001It's 6 o'clock and I'm going to call this meeting to order. Four board members are present. Uh Mrs. Gallop, Mrs. Garvin, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Dowy. Mrs. KN is absent. Is the practice of our board of education to begin our meetings with prayer and the pledge of allegiance. We invite you to bow your heads for prayer and stand to join us in the pledge if you so choose. Let us bow our heads. We respectfully ask for your guidance and wisdom as we proceed with the business before us. Keep us mindful of our purpose of providing quality education for the students attending Taylor County Schools. Amen. Dr. Stallings, do we have any adjustments or addendums to the agenda? >> Indeed, Miss Garvin, we do. I would ask that you pull items 5350. Excuse me. 53 05.
002I apologize. That one more time is 5305. Also, I'd ask that you would pull item 5316. I would also draw your attention to item 3058. It's simply a typo. It should say approval for the use 3058. It should read approval for F the use and then the rest of the language. In addition, I'd like to draw your attention to items 3061. The word middle is actually spelled m i d e. There's a little shout out to the script spelling be. And lastly, I would appreciate if you would address 5296. You should find a space on that item. Please add the words Robert Belter. >> Robert. >> Beltner. B L T N E R. Number 5296. Thank you. >> Thank you. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of the agenda as amended. >> Mr. Taylor moves. >> Second.
003>> Mr. Gallow. Second. All those in favor? I >> oppose. Motion passes 40. Brings us to the 1000 series and information. And first up is a delegation, Miss Dar Male from the Grafton High School entertainers. As a reminder, you are being livereamed. So, please step forward and use the microphone. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening. Thank you for having us here this evening. I have asked uh Chad Biller to come along with me this evening. Um he is on our executive board and is helps us with our budget um each year. So I have asked him to speak on that um if he may do so. Good evening and thank you. Um I appreciate your time and I appreciate your consideration. Um I've been on the boosters now for uh I guess now this is
004about three years and it gets more and more expensive every single year to do these shows and to do what we do uh for the kids at Grafton High School. Um this year we've done it a little bit differently. We've tried to come up with a budget and identify items that we need. Um, and Mrs. Mail is is absolutely great at saving things over the years and repurposing and reusing them. So, we've tried to come up with um items that we feel that the the board of education could fund and that make sense and um and moving forward um with with a a great year that we're going to have. I really do think this is going to be one of the better years that we've had in quite some time. So, we've submitted um
005to the board of education a chart and it basically looks like this and we respectfully are requesting $16,700 um from the Taylor County Board of Education. That includes hotel rooms for two overnight trips, um music costs and costumes, which are extremely expensive, and um fees for the allstate choir. Um you can see here we're uh also on the list uh the boosters. Um we are generating about $22,300. Um we're also using some levy funds. Um we have some funds from the school um and from Mrs. Roberts. So, we're looking at about a total budget of about $44,000. Um, and this gives you the breakout of of where we're getting all those dollars from these different entities. So, with [clears throat] that, we'll open it up to any questions you may have. >> Uh, because they're
006on the agenda and not a walk-in delegation, yes, discussion is available at this point. Um, we also have you in the 8000 series as a deeper discussion, but if we want to ask a question or three now, that's fine. >> Just want to remind you that 8000 series does have that information he just referenced so that you can have that for your future discussion later tonight. >> Great. >> I don't have any questions. I just really had a comment. Thank you so much for breaking this down and what's coming from where, what you're anticipating your estimated costs are and you know this is coming from levy. This is coming from boosters. Phenomenal. Really appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Does anybody have anything else they would like clarified before later? All right. Thank
007you very much. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> And that moves us to our host school presentations with a slew of amazing folks. We're going to start with Miss T and I'm going to let you do the introductions from there. Good evening. And we are definitely pleased to have you on campus this evening. We have a lot of uh new and exciting things to share with you and updates. I want to start off by saying that while we may have a lot of great things going on, I know that my wonderful staff is also going to share some great news with you. So, I'm going to try not to steal the spotlight from all of them. Um, but I wanted to make sure that we start talking about our fall sports because we
008just finished up our seasons and we had some fantastic results from our fall sports. Um, our student athletes are doing an amazing job, not only on the field, um, but [clears throat] in whatever sport they're participating in, but also academics. It's amazing what they do. Their GPA range between 3.47 to 3.96. And that's amazing for us. Um, I not only want to recognize them, but I also want to give credit to my coaches because I know they put a lot of emphasis on academics as well. So, I want to make sure that I recognize all that they do for not only the student athletes, but also the school as well. Um, we as a school are also recognizing each nine weeks. Um, we're doing something different. So, we're going to recognize each grade level that
009has the best in attendance and also the least discipline referrals. We're doing something new this year and we've talked to the students about that. For the first nine weeks, we are going to be recognizing our eighth grade students as they had the best in attendance at 9 95.32 for attendance. And then our fifth grade, um, we will be recognizing them for the least amount of discipline referrals at 23. That's amazing for both groups. I also want to add that our overall attendance in the school is 95%. And I think that's amazing too with our students. In addition, um, now that the first nine weeks is finished, we have a lot of students who have made the principles list that we just added to our Facebook page, which is, uh, 95 the 3.5 to 4.0. We
010have 95 students for eighth grade, 63 for seventh grade, 88 for sixth grade, and 70 for fifth grade. And I think that's amazing, too. Um, at this time, we also have 20 discipline less 20 20 less discipline referrals from last year to this year. Um, our cell phone violations have dropped tremendously to only three. And um, we have absolutely no vaping violations. So, what we're doing is working. Um, we are in the hallways, which we obviously can't take credit for that. That comes from our teachers as well. They're always in the hallway. They're monitoring the students. We're talking a lot more to the students. We're having more um, during home room. We're having more presentations with them to discuss the things that are important in school. and they are listening which is amazing um because
011they continue to impress us every day. Um Mr. Moore, I want to credit Mr. Moore to the Renaissance program. I have these to hand out to you. So Mr. Moore created the Renaissance program which focuses on different things throughout the year. So what we focused on this time was um academics and discipline. they focus on different categories and as you'll see on this handout um that was for the first nine weeks. So the criteria was 3.5 GPA with no discipline referrals. The silver card which is the highest that you can get. We had 351 students match this. That's amazing. That's more than half of our student population. Um the red is 3.0 0 to 3.49 with one or less discipline referral. That's 157 of our students. The white is 2.75 to 3.0 which is two
012or less discipline referrals. 24 in that category. So we had 532 students total receive some type of red or yellow or silver card and that our school population is 575. So our students are making great progress. um we tell them that every day. We have a lot more interactions with them. We are building relationships with them and the results are showing in academics, discipline, the whole nine yards. Um but I couldn't do this alone. Like I've said, um the 90 92% of our school population had a 2.7 GPA or higher with two or less discipline referrals. Based on past, that's amazing. We've made great strides. Um we still have a lot to do. We will continue to um focus on different things and focus on different areas, but we are making a huge progress. Um
013again, I couldn't do this without my admin. I couldn't do this without all my amazing staff. I want to make sure that I recognize them. And um at this time, I want to turn it over to my faculty senate president um who does amazing things with the school as well, and that's Mr. Chyna. Thank you. Good evening board and people listening and folks here in the audience. Um I want to welcome you to the middle school again. It's been a year since we've been up here. So welcome back up to the hill. Um I'm just going to highlight a few things as uh Mrs. uh T said about some things and improvements we've been making up here at the school. I apologize that there is going to be something I leave out and that does
014not discredit anybody or any specific department. Um, I could probably sit up here and speak the whole board meeting on things that have been going on that are that are good up here. So, um, just want to welcome you to our school and I just want to emphasize how much we have been striving to, um, enhance the learning environment around here, what the students are doing in and out of the building, around the building, uh, on trips in the classrooms and things like that. Um, we're pleased to announce that we have implemented a new state-of-the-art bell system. I know that might sound silly, but when you have random bells going off at random times, it's kind of time for an up upgrade. Um, so the new system is designed to be more efficient and userfriendly,
