and then of course we have the two warm spring roofs that are in need too so uh prioritizing those uh next year as well um I do anticipate that we would apply again for a needs project next year we're working through with the architect right now to possibly apply for an MI um for one of our roofs for this cycle um but we also are aware

101that there are there's not a whole lot of dollars to give out this year for M either so yeah that's kind of where we're at we know it's a priority and we do think that Berkeley Springs High School building a is probably the the biggest priority um so we would like to at least in preliminary talks use that set aside that we were going to use for the needs project to fund that has has has that roof been a problem or is this just really I remember the the Warm Springs but the high school itself just seem to has come Jeremy about that because it wasn't on our list of SBA projects within the last year that's we had to add to our cfp even on that need so we had some damage to several

102new line boards in the building where some leaks we had a ceiling uh down or a drop ceiling collapse in one of the restroom so it's been it's kind of surfaced its way up to the top um like Mr Bank said was on our cfp got add just to get on our need Miss so that was my memory on it I thought I missed something okay we did do a repair job a few years back whenever we had a storm damage on a piece of it I can't remember how many years that was but I remember that it was not the entire roof uh the they're working through it J work with the architect on the best methodology it might not be tearing off the whole thing it may be going up there and I

103wouldn't say peace mealing would be the correct terminology but an idea of that of putting it together to last 15 20 years so it's going to be the board's discuss we have to decide on that we have to spend money to have to a lot for that so it's going to be in our broad scope as we begin the next budget process is um if you have anything of program or something with the S funds um or in regards to positions that you would have a recommendation be okay maybe um not continuing or something that you wish to see continued I would welcome those to be sent to Mr Banks believe that that would be a great methodology for us to have some individual input on some things that may be um what you see

104is beneficial um because we're in make light of the playground conversation but we're in a conversation now of roof playground roof athletic facilities roof programs and so that that's where we're at roofs are not glamorous uh no one likes no one sees them or recognizes usefulness until they fail completely um but they are something that we do need to tackle I hear a lot of people concerned about roofs uh the one thing that um Mr J said the meeting that I wasn't aware of that I think would be enlightening for this Ro is that the SBA does um take in consideration if a local District takes care of one of their big ticket items with their money U and then comes to them after the fact with the next project you may not have as

105much matching funds but they do take in consideration of the Investments you put into your schools with your local money encouraging initiatives yeah so yeah up until a few years ago they actually analyzed all of your maintenance expenses that the legislature changed that probably five years or so ago now but all of our how much you spent in maintenance all together was part of the decision process I do that uh one article today that I read uh in the governor's recommended budget it did include the employers portion portion of the peia increase so hopefully that will be there the 14% that they're requesting the one rais bill that I have seen is 25% I saw that too that hasn't got out committee I don't think that's make it that that not that has not made

106it to committee that got that got submitted to the house or Senate education committee and neither committee has taken it up legisl legisl ends next Saturday so it's not a whole lot told your back there slow moving that budget the community L Liaisons do they esort money no they you mean the CIS yeah no it is it's a state uh communities and schools funds it's a separate uh espert is a different es is a that's still funded or um it is a declining balance every year and we knew that um so it is getting down to where uh I think that next year we'll be fine but where we we're going to need to take a look at so we'll have one more year at least yes yeah and it's it's such that if what

107if you're funded per CIS worker so eliminating one doesn't help your cost you you cut back one that doesn't you don't still get the same amount [Music] when you're talking about routs 20 10 to 20 years were you talking about the high school if we were to replace it and fix it you know what I'm thinking I know what you're thinking okay just saying and that's that's the that's the CR of the discussion here that's question building in grounds as well is if we could make five years with that roof uh is it worthwhile to even have the conversation to put one on well and it's it's a tough decision I understand that but we go back to them health safety and well welfare of children so I'm glad that if we had to have

