001Guys, I've been I've actually asking Mitch for a larger one cuz this one's quite small, but he says it's not in the budget this year. So, we'll see if we get it. >> There was enough money to make it big enough. >> Thank you, Larry. I appreciate that. >> All right, guys. Welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. I'd like to call the October 14th, 2025 work session to order. It's now 5:00 p.m. The members have an agenda before them. Is there a motion to adopt? I >> make a motion to adopt. You second it. Is that how you said, sir? Oh, okay. Cuz your microphone's off. Yeah. A motion. I second that motion. >> Oh, excellent. A motion by Mrs. Hoy, second by Mr. Usherwood. All in favor? Unanimous. You thought about it, Mr. Grimes.
002All right. Welcome. Let's stand for a moment of pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. We have a goodly number of presentations on the agenda today. So, we're going to start with one of uh actually our most enjoyable parts of what we do here, which is the student calendar with Dr. Josh Low, one of our favorite presenters, actually. Welcome, Dr. Low. >> I enjoy it as well, sir. All right, we'll start out with the um 2027 2028 calendar um presentation. Starting out the timeline communication plan kind of following up on what I showed you guys um in an earlier meeting. Um here's the initial timeline that
003was presented and as you can see we're down to present the final version. What I'll show you tonight um takes into account feedback from our community, our local school council leaders and um and others that that have provided that. Um, be reminded as we look at the calendar, the considerations, we must have 178 student days, 190 teacher days. We work to balance the student days between first and second semesters. Always work to um start school um not start school prior to August 1st and complete it by Memorial Day. And always work to protect our breaks. And um that's throughout the year. And that's something I think is pretty much universally appreciated in our community. Looking ahead, this is what was presented to you um in an earlier meeting. Um and I'll share the feedback that
004we got on this >> colors changed at all. >> Um we played with the colors a bit. Yes. Yes. >> It's very nice. >> Yes. Good job. >> I'm sure Dr. Dugan did that, but >> um Miss Baldwin. >> Oh, okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Um first day of school considerations. some just just as a reminder kind of see we're consistent with with most traditional previous years um with the proposed calendar starting on August 5th for 2728. um feedback on the calendar this year as this was shared out in our community. Uh we had 526 total responses. As you can see, a large majority of those are parents and um also heard from a couple 10 students um 108 staff members and then seven just comm folks that are in our community that provided
005feedback on it. The overwhelming majority was positive. Um I mean just comments to that were um liked it liked it. I think the fact that this year's calendar does start um as it does with um the breaks kind of falling where they do and wrapping up. We're starting on a Thursday and things like that were things that were positive. Um the breaks and the timing of the breaks u we got positive feedback on that. um wrapped up the school year by Memorial Day and then um as I previously said, we're able to um align it to start on a Thursday, which is the preferred um day by most people. The adjustments that were suggested most frequently to change um it was mentioned the color scheme. In previous years, we've had different colors and we tried
006to kind of precise it with the new one, but we um adjusted some colors to make it a little more obvious some of the changes. It was suggested um to have less pre-planning days. Of course, that's not something that you can do um to accommodate the required number of employee days. Uh early release days um we still get comments about that and those are minimized um compared to some years prior. And then um beginning later in August or earlier in May um for getting out, there's feedback, but once again, you can't really do that unless you start earlier or end later or take away the brakes. So, those were the the largest um largest things we got feedback on. You can see here highlighted um some of the changes um with with the stars and
007the arrows. The the K12 online learning day, which really just changed the colors is is what it's showing you there. And that's what the I mean quite a bit of feedback was asking for that. also um clarification on the last day of school um part was also a K12 early release day that was that was intended with the first one but there was some confusion on that with some of the feedback we got from different leaders so we we changed that to um comply with the feedback as I mentioned the other suggested changes uh doing away with the um K12 online learning day there there's only um specifically two of those on the calendar which is a decrease increase of what it was years ago as well as um pardon me as well as the
008breaks all being timed out the way they wanted. There was not the amount of feedback that there was on some other calendars in previous years. There um any questions on any of that? >> Yeah, just because it's something that we've had to do with our websites and this is posted online. Do these new revised colors meet accessibility standards for the visually impaired? >> Mr. Ashwood, that's a that is a um good question. Um honestly, I don't know the answer to that. So, I I'll I'll investigate that and let you know at our um at our next meeting. Any other questions? All right. Once again, there's the timeline. Um, without any thoughts or or concerns, um, I would come back November 18th and, um, present the final calendar for approval. All right. Thank y'all. All right.
009>> You have one more. >> You got two on the >> Yeah, one more. >> Just for the record, I I'll note that you inverse the order. So, you did B first and so we're going to go to A now. >> Okay. Thank you. So, I didn't h I didn't have the agenda. We were in our um in our earlier discussion. >> Perfectly understandable. Thank you, Dr. >> Thank you. >> Um 2025 2026 student calendar amendments. Um proposed timeline present the amendments today and then approve the amendments. Um November 18th will be the proposal. The revisions are to accommodate the high school online learning week. Several years ago, principles came forth and presented this to help accommodate the large number of um tests that go on in our community between AP testing, working for EOCC's
010and things like that to accommodate truly just the the um staff required to accommodate those number of tests as well as logistics involved. Um it was agreed upon that that year that each year we would um add the online learning week in May once we got those dates. Um, and we don't get that. Um, I know that this calendar's the current year, but we don't get those dates well enough to do it when you do the initial presentation. So, each year we we kind of have to come back and do something of this nature. >> The other thing is um, high school early release day adjustment. May um, here I'll go ahead and flip. May the 18th and 19th is actually the dates of West Forcy graduation and Lambert High School graduation this current year.
