001Good evening and welcome to this September 8 Board Works session. I'd like to, before I call this motion, there's something don't you have to say something, sir? Yes. Mr. Cox, I'd like to request that at the adjournment tonight we'll be in honor of one of our own pioneers in education, Ms. Chaclin, Jackie Stanley, who passed away on August 26th. Prior to tonight's meeting adjournment, I would like to say if you words about her and her stellar career with Orie County Schools. Thank you, Mr. Cook. Now I guess we'd go into the invocation and pledge. And screen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tonight I'm going to ask that before we pray that we do a moment of silence for a Whitmore Park Middle School student that they're having a honor walk this evening at 7. 30 at
002M. U. S. C. for her. And in this moment of silence, I would ask, excuse me, for us to send her, her family, her friends, and the Whitamer Park family love and light. So if we will, let's just observe a moment of silence for her. Thank you. May we bow our heads and pray. Most hopefully. Thank you for this new school year and all the wonderful things that are to come. We ask that you're pleased bless our teachers and staff with strength, encouragement and wisdom. As they watch over our students and keep them safe, excuse me. Help them to learn and grow and surround them with people who believe in their potential. Most holy we seek your guidance and your wisdom for our school board. Help us to have a clear vision and to make
003decisions that are in the best interest of every student. Give us unity, patience, understanding, and are willingness to listen to one another and to work together as a team. Police help our entire school community to work together. With one purpose. Which is a commitment to serving the education of our children. May this new school year be filled with hope, respect, kindness, and success. And it is in your name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. Please stand. And to the Republic, for which stands, one nation, the under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much, please. Let's get down a business here. I need to bring with the agenda. So I move second. Only favor say aye. Here's Luck Sun, we're good. Provement of the minutes for 24, 26, and 31st.
004Move to approve, Mr. Chairman. Second. My favorite say aye. Aye. Sand here, none. Let's go into discussion, Ms. Edmonds. Thank you so much. We had a wonderful meeting today filled with lots of great information, so I'm excited to share this with you. The Curculum Committee and the Academic STIM provided updates on several key instructions. Prior instructional priorities, including Rise with Reading Phase 2, Focus Learning, SC Ready Results, and our continued efforts to strengthen mathematics instruction K through 12. We're excited to report that spring data showed that 79. 1 percent of students District W. Additionally, nearly 12, 000 students in grades 3 through 12 reached a Lexile score of 1295 or higher, an important benchmark for college and career ready reading. The committee also received an update on focused learning, which emphasizes the very intentional use
005of tools, time, and task to strengthen classroom instruction for all students. We reviewed the 2026 SC Ready Results, ELA improved at every grade level from grades three through eight with an average increase of 3. 3 percentage points. Mathematics showed an overall average increase of 1. 6 percentage points with the strongest improvement in eighth grade. Both subjects have shown significant growth over the past five years. A significant part of the, our discussion focused on the District's response to the mathematics data. At the elementary and middle school levels, efforts include stronger alignment, assessments, small group instruction, math routines, problem solving, and professional development at the high school level, the District continues to strengthen math pathways and expand building thinking classrooms, practices to promote students thinking, collaboration, and deeper mathematical understanding. Overall, the data reflects positive progress, particularly
006in literacy and ELA, while mathematics remains a key area for continued focus. The academics team has targeted strategies in place and will continue to monitor implementation and student performance to ensure continued growth and improved outcomes. And I want to thank the academics team, particularly for making it easy for us to understand all this data, for being very forthcoming, honest, to identify the areas not only of celebration, but of growth and of gaps that we need to address. The only way we're going to close those gaps into get to our 95 percent literacy and soon - to - be math goal of 2030 as well, is to identify where we need to improve and to work on it and to provide our teachers and staff with the training and the tools that they need to accomplish
007this. So we really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Edmonds. Any questions, comments? Thank you. Next. Let's go to the SCSBA school and law conference update. We had four board members. Mr. Edwards, Ms. Gray, and Mr. Cook and Ms. Winter's interview have any insight you might could share with us, Mr. Cook. Yes. So we were all able to attend. The law conference in Greenville, South Carolina, which was always a very good conference. Um, I'll talk about, um, one of my biggest highlights. A gentleman from, there were people from all over the nation, uh, come down to talk to us about different legislative initiatives that are going on that are affecting the schools. Um, fellow named Mark Henderson from Missouri School Board Association came down. And he spoke on AI. Um, he told us, uh,
008we talked about a day in infamy on November 30th, 2022, um, was the birth of CHAT GPT. And, uh, he gave us some really good stats that I, you know, really hit me big TP every single week. So it's now, it's so integrated in all the things that we do on the internet. You might not even notice it unless you're looking. But when you're Googling an answer, it's going through chat. You know, I think Google has Gemini, I guess. And it's going through Gemini. They don't. It's just not, you know, regular anymore. Um, talked about teachers. Teachers saved 5. 9 hours per week on average by using CHAT GPT and homeworkplace. Talked a lot about, and this is something I talk about in my home. Um, and with all of my kids, adults and the
009ones that are in school, we talked about the, um, how to, how to teach your kids judgment. And they have to understand that, you know, the difference between putting something in chat GPT and getting it back out and using critical thinking. Uh, I use every time there's an example of me using critical thinking, I will talk to whoever I am with in my family that this is, you know, this was a problem. We looked at it, we analyzed it and we figured it out. We didn't have to run to chat GPT and do it. I will tell you, I am guilty of that though. There's something tearing up my backyard right now. And I found that I could pour some, um, soapy water out and a bunch of worms came up. Just like you said,
010it was going to happen. I call him he. But just like he said and figured out that we've got warthogs in our, in our neighborhood. And they ripping my yard apart. I mean, it's, it's absolutely crazy. So you can use it for good things when you're beyond, you know, it's beyond you. But really it's important for us to let those kids think on their own. And you can utilize CHAT GPT. And we already have a great, you know, we were probably one of the forerunners of having a good, uh, good program with CHAT GPT. And so, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm really, um, the way he was talking, I sounded like, to me, anyway, that really, we were way at, we were way ahead of everybody else. So, um, another one that was really great.
