Springdale Public Schools | September 2025 School Board Meeting

001our September 9th, 2025 meeting of the Springo School Board to order. And uh we'd like to welcome everyone. Thank you for coming. And we would like to start with our student representative from DTSOI, Noe Wares Essamia. Come to the podium. And he's going to lead us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Welcome. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Um, like I told you, we instead of me reading through your sheet here and all your accomplishments, if you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself and then if we have any questions, we'll save those for the end. >> Yeah. So, uh,

002my name is Noe Huarez Essamia. I've been, uh, attending, uh, Springo Public School since I was in, uh, kindergarten at Georgia Elementary. I eventually made my way to uh J Kelly for sixth grade and ended up at DTSI in seventh grade and I I have been there ever since. I'm a senior this year. I after high school I plan to go to the U of A and then roll at the at the College of Business they have there and major in supply chain either supply chain management or economics. >> And you're going to have how many hours of college credit when you graduate high school? uh a total of 56 credit hours once I got Thank you. >> And I know nobody can read this from here, but this whole back page is his extracurricular

003activities. >> Yeah, >> there's a lot. So, tell us a little bit about some of your favorite extracurricular activities. You have there's probably 10 on here. Yeah. >> What are some of your favorite ones? >> One of my favorite ones is definitely s being an a student ambassador for DTSI, Don Tyson School of Innovation. >> Um I I I became an ambassador for my school, my high school in the ninth grade. And since then, I've only my my communication skills, my public speaking skills, and my critical thinking skills have only improved since then. Um, it it's always I always like it I always like a challenge, especially when it's a bit a fairly large amount of adults that I have to uh single-handedly guide throughout the school and answer the questions and um and and

004engage with them through throughout the school. >> So, for people that don't know what an ambassador does at SY, tell us what that is. >> Oh, yeah. So a student ambassador at DTSI or my high school is essentially uh being a tour guide or an usher uh for examp uh a big group from the UOVA comes and visits the the school uh I would be in charge of greeting them uh welcoming welcome them into the school and giving them a proper tour answering any questions they have and yeah overall just engaging and making them feel welcomed. Yeah. >> Are you passionate about SOI? You like it? >> Yes. I I I really love where where I go to school. >> So, what would you tell a student that is thinking about going to DTSOI? >>

005Hey, a So, this is something I would tell a student that's going at that's thinking of going into DTSOI is to do it. Do it. Um um because DTSOI it it offers lots of pathways. We we all know that like not all students are are headed to college like that's their plan and DTSI understands that they they have classes for those students who are want to go into the workforce workforce after high school and and of course the traditional route of going to college. I feel there's immense support. The teachers there are awesome. DTSY does an the admin, the administration does an amazing job at hiring the correct teachers, the very the very supportive ones to guide students through that process. >> Mhm. >> So we met you were you in ninth grade when you

006kind of was our guide at the DTSOI? I know we visited once. I think you were grown since. >> Yes. I Yes. I believe it was in in the ninth grade when uh we met. Yes. >> Oh, you're doing great. It's great to see you. >> Thank you. >> When you're done with your career and we need you to come back and talk to us again. >> Definitely. Yeah. After after I uh get my degree, I I hope to establish myself here in the Northwest Arkansas area. I don't I don't plan on leaving. I I definitely want to give back to this community that has given so much to me. >> That's awesome. >> I know you said that you were going to do either economics or supply chain. >> Yes, sir. Have you have

007you figured that out yet? Are you still >> Um I still haven't thoroughly figured it out. I right now I'm leaning more toward towards um supply chain management since um I know that the Sam and Walton College of Business at the UVA is really uh well known for uh >> I can highly recommend that. my youngest son and I've got a daughter-in-law that both work in the supply chain world and uh my youngest son went through got his masters here at the UVA and they're paying him a ridiculous amount of money so you can >> Yes, I will highly consider that. >> That's a good thing and you can do it. So >> yes, thank you. Anybody >> else? Any family with you? >> Do you have any family here with you? >> Oh yes,

008I have my mom and my sister. Are they in the room? >> Oh, not they're not right in the room. Yes. But yeah, they're >> I just wanted to have them stand up there. >> Well, thank you for coming. We really appreciate >> Thank you guys for >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Okay, that brings us to our agenda for the night. Uh Dr. Leven, any changes to the agenda? >> No changes. I just have a couple of handouts. I provided you I provided you an update of all the new employees from July to date certified and classified and report of the number of that we have. So that's that's in your not this is >> make a motion that we approve the agenda as presented. >> Second motion by Mrs. Creek. A second by Mr.