108a ceiling collapse it was in a bathroom as opposed to a busy hallway or something like that we may have dodged the bullet to a certain extent next time we may not well and you know we may even still keep using the building long ter does make it more desirable somebody if they were to come in to want to use it to purchase it as well whether it be a university or another type of tech good thought the community centers fighting that battle with the roof that we inherited at Greenwood and so far you know we've got Ed people have done a wonderful job but one of these days we're going to have to face reality on that one look at the senior senator and the old grade school down at behind downtown same problem

109sure so to both arguments it's the question of what do we prioritize all it come down to well we get paid the big money absolutely any other question comment no thank you thank you good job thank you Bo we're back to our regular agenda here after a little bit uh reports of communications um I just going to congratulate the ber Springs High School wrestling team finishing second Regional headed for States and also uh I think Chuck and I were the only ones that took the last school board uh training I don't know what he thought of it but I thought it was wonderful as usual and I I I was telling um had a meeting down at James Rumsey I was tell him down there Howard suur was talking one time when I was doing

110the virtual and my wife who's a a hardell on thing she sat down was just mesmerized but what she says every time he's on and you're here I want to see what he has to say so I've already noticed that on May the 3 we're going to get the show again he's a true of information oh my goodness great makes the time go so fast I me you don't realize what's School law is always a fascinating subject in some ways but you know they they they put it down in standards that you can understand so much better um and of course it's constantly changing too so um I'll just say that uh you know Youth Sports in our community is really making uptick and that helps us you know eventually High School levels uh we

111have 243 kids signed up for Morgan County Soccer League this spring highest number ever uh and little league is up to 205 which uh we are the only uh local you I guess County or league in our district that is increasing that much um and softball girls softball has really uh increased I think we're double the amount of kids that came out last year so great speaking of athletic facilities [Laughter] yeah I have a few things uh as mentioned earlier we did have brim in the district this week and uh Jeremy reported that everything went very well not just at Becky school but at all the locations that's always a good thing thanks to Jeremy and his and the maintenance staff and and the schools for all their work um also speaking of inspections we

112have a special ed monitoring team here in the county beginning Thursday and just like I mentioned about Miss Bell being good with attention to detail our special ed person Miss Hiles is very good with attention to detail so we feel like we're very prepared for that and we'll do very well with that as well uh also I've been talking about this each time we have a meeting our Personnel planning is now wrapping up we have made uh the decisions that we will use to recommend to the board um next meeting uh is when those recommendations will come to you and then we could have potential hearings uh for staff who request those so I wanted to let you know that um last thing I have tonight is a followup to I believe a parent who

113had come in last year uh and inquired about vaping so I did a little bit of research at Berkeley Springs High School um one of the concerns that the parent raised was that bathrooms had been locked down and they felt like they were being locked down due to vaping so did a little bit of research talked to Mr Nida and Mr rasori and so um mentioned that last year um there were 150 Vape sensors going off a week I can't bad on that that's a lot and this year it's 20 so um I think the kids are getting the message that you shouldn't be vaping in the bathrooms at school um they may be vaping other places I don't know that for fact but um we uh definitely seen a big reduction and so when

114Those sensors go off um Administration checks it out um we have cameras in the building so we obviously can tell um if a student is leaving the bathroom at the time the sensors go off um and really last year and even into this year they really narrowed it down to a few students who were kind of repeat offenders they also have this program in place where uh when students do need to check out and go to the restroom they have to um it's called e-hall pass and so they have to check out so it's a little easier to keep track of kids and so many of these students who were going into the bathroom were vaping were trying to leave the classroom every period And so once they caught on um that was one of

115the things that they you know figured out time uh and they have put some some of those students who were repeat fenders are currently in alternative Ed but one of the things I did bring up was are you closing bathrooms because of vaping and they said no that last year they had a couple situations where students would try to flush things down the toilet and those would get clogged up and then in those scenarios obviously someone had to come in and uh fix that and then um this year they had bathrooms locked down and I asked them you know why did you have them locked down this year and they said you know flu going around a lot of students are going in there and getting sick obviously you don't want uh kids going into