015ensuring smooth transition between classes. Uh, the modernized Bell system uh will not only keep time effectively, but also incorporate customizable features that accommodate special schedules, emergency alerts, things like that for code reds, code yellows, things like that, which we have already been testing, putting practice. and it makes a huge difference. Um, to go with that, we also have a new um, to go with the new bell system, we also have new upgraded clocks. You will notice as you walk through the hallways in the commons area right outside the doors, um, these clocks are synchronized with our central timekeeping system. So, they're always correct and always the same no matter where you go. The old system sometimes you would have to go up and manually touch it. So, uh, these are always if one goes down,
016they all go down. when one comes back up, they've all got the correct time. So, it's really nice to always have consistent, accurate times as students go through the hallways. Teachers as well. And they also can be customized with messages students to the building, which we do have a few. They can watch those for important announcements and things like that as we transition. In the past, our board meetings have been very dim lit here in the auditorium. If you remember last year, we were putting tables and the microphones and stuff in areas where we had spots of light. Um, we are excited to introduce a new cutting edge lighting system for our auditorium which you are enjoying right now. Um, this system is designed to enhance the visual experience during school events and performances which
017we did have a performance here today and was so nice that I did not have to apologize that you might be doing this presentation in the dark. It was just here and I was like, "Do you need more light?" They're like, "No, this is plenty." I'm like, "Yes." and we don't even have them all on yet. Um, it has customizable lighting options, LED technology. Uh, the new system will provide vibrant and dynamic lighting that can be tailored to suit any occasion. We also are, Mrs. Garvin, looking to start kids and junior musicals in the very, very near future um to put on plays here to help enhance and build towards the high school productions as well. Um, we also, one thing that we've implemented this year, we have new recreational equipment. We always feel to
018give kids positive reinforcements and this is just one way to do it. Uh this includes sporting equipment located all around the outside of the school building. You may have seen some as you came up here if it was still light enough uh when you got here. These include a ping pong table, foosball table, cornhole boards, volleyball net, um bad mitten, and four square. I hope I'm not leaving anything out. Um, our goal is to provide students with alternative ways to learn uh through play, have more physical activity, increase their social and emotional growth. A lot of teachers have already been using those. They make great times. They use them as reward systems. Uh, if they meet a certain I Ready goal or something like that, you'll see groups that they're they're busy all the time.
019They're being heavily used. The kids are really, really, really enjoying them. Uh, just a faculty senate update. Our faculty senate has established or as we continue to establish, we put more emphasis on it this year, uh, nine specialized committees for this school year, each with a distinct focus and purpose. These committees are designed to address different aspects in academics and institutional life. The committees include curriculum, staff development, student council, strategic planning, leadership, spirit, safety, staff relations, and hiring. Each committee is composed of faculty members who are able to choose where their strengths would best be fit. The group meets for 30 minutes before our regularly scheduled faculty senate meetings and each committee then has the opportunity to report during the full faculty senate meeting to give updates. As Mrs. T already said, I'm going to
020re-emphasize uh this year our football and soccer teams have demonstrated exceptional skill, teamwork, and um perseverance earning themselves impressive placements uh in their respective competitions. football team had an outstanding season showcasing their dedication and hard work on the field. They secured a second place finish in the championship game uh this year that took place at Robert Seabird High School. The team's success is a testament to their resilience and strategic play. Each player and coach contributed significantly to this achievement and their unity and sportsmanship were evident throughout the season. Both our boys and girls soccer teams have also made us proud with their performances. The boys soccer team displayed incredible talent, determination, earning them a well-deserved third place finish in the league. Similarly, the girls soccer team also secured a third place finish uh in the
021league. Both teams had fantastic seasons and I can imagine this is what they are looking for to return next season with the same results. We are getting our winter sports started with uh tryyouts. Uh girls were doing triyous today, boys next week. We have wrestling triyouts coming up and I'm sure we are looking forward to similar results coming from our winter sports. In the music world, uh over the past year, our choir has experienced a tremendous growth expanding from 132 students to an impressive 157 students this year with more to join in the spring semester. Uh Mrs. Cho allows them to join in the beginning of school than a lot of people realize, oh yeah, I want to be a part of that. than in the spring semester. She allows them to join as well.
022Uh this h this trend happened last year where she had a significant amount join in the spring semester than in the fall. Um the diversity of number allows her to have more voices in the choir, explore more complex and ver uh varieties of repertoire with her choir. They will be hosting a Christmas concert on December 11th at 7 p.m. at Grafton High School's auditorium. The repertoire will include traditional car carols, contemporary holiday favorites, and even a few selections in foreign languages. That's the one thing she kind of uh makes sure the kids know is just not how to sing traditional things, but also foreign languages as well. This concert is an opportunity to showcase the hard work and talent of the members. It will also serve as a reminder of the importance of the important
023role, excuse me, that music plays in bringing people together, spreading love and joy during a festive season. To accommodate our growing numbers and enhance the performance, we have invested in new coral risers which the board graciously provided last December. Those have been put into great use uh by Mrs. Chidto and the choir. I can speak for their behalf. They are extremely appreciative of them and always make good use of them. The risers are designated are designed to ensure better visibility acoustics. They allow each voice to be heard clearly and contribute to the overall more polished and professional performance. Um, and again, I know more than one occasion, Mrs. Chad has expressed how grateful, not just to me, but even to our students that these are and what a big need this was for the group.
024As the marching band packs away their instruments and uniforms in about a month for the season, I want to reflect on the journey we've had this far. This season kicked off with a series of performances at home football games as well as traveling to Robert Seabird High School to perform for the fans at the mid 8 championship game. The band also took to the streets marching in parades throughout the season. Um to me I always tell them when they perform that is like taking a test but it's a live version of a test and everybody gets to witness it. Um it's just a testament to their hard work, their unity, their uh dedication, their musicianship uh to the craft. Um we always find that each performance is an opportunity to showcase our commitment to excellence
025and to represent just not our school but also our community. The highlight of the season, as many of you well know, um is the band's prestigious invitation to perform in Washington DC, which is just three short days away when we leave. Um we are getting things ready. a little nerve-wracking with the government shutdown, but we are making it work. Uh, our tour company has been absolutely wonderful with getting alternative plans set. So, we have two different agendas. We just got to figure out which one we're going to follow when we get there. Um, so we're doing very well. Uh, the solemn occasion is a chance to honor the brave men and women who have served in the armed forces. Performing in the nation's capital will be both an honor and a responsibility, and the band
026is ready to rise to the occasion with a strong performance. They will be playing in a mass band on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as [clears throat] well as a solo performance which will include the songs Grand Old Flag, This Is My Country, and a tribute to our military called Armed Forces Salute, which I have arranged. As the season comes to a close, it is my hope that the memories of these performances will linger, inspiring the band to reach even higher heights in the future. Uh, their success is uh for this season is a testament to their hard work, talent, and dedication. Um, I personally would just want to thank thank the board of education, Taylor County Commission, numerous donors that we have had. Um, with your support, we are going and providing every
027student to go 100% free of charge. Every touring event we want to go to is paid for. Every meal that we are having is paid for. We found some extra things to do because of the shutdown that we want to go do. It is paid for. We have not had to spend one nickel through our band account. And every time I talk about it, I I get teeyed. Forgive me if I get emotional, but that is just I have never I personally have never witnessed and felt that kind of support from a community. So, from the bottom of my heart, I can speak from my kids. Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. I just want to conclude that as you can see, great things are happening here on the hill. Every
028year seems to get better from the last. I have no doubt this is only the beginning. We are committed to making each day, week, month, and year excel. At our last board meeting, I stated at the end that it takes a small spark to start a fire. And we have started that spark. Now, I'm happy to report that I feel we have a roaring fire going and it's only going to continue to grow. For me, this has been six years in the making. This has been the best year yet, and I'm really, really, really excited. Um, we just want to thank you for being a part of our school, our students lives, what you do for us, your support, and we look forward to your continued support in the future. Thanks. >> [applause] >> Thank
