Board Work Session 08-10-2026

001Hello everybody and welcome back. Here we go again. The mic's not on. Am I on? No, not quite. I'm not saying that again. Okay, Test. Okay, thank you. Once again, welcome to our new school year. So glad all of you are here. Before we get started, I'd like to ask Miss Winters if she would do the invocation and prayer. Please bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening thanking you for the dedication of all staff. We ask your blessing on all our Horry County School families. We ask that you calm all of our hearts and minds. As we are stepping forward into the 2026-2027 school year. And it's in your heavenly name we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

002the Republic for which it stands, one nation Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Tracy. Please be seated. Okay, I need an approval of the agenda. So moved, Mr. Chairman. All in favor say aye. Aye. Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, I meant to do it before we got the agenda. No, you're fine. I would like to request that at the adjournment for tonight that it be in honor and memory of Mr. Leroy Bo Rainbow Jr., who was from Conway, and he passed away on August the 2nd. And, um, before tonight's adjournment, I would like to just say a few words, um, about him and his career with our school district. That would be perfectly fine, Miss Graham. Thank you. Now we need an approval of the minutes. Second. All in favor say

003aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Hearing none, we'll move into discussion. Mr. Jones is on you. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Cox, board members. It's great to see everyone. The next item on our agenda is to propose board meeting schedule for the '26-'27 academic year. This schedule reflects our standard practice of meeting twice monthly with adjustments made for two possible retreats in March and April. These retreat dates would allow us to go deep in with other topics related to literacy, programming, governance, policy, strategic planning, and budget. This is a recommended update to the calendar already approved by South Carolina statute in January by this board. The calendar submitted to you by staff has been scanned for any conflicts, including holidays, school breaks, graduation, and other key district events, where we've ensured alignment with budget timelines and

004major academic reporting schedules. Once approved, the schedule will be posted to the public and shared with our schools and community partners. Discussion, comments, discussion? Okay, we're all good. No, I have a question. You have a question? Yes, sorry, trying to get back in the swing of things. Request to talk. Um, I would just like to ask if our September 30th retreat has any certain agenda, and if not, if it's needed. Well, thank you for that question, um, Miss Wellens. Staff has already created a calendar of topics related to what needs to be covered, and currently staff does not have need for that date. So there's nothing that's pending for September 30th. It's an open date for the board and the community. Thank you. Any more questions, comments? Questions? So it can be removed? It can

005be. It's just a placeholder. Right. Good. Okay. Perfect. Continue, please. Okay. Item B is monitoring report, the annual work plan. Board members, discussion item BGC6, annual work plan for the 26-27 school year. This plan outlines all of the board's required monitoring for the year, including the necessary and historical operating reports and surveys that support our governance model. Provides a clear timeline for transparent and in compliance with our policies. I think it's important to note that the staff will continue to utilize this reporting structure. Questions? Okay. All right, uh, Item C is the monitoring report OE2. So, board members, the next item is the OE2 emergency superintendent succession policy. This policy ensures continuity of leadership in the event that I'm out of town, especially now as a member of the executive committee for the South Carolina

006High School League in Columbia, or unexpectedly unable to fulfill my duties. In alignment with that policy, I'm recommending that Mr. Ben Prince be named as my designee for the 26-27 school year. Mr. Prince's leadership acumen makes him well prepared to step in if needed, ensuring stability and consistency for our school staff and community. Comments, questions? Hearing none, I'd ask Miss Allen to please come up. Monitoring report OE-11, discipline, I think. Thank you, Chairman Cox, Vice Chairman Wellens, and board members. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about the OE-11 report. You should have received that information. It looks like it has looked for the past several years but just a few observations about this. If you look at it, a couple of things have happened. One, we opened two new elementary schools. So

007when we opened two new elementary schools, obviously that affected five of our schools, the two that opened and the other three that we, we pulled students from. So you saw a big change in the discipline for those three that lost students. So I wanted to point that out. A second thing that I want to point out is, and I, I mentioned this almost every year, that anytime we have a change in leadership at a school, whether it's the principal or whether it's an assistant principal, a change in leadership, we usually either see a spike in disciplinary infractions or we see a tremendous decline, uh, one way or the other. And that has been true ever since we've worked with this report. The other thing you notice, there was a, uh, decrease in student enrollment last

008year. So obviously if we have less students, we could expect a decrease in our our disciplinary infractions, and that is true. But we also believe if you look at it, it's not proportional. So not only did the enrollment affect our disciplinary infractions, I truly believe looking at some of our schools who have implemented PBIS, which is a positive behavior intervention program, and our counseling that we are providing through the RBHS services and through Care Solace, I do believe we're seeing a difference, a slight difference in those two programs and others that are helping us reward students for good behavior as opposed to punishing them when there is an issue. And then also, you probably noted that evidentiary hearings were slightly down in middle and high schools, which is good. We're not taking as many students

009to hearings. However, the expulsion rate went up just slightly, but they did go up in those two areas. The number of appeals hearings to the school board also went down slightly, but truthfully, we've not had a high number of those cases or those situations that come to you. You hear very few during the year. And while it's not singled out in the data, in these data that you have with us, one thing that we noticed in student affairs is we are seeing an increase in one particular area, and that particular area is vaping. And vaping. I'm talking about not just vaping with cigarettes. I'm talking about that contains some type of drug such as THC. And because of that, we are— we have developed a vape task force that will be— we— that are— they've

010already— excuse me— they've already been meeting and looking at that. But we will continue that. We've tried. We're piloting a few things. We're looking at different resources. And certainly we will be back before this board to let you know how that is going. One thing we talked about earlier today that I think it's worth noting is that, you know, we do this report one time a year, and you only see this data one time a year. So we're hopeful throughout the year as we make presentations or we come before the board, we're going to show you snapshots of this data throughout the year, and then we can have this one report as a finished product next year. That way you're not caught off guard and you only see it one time of year. But also

011to let you know, because the questions always come up, what do we do and what does this data tell us and what do we do in student affairs? Well, we have lots of interventions that we have and that we work with our administrative team, and these are in no certain order, but what we do every Tuesday, our administrators, assistant principals and principals get what we call Tuesday Tips. Those Tuesday Tips are based on things we saw that weren't quite right the week before, or maybe a policy wasn't followed, or something looks out of whack. So we do that every Tuesday. We've been doing that for years. It's based on what we see. So that is one thing. We also provide professional development. During the launch days, we had 5 different sessions from Student Affairs just

012on discipline, disciplinary infractions, how to handle them, what administrators should do, because we do have new administrators every year. We also provide one-on-one training to our staffs when we— our staff members when we see the need to do that. And what we do every year, and I think I shared this with you last year as well, at the beginning of the year we take this data that you saw— you see here as individuals, we print that out by assistant principal. We do a report in an Excel spreadsheet and we provide that to every principal so they can compare. What's going on in their building. They get this generic report so they can see how they stack up against other schools, but they don't see the individual information for each other's school, just theirs. So those

013are some things that we do to help identify problems and address concerns. And so that's the OE-11 report. Does anybody have any questions? I have one, please. Go ahead. Um, do each of our high school bathrooms have smoke alarms, vape alarms or something. Remember when we visited Georgetown and each of the bathrooms had those alarms that would go off if someone were smoking, vaping, whatever in them? We do not have that in every high school at this time. We actually tested it in several schools. I think there's 3 total now. St. James, Myrtle Beach, and Conway. We have 3 that have those in the bathrooms and not in every bathroom, but we were trying it to see what kind of data we got, if we thought it would be an effective way to curb vaping.

014Do you feel like they were effective in those schools? Yes and no. Okay. One, and I'm just being honest with you, one of the things we heard from the 3 schools is what it does, it sends a text message or an email to the assistant principal. Well, if you're dealing with another incident, you can't, you just can't say stop right here, I got to go get this vape, right? And so We still feel like there were times that it went off that we were not able to address. So we're working through some of those issues too. Maybe have a designated assistant principal for that. We don't know yet. And Miss Edmonds, that is one thing that the vape task force will be looking at is the type of systems that you just described. Okay, thank

015you. Mr. Cook. And then Miss Nelson. Miss Velma, welcome back. No, you've been working on— welcome, welcome me back now. But this is, this is great. It's a really good report. Obviously, um, you Knowing me, I'm going to highlight on this vape thing a little bit. I would like to have— I know that this is a once-a-year deal, as you said. I would really like to see maybe even just an email update monthly of what's going on with that task force, what kind of initiatives and resources that you're working with. Sure, if you don't mind. Absolutely, we can do that. We'll send it through Mr. Jones's update. Thank you, Dave. Miss Dawson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Superintendent, if you and/or Miss Allen might address a little further— we heard a

016little bit about, uh, training that has taken place for administrators to ensure that they are informed, but it's my understanding we do have a set cadre of discipline codes throughout the district. I guess my concern is to make sure that we have training in place, that the administration of those discipline codes are consistent from school to school across the entire district. District, could you elaborate a little more about that? Certainly. So, um, board members, we have a tiered system just like many other school districts. We have 3 tiers in our, in our district. Those 3 tiers, you can go on the website right now and look at the definitions. To Miss Dawson's point, the application of those disciplinary, uh, vocabulary when it relates to incidents can sometimes— there's a lot of leeway there, right? And

017so what might seem to the public as maybe some, some things that don't look either fair or equal, um, there has to be a lot of common language and a lot of training that goes into it. And then being able to explain to parents, here's what this was and here's what this wasn't and still be within the realm of privacy laws, right? So I can't tell you exactly what the person next to me did, but I can just tell you in general, here's what we do and here's the consequence. And I will tell you that as a superintendent and former building leader, those conversations are tough. They're tough for a couple of reasons. Number one is there's subjectivity baked into this. On purpose, and oftentimes the parents in the community feel that and see it,

018right? And so they want answers. They do. That's real. The second thing is to make sure that that subjectivity is based on the intent that it was put into the code, not other adult, you know, not other means. So that goes to training, that goes to making sure clarity is not only explained in the administrative handbook, which we just released to schools so that they understand what behavior X equals, but it also means that we can explain to parents in a very clear, concise way what these three tiers mean and what behavior we're addressing. So to, to Miss Dawson's point and to the community's point, we do a lot here with trying to define these terms, trying to train around these terms, and know that also we can't always tell you all the information that

019you are wanting to know from us. As a follow-on, I guess the main point that I'm making is that our teachers and our students deserve to know that they are supported in having uninterrupted learning time in the classroom. We have a lot of students who can be disruptive, and we need to make sure that there are ongoing incremental consequences for disruptive behavior. 24 students in a class should not have to suffer the consequences of the one repeated disruptive students. And I want our teachers, our parents, and our students to know that I believe this board fully supports the superintendent and staff in making sure that our dis— disciplinary matrix is followed and that there are incremental consequences with, of course, the latitude required by judgment of the administrator. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. James.

020Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Allen, just an observation. When I look at the data, and I won't name the school, but there was over a 300% increase in the disciplinary counts from one year to the prior year. In that same school, we saw significant academic improvements. So I do believe having a structured environment with consequences aids in enhanced academics. So thank you for providing these, this data. I think that's a reassurance to everyone that, you know, we are still focused on academics, but we want to do it in a structured way. So thank you for sharing. Thank you. Any more questions? I have one. Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I just want to make one comment, um, that I too thankful for this information and, and, um, just, just noticing just the first,

021um, graph, if you will, where the district behavior count, um, looking at about 71,000 from last year to, to 2025-26 has dropped about 60. That's about a 16.5% increase in I mean decrease, and so I don't think that's just from the students themselves. I think our teachers and administrators have probably gotten better training and applied it more consistently with that large of a decrease. That's just my opinion. I would agree with that. Mr. Higgins. Just one quick thing, Val, and I've seen a lot of discipline data over the years. One thing that I think we miss out on sometimes is the percentage of students who don't have any discipline referrals. I would love to see that information because a lot of the things you see here, a lot of repeat offenders, and when you have

022repeat offenders, it kind of skews it more. But I think we have a high percentage of kids that never have a discipline referral each year, and I think that's something that we need to, to track and celebrate too at each school. We will pull that data and we can send that to you because we did talk about that. My team did. And you're right. Or the number— we may even send you this too. We talked about this, the number of students that the only disciplinary infraction they had was a tardy. A tardy. A level 1 offense. Yeah, a level 1. And everybody, all of us, we're all going to be tardy at some point here or there. So we will be glad to get you that information. It is reassuring and makes me feel better.

023And for parents too, to know that It's not everybody misbehaving. Absolutely. We will get you that information before the week is out. Good point. Any more questions? Hearing none, we thank you, Miss Allen. Ask Mr. Prince to come up for OE 13 facilities. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members, and Mr. Jones. I appreciate the opportunity to stand before you tonight and update you on our quarter 2 OE 13 reports. There are a total of 20 reports in the packet of information that I share with board members. I wanted to begin by reporting that we do not have any projects that are labeled final reports. We anticipate one final report when we have our quarter 3 reports, and at that time I'll give you more in— information as to how those, uh, projects

024closed out. The 20 reports I have reported, uh, provided to the board focus on other ongoing projects. We are pleased with the overall success of these projects at this point, and we will continue to provide updates to the board as necessary. We continue to highlight our ongoing capital projects with our Building on the Penny banners that are placed on sites throughout the county. Our goal is to inform the public and serve as a reminder of our gratitude for their support for our local penny sales tax. Thank you for your continued support, and I'm happy to take any questions at this Mr. James. Mr. Prince, just one quick question. Are there any projects that are delaying the start of school in terms of there's not going to be any of the facilities available for use by

025the students? No, sir, we do not have any situations. We met last week to finalize that in case that came up, but no, sir, we do not have any issues right now. That's great news. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any more questions? Hearing none, I thank you, sir, and ask Mr. Genarette to come up. Proclamation of Constitution Week. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members, Mr. Jones. Constitution Week is a national observance to commemorate the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The local chapter, Theodore Roosevelt chapter of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution, usually each year requests that the district, issue a proclamation recognizing Constitution Week, which is September 17th through, um, September 23rd. So at your next meeting, I'll be bringing this forward for your approval of the proclamation for Constitution

026Week, September 17th through September 23rd. Are there any questions at this time? Hear any questions? Hearing none, I thank you, Mr. Genrette. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Consultant service, certainly. Discussion item G, As part of this year's budget, we allocated funding to engage a legislative representation to support Horry County Schools legislative and advocacy efforts. I sought quotes from two very reputable firms after analyzing both quotes and bring forward for discussion a recommendation to enter into a one-year agreement with McGuire Woods Consulting and evaluate the value of that partnership at the end of the legislative cycle. Before making another year-long commitment. The quote is attached, and I would expect the firm to deliver on these key deliverables. First, help coordinate meetings with our local legislative delegation and the Board of Education. Second is advocating for Horry County

027Schools legislative priorities throughout the session. Third is keeping district leadership and the board informed of proposed legislation and policy changes that could impact our schools and communities. And finally providing strategic guidance on state budgetary and educational issues that may develop over time. Questions? Mr. Cook. Mr. Superintendent, do you know, do you know if this organization is working with any other entities in Horry County? Yes, they are. In Horry County? Yes, sir. Any governmental agencies? Not that I'm aware of in terms of like cities or the county. Not that I'm aware of. I can verify that, but they are definitely working with other private corporations in this area. They working with any of our charter schools? I would have to get back to you on that. Okay, um, that's all. Okay, Miss Graham. Thank you, Mr.

028Chairman. Um, There are a lot of legislative issues that are coming through that we see on the state level, and they're very complicated. And we right now depend on the South Carolina School Board Association to help us to understand and sift through what it really means and how to address this. So I think it would be good for us in Horry County to have someone to help us specifically on our end to do that for us through some of these complicated issues. Um, and I think when I read through there that the board will be working with this consulting team to determine how we will work together to get the job done. Is that correct? That's correct. Is my— the one of the deliverables is to stand in front of this body, uh, and work

029with you all directly, not only to interpret what's coming down from Columbia, but also what your legislative priorities are so that they can take those to Columbia on your behalf. Okay. And was there anything about the cost of this in our presentation? The— I said it was in our budget. Okay, it's in the budget. Okay. You good, Mr. Edwards? Um, yes, I noticed that in the packet there was 3 members of their, of their team listed there, are those the only persons we'd be involved with? Those are our primary, uh, but they also have more people than that on their team, but those are the educational folks. So, so those are the partners basically, and then that we would see at that lecture? I got you. Thank you. Any more questions? Hearing none, we'd ask

030for the superintendent's report. Well, Chairman Cox and Vice Chair Wellens and board members, Horry County Schools Faculty and staff, as we begin tonight, I want to start with something that happened this weekend. It would be remiss if I didn't bring this forward today. Mr. Derek Moore. Mr. Derek Moore was visiting Myrtle Beach from DeKalb County, Georgia, and he was a physical education teacher at Rockbridge Elementary School in DeKalb County. Um, you know the value of a physical education teacher, especially a male, uh, at a, at an elementary. Well-liked. He was one who had a great reputation. And Mr. Moore did not know this, this child that he, he found that evening who was struggling with a rip current. But when he saw that child was in danger, he entered the water to help save her.

031Tragically, Mr. Moore lost his own life in that courageous act. So those of us in education often talk about what it means to put a child first. Mr. Moore demonstrated that commitment in the most profound way possible. When he saw a child who needed him, he stepped forward. As we prepare to begin a new school year, I can think of Nothing more powerful than a reminder of the impact educators have, not simply because of what they teach, because who in their heart they are. On behalf of Horry County Schools, I extend our deepest condolences to Mr. Moore's 4 children, his family, his colleagues, the students that he served with a servant's heart. And all the lives that he impacted. We honor his courage, his selflessness, and his extraordinary final act of putting kids first. It's

032hard to believe summer has already flown by, and we are just days away from welcoming students back for another incredible school year. As your superintendent, I want to take a moment to speak directly to our staff, to our parents, to our community, and how we can work together to make this year the best year yet. First, to our staff, thank you. Thank you for all the energy, all the preparation, all the commitment you bring to your classroom and schools every day. You are the heart of HCS. And our students thrive because of your dedication and your sense of purpose. I know you're ready to welcome them with open arms and high expectations and a positive learning environment because I was with you today in a couple of your locations, and there was an energy in

033the room. To our parents and our families, back-to-school season is an exciting time. It's also a time of transition that can be nerve-wracking. Now it's the time to help your child ease back into the school routine. One of the most important steps is making sure students are getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night. Even with the early mornings and the early bus pickups and all of the things that have to happen to get ready for the day, proper rest gives our students the energy, the focus, the emotional balance they need to succeed and what we ask of them when they arrive at our doors. Starting that schedule now will make the first week of school much smoother, so please do that. I also want to ask your partnership with setting some expectations. Before

034the first bell rings, please take a few minutes to talk with your child about these items, maybe around the dinner table the next couple of nights. Cell phones. Students should be prepared to learn without without, hear me, without their phones in use during the school day. This keeps our classrooms focused and distractions to a minimum. How about we commit right now to go ahead and put the phones down? Let's just put the phones down 7 days before school starts so that we're ready to have school on day 1. Vapes, we've already heard about it tonight. You're gonna hear me talk about this often. Vapes are not allowed on any Horry County Schools campus, period. We are committed to keeping our schools safe, healthy, and drug-free. And have this discussion tonight with your child so there's

035no confusion later. Communication about academics. I got to throw this one in there. You might not have talked about this subject all summer, but ask your child how they will keep you As the parent informed about their— that's right, who's it belong to? Them. Their homework, their grades, their classroom behavior. Establishing a clear plan of communication early helps prevent surprises later on. And finally, I want to remind everyone in our community, whether you have a child in our school or not, and you're on the roads in Horry County, Bus safety. Please be patient during the first week of school. There's going to be delays on our streets. There just will be. So when the traffic patterns change, I, I plead with you to be patient. Give them time to settle. I need every driver in