011When the initial calendar was presented a few years ago um in 2023, it did not um we did not have the times of those graduations and when we received that from the um from from the whatever whatever it's called in Gwynette now the >> gas thank you um to accommodate that our staffs have to be at graduation our students and you can't leave the other kids at school so you can't we need to adjust that to be on to be um high school early release and that's kind of consistent with what we've done in past years as well, which would um be done countywide at all the high schools to with our transportation needs and so forth. So, the proposal is to add the high school online learning week May 4th through the 8th as
012well as add those two early um early release days for high school only to accommodate the two graduations that fall on those dates. >> I have any questions on that? >> Any questions? No, >> no, these are these will sit out for >> Yeah. then for review. >> Okay. Well, I'll come back the 18th and um present this for approval. All right. Thank you'all. >> Thank you, Dr. Lo. >> Thanks. >> All right. Next is item C, which is uh traditionally after B, but today it's after A. Um, which is fine. And we'll ask Mr. Derek Hershey to come up. It's all right. You all right? Yeah. >> We have a nurse. Nurse Abas here if you need anything. >> I think I have another >> Susie that fourth one down >> right here. >>
013Yeah. >> Got it. All right. Uh, good afternoon board. Thanks for letting the HR team come and present. I'm Dererick Hershey, associate superintendent of HR, and I've got with me uh Miss Laura Adams, coordinator of resource development, and Dr. Jamie Brown, talent coordinator uh for certified staff, and a whole lot of HR people behind me. You guys supposed to wave. Yeah, there you go. Uh so part of our goal areas um of course always connects to the strategic plan specifically around staff recruitment and development uh for acquiring and retaining excellent staff and then also both building and developing individual staff capacity. Um so a little bit about HR uh for for this year. Um, as of right now, we have 4,35 certified staff members, 2,222 classified staff members for a total of 6,527 employees. We
014also have a total of 1,675 subs, which 483 of those are certified. That's important because that pool is what we continue to use, especially for long-term substitutes and potentially higher. uh for a grand total of 8,22 employees of our district. Uh you can see u here just a glimpse uh of years of experience, very well-rounded staff in terms of percentage wise um number of years. Get rid of that. Uh >> could you go back to >> Yes, sir. So that that does mean that over 15% of the staff could be retired in the next four years. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Okay. >> That is correct. >> It's a big number. >> It is a big number. Uh for our administration updates, um we have a total of 115 assistant principles, total of 43
015principles, and these numbers represent the number of new APS and new principles within that year. So over a four-year span, we have a total of 71 new APS, which represents 62% of our administrators are new within the last four years. And of our principles, uh, we have a total of 26, which is about 60% of our new PR of our principles are new within the last four years. Uh, so you can see we work very hard to make sure that we're supporting them as they're new to the role. I'm not sure why that didn't show up. Um we'll come back to it but one of the things we try to do uh we've implemented in the past uh four four years ago uh we studied a book as an HR team called the employee experience
016advantage by Jacob Morgan uh that launched really how we frame the employee experience for our staff members for our school administrators the employee experience advantage is essentially this um their employees have desired um wants needs expectations an employer has the same thing. And so the employee experience is really um the in between of how to essentially make that work together. So for us, we have four areas of the employee experience. Um I'm not sure why this graphic didn't come up, but it's recruiting. And so making sure that while we're recruiting people, uh we are fully engaging them. We're making sure they're connected. When we onboard them, we're doing the same thing. We're being very intentional about how we're hiring people, how to keep them connected. Then while they're with us, we work at career development.
017We work at performance management and employee relations and making sure that those staff members um feel supported and developed and we're able to grow their capacity to give them as many opportunities in our district that we can. And then lastly, we work through our exit experience, meaning uh when they leave us, we want them to leave us in a way that we know we are still going to bring value to them and they're going to bring value to us. They're with us forever. Dr. >> Uh these are our new um numbers for this year and this is a total of all our new certified and classified staff that were hired this year. Uh reason we included a classified because we have to remember one Scott Felc camp's doing a great job of recruiting classified uh
018for candidates and employees but we have to remember being a full service employer that the classified people our day doesn't start with our classified teachers can't teach if kids don't get there if they're not fed if they don't have clean environments to go into. So, and something else, uh, Derek mentioned this previously, the substitutes that we have that are certified, 46 of them came from being substitutes last year. Uh, just this year, I was in Pool's Mill, met one of the new teachers, and she happened to say, "This time last year, I was just substituting." Another big part is we're always doing things to attract our PAR professionals into full-time roles. That's one of our major pipelines. Uh Laura and Michelle do a great job of telling them about grants and opportunities to become full-time
019certified. Those are missing the slide. We do have we added we got about five different pipelines that we service our um candidates from. One is substitute to full-time. The other is um the one we just pair professional teacher. We do college. We did 81 college visits last year and that's how we're finding our brand new teachers. We also have um industry folks are changing industry. Those are the folks that have been in the industry for a while. They find out that hey, you know what, education is a great opportunity for me to connect with people. So, we're getting people from industry and then we're getting folks who are just coming from other places. I like to call those people # how to get to First and I don't know if you've ever heard that. I
020don't know if anybody said to you, hey, how do I get to Forythe? We have a great product here and that's what people say. So I always talk about that hashtag. If you look at it, this is where our new folks came from. FCS events. Now this one's a little tricky because we do college of vis college college visits. But just like last year, Michelle McInness took three of our staff members down to Georgia College and State. A couple of the Georgia College and State kids visit the table. They find out, hey, I want to know more about Foresight. They carpool with about eight people and then they come up to the job fair the very next day and the people that you met and probably picked up in the golf cart bringing them to