029you. >> I'm the I'm the principal. I'm the principal. I don't cry. And I'm playing Kayla Means right now. By the way, um she couldn't stay for tonight, so I wanted to go over LSIC notes with you. On September 16th, we had the first meeting here for LSIC. Um, Sheila Copelan was selected as the president. Renee Salom was selected as a vice president and the secretary was Kayla Means. As a collective group, we made revisions to our school's family school compact. To that compact, we added our grit classes, which will be talked about later, after school tutoring, which will start in a couple weeks, and also explore 360 and which Mr. Moore will talk about. We also discussed the current state of our PTO. Um, we had a PTO. We ended up having the PTO
030president um, remove himself as being part of the PTO. We've had a meeting regarding that. We have parents that are wanting to get involved. They are actively recruiting. We are going to have another meeting soon. Um, we also talked about how to increase parent participation and we also talked about some fundraising ideas such as a book bingo and cakewalks. So that is in the process. Um we believe that having fun events and families uh to enjoy will um increase our parent involvement and participation and the next meeting for the LSIC will be held on December 8th. And while I have all the faith in the world that these will eventually take place and lift off, we had our parent teacher conference tonight and we had more parents involved tonight than we've ever had before. So
031I have all the faith in the world that more participation will come from these two aspects as well. Thank you. >> All right. Good evening. Uh Miss Waters is going to be giving you a um paper so you can kind of follow along with what I'm going to talk about. So what you have here is our explore 360. Um so what we doing is this year we have started a oneh hour club for once a month. We run a 1-hour event schedule and we kind of based this off of this initiative designed to enrich students life, get them on hands-on experience to develop not only um skills like hands-on skill, but also develop them with relationships with our teachers. So, some of our teachers don't always get to see all these kids. So, these allow
032these students to kind of maybe go into their classroom and build a relationship with them. So we have a commitment to a fostering meaningful teacher student relationship while boosting student engagement, offering real world experiences and creative outlets. We aim to improve attendance and create a school culture where students are excited to participate and belong. So we given the students um we brought them into the auditorium. I put the list up of all the course offerings that the teachers in their grade level would offer and then students were allowed to come up here and choose which course they want to participate in. We had to limit the numbers so they might not get into something they exactly wanted but hopefully they found something that they might interest them and then uh we're going to do this
033for four uh months and then we're going to do it again have another round for another four months. So if they didn't get it in this time they might get it in the second time. So you can kind of look down there of all the club offerings that we include. Now I included the whole school. This wasn't always offered to every student. It's just based on that particular grade level. But we have theater, baking, geocaching, guitar, sports, geography, science, dissection, painting, yearbook, reading club, crafting, crochet, soap making, small backyard game, creative writing, legal system and debates, farming, calligraphy, escape room, karaoke, and then we have many more. Um, I I was just really excit super super excited about starting this. They they really bought into what we were trying to accomplish and I cannot thank
034them enough for their support. Um, Miss Valerie from community and schools helped me go out and purchase donation for the food. Um, we can't use, you know, school money to purchase food. So, she went and got um local businesses to help sponsor those things. So when the students are doing the cooking classes, that money was able to purchase the items that they would need to participate in their club. So I want to thank Miss Valerie again for doing that. Um moving on to our the second thing that we're trying to build here as Miss T saying just trying to reward the students with positive. We have developed a random knock program. So, what I did is I would send out a little form survey for teachers to nominate their class that they have that would
035maybe following classroom rules, expectations, whatever they felt was they'd like to nominate their classes for. So at the end of the month, I would put their names into a random wheel and I' I'd hit the button and then we select two winners. One from fifth and sixth grade, one from seventh and eighth grade, and then they tell me what period that their classes were doing whatever you know they were wanted them to do. And then Miss Waters, Miss T and I would go to that classroom. We knock on the door during that period. Then we surprised that group. And the first month we took them outside and took advantage of our wonderful playground equipment. This month, what we're going to do when we lock in, we're going to bring them down to the cafeteria and
036for 20 minutes, let them play some board games with each other. So, we're trying to, you know, let them know we appreciate them being responsible and respectful when their teachers class, and this is one way we can do that to help reward them. So, thank you. >> I have a question. I just had a question. Um, just for clarification, so the Explore 360, you said it was it was for 60 minutes and then it's once a month. So like do they is it during what their creative arts class would be or is it are they missing math class or like >> So what what we do is we run a 1-hour event schedule. >> So they go to all their classes and then from 2 to 3 is their club time. >> Okay. So they
037they don't miss any academic classes. >> Okay. >> And they just and everybody participates in it. So everybody is assigned to a club. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Hello. I'm Miss Waters. Um I think everybody knows me, but just in case. So I'm going to talk about um two different initiatives that we started this year. The first one is our grit class. Um I know Mrs. T mentioned it earlier. Um, so I'm just going to kind of dig into what that program is. So based on our previous scores that we've had on the GSA and on our I Ready Diagnostic, we know that academics is what we're here for. I mean, that's the most important thing. So we were racking our brains on how we can help our students and their academics because we
038have large academic gaps for some of our kids. So grit is uh it stands for gaining results through intentional teaching and it's a retach class um that the kids are assigned not every kid um we dig through the data of their GSA scores the IR diagnostic we used at the beginning of the year we used their end of the year grades their class grades and we developed these groups for um tier 2 intervention and small classes, less than 10 in each class and it really was to try and get these kids to set to get caught up if they had academic gaps. So, um it was designed to help all the students reach mastery by providing targeted reteing and skill support. And um the goals of the class are to close learning gaps to promote
039a growth mindset to these students and to use data intentionally. So the schedule is um the first nine weeks we did a whole 45 minute period for grit classes. So and it took place of one of their creative arts either their morning or afternoon depending on when that teacher taught grit. So if they've had a math grit in the morning, then they were in a regular creative arts in the afternoon. So we kind of tweaked that a little bit because really that's more intensive tier three. So this nine weeks we switched it up and now they'll be in 25 minutes of their grit class and then they'll go to a 20 minute creative art class. Um, as any new program goes, we kind of build and grow and learn and um, so my teachers have
040been very flexible with us as we're trying to develop this program to make it the most effective that it can be for our students. U, so they're still scheduled with a grit teacher and then they're scheduled with a creative arts. They're co-teers on the class. So both teachers are providing grades for those students. And then the grouping is based on all the data that I talked about teacher recommendations. Um some are written into their s their student assistant plans and um I ready classroom grades um to make sure that those students are where they're supposed to be getting the help that they need. It's the students who provide or that need it the most currently is what we're working on. So the focus is um core content retach in reading, math and writing currently. And
041it's not about repeating instruction. It's about finding those gaps and filling those holes. So the the instructional approach is small group and targeted lessons using hands-on practice and skill applications kind of teaching that skill in a different way to those students than maybe they've been taught before so that it's easier for them to understand and then providing progress monitoring and immediate feedback throughout the nine weeks. So as the data driven process goes, we they the teachers identify the needs when they get their grit kids in for the first week or two and then um they deliver the targeted instruction and then they monitor the growth throughout. We had um lots of students graduate last graduate is what I called it last nine weeks um which just means they're put back into a regular creative arts
042class. And then we had some teachers that felt that those students needed another nine weeks. They had some more gaps that needed filled. So we left them in there for another nine weeks. And then at the end of the second nine weeks, we will re-evaluate them again, look at the data again, get teacher recommendations again, and dive through. Um, something that we're that my teachers are really good at pushing is the student mindset and setting having the students set their personal goals, reflecting on their progress throughout the program, and then understanding that improvement takes time and effort. Um, and then also celebrating the small victories along the way because it could be a little redundant at times. So, they celebrate the small victories. Um so the outcomes students build both academic mastery and resilience by