036Horry County to make this commitment: never drive through a school bus stop arm. Period. Don't do it. When that stop sign— stop arm is out, a child may be crossing the road. Our students deserve to travel safely to and from school, and that requires all of us, the adults, to be alert, be patient— that's in bold— be patient and be proactive. So, board members, our students are gonna rise to the level to meet our expectations that we set around this dais. Let's remember that. Let's set 'em high for every child. Working together, schools, families, and community, we can make sure every child feels supported, safe, seen, and ready to succeed. So let's keep our expectations high. Let's take care of one another as a community, and let's have a great school year. This time I'd

037like John Washburn to come up and share some data, please. And as he comes to the lectern, it's hot off the press. I don't have all the sound effects, right? But it's hot off the press. We have some data from last year to present. And for another consecutive year, Horry County Schools students outperformed the state on every single state measure. Mr. Washburn is going to give us a little bit more detail than that. Go ahead. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, members of the board, Mr. Jones. As Mr. Jones said, I feel like a news reporter. I get some breaking news for you, so it's fantastic. Uh, tonight I want to provide you with a brief overview of our 25-26 state assessment results. I'll focus on 3 areas: SCReady English language arts and mathematics,

038our high school end-of-course examinations, and then career readiness. As we look at these results, I think the larger story is important. Our students continue to perform at a very high level, and in many areas we continue to outperform students across South Carolina. These results also represent an extraordinary amount of work by our students, teachers, principals, and school staffs. There are certainly areas where we need to continue to improve, and I'll point those out as we go along. But overall, there is a great deal here that Horry County Schools should be proud of. And so I'd like to begin with English language arts. This is one of the results I am most excited to share tonight. 67% of our students in grades 3 through 8 are now performing at or above grade level in English language

039arts. That's an increase of 3.2% points from last year, an approximately 15-point increase over the last 5 years. At the same time, the percentage of students in the lowest performing category has continued to decline. That's important because we're not simply seeing improvement at the top. We're seeing more students reach grade level expectations and fewer students remain in the does not meet category. And I think that provides encouraging evidence that the sustained emphasis we have placed on literacy is moving us in the direction that we want to go. That's particularly encouraging when we look at the improvements that are not isolated to one or two grade levels. And this may be the most encouraging part of our ELA story. Every grade level improved. From 3rd grade through 8th grade, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding

040expectations increased. On average, that's a 3.3-point increase across the 6 grade levels, with our largest gain occurring in the 6th grade with 6.1 points. I don't think we need to walk through every bar of this particular chart. The important takeaway for you tonight is the consistency of the improvement. 6 grade levels, 6 increases. That's a result worth celebrating. The 6 increases shown on the slide range from 0.9 to 6.1 percentage points with an average increase of 3.3. And this occurred during a year in which South Carolina itself posted its strongest SCReady results since the assessment began. As pleased as we are with the overall results, we also have to look beneath the district average. This slide is a good example of why. We continue to have achievement gaps among some of our student populations, and

041those gaps deserve our attention. But there is also encouraging movement within those groups. Our multilingual learners improved by approximately 6 percentage points over last year, and our African American students improved by approximately 4 points. Student poverty— students in poverty are now at 62% meeting or exceeding expectations, just 5 points below the district average. Our greatest challenge remains our students with disabilities, with 18% currently performing at or above grade level. So our message here is really twofold. Some important gaps are beginning to close, and we still have significant work ahead of us. Your continued support for the people and the programs and the resources serving these students will remain very important. Now turning to mathematics. Before looking at these results, there is an important piece of context. This was the first year of South Carolina's new

042mathematics standards and assessment. So we need to exercise some caution when making direct comparison with previous years. With that qualification, 52.5% of HCS students scored meets or exceeds this year, and the long-term trend in the lowest performing category continues to move in the correct direction. Mathematics remains an area where we have considerable opportunity for growth, but there are some very encouraging signs in these results, and we can see those signs more clearly when we look at each individual grade level. As you can see, the mathematics results are more mixed than what we saw in ELA. We had declines in grades 4, 5, and 6, while grades 3, 7, and 8 improved. But I particularly want to draw your attention to the right side of the chart. 7th grade increased 4.6 points, and 8th grade increased

0438.4 points over the previous year. That 8th grade improvement is especially noteworthy because the state, South Carolina, also reported particularly strong 8th grade mathematics growth over the last year. So as the state grew, we still grew even more. Overall, HCS averaged a 1.6 point increase across the 6 tested grade levels. So there is work to do, particularly in those middle grades you see on the chart there. But there is also some very positive indicators on which we can build. As with ELA, our overall mathematics averages do not tell the entire story. We continue to see meaningful gaps among several student groups. There are some encouraging year-over-year improvements, particularly among multilingual learners and African American students. But the differences between these groups and the district average remain substantial. Students with disabilities continue to represent our greatest

044area of need. These are, these are students we will continue to monitor closely, and this is an area where sustained instructional focus and support remain essential. Moving on to high school, we see another very positive story. Horry County School students outperformed the South Carolina average on every end-of-course examination this past year. English II had our highest passage rate of 87%, while biology and U.S. history continued positive trends. Algebra I requires some additional context because South Carolina changed the high school mathematics sequence this past year. Geometry with Statistics replaced Algebra I as the first high school mathematics course, which resulted in approximately 3,200 fewer Horry County school students taking the Algebra 1 End-of-Course Assessment. That means the population tested in Algebra 1 this year is substantially different from previous years, and the year-to-year comparison should be

045interpreted accordingly. This table puts those results into a broader context. I don't want to walk you through every number. Instead, I encourage you to look at the patterns. For each of the past 3 years, Horry County students have outperformed the state on every end-of-course examination. Every course, every year. I think that's an important indicator of the quality and consistency of the work occurring in our high schools. Algebra 1 is the obvious exception in terms of the, uh, year-to-year HCS trend, but as I just exchanged, uh, explained, the change in the state mathematics sequence makes that comparison different from the others. Overall, these are strong results., and our high school students and educators deserve to be recognized for them. Finally, I want to close with career readiness. State assessments matter, but ultimately our responsibility extends beyond

046performance on a test. We want our graduates prepared for what comes next. 80% of Horry County School students tested earned a career-ready credential in 2026. That's 8 percentage points above the statewide average of 72%. Horry County School students also outperformed the state in each of the 3 academic components shown here, which are math, data, and reading. And I think it's an appropriate place to end. These results have given us much to celebrate. They reflect students who worked hard, teachers who remained focused on instruction, administrators who supported that work at their schools, and many, many other staff members who contributed to their success. At the same time, the data shows us, shows us where gaps remain and where our attention must continue. The work isn't finished, but the direction is encouraging. The results are strong, and

047there's compelling evidence that Horry County Schools continues to provide an exceptional education experience for our students. And that concludes my presentation. I'll answer any questions if you have any. Press your button. Oh, sorry. Okay, never mind. Miss Edmonds. Thank you so much, Chairman Cox. Um, there is a lot to celebrate, right? And I think that one of the things, literally just one of the things I'm most excited about, is the high expectations, that we've raised the bar for all students to achieve, and that we are building our staff behind them, providing the training, the professional development to enable them and give them the tools to to be able to lift every student up. And that's exciting. And I know that we're going to continue to see these keep rising because those expectations are rising. And

048our leadership, our superintendent has just said, keep the bar high, push, raise it, raise it, challenge us to do the, you know, more than you think you can do. And I think that's, uh, that's a beautiful, wonderful thing. And we applaud every single one of you. Thank you, Mr. James. Mr. Washburn, just a question. As I look at that diagram, I see the state scores from year to year decreasing. I also see Horry County Schools decreasing and rebounding in a couple areas, but the gap between the state and us may have increased. So put this in context, are we really doing better than we used to? Yes. Or because, uh, I look at reading, yes, but I look at some of the data, you know, 76, 76, reading 77, 77. Are we really making that

049big a gain? That's what I'm trying to grasp my hands around. There's been a couple of different pieces to that puzzle. As a matter of fact, over that 3-year period of time, the assessment has actually changed as well. We went from the WIN assessment to the South Carolina Career Readiness Test. That was one component of it. We've also been very strategic in working with our students and providing them with some curricular information that will also help them with these particular parts of these tests. So I think the combination of what's been going on in the general core classroom work, which all of that work is reflected here as well, you're seeing all of those pieces of the puzzle kind of come in under a different umbrella of career readiness versus just straight academic performance. But

050absolutely, there's all of that data is exactly what it looks like. Any more questions? Hearing none, Mr. Jones. I have a question. Oh, you do? So does Mr. Rickens. With the SCLA, there were significant gains in middle school, and we know that middle school can be challenging. So when looking at those significant gains, in all 3 grades. Is there anything specific that that might be attributed to? And I, I would be remiss to try to answer that question. I can— I'm— I know that those things are there. When we start to look at one of the things that's going to come out now that the results have been posted is we'll actually get back what's called our strand data, where we actually look at students' performance on individual standards. I can tell you that that

051attention to detail from our teachers is where these numbers are coming from. That continued focus on looking at where our students, not just in terms of overall content, which part of which standard students are not achieving on, those are becoming where they focus. Not only that, take into consideration all of the push that we've been doing with Rise with Reading. All of that focus is coming to bear on those numbers. So our instructional team could give you a much more detailed response to your question. Which I think is, is very valuable. But from where I'm looking, I have to look at the macro picture, and I do get to see those strand data, and we'll put out that information as well once, once we have all of that analysis completed. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am.

