Board Work Session 02-09-2026

001Good evening. Thank you for being here. And welcome to the February 9th workshop session. Before we begin, I'd like to ask Mr. David Cook for an invocation and a pledge of allegiance. If you would, sir. Bow your heads, please. Father, in the name of Jesus. Lord, we just thank you for this day. Lord, I thank you, Father, for the opportunity that you've given each and every one of us to. To help mold and shape the children of Horry county schools. Lord, I thank you, Father, that during our meeting time, you help us to keep our emotions out of our discussions and our kick our brains in. Help us to always be looking for kids first in all the decisions that we make. We thank you, Father, for all the staff and all the support of

002Horry county schools. All the teachers and all the hard work of the district office people. Lord, we just pray that you bless them all, Lord. Continue to give them wisdom and guidance to lead them through their days as they do their jobs. To help the kids of Horry County. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. To the of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, David. Here we go. Okay, so we need an approval of the agenda. Mr. Chair, one of you say something. The report out from the policy committee that was held today at 4pm was inadvertently left off the agenda. My request is that a member of the board bring that forward so we can amend this

003agenda to include that important readout by Ms. Dawson. Mr. Chair, I move that we add item AA under discussion, which will be the policy committee report. Okay. Need a second. Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed like sign hearing? No. It's so added. So now we'll go to approval of the agenda. We need a motion. So moved. Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those like sign hearing? None. And then I'll need an approval of the minutes from January 26th. In favor say aye. Aye. And there you go. Now we're going into discussion. And Ms. Dawson, policy committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair and fellow board members, Mr. Jones and staff. I want to begin by thanking the policy committee for their service this afternoon. This was our seventh policy committee meeting of the school year.

004We have four more meetings left in the school year which will be March 9, April 20, May 4 and June 8. Today's agenda centered on the following areas. After taking care of our basic agenda business of approving the minutes and the agenda, we focused on BSR4. We took into consideration a number of changes that were recommended by our Committee and from staff and the committee voted unanimously to move BSR forward to the full board for consideration with a recommendation for approval. There was one very minor change which is not substantive, which was to bold two words in that. And our legal counsel says it was perfectly fine to move that forward understanding that that minor change would go to the board. Secondly, we began Our review of BSR 5. We had a very robust discussion

005among our committee members and our two other members present. And I appreciate that very much. We are yielding good results. And. And the committee voted to task superintendent and staff to come back with a draft with revisions for our March 9th meeting. In our March 9th meeting, we plan to begin addressing GC1 as well. We also hope to begin review of our post meeting board member survey benchmarks. I believe we've collected enough data at this point to collect our qualtrics data and begin some discussion on that. That will be our goal to get that on the agenda for the nint. Thank you again to our committee members and the other board members who joined us today. Mr. Cook and Mr. Edwards joined our committee. Thank you to all of you for your hard work and

006participation. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Dawson, Ms. Allen, if you would. Enrollment update. Thank you. Mr. Cox, Ms. Wellings, board members and Mr. Jones. We're going to have an enrollment update. This data that we're sharing tonight as a result of January 29th. I want to caution you as I have before when we do these enrollment updates that this is only a snapshot in time. This is what the data look like at the close of the day on the 29th. So Lucas, if you'll go to the next slide, this shows you how our enrollment has changed over the year. Back from September 4th, we took, remember we did a snapshot on September 12th, one on October 24th and then one on the 29th. And you can see we still are not up

007to our projected enrollment. You can see that we have seen, if you look, an increase in elementary from the last presentation that I did, a slight decrease in middle school and then a decrease at the high school. But I do want to caution you because you know, at the high school level we do have January graduations and in that ceremony there's 275 January graduates. So that really is a celebration even though the numbers at the high school level went down. So we're very proud of those 275 graduates. One thing that has changed from our state department is those graduates will still show empower school. But they are marked not to include for funding purposes. But we have to leave them in because of reports such as grad rate at the end of the year, because

008they do count for us, not against us. So I didn't want to mislead you with that data. I wanted you to see how many were actually enrolled on a campus on January 29th. So that is our first slide. Looking at the next slide, this is our new student enrollment as of January 29th. Students new to Horry County Schools was 2,964 students. And then you can see the breakdown again from elementary, middle and high. Now, I would caution you and remind you that some of these students may have been in Horry county before. They may have been out a year and come back, but they are new to us this school year. Okay. That would also include some of the students that I shared with you in October, because this is that same snapshot. Okay. Then

009on the next slide, this shows our withdrawal information. And you can see since the beginning of the school year, we have withdrawn 3353 students. There is a breakdown again of how many of those are elementary, how many of them are middle, and how many of them are high. But again, I put the reminder there that 274. Not in this number. They're not in that number. We don't count them as withdrawals, but we do. They're not in school at this time. Okay. Moved out of Horry county schools. We're reporting 1,725. And that may be just to let you know how it works. If you remember on the last report, some parents don't tell us where they're going. They just withdraw their child. And we don't know. But eventually, if they enroll somewhere else, anywhere in the

010United States, we're going to get a records request. And so then we know that they've actually moved out of Horry county. And they go to a different category than you may have seen seen on January or, excuse me, in October. We are now showing 1,356 students have remained in Horry County. They're attending either charter, private, virtual, homeschool, or adult ed. And there's 272 students that we put in the other category as of January 29th. Okay. And then I think it's. Oh, nope, got two more slides. Nope, sorry. This is the last one. Sorry about that. If you look at this, you can see that how many have remained in here? We took some of the top numbers. We could look and start breaking it down by charter schools, but there are so many individual private