043focusing on intentional teaching and continuous improvement. Grit helps every learner gain the confidence and competence to move forward successfully. As with any new initiative, grit is evolving. We are learning, adjusting, and improving in real time to make sure the program meets the diverse needs of our students and supports meaningful growth. So, we're hoping we're seeing success. Um, our next I Ready diagnostic will be in January. So, I'm anxious to get those results back and see how our grit kiddos have improved their I Ready score from the beginning of the year to the middle. So, good things coming our way from Grit. Uh the last initiative that I wanted to talk about um we call it the royal dismissal and it's a staff recognition initiative focused around staff attendance. So at T CMS we've launched a
044fun morale booster called the royal dismissal. I don't know if you guys have seen on Facebook or Tik Tok or Instagram. It's called a goose trend where principles go into classrooms and they goose their teachers which means get out of school early. Well, we wanted to make it nights themed obviously. So, we changed it to the royal dismissal and we um as the administration, we go into a teacher's classroom and they are granted by decree of the crown freedom before the final bell. which just means any student that or any teacher that had perfect attendance in that month. They didn't miss any school, they were there the whole time. They get put into a wheel, a random wheel, and it spins and we take two teachers who win and we go and let them leave
045early before the final bell. So, ninth period is typically when we would do that so they could just scoot on out. Um, the honored staff member is recognized in front of their students. I walked into Miss Schaeferman's class because she was our first winner and I was playing bye bye bye bye in sync, I think. And she was like, "You're interrupting my class." I was like, "It's for a good reason, Miss Sha. You get to leave early." And she took advantage of that and she was like, "It's actually perfect. I have the cable man coming to fix my TV." And I was like, "It's perfect then." So, she got to leave early. The kids all clapped for her and I I we explained why we were doing this and we were really so impressed with
046her attendance and she's here every day so you should be too. So kind of modeling that to the students as well is it's it's just a light-hearted way to celebrate the dedication and it also boosts staff morale and reinforces our night's values of commitment and excellence while adding just a little bit of fun to the school day. Any questions? >> Sure. Um yes, I had a couple questions um about the grit and really some of these data questions that um I was just wondering about. So you mentioned that the first nine weeks you did the 45 minutes and it replaced one of the creative arts >> and then you switched gears now for the second nine weeks and you're doing 25 minutes and 20 of the creative arts is what I wrote down here. >>
047Um do you have any like objective data for why you made that switch? >> Um so tier 2 is less intensive. So we still have a tier three um intervention class for our students who need that more intense um academic retach. So that is still an option and we still have students that are in this. So these are just for the tier tier 2 students which is just a less intensive time and it was recommended we had a >> training on one of our PD days in October and the trainer was like really tier 2 needs to be 25 minutes a day instead of 45 minutes a day. So that's what led to that decision. >> So really probably it sounds like you won't have any like concrete objective data until they do the JSA
048in January or the >> Well, we'll have We'll have the middle of the year diagnostic for I already which is January. Um so we'll have >> sorry. >> Yes. So we'll have the beginning of the year data and then the middle of the year data and then we actually will have an end of the year I ready diagnostic I think it's in April and then we'll have the GSA scores as well to compare that to. >> Okay. Then as far as uh resources, do is there any need for your teachers for any types of resources that they need for >> right now? They're using um I Ready, which I Ready has um really more than what we're even using. Um so our teachers are getting familiar with those other tools that they haven't had to
049use before, but they have more intervention tools. Um Morgan Williams at the board office has been doing a great job of helping our teachers navigate that system. Um there was some talk at least for the fifth grade the SAS I don't know if I'm saying that right um but they have an intervention program that we are looking at to get to those fifth graders uh for math specifically that has more of the manipulatives and things that they might need. Um, and I'm working with Helen Roberts on that to see if we can get those for the other fifth graders, but as of right now, no. But I'm not saying no forever. [laughter] >> Okay. Thank you. Well, I know at the last meeting, I think it was the last meeting, we talked um about data
050and stuff like that and some of those results. Those students are now in fifth grade. And so that's what I was just kind of >> Yes. >> following along there to see um intervention wise and data and so forth. So >> yes, yeah, we still do have the tier three intervention. This is just more of for the tier two. Little bigger groups, little less intensive, but more targeted to specific gaps that they have. >> Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other >> I uh really like the sound of that grit program. >> Thank you. >> I think it's a great program. It's from the sound of it. And I'd love to have you come back later on and report to the board about how you feel it's doing. >> Sure, I can do that. I
051can come back third nine weeks if you'd like and then I'd have some some data for you. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Perfect. I will I will plan to do that then. >> All right. Thank you. [applause] So, this is my third personality. I'm Sheila Copeland tonight, too. So, I'm I'm wearing several hats tonight. Um, I want to chime in. This is part of my conversation, but I want to chime in about the grit program because we talked about um obviously it's one of my goals that I have discussed with Dr. Stallings and one of my goals is to graduate 20% for each nine weeks of the students out of that. So we had over 54 students that graduated for the first nine weeks and that's just our first attempt. So, while we are taking them
052away for that 45 minutes and putting them into 25 minutes and 20 in creative arts, um the numbers are still the same, it's still going to be small groupoup instruction. They're going to get a lot more of one-on-one. And also, um what Mrs. Waters uh didn't touch on is with our interventionists, we're also doing something different this year. Um, the interventionists have their own classes. So, they're not pulling kids from core classes. They're not pulling kids from creative arts. They have their own schedule. They have nine classes just like the rest of the teachers. So, there may be anywhere between three to five, six, seven students in there, which is another positive impact as well because it's small groupoup instruction with our interventionists. So, um, while we have two on board, they're both working with
053those students and it's definitely hands-on and a lot of intense instruction with a small group. Um, what I would like to share with you is that we do have an increase in math and reading. I will say when we started looking at data, [clears throat] we notice a major increase um, after we do our second diagnostic, which is coming up in January. where we see them drop off is at the end of the year coming back to the fall. So, one of the things that we talked about was possibly bringing back summer school. We know that that would involve money, um, involve hiring summer school teachers, etc. Um, but I feel as if some of our students are not engaged in academic learning over the summer. And yes, it's a time for them to live
054their life, but I feel as if they lose some things over the summer. And that's where we see the drop in scores is from the end of the year to when we have our diagnostic at the beginning of the school year. So that's one of the things that we talked about was possibly offering something over the um summer for the students. Um we do have after school tutoring coming in in two weeks. Um we are also offering lunch tutoring as well for students. So that's a chance for the students to be engaged even more. Um, but based on the first diagnostic, 26% of our students are above grade level in reading and 37% of our students are above grade level in math. So I do believe that our scores are increasing due to the grade
055level teachers working more closely together and having additional resources resources shared with them from the board office. Helen is great to work with. She's provided us phenomenal great uh speakers to come in and work with our teachers. I will say when I first came here, I Ready was it was like an X. There was not a lot of positive talk about it. Um, we reached out to Dr. Decker. We reached out to Helen and said, "We need some help. We need to turn that frown upside down basically and and focus on I Ready because we know we have to use it. What tools can you provide us?" So, they started um Morgan was great in coming up and talking to our faculty and staff and then they ended up bringing in some from the West
056Virginia Department of Education who's done wonderful hands-on training with us. Now, the teachers are familiar with the toolboxes. They have toolkits. They have additional resources to use and now they're excited to use I Ready. Therefore, they are rubbing off on their kits to use I Ready. So, I do believe we're heading in the right direction there. I do see that we are going to have an increase in scores because they have more resources to use right now. Plus, with what we're incorporating with the Renaissance program, plus a grit program, I my hope in the bottom line is to have them increase even more. Um, and like I said, over 50 of our students for the first nine weeks enhanced. And now that we're cutting that time a little bit more with smaller groups, I believe