011And I'm always enjoy is when we have a pan, you know, people from DC come down and they talk about, um, a lot of the different things that are going on up there and how it affects us. It was pretty cool. This time, cause she got the talk, you know, cause she was like, you know, we're one of the last, you know, her little office is like one of the last standing in the Department of Education or something, you know, it's cool. But I'll just, with that, I'll pass on to my colleagues. You have anything, Ms. Cook? Yes. I mean, Ms. Debbie. Okay. Um, we did learn quite a bit while we were there. Um, one of the things that I took away was the executive focus for 2026 will be, of course, to dismantle
012the U. S. Department of Ed transferring back to the states. And then the congressional focus is to expand services for students with, um, complex communication needs and, uh, severe behavioral challenges. Um, the Fed reorganization, including the CTE and homelessness and after school care. And of course, the Treasury has its hands full working with the student loans. So that's just a couple of things that I took away. Thank you Ms. Winters. Ms. Graham. You have anything. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, just a few things. I don't want to hog up all the time from my colleagues. But, uh, what really stood out for me was the AI one and the 99 percent of us are already using it weekly. That was significant. They talked about, um, how to keep our students and our sales safe. And
013the big thing that stood out was they said that we need an AI, a person. I forgot what the word was they used, but it was an AI person that's totally responsible for AI within the organization. And I don't know if we have that already or not. But that was key. And they were talking about that everyone, excuse me, needs to be trained in AI and that we should be letting the students train us in it as well because they're really good at it. They talked about the legalities of it. And they talked about deep fakes and how you can make it do anything that you want to. And it's so realistic. And the other thing that was troubling was the AI companionship piece of it, which our students are using, uh, artificial, um, intelligence
014to have, to make friends. That is, they make a fake friend and they go to it for their, um, psychological needs and companionship. And that's, that's problematic for all of us. So that was some of the big stuff that I took away, um, and also the ethics commission lady was there. And she keeps us out of trouble. Tells us how to fill out our reports and what we should do. And we talked that length about cybersecurity what to do before during and after. And I will leave the rest. To y'all. Thank you, Ms. Graham. You got anything, James? Yeah. Uh, just, I'll, I'll kind of wrap it up in generalizations. Um, you know, we had about 10 or 12 speakers that we could attend and listen to. But the overall theme and messages that I
015got from every one that I heard was things that we need to do towards governance here as a school of body, school board. We need to be POACTive rather than reactive. We need to know the law and then seek legal guidance when it's appropriate. We need to protect the student, the employee and District Information from outsiders. We need to use data and evidence to inform board oversight. We don't need to just be making decisions without proper information. We need to maintain appropriate boundaries between governance and administration. We need to document our decisions, our processes and corrective actions. We need to use technologies of tool, but still maintain our human judgment. We need to prepare for risk before they become emergencies. You know, the stuff going on out there. And we need to really be prepared
016for those, those items that can happen. We need to communicate clearly with parents, employees and to community. And we need to main respect, maintain respectful, orderly and transparent board processes. So those were generalizations from all of the sessions that we had. That I kind of gleaned was, was the message within the message. And, um, I think we do a lot of those things, but I think we can improve on some of them as well. Thank you. Mr. Edwards. Next, we'd ask Mr. Generat to come up treatment of stakeholders. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members. And Mr. Jones, um, before you is Operation Expectation 3, which is treatment of stakeholders, within this, uh, OE3 is talking about making sure that the system has in place various processes where we are making sure that
017our stakeholders are actively communicating with us and we actively communicate with them, whether it's about our system or whether it's about concerns or issues that they may have. We have formal processes in place to address the protection of confidential information as it relates to our students and employees. We also have, um, in place mechanisms in which communication can happen between the District and our stakeholders through our various cabinets, uh, whether it's parent cabinet, student cabinet, teacher cabinet, support cabinet, business and faith - based community cabinet. And also, uh, those cabinets regularly throughout the school year. We'll begin most of those cabinets in October. And it'll run throughout the school year. Our entertaining questions that you may have at this time of our OE3, treatment of stakeholders. Any questions? Bring none. Thank you, Mr. Generates. Thank
018you. Superintendent's Reports. Chairman Cox Board members. I'm going to start tonight with just a recognition of international reading day. Literatur C Day. All across our district. We had people enter our schools and share a book. With a child. And I just want to point out, as you're superintendent, it's not just sharing a book. When an adult comes into a classroom, um, those children see the values that you bring. They see the importance that who you are and how the adults are interacting with you as you walk into that classroom. And then they also see the fact that you're interacting with the books that they often read. Today, my story with Pete the Cat, they knew that story. Uh, the next page, they knew they were able to count the number of people we were going
019to pick up in that car. And we're in our groovy bus, and, uh, beep, beep, beep, we were going. And, uh, to be able to interact with them, I would just tell the community this. Um, while yes, I was that adult sharing reading with those kids. The kids were sharing something with me. And it was the meaning of this work, the purpose of this work. And I just want to make sure that the adults out there who, who might find themselves far removed from our schools. Know that you're welcome. You're welcome to come in. Just follow our rules and come on in. And not only give of yourself to the kids, but let them give back to you. So you can experience that purpose. And that point in life where kids are great. And literacy
020can be the vehicle to see that. At this point, um, I'm going to call, um, up our Safety and Security Director. We're going to provide the community with the number one topic. When I talk to parents, they say Mr. Jones, I understand rise with literacy. Right. I've got questions about the math. But the number one thing on my mind, Mr. Jones is how do you keep our kids safe every day. And that doesn't just come from parents. That comes from community members. And I will tell you, Board, with your investment in the structures and systems and supports that we have, um, Mr. Frederick's going to go through those. Just thank you. Thank you for allowing me to have an answer to that question that leads not only South Carolina, but the nation. So with that,
021Mr. Frederick. Thanks, sir. Evening, everybody. Chairman Cox, vice chair Willems. Again, Superintendent Jones, everybody. I would just second that. It's a good intro. We have a good story. Edward County Schools. We have a good answer when parents have a little beef with the way we have to allow people in and out of the building. Once they hear the story, almost invariably, they go, oh, because it makes sense. Our story makes sense. So that's kind of the backdrop of our, of our quick brief tonight. But, uh, you'll see we've got just a couple of slides. The first one, really the point here is just the school safety is not a one page program. It's a layered approach. We use, as I've told you before, in detail briefings, we use a time - based vector - based