052Mr. Ricketts, just a quick one, John. Now, this is, uh, on the career readiness, this test that they give. This is percentage, but that, uh, it's only, say, um, uh, last year 77%, but 3 more percent, uh, were course comp— or Completers and different things, because it says 80%. Well, this is— yes, now this is just the assessment component. Remember, under college and career readiness, there's multiple indicators. We haven't even gotten to placement scores, dual enrollment, SAT, ACT, not to mention, yes, all of your completer, your concentrator and completer statuses in our CTE courses have increased as well, and I'm sure you'll get more of that information as we go along here. That is just, again, that is one more piece to this larger picture. All of those skills, all of those concepts roll right

053into the CCRT test. So I think that's exactly right. I got you. Most definitely. Miss Edmonds. Thank you. One thing I think we all have noticed when we were doing school visits, whether it was one visit, two visits, 10 visits, is there was a real big push for vocabulary to be incorporated into every single subject area and then writing to also be incorporated into every single subject area. So I think that's a huge opportunity in those middle grades, particularly, you know, where you saw those pushes that all of a sudden those words are being translated into context. They're writing about it, they're using them, and that's definitely going to help them become more confident and test better. So just my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Winters. Yes, we saw the, um, the percentages down

054on the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade math. Um, I know we've spoken about OGAP. Is that what is going to be used to aid these students? That is one of the tools, yes ma'am, that is being incorporated. Uh, as a matter of fact, I was told that just today we had a team here at the district office already working on specifically looking at these data points, uh, and looking at the, the strategies that are going to go into meeting those. But absolutely, OGAP is going to be one of those significant pieces that's going to help our students with this with this information. Thank you. And Miss Winters and board members and community, it's not missed on us that the 4th grade math scores were down 4%. Um, there's some alignment related to the standards that

055we covered previous years versus this new— this past year, especially related to fractions, um, and some foundational skills related to, uh, that area that we are and have been this summer been looking at addressing, especially as it relates to 4th grade. We knew ahead of these scores that that was an area based on what we were seeing in the classroom. And so it's hard to guarantee things from this, from this spot, but the team has doubled down on fractions, which is a key component of 4th grade math. And I can't guarantee, uh, I suggest highly that our kids will be better equipped, uh, in that area. Miss Dawson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The superintendent just answered my question regarding 4th grade math. Thank you. Perfect. Any more questions? Hearing none. One, one final, uh, board

056members and community, you're going to hear something that I think is worth noting, and it's called the South Carolina Surge. Don't take it lightly. We're a part of that. We're pushing that. Horry County Schools is the basis of the South Carolina surge. This is where that is originating. Uh, I am going to embrace that if that's what the state's doing, great, because it's all about literacy and the direction of this district. Um, I believe that our kids are going to knock it out of the park this year and, and next year's based on what we're doing not only around fundamental literacy and early literacy but also middle and high school, disciplinary literacy, vocabulary, writing, uh, reading full novels. That will all have an impact. And whether or not they call it the South Carolina Surge,

057all I know is Rise with Reading is pushing a lot of things forward. Next we have summer learning, um, update. Mr. Lee James. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members, and Mr. Jones. It's great to see everyone back from a summer break. Certainly welcome you here this evening. It's wonderful to see everybody. The summer months give us an opportunity to rest and reflect, to get ready for this upcoming year, but it also gives us the opportunity to extend some learning for some students, some valuable time that we've captured through various programs that I'm going to discuss tonight. Summer school or summer programs in our district are more than simple remediation. It gives us the opportunity to accelerate learning, to strengthen skills, and to provide students with meaningful experiences that will help prepare them

058to be successful in this upcoming school year. This presentation tonight will highlight the elementary, middle, and high school programs, as well as some additional summer opportunities that we utilize to keep students engaged in the learning process throughout the summer, and we will start that discussion at the elementary level. Last year, or this summer, we saw an increase in the number of students who participated in our summer reading camp. It increased approximately 200 students compared to last year. As you can see, 573 students were served by 68 teachers across 4 sites. During this program, students received 4 4 weeks of intense instruction in literacy and mathematics, and students from all across the county were served. We are certainly grateful to our teachers and our school leaders who stepped up during the summer months to provide students

059this opportunity to expand their skills in literacy and in numeracy. This next slide I'm very excited to share with you. It gives us great occasion to pause and to celebrate our collective efforts and supporting our students impacted by the Read to Succeed Act. This slide is related to the number of 3rd grade students who are facing or at risk of retention based on their performance in the area of literacy. Before I get into the data, I wanna share one thing. These numbers do not reflect the number of students who had a good cause exemption for special education, for multilingual learner, or for students who have been previously retained. That is not to say we did not support these students. We certainly provided them equal or more support than other students received, and we did see

060the number of students who would have been retained without the Good Cause Exemption decreased by about 40%. Rather, this slide focuses on the students who are actually at risk of being retained. I came to you in February and told you that there were 720 students who, based on their winter results, were at risk of retention, and at that time you acted. You supported funding for several strategies that our schools have implemented utilize those funds to really support not just our 3rd grade students but all students with foundational literacy. As of their spring MAP testing, that number had declined to 379 students, and after the SCReady test, only 157 students were at risk of retention. I'm proud to share that the end of summer reading camp, after all things were considered, only 3 students faced retention

061this year. Board members, I really want to thank a few groups of students— a few groups of people. I want to thank our parents and our families for really doubling down on their efforts in literacy and holding high expectations for our students, understanding that literacy is the foundation of all learning. I want to thank our teachers, our teachers for pouring in, for utilizing the support that you gave them to really ensure that our kids' reading scores grew and ensure that they were prepared for the next grade level. I want to thank our teachers and our— I'm sorry, our school leaders who developed those reading plans and utilized the autonomy that you gave them to develop strategies that really supported these students and the results speak for themselves. But I also want to thank each of

062you. The support that you provided, due to the support that you provided, I'm certain that there are students who will be enrolling and are going into 4th grade today with their peers on grade level that would have been facing joining a new group in 3rd grade. And I really want to say thank you for that. There are kids who will walk the halls with their friends and rather than facing retention and a year of discipline. Disappointments. Also on this slide, I have highlighted these, these strategies that we used across the district, that increasing support as students grow near to the end of that— the two that I was discussing before that you were funded are down here towards the end of the list, after science of reading-based instruction, small group intervention during the classroom, pull-out

063intervention during the day, all of which you have supported very graciously for our schools The two that I was discussing are after-school remediation and our school literacy plans, along with the summer reading camps. It really represents a continuum of support that increases to make sure these students are not at risk of retention at the end of the year. At the middle school level, we had 385 students who participated in summer, summer school programs across 5 sites served by 45 teachers. That is an increase of approximately 50 students. Over last year. I'm proud to share with you that we saw a 95% success rate in our students meeting their goals and earning promotion to the next grade level through our summer school program at the middle level. Again, I want to thank those teachers who gave

064up their summer months to pour into our students and to make sure they also were not facing another year in the same grade level. At the high school level, we have a couple of opportunities for students to earn additional credits. First, I want to talk about our credit recovery program. This is a virtual program where students who have been unsuccessful in a course can work through a course to recover that credit. They can go back through the course and take— learn some of the concepts that may have missed, improve their grade, and recover that credit towards graduation. We had 163 students who participated in the credit recovery program, and they had a collective 71% passing rate. That is the lowest passing rate that I'll be discussing this afternoon, or this evening. But I wanna point

065out that these students have already experienced challenges and experienced, honestly, failure in the course before. So the fact that 71% of those credits were recovered is certainly an excellent testament to our teachers and to our students who work hard in these courses. Additionally, I'll talk about our initial credit program. This is also a virtual program where 1,297 students took advantage of the opportunity to recover or to build towards graduation, to get ahead of graduation, or even for some students, our middle school students, to get a jump start on those graduation requirements. Our initial credit program also gives students the opportunity to take courses that may not be offered at their base school and another chance for them to extend their learning during the summer months. In our initial credit program, we had an 88% pass

066rate among all students, all 1,297 students. And finally, I will discuss our additional summer learning opportunities. As I said, summer school is— or summer programs are more about remediation. They also provide opportunities for enrichment. This summer we had 270 students who took advantage of our Summer Scholars Program, and I want to talk about that just for a minute. This is a content area-based program— by that I mean science, social studies, math, and English— where students engage in a really just a really rigorous and engaging program. And to illustrate that, I want to just share the title of some of these opportunities they had. Students could choose from one of 22 options, and just a few of them: The Psychology of Perception, where students learn how the brain can trick, can trick their eyes, their ears,

067and their feelings by exploring mind-bending optical illusions and learning their senses through fun experiments, art projects, and hands-on activities. Another is Carolina by Design, which explores geometry in our state. Students explore the geometry of iconic South Carolina landmarks, natural environments, and man-made structures using 3D modeling, geometric shapes, symmetry, cross-sections, and spatial relationships. Students also could choose to explore History's Mysteries, where they seek to answer questions that have baffled historians for years such as, was the lost colony of Roanoke really lost? Or what really happened to Amelia Earhart? Or they may explore, was the USS Cyclops, a warship, lost or was it stolen? These students get to really learn in a new and exciting way during the summer months, and we're certainly appreciative of their efforts and the teachers for providing this learning opportunity. Last year,

068we also initiated a new partnership with Coastal Carolina University where 35 rising high school seniors were able to take rigorous coursework at the university level during the summer months. Students who were successful in this program earned direct admission into Coastal Carolina for the, for next fall. I'm happy to share that almost 60% of the students who took this, these courses earned an A in their class, not passing, but earned an A while sitting alongside college-level students. In addition, we had more than 300 students participate in our PSAT preparation programs. This program is designed to help students increase their performance on the PSAT prep ahead of the National Merit Scholarship Qualification Test, which will be coming up this fall. Also, all 30 element— or all 30 schools with elementary grades in Horry County Schools are actually

069still participating in Malcolm Mitchell's Summer Read Camp program. This camp will conclude on Labor Day, and we're expecting big things from our students, as last year we were among the nation's top performers. And in fine arts, we had more than 180 students participate in summer camps held at Coastal Carolina Forest, Charleston Southern University, Furman, and Furman University. Through these camps, students received advanced instruction in chorus, band, orchestra, and theater from nationally recognized professionals and educators alongside talented students from across the state. And I will invite you to please come out and hear their performances. They are truly amazing performers, and when these kids get together, they just produce beautiful products. And finally, one of my favorite statistics on the page, uh, during the summer months, our students logged more than 1.7 million pages reading through