009Hutchinson to approve the agenda as presented. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> All right, that brings us to our celebrations and reports. >> I think like to invite the principal of Springdale High School to the podium. He's got some really nice people we'd like to introduce here. >> Thank you board for having us tonight. I'd like to invite Miss uh Miss Shannon to come to the podium to introduce some very special kids. >> Hi. Um we have a slideshow I think to go with our stuff. Um if you could go to the next slide. So um I'm the IB coordinator at Springdale High School. Um I was here last year, so you're all familiar still to me. Um, I kind of we have diploma recipients that we're going to recognize tonight and

010but I kind of wanted to give you a quick overview of some of the things that they have to do in addition to their high school diploma because it's a lot. So, in addition to taking their graduation requirements, they have to take what's considered three HL courses and three SL courses. So, those are specific um extra courses that they have to take. um HL means that they're like 200 hours of learning comp and the SLS are about 150. So that's the difference in those. They also have to complete a 4,000 word count research paper and they do that the summer between their junior and senior year. They start it at the end of the junior year, work on it during the summer, and then we refine it the beginning of their senior year. They also

011have to do a CASS project, which stands for community activity and service. It's a three-piece project that they have to work on um between their junior and senior years. And they also have lots of internal assessments. So for each course it some of them are written and then some of them are verbal like if it's a language course they have to give a speaking assessment. Um they also have to complete a theory of knowledge course which a lot of them do before school during zero hour part uh semester their junior year semester their senior year. Um and then to receive the diploma they have to get 24 out of 42 points and then in May they sit for external assessments for each course. And for each one of those there's at least three assessments that

012they sit through. There's paper one, paper two, paper three. I say that a lot in May. Um, and so our cohort for this year, we had 13. So, and they set for a total of 234 exams. So, their hands were tired because it's all written. >> Yes. Um, and then this coming up year, we have 23. So, we're growing. It's a it's a process. But um they're going to each come up and say a couple they each have a slide and they're going to introduce themselves and talk about themselves. And then I got diplomas early this year so we're going to give them out tonight too. >> Good evening board. Uh my name is Isaac Amaya. Uh, I have future plans to get a electrical engineering bachelor of science degree at the University of Arkansas.

013Right now, I'm in the process of uh perfecting resumes and being able to talk in front of groups to be able to land summer's internships for uh uh pursuing this engineering degree and a career in engineering, electrical engineering specifically. And uh I plan to be an R&D innovator. So that's research and development in companies such as uh Boeing or Loheed Martin or even local companies such as Tyson Foods, JB Hunt or uh Simmons Foods. Uh what I learned from being an IB was uh the essential essential skills for thriving academically in college as well as socially. So being able to be in a social environment with a lot of people and have a conversation and uh network and connect with different people so that way in turn we can help each other. I also learned

014how to manage my time offic effectively communicate confidently as a leader and advocate for my peers with empathy and purpose. Some extracurricular activities I had uh during my time at Springdale High School was I was the president of the Springdale High School student ambassadors. I was a community service offer for the National Honor Society. I was in the chamber choir and unity. Uh I was also in theater and the spring to high school programming team. Great job. >> Thank you guys. Hello, my name is Lzth Hernandez Alanis and I am at the University of Arkansas. Um, I plan on getting my bachelor's in communication sciences and speech disorders and then go on to get my master's for speech language pathology. Um, it's always been something I've wanted to do and I just would really like