057that number will be even better for the second nine weeks. Um, we will continue to monitor. One of the priorities that we need for improvement efforts is that we will continue to monitor the I Ready test scores and diagnostics. And we want to continue to provide our faculty and staff on prof professional development days with hands-on instruction. And what we try to do is divide them up into small groups so that way they get more instruction. They have a chance to ask more questions. They have a chance to be more involved and I think that is going to enhance their learning as well. We have also been getting a lot of positive feedback from our prof professional development days and the people that come in and do work work with our faculty. So, I know
058it's working. Um, it's just we all have to have some patience and I definitely don't have any. Um, I'll be the first one to admit that. But I I think that's the reason why we're seeing so many changes is because we are learning to have patience and we are willing to try things. If they don't work, we go back to the drawing board and we start over. That's just part of our learning process. Um, as Alyssa stated, for the second nine weeks, we will be offering school tutoring and lunch tutoring along with the grit program. And, um, we will increase the number of students in tier three. The interventionists have asked for additional students so they can have more to reach out to. Um, not saying it's going to be a full class by 28
059by no means, but it'll still be low numbers, 10 or below, because some of the classes were two or three and they want to reach more students in the school. So, we are going to increase those numbers to help with our interventionist and we are going to have two for our reading that's going to be working part-time and then we have the full-time for math. So, we have two u actually three great interventionists in play right now. So, I and am hoping to see an improvement in those scores as well. Have you noticed any um like personal confidence moments blossom out of these kids that are moving forward out of this intervention program where like their confidence goes up so that when they go back into the regular classroom they carry that over and that
060builds the sense of community and the sense of night pride. Are we seeing that snowball yet? So, I honestly believe because we have put a lot of time and effort into the caring hearts program as well that we were working um over the summer with and our teachers have the expectations on the walls and what goals they want to work towards and we are teaching them to focus on being nicer to one another and appreciate the school and appreciate academics more. Um the feedback that I'm getting back from my teachers is phenomenal about the connections that they're making with the students and we are making connections like an admin like we don't want you to be terrified of the principal. We don't want you to be terrified of the assistant principles. Um and they are
061reaching out to us for concerns, advice, etc. And they're telling us positive things like we're telling them positive things in return. So, I will be honest, in the three years that I've been here, I think our morale among the faculty and staff and the students has changed drastically and it just it warms my heart every day. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> And I'm not allowed to cry right now. So, um but I I honestly do see positive improvements, but I also want to say that it's not just because of the things that we're working on. It's because of our teachers wanting to be a part of that. And we do have several new teachers and they're engaging in that too. So, it's a family. That's what I say. It's a family. >> Awesome. >>
062Thank you. >> I just want to shout out to uh Mrs. Helen Roberts. Um heard her name mentioned a few times tonight and we we all know her and I just want to shout out to her for, you know, all that she's doing to help us move forward as as a county um countywide with academics and so forth. And just wanted to also shout out to Dr. Stallings and all those involved in getting that capturing kids hearts because I have heard like numerous numerous compliments about that program and and that um development and I think you're sharing with us that trickle down effect, you know, that morale and everything from you to your staff to your students. Um, we're seeing that. So, just kind of wanted to shout that out because heard really good things
063about that. We had Allison come here last month and she met with Alyssa and I both and she was amazing to just talk to, but she asked us who can we can confide in? Like, who do we reach out to? And we told her that we can fight in one another. We're supportive of one another, but we can reach out to individuals at the board office. Like there's been times that we have vented at the board office. There's been times that we've cried at the board office. We do it here. So that that's why it's important to say that we are a family and that's what makes it work is being a family. Miss Valerie, you are up. >> No, [laughter] but thanks for the off. >> Hi Tro. Good evening. I'm Valerie James, the
064communities and schools site coordinator. Um, starting from the beginning of the year in August, we had our fourth back to school bash. Um, we had 25 community resources, four people to cut the students hair, an estimated of 350 to 400 students and families that came through. It's another successful year. Um, last month we participated at West Taylor's Trunk Retreat and that was hosted by their PTO. Um, we also hosted our own fall fest here at TCMS. Um we had numerous participants from the comm community community and staff along with about 150 plus kids that came through. Um they were offered resource info treats, had the opportunity to paint them pumpkin, play games and other activities. A lot was going on that evening. So I think we had a good turnout. Um currently we're hosting a
065food drive um to help stock our local pantries to help families in need. Um it ends this Friday, Septe November 7th. Um, the middle school loves a good competition. So, the home room with the most non-p perishable items sent in will will receive a movie and a treat. Um, this Thursday we're having our first Noble Knights breakfast. Um, for a Noble Knight students and their parents for the first nine weeks. Um, each nine weeks, nine students from each grade level are chosen by their grade level teachers. Um, they're chosen based on attendance, behavior, responsibility, and or academics. Um, we're also working with staff members, healthy grand families, as well as Mr. Maple and the A students in preparing food baskets for Thanksgiving and Christmas along with other assistance for the families during the holidays. And
066then each year, communities and schools has it sets a schoolwide goal. Um, so of course this year our school goal is to decrease chronic absenteeism by 2%. Um, based off the data on Zoom, 15% of students were chronically absent last year, and the goal was to drop it at least to 13% for the 25 and 26 school year. And as of today, November 4th, the chronic absenteeism is down to 106%. Yep. Yay. [laughter] And that is all I have. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Mrs. Myers and this is Mr. Gallow. And we are part of the um organization, the student council here. We oversee the student council. We have 41 students this year. We have two home room representatives um for each home room. And we have an eighth grade president, vice president,
067and secretary. >> So um selecting the student body president, vice president, and secretary. uh students were um to campaign, make posters and they had to give a speech to the entire student body um expressing why they would have been eligible and the right choice for that. Uh they had to do that in the gym at the end of September and then afterwards the students had a Google drive. They selected um who they wanted to win and that is for September for October. Um we sold boos which are Halloween uh themed suckers or lollipops with messages um of positivity. Um, these were delivered during 9th period on Halloween. We raised overall $512 to donate to two Taylor County School employees. Is that Taylor County Schools or TCMS? >> Uh, no. Taylor County. >> Okay. Taylor County
068Schools employees who are currently going through treatment for breast cancer. >> So, um, for the month of November, we really just more or less discuss what we're going to do for December because December is going to be a really, um, big month for us. So, we are planning a Santa's workshop, which we did last year. It's going to be on December 9th. It's from 8:00 to 10:00 and it's just a time for the the students to come in and um they buy gifts for their parents, their siblings, you know, their grandparents. Um we have 11 vendors which is pretty amazing coming this year. And we also just um buy things for student council from um you know, like just general places like Walmart and whatnot. And we sell it for the price of which we
069um bought it. But it's a good time for the students to be able to make decisions for themselves of what they want to get for their loved ones. And it's a good time. We had um last year we had Mr. and Mrs. Claus and they're coming back this year. Um we had Yes, we had the um the Grinch and the Grinch is coming back this year. And we also had Buddy the Elf and the kids really loved it. And this year we're going to expand it a little bit. We're going to have um a uh where they can wrap their gifts and we're also going to do a theme where they can take like photographs and whatnot. Um that was something that was kind of popular uh discussed during our our most recent >> students
070are delegated by grades sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Uh one station will be gift wrapping, one station will be photo ops and then one station will be um kind of organization of it all. Yeah. >> So they're excited for that. >> And the student council, they just go through and they make sure like the kids have any questions. They kind of keep it organized. Um and it was a really good time last year and I and the kids have already started talking about it and we have big plans for this year. Another thing that we're going to do um is uh one of the students um has suggested and we're going to go with it because we think it's a really good idea is um they're doing Cassy's toy box um which I don't know