070Beanstack this summer. That's a great indication of the momentum of our Rise of Reading program The fact that students during time whenever they're not required to, to be in class or required to be in front of their teachers are still choosing to engage in reading during the summer months and, and really improving their reading skills. I would like to thank the principals, teachers, the staff, community partners, and families for making these opportunities available for our students. As you can see, in Horry County Schools, our commitment to learning extends well beyond the school year into the summer months. We are committed to providing enriching, engaging, and yes, some reinforcing opportunities for our students to help them reach their goals. I wanna acknowledge a few groups of people. Again, the students for stepping up, for stepping forward,

071and really taking on the challenge of learning during the summer whenever their peers may be at the beach or the pool or at home. I wanna thank our parents. Our parents for not only seeking out these opportunities and signing up their children, for making sure that their child showed up every day prepared to learn. I want to thank you for your support of these programs. Without your support, they're simply not— they're not an option for our students. So thank you for your continued support for these programs and for the resources you provide. And I would like to celebrate, most importantly, our students, to recognize and appreciate that they stepped up to the challenge. They chose during the summer to continue their learning, and we're certainly appreciative of their effort. With that, that concludes my presentation

072of the summer, summer learning opportunities. At this time, I'll take any questions that you may have. Miss Edmonds. Thank you so much. Wow, that was amazing. Thank you so much. And I'm so excited mostly for Horry County Schools and the whole community. We truly have expanded our course offerings, our summer opportunities, um, and also made it possible for parents to actively jump in during those, um, options, courses, the, uh, whether it's remediation or enrichment, right? Whether you want to get ahead for middle school or high school, you want to jump over there to Coastal, you want to do, you know, whatever these opportunities are. It also helps us stay competitive in the world as we know school choice now. And the more that we continue to do these things and make these offerings, the more

073that parents will choose public schools for theirs, particularly Horry County Schools. So it would be pretty hard to walk away with this kind of presentation and say, I don't know, I may look something else. So congratulations to everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? Hearing none, Mr. Jones. Certainly. So, um, Chairman Cox, we're going to split up the back-to-school presentations. We're going to do half here and then half next, next time we meet. Um, so we've got Miss Allen, Miss Anderson, and Mr. Prince who will provide a back-to-school updates. Miss Allen, thank you and good evening once again. Uh, as Mr. Jones says, this is a 3-part presentation. We do have a slide at the end, so we'll take all questions then, if that's okay. We did put that in. All right, so I

074get to go first, so we will move on to the first slide. The first slide I'd like to talk about, or the first thing I'd like to talk about, is registration. Now I want to I want to say this up front. This is about registration, not about enrollment. Okay, it's not how many kids are enrolled, but how many have registered. We started this process back February 9th. That's when we opened our registration for our CD students. As you know, there's some testing required with that to allow them to go into the program, so we start early. We do stagger our start so it won't put quite so much work on the schools at one time. March 23rd is when we opened the registration for all new students who are entering kindergarten and first grade. And

075then on May 1st, we basically opened up the registration for everybody else. So our returning students and our new students, they in grades K through 12. On August 10th, which y'all know that's today, so first thing this morning, we pulled this data again so y'all would have the most recent data tonight. That's not the numbers you saw in the, on the weekly report. Because it has changed. We had 4,893 new student registration entries. Now don't anybody get excited and think, oh, we're gonna have 4,893 new students, because remember, we define a new student as anyone who was not in Horry County Schools last year or in previous years. So that would include our brand new CD students, our child development students, and any kindergarten student who did not attend CD classes last year, so don't

076get too excited about that yet. This is pretty much in line with where we were last year. And then we also have 89.58% of our returning students that have completed the full registration. Now I know, because I've got some math-minded people sitting around the horseshoe, y'all are saying, oh wait a minute, how'd that number drop? I can explain that. It actually did drop because we found over the weekend we took all of our student registration and our student schedules and imported it back into PowerSchool. What we found during that import is that there were some very eager parents that wanted to make sure their students got registered, and they actually, just a handful, that registered their student multiple times. So we had to take out the duplicates. And then also, believe it or not, since

077February 9th, there were actually some students who registered for school and have now changed their mind. Whether they had to move out of Horry County or whatever the situation. So we did have some, some students who had registered that were returning that are no longer coming with us. So that explains that. You can see the numbers across the bottom. I think I have explained that early childhood, child development, kindergarten, but what you see in elementary grades 1 through 5, middle and high, those are true numbers of students who were not here last year, not living in the county. Who have registered for our school. Okay, on the next slide, I wanted to share some information about how to enroll your student or how to register your student. For any of our community members or our

078families who are listening tonight, we would like as many kids as we can get registered before August 19th. It helps, it helps if we know the kids are coming. We can make sure that they have a schedule. We can make sure that everything is smooth on that first day. So we are hoping that we'll get more other, the other roughly 10% or any other new student out there to register. So if you see that we have listed, there's actually two ways you can register your child for school. One is you can go to the Horry County Schools website. Once you pull up that home screen over on the right side, it says student registration. If, if a parent clicks that button, they will automatically take them through the process of registration. You can even upload

079your proof of residency, your immunization records, everything can be done online. This is probably the quickest and easiest way because our schools are pretty busy right now with teachers coming back and trying to get everybody registered and everybody's schedule correct, all that information. But if for some reason if a parent is not tech savvy and has trouble with this, they can always call the school and make an appointment or they can go to the school. But just expect just understand if you go and 20 other people are there, you may have to wait. But it's really a simple process to register your child. So that concludes the registration piece. If you look at student attendance, we, as you know, last year we made lots of changes to our student attendance guidelines. We added the parent

080excuse notes, and that was very popular with our families, so we continued that. We do split it up by semesters for high school and middle school because of the Carnegie units. You know, there's state regs about how many days you can miss and not have to make up time to get the Carnegie unit. But one thing we did this spring is we sent out a survey to all of our parents and basically just asked for feedback. Did this work for you? What didn't work for you? And one of the things that came back from that survey was we need more medical notes. And it made sense what the parents were saying to us. There were several parents who responded and said, my child has to go, has to go. They have a standing appointment on

081a monthly basis with their physician because of their illness or because of their disability. And we were only giving them 8 last year. So you see it's in red this year. A parent may submit up to 10 medical notes before the student has to make up seat time, which made sense to us. So we listened to our parents and made that adjustment. Now, I'm going on record as saying a medical note is excused. It's just that we're asking the student to make up the time and the work if they go over the number of days. But there's a combination with all of these. As with last year, we're also still with bereavement is excused, a judicial court appointment is excused, the nurse if the child gets sick at school is excused. College visits for our

082juniors and seniors is excused. And then of course school field trips, because we're sending them on the field trip, are excused. And then I know some of our parents say, oh my gosh, he's got an unexcused day, this is terrible. But really you can have a certain number of unexcused days before there is a penalty too. So with the combination, there's lots of opportunities for parents to do what they need to do during the school year. So that's just a little bit about our student attendance and the changes we've made there. At the bottom, I'm going to thank members of this group for making this change for us. You talked to us about this and it made sense what you said. So we have made a change. In previous years, in fact, as long as

083I have worked in student services, a parent could, could appeal to a district appeals board. Now they always have the opportunity to appeal to the principal and then to our hearing officers, but to our district appeal board, which is made up of our advisory board members, They could appeal expulsion and alternative school assignment, but they've never been able to appeal a home-based assignment. So after listening to you, talking with you, we have added that. So this upcoming year, if a child is placed on a home-based assignment, and I'm not talking about through an IEP team, I'm talking about disciplinary home-based assignment, then the parent has the right to appeal to that, that panel of advisory board members called the district Appeals Board. So that is one thing that we did add as a result, like

084I say, of conversations with you. So we appreciate that feedback from you. Okay, on the next slide, moving away from Student Affairs and, um, going to Student Services, also still in my department, the Health Services. There have been two changes this year that were made by the South Carolina Department of Public Health Services. And these are addition to what was, has been in place previously. I did not list all the immunizations here because it would have taken probably 3 slides to get all of them listed there. But there is a change in 12th grade and there's a, for a rising 12th grader, and there was a change in the rising 6th grader. This was also published. I just happened to see it across the state today and some of the news correspondences we get. So

085this is the changes. I won't read those to you, but any parent Who wants a complete list of the immunization information, it can be found on the Department of Public Health Safety Services, excuse me, or it can be found on our website so that you can see this. And I want to make sure everybody, because there was some misunderstandings out on Facebook, you know how Facebook is not always the best source of information, but there was some misunderstandings out there about exemptions. You know, it's the law. So yes, Horry County Schools does follow the medical or the religious exemptions as provided by the parent. We can't grant them. It has to come from the, from the Department of Health Services. We can't grant them, but we do accept them once they have been granted. If

086there's questions on how to apply for an exemption, you can contact that health department, or you can contact our school nurses, and we can share with you how to get it. But we are not allowed to give out the forms and to to authorize that. But that is another thing that we will take in lieu of the immunization records. All right. On the next slide, some information from technology. Very excited this year in technology. We almost have a full staff. We're only 2 members down. This is the first time we have had this many people working in technology since I started working with the department. So we're very excited. The first— these are just the top 5 improvements. There's been lots of them. I promise you, you will have a report from Michael Hucks coming

087up in the near future to give you an overview of all of the changes we have made in technology. But the first one we're very proud of, it's the internet redundancy with Segra and HTC. And basically, I'll put this in layman terms, that means if one of our things go down, if we— network goes down, we got a backup that's going to kick in and nobody's ever going to know we're down. And yes, it's very good. We've, we've had that issue for several years, but it is up and running and doing well. We also are, actually the employees are going to be this week and our students will be the week, the day school starts, but we're going to do a district-wide student and employee password reset. Now we've always done employees, but we don't