015to have a career in that field and helping others um, a wide range of people from younger to older um, with different situations. And what I learned from being in IB was being more open-minded. Um, a lot of times I feel like a lot of us learn differently and we um at different paces and personally I learn a little bit I felt like a little bit more slower and I need to take more time with things and while other of my classmates are a little bit more faster and ongoing with that but we were all able to collaborate throughout the school year in different assignments and discussions during our classes. Um, overall it taught me to become a well-rounded learner with skills to prepare for college while also continuing to collaborate with others and making

016friendships that to this day I'm still with really close to a lot of my friends that I met through IB. Um, extracurricular activities I was involved in was National Honor Society, Senior Class Council, Spanish Honor Society, and Key Club. Thank you. Hello, my name is uh Julian Leesma. Um I'm currently at the UVA studying um in the Sam Juan College of Business and I'm majoring in economics. And one um some things that IB has taught me was one of the big biggest things was how to manage my time, right? There was always so much on my schedule um outside of school. Uh we also well my family we we operate a business. We have an ice cream shop here on Thompson. Really good ice cream. You should go check it out. And uh >> the

017name of it I wanted to know. >> It's well it's bangamu. I'll do some business cards with you guys, you know, just >> so yeah, I was saying I was I'm majoring in uh business, right, and economics. It's my concentration. And so there would pretty much be times where um you know unfortunately uh my mom had gotten really sick so she would go to Mexico and my parents would be gone so I would pretty much be at school pretty much be with IB right with my friends amazing support and then I would have to be running this business right all by myself. So it has really taught me a lot and it has also taught me just the the like how much value that people can hold in your life, right? Like with IB, it

018was just so much there would always just be friends here for you, the teachers, if you had personal stuff going on, they would be there to help you. So that was honestly something really that had a big change, right, in in my life. Um, some extracurricular activities I was in while entering high school was student council, concert band, marching band, uh, national honor society, and the BIT Academy. Yeah. Thank you. Hello. Uh, my name is Glenn Noland and I'm about to start school at the University of Chicago and um I'm planning on doing computer science and building a strong foundation in cyber security and taking advantage of um 3 years guaranteed paid internships at Chicago. IB really taught me how to manage my time. I'm a really big procrastinator and I still am now, but

019like it's helped me like not be as much. IBS taught me how to like where I can procrastinate and where I can't. Um, uh, it's taught me how to think critically and approach challenges with resilience. The program really strengthened my research skills and problem solving and really taught me a lot about other perspectives. That's one of the main ideas of IBS to be able to look at things from everyone's perspective and not just your own. Um, some extracurriculars I was involved in, uh, I was section leader in concert and marching band. I was in choir, National Honors Society. I was on the spring to high school programming team and in the BIT Academy. >> Thank you. >> Scholar. >> Oh. Uh, and I'm a Quest bridge scholar. >> Oh, yeah. There's [Applause] Hello, my name

020is Art Timmy over Perez. Um my future plans, I'm currently attending University of Arkansas for a electrical engineering degree. Um what I learned in IB, uh I learned a lot of time management because we had a lot of homework and it was hard to like manage it all at once, but um I'm hopeful or sorry, I'm grateful for it because uh now in college it's still the same, but I think I'm managing it easier. Um, I also learned like how to communicate with my peers effectively and just balancing everything in general. Uh, some things I did in high school were I was in marching band. I'm in uh I was in a program called Upwardbound and I was also in the programming team at Springdale. Good job. >> Uh, my name is Brook Sailors. I'm

021going to the University of Arkansas and I'm currently studying biology to become a scientist physician, so like a PhD MD track. Um, being an IB has taught me the value of the people that I surround myself with and the um importance of emotional support from peers, friends, and educators. So, like I still have lots of friends that I made in IB today. And whenever you're all very focused on academics, it just it creates support that's much easier to like work together with. And I found that I studied better whenever I was with my peers, especially during May during exams and stuff where we would all quiz each other. Um, and having such amazing teachers and a good mentor, which was from the IB mentor program was a large part of what helped me succeed both