071if you're familiar with this. I think the West Taylor did it last year and we're going to do it this year, but it's um they provide new toys for the pediatric uh cancer patients at WVU. So, we're going to do a drive. I think it's the third week of December um where if someone brings in, they get we're going to do a pizza party for them. like if somebody brings in a gift like at the end of probably in January we'll probably do the pizza party. Um but we're going to take all the presents over to WVU hospital. Um so our our students really have came up with some really great amazing things and we have a couple more things that we want to give but that is uh what we're going to do for
072the month of December. Um in February we are doing the snowflake dance. We did that last year was a big success. The kids loved it. Um we separated by fifth grade is going to be the first round for they have they come in for like an hour and a half and then we get a little bit a bit of a break for the DJ and then the sixth through 8th come in and um we try to separate it in that way because it's the fifth graders a lot of them it's their first dance. So, >> so um looking forward for the spring in student council, we are working on getting a sports figure of some kind um to speak with the students in a positive way talking about mental health, uh being drug-free, overcoming fear,
073cyber bullying, and just uh other general information that they think might be appropriate for middle schoolers. And uh we are also working with students to organize a um an event with the Humane Society in Taylor County. So we have a lot of great things going on and um most of what was uh presented is something that a kiddo came up with or multiple kids in our organization um outside of the sus workshop really uh that was something that we started last year. So a lot of these great things have been things that the kids have presented to us and we were able to get more information and and they we have a lot of great students here who have great ideas. So do you guys have any questions for us? >> I don't have any
074questions. Um, just really glad to hear that you had them do presentations and that campaigning and just really getting involved. And then it's really nice to see about the community service that they're doing and it's just wonderful to hear that these are their ideas >> and that you all are there to support them and just make that happen. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you for having us. I do not just something come get it from you. Just one thing. >> Okay. >> At this time, we'd like to recognize one of our own. That is someone who is actually a member of this staff. that's a not just a coincidence but a convenience for uh having her attend this meeting as well so that she can be recognized uh by her colleagues
075as well. So at this time I'd ask that Miss Dpiano if you'll come forward so that we can recognize you. [applause] >> So that those people who are hearing this on the airway, she is being recognized as the winner of the 2024 2025 West Virginia Coach of the Year award for girls tennis. [applause] All right, >> Dr. Stings, do you have any additional updates for us this evening? >> Yes, Miss Garvin, I do. I will be brief with those because I cannot hold a candle to all the presentations we just heard. I will give you some brief updates and I'm passing that down the table as we speak. Uh as a update as if anyone has been paying attention, we are building in a new Ana Jarvis Elementary School and that gymnasium shell is now
076taking shape. Construction of that continues to be on schedule and uh I recently had to clarify for some of the staff there. It's my understanding they were concerned that we were actually building two separate buildings, but that's because the center hallway hasn't actually had its roof added. So we were trying to reassure them. Uh we are also looking at the previously agreed upon uh lighting for the as per the question that was raised last time uh the parking area that's over on the Mount Calvary property uh and our agreement with the Wheeling Dascese. Flemington Elementary School has recently done completed some clo uh construction project now um fancies bright red sun doors and it's new uh awnings. It makes it look very nice. And the next possible the next part part of that process will
077be that we are adding a new sidewalk along the front of the school which will finish off that appearance and make it look a fresh. West Taylor reports that they still haven't received that canopy, but it is now scheduled for the end of toward the end of this month in November. We thought it would be happening this month in October, last month, but it is just delayed slightly longer. Taylor County Middle School, you've heard so many great things that are happening. The band is in its final stages as we heard earlier from Mr. Chido. They're about to embark on that Veterans Day celebration andor experience which is about something about which we're still proud and the funding has been made available. On October 24th, the prosecuting attorney was here. He invited uh a number of
078individuals. Um Sergeant Dy from the state police, Judge Shawn Nines, Sheriff Randy Durret, and uh he extended an invitation to Mrs. Gallow and myself to come to an activity that he was facilitating as a result of a request of the school to speak to all the student body regarding the dangers of making threatening statements written verbal or online and or in person. We feel like that was wellreceived uh shout out to all the students who sat quietly listening to their individual assembly. Uh I was impressed with their behavior and respect of those presenters as well. Moving on to Grafton High School. As you are aware, uh just yesterday I was scheduled to and did attend uh the school building authorities meeting that was scheduled for November 3rd and 4th. Uh was scheduled to do a
079presentation, pitching yet one more opportunity to request some support funding from them. And this time's presentation focuses focused on the Grafton High School's need for a replacement of their HVAC system uh in this the original portion of the building which was built in 1939 1940 by the CCC and WPA. Uh we have been working very hard as I told the SBA representatives uh much to the uh credit of the due diligence being done by the maintenance department and the and the custodial staff there. The interior of the building looks nice. It is pristine. You as a board has have been uh very frugal and uh also responsible for the custodian of the funding and maintaining the building both inside and out. However, as I was talking to the SBA yesterday, my focus was not on
080uh something we just wanted, but a discovered need based on a 20 an August 2025 report by a representative from the state department's facilities indicating that the HV system was much in need of being replaced. uh it is ceasing and uh deteriorating its avail its ability to perform the environmental uh need for that building and its occupants. Uh that presentation I believe was successful. I did not come back with a check because the decision is made based on presentations throughout the two days and the bo the school building authority will be taking the time it normally does and we'll be announcing their decisions into early December. I will let you know as soon as I hear of something. Uh also as you probably heard the girls cross country team from Grafton High School placed first
081in the recent Saturday November 1st competition. Big congre congratulations to the Lady Bearcats for that. As recently as last evening, the girl, this is in addition to what I provided to you tonight, the girls volleyball team advanced and will be continuing their their uh pursuit of the volleyball uh championship. And I say when, not if. Uh lastly, but not least, the Grafton High School boys soccer team. You probably have also heard that they have been very successful in moving forward in an hour going to the state competition. Uh later this week they will travel to Beckley to continue to defend their status as a uh very successful soccer team. So we say go Bearcats for that. uh transportation department, the new department that we have, it is in the had the successful bidding bid bidding
082of contractor process and we met with them more recently in the first phase of that project is scheduled to start very soon and that would include the ADA compliant uh renovations to the restrooms, replacement of the existing rear large access garage door with an additional two doors uh so that multiple buses can access at one time and the exterior stairway leading to the upper midsection of the building for storage. In addition, I had some things in general as you can see some advertisements. We recently entered in the collaborative with the WOI TV where the Taylor County Schools promotional announcements will start happening. And if you happen to notice recently, you'll see WOI will say something like brought to you by Taylor County Schools and they're promoting our county, not just in Taylor County, but in
083the region. Through that agreement, we met with them. In addition, we've invited the Grafton High School Communications class, more commonly known as the GNN or the Grafton News Network. That's quite popular with our student organization there with their teacher. Um they will be actually working with the representative from DWBY TV as well to exper to expand their experiences for communications. Uh that sounds to have a lot of promise for them experience-wise as well. Uh they are some of the most creative students I've known. Um and they're also doing quite well with that. School resource officers. Uh more recent uh conversation even since our last board meeting. I continue to receive positive reports from each of the five schools with regard to their successful in integration as a part of their to use Miss Tracy's terminology
084their school families um without making disruptions to that location or distractions. And lastly, we uh just on Wednesday, October 29th, was uh fortunate enough to be able to attend a meeting that was held at the Robert Cabird High School where all of our schools in the state, including the five of Taylor County, were gifted uh individual checks of $1,500 to be used by each school for their emergency needs of students through such things as a community and schools donations. Uh, and that is my report for this evening. I hope that's been helpful. Thank you. Another question on the uh the building you have here to start in sometime in December. Do we have an estimated time on completion or >> the new transportation department? his his timeline hopes to be completed by February. >> February.