088do it every year, but moving forward every year, everybody's got to reset their passwords. But here's the good news, we're giving y'all a break. We're not going to make you reset yours this time, but all other employees and students will have to change their password. We've got great procedures, we've got tech support to help people change those, but we're doing that because we were starting to see some compromised accounts, and this is one of the ways we can protect our students and we can protect our employees. One thing I will say too, because you've seen a lot, I'm sure, in the news recently, And I get asked this question a lot. Oh my gosh, if we ever get attacked, will they get my child's Social Security number? No Social Security number is in PowerSchool. So

089when you hear— we do not— no student Social Security number, no employee Social Security number. For our employees, it is behind several firewalls. So when you hear about PowerSchool getting hacked, they'll get an address. That's pretty much a student name and address if we ever got hacked. Remember what I told y'all last year? So far under my watch, that has not happened. Probably just jinxed myself. Yeah, just, I just, I just brought it into existence. We also this year, we are successfully, we've retired all of our Windows 10. We have taken them out of commission, all that hardware. It is time. It is coming in just a few months. There'll be no more tech support for the Windows 10. So that's another way to keep our systems safe. We've made lots of behind-the-scenes infrastructure and

090process improvements this summer. I won't go into all of them. Most of them you will never know if just using your computer, but you will see faster and better as we improve. And then the last thing that we're very proud of is the new district-wide ticketing system. It is going to make us so efficient. It is so much better. We've had a ticketing system, but it's been a little out— it got outdated. I'm just not going to lie to you. And so we have a new ticketing system that means we will not only track all the work that we do, it will get to us in a timely manner, and we will have someone on it within the hour. And I'm talking about for even minor things. So we are very excited about that as

091well. And I think that's all of them. Like I said, Mr. Hucks will be speaking in front of you in an upcoming meeting to provide lots more information. Now, this is not all of Student Services. As y'all know, I also work with Athletics and I work with Counseling. Not going to say a lot about those two tonight, but you will hear from both Mr. Cox and Miss Pickett at a future meeting that just to talk about their— what the changes that we've made in those departments. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Anderson with Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Willens, board members, and Mr. Jones. As we begin the new school year, we are proud of the incredible work our human resources team has done to recruit and retain

092outstanding employees across Horry County Schools for the 26-27 school year. This year we have over 200 teachers that are new to Horry County Schools. And when I say new, that doesn't mean everyone is new to teaching. We have some brand new teachers and we have some veteran teachers from other districts that have chosen to become part of the Horry County Schools family. Recently, these teachers had the opportunity to participate in New Teacher Academy. New Teacher Academy is a paid 4-day session allowing these individuals to become oriented with our district district and their schools. Day 2 of this event had a district focus and was held at the Academy for Arts, Science, and Technology. We are going to share a short video to let you hear firsthand from our new teachers. Lucas, if you'll play the

093video, please. My name is Chase Higgins. I'm from Conway, South Carolina. I'll be teaching 2nd grade at Conway Elementary School. Matthew Daniel, and I'm teaching at the Academy for the Arts, Science, and Technology. My name is Demaris Hur. I'm going to be teaching at Ocean Bay Middle in 6th grade math, and I'm from Beaufort, South Carolina. Joseph Morell. I'm originally from Pennsylvania, just north of Philly. Lived down here 7 years in Myrtle Beach, and I'll be teaching at Socksey Middle School. My name is Emily McLean. I'm from here in Horry County, Conway specifically, and I'll be teaching at Whittemore Park Middle School. My name is Rosalyn Robinson. I will be a first grade teacher at St. James Elementary. My name is Liberty Kleinfeld. I am from New Jersey, and I'm going to be teaching at

094Aynor Middle School. Well, this year we're welcoming 230 new Horry County School teachers. Some of them are coming to us not only from the, the classrooms of Coastal Carolina, back to the classrooms they were once students in themselves. It's really an exciting time to be in Horry County Schools, and all of them are here at the Academy for the Arts, Science, and Technology for New Teacher Academy. Have veteran teachers coming from other districts and other states. We have brand new hires coming straight out of college, but they're here to join a network and a support system. They're also here to attend some staff development sessions to get them started for the new year. These teachers spend a week learning all about Horry County Schools, the expectations, and a lot more. We really set the stage

095for them being able to establish relationships with colleagues. We want them to leave energized and ready to take on the school year, and we're going to be there to support them every step of the way. Kids are impressionable. They have the ability to receive They like to ask questions and to be able to be someone who can answer those questions for them. I love to teach because I love making that impact on children and just really being a big part of what grows their minds. Honestly, I had a great experience learning here and I wanted to kind of give back to the community that I came from. I feel like it's just like a family. It's everybody. There's a lot of people involved and it's somewhere I wanted to be and I saw myself. So

096that's where I'm at. Meet more of our new teachers in our Horry County Schools Mini Mike Moments on Facebook. And for more information, log on to horrycountyschools.net. As I listened to the video, some of the words that resonated with me were family, giving back to the place where I had a great experience, and impact. And Lucas, if you can go back to that first slide for me. On the screen, you see a photo of teachers who chose to return to Horry County Schools. They are teachers, but they're more importantly also graduates of our district. Next slide, please. On this side, you see a photo of some of the same people because these people are graduates of Coastal Carolina University. You'll see a lot of our graduates from Horry County Schools that attend Coastal Carolina University

097to pursue education. We are grateful for our strong partnerships with Horry Georgetown Technical College and Coastal Carolina University. Their collaboration continues to strengthen the pipeline of future educators entering our schools. Last spring, we hosted 115 Coastal Carolina University interns in our schools. This fall, much smaller number, 26, but fall produces a much lower number of interns because most education majors finish in a year-long program, which is a spring graduation. We also house Horry Georgetown Technical students, as well as Coastal Carolina University education majors in practicums. That number I don't have, but it's, it's a huge number, and they begin almost immediately as they start in an education program. We have found a very successful opportunity in the recruitment field for us is our own Horry County Schools recruitment fair in February of each year. Normally

098we have from 80 to 100 open contracts that are issued, and that's a huge step in helping to fill our vacancies for the upcoming school year. We recruit all over the Southeast and the country, but focusing on outreach to places where we have been fruitful in bringing teachers back to Horry County. We started 2 years ago with the Coastal Carolina Education Signing Day. Which really showcased our young people, seniors that had made a commitment to education. We have expanded that to have an Education Signing Day at each high school honoring and recognizing not just our Coastal Carolina signees, but those people who have chosen to go into education in our state, other states, in the hopes that they will come back and become our teachers in Horry County. Next slide. The numbers on this slide

099are impressive, and I'm, I'm not one that stands here to brag about things, but our district has been phenomenal. We have, as of today, 6,718 dedicated members. That includes 4,352 professional staff members, 2,366 support staff. We are proud to announce that as of Friday of last week, our fill rate for teachers, 98.8%, which is outstanding. That's probably the highest number we've had in the last 6 years. Our support staff fill rate is 95%. So for anyone that has questions about the remaining less than 2%, um, we are ready. We will be ready for students. We have people in place to cover those few vacancies that remain. Um, we do have interviews going on today and throughout the week, so that will increase even before students return to the classroom. But we're in great shape. We,

100we've had a very strong recruitment year and have been most successful in not just filling our positions but filling our positions with very qualified individuals. As we all know, we are the largest employer in Horry County, and that's a huge responsibility, but all of our employees play an essential role in serving our students. So our next slide, please, Lucas. You'll see here some of the efforts, and to my left you see some of the people that have been essential in making this happen. We have partnered with the Operations Division specifically to work to increase the number of our support staff vacancies that are filled. You can see the various job fairs that have happened across the school year, and very recently in July, you also see the educator recruitment fair that I previously spoke to.

101But I want to end by saying this: our people are our greatest strength, whether they work in the classroom, drive a bus, prepare meals, maintain our facilities, support students, or serve behind the scenes. Each employee contributes to creating exceptional opportunities for every student in Horry County Schools. In our district, we are people-powered and purpose-driven as we step forward to make a lasting impact for our community and most importantly for our students. Many of our employees have worked over the summer to make sure that we're ready for our students when they come back on August 19th. But we typically think about the beginning of the school year when the students arrive. So we as a Human Resources Department and a district are excited to welcome all of our employees and our students back for another outstanding

102school year. Thank you. And now, Mr. Ben Prince. Before you start, Ben, I think Mr. Robinson had a question for Bill. If you would, please. Hey, thank you very much, by the way. I have a statement and a question. One, thank you for letting me know about the passwords. Like, I got the RADAC read to me by some soon-to-be 6th graders that were super nervous about their password. It was a hot topic. Can you go back to the slide where you have the days that you can miss? Is that okay? Sure. So I just want to make sure, I just have my question is if you can miss 6 days with just a parent note and then miss up to 10 days with a medical excuse, if that's 16 days, you're almost at 10% of

103180-day school year. And so, and it was kind of, and that's what I was like based on parent feedback that we raise those days, like, where's the ceiling for that? Is that the ceiling? That is the ceiling. That's correct. That's why I was like, because with unexcused absences as well, it seems I can't imagine that it's easy to continue to succeed with that many absences. I just wondered if that's the tip top. That is. We also, and I didn't mention this because I just failed to mention this, but we also have, because we do have some students who are chronically ill and have some really severe medical issues. We do have two programs. One's intermittent homebound and the other one is medical homebound. So there are some students who have not been in our schools

104at all because they can't come. But we do have that avenue for any student who needs it as well. But you're right, most students, when you've got six parent, 10 medical at the high school level. Now, the state does say something about attendance intervention plans. But you could actually miss 5, as long as they're not consecutive unexcused days, with no penalty from Horry County Schools. So really, it's 21 days. That's correct. It's more than what it looks like on the slide. Yes. Thank you. I just wonder if that was the ceiling. Yep, that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Matt. Ben. Good evening again, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members, and Mr. Jones. I appreciate the opportunity to share some summer updates from our Operations Division. Our first update was beginning July