022academically and mentally. And so I was the founder of the SHS STEM club where we went to the Northwest Arkansas um, regional science and engineering fair. In 11th grade, I placed in the state. I was also a part of SHS chamber choir and unity show choir, SHs key club, Spanish honor society, mixed martial arts where I got my junior black belt, and I was also a library aid. >> I I think my favorite thing on that whole slide is mixed martial arts and library aid back. That's a well-rounded person. Congratulations. Great job. I have their diplomas that we're going to um >> Before we do that, do we have family of the students here? We could recognize them. You want to stand up? Family. [Applause] >> All right. Isaac Amaya right here. There's family right

023there. >> He's coming to help. >> He's got it. He's >> ahead. Go ahead. >> There you go. >> We're making this official. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Congrat. >> Good job, >> Lth Julian. That's right. [Music] [Applause] >> I thought you came all the way from Chicago at first. >> No, he goes next week. I'm >> glad you had a late start. Yeah, >> and Brook. [Applause] Good job you all. That's impressive. Thank you, Mr. Emerson, board, Dr. Cleveland. Um, I have to say that I'm incredibly honored and humbled to have received the 2025-26 community service, Orisa Health Community Service Award. I will say that I share this award with all the principles, counselors, social workers, everybody out there who has helped create uh more opportunity for kids in Springdale public schools from two mental

024health school-based providers six years ago till 15 now. That is just incredible work that they've done. I also want to say I got to use my glasses though cuz I can't see anymore. I don't know what's happening. I just um this team that we have here in Springdale, I mean they will not take no for an answer. They if a kid needs mental health services, they'll they'll beg, borrow, find any barrier to knock down to get services to any kid. So, it's a privilege to work with all of them and I'm incredibly again incredibly honored to have received that award. Okay, some really great news. Yes. So, I thought of Clinton Bell about this, okay? And you're going to see how I'm going to connect all this here in just a minute. I'm happy to

025report to you today that we are at 73.33%. Never happened before in the last four years. I actually colored 2022 and 23 red because that's the year that I got shingles cuz I was so stressed out about this, right? So, I just made it red just as a reminder. All right. But, I'll tell you this that it is an incredible work. I thought of Clinton Bell when I thought of this and it was only because I was there the other day talking about hunters and hackers. Fantastic people. This could goes for you too. Actually, all of you in business. Fantastic people plus great systems equals mega success most of the time, right? And we have fantastic people, social workers, counselors, administrators, you name it, we have them. They're fantastic. And we just kept evolving this

026system over and over and over until we finally landed on a system that is just I think it's the the model for the state. And um just crazy crazy crazy awesome. So I'm going to go ahead and go through we still have 22 days left too. I want you to know that to um make sure that we understand really what our purpose is here and it's to first and foremost contact every family. make sure we're contacting all 21,600 families. And then we want to give every family an opportunity to complete a free and reduced meal application. That's really our number one goal. And I want you to know some of the great benefits that come with this are a free and nutritious lunch. It's hard for me not to say breakfast and lunch because they

027got this right and got everybody free breakfast, but we're still working on this lunch piece. free SAT vouchers, free ACT waivers, free college credit options, free summer camp, free reduced rates on college applications, and then really district and community benefits from this is it's funding our SRO program and our CSSO programs and nurses and also social workers and onetoone technology. And I could go on and on and on about that, but I'm really in awe of the work of our team that had that has done this year has and I'm going to go back to that slide as really I mean they started higher percentage. They just moving that needle across the line and that's the last four years for free and reduced lunch. Does anybody have any questions? >> Well, our parents have been

028really open. >> Oh, absolutely. >> And understanding of what what means for all of our kids >> 100%. district. So, our parents are really tremendous partners in helping us. Very trusting and very good. >> We've had a call center for the last three years. I want to thank Stacy for allowing us to do that, Dr. Cleveland. And that's really been big, too, for after hours. So, we we don't catch a lot of families home in the mornings, but we do catch them from 3:30 to 7ish. And so, that's been really good with our social workers working that call center. And really, that's been a big impact as well. I asked this question Friday and I was going to ask you too. What what kind of impact do you think this the 70% number we would