011schools or charter schools or online schools, it would be hard to do that. But we took some of the highest. And you could see there's 279 students that were reporting at this time at the Discovery School, 175 students at ACA, 97 at Coastal High School, and 44 in adult edition. If you go back and look at the last time I reported in October, you will see that there is a drop in students attending the Discovery School. There is a drop in students attending Atlantic Collegiate Association. There is a drop in Coastal High School, but there is a slight increase in adult ed. So it does tell us that some of those students have come back to us. I also want to remind you, and I have. We have shared this information with you previously, but

012we did a survey. We sent that survey to every parent of a student that had withdrawn from Horry County Schools. That survey was sent back in November, and it was left open for a month. And we did. We watched to see. To make sure we weren't still getting a lot of responses, because we wanted to give everybody that opportunity. And basically we were asked them, why did you leave us? I mean, there were more questions than that, but that's just the overall of what we were trying to get at. So I would like to tell you that there were 298 total entries on that survey. So that means 298 of those folks took advantage to tell us the majority. Well, it was close. The majority of them, 40% of those responses were from the high

013school level, 36 from elementary and 24 from the middle school. From the middle school. Our middle school parents. So looking at that, a lot of them. And I wish now, in hindsight, we had not given them the other category, because a lot of them chose that just by default. But once we got past the other category, the highest number of responses came from 14% who said they wanted more options than they were afforded here in Horry County Schools. So that. I just say that because of all the discussions we've been having and. And what we're looking at with our programs to try to attract students to Horry county schools, this data supports that. And that is everything I have, unless you have questions for me. Questions. I just have One quick question, Ms. Allen. Is

014it the data clerks in our schools who are responsible for collecting all of this data, Our data quality clerks or our attendance clerk? Enter it into PowerSchool. But the information I have, we have a whiz in our midst who can pull data for us. He can write his own reports. And so Mr. James pulls the data and then I sort it and add in total and do. Thank you. I just want to acknowledge the fact that at the school level with students coming and going every day, that is indeed a challenge. So I want to just shout out to our data clerks and attendance clerks for doing that good work. They do a lot. And they do a lot. You're absolutely right, Ms. Dawson. They continue to make calls, the ones that we don't know

015where they went. They continue to try to locate the family. I even know of some of our data quality clerks who actually go on Facebook and try to track down families so that we know where they are. So yes, it is a lot of work on our staff and we appreciate their diligence. Mr. James, Ms. Allen, just one quick question. You mentioned the first 14% of the surveys said that their reason for leaving was more options. What was the second most popular? I will have to go back and look, but I'll be glad it's a one page summary. If I could send that to you or get Mr. Jones to send that out. We almost, and I'm just being critical of what we did, what I did, we almost gave them too many choices to

016pick. So once we got past the 14%, I want to say, and I'll verify this, I don't want to be quoted on it, I believe it was 11% that said safety. But I'll go back and look. But after that you see 3% here, 2% here, et cetera. The reason I asked, 14% is a very small sample set to say this is why. So I was just wondering what was the second. So if 11% is the following and its safety will, that just puts a little different tilt on it for me. That's right. I totally understand. We will also next year I really would like to leave out the other category and give them more, maybe more options to pick and I think we'll get a better answer. Okay, thank you. Any more questions? Hearing none.

017Thank you. Ms. Allen. Mr. Gardner. Mr. Jones, zero based budget process. Good morning. Chairman Cox Chair Vice Chair wellings board members. Mr. Jones, it just seems like we just met. In fact we just met last Wednesday. But we want to give you an update, brief update on the budget process as we're going through it and actually talk a little bit about the zero based budget model that we'll get working through. So zero based budget, what is that? Zero based budgeting? It's a new concept for Horry County Schools and actually it's a new concept for school districts in general, you see this more in a business environment. But zero based budgeting ensures that each dollar is justified, not just carried forward. This year with hcs, our goal is to align every dollar in academics and human

018resources. So we picked two departments to do this with and Student Outcomes Literacy, which is a rise with reading, workforce readiness and employee excellence. So the process we're going through is well, I think I missed one objective is to align all resources to student outcomes and strategic priorities, increase fiscal transparency and accountability. The third objective it is to optimize efficiency through data driven decision making. Fourth, to strengthen workforce development and retention. And lastly is to build an agile and sustainable financial model. So the process we mentioned earlier is Academics and Human Resources division are currently reviewing budget packages and implementing the zero based budget model. I will share with you, Mr. James has 121 budget packages he's looking at. That's just a budget package and we'll share what one of those looks like. But there

019are several lines that go underneath that. So there's been a lot of work on learning services to go through that process. Our job in fiscal services to provide support both technical and functional throughout this process. Again, it's a new process we're working through. It might run into a few kinks, but maybe next year flow a lot faster. Timeline January through February, base budget reset and return on investment or impact review. March the zero based budget committee reviews and the cabinet will do cross department trade off sessions. In April the superintendent reviews prioritized recommendations. May we typically have our budget workshop again with the board. And then of course it all ends in June when we ask the board to approve the final budget. So the committee members that we got across category of committee members

020we had superintendent, myself, chief academic officer, chief human resources officer, chief of student services, the executive director for elementary School, Ms. Coy. On the west side of the county for representing a high school is Michael McCracken. On the south side representing Socastee Middle School is Lisa Melchi, North Green City Floyd's Elementary School Ryan Gerald, East River Oaks elementary School Renee Kazir and my sidekick the budget officer who is Crystal Fry who does all the all the work. So here goes an example of what a budget package looks like. And this is what we've changed work from focusing on six components. One of the components is the problem, the need that needs to be addressed. We've never done into that level of detail before. We're asking them to give us a description of the activity, also

021assign a priority to it. Level one through Five with one being the highest, five being the lowest. Provide a justification. Why do you need funding for this? Consequences. What would happen if we did not fund this particular budget item? And then performance measures, which is sort of new. How are we going to measure success through the process? So that's really a quick down and dirty about the process and I'll turn it over to Mr. Jones to provide some additional feedback. So board members and community, I just want to lift up the fact that some structures have now been put in place related to taxpayer dollars and outcomes for kids that we had not had in the past. It is no small effort. If you look up zero based budgeting and if you just google it,

022it's going to say it's time. All right. And that it's also going to say that it starts to match dollars with outcomes. And so I just, I just want to commend first off this, this can't happen without the structures. Well, the board's oversight to say, hey, we want this to happen. That's what started it. Then me sitting with John saying, hey John, what's your best thought around this? And then we talked on the phone and we used our resources to figure out what this might look like. John and his team created these structures that you see in front of you that Mr. James and Ms. Anderson are going first in the organization and then the committee will be going through all of their budget packages. Slash data entry to rank and utilize with a rubric.