085>> I did want to I overlooked something real quick if I may that on Friday the uh uh 7th of this month the elementary PR this is more of the data reveal. The elementary principles are going to continue with the meetings they've been having for data inter in investigation and and awareness discussions with regard to their individual performances that about which we heard last time. So they're continuing to disagregate and discuss uh ways for that. And they have also reached out and have been confirmed some support from our state department with those schools that had been identified accordingly. Thank you. >> All right. Uh do we have any board member updates or board committee meeting reports? Hearing none, we will move into the 2000 series minutes, policies, contracts, and agreements. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of
086the minutes from the regular meeting October 21st, 2025 and the special meeting of October 23rd, 2025. >> Moved. >> Mrs. Gallow moves. >> Second. >> Mr. Taylor second. Questions. All those in favor? >> I. >> Motion passes. I believe I heard four. Uh we have policies and codes first reading which require no action. Policies and codes second reading which also require no action unless there are discussion points. Policies and codes in the third reading. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 21106 through 2115 in the 2000 series. I will move. >> I will second. Miss >> Miss Garvin moves. Miss Gallow seconds. Questions, discussion. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes 40. Resolve that the bylaws, policies printed and codified in the comprehensive document entitled bylaws and policies of the Taylor County Board
087of Education are hereby adopted and that all bylaws, policies hereto for adopted by the Taylor County Board are hereby rescended. Further, be it resolved that in the event of any policy part of a policy section of the bylaws is judged to be inconsistent with law, inoperable by a court of competent jurisdiction, or invalidated by a policy or contract duly adopted by this board, the remaining bylaws, policies, and parts of policies shall remain in full effect. Super continuing down through agreements, the superintendent respectfully requests approval of items in the 2000 series. So move. >> Mr. Taylor moves. Mrs. Gallow seconds. Questions? >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. >> Yeah, it's funny >> there. It's real. >> Yeah. Hello. >> Uh, moving into the 3000 series consent calendar, purchase orders, facility recruit, facility
088use requests, out of county travel, some chaperones. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 3057 through 3065. This is not one. We have a Just garbage. >> Just garbage. Um in the 3000 series. So >> move. >> Mr. Taylor moves. >> Second. >> Mrs. Gallow seconds. Questions? >> Yes, >> please. >> Uh could could I have an explanation of the 3057 uh the doors? What what's the need for that? request for some ADA compliance that was broken also. So that's what some of that is and then additional ones being added uh in throughout the school to assist with a need that we were having for one of our our faculty members. Any additional questions? We have an open motion in the 3000 series. All those in favor? >> I heard four. Motion passes. Moving us into
089the 4,000 series. Financial, budget supplements, and vouchers payable. Tell us some delightful things, would you please? >> Absolutely. Um, [clears throat] your budget supplements for this evening. Uh we we received uh four budget supplements since our last meeting. Um one was our tools for schools, which is our uh helps our technology department out each year. Um that grant was uh $73,000. Um we had two for child nutrition uh to those were extensions of grants that uh we had previously received. Uh the the state was just kind enough to extend that out just a little bit further so we could use up those funds. Um and then we received our uh state special ed grant uh for our special ed department. So those were the four budget supplements that we had for uh for the be
090for the board meeting this evening. Does anybody have any questions on those? Um [clears throat] the um the next items are the uh vouchers payable. Uh inside your packet are the um list of schedule of checks that have already been written. Um you your first few pages. Those are associated with uh payroll items. Um you know for uh uh folks paychecks for the 15th um of the month. So that's what the first couple pages are. Um the rest of the packets uh upon your approval are schedules of checks to be written tomorrow morning. um are for all the uh invoices that we've received since the uh since the last board meeting. Um for various items, supplies, um invoices for uh our construction projects, travel and and things of that nature. Does anybody have any questions
091on those? I do have a question just uh on our construction with Anna Jarvis. How are how are we there? Um are we >> we we're >> in our budget and yes on target there? >> We're on target. We've um to date we've drawn from our bond proceeds uh approximately $5 million uh of the $18 million that we that we received. Uh of course like I said it's a combination uh when we submit our bills uh to the SBA. They do reimburse us uh you know the portion of the funds. It's uh roughly a 7030 split um you know of those funds. So, every time we we get a pay application from from our uh general contractor, um you know, we pay the bill, we have to submit it to the SBA, which they reimburse
092us their portion of of whatever that bill is based on that 7030 split. So, but yes, we're we're progressing along and we're, you know, we're coming up. Like I said, they they've been pretty good about how they've built us and everything. So, >> nothing nothing out of the ordinary. >> Thank you. >> Any additional questions in the 4,000 series? Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items in the 4,000 series. >> So move. >> Mr. Taylor moves. I will second. Any additional questions? All those in favor? I >> believe that was four. Moving us into the 5000 series where as a reminder items 5305 and 5316 have been pulled. We have extra duty, extracurricular subs, resignations, creations, retirements. >> Yeah. I'll have to say I have mixed feelings on that retirement. >> Me too. >> Amen. >>
093I'm proud for him and sorry to see him go. >> Yes. >> I actually shared that as a part of the SBA presentation. The superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 5296 through 5318 with the exception of 5305 and 5316 in the 5000 series. >> Mrs. Galla moves >> second. >> Mr. Taylor seconds. Any additional questions. All those in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes. Moving us to the 8000 series board members comments and discussions and our step one discussion of the Grafton High School entertainers requests for support funding. >> I'll remind you that that reference chart is in your 8000 series. >> Yeah. Um I'd like to echo Mrs. Gallow's comments from earlier. a chart saying here's what it's going to cost us and here's where we've already gone and here is as I believe
094the phrase is our skin in the game um is super helpful and makes a lot of sense. So, and I'd like to add that uh the entertainers are and always have been a credit to Taylor County Schools. uh they certainly deserve our our support. >> Does anybody just want to straight up make that motion? >> I'll straight up make that motion. >> I will second that motion then. >> Okay. Um we have a motion which I believe is to fund the entertainers for the requested amount of $16,700. It has been made and seconded. And before we move forward to this, I do have a question for the illustrious Mr. Dolan. >> Yes. Can we? >> Yes. >> Delightful. We have an open motion on the floor. Any additional discussion? >> All those in favor? >>
095I. >> Motion passes. Thank you very much. Go forth and entertain. [applause] >> Thank you for your patience. >> Yes. All right. Uh which I believe brings us to the discussion and approval of our faculty and staff supplements. which appears to also be another handout. [laughter] Thank you, Miss Garvin. As per uh per request for information previously, this I'm passing out a copy of uh the minutes the official minutes from April 8, 2025. And I'll reference that in the during the budget workshop. uh item number two was a part of your agenda and that uh subsequently that was uh your budget was approved and so I just was providing what information we had available to us >> and I think that I think that's when we talked about the dispersement the timing of that and
096I think Mr. Dolan had shared that that was a doable thing to do it that way. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And the board you you you approved the uh the budget on May the 20th, 2025. So >> All right. So I think at this point I don't have We tabled it the last time. Uh as we are discussing it, we can reopen that motion if anyone would like to do that. >> We reopen the motion. >> Okay. Do we have a second? I will second that. >> Okay. >> As we discussed and had that planned, you know, >> right? Um Thank you gentlemen and ladies for coming up with the backing information for that because that was a minute ago and I wasn't there so my brain didn't remember any of that. >> You're
097welcome. >> Thank you Miss Katie for helping us that >> delightful. Yay. Okay, so we have an open motion on the floor. Any additional discussion? All those in favor? I >> I opposed. Motion passes. Moving us forward to the discussion of the agenda and agenda related items and distribution procedures. >> So, wait a minute. Did Did we have reopen it and then vote us did we have a second motion to pass it? >> That was the second. >> Well, right. >> Yeah, but you seconded the motion to reopen it. Um, >> yeah. as it was not hyper specific. Let me see if yes, just cover our behinds and we'll make a motion to um move. >> Thank you. I was looking for the wording and it's not my email is not cooperating with me to