022information base. Information is currency. And with that currency, we buy time. Time buys us options. We want to push problems as far from the school as we can. We have been pretty successful. Great part in great part due to the funding for the technical systems that are expensive, but worth every penny. The screening, the AI driven screening is weapon focused. Can you sneak some tiny object into any building in America, including a prison? Of course you can. But you won't walk into a school with a rifle or a loaded handgun. Mass casualty weapons. We are very well defended against. And, uh, that comes from the funding and is part of the layered approach. There are things that are way down the food chain from that. Like clear backpack requirements. We catch a lot of grief
023from well - meaning people on clear backpacks. But when you explain the multifaceted nature of our screening, where the AI detection looks for mass casualty weapons, if it alerts, the chance that that visitor, that student has a mass casualty weapon. So we divert them to a secondary more detailed search, which is not screening, but an actual search. The clear bag makes that search functional. We have 48, 000 plus students to move in in 40 minutes every morning. You can't. You know, and nor would you want to do a detailed physically intrusive search on 48, 000 plus little humans. So, uh, once they hear the rationality, almost invariably gets a nod and they go, okay, makes sense. So, uh, the latest two are both technically nature line wise. Again, pushes us to the left of any
024incident. We get information earlier rather than later. Sometimes it's just kids in crisis, not necessarily a school threat per state, but it's a threat to a student. We look at any threat to any student at any time as an HCS problem, uh, but they can also be a school threat, unfortunately, because everybody knows the world we live in now. St. TJICS is a little closer timeline wise to an actual incident, but it is still to the left. It's still on the right side. We get suspicious. We have just enough information in the last minute. We now have the capability lockdown our schools and make them safe in less than 10 seconds. Again, the funding that you folks have produced for door locks, window blinds, hardened front areas, man traps that we're building in the front
025of the school at all meshes together. And when, when, when look at in toto, it's systemic when people have a beef with a tiny piece of it, they just need the information and understand how it fits in and they usually understand. So. A big part of this, as we've talked about before also, is the partnership piece, the people piece. Uh, I think I have briefed you folks before on the quality of our arm defenders. The SSOs and the SRO is what most people out in the public may not know is that our police officers are obviously police officers. The vast majority of our SSOs are SRO trained retired police officers or retired military folks. So we have a very high quality of arm defenders in the school. And there obviously the last line of defense
026time wise, but they're also on the left side of the timeline because of deterrence. It's a, it's an unfortunate, but known data point in the school security. Business and world that very often folks who would do harm in the school look at the school first. They don't just wake up one morning. They look at the school first. And when you see a sharp, well equipped arm defender right there at the front door, it can change the decision. And has changed the decision. In other cases. Same principle. We've reinitiated our canine drug search program or as superintendent Jones likes to call it pause in the halls. Uh, it is important if dangerous drugs have gotten into a school somehow. Again, not impossible. It's important for us to locate those drugs and remove them and the person
027who brought the drugs. We can ascertain that. It's also important for folks in the community know that we search the schools and we try to keep the drugs out of the school. So it's both a deterrent and a last ditch physical countermeasure at the same time. The vape task force, we're less on the investigation side. We're less involved in that. It's more of a DOI program. But anybody who says vapes on a threat to the kids has not paying attention. Uh, I don't think we even understand medically what future decades will tell us in that regard. But one of the things we're happiest about is this, uh, Ory County School, CCU Protective Intelligence Project. We've been working on it for a year. We didn't pummel you with it because for a little bit there. It
028didn't look like it was going to go. It had a lot of moving parts. A lot of hair on it. But, uh, everybody in this county who had, it was a stakeholder in student Safety and staff safety has signed off. I would like, I'd be remiss if I didn't think too particularly that you solicitor, uh, Jimmy Jimbo Richardson, 15 circuit. He's our chief, our DA, our chief prosecutor for the Orient Georgetown Counties signed off on it immediately. He is a big proponent of information based law enforcement and staying to the left side of things. Uh, and our sheriff, the constitutionally, the senior law enforcement official in the county is the sheriff. Philip Thompson ditto signed off on it right away. And sheriff Thompson basically rallied the troops. And I don't know if we have every
029agency signed onto the MOU. I think we're lacking one just because lawyers are still looking at it. But every agency has expressed that they want it on it. And I can give you the 60 second. I'm glad to answer questions later or offline. But the 60 second summary is really very simple. Although I will say this, there are pieces of this in place all around the country. But I've called everywhere. I mean, I'm a behavioral economist and threat assessment guy by trade. I called everybody I know there's nowhere outside of award county that has taken all four pieces. Some have three, some have two. We have all four. So it's a pretty cool program. But all the information that I've already said is currency with which we by time with which we buy options is
030already out there. So people here intelligent say, Oh, you're going to put, you know, flock cameras and students, bedrooms know we're not. The information's already out there. Gang bangers draw gangredi on their notebooks right now today. Like we don't have to go find it. We just have to be smart enough to see that graffiti. The SSOs and the SROs have to be trained to recognize that as gang graffiti teachers need to know that. Because if you have a gangbanger in your classroom, that's not just an issue. That child's at risk. But so is everybody who associates with that child has unfortunately we have found out many times in the two years I've been here. So the information's out there. We're just providing training and a cohesive system to gather it up as opposed to leaving
031it on the ground where it is worthless to us. The assessment piece is the really cool piece. Most folks don't know that coastal Carolina has a fantastic intelligence program. I'm not just saying that because I used to teach terrorism out there. But, uh, they, they produce analysts and counterterrorism operatives out at coastal. They have kids who will be doing our assessment for us collating this information, turning it into useful documents, training materials, alerting if they alert to get us in law enforcement involved. And next year that kid, that 22 or 24 year old kid will be doing the same thing at Langley for the CIA or in Atlanta for a DEA high to office or at homeland security in Washington, D. C. These are highly trained. They already do work for other law enforcement agencies.