023This is how it's going to look in this iteration. And while this iteration might not be how we do it next year, this is how we're doing it this year. And I will tell you this, that John and his team have already started utilizing aspects of this process for everyone's budget package that they've said. While not every division is utilizing zero based budgeting, the budget timeline and the budget tools are already starting to look different based on what we're doing with zero based budgeting. So John, did I miss anything there? Hit on the head? I will tell you that I'm not aware of any other district doing their budget this way. This is going to be something that we are really going to, going to be leading the pack with. And I commend you all

024with your vision and you tasked me with this and this is what it looks like now and we'll see how it goes. Any questions? Mr. Garner? Just a question and a comment or two. First of all, I really like your assessment. I would hope that when you look at the measure, performance measures, that there's some future review to see if they really measured up to what they said they would do. So that's the proof in the pudding because you're identifying what you think will be the measures. Now the other, the question I had was twofold. One, didn't we start some of this last year with HR and academics? So this is really the, not the first time they've gone through it. That's my memory. I think we started it last year. And then secondly, we

025had asked for a five year projection when we would be district wide with this. I know I did and I haven't seen that. So I'd like to see that as a part of the budget process. So last year we dove into divisional budgets in a way that we had never done before. It was not zero based. It was, I don't know what the term would be. How would you describe what we. Mr. Jones asked us last year to cut a certain percentage of our budgets. And so that's what we, that's how we start started off the process. I know I use the term zero based, so I've heard that term around the horseshoe before. So it's not new. And that was in our discussion the budget last year. So I just want to see the

026schedule when we're going to roll it out to the other divisions because I think we looked at these two divisions pretty hard last year. So just want to make sure that we're not adding, you know, too much scrutiny to them when we need to be looking at others equally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just, I too have a question and a couple of comments. First of all, how who, Mr. Superintendent, how were the committee members selected? So we have multiple committees that we're utilizing and the executive directors plus a cabinet all looked at who we felt like would be the best individuals who would not only learn from the process but also give us insight. Thank you. I was curious. We have some schools who have very large budgets and I would be, I would

027think they might have a lot to bring to the table. Secondly, I want to commend you, Mr. Jones and staff. This process requires a lot of time and more. More importantly, it requires a cultural change within district office staff. And I want to applaud staff of opening your arms and hearts and minds to this process and understand that we as board members do take our responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars seriously. And I think in the end this will be very beneficial not only to gaining tax insights for the board but for the public. So thank you. Any more questions? Hearing none. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I do have one other thing I want to present. We have some breaking news. Let's break it. Related to the budget. Not off, not off, off topic.

028So when we met Wednesday, I told you that we were awaiting January tax receipts. We received those today. So I'm updating this. I've updated our tax collection sheet and you can see under 25 or 25, 26 rejected collections. I struck through 288 million and updated that to $302.8 million. So that's money in the bank. And again, if you look through the graph up here, you can see that's December. Here goes January. And of course February, March, April, May and June are pretty flat. So we're pretty much on track. Certainly as we go through the process, we may get some additional updates. But then the next piece I want to share you with with you is last year. We gave you. Last week we gave you a summary. The current position then was roughly around $22.3

029million. Negative. It has changed today. It is a little less than 7.1 million. Again, we're very early in the process. We have not received any information regarding state revenue. But I think we're in the best position we've ever been in at this point. If there's any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Questions? Nope. Do you have anything else? No, sir. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Now, I'd ask Ms. Anderson to come up with OE4 Personnel Administration, please. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Willans, board members and Mr. Jones. It's my pleasure to come speak to you this evening on OE4 Personnel Administration. Our mission in the HR department is to recruit, hire and retain. That's very simply stated. But it takes a lot of people with a lot of knowledge, a lot of patience

030and a lot of perseverance to make that a reality so that our employees give back to our students, which is our most important mission. Next slide, please. Lucas. I want to talk a little bit about those three things. So we'll begin with new teacher hires. You can see the graphics going back to 2019 to current. You can see we started out 2019 less than 200. The past three years we have hired well over 300 teachers each year. Initially, our projections for 26, 27 may not be quite as high. We do not have the same number of confirmed vacancies at present. However, we know that that can change quickly. I tell you every time we will talk from now until August. I can't tell you exactly how many vacants we Vacancies we have, it will change

031tomorrow, but we're looking pretty good at the moment. Sometimes life happens later than people anticipate and they can't tell us in too much later in the school year whether they're planning to return. Next slide. This is an exciting slide for me. This is one of the most important events for the HR department that occurs each year. You can again see our data back to 2022. That was a virtual fair as we were coming out of the pandemic and we still were not ready to have a face to face event with that many people. But fast forward moving to 2025, you can see last year we had over 300 people in attendance and we issued open contracts this year. And we'll talk more about this later, but I'll just give you a preview before we get