029be looking at if the state went to free lunch? >> How would that impact? >> I don't really know the answer to that, but I could get back with you. You're talking financially, right? >> Yeah. Well, just like I It just seems like it might be harder to get the buy in if >> the benefit was already there. Correct. >> Makes sense. Yeah, Dr. Cleveland may be able to answer that better than I. >> Well, conventional wisdom would tell you that if there's no no benefit, if I'll eat for free, that the logic is that it would be harder to do. So, the the conversation then goes to these are benefits that district would provide and access to opportunities for all kids. And so, what Mr. not ill but through just the highlights would would

030have to be what we we share and there are many others too. >> Absolutely. I do want to give a special shout out to Missy Martinez uh worked with her this summer. I had a vision what I wanted this system to look like and we worked together made this possible and the really great thing about it is and those of you who who uses spreadsheets raise your hand. I know you use spreadsheets. So I for the last 3 years I've just been constantly mail merging and updating and you know finding duplicates and I mean you're talking like lots and I thought man there's got to be a better way to do this and so got with Missy. Missy is just brilliant and she works in technology and we were able to build a system that

031updates does all of that automatically every night at midnight. All of it. So, so now our people, our great people that we talked about earlier are working with current reality every single day instead of when Damon can get to updating the spreadsheet. And so it's it has made their work just so much more meaningful because they're not there's nothing worse than calling a family that's already filled out an application and you've just wasted that time. Now that's not happening because it's happening on the sheet. Well, it could, but it very small chance of that. but it's happening on the cheap instantaneously overnight so that they know that next morning when they're calling folks that's the ones they need to be calling which has been really great. So all right I'm going to up next Miss

032Amy Schultz and there's a little clicker here for you Amy. >> Absolutely. That's awesome. >> Good evening. Thank you uh Mr. Emerson, the school board, and Dr. Cleveland. I'm happy to give a report on the nursing department. Um, this month we are working very hard on completing hearing and vision screenings in all schools, elementary through junior high for students in grades prek, kindergarten, first, second, fourth, 6th, and 8th. So we coordinate a team of five to seven nurses to go into each um of the schools to complete the screenings. Um and by doing this we're able to receive the students are able to receive services um such as glasses a lot sooner um which decreases barriers to learning faster of course. Um and also all overdue immunizations are due on October 1st. Uh nurses and

033social workers are contacting families um to ensure all students are immunized by October 1st. Students who missed this deadline will not be allowed to return to school until immunizations are scheduled. With our immunization efforts, we're partnering with Arkansas Children's Hospital to host an immunization clinic at Harbor High School on September 15th. Also during the month of October, we are offering flu shots to all staff and students at every school and support building. Hearing tests will be available for staff again this year through natural hearing centers. We were able to help 67 employees receive hearing aids last school year through this program. So, we're really excited to have them back. Um, we are also preparing to redesate all schools as hearts safe again next semester um through the project atom program. The training that this program

034provides helped save a life um at Walker Elementary last spring. So, um we're excited to keep that going as well. Um thank you. Um I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Did you say 67? >> Yes. I was one of them. >> That's amazing. >> I'm glad we were able to help you. >> I thought I just had to follow up cuz I didn't really hear it. >> I don't have any questions. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Next, we're going to have Larry Little, district safety coordinator. [Music] >> Thank you, Mr. Emerson, board members, and Dr. Cleveland for the honor to present to you this evening. This year, we continue to build on a culture of safety all throughout the district. since uh taking the job of district safety coordinator last

035year. Uh it's two words come to mind when we when I think of safety in the district of Springdale public schools is never satisfied. Um it would be easy to look at all that we are doing currently and all that we have done in the past and think well we we've done enough but when it comes to safety of students and staff and families we can never be satisfied. We can never rest on our laurels and uh it's it's an honor to be a part of uh such an amazing group of people who are all dedicated to the task of keeping our students and staff as safe as we possibly can. Um we continue every day to build on the culture of safety. Uh we have partnered with district communications to remind uh students and