116the bathrooms right after someone has gotten sick so um I think the overall the report is good the Vapes sensors are down uh this week I I still believe that um whether it's 150 or 20 that we still have a big problem with our young people with vaping whether they're doing it at school whether they're doing it in their car at home it's obviously a problem and u i don't certainly don't have a solution tonight but we uh we we recognize that uh uh we we need to do all we can do to help curve that so thank you I think that's all I have any questions or REM nobody suck around for public comment my knowledge consent agenda the superintendent recommends approval of following consent actions as presented minutes of the February 18th payment

117of bills budget adjustments volunteers I'm move we accept the consent agenda a second all those in fav saying I I I carry it personel super personel action as presented um no he do not we're going to recuse ourselves from arestes from the entire Personnel [Music] agenda wait a minute wait a minute wait you all had pre-planned no no as matter of fact I'm thinking oh shoot do I need to look and see see oh okay all right so as Mr Bank said this is is the start of the busy time of year for personnel and um on this you're going to see um several retirements for next year several resignations just as a reminder those uh folks that are retiring and they give us that information before March 1st they get a $500 bonus that's

118why it's on here so that's why we went ahead and added it to our agenda so uh to jump down through here um on professional personnel and resignation we have a health PE driver education teacher at Paul Paul that Ive March 14th we have a PE health teacher at Mery Springs High School that's effective the year a science teacher at B sprs high school that is affected at the end of the school year and then also a special education multicat teacher with autism at Paul Paul that was effective on February 19th um the next one here uh both of these folks are going to be a loss at Berkeley Springs High School we have a math teacher uh that is that is retiring at the on June and then we also have a multiat uh

119special education teacher at ber Springs High School also reti on June 30th um over on under employment we're bringing on that individual there is interim principal through a leave of absence and that leave of absence will be from March 12th 2025 through April 25th 2025 and that is per Morgan County School supplement supplemental salary scale and then we're also bringing a substitute teacher beginning tomorrow um we have a resignation um from a substitute bus operator um and then under service Personnel for retirement we have a kindergarten ad EAP withm that is retire the end of the day June 30th and then also a bus operator uh on the end of the day and then also we have an executive secretary that is retiring oh my goodness at the end of the day on June 30th

120somebody didn't twist her arm what's going on I'm upset I come back and she reti yeah should we coate that with I I was going to say something and I said decided not to Laura got you anyway okay and then my other concern is who's going to do the uh retirement dinner yeah good point I know somebody that probably take it for you um and over on extracurricular uh we have an um assistant football coach a head track coach at Paul Paul schools after school program teacher after school program teacher at Paul Paul head Middle School Cher coach and then also pre stud at Paul Paul all of those were tied to the other resignations earlier um and then for employment we are bringing on uh two uh co-coordinators ncf threey co-coordinators at whm um

121we are uh this is for a supplemental bus run that's working its way out to where we had to fill another one um we're bringing on a Special Education team leader at Springs Middle School that's also during the leave of absence bring on a volunteer softball coach at Berkeley Springs High School a volunteer track coach at Berkeley Springs High School volunteer softball coach at berky Springs High School uh volunteer track coach at Berk Springs High School another volunteer track coach at Berk Springs High School volunteer track coach at Paul schools and then also a volunteer track coach at schools it's nice we have all these volunteers and they're so athletic now now all all the U non-educators still have to take the course right that's we're monitoring that yes good we got a nice little

122spreadsheet that has all the check marks and all the stuff we started doing that it cleaned up a lot of problems we had yeah we hon for that pretty heavily thank you um and then last professional St development uh we're asking for compensation for those three folks for writing IEP uh pleps on uh training on January [Music] 29 all right and then on the agenda uh we have a library media specialist library media technology integration specialist at ber High School retiring on June 30th uh we are extending a leave of absence for the assistant principal L director at berish Prince high school we also this goes back to the agenda uh for the interim principal uh this is for a leave of absence for March 12th through uh April 25th uh for principal Brooks Prince