021the building. So that can be a little tricky. And then we have others. The others again are those folks who try to think about how do I get the foresight? Those are how to get the foresight people. We are intent on growing our brand. We want to grow our brand. Dr. Michelle Dugan, her communication staff really encourages us to tell our story. The story of foresight. We already know we got a great product. How do we start marketing that product? How do we brand that product? Right now, we're doing a great job of doing that. Um, like I said, we've gone to 81 different colleges last year. What we do now is we I reach out to the colleges and ask, can we have speaking engagements? Can we get in front of their students? So,
022again, we can brand, we can tell the story of Foresight County Schools. Last year, a year before, Michelle and Derek go to Barry College. They go to a classroom engagement. They speak to the students. I come back a month later everybody's coming to my table saying hey I want to find out how do I get to foresight just last week I was at Alabama I'm speaking to students before the job fair comes starts next hour they come to the table tell me more about foresight county so again the way we brand this is another great way an opportunity to get in front of students and a way to attract quality educ educators straight out of college this is how it breaks down um for our new certified people as you can Hey, a lot of
023people, you know, you made the comment, a lot of people retiring. We're working on getting new people in. Here's the funny thing about the new people. We have to keep in mind that within that zero to three, that does not mean everybody's fresh out of college. You have some of those industry people who are in there, too. They haven't been working for 15 to 20 years, but they're still in their first year education. Um, that brings me to the fact of when we talk about employee experience, Derek mentioned the exit experience. I have a great story about a co um candidate I was recruiting last year at Auburn. She comes up to the table. She's from the Midwest, I think Missouri or something. I asked her, "How did you know to come set an interview
024with me?" She said, "Well, I was on a flight with this woman who just retired from Foresight County and she raved about Foresight so much that I felt like I had to sign up for an interview with you guys." So, again, Scott and I aren't the only recruiters. Our folks in the schools are recruiting as well and things like that. Um, even better yet, again, just talking about how Dr. Dugan is wanting us to tell our story. I just happened to be in Colorado, Estis Park, Estis Park, Colorado this past weekend and Sunday. I'm in a fudge shop and I got a jacket on that says Foresight County. The guy says, 1200 miles away now. The guy says, "Is that foresight in Georgia?" I said, "Yes." He says, "Oh, my friend has a chiropractor chiropractor
025business there." And he's always talking about how amazing the school system is 1,200 miles away. So, again, when we talk about telling our story, branding, we have to continue to do that as we attract new people in. Um, Derek mentioned it before, we want to engage. Dr. Salone started it a couple years ago. Michelle McGinness picked up the ball and ran with it. We're trying to make sure we engage our people as soon as they hire. You all know again, you do your part by driving people in the golf cart. First of all, I can't tell you how many times after the job fair, you guys might not be around, but people say, "I got to find a way to get to foresight after they experience the job fair. They want to be a part
026of us." But you're hired in February. We had to find ways to engage people. So, we do a bi-weekly uh newsletter between that time. Then during the at in May we have the foresight uh connect where they meet the leaders they hear from leaders they meet their etc. they meet their content specialist they get their computer again we're connecting with them before the summer starts and then you guys all know about our new employee orientation before school starts. That's what we're doing to get our people engaged right away. Laura's going to tell you more about how we continue to retain and engage our folks. >> All right. Again, sorry that these graphics are not pulling up, but just wanted to share a little bit about our career development. So, um, as a team, career development
027is a really vital part of what we do in our employee experience. Um, investing in our people and making a lasting impact is first and foremost of our staff that have attended our wellness trainings. We have an impressive 96.47% certified retention rate. And we hear numerous powerful stories just like Jamie shared. keep talking. >> Just like Jamie has shared so many stories from our um attendees who have come to these trainings about the impact of wellness and how it's not only helped them professionally but personally. We hear a lot of personal stories from those. Um in addition, >> Laura, do you want to hold on a second because I know it's going to be distracting for everybody while Derrick's >> directing traffic. >> And Derek, Larry's happy to Larry's happy to look through your next
028presentation before you come up. [Laughter] box shirts. >> We're totally going to have to >> let Michelle do his login. >> Yep. >> It just needs to be refreshed. >> Have to make this right because you freaked him out. >> Yes. I know because my canvas through there. >> It's in class. >> Yeah, I got you. >> It's okay. It's no problem. >> Sorry. A lot of our graphics have to be out there for you guys to see. >> There you go. You guys are doing a wonderful job. >> Thank you. >> We have pretty graphics we like for you to enjoy. >> Yeah. What questions do you have since uh we've been talking? Miss Miss Hoy, do you have any questions? >> No, no, no questions. But while you guys are working on that,
029um the the job fair is one of our We really enjoy it. This year was a little concerning because we got several complaints actually about Mr. Usherwood's driving skills in the >> I I actually received three complaints in the HR office. >> So, I'm driving too slow. >> No, that's okay. first. >> But but in all honesty, people bring that up as a very big deal. Um and and when you uh when they come in and they find out who uh who drove them, they're shocked. >> Yeah. >> Because it is uh and I'll tell you, our job fairs continue to go up. Our numbers have gone up every year. >> You do that, I'll pull it up. >> Well, we risk hypothermia for them. So, we hope it's we hope it's meaningful. I I'll
030ask a question real fast based on you don't have to have the slides for this but you were talking about >> new teachers and new administrators over the last couple years >> and I think it's just important to say that's not necessary new headcount those are >> correct >> yeah that's we've not added 71 administrators in the past few uh few years >> replacement >> we most of those are there may be a few new headcount but most of those are going to be replacements >> that retirement wave that we pointed out to we see we're we're like that's been going on now for the last gosh d what five six years that that we've seen big numbers and change or mainly because of retirements. >> Uh the majority of people that leave our our
031leadership positions there's been a couple that have moved on to different positions. Some move up um to different county level positions both other districts and our own districts but the majority of them retire. They don't leave just to leave. Hey guys, for the for the sake of they they all have access to these that you sent them previously, correct? We just need to get it fixed if we can, Michelle, before we put this out to the public. If you guys are okay to proceed without all your graphics, >> we'll do the best we can. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, >> sorry about that. Well, for the next slide, um, so for our career growth, what you would have seen in the middle was our career lattice, our FCS career lattice, and that was um