032there. We had over 500 people that registered and we had approximately 485 applicants attending our recruiter fair this year, which is outstanding. It was just a wonderful day to see that many people that are truly interested in Horry county school schools. We're not competing with anyone else. These are the people that are truly vested in exploring Horry county schools and making it a home for their educational career. Next slide please. Just so you know, that's the only recruitment event we do make a concentrated effort to attend our in state fairs. Primarily you. You can see some of the universities featured on the slide. This is not comprehensive, but it just shows you some that we frequent every year. We have reduced the number of out of state events that we attend in the past, let's

033say 10 years ago we might have taken six recruiters to an event. Typically now we only take one because you don't have nearly the applicants. But we still want to make sure that we, we go to the places that are fruitful recruiting grounds for us. Such as you'll see Kennesaw State. That's the place where we are successful in obtaining people to become employees for Horry county schools. Some places in New York, the Northeast, those are very lucrative for us. So we do attend those as well. Next slide please. To highlight other areas, we do concentrate when we report out on teachers because that is our largest employment group. However, we work diligently every day to recruit for support staff. And we have held specific job fairs looking at transportation both in August and September. In

034October we hosted a different support affair looking at all areas for support staff employees. It was very interesting. Ben's division, they had each segment represented and people, some were just coming to explore. They Just wanted to see what opportunities exist in Horry county schools. Others were able to interview and be offered a job either that day or within a week. So that was a very fruitful endeavor for us, Something that we will repeat coming up very, very soon. On February 24, we have another transportation job fair, because as you know, that's an area where we always need to work to fill vacancies. Next slide, please. And moving to the retention piece of human resources. You can see, back in 2019, we had the highest retention rate. And then we know what occurred across our country,

035which changed the landscape for many employment agencies, not just Horry county schools. But looking primarily at 2324, comparing to 2425, you see a slight dip about a percentage point, which is not significant at all. But compared with national trends, we're right in line with other school districts, districts across the country. We're at a time where baby boomers are, where they can choose to retire if they desire that. So that has affected some of our retention. And again, we're very fortunate to have coastal Carolina in our backyard. However, sometimes when those young people have been here five, seven years, they have married, have young children, and they have the need to go back where they haven't. More family support. We do see that as a trend in some of the people that exit Horry county schools.

036Lucas, I think that we have one more. And also in part of retention is evaluation. It's very important that we look at the performance of our employees. This is talking particularly about our professional evaluations. There are times when we cannot complete all of the evaluations. Someone may be out on medical leave. They may have decided to depart from Horry county schools before the evaluation is complete. So that's why you see some totals that the complete doesn't equal the total number. However, last year, we were able to complete all of those professional evaluations. And I will be glad to answer answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Mr. Edwards. Ms. Anderson, I concur that it was a big success for the job fair. I've never been to one before that had that

037many applicants there present. One question I had for you was, in terms of our special education recruitment, how did we fare in that recruitment? Did we have quite a few applicants there? We did, actually. The special education department, they started their interviews in the morning. They had eight teams running concurrently, and they had a. Because special education is more specialized than some of our other areas, we do ask that special education give us a nod of approval for the applicants before they go out to the school under ideal situations, they would be part of that team at the same time. But with the number of people there, you can't do it on that day. So they start early and then let the schools know sort of what their thoughts were. So we were able to

038hire several special education positions on Saturday and we did have, I would say an increased number of special education applicants attending the fair. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. James. Ms. Anderson, I guess just for comparison, when we look at this at my workplace, we look at your percentage of retention, but we also look, and I don't expect you to have these numbers handy, but we look at the percentage of employees, the number that's eligible to retire, whether it's based on service credits or age or combination thereof at will. For Oak county schools. Could you provide that number for us? We can. I do not have that at this time. But each November we send out what we call statement of intent which that doesn't necessarily answer your question about who's eligible for retirement,

039but it does give us an idea of who plans to return. And we ask employees to indicate their plans for the next three years. But we can certainly give you some idea about our statement of intents as well as our people, people that are eligible for retirement. Thank you. Any more questions? Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Lee James, if you will. Social studies. Good evening Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellens, board members. Mr. Jones, thank you for this opportunity to come. Come for you to discuss some of our students results. Tonight we'll be looking at the R4 monitoring report which pertains to the area of social studies. This report is a bit different than previous reports that you have seen in that it does not contain data from elementary and middle school students. In the state

040of South Carolina the only grade level that is tested are high school students. And tonight we have several assessments for you to review. We'll begin with our civics experience exam. The civics exam is taken as a part of the United States government course typically given in students latter years in high school. It is based on an assessment from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Test. It is required for all diploma seeking students and it is included on schools report cards but is not calculated into the overall rating. Last year we're proud to say that 92% of the students who took this exam earned a passing grade which is of course an improvement from the previous year. Next we will look at our end of course test for United States history. The US History EOC is

041given to students at the end of their course at the end of their US History course. It is a state created standardized assessment on which students earn a score between 0 and 100. Those scores are commonly converted into letter grades and the results are displayed on the screen here for you. It is important to understand that this assessment counts the student's final exam and 20% of their overall average. Last year nearly 60% of students who took this exam earned a C or better and over 70% of students passed this exam. Both of those numbers are increases over the previous year. The next few slides are related to Advanced Placement Social Studies exams. In Horry county schools we offer eight different AP courses. The scores on this test range from one to five with three being

042commonly awarded by universities and colleges around the nation for credit at their institution. Therefore, we have set that as our passing benchmark. This is a common practice around the nation. On the screen we are reporting the percent of students who scored three or higher and we will start as well as the number of students who have taken the test each year. In the bottom left corner we'll start with the Advanced Placement European History exam. Last year 101 students took this exam. 87% of those students scored 3 or higher which is above the national average of 71.6%. You will also see on the right graph a line there that represents the national average for this tested school year. Next we'll look at Advanced Placement Government and Politics exams. There are two. The first is the comparative