036staff and families about crosswork crosswalk safety. I had a blast at Jones Elementary last week. Uh getting to present in front of their whole entire uh assembly and then take fifth grade students, three fifth grade classes actually out to a crosswalk and do a training with them and just basically discuss the importance of why it is so important that they pay attention in the crosswalk, actually use the crosswalk. Um the uh the the slide hasn't been updated yet. As of today, there have been 22 building safety walkthroughs uh completed and those will be uh every month I get into every single school uh at least one time, sometimes uh more often. And uh those walkthroughs ensure accountability and adherence to school protocols. 25point check that every school undergoes. And uh when whenever I hit submit,

037uh a copy of that report goes to the building safety design uh for those for them to identify trouble spots um and look for areas where they can improve. Uh, I'm sure some of you walked through the open gate weapons detection system here tonight that we've deployed at several schoolboard meetings. We've also used it at uh football games uh this year. Last year uh it was very wellreceived at the state basketball tournament, the state wrestling tournament. Um and uh the community response has been overwhelmingly positive to to these devices being used. Um, hardly ever do we get any kind of push back or resistance. And, uh, we do have get a lot of feedback of, "Hey, thank y'all for doing this. Hey, we're glad you're here." Uh, they can move 3,600 people an hour through

038the system. And, uh, our staff does an outstanding job. if the if the system trips, uh, bringing people over, divesting whatever item may cause it to go off. Um, the professionalism of the staff, of the people that we have working these machines at all kinds of events is second to to none, and I can't say enough good things about the people that present that uh, five-star customer service every single time at every single event. Um the one the most important thing that I would like to present or uh spotlight tonight is the transition from uh CSSOS or two CSSOs from SRO's at uh all of our middle schools at Helster, Helen Tyson, J Kelly and Sonora and also Rollins Elementary. Um that transition has gone fantastically well and uh there are five CSS uh O

039officers with over 85 years experience over various disciplines in law enforcement, safety, military. We have everybody from former chiefs of police to former Navy Seals to former Army Rangers. um all walks of life, all different backgrounds of private security, um corporate security, and now they they're they're on our team. And uh that's that's a tremendous just to get to work with these guys and hang out with them is is just a a blessing to me. Um this has been a tremendous savings to the district without sacrificing any safety or security. We have not backed up one inch in uh the level of safety and security that we've provide our schools. Uh we also have strengthened uh the amazing relationship that we have with Springdale Police Department. I can't tell you how many times I've heard

040Mr. Donnell go all across the state when he talks to school districts about standing up a new CSSO program. Slide number one is do you have a good relationship with your local police department? And if you don't stop, uh the the relationship that we have with Springdale Police Department is imperative and it's amazing. We can't thank those guys enough uh for their cooperation. We train together. Uh we we collaborate on so many levels. This year we've also strengthened our partnership with the Washington County Sheriff's Office at Sonora Elementary and Sonora Middle School. Uh now you'll see deputies coming into the school uh just to kind of establish a contact there both with admin and with students um they visit the school on a regular basis. Um if they need free Wi-Fi to you know submit

041a report and email send an email uh they can do that. We have radios available to them if they need to use those in the event of an emergency. And so we are really really excited about uh the the uh the avenues that we have for further collaboration with uh with more of our law enforcement agencies. Um also they have a really nice shooting range that they said we could come and use. So I'm looking forward to that. But um that's all I have for you uh fine people tonight. Do y'all have any questions for me? >> I'm going to leave before you ask any. Thank you. Thank you. That's great. >> Good evening, board. Dr. Cleveland, I want to thank you all for allowing me to be here tonight to give you some updates

042and some celebrations about K8 Connect. Um, I think I'll steal a tag that I just heard Mr. Little use. I really am finding a footing of blessing um, in my time at K8 just in these first few weeks of school. And I just want to share some of the fun that we've had. There have been bumps and challenges, but you know, that's kind of part of the gig and to be expected. But overall, things have gone really well. We've had a visit from a a family pet, the pig that showed up one morning. So, I wanted to include that there. We've had some learning going on in classes as you would expect. And I included Javy's little picture there in the top left. Sometimes that's the faces we see, but by the end you'll see