032It's a resource we could not pass up. And it's five minutes from the office. So they will do the assessment. We will pump this information to them. They will assess it, collate it, determine what to do. And then the next block, the coordination piece, we have great relationships here with local law enforcement now. Uh, all the guys back in the shopper retired, her former law enforcement. So we speak the same language. We buy the same hamburgers. We all get along. Uh, and that's where the coordination takes place. It won't all be prosecution. If a 12 year old kid or a 10 year old kid is drawing gangrefeed on his notebook, we're not going to kick his door that night with local law enforcement. We're going to get that kid some counseling, find out what's going
033on with the family. Treat it as a threat to the child more so than if a 17 year old is drawing gloves or has pictures of Glocks that he's Instagramming around to his friends. That's a, those are entirely different cases. The assessment and the coordination is where those get winnowed out and get treated appropriately. But it still protects the kid involved no matter what. And the bottom line is for the action piece. You know, the earlier we intervene, the earlier we have the information collated, the better off we are. And the safer everybody. So that's all this is a big fancy program. It's got a lot of moving parts. Uh, we are part 23 compliant voluntarily. We don't take any grant money, but we're voluntarily abiding by the federal rigs about cleansing the database every
034year, not clicking information that's outside of our scope. If it's not a threat to a kid, we send it right back to whoever sent it back. I can't imagine a teacher sending us something that's not related to a gift. If it happens by God, we'll send it right back. And again, this is, uh, pretty much the same thing. But it's, uh, it's just the shared responsibility piece. We can mesh all the information, but there are different pieces and different groups that have responsibilities. If we do it the right way, we pick up the deterrent piece. We pick up the information that we need. Do the training piece where people don't accidentally leave and put an information laying around. Connected to community partners, families, uh, Mr. Jones has already approved some parent briefings in conjunction with
035our office, uh, and the attorney general's office, the ICAC, the internet crimes against children. Uh, operation are going to do parent briefings on nihilistic violent extremism 764 movements. A horrible movement online that threatens our kids every single day. We work these cases almost every day. At least continuously where kids have been exposed to it, uh, and the biggest, the easiest way to win that battle, the biggest fight is in the home. So get these parents involved, teach them what to look for, tell them what language to listen for, the dinner table. They're going to find out way before we do. This I'm always trying to sexually extort a student or, or worse. There's other, uh, other activities that go on there. So it gives us the ability to improve our decision making speed. It's the
036old U - de - loop, decision loop that we talk about and special operations world. Our whole goal is to stay ahead of people who would do students and staff harm in that decision loop. And Cliff said he would fire me if I didn't have a puppy. Somewhere in the presentation. There's your puppy. But the bottom line is, if you look at it. As a support unit, we get that we are a support unit. Our mission at theory County School District is not Safety and Security. The security division does one thing. It just tries to let the school district be the school district. We're supposed to be sort of invisible. Maybe, but sort of in the background running like a, like an app on your phone in the background, always churning, but not getting in
037the way of teachers. I can assure you none of our investigators go to the schools and tell the principles about bell schedules or assessment methodology or history or anything else. We try to run in the background. But we have turned. Or we county schools writ large has turned. The security function into a service unit. That provides investigation work, safety, deterrence, all of that in the background. And we step into the school when we need to, to be the physical determine. So we do screen everybody, uh, we don't search everybody, but we do screen everybody. We're very tight. I'd be interested to see a school district that screens more thoroughly and more efficiently than we do. The clear backpack piece we've explained is an important piece of that because of the secondary searches. We're not saying
038that we've never claimed the clear backpacks or the magic ticket to safety, but they are an important piece of those secondary searches when you've got 49 - ish thousand students to clear and about 10 percent of those surgeons. That's a lot of searches our teachers do a phenomenal job in 40 minutes or less getting these folks in the school. We drill and prepare the security unit works with the Safety AP at every school to make sure they go over the plan every year. Uh, and there are a lot of drills built in monthly. And everybody gripes about drills. I grabbed the bed them in the military. Everybody gripes about drills. But then when something happens and it's muscle memory, you go, no, that's why we do it every single month. Uh, and the bottom, the
039last item there, the great relationships with law enforcement. Uh, school districts across the state I talked to them all the time. I talked to the me at school districts all the time. There's a varying level of interaction between law enforcement local law enforcement and school districts. We have a very good set up here. Almost without fail. Uh, we've got folks we can call any agency any hour of the day or night. And more importantly, they call us. I got to call it six o'clock this morning to give me a heads up on a problem that was heading our way to actually head and tore missile. And, uh, they were already talking to me about it at 6 a. m. because she was in the lobby of one of the precincts, you know, talking about it.