043government exam. On this exam students are given six different countries, their governments and they look at the differences and similarities between the two to give students that global perspective. The next exam we'll look at is for the United States government. In particular on the AP gov comparative exam last year 56 students took this test with an overall percent of students scoring 3 or higher of nearly 86%. And that is compared to the national passing rate of 73%. On the AP government and politics United States exam. We had 244 students take this exam with an overall percent of students scoring three or higher of 92% compared to the nations 73%. The next exam that we'll look at is AP Human Geography. This is frequently students very first AP exam. They take this very commonly in the

0449th grade. Last year we had 309 students take this exam across the county and of that we're proud to say that 88% of those students earned a score of three or higher. That is significant when you consider the path. The national passing rate was 56%. Truly a very difficult exam. And our students performed very well. Next, we'll look at the AP Macroeconomics exam. We had a total of 166 students take this exam last year. There was a slight dip to 93% of students taking passing with a score of three or higher. And that, of course, is compared to the previous year when all students earned that level again. The national passing rate for this exam is 65%. Psychology is the area that falls into humanities, so it is reported in the Social Studies monitoring report.

045Last year on the AP Psychology exam, we had 166 students also take this exam with an overall percent of students scoring 3 or higher of 85.5%. Compared to the national passing rate of 61.7%. And the AP US History exam. Last year we had 286 students take this exam. And a very impressive majority. 95% of students score three or higher, truly outstanding. Compared to the national average of 71.6%. And our final exam that we will look at is the AP World History exam. We had 45 students take this exam last school year. And I'm proud to report that all of them earned a score of C or higher. Well above the national passing rate of 64.7%. As you can see, across all of these AP exams, our students performed very well. We are very proud and

046appreciate the efforts of their teachers, their parents, the students and the instructional leaders across the district who made results like this possible for our students. And that concludes the monitoring report for social studies. At this time, I'll be happy to take any questions. Questions? Hearing none. Thank you, lee. Thank you, Ms. Scott. Financial support for school teams. Good evening. Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellands board members and Mr. Jones. In the materials provided for you for our meeting tonight, you received a special consideration request for national competition funding. On behalf of Myrtle Beach High School and Socastee High School. We are bringing a request to you for this consideration. Since their total cost is over $10,000 in previous years, several of you have shared with me that you would like to provide additional support by utilizing

047your board discretionary funds. If you would like to contribute, please email me and I'll serve as your point of contact for this request. I'll be happy to answer any questions at this time. Any questions? You don't happen to know how much they've already raised? I do. I have it with me. Actually. Currently, Socastee High School is raised. I'm sorry, I have how much the gap will be if we don't give them what they need. Hold on. Fundraising for saty high school is $8,000 and Myrtle Beach High School is 1,500. So this is how much they're short? No, that's how much they've raised at this point. And what's your. What's your total they want to raise? Sorry. Remaining funds needed for Myrtle beach high school is $7,003.25 after we give them the funds. And socastee high

048school, if we give them half the funds, they won't need any additional funds. So that's 4,000. Socastee High School will not need any additional funds because they've done enough fundraising to cover the other half. So just. Myrtle beach high needs funds. Yes, sir. 7,000 if you guys vote next time to give them half. Okay. Mr. Cook, could. Do you have any idea how much of that hundred thousand dollars we have spent? We haven't only done it one. We only did one one other one. Is that correct so far this year? Yes, sir. I believe so. Right. Okay. Thank you. One more question. Anything else hearing? None. Thank you, Ms. Chairman. I'd just like to make a point. I did check in with principal Rich at six Saty high school, and fundraising efforts are ongoing. Thank

049you. Thank you. Mr. Jones. Superintendent's report. Thank you. Chairman Cox, Vice chair Wellands, members of the board and members of the community. A lot of great things going on in ori county schools. We reflected today as a cabinet. It's been a busy time. And I know when it's busy for both the executives and the principals and the students, it's got to be busy really, for everybody. So when we think about some of the events that went on, I just want to lift up staff and just have a second. I want to lift up the operations staff for the St. James elementary community night. I want to lift up our HR and principal leaderships for the fantastic career fair. And I want to lift up what our teachers do every day. I got to see. Stopped

050by Homewood elementary, and I got to see some. Some teachers doing some wonderful things with kids. Board members. When a kid does something great and they get a token for their great behavior or the. For the fantastic thing that they've done, and then they get to take that token and put it in a vending machine and a book pops out, we're winning. That's. That's a beautiful thing. And you'll hear a request for next year to make sure more and more kids have that opportunity. As we begin the month of February, I want to recognize that this is black history month. And it's A time to honor the achievements, resilience and lasting contributions of Black Americans who have shaped our nation and continue to shape our future. Black History month began in 1926 by historian Dr.

051Carter Woodson, and it grew into a national observance and 1976 with President Gerald Ford formally recognizing Black History Month and urging Americans to seize the opportunity to honor the too often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans. As a new member to Horry County, I've spent time to learn about the accomplishments of those in the past that have strengthened the fabric of this community. And I quickly learned that we have meaningful examples of leadership and service throughout all parts of our community, specifically, specifically within our African American group. And I want to thank those schools and those leaders who are participating in Black History Month and know that every child is seen in Horry county schools at this time. I want to bring up Tanya Pickett, who's going to talk about Counseling week. Thank you, Ms. Pickett.

052Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice Chair Wellings board members, and Mr. Jones, thank you so much for allowing me some time this evening to speak briefly about a very special group of professionals serving within Horry County Schools. Those professionals are the people who make up our school counseling teams. Counselors in our district are made up of two groups, our state certified professional school counselors, who we formerly referred to as guidance counselors, and our clinical RBHS counselors. Our comprehensive developmental count counseling programs are present in every one of our 59 schools and district program sites and the counselors who execute these programs work daily with students, teachers, administrators, parents and community members to provide the support and advocacy necessary to help students succeed. Horry County Schools is currently staffed with 140 state certified professional school counselors who

053work diligently day in and day out to serve. They promote academic, career and social emotional development. They handle crises. They make referrals. They consult with other professionals. They collaborate with community members, they help resolve conflicts. They teach life skills and most importantly, they work tirelessly to create equitable learning environments for all students. School counselors are often the quiet engines behind student progress, always encouraging, planning and pushing students toward forward successful outcomes. They work hard to proactively build systems of support that help students learn, grow and thrive. To accomplish this greatness, they team up with our RBHS counselors to make the magic happen. Our RBHS counselors, or Rehabilitative and Behavioral Health Services Services counselors are the mental health clinicians. They provide clinical counseling services to our students and families who may need more intense intervention to

054support their success. Currently, in Horry county schools we have a total of 99 RBHS clinicians serving our schools in addition to the 140 school counselors. We are very fortunate in this district to have some such strong school counseling support in place each year. The American School councillor association pauses during the first full week of February to recognize and celebrate the unique role of accomplishments of school counselors within American school systems. The work of our school counseling teams here in Horry county schools is the perfect personification of this year's theme, Amplifying Student Success. Because our counselors not only set the atone for greatness, they amplify it. Our counselors take the talents, resilience and potential that are already present in our students and they increase their reach and impact beyond measure. Their work multiplies the efforts of

055others and strengthens whole school approaches to student success. The compassion, dedication and steady leadership they bring to our students and their families is immeasurable and undeniable. So as we pause to celebrate National School Counseling Week and recognize the work of school counseling teams in Horry county schools, please join me in extending a warm, heartfelt thank you to every Horry County Schools councillor Remind them that their hard work supporting academic success, social emotional growth and future life readiness makes a notable difference in the lives of our students in all of our communities and around the world. Thank you. I have a question. When you talk to your RVHS counselors, what did they say their greatest need is probably right now? Dealing with anxiety. Anxiety. They have a lot of students who have anxiety. And so making

056sure that we help remove that barrier so that students are not hindered. Their successes aren't hindered in school because of their anxiety. And all of your counselors need, they have to have a master's, is that correct? All of our professional school counselors have to have a master's. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Cook. Tony, what was the number? RBHS 99. Thank you. Yes, sir, Mr. Barnard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Out of the 239 folks you have helping, what's their average student load? Remember, our professional school counselors serve everybody in the school, right? So those are the folks that we used to refer to as our guidance counselors. So if they're assigned to a school, they're there to provide services to everybody in the school. Our RBHS counselors, the caseload differs by school based on the

057needs of the students, and it changes. We take numbers multiple times during the year. We collect data regarding the numbers that they hold in their caseload. We try to keep their case caseloads, manageable because we don't want them to have so many students that they can't provide effective service. How many school counselors are at Carolina Forest? Carolina Forest high school? Yes. 11. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You bet. Ms. Cook, again, I'm sorry. So. So going along with that question. Question right there. So where is the point where Care Solace comes in? I mean, what do we, you know, are they taking the over the overload? Yeah. Care Solace. Just because we provide RBHS services doesn't mean that every student who needs clinical counseling will get it in our schools. Right. Doesn't mean that it's appropriate

058for every student to get it in our schools. There are some things that students aren't able to unpack in school and then go back to class. And so when we find a situation where students need clinical or behavioral health services, once we determine what those are, if it's a service that we can't provide in our schools, or if it's not appropriate to provide in that school in our schools, then we would use Care Solace and allow them to help us coordinate that service for that student and that family. So we're going to do a full clinical assessment on every student that would come through. We're going to do a clinical assessment, and then we're going to figure out if this is something that we should refer out or not. Sure. Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah. I

059think we need to do probably a more of a deep dive into these RBHS counselors. They do a lot. I did a fairly deep dive into that several years ago with the help of one young lady who did not want to leave the district, but she couldn't live on what we paid. And she gave me a lot of insight as to what they do as far as talking people off the ledge, intervening on behalf of the student to perhaps avoid arrest. That's at the high school level. And I'm sure there have different needs at the different levels, but I think it would be good. Yes, sir, Mr. Ricketts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Pinkett. A lot of times I talk to elementary and middle school counselors, and quite often I hear from them that they

060seem to be overwhelmed with clerical work. How much clerical work do you think that they are involved in? A lot. At the school level. At the elementary and middle schools, I think all of our counselors at all three levels, they do what they have to do do to make schools run. And if you talk to any of them, they'll tell you that they're overwhelmed with a lot of clerical duties and A lot of testing duties, a lot of records work, tracking down records. And so I think that would probably be the sentiment of most of our counselors. Do we have any guidance clerks at the middle school level? No, I think most of our middle school schools work in conjunction with their data quality clerks and their attendance clerks to get the records sent out

061and received. And yeah, thank you. But our high schools typically have guidance clerks and registrars. Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry to get my mental health spidey senses going. Did we ever think about or. Or look at maybe mental health peer support because of the fact that it's getting to be more prevalent and that's an awful lot cheaper, you know, for us as a district to be able to do maybe, you know, the lower levels, you know, at some point. I'm just saying that that's an idea to look at. First of all, board members, thank you for your attention to this important subject. You can't learn how to read. You can't do the things on the school when you're worried about yourself. When you have anxiety, you have to take care of those

062things first. So thank you for digging into this and I appreciate it. And let us come back to you with some ideas. And I look forward, Ms. Pickett, when we have an ask a certified school and the board will understand what that is in due time. Ramp school. Yeah. And so when they're. That delivers a known national level of service, that is something that we can all stand behind. So please signal that to your folks. Thank you all. Next. Mr. Chairman, we have the calendar. It's a two year calendar this year. Mr. Prince is going to come forward. Mr. Prince, thank you. Good evening, Chairman Cox, Vice chair, Chairman Wellands, board members. Mr. Jones, we're excited to present the student calendar for not only the 2026, 2027 school year, but the 2027-2028 school year as