032really showing our our um employees their next steps as far as um different roles they could move into from our certified to um our classified to certified roles, our professional roles. And what we're very proud of in the career lattice is that we embedded all the different leadership support opportunities for our staff too in that lattice. And um in addition to that, our advanced degree fair would have been the graphic on the left. It is our third year hosting that event. It's been a very popular event. It actually takes place next Thursday if you'd like to pop in. Um this event connects our employees with over 15 universities so they can explore advanced degree options. also very popular for our foresight teacher academy. Um, and I'm so grateful to have the support of Jennifer Lwood
033because the first year we did this, my line was out the door. So now I have more staff to help support the interest in the academy which has been a great piece of that advanced degree fair. And then the graphic on the right, the smaller graphic would have shown you our working genius and our crucial conversations which are additional trainings that we offer for our staff. >> All right. So now on this one, you can see we want to take a deeper dive into how our advanced degree fair impacts the district. And that's what this graphic is going to show you. You can see over the past 3 years that we've had our advanced degree fair. We started with 102 certification upgrades. Year 1 of the advanced degree fair. Year two, we bumped up to
034154. You may at first glance think it went down, but actually the 122 um certification upgrades is just the first two months of this school year. We already have had 122 upgrades. Now, I do have to quote Dr. Brown with this next statement. He always says um certification upgrades are a winwin win for our district. So, I'm going to give you those three wins. The first win is for our students because they are going to have the advantage of having teachers that are academically trained and advancing their own education. Win number two is our teachers. The financial benefit is huge for our teachers as they go back and they get advanced degrees. And then win number three is for the district because we're going to have stronger, more highly qual qualified staff as they um
035advance their degrees. All right. Well, let me talk you through the foresight teacher academy. What you would have seen on this slide is three different pillars of what our academy supports. On the left would have been our GTAP program. So, we're going to start there. Our theme across all of our foresight teacher academy programs is keeping it personal. We are so proud to announce we have 69 active candidates. Mr. Grimes, you might remember that from when you popped into our seminar a few weeks ago. Um, of those 69 active candidates, 42 are about to graduate from our program. Now, why I highlight that number, it's the largest cohort to date for our academy. We're so very proud of those 42 candidates. And let me give you a quote. So, one of our graduates last spring
036um at our graduation said, "Fta did not just prepare me for a career, it created a passion." And that's our goal in the academy. If you look at the 46.37% of our candidates that are in year 1, two, or three, a large majority of those are our candidates in the academy, they may be second career individuals who have had a a long career in industry and now they're coming back to pour into our students and into our programming. And so with that said, it is developing additional passions for people that are really um bringing such great wealth and information um into our district. And then the uh middle column of this graphic would have been our induction program and mentoring. Um with our induction program because we know we have that 45.67%. We want to
037make sure in those year 1, two, and three, we're giving very targeted supports to our new teachers. Every new teacher in year 1, two, and three gets a school-based mentor who is experienced. There is an induction leader at every single school in our district that oversees our induction program. and there's an induction administrator in every school and we're very proud to um present to the board that we are applying for the GDO um induction certified program this year. So our induction program we start our application and we should know hopefully by the first of the year if we are a certified program. So we're looking forward to that. Um the other graphic that would have been on this slide is our endorsement program. our endorsements. We offer um five endorsements, but we have a brand
038new one this year. I didn't put it on our list because it's a pilot and it is our um school safety and anti-gang endorsement. It's a pilot that just started in the state. We're one of the first districts to jump on that pilot. We have about 20 candidates in that endorsement and those candidates came from our safety department. Um and that would be our SAS's and then also um our social workers are taking that endorsement. So we're very proud to um see how that endorsement goes and we will report back. Um the next slide we're going to look at is financial wellness. We have a grant that was released from the state. It's our parent toteer reimbursement grant. Now, this is going to give financial support to pair professionals completing a GTAP program. So, great
039news for the foresight teacher academy. Um, but even beyond that, if we have um those in our district that go through a metroa or another GTAP, they are also eligible for this grant. We reimbured 32 employees last year over $140,000. And I want to give um a big shout out to Michelle McGinness because not only did we get the grant, but Michelle found it, she researched it, she applied for it, and then we were able to uh really celebrate these employees. Um we have round three of the grant, which is about to uh we've applied for that, and we've been awarded, and we will be releasing over $160,000 in our next round. Now, this is a great way for that PAR to teacher pipeline that Dr. Brown talked about. we really want to keep investing
040in our pair pros. Um in addition to that, we want to talk about some financial wellness that um Scott Felcamp was able to really get out boots on the ground and and really um go out and speak to all of our classified staff about peasers. That's our bus drivers, custodians, and food service employees. And he was able to really um educate them on the 403b 4% match options in the district. He went to all the schools. He also went to the transportation district meetings and um if you look on the screen you're going to see what happened because of Scott's um efforts. We we started with 297 pasers classified staff in November of last year and we were at 408 by the end of the spring. That was a 37.3% increase. In fact, due to
041Scott's work, Corebridge Financial was awarded the second highest increase nationwide for um K12 public schools. So they they love Scottville camp. Let's just say that. >> All right, I'll turn it back over to Derek. >> All right, so this this slide just represents a variety of different tools. So not just do we have this employee experience, but we really do have a toolbox for our staff members to go surrounding financial wellness, career development, um and employee wellness as well. And so uh this is provided for all staff members to be able to access. Um, and then also through our exit experience, we want to make sure our staff members um, as Dr. Brown just talked about, when when teachers or staff members leave for Scythe County Schools, they essentially become the best recruiters for us.