098let me go back to which >> the way we've phrased it >> worded but I think it was part of the >> yeah budget supplement >> motion to reopen Taylor Gallow that was >> your 40 and then your >> I mean from the last meeting >> oh sorry I thought you two minutes ago >> we're well let's see probably here All right. Sorry. I'm just looking for It's not there. Yeah, >> maybe it's here in the minutes in November and June. >> Okay. So, at this point, I believe we have a motion on the floor to make good on our budget supplements as previously discussed to pay in November and June. Mr. Taylor made the motion. I don't know if it got seconded. >> I don't know that it was yet. >> Okay. Looks like
099Mrs. G is about to second. >> All right. Uh, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you for that. Brain is not braining tonight. Okay. That moves us to the discussion of the agenda and agenda related items and the distribution procedures therein. Um, we had moved, albeit temporarily, to an electronic distribution. Um, that's not working as well for everyone as was the thought. So what is it that we need and what is an effective way to do that? Because previously it is my understanding and please do feel free to correct me that Mr. Pototts was taking the better part I mean it's a chunk of time to deliver these binders >> um by hand. Is there somebody else who can do that? Is there a better way to do that? Does anybody
100>> at this point I don't know that we have someone identified for that. I would entertain uh some options for your consideration and that would be uh uh the time consumption for preparing those was uh becoming problematic and so I think that was one of the other reasons it was not just Mr. pots times which was being consumed at least twice a month. But uh my recommendation or request for your consideration would be that uh we be uh we still focus on the legality of making sure the information is provided to you and posted both on our website as well as our front door. uh everything being done to you uh the first half of that would be uh on Thursdays electronically with the binders being available to you on Friday which would give us
101the additional time to have that finalized and constructed. That becomes a that's a a task that uh takes a significant amount of time away from my secretary doing the other task during her workday. Yes, it's only twice a month, but that week prior to helping with creating the agenda to begin with is can be all consuming as well. Uh, and I would respectfully request that that be your considered uh next option for delivering information to you. I also am aware that uh each of our board members should have been and I hope is still the case been provided a uh an iPad to help make that available to you. So if in fact you still have yours and it needs to be updated, upgraded, refurbished, or what have you, I've talked to our technology director
102who is standing ready to make sure that's also assisting you for those things. I don't know the status of each. Um, quite honestly, I was pleased to learn that that was the process that was used prior actually believe prior to my arrival. Um, so I'm just putting all that on the table for your discussion this evening with that request. >> Thank you. >> I sort of like having the folder in my hand. Whether I get it on Thursday or Friday, it wouldn't matter. >> Thank you. uh uh you know I I'm a lot of the things on the folder uh or on the electronic version uh are sideways or upside down sometimes even uh the it it's it's much easier for me to look at the actual manual and as far as an iPad I
103don't have one from the board and I don't really need one. >> Oh, okay. Well, I Is it true? Am I mistaken that iPad? >> I think everybody got one. Um I I requested one. I believe Mrs. Galla requested one. I'm not sure. >> Mr. Dy, were can you share if you were in Would you be interested in what? Would you be interested in one so we can make that available to you? >> The timeliness gets it to us. I have no problem with the um the having it on the paper as far as the the actual agenda itself. I think that's fine. The supplemental paperwork that comes along with it. Um I I agree with Mr. Taylor. It's it's a little daunting to go through that on any given week. I mean, as Mr.
104Dolan went through his 4,000 series. There there's no possible way to do that electronically. I I I don't I don't know how that's feasible for a board member to to look at that electronically. I'm not saying that it can't be given to us electronically. I'm stating that it's not feasible to be able to view that electronically. I mean, case in point, Miss Garbin had issues 15 minutes ago pulling up an agenda electronically. She she has been using this iPad for four plus years and she has had the same constraints that I'm speaking of right now. >> Yeah, I'm not going to lie, that's a brain fart moment on me. Um, >> yeah, it's not >> I'm not stating you as an individual. stating the the the method in which that so so then I go
105back and turn and state that Thursday or Friday what I'm not asking someone to come to me I can clearly come to you I don't mind that part I don't mind to drive the six miles to come to you but I think that a paper copy would be if Miss Westfall could continue to send it to us as she does and then we could potentially get it on Thursday or Friday like Mr. Taylor said I I that does not matter to me. That would be if that's you know >> those those arrangements certainly would be as I mentioned a second ago and I appreciate that Mr. Douty's suggestion or or clarification that would both fulfill the law getting it to you electronically and then we can have that ready on Friday that we give Miss
106I'm just trying to be respectful of the time that's invested in that uh by Miss Wesall. She has not complained one moment. I'm just thinking about proactively figuring out how can we best accommodate all the requests. And I think that would my recommendation is based on that. Um and so the other thing Mr. Taylor and Mr. Dowy, please know we will do a better job of making sure if there's things that are being flipped, that's an irritation to me as well. Uh and if that's happening, we certainly will become more diligent on trying to do a better job of making sure we learn which documents have to be entered into that process at all in which laying in what direction. Uh all that [laughter] who >> but thank you for that contribution. So with that,
107it sounds to me like Miss Garvin and the rest of the board members, if we proceed, do we have to have a motion about the process or can we just >> I I believe is this is a informal process unless you all would like to make an official motion. We can simply >> we can just this is a new a new practice to go back into >> way is is there even a way that we can get it I mean I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. Is there a way that we can get it? It can it be left in that lobby area with a packet like for us to pick up? >> Oh, the whereabouts. Yeah, we can certainly look at something like that and just have it earmarked and sealed so
108that it's the private information for those it so that we're not taking away from someone's time to punch in just to grab the envelope, you know, or something. Not that we don't want to talk to you all, but there's no sense of taking up the time just to grab the envelope to leave, you know, that's just another step in the process, >> right? >> I appreciate that. But I also acknowledge that uh we'll remind that Mr. Taylor likes to visit and so he's welcome to come on in. >> Well, but it also I think Mr. Daddy makes a very good point in the land of if I get busy and I can't get there until Yeah. 7:30 >> or whatever, I can just pop in and >> Well, uh I'll remind you that we we
109lock we secure the building at uh at the end of the workday. So, if you can make arrangements for me to if you're finding yourself running behind and just communicate with me, we can try to discuss individual arrangements to get those to you. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I was gonna say because I may be in Morgan Town and >> that ain't happening before the end of the day. >> All good ideas. All good. We'll try to make this work. >> Okay. >> Everybody feel good about where we're at with that now? All right. Um we are going to move into the ongoing discussion of communication in relation to the board and superintendent goals. Um, as this is sort of related to a personnel directive and goal setting, um, I would entertain a motion to go
110into executive session. >> I move that we go into executive session to discuss personnel with the superintendent's goals. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I do of those. >> All right. And we are now in executive session at 7:38 in the evening. All right. Uh, and we have returned to open session at 8:23 p.m. Um, having addressed all the items in the 8000 series, we will move forward to the 9,000 series. Future meetings, November 18th, 6 o'clock. back at the board office December 2nd 6 o'clock the at Grafton High School December 16th 6 o'clock back at the board office January 13th 6 o'clock at AJ January 27th 6 o'clock back at the board office >> Miss Garvin >> yes Dr. I have some good news. >> Oh, very good. >> I'm asking that you
111mark your calendar for December 18th, during which time uh my wife and I will be hosting another one of our winter celebrations and the great ghs commons area from 4 to 5:30 p.m. >> December 18th, that's a Thursday before the Christmas break actually starts. That will not be that would not constitute an official meeting. I'm just asking that you mark your calendar for that particular day. >> Be at Grafton High. >> Yes, sir. Grafton High School comments like we did last year and the year before. Final arrangements have not been made. I've just secured the date and time and location. >> Okay. >> Thank you. And before we can schedule anything else, let's entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Mr. Taylor moves. M. Gallow seconds. All those in favor? I. Thank you all for everything
112you do. >> I heard three out of four. That's the majority. Thank you all for everything you do. Good night. >> Time.