063well. Our calendars reflect the usual requirements of 180 instructional days. The first semester ending the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and no school on election day in 2026, as is required by state law for for all even numbered years. There are a couple of other key points that make the 2026, 2027 calendar a little different than past years. We'll start classes on a Wednesday, August 19th. Spring break will be April 12th through the 16th. 2027, which does not immediately follow Easter this year. The 2027, 2028 student calendar will also start on a Wednesday, August 18th, 2023. Spring break will be Before Easter and classes will end on June 6, 2028. We are thankful to the calendar committee for their work this year. They had some great input to optimize our schedules. Our calendar

064committee consists of various stakeholders. We have principals, the teacher of the year, the rookie teacher of the year, the support staff member of the year, and district staff members. We. We met several times to build these calendars and I would like to personally thank them for their valuable insight as they contributed to our work. The calendars have been shared with the superintendent's cabinets for feedback. We wanted to present these calendars tonight to our board members, followed by a public release later on by our communications team. Be happy to answer any questions you Hearing no questions. Thank you, Mr. Prince. Next, we have the educator job fair. Ms. Anderson, Chairman Cox, vice chair Will and board members. Mr. Jones. Told you I'd be back. So here we go. Saturday was a culminating event for many months

065of planning, and it could not have happened without the collaboration from every division in horry county schools. We had bus drivers bringing applicants from the parking lot. We had nurses on staff in case we had medical emergencies. We had custodians that were making sure every spill was cleaned up and people had every supply that they needed during the day. We had our schools that displayed what it means to. To be a part of Horry county schools. And every year, those school displays get better and better because whether you know it or not, there's just a little bit of a competitive edge among Horry county schools, especially. I shouldn't say that. I was going to say especially at the high school level, but I don't think it's just there. It shines in every level, but they

066outdo themselves year after year. It was so exciting to see the enthusiasm and the passion that walked through the door from people that were just almost ready to enter education. They haven't quite graduated yet, but they want to get a jump start to people within our own system that wanted to come to see what other options might be out there for them, as well as people from other states that are relocating and have heard about the success of Horry county schools and want to be a part of this wonderful organization. I do want to highlight Ms. Valerie McNeil. She does not always love the spotlight, but she spearheads this event for the human resources department and does an outstanding job. But again, we could not do this without the collaboration of many, many people throughout

067our organization. But just to go back over those numbers, we did have 538 people that were registered and we ended up with 458 actually attending. Of those 458, 124 were internal Horry county schools employees. I go back to the phrase I used earlier this year. People powered, purpose driven. If you didn't believe it before, you could feel it, see it and experience it on Saturday. I appreciate those of you that were able to attend this event. You got a first hand look. I know it's on Saturday. It's a challenge for people to be there. But we will have it again next year. So if you weren't able to make it this year, we look forward to seeing you there. And I do believe that we have a video. So we'll play that. And then after

068that, should you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer those for you. 100 teachers came to the annual Horry county schools educator job fair on Saturday. This is my fifth grade teacher. She's hard on me. I decided to become a teacher because I knew that I could help children. I could help have an impact on their lives. And I've decided to stay a teacher because that's making me really happy, really have a very strong sense of family. At waterways. Burke elementary is a family environment. We're family oriented. I cannot get away from that. And they were all hoping to be a part of that HCS family. I want to be at home in the community that I grew up in. I've seen so many of my teachers here that I, you know, and they've

069come home and I want that. I always have loved watching people learn and getting that light in their eyes when they've got it. And giving people the confidence to be able to feel like they can do something is something that I've always loved to do. I think it's just the people. A lot of the relationships that I've built throughout the years I taught at Loris Middle School and then I taught now at Carolina Forest High School. Everywhere I've gone, awesome people. It's had a passion for teaching is all I've ever wanted with my life. And I just love to teach my kids and it's what I want to do. So what do these current principals, teachers and staff think is the best thing about working in hcs? My favorite thing about Horry county schools are

070the people. When you see the excellence and professionalism and the care that our teachers and staff have for kids, you know you've got something special. Those relationships. We just have an incredible group of students. I love the students first and foremost. My favorite thing about Loris are The students I love, the children that I engage with every day, kids are the best. That's the team you want to be a part of. So welcome new teachers. And if you miss the educator job fair or want any information about Horry county schools, just log on to horrycountyschools.net. So you heard from the mouths of our employees in a team attendees, you heard family, home, passion, students, kids, those are what power us. That's what makes us special. And it was just wonderful to experience with that with

071almost 500 people. So any questions? I'll be glad to. Happy and happy to answer those. Just a quick comment. I met two individuals there at the job fair who were from Pennsylvania. Obviously they wanted a little break from the weather, but they got word of this job fair and intentionally made the trip down here to attend. And they shared with me that their job fairs around them, around their surrounding districts and in the districts in which they currently teach are nothing like this. So commend you for making an impression on at least. I know many people, but those two expressed my sentiments exactly. It was really delightful to see. Thank you. It's certainly a pleasure to lead a very talented team and to also have schools that are so willing to showcase what we offer

072here. Any more questions? Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Thank your team members as well. Ms. Mercier. Good evening. Well, believe it or not, the 100th day of school was on Friday, January 30th. And to celebrate, students across our county dressed up as 100 year olds participated in many other activities related to the number 100. And we also have a short video of these old youngsters and why 100 days of school. School is a big deal. Grade A school. How do I know you're 100 years old? What makes you a granny? Because it's the 100 day school. What is your favorite subject in class? Subject? Yeah. Math. You've been in School for 100 days. What's something you think you've learned in Math class over 100 days? I learned magical clay. You can do it. It's just hard