042And, um, we say all the time, if you are a teacher and you're running 100 miles per hour, you're needed by so many people. We want to make sure they still have purpose when they retire. Um, so what can they do to plug in? Do they want to sub? Do they want to teach? Uh, well, maybe they teach 49%. um do they want to mentor? Do they want to coach? What can we do to continue to plug them in? Uh and so that's our goal. Um but ultimately we want them want them speaking highly about their experiences so our next generation of teachers are and and workers are able to come in and to be able to continue to provide great service for our students. Um and as a result of our great work, and
043I'll say the great work of of our district, um it's not the HR team that does the retention. It's not just the schools. It's not just the district office staff. It's everybody. Everybody is um is in charge of essentially building our community of schools. And um I'm really proud of all the departments at the district level. I'm proud of all the school, the administrators, the teachers, the superintendents, the board work. Everybody has put this together uh to be able to really put us uh incredibly 89th best place to work in the nation um according to the Forbes list and fifth best in the state and that is just an incredible journey. Um the the niche continues to shift and so that one continues to change. Uh but in terms of Forbes, the fifth best in
044the state. Um you look at the other people or the other organizations on that list, Delta you. Yes, it's a big deal. We're one of two uh public school systems in the country that are on that list, the other schools in Texas. And so I'm really proud of that for our entire system. And then this is the result of all of that. Um if you look over the past three years, our certified recruiting uh retention rate has gone up from 92% to right around above 95% and for our classified um from 89% to almost 92.5%. So um kudos to all of us for continuing to provide a great working environment for our staff. Um we want to uh recruit them, we want to develop them, we want to keep them and um continue to do
045great work for our kids and our system. the point. I'll ask for any questions. >> Yes, Miss Hoist. >> Hello. I'm not going to ask any questions tonight about this, but I just wanted to say thank you. You and your team do a really good job of of hiring and developing and in recruiting and retaining our teachers and constantly looking for ways to better all of that. And um I think our school system, the results that we have each year, you know, the numbers speak for themselves. So, thank you to you and your team. >> Very welcome. Thank you. >> Um Derek, I know we won't dig into details because you're doing a lot of research, but I think it's important to note the success of FTA, which has been just tremendous and especially under
046the leadership that that we have in there now. um with the with the ladies that are running that. Um you have started to look into doing something similar potentially down the road for developing our own leadership certification program. Correct. >> Yes. >> And and you're going to continue to dig and dig and dig at that. I'm just putting this out here publicly. So you got to keep digging at that. >> Sir, >> that's been a dream of mine for a long time, man. >> Yes. Uh we're excited about that. We know succession planning is really important and we've got to continue to build leaders and so to be able to implement programs to be able to support our staff especially those that are looking to do it and that's one of the reasons why we're
047doing the advanced degree fair uh to be able to put tier one tier 2 certification in place is really important because to get into those roles a lot a lot of those folks need to have it. um you know as I was a brand new teacher one day someone invested in me told me that they felt like they saw leadership in me and I was able to do something with that. I think we all have some somewhat of a similar story and so we've got to continue that charge so that we're building the next generation of leaders for South County schools. >> And I think the I think you bring a great point about the teacher academy. Um and I think from a visit with them a couple weeks ago and just the variety of
048experience those candidates bring um from people that are in industry to a former NBA player and everywhere in between. And so I think it's a great opportunity that they've got. >> You guys do a fantastic job. Obviously, our people is what makes this what it is. It's not, you know, this is a people business. You know, Dr. Bearden and and Dr. Young always say that this is this is a people business. And just one last thing in your list of accolades there. Um, you can add that I've actually been designated number one school board chair in Forsythe County. So, yeah, you can put that in there. >> Has that been officially voted on? >> It'll be soon. It'll be public soon. >> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you all and sorry about the
049presentation. The images not working. We'll work on that. >> Thank you guys. Everything. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. All right. Next on the agenda D right after C as expected is an Eastloss presentation with Mr. Matt War and Dr. Michelle Dugan. Two regulars here. >> I tried to make Eminem stick. I don't think it's sticking. >> We recruited a third one. You can only present if you have a name in your first name. Appreciate it. >> Oh, there you go. >> Well, good evening. Um, thank you. >> No, it's just the two tonight. >> Thank you so much for the opportunity to share kind of where we are in the process of informing our voters and for county residents about East Lost, what it means for our community and what it means for
050our schools. And that is a little bit about what we will share this evening. Um, our purpose is simple. We want to provide the transparent factual information that does help our voters and our community to make an informed decision. Um, and of course that aligns with our goal as a district to be safe, connected, and thriving along with our bold go board goals in the strategic plan areas, learner experience by funding those innovative spaces, uh, expanding technology opportunities and also making sure that our students are safe. I know that the human resources team did a fantastic job talking about the climate, culture, and community that is so important to our families and part of that is the way that you lost um funds, improving security system, safety, our our buildings are attracting people from all
051over the country and beyond. And so that's important to note. We'll give an overview just a reminder that ESPL stands for education special purpose local option sales tax. I don't think I've gotten that right the first time the entire season, but I'm on my way there. Um, and again, this is a proposed continuation of a consumer sales tax, a penny sales tax based on purchased goods that has been in place for six iterations now. And this is a proposed continuation of the seventh. uh as we answer questions from our community about East Lost again, what it means, what it is, we've had some misinformation that we just wanted to clarify here for you today in the in the uh goal of being transparent with our public. And so, Mr. Matt War is going to share
052a little bit about that. Now, >> thank you. Um and no applause was a little bit different version than what you've all heard quite a few times already. Uh but we're excited to go through these because these are the biggest talking points that we're finding as we're talking to different community groups. Uh we had a great opportunity to talk to the retired teachers group this morning. They were an awesome group. They were very excited about this, very educated in it as well. Um the first myth we want to talk through is uh people say that East Bloss is a new tax. It is not a new tax. Again, this is just a continuation of a uh penny sales tax that's been around for over 30 years. Uh we're currently in SPLOS 6. We're asking to