123high school and then we have um under service Personnel we have a retirement War middle school as a cook it's also the end of for June 30 2025 uh we're also bringing on that same individual as a substitute cook we're also bringing on a substitute secretary that was mentioned on the agenda as a as a as a substitute as well um and then we have a Special Education team leader that will that's resign from that uh at the end of the day on June 30th and then another Vol baseball coach quick question U for the retirement are are you seeing the ones that may have uh many um sick days or leave using that leave up prior to retirement like how before you used to be able to sell your days back I we do

124see that in some still in the system that you can use your days theyre you can't buy insurance anymore but use it to increase your benefit but it just depends on which system you're in right and I'd love to see that back yeah yes there been it would be when whenn when for the employee and when for us there have been some bills on that down the legislature I was reading about so I think they see that fortunately they see the need now they should have anticipated in the first place but it is what it is okay thank thank you Mr doy I need a motion to accept the personnels presented so moved second then any questions or concerns all those in favor I I opposed okay that was a lots of years of retirement

125I mean lots of years of experience retiring isn't it sure we went through that a few years ago we saw a lot of better people really good and we got other people in but we didn't get that experience sort of Cycles [Music] yeah uh I I I just want to uh remind the board of on the on the agenda uh under 3A Mr rori stepping up and I know Mr Nida doesn't mind me saying this Mr naida will be out for surgery for 6 weeks so U Mr rori stepping up as the interim principal and so the other part the other piece to this is not on the agenda that I'll go ahead and mention is that Mr Meyers will be stepping up from teacher role to admin but he's just in a step up

126which he does a lot of anyway and doesn't require a board approval to do that but um the downside is that Mr Meyers is not certified as an assistant principal so I don't know if you know this or not but if if you're in that role and you don't have the certificate there are certain things you can't do and a couple of those things are uh be the final deci decision making and discipline and then do observations or evaluations on staff so Mr Meyers is graciously stepping up um to be the uh assistant principal um and we have a good substitute for his class um I asked him about his performance classes in particular choir band and he plans to teach those still so he'll still be teaching those two periods while he is stepping

127up into the assistant principal role so I just wanted to mention that before we moved on budget and finance okay approved M briany Amy Harris Ben Cas Beth golden and David Banks to attend the instructional retirement building expertise conference in Orlando Florida June 17th to the 20th funding source conference fees covered by IE the travel expenses will be County funds motion for approval I go ahead second so move trip toy I was just going to ask if it was going to be a party bus that I said using for educational conference that isil into the IE budget whenever we first got this I don't if you all remember the conversation we have when they came up here and they had their presenter this is part of their training um and I I don't call it

128debriefing but a preparation for what's to come next after a whole year of having IE and so I'll be anxious to hear their their uh reports any other comments or questions all those say i i n eyes Carri program planning first reading policies out for 30 days comment anti-harassment violence guidance and counseling homebound instruction homebound Hospital instruction program special education anti-harassment violence anti harassment violence schools and Community agencies those will be out for first reading calendar events Board calendar events here comments and questions the March 19th meeting we're going to scratch that one and if it's needed we're going to move that to March 20th followup conversation is that are we going to do that regular time 6 p.m still okay yeah better for me okay be good for me too I'll be coming back

129from Charleston so 6 p.m. is it moving on to the next month April there any comments on [Applause] April all right moving into May let's throw out the plan for May for comments May 6th to be in Paul if Paul can agree to that May 13th budget here at the board office canceled to May 20th meet again on May 27th all regular times that will allow time for the budget to be out for review um correct and us to approve on the 27th and the 27th is a Tuesday so a Tuesday they're all Tuesdays we're not going to graduation afterwards or anything we not no see that's the before yes the week of the 20th is the graduation oh really wow that seems [Music] early okay so 27 back here right yes so I'm going

130throw those out we're going to touch base with Paul Paul um let's technically put that in the plan and we'll have on the agenda for next meeting if you Commish concern we talk about time looks good I think we's always busy I think we're going to be okay with Paul Paul because we had already put that date out there and they were okay with that and it won't snow hope now what's happened to chaos dat later yeah Fourth of July next year El see PA Paul doesn't go first be better work on right now don't want to give them a complx motion so move second thank you thank you comment your concerns allv say I thank you all very much for