073to say it right. It's important for our students to have fun and establish that relationship with our school. You know, they can see their teachers around, they're celebrating the hundredth day, but also see some teachers celebrating pajama day to celebrate kindness. So we're just excited to have a good time at Myrtle Beach Primary. I'm a rocker 100 year old. You're a rocker hundred year old. Schools across the district celebrate the 100th day of school with PJ Day and is dressing up like their 100. And while this is, well, adorable, this 100th day is a good halfway marker to see all of the progress these students have made pushing those kids, looking at the growth they made. We just had our winter map scores come in, and our teachers are making new plans for for the

074rest of the year to address the needs of our students. This is kind of the midway point of the school year, and the student is like, you're doing a great job. Look at what you've already learned. And then we have this much more to grow, and you can do it. Teachers say one of the most important things in elementary school is literacy. Students master how to read to learn reading fluently or second grade. We're starting to read to understand. So just asking and answering questions and developing a love of reading. We've been learning how to read. I've been actually reading kind of census. So happy 100th day of school. If you're a parent with any questions about how to support your child's education, reach out to their schools. They want to help you make sure

075every student is successful. For more information, log on to Horry county schools. Great. And closing out our recognitions. This Evening, our superintendent, Mr. Cliff Jones, was recognized by B2B, the Grand Strand Magazine, as one of the 50 most influential people in the Grand Strand for 2025. These individuals were selected through extensive staff research and nominations from the community. The 50 individuals were highlighted for their important work in the fields of hospitality, real estate, banking, health care, education, and much more. Congratulations, Mr. Jones. That concludes the superintendent report. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Next, we need to go into executive session, but I need a motion. Motion to go into executive session. Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of the consideration of student appeal. Second that motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those like sign. We'll be

076back. We need a motion to come back in a session. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, now we need to adjourn the board. Mr. Chairman. Yes, ma'. Am. Sorry, Lost my train of thought. It should be noted during executive session that no decisions were made, no votes were taken. That's right. Okay, so we're going to join during this board work session and convene a special called meeting. I need a motion. So moved. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, we're now into a special called meeting. We need a consideration for a student appeal. Mr. Barnum. Based upon our review and consideration of the written records regarding the student's appeal, I make the motion to modify the District appeals decision to return immediately to school and be placed on probation for the rest

077of the year. If she violates her probation, she will be returned to slower and repeat tier one and two and attend a minimum of five counseling sessions with rbs. I second that. Does everybody understand the motion? I guess so. Okay, please vote. Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Barner. Now where do we go? Monitoring. Are we monitoring? Real quick? Mr. James. Chairman Cox, Vice chair. Well, and board members. And Mr. Jones. Good evening again. At your last board workshop we had a presentation on the R3 monitoring science report and has been un modified since that time. Now take any question. Motion to approve. Second. All right. Please vote. Well, there you go. Looks Good. Thank you. Mr. James. What's next? You're back up again to consider Read to succeed retention. I am. At our last meeting,

078I made a presentation to you to recommend three strategies to support the promotion of our students impacted by the Read to Succeed act and to support the literacy growth and development of all of our primary age students. The first strategy is to support students who in first and third grade who are scoring below or currently scoring below the required minimum and may require additional intervention such as summer reading camp or being retained in the third grade. For third grade students, this strategy would provide funds for additional positive pay interventionist or after school tutoring services for students in this category and other students may need that service. The total request for this strategy is $500,000. Motion to approve. Oh, sorry. Thought you were finished. I'm Sorry. Go. The second strategy is to support the K3 literacy

079development for all students. I'm sorry. To support the literacy development for all students in kindergarten through third grade by allowing schools to create a school based literacy plan that will allow them to accommodate for the unique needs of their students and families. The total request for this strategy is $400,000. And the final strategy is to expand summer reading camp. This will allow all students in first and third grade who identified based on the Read to Succeed act to receive services over the summer and allow those extended learning opportunities for those students. And there is no additional funding requested for this strategy. The time total funds requested for all three strategies combined is $900,000 to be taken from the undesignated general fund balance at this time. I'll take any questions? Any questions? Motion to approve. Second.

080Okay. Please vote. Okay. Looks good. Thank you for your support. That's it for you, buddy. Okay, we have a consent. A motion of further consent. No. You got D. You got John. John. Oh God. I do that every time. Think I'M in a hurry. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been no changes to the financial statement. Okay. Motion to approve. 2nd all right. V Vote. All right. Now we need a motion for the consent, so move. Second say aye. Like sign hearing none. That passed. Second chairman. Mr. Chairman, before we adjourn. Yes. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Cox board members. Dr. James Pete Mahaffey, a career educator and native South Carolinian, passed away at the age of 90 on January 28, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Mahaffey held various positions over his 44 years in

081education Education, including serving as the Associate Superintendent for Instruction in the Horry County School District. Upon retirement from the Horry County School District 1991, he received an appointment as professor of Education and Chair of the Education Department at Wofford College. When he retired From Warford in 2000, he was awarded the title of professor of Education Emeritus. Dr. Mahaffey was affiliated with many professional organizations and received numerous awards for his contribution to education, including being named the outstanding administrator in 1991 by the South Carolina association of School Administrators. An advocate for promoting literacy, he helped organize the South Carolina International reading association in 1972 and later served a term as president of that organization. Dr. Mahaffey was a mentor to many educators in Horry county, including myself as a beginning teacher. Mr. Chairman, I move we

082adjourn this evening in memory of Dr. James P. Mahaffey. Thank you, Mr. Rickinson. Since we've already had a motion and a second, all in favor say aye. Those like signed, there is none. And thank you all