053move on to a splash 7. So it is not a new tax. Um one another myth is ESPLOS funds can be used for salaries and daily expenses. Uh our referendum does not allow the use of these dollars to be used for any salaries uh for any employees. We've never done that in the past and we are not planning to do that in the future. Everything that's done with East Bloss is the stuff. um coming back from capital projects, from new buildings, additions, roofing, flooring, painting, um those kind of things, parking lots, furniture, a lot of people forget some of the things that we do, STEM upgrades, fine art, safety, IT, computers, things of that nature. It's all the items that we need to continue to have a great school system. East, another myth is East
054takes place in a budget planning. Uh this is obviously very important for people to know that these dollars do not just go into the general fund. It's two separate revenue bases. That's very important that people know that that's not surplusing or anything of that nature to where we're using SPLOS dollars to help our general fund budget. Uh espost eliminates the 65 school tax exemption. That's another myth that we've heard in our community. Um again, that does not blast does not affect the senior tax exemption. It's just very simple. Um when an east loss is renewed, two pennies are collected at the same time. We've heard that uh since we're going in November, if it passes, we're going to collect an extra penny. Uh the SPLOS 7 that if it was to pass on November 4th,
055it would only start once SPL 6 completes. Either we collect our total amount or the 5-year period comes to end SPLO 6. So again, you want to make it very clear to our community members that just because if they vote on it and it passes, it does not add an extra penny. It is still the one penny. One more page of myths. A vote for East Bloss means property taxes are going to go up. Um, as we presented, uh, we've talked very extensively that this is a second revenue source that helps keep our millage rates down. It helps reduce the cost and the money that we use from the general fund by having this other revenue source. Another myth is East Plus funds are used for roads, bridges, and other government projects. We are the
056education splos. The e in spllo is very important that people know. You'll see the ballot. It says spllo for education. The penny that is received for the espploast 100% of it comes to education. We do not share this penny with the county. So certain county projects do not use this penny. This is solely for education. And then if east loss does not pass, projects won't get completed. That is not true as well. Um we have a very long list of projects we'll see on this slide. Uh you have all sat through many presentations that shows that list. What's going to happen if the east bus does not pass as we all sit down and talk through what our biggest priorities are and possibly look at other other revenue sources to make that happen of the
057items that we absolutely know we must have over the next 5-year period. And then the last myth we want to talk about is east only benefits certain areas of the county. It's very very important because I hear that from my own uh community saying what's in it for my kids' school. I only really care about my kids go to this school. What do they get? Uh the beauty of SPLAS 7, if it passes in November, every single school gets one form or fashion of an item uh on this SPLS list. If it's an Alliance Academy, they're going to have STEM upgrades, equipment upgrades to all those things. Our high schools and elementaryaries will have turf for their baseball, softball. Every elementary school is going to have some type of turf added to their playgrounds. We're
058going to do additions to every middle school will be touched in one way or another through either a fine arts bumpout or a different addition for overcrowding. So, that's a great piece about SPLA 7. Every school, even the ones that are brand new, there will be something in it for them. So, that's very exciting to do. Real quick update about East Bloss. The actual list of projects, the colors matter. You know, we've talked about this in previous meetings and presentations because there is that penalty for if we bring in additional revenue. So, our current SPLO 7 referendum going in November will raise that limit to 400 million. We have a priority list of projects uh through the red. We know that this is a massive priority for our district over the five years. We feel
059very confident that our SPLOS seven revenues will cover these high needs of important are blue. We also again feel confident that these revenues will continue over the 5 years and we'll complete everything on the blue list. Then the gold list is created because if you get through the red and the blue and we continue to have a great community, thriving community to where revenues continue to come in, we will be very transparent and go into our gold list. So then everyone knows where the dollars are going uh as those revenues continue. And just a real quick summary, not going through all of the list, but it's important to note a few items, especially on the red list. Safety is the number one priority that we always deal with every single year. It's the number one
060thing that we want to make sure that our students and staff and community members when they come onto our properties that they are safe. Uh so they will have an allocation of dollars to use as they see fit. We are planning to build a new elementary school on the northwest part of the county to help relieve those uh overcrowded elementary schools. We're going to look at doing three additions at Liberty, Otwell, and North uh Middle to increase their capacities to 1,600, as well as additions at Lambert South, and Denmark to increase their capacities to 3100. I mentioned previously, we're going to add uh turf to the baseball and softball fields at all high schools to make them multi-use fields uh that they are not at this point in time. As well as we're going to
061have uh play areas and allocation at all 23 elementary schools. We're very excited about that red list. So is our community. A lot of people are excited about these things that are coming forward in the future. Uh blue high needs is the IT. Same thing for technology initiatives. Fine arts again going back to it's not just building. We get equipment and things of that nature with these dollars. Additional fine arts expansions at those five middle schools. A renovation to a vicory middle and elementary uh based on the post road widening. some more maintenance life cycle going down. Furniture, a lot of people know don't notice the furniture that's being uh aged out over our older schools. It's excellent to use the SPLOS dollars for those type of items. More buses, more STEM upgrades. Uh that's
062very important. So again, we feel confident in the red and the blue and then the continent funding comes available, we'll move into the gold list, uh a coal mountain edition and more life cycle updates as you see on the list. I'll let Michelle come back kind of talk about what we've done. >> So again, all this information can be found on our website. We do have a hub linked both on our homepage, also in the communications section regarding financial transparency and specific to East Lost. Um we are now in advanced voting. Advanced voting actually opened today, October 14th, and that will continue. There is additional information about voting on our website and linked for in-person voting and also how to request an absentee ballot as needed. And so that's just our overview tonight. We'd love
063to answer any questions you have. >> Questions? >> Just a more of a comment. I think this came up when I was with at the North LSC meeting combined um that I think there was some parents that were concerned that we were going to increase capacity as we were going to be redistricting middle school so that North Liberty notable had 1600 students in it after this but I want to say that is not the case that it's being built for future growth as we see it um so that we can accommodate up to the 16 >> yeah to prevent um >> it's to help prevent And also, it was a great question by that individual. They thought that by building the addition, we were going to redistrict to bring more kids to it. But in