043Javy's picture with me on the left. we we can find ways to get to smiles by the end of the day. And one common statement we've been making to students throughout our days is, "Hey, we're here until 3. We're here until 3." And um almost every day we've been able to end the day with smiles on faces and successful endings to any kind of, you know, upset or problem that's happened throughout the day. Um, I would I would quote too just as I kind of go into this. My daughter's favorite musician is Annne Wilson. I don't know if any of you are familiar with her, but she has a new album coming out called Stars. And I was driving here from school this afternoon and and one of those songs came on my playlist. And

044to quote a little little snippet from the Stars album that's coming out here in a few weeks, dreamers never stop dreaming. Believers keep on believing. When the world keeps on dragging down this dreamer's heart, I look up and remember, I was still made for the stars. And I just want to tell you, these kids are still made for the stars. And that's our goal and that's our heart at K8 is to help them find their place because they're still dreamers and we're still believing in what their um capacity is for learning and for how we can help them achieve their goals. And so just to look at some of our celebrations and updates. Um this is my friend Kathy here and I thought that was a great picture to share on our celebrations slide with

045you. She is our only kindergartener right now at K8 Connect but she has been a joy to have and and is finding her space with some first grade friends in her classroom. We have transitioned from the former mascot at K8 uh KA Connect to becoming the K8 aviators and that's been really exciting because it's helping us kind of bridge the gap with the relationship with our sister campus who obviously spending seven years at Archer kind of gave me a footing to be able to do that and I've been really excited. Dr. Dr. Davis and I have really worked on some ideas on how to even bridge some mentorship opportunities, how to increase collaboration with our staff between K8 and Archer. Um, both campuses are doing things that are very unique to Springdale public schools and

046so they need different supports and different resources and so having that connection between the two campuses is going to be imperative to our growth and to our success in the future. So, we're very excited to be the aviators and um our team at NAP has really adopted us um in this new um mascot. Every morning when they go on the loudspeaker to welcome um their students, they welcome um the aviators as well. And that's been really fun to kind of see the response there. Our current enrollment is 47. We're averaging about one to two new applications a week. Got one on my way here that popped up on my phone. So, we'll probably soon be at 47. And I would I would estimate that by Christmas time, we'll see those kindergarten numbers rise. As u

047Miss reminded me earlier, the pumpkins haven't come out yet. And so, when the pumpkins come out and everybody gets settled in, we may find some friends that need some additional support to get settled in. So, we'll try to bring them over as soon as we can to get them plugged into the supports that they need. One of the greatest blessings to K8 I believe this year has been our relationship with Hope School Project. I cannot thank you enough as a board for approving that relationship. Dr. Cleveland for finding that resource and plugging us into that. Miss Jessica Flor is the director of the Hope School project and it comes out of Hope School Academy from Bentonville. And their um goal for their program coming into schools and supporting is to help create a safe, respectful,

048and productive learning environment for all students to foster personal responsibility and academic success. And so we're really excited to partner with her. She's currently coming in on site three days a week working with our team, working with me, frankly, to help me grow and learn and see the things that we need to change in the program and different ways to support our staff. As well as we're getting ready on Thursday, we're going to have our our first kind of official work session meeting to reflect over this first month of school and then she will begin her inhome support. And that is really the gap that I believe has been missing. and supporting these kiddos is is finding a way to support them in the home. So, we're going to select two or three families and

049she's going to go into the home and help them establish routines and procedures that can help their kiddos be more successful so that all the work we're doing at school is not lost when they go home or when we have a three-day weekend or we have a week off for Thanksgiving that they can come back to us and still have those routines and procedures. Another wonderful support that we have um I believe that Miss Lanigan um and um other staff members applied for last year is through tears gap relief. And what this is, it's trauma-informed educators reaching students. And they kind of have