040So, uh, with that type of relationship, he goes back to the time component, right? We're further and further left on the timeline. We get ahead of problems before. It's too late. So that's pretty much the super high view of the eight million moving pieces we've got. We've moving parts we've got back there with all entertain, obviously any questions anybody. Ms. Hodges has a question. Yes, ma'am. Um, yes, it's more of a statement. Um, I am so thrilled to hear this because you're a proactive. You're knowledgeable. Your expertise. Your connections with the community. But most of all, trust. I can trust you. We can all trust you. And that makes our jobs so much better because there were times that I did not have trust. But with you, it is 110 percent. And I know that
041if something happens in the school that you have already taken care of it before it becomes an issue. And that makes our jobs so much better because we're only as good as the people in the school district. And I appreciate everything that you do because, because you really have taken us to a new level to ensure safety and safety is first. But the trust that we have in you because you have always come through and you've always been truthful and you've been direct and you've been proactive. And that is a true winner. Plus you've got a dog. So that helps too. We appreciate that. And I will say briefly that one of the things with the folks that we've hired, they've all been chiefs and senior folks at Police Departments, police formers operate on trust.
042You can't be an occupying force as a police. You can't be a successful police department if you're an occupying force. So they get it. Our relationship with principles. We've got four investigators that were assigned regionally. And they've each got their 15 - ish school. They are responsible for the care and feeding of those 15 principles. And it was different initially. It is different now. They, they have good relationships by and large. The principles will call with questions. That was not the case when we first set up. They'll call and get input. That's, that's the sign that you built. Like we feel like we build a relationship. The guys in the field really take the credit for that. Because I don't have time to deal with 50 on the, it's great. I mean, we are so
043happy with, with the job and the performance. And we just trust you completely. And that's everything. We appreciate it. Thank you. Ms. Allen, do you have a question or comment? Mike, I was to great presentation. Thank you. Um, I was just wondering if there was a place where board members, if they would like could sign up to take care of the dog for you for a week. Uh, probably not because we already had one minor international incident. Our admin and those animals. And she tried to feed a little treat to the animal. The dog handler is getting weird about that because that's a key piece of their training. So again, lay folks don't understand. We'll do that. Very specifically, James. So we can see him. Oh, no. We can definitely do a meet and greet.
044He's a friendly. He's a fuzzy, mostly Belgian yellow dog with one ear that's a little off. Likes to Mickey put his paws up on. He's not ever been a work in go. He's like sniff animal like a pet type. And so he's super safe around kids. He's not, uh, now he's a, he's a dog trained to hunt. So he likes to put his nose down. He might sniff around your ankles aggressively, but he won't. So I can take him dove hunting. I wouldn't advise that. We will. Maybe before I'm eating. In Cueming weeks, we'll have like a little pooch. Thank you. Mr. Cook. Mr. Frederick Family's presentation. Thank you. A lot of good information in there. I appreciate it. Um, as a board member and a parent of a child in the school system, I
045tell you, I do appreciate you in the past two years. We have seen such growth in our, you know, the entire security and safety, the feel. In our schools. The officers are very professional. Uh, the officers truly care. The officers interact with the students all the time. Um, watching, uh, when I, when I am dropping off, when I'm in a, in a line and I see one of the SSOs walking the perimeter before he comes back to get on his post, you know, just buzzing all the way around. It's just, I'm just like, things that we had never seen before. Visiting in the mornings and seeing that second layer, um, in action, in watching how smooth it is now, compared to when we started this a couple of years ago, um, the training, the professionalism
046of those teachers. Is there, you know, going through, it's just, it's fantastic. Um, the kids are still, they're just flying through. I don't, you know, the problems. The open gates are always set right, which they're not, you know, the hospitals, by the way. Sometimes you can go into a hospital. I'll watch those things go bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and nobody's doing anything about it. But, um, you know, again, your relationship with local law enforcement again, that has stepped up. And, you know, that's nothing but, you know, kudos on that one. You know, I really appreciate that. If there's one question I would have, um, I think it would be, at least for me personally, I'd like to be around when we do a drill. Um, I used to do a lot of those when
047we were in the Navy and I just like to, I've always been a kind of a, one of those, what do they call them adrenaline chunkies? You know, I like to kind of see that stuff. But you know, if maybe we could be invited to, um, coming into a drill at some point in time. I would love to do that. Check my boss. He's pretty reasonable that we could do. Yeah. Yeah. Good job. And on the screening, I would like to say all credit just about goes to the schools. Our alert rate's been cut in half in the last year. And the alert rate, in other words, the AI alerting, that's the school is teaching the kids to quit with the three ring binders. Don't bring your eyebrow pen. Kids know what they're doing. Even
048the elementary. And so the schools have pushed and pushed and pushed based on the information that the regional investigator gives them. They've taught the kids and they've got the kids not waving the laptops. You know, staying away from the pylons. So our alert right now, they can get 10 students through before the decide search alert. That makes the entire process month. But that's, that's the school. That's the teachers and the principles. Nice. Working those morning screenings that make that happen. I mean, we're helping. But we're not out there screening 49, 000 kids. Good job. We appreciate you. Mr. Edmonds. Thank you so much. Um, ditto to what everyone said. But I think it's really even so fascinating that you alluded to is behind the scenes. So you have things going on every day. I mean,