064the case mainly, it's to make sure that we relieve the need for modular units. We're very excited that everything on here would relieve the modular units at all those schools, which is exciting. Um, but we would not redistrict kids to come in. These additions would build the capacity around the current students that are there, as well as looking at future growth. Yeah, I think it's it's the community should know that this proposed east plus kind of represents a bit of a paradigm shift for how we've traditionally done things. We've traditionally in in the past have dealt with growth by building new buildings, right? And that to the tune of a half billion dollars over the last decade or so. Um we'll build two or three additions for the price of one new school. Those kids
065are largely there already. It's going to get rid of modulars, which nobody, let's face it, nobody really prefers modulars, right? and we get rid of a good number of modulars. Um, there's a lot of good in East Bloss. I don't like taxes. I'm not a tax guy. Um, I'm not advocating for more taxes. I pay taxes. So, you know, it's not like, uh, there there's nothing in it for me except a world-class education for my kids. And I'm I'm personally hopeful that East Plus, you know, people see it for what it is, which is a consumption tax that is 40% of it is paid for by people that don't live here, right? So it's a direct offset to the residential taxpayer. So there's a lot of good in East Blast. You know, these projects are
066necessary. Um they have to happen one way or the other and um Eastlos goes a long way to kind of relieve that burden on on the residential taxpayer. So um the ballot question is super convoluted. >> So I'll give you like a simple version. Reauthorize the tax once the current one expires for 5 years. That's that's the question, right? It's you read it. you need, you know, a doc doctorate degree to understand what it says, but that's basically what it is, you know. >> Yes, sir. >> Appreciate it, guys. >> Thank you guys. >> All right. Next up, we have alert systems with Mr. Todd Shirley and Mr. Mike Evans emerging from the Batcave. All right, this will be a pretty quick uh presentation because it really is moreformational um to let you know where
067we stand regarding uh Senate Bill, I believe it's Senate Bill 17, the Ricky and Alyssa's law for school systems to have um implemented by July 1 of this upcoming school year uh a mobile alert uh system in place. So, we currently just wrapped up an RFP that was out for a couple weeks. Um we met today to review and begin that process. So over the next two weeks we are going to be evaluating the submissions that came through. Uh we had six submissions that were um involved. Uh technology and school safety are heavily involved together because this really is a full comprehensive system that will involve a lot of different components. Um within the next two weeks uh as we go through the goal is to narrow it down to several different uh vendors perhaps
068one or or two or three vendors. um isolate those uh bring in for interviews and presentations or possibly do site visits as well. Um the law consists of a mobile alert um uh system where whether that's a badge or device that every employee would be wearing for the classroom so they can trigger um either help from the school administrator or direct calls to um public service for emergency um services as well. uh as well as mapping configurations to uh locate and track down where that uh emergency notification notification came from within the building as well. Um the uh within the next couple weeks uh following that once we get it narrowed down um and again this coincides with after the splass vote as well um we plan to bring it to the board for a
069vote in at the November board meeting. Um other than that it it pretty much straightforward as well. Anything else to add for that Mr. Shirley? >> No, nothing else really to add. you covered it all. We will obviously make sure that um >> you want to come here in front of the mic. >> Yeah, we we'll make sure that the companies that submitted the RFPs meet all the standards. Uh and I I think just glancing over them today. We were um Steve and I were able to uh go through two of them. U we're going to have we're going to have something good to put in front of you. So, real pleased with the folks that stepped forward. I just want to point out I know it it may seem like the turnaround is really
070quick with two weeks for that and you know to get the RFPs and another two weeks to come back and brief you but this is something that this group of gentlemen and their teams have been working on for well over a year really since Barrow trying to find the exact right system for you know for our school system. So you guys have been putting a lot of time and effort. It's not just this quick twoe turnaround in case somebody was worried about that. >> I I want to give Mike a ton of credit. He is really he's he's done a a load of the work. Uh there's a lot of technology components that we just we don't fully grasp in school safety, but what we know is uh when we push the button, we want
071it to work correctly. >> Great team effort. When we what we do put forward is what Mr. Shirley mentioned, it's something that we're going to feel comfortable with and confident um within the school system. >> Never have to use. >> Exactly. 100%. >> We appreciate the work you guys are doing in this. We know it's been going on for a long time. And you know for clarity this is you know a panic system emergency system in case something you know which we hope never happens was to happen. Several of us maybe even all of us visited with with Mike some of the schools to see some technologies that we've been piloting already. So this this has been going on for some time. A lot of thought has been put into this. So eager to uh
072to see how it all unfolds. And the deadline for compliance with the law is June of next year. Uh July July 1st of 2026 is when everything has to be >> this system has to be operational July 1st of next year. >> That's correct. >> Questions? >> No, I was just going to say I I want to commend you all on the depth of research that you've been doing because when we did tour the facility, everyone in the building is exposed to testing this which I think is important. >> Right. Um, so thank you for your due diligence because this is such an important >> Well, and just also know that that there have been a lot of conversations over the last few years with these companies. We've met a lot of them at vendor
073fairs um and have spoken to surrounding counties as well. We're we're very close to the folks in Gwynet County and we've had a lot of conversations with them about their research, too. >> That's great. >> Yep. >> Thank you guys. All right. Next up, Dr. Dr. Michelle Dugan again. Review of policy BCBI public participation in board meetings. One of our favorite part of board meetings. >> Okay. >> You too. >> Good evening again. So, as chairman Valdez mentioned, this is policy BCBI up for review. This policy addresses public participation in board meetings. More specifically, it is addressing the rules of conduct and participation procedures for public participation in the course of business for the school board meetings that are publicly viewable. Um there was a review of this policy. We felt that the last time
074it was reviewed and revised was last year. We do not recommend any changes to this policy at this time. We believe it is appropriate as it stands and meets all the guidelines as required. >> Any questions? >> Yeah. No. >> Okay. So, we'll have that sit for 30 days for public review just to look at the document. NBCI will be available on the website tomorrow. >> Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Dugan. Next up, Dr. Josh Low again. Oh, they should have just put you like in a sequential ACBD. Yeah. Review of policy IB charter schools. All right. Coming back to look at this. This policy was um adopted and last reviewed in March of 2015. This year, I'm working with our legal team to comply with new legislation that came out in the 2025 session and