1051st, we restructured our division and now Operations is made up of 5 departments including Building Services, Capital Projects, Maintenance, Nutrition Services, and Transportation. Our department heads are with us here tonight and I would like to take this just a few minutes here to take the opportunity to publicly recognize them. With us tonight is Mr. Joe Burch, Executive Director of Capital Projects, Mr. Terry Hucks, Director of Maintenance, Miss Kim Johnson, Director of Nutrition Services, and Miss Kathy Stockholm, Director of Building Services. And Dr. David Benson could not be with us tonight. He's our Executive Director of Transportation, but this team and the members that make up their department have worked really hard this summer to have us in great shape, and I appreciate them. Mr. Frederick was with our crew too, and he's not technically one

106of the operations team, but I appreciate him as well. All right, my first department update tonight starts with our Transportation Department. We know those are important questions to families as we move into the new school year. This summer, for the very first time, our Transportation Department held open houses at all 9 attendance area bus offices. This event was well attended, and it provided an opportunity for parents to come and get information regarding their child or their children's bus routes. Summer school, from a transportation perspective, went really well this year. We appreciate the smooth working relationship that we have with our academics division, and that's one of our cross-divisional efforts you'll hear me reference tonight. Recruiting, retaining, and developing— recruiting, retaining, and developing our drivers and monitors continues to be a primary focus for our transportation

107administrative team. Last week, we had all staff members from our offices at Conway High School for a day of professional development. Working with our human resources team on another cross-divisional effort, we have scheduled an upcoming job fair on September 30th at the regional bus office. Bus driver vacancies continue to improve. We are currently at 42 bus driver vacancies, which is the lowest number at this point in the last 5 years heading into a school year. We have seen this trend extend through our operations division as our fill rate increased 4% from last year to just over 96%. Again, as we continue to focus on hiring, retaining, and professional development, we anticipate these numbers are going to continue to improve. Summer updates from our nutrition services team are as follows. And this one is a very

108big one to start. Board members and parents, we are happy to announce that for the 2026-2027 school year, meals for students will be provided at no cost. This includes both breakfast and lunch. Our summer feeding programs were a tremendous success this summer. We served 170,695 meals this summer between our site-based programs and our delivery models for our rural areas. Our building services updates: all of our summer cleaning plans have been completed, and we are on time or ahead of schedule for schools and students to return on August 19th. This includes over 8 million square feet of flooring and over 3,300 classrooms. Our building services team does a great job of planning with buildings-based administrators as well as working with our maintenance and capital projects team. The image you see on the bottom right-hand corner shows

109the— on the last slide, Lucas, I'm sorry— the Stop the Prop stickers. That's another cross-divisional effort that helps ensure that we strengthen our team as far as safety and security, but also that we focus on energy usage. Thank you, Lucas. Our maintenance update. Our maintenance department has worked hard this summer to make all necessary repairs and complete projects on schedule. 5,183 work orders were closed out between June 1st and August 4th. Again, this takes very intentional planning and hard work by our team members, and we're proud of them. The work of our Energy Committee continues to pay off with the third consecutive year of an overall decrease in usage. Beginning in July, our committee has become another example of a cross-divisional effort as we added 3 principals and 1 executive director to our team. All

1104 regions are represented, and we anticipate the work of our committee to continue to have a positive impact on Horry County Schools. Our capital projects update: we've had a great summer in our capital projects department. All of our projects are currently scheduled— are on schedule, including renovations, new construction, and modifications to existing facilities. Our new St. James Elementary replacement school has just completed phase 1 and is now entering Phase 2. Phase 2 involves site work and fencing for the building pad, modification of drives, and stormwater development. We are on track for our projected opening in the fall of 2028. We continue, as I mentioned earlier, to place our building on the penny banners because we appreciate the support of our public with our penny sales tax. This concludes my updates for tonight. We'll be happy

111to take any questions. At this time, Mr. James. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Mr. Prince, just a thank you. Probably the number one reason for phone calls at this time of year to me revolve around bus routes. So having a 96.1% fill ratio is tremendous. So thank you. 42 vacancies across 9 attendance areas is, you know, less than 5 per area. So if it's averaged and uniform, so that's, that's great. The second thing I want to comment on is the energy reduction, 7% over 2 years. I'm not sure if that translates exactly to a 7% reduction in the electric bill, but the kWh per square foot is one way to measure that. So thank you for efforts on that. I am curious, you know, as we invest in replacements of aging air conditioners and HVAC

112infrastructure, we're seeing not only a more comfortable conducive area for learning, but we're seeing the efficiencies of that. Also, the more recent built schools are highly energy efficient. So I think that's why we're seeing some of those reductions. So thank you for all that you and your department are doing. Yes, sir. And thank you. Our best strategy for attacking the bills was the usage. So thank you for noticing. And I was thinking how blessed we are in this county to be able to provide lunch and breakfast for everybody free. I think that's, that's amazing. So yes, sir, we're proud of that a lot. Thank you. No more questions. Well, thank you, staff, for that back-to-school update for the community and board members. The other 3 divisions will go when we meet next time. The final

113update for tonight is around the strategic plan, and board members, as Miss Yolanda Bell begins our discussion on the board's strategic plan I want to assure the board that our work must remain clearly connected to the priorities established by you all, by you all, this board, and we're going to focus on what matters, and that is student success. And one of Ms. Bell's key responsibilities is creating, as the chief of staff, the board's strategic plan. So this will be one of many updates and listening sessions related to that. So, Ms. Bell. Thank you. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members, and Superintendent Jones. It is great to be here tonight. I'm excited to be in front of you for the first time to share the process and timeline we will use to develop

114the next Horry County Schools strategic plan for 2027 through 2032. As Superintendent Jones said, this will be a school board-owned strategic plan shaped by your vision for the future of Horry County Schools and informed by the voices of our students, employees, families, and the community members that we serve. Our role is to facilitate a thoughtful process that brings those perspectives together and ultimately translate that vision into clear priorities, goals, and actions. Horry County Schools has a strong foundation and, as we heard tonight, much to celebrate. Strategic planning is part of continuous improvement. This process will give us an opportunity to build upon the work and the successes that have already made HCS a great school district while determining how we will continue moving forward together. A strong strategic plan answers 3 important questions. First, who

115are we becoming? This is our purpose. It includes our shared vision, our core beliefs, and the future we want for every student in Horry County Schools. Second, what matters most? We cannot make everything a strategic priority. This process will help us identify 3 to 5 priorities that should receive our collective time, attention, people, and resources. And finally, how will we get there? The plan must go beyond broad statements It must include specific goals, action steps, measures of success, progress monitoring, and accountability. Ultimately, the strategic plan should help us move from vision to results. It should create alignment across our schools and our departments so that our work is connected, focused, and centered on students. This slide provides a high-level overview of the process. We are currently in Phase 1, focused on launching the process and

116beginning our initial engagement. Beginning in September, we will move into broader stakeholder engagement with opportunities for students, employees, principals, families, and community members to help inform the direction of the plan. We will also establish a strategic planning steering committee. At the top of that structure is you, the school board, with the steering committee helping us examine stakeholder feedback, recognizing our existing strengths, identifying emerging themes, and supporting the development of the strategic framework. From December through January, we'll analyze what we've heard and begin developing that framework. During February and March, the draft plan will be refined through additional stakeholder feedback and engagement, and our goal is to bring the final plan forward for approval in April 2027 giving us time to prepare schools and departments for implementation beginning in July. And while these phases are shown

117in sequence, engagement and continuous improvement will remain ongoing throughout the process and after the plan is adopted. Meaningful engagement will be central to this work. We plan numerous opportunities for stakeholders to provide input and feedback through surveys, listening sessions, lunch and learns, board discussions, conversations with Cliff, and the superintendent's advisory boards. We recognize that people engage in different ways, so we need to create multiple entry points for students, employees, principals, families, and community members to be a part of the process. And importantly, these conversations will not focus only on what we need to improve, We intentionally ask what is working, what makes people proud of HCS, and what strengths must we protect and build upon as we build for the future. Our responsibility will be to listen carefully, identify these common themes, and remain transparent

118about how stakeholder input is reflected in the development of the plan. Already, we are at the beginning of the process, and we've already started listening. More than 250 school and district leaders, members of the board included, provided initial feedback about the priorities and beliefs that should guide Horry County Schools. The 5 priorities that rose to the top were literacy, relationships, student-centeredness, college and career, military and life readiness, and innovation. We also asked which belief statements should guide our work. Belief statements articulate what we value, what we believe about students and learning, and what we aspire to demonstrate through our decisions and our actions. The statements that resonated most strongly were that literacy opens doors, relationships build trust, every learner deserves pathways to thrive, and opportunity expands possibilities. When participants were asked what Horry County Schools

119should be known for, we heard themes such as student first, excellence, relationships, innovation, opportunity, community, and preparing students to be future ready. These responses reflect many of the strengths that have already contributed to the success of HCS. Our task is to build upon that foundation and determine how those strengths can continue guiding our future. And this is only our first initial data point. As we broaden engagement, we will add the perspective of students, employees, families, and our community to develop a much fuller picture of where HCS should go next. As we develop the plan, we will organize the work around 3 essential elements. The first is— the first should inspire us to shape our future. This is where our vision, mission, and shared beliefs will be clearly articulated. The second should guide our daily work.