049literally from six o'clock in the morning or whatever till 10 o'clock at night and all that nobody knows about, nobody sees, but they're set trust factor. And the professionalism, the attention to detail, but it also takes a strong leader. And we really do appreciate it. I appreciate that. But again, hazard out there doing it six in the morning. They started seven in the morning. They're at work for them. I'm usually out of the genome. It takes someone leading the pack, you know, and it does. And it's a wonderful thing. And I can guarantee you every single parent in this district is grateful for the investment, the board made. Um, and for the great hire in finding you to come on board and lead this effort for us and know that we are as safe as
050we possibly can be. So thank you. Mr. Edwards. I got one quick question on the strategics. The buzzers. Have we had a lot of accidental things happen yet? You mean accidental alerts? Inadvertently. Find a lot. We've had some inadvertent alerts, but not. And Mr. Jones has some experience. I'd say they're not outside the range of what is normal in the first 90 days of real world. I mean, it's been what you've kind of expected. Oh, absolutely. And it's already tapered off greatly now that school, if the initial drills, they would just use the wrong drill that looked real. So it's kind of inadvertent but kind of no, but it's well within the range. Again, the schools took to the training and did what they had to do. It's going to be a, when you have
0516, 700 employees, it's going to be a learning curve. But it was much easier than, uh, Cliff had to taught me off the ledge a couple of times. I had visions of, you know, cause it, because the cabinet gets alerted to every reel alert. And I just thought that could have gone south, but he didn't. So they're doing, they're doing a good job at schools. Certainly within the range of what I've heard from probably a dozen other similarly sized peers. We're probably below the, below the average. That's correct. And again, we thank you for your coordination of all these. Appreciate your support. We need the toys. They're just toys, but we need them. To get them to armed officers or expensive. Santiagous is expensive. The AI driven weapons detection is expensive. But it's, uh, it
052pays off. We appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Frederick. Next up, Board members, I have, um, enrollment update, just like we did last year, we brought, uh, Ms. Velna Allen probably three times throughout the year to give us an update. We're going to need to do that again. Uh, board members, um, you're aware of this, but maybe not the public, that we're down in terms of our, uh, enrollment against our forecasted enrollment. And so for the public, what does that mean. It means a couple of things. It means number one is, um, your teacher might have moved after the first day. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15 staff. Uh, in our district. Who were placed in positions that we had forecasted for. HR and the teacher and the principals had worked to fill.
053And next thing you know, the number of students that was forecasted for that amount of students didn't show up. But they sometimes showed up some other place. So to this board's credit, we didn't need to get rid of positions. We just had to shift staff around to make sure that they were in a place where allocations. I say all that because those aren't easy situations. Those aren't easy situations for the staff. Those aren't easy situation for the students and families. Um, and these are, these are hard decisions that have to be made. Uh, the other thing I'll tell you is that we've been monitoring. We're going to get a little data on this tonight. Um, we are in a competitive market. So I need us to take that in as a community and a board.
054Uh, we now have competition to the K - 12 public system. Sometimes, and we've been familiar with this one. It's been homeschooled or private school, but now we have the increase of charters. And y'all heard me say this multiple times. I, uh, say welcome. Uh, I think competition actually makes us all better. Um, and we'll see who's there at the end of the day. Um, and so with that, you're going to notice some parents making decisions, what they feel is best for their kids, moving different kids around. Um, and, uh, that's part of this enrollment, uh, presentation as well. So with that, Ms. Dylan Allen. Thank you. Good evening. And thank you for allowing me to present this data. I will tell you what I'm presenting tonight. It's not what you received. Because I have
055made some changes. I found one type O, obviously the numbers didn't add up. So I've changed it. But I've also updated the tenths day enrollment. So if we'll look at that next slide, I'll show you that. This was a comparison that we did early on for Mr. Jones. Uh, didn't know we were going to share this one. So that last column has changed. I updated it instead of the first time we pulled the data was on the 10th day, but it was in the middle of the day, early that morning. I have updated to show where the other data would have occurred. And that would have been at the end of the day. We actually didn't pull it to the 11th day of school. But I can tell you from experience, those numbers you see
056in the right column are incorrect. Because there's still changes being made. And you're probably wondering, Hey, 10th day has passed. How can there still be changes? Well, I'll give you a couple of examples just so you can see that we have already encountered. Let's say for example we had a student who attended the entire first week of school. And then he missed the next five days of school. Our data quality clerks, our attendance clerks, they reach out. We require them to make three attempts to contact the parent. So they've tried to contact the parent with no luck, but the child has attended a week. So we don't drop him. He's still in our 10 day enrollment. Finally, the parent calls us back and said, no, he did a 10. You're right. He attended the first
057five days, but we decided withdraw him and move him in homeschool him. So we backdate and go back to the first day he missed, which would have been the sixth day in this scenario. And we would count him as not enrolled. But that may have just happened this week. It may have happened today or it may have happened on Friday. So that data is still a working progress. But it's converging on the real number. We're getting closer and closer. Another example we could have had a child who did not attend at all the first 10 days of school. Our first nine days of school. On the 10th day, we had a substitute teacher at that elementary classroom. And she did not mark that boy absent. If he shows up, we don't withdraw the student. So
058he would not have been withdrawn. But then when the real teacher comes back the next week and says, wait a minute, this kid's still not attending, but he's still, he's still showing active. Then we would go back and backdate him not from the 10th day, but from the first day of school. So those are still eras that we're cleaning up. And I take up for our data quality clerks and our attendance clerks because not only are they enrolling students and withdrawing students and trying to call parents, trying to get new schedules for the kids who come in. There's a lot going on in those first 10 days. But in just another week, we should have everything ironed out. So I did want to let you know the numbers you see here are our most updated.