075to ensure that we comply with the state the state charter petition process dates and timelines and so forth. Um the revisions and green are proposed um for adoption um to to comply with those laws. And as I said, we we work with our legal um Dr. Salom and our and the legal experts on this to be sure we're complying. So, want to put that out for discussion. And u >> this was all pretty well prescribed for us by the by the law. >> It is. Any questions? If not, I would say we let it sit 30 days and come back. Thank y'all. >> Thank you, Dr. Low. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Next up is future agenda items. Anybody have something? No, I do have one. Um I'd like to put on our next
076November work session an item we've been kind of conceptualizing in the visionary stage um a potential technology center you know combination of vocation CTE STEM um with the kind of aim of producing you know the next generation's workforce. We know that all all students are not destined or meant for college but there's so much growing demand for vocation and other trades. Um, we're envisioning something that pulls in industry and pulls in industry investment as well into this facility. I know the other Dr. Low, Valerie Low, has been kind of conceptualizing this and has made some visits. So, I'd like to ask her to come in and uh give us an update where she's at and um perhaps talk about some next steps to take this from vision to mission. So maybe at our next worst
077our next work session in in November would give her some time to put uh put her thoughts together on paper for you would be great. >> Everybody okay with that? >> All right. And that concludes the presentation portion of the agenda. Next up is action items. The first action item on the agenda is the 2026 board of education meeting dates. Everybody have that information? Everybody good? >> All right. You guys want to see them or you've already seen them? I think everybody's had a chance to see it, but we'll it'll be on, you know, posted publicly if the public is interested in that. So, hearing nothing, I'll seek a motion to adopt the 2026 board of education meetings. >> Make a motion to adopt. >> Second. >> Excellent. A motion by Mrs. Ho, a second
078by Mr. Usherwood. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Next action item up. Um, stop the bleed kits. And we're going to invite nurse Heidi Aila and Mr. Brad Richardson up to uh talk to us a little bit about this. >> Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss and and request the purchase of something again that we we hope that we would never have to employ, but if we did is certainly critical to the health and well-being of our students, staffs, and and visitors. And I just want to open up with just a little bit of the background as to the the acquisition of it. And Heidi is here that she can discuss anything about the the actual kit itself and uh anything in in particular to how how it will be used in
079the schools. The uh Georgia Trauma Commission is a subsidiary of the the state of Georgia and they have worked with in conjunction for years with a with an outfit called the North American Rescue to build a particular bleeding kit and in and in doing so they have um secured extremely aggressive pricing for all state entities as as a K12 public entity. We're we're able to purchase off of that contract and it would be substantially better than anything that that we could do in the marketplace and we verified that ourselves internally. So this this would this purchase would be for 2375 units that would be bought in bulk, brought into the distribution center, and we would based on Heidi's distribution list, our staff would take those out to out to each school with the intent of
080having a a kid in every class. It's the same kid that we already have in the schools. There's one hang on the wall. I think >> Heidi's holding one Vanna White style here for you for you to see. >> And um I I'll just turn the floor over to you if there's any comments you want to make about the kit itself. >> Yes. So, we have them placed strategically now in our hallways near our fire extinguishers. So, we have those those cabinets kind of labeled um with a red stripe across it so that our staff knows where they're located. It's always been the question on if we had an event at school, how do we get to them when we're closing our doors in a code red, keeping our doors locked, and having access to
081the kids if needed. And so, that is um having them in every single classroom is definitely a goal of ours. um and the funding to be able to do that is, you know, has been, you know, difficult for, um, for our schools to be able to fund raise and and get those in every single school. So, um, having them in there is just, um, truly life-saving. Um, it is the most preventable injury, um, is severe bleeding is to have a tourniquet to be able to stop that and and quickly save a life. Um, we've done we've actually had two of these at schools from injuries that we have actually deployed. So, this isn't just for a mass event, but this would be for an injury that um had caused severe bleeding. So, we have a
082lot of different programs um cafeterias, we have a lot of different areas where there's high risk um areas for injury. So, to have these readily accessible um is just it's truly going to be life- saving. Yep. Everything in these kits is everything that would be needed. There's gloves, there's there's um compact gauze, there's a tourniquet themselves. Um the thought is I know school safety has the red booklets that are in every classroom. It's just to have these hanging right next to that. Um so they would be to the classroom, not per teacher, but to the classroom. Um it would just stay from year to year. >> Awesome questions. >> I think it's great because um we have a strong partnership with the fire department as well and they can teach with these because they utilize
083the same kits and have instructors and how they've come in and help with our staff before. So, I think it's >> And our school nurses train our staff every year. So, our staff actually does the hands-on training, knows how to put on tourniquets. >> Yeah. I think I think it's a great a great decision. You know, these and this kind of injury, arterial bleed, you know, seconds is the difference between life and death. So, if you got to be running around trying to find one of these kits, it could end poorly. And we had a case here some years ago where a student actually broke a bone >> and that caused a bleed and it was the tourniquet that basically saved their life. So, I mean, they could have they could have died from a
084broken bone, which I broke my bone in elementary school. So, you know, just something that seems pretty common place. It could it could really be more dangerous than you think. So, >> all right. >> I was just curious, how are they secured from students tampering with them because we know kids can be kids. >> Um, truly, they're I mean, they're zipped like this. Do you know what I mean? So, could they could they do that? I mean, it would be when you know somebody's not in the classroom certainly. Um it would be something that we would have to keep our eye on as far as you know when our when we do audits of classrooms and whatnot is just to make sure that they are in there and in place. >> Yeah. >> All right.
085If there's nothing else, I'll seek a motion to approve the purchase of the stop the bleed kits. >> Make a motion we purchase stop the bleed kits as presented. >> Second motion. >> Motion by Mr. Grimes. Second by Mrs. Hoys. No discussion. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. All right. At this time, I'll seek a motion to enter executive session for personnel and student disciplinary tribunal appeal. I make a motion to enter executive session. Second motion by Mrs. Hoy, second by Mr. Usherwood. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you guys. We'll be back shortly. [Applause]