120These will be the strategic priorities and goals that will help schools and departments make decisions and align their efforts. And third, it must be clear for everyone. Our employees, our students, our families, and community should understand what we are trying to accomplish, how we will measure progress, and what success should look like. We want a plan that is aspirational but also practical. It should not simply sit on a shelf or live on a website. It should become a roadmap that connects our vision to our daily work happening across Horry County Schools. So our immediate next steps are to continue engaging more deeply with the board, establish that steering committee, host district lunch and learn sessions, release a community survey, and continue listening and learning with principals and other stakeholders. As the work progresses, we will

121continue sharing what we are hearing, identify emerging themes, and refine the plan through multiple rounds of feedback. The goal is a process that is inclusive and transparent, but also focused enough to result in a strategic plan that people can understand, remember, and actually use. So at its core, this process is about determining where Horry County Schools goes next and how we get there together. And we are not starting over. We are building upon the people, the programs, the relationships, and the results that have already made Horry County Schools strong. Strategic planning gives us an opportunity to protect what is working, listen carefully to our community, identify where we can become stronger, and create greater alignment around the work that matters most for our students. I'm excited to share that our strategic planning website is now

122live. The QR code will take you directly to the site where our community can learn more about that process and follow our progress and we will be putting on their opportunities for the community members to engage along the way. So we really look forward to working with all of you in our community throughout this process, and thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Miss Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Miss Bell. I have one question. Can you kind of give me a brief explanation of what the lunch and learn will look like and feel like and who will be involved in that? So a lunch and learn would take place here at the district office. It would be for district employees to be able to give feedback, for us to share

123an update with them on the progress. So it happened here at the district office or even at the facilities office. It's just a way of being able to communicate directly with employees. Okay, because I was seeing it totally different. Okay, I was thinking that it was— we were going to go around the district and have some kind of lunch or something with people who wanted to talk to us and ask questions like what they do with Cliff, Coffee with Cliff. But this is just for our employees. Yes, that part is. Okay, okay, I like that. That's good. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Edmonds. Thank you, Miss Bell. I'm excited. I love a plan and working a plan. How do you foresee, uh, foresee, uh, checkpoints for effectiveness throughout the plan? So we have cert— we

124have built in milestones along the way. And so I think it's making sure that we are always looking at our milestones. We have been— myself and Mr. Washburn have really timelined this out throughout the course of the year. So we have some milestones built in to make sure that we are adhering to our plan and we're on track. So annual, quarterly, biannual? I would say quarterly. Okay. All right, cool. Thank you. Miss Dawson. Miss Bell, welcome, and we're glad to Nice to see you at the podium for the first time. Thank you. Good job. I'm really excited about updating the strategic plan. The strategic plan should be the focus of every agenda item for this board through 2032. Every item that this board addresses should be supporting that strategic plan and the goals that are

125set forth in that plan. One thing I'm concerned about, though, is to, and we have an excellent communications team. So I'm hoping that your team and the communications team is working very closely together, Mr. Superintendent, to ensure that we have a robust rollout, including with our local and local media, social media, every possible way, email, whatever resources we can use to engage our stakeholders. I would like to see the entire community as excited about the development of the strategic plan as they are about Rise with Reading. Our stakeholders play an important role in this. So please assure us at some point in the future what the details of that communications plan are and how we are truly getting the word out and inviting people to participate. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, yes, ma'am,

126that is very important. We've already been working side by side with the communications department, and a community engagement piece is part of this plan. Yeah. Any more questions? Hearing none, great. Thank you. There is one recognition tonight, um, with John Gardner. His people couldn't just stand not be recognized, right? So The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada has awarded Horry County Schools the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for its annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. The report was judged by an impartial panel to meet the program's high standards, which included demonstrating a constructive spirit of full disclosure to clearly communicate HCS's financial story and to motivate potential users and user groups to read the report. The Certificate of Achievement is the highest

127form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by government and its management. So congratulations to John and his whole team. Amen. Well done. Thank you, John. Thank you, team. That's it for the superintendent's report. Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Superintendent. Next, we will be adjourning a board session and convening into a special called meeting, but I need a motion. So moved. Second? Second. Everywhere. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Hearing none, we will be moving into our special called meeting. Miss Anderson, ratification of employee When the board last met in June, the superintendent was granted the authority to approve professional contracts through the summer months, meaning from June 8th, 2026 to August 10th, 2026. And tonight we are asking you to

128ratify those approvals so that everything is official. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them at this time. I move to approve. Done. Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed, like sign. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Mr. Chairman, we're not voting on the screen. We are. Yeah. Okay, well, let's vote on the screen then. I didn't see that either. All righty then, it's done. Thank you, Miss Allen. Yes, in June I stood before you and presented the OE-12, the learning environment Since that time, there has been no changes to this report. So, Mr. Chairman, I move we approve. Second. All right, please vote. That's good. Thank you, Mr. Lee James. Good evening again. At our last meeting, I shared a presentation based on the R6 monitoring report, which pertains to personal success and

129citizenship, and there have been no changes since that time. Thank you, sir. Motion to approve. Second. Second. Okay, please vote. Okay, that looks like a done deal. Thank you, Lee. Next, um, we need appointment of Henry County Schools Education Foundation members. Advisory board first. Oh yeah, I already marked that off too. Okay, do we have any appointments? Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman? Yes, Mr. I want to nominate the following replacement on the Inter-Area Advisory Board. Replacement of Catherine Johnson to be Miss Amber Rabun. Replacement of Scott Hooks to be Mr. Bradley Vault. Replacement of Jeremy Johnson to be Landon Johnson. And replacement of Haley Kelly to be Brittany Gibson. Need a motion? Motion to approve. Second. For the one-year, two-year terms. Okay, thank you, Miss Dawson. Mr. Chairman, I have some. Okay, uh, for the Loris

130area, we're doing— hold on, you're going to vote? Oh yeah, we got to vote. Yeah, let's go. I get mixed up too. Okay, go ahead. Ready? Yeah. Uh, for the Loris Area Advisory Board of Trustees, I have two reappointments. Tremelia Gore for 2 more years, and Leigh Ann Todd for 2 more years. Move to approve, Mr. Chairman. Second. Okay, please vote. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Mr. Chairman, for the Green Sea Floyd Advisory Committee, I have 2 that I'd like to reappoint for a 4th term, a 2-year term for Mr. Carl Lee, Miss Alonda Crawford. I'll second that. Second. All right, thank you. Please vote. Miss Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, for the last 8 years, Megan Stiles has served on the SACA advisory board. She has faithfully— did you have any? Not, not this

131time. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Did anybody else have any for advisory board? This is for advisory board. What she's doing— oh, I'm sorry, I thought she was— I'm sorry, education Foundation. No, I'm sorry, this is for Advisory Board. Uh, sorry, Miss Stiles has served for the last 8 years, and she had the second highest number of participations in disciplinary hearings of anyone in the district last year. So she will be sorely missed, but she is termed out, and I want to thank her for her dedicated service. And to replace her, I now move to nominate, uh, Shannon Garo to the SUCASD Advisory Board for a 1-year term. Okay, motion to approve. Okay, second. Thank you. Please vote. There you go. Okay, next it would be Mr. Robinson. I'd like to thank Rusty Henson for

132his service and wish him well. He's stepping down. I now move to nominate Mary Catherine Plyler to the St. James Advisory Board for a 1-year term. She is a member of the Improvement Council. Okay, motion? Move to approve. Second. Okay, please vote. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. You ready? You have any? No, sir, not at this time. Tracy? Not at this time. Debbie? Next time. I'm going to hold mine for— Okay, that's fine. So that concludes that. Thank you guys so much. We'll hear from you next time about this. The next would be item E, appointment of Horry County Schools Education Foundation members. Miss Dawson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to place Megan Stiles in nomination as the District 6 member of the Horry County Schools Foundation. Thank you. Second. Second. Second. Please vote. Thank

133you, Miss Dawson. Anyone else? Okay, that concludes that. Well, item 5 is a consent form. Move to approve. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Who would like sign hearing? None. And that includes everything we have. Motion to adjourn. Second. Sir, I have— I'm sorry, wait a minute. No, we got Janet and Daryl. Go ahead, Janet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For all of us who don't know Mr. Leroy "Bo" Rainbow, he was a very big man in stature, but he was also big in his student leadership, his servant leadership, and his humanity. I just wanted to give honor to him before we adjourn. Mr. Rainbow, better known as Bo, was born and raised in Conway, and he was a 1959 graduate of Whittemore High School. After college, Mr. Rainbow returned to the area and became

134an educator. Now think about this, for more than 50 years, that's 5 and 0, Mr. Rainbow devoted his life to Horry County Schools and to public education. So I'm just going to talk about the education part. There's a whole nother side that we could say the same thing about his other servant things that he did, but on the education side He served in several capacities within the district. He was a teacher, football coach, a track coach, athletic director, assistant principal at all 3 grade levels, and several, several other positions. He also served as principal at 4 of our high schools. From Myrtle Beach High School, he was there for 8 years. Conway High School, 3 years. The Academy for the Arts, Science, and Technology, 1 year, and North Myrtle Beach High School for 1 year.

135During his tenure, he received numerous accolades, awards, recognitions, etc., and through his outstanding leadership, he shaped the lives of so many people, which was evidenced at his homegoing service last week. At this time, I would ask that tonight's adjournment be in Mr. Bo Rainbow's honor. And his memory for more than 50 years of educational leadership and service to countless children, families, former and present staff members, as well as the communities he served in and the lives he touched throughout Horry County. Please continue to keep the Rainbow family in your thoughts and your prayers, and we thank you. Miss Graham, I think on behalf of the board I can speak freely to say we would be honored to do that. Thank you. Yeah, he was a great man. He sounds it. Thank you, Janet. Uh, Bo

136was a wonderful friend, and his lasting legacy has certainly touched us all. So, but we all received an email in June of the passage of another individual, Miss Irma Barker, who served for 36 years as the executive secretary to the superintendent. And we all know what a hard job that can be. She passed away on June 30th at the age of 97. She began her career in this role working for Thurman Anderson Sr. Immediately prior to her starting at the district office, Horry County students were served by about 104 small school districts, each with its own board of education, tax base, and teacher qualification requirements. During her tenure, Horry County consolidated the 104 districts into 3 districts. Later in the 1970s, HCS became a single district with a single board and tax base. When the

137district was consolidated in the 1950s, it had about 12 district staff. That included the maintenance department. She retired as Superintendent John Dossie's secretary in the late 1980s. Throughout her service, she saw many changes in Horry County Schools, and her legacy is also also greatly appreciated. I think we have a wonderful group of people, and the legacy that they have left us in Horry County Schools is what allows us to do the things we're doing today. So thank you, Miss Graham, but these two individuals definitely deserve our memory. And thank you for remembering her, Mr. Ricketts, and Miss Graham, thank you. Okay, is there anything else? And then I will need a motion to adjourn. Move. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Hearing none, we are adjourned.