059Until we do it again, this end this week. But if you look at it, you will see some trends. You will see that we in 23, 24, we saw an increase in 24, 25. And then you see us start sliding back down and losing students. And that's probably the one thing I would point out to you. We have had discussions. We've had discussions with Mr. Jones. We've had discussions in my department and we're learning services about the trends, what may be causing this. So just want to let you know we are looking at that. Hopefully that will help us make predictions moving forward for years to come. On the next slide, this is where I have to apologize. I had a typo on my enrollment day 10, the sum, I cut and paste and I
060had the same number twice. And it was incorrect. But this does show you the fourth day, the first time we looked at it, the 10th day when we looked at it, you can see the projections there. And you can see the number of students we were down at this given point in time. So we are still monitoring that. Like I said, and we'll update these as, um, as data becomes available. On the next slide, this is something that you had asked me for last year. So I followed the same slide format as I did last school year. These are students who are new to Ori County schools. It's not all gloom and doom. We didn't just lose students. We also gained 2, 268 students. Those first 10 days. Now I do feel like it's important
061here to tell you this is grades one through 12 only because remember our CD students, not every child. Not every four year old attend CD. So every child who didn't attend last year would have been considered a new student if I had count them in this day. And then also if they didn't attend CD, but they're now in kindergarten, that kindergarten student would be brand new. So we decided just like we did last year to look at students in grades one through two, a one through 12, excuse me. And we have enrolled 2, 268 in those first 10 days. And there's a breakdown there. So you could see, uh, where the growth was by grade level. One through five six through eight. School students. Also remember, cause some of this data is confusing. It even
062confusing to me. But let's just say for example we had a student who attended or let's say he was homeschooled last year, but he attended with us the year before. But because he never attended an Ori County schools last year, he would be counted as a brand new student to us. So these are students that did not attend an Ori County schools during the 25, 26 school year. But it is possible they have been with us previously. Okay. Not even maybe the year before that it could have been. We have students who attended with us like in second grade and they rejoin us back in 10th grade. So it's a big span of time. But that's how we defy them. All right. If you look on the next slide, this is also information that you
063had asked for last year. So what we did is we look at how many students had been withdrawn in those first from day one to day 10. And I did pull this date at the end of day 10. But again, I'm sure it's off slightly. And we'll update that as we get more accurate data. But you can see there were 2, 355 students who were withdrawn. And I have it broken down there elementary middle and high. Okay. Out of those 2, 355 that were withdrawn, a separate category. We're showing that 908 students moved out of Ori County. And y'all, the main way we get that is two ways. Sometimes, hopefully, eventually we'll get on all of them. We get our records request. The school where they're now attending, ask us to send us their records.
064But at this point, we haven't received all the records requests because some schools across the nation or outside of the United States may not have started school yet. So, um, if we were able to make contact with a parent and the parent says he moved to California with his dad, that student is counted in this number as having left Orey County. Out of those 908 students who left Ori County, we found out that there were a hundred of those 908 that are out of the country. Out of those hundred, none of them were previously a foreign exchange student. And remember that program is for one year only. So those nine students spent their year here in our schools and now have gone back to their native country. But like I said, that means there's 91
065that are reported they're living out of the country. Some have even indicated they may return. But at this point, that's where we are. And then out of, um, the other students that we've looked at, we've determined that there was 1, 182 who's either gone into a charter school or private school, virtual school, homeschool or adult education. And they're still at the time of this day that there was still 265 that we have not had any response. And we have no idea where they are at this point. But we will continue to try to locate them. So that slide. And then the last slide, and this is because I was asked last year. So out of those 1, 182, um, who remained in Orie County, but they're attending a charter school, private school, virtual school, or
066they indicated homeschool. I took the ones that we looked at last year that opened last year, the Discovery School Atlantic Collegiate, coastal high school, Carolina Shores, acceleration Academy. Those, I just to compare some from what we saw last year. So there's the numbers who have reported to be in there. This year we know the bottom three are new programs in Ori County. And so I thought you might want to see those, how many students have left for those new programs? Now I will tell you, there are lots of homeschool programs. There's too many to put, it would take 10 slides to just list everything that's been turned in. But these are just of the ones. And any of them that you want to ask me about, you want me to check on. I'll be glad
067to send that data. But this is kind of what we shared last year. And we will continue to update this as we analyze the data. And that concludes my presentation. Mr. James, we'll send this if your life. Let me too. Ms. Allen, thank you for the presentation. I know when you present numbers and I have a question, you're probably cringing. So I'll try to make it real simple. I think it was in 2023, we had a consultant come in and gave us some projections based on a maturing community, a saturation in terms of building. And also talking about options. And we've also seen the legislative enforcement factors that influence some of our communities. How do we compare. Three years later with what our consultant told us to compare? We've actually had that conversation. And I
068hate to say it because, and I'll be honest, when that consultant was here at that, you lost his mind. I was in the same. But I think we both may be wrong. So he was actually correct. It appears to be, it does appear just from preliminary data, don't hold me to this. Uh, but it appears that like the birth rate is, has decreased. We don't have as many kindergartners as we did. And that has been happening. But, and I've talked with several people about this. And this is just my opinion, but as you see those kindergartens come up and they go through the elementary. Now we see it in the middle school. So if everything holds, I think we'll start seeing it in the high school over the next three years. Cause you think about
069we had low class size. It's got to move through our system. Right. So it does appear to be true. Okay. Well, I'll have to admit, I was skeptical. I was reporting. In fact, I debated with him regarding regarding the numbers. But I'll try to give credit where credit was due. I think his numbers may be something we need to consider. And to that point Mr. Chairman and board members, I do feel like it's important for us now to rehab not only have a look back at that report, but maybe even dive a little deeper with some help. Uh, so that maybe we can reset some of our forecasts based, especially on the charter, uh, because that was really hard to predict three to five years ago. Um, and it might be worth having a second
070or third eye come back and have a look at that. Ms. Hodges. And with that being said, so when we look at neighborhoods, because I know, let's say we have a neighborhood of 500 homes, you might have 25 students. So when we look back at that, will we have that broken down by detail? Because most of our new developments do not have a lot of children coming into the area. Some of the most eye - opening data that I have seen reflects that fact. Right. And I know that has historically been the case, even like when the neighborhood five years ago. When to 18 houses, one to 20 houses and some neighborhoods has one school age child. So to your point, Ms. Hodges, yes, we need to go back and look at that. Because not
071only are our new subdivisions looking different than maybe we have projected, even some of our existing subdivisions that we had projected to have school age children in there might not have them anymore based on the resales and some other things that are going on. Right. That's true. I think in our, in our HOA windy and I are in the same HOA, I think we have 135 homes and I don't have one child. One child. Out of all those houses. I may have seen one or two. I know. Ms. Wellen's? Yeah. Cliff along those lines, I think it would be beneficial for us to also, or you and your team to also look at. Getting the word out. On the benefits of public education and all the great things going on in Oriente County schools and
072all the great programs that these students, you know, have an opportunity to enroll in. We've got a seller selves. You know, Ms. Wellens, that's a, that's the next stage of being proactive. We heard a report previous to this one about being proactive. What we can do a lot of proactive things and be and tell our story. But there's businesses out there. And there's models out there that sometimes we don't even think to look and maybe replicate. Because this, we're beyond the time and education to replicate education. That time's over. We have to be able to think about who's able to tell their story in a different market, in a different place to get the eyes of people in a way that's new and bring them in. Another fact is that high school age children in
073this report, we were actually up. From the forecast. I'm not going to tell you causation, but I would argue correlation. When we start to offer programs, people send their kids to us. And so that might be something else besides the marketing that maybe we look at programming in the elementary and middle school grades where we notice a real decline. Because giving parents an option too is something that I feel like we have a lot of room to grow it, especially at the early grades. Does that conclude your. Subs? Where would we see the students who have withdrawn from the charter schools that we fall under Ori County School District. We don't get that information. If I understand your question correct, like if a student left us and went to a charter school and never came
074back to us, well, like if one of our, well, give one of the students left, Orie County Schools and went to POM charter. We have that. That is on that first slide where it says charters. That palm is one of our charters. On that very first year. Back to that slide, please. Lucas, I think it's the one after the time. One, there you go. Those numbers at the bottom, those are our four charters. And Ori County. And we can get, um, the community and you all list of by our four charters there in roll. Yes. I would have the same period. I didn't break that out, but we can. We have that. We do have that. That's also housed in power school. Thank you. I'm glad to get you Ms. Allen. Appreciate that report. Mr.
075Chairman, that concludes the Superintendent submit. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Superintendent and thank you, Stan, for that information. It was very beneficial. We appreciate all the hard work. And now I think Ms. Bones has a motion. Yes, I'd like to make a motion to move to executive session for potential sale of property information. Second. In Faber CI. Aye. Who's like sign hearing none. We're adjourned to executive session. That was a good one. Okay, Melanie, do you have something to say? Yes, I would like for it to be noted that no decisions were made and no votes were taken during executive session and make a motion we adjourn board work session called meeting second on that fair say aye Those likes I'm hearing none that's going to business. Mr. Rich. Good evening chairman Cox vice chair
076Wellen's board members and Superintendent Jones at our last meeting was shared a request from Principal McCullough at Loris High School for National Competition Funding as per our procedures. And the materials provided to you for our meeting tonight You'll see that we are moving forward with the request. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time. Questions I make a motion we move forward with the request for the last high school on the Fair say aye Okay Leanne. Put 2, 000 dollars in that account out of mine. We're not going to use the machines I guess on this one. We got we already did that let's keep rolling Thank you guys very much appreciate your Okay. So now we have Advisory Board members Ms. Edmonds. Are you maxed out or do you
077have one. I do not have on right now. Thank you. Mr. I have one sir. I would like to recommend for appointment AOM Martha Grayson for two - year term. She has one child in Waterway Elementary and one in North Motor Beach Middle School. Second. Favor say ayes like sign hearing none Let's see who else has one. Mr. Chairman I moved to reappoint Tiffany Roderick to the Sakisti Advisory Board for an additional two - year term with the term expiring in 2028 And I moved to reappoint Audra Bird to the Sakistee Advisory Board for an additional one - year term with that term expiring in 2027. Okay. I'll second it there say aye son hearing none that was one or not Anybody else. All good okay we need to prove the motion to pray the
078consent. Move to approve Mr. Chairman Second on Pharis Aye Pose likes on hearing none we need a motion to adjourn Yes Mr. Co. Mr. Coke Ms. Cook you got something to say first I do excuse me now I'm I'm in trouble. So aforementioned I would like to read a statement about Ms. Jackie Stanley. Apologize. Mr. Ms. Jackie Stanley devoted her life to Orie County Schools in public education. In 1975 Ms. Stanley became an educator with Orie County schools and taught in North Myrtle Beach Area where she lived for a number of years in 1987 Ms. Stanley was named the Ori County Schools teacher of the year and was a top five finalist for teacher of the year for the state of South Carolina. Ms. Stanley served three years as principal at Myrtle Beach Middle School
079and was a leader at PD Elementary School. She served in several roles at the District Office where she not only assisted children and families in need, but also led mentoring initiatives for teachers principles District administrators and other staff members. Ms. Stanley's legacy will continue through the lives that she touched the educators that she inspired in many students she served. At this time I would like to ask that tonight's adjournment being Ms. Jackie Stanley's honor and memory for the 45 years of educational leadership and service to countless children families former and present teachers and staff members as well as the communities she touched through Ori County. Please continue to keep the Stanley family in our thoughts and prayers. Thank you. I believe some members have something to say to some other members have anything. I hear
080none is We will adjourn that in her memory and in her honor as well 45 years is amazing and we have a second on the Fair say aye Those like sign were adjourned. Y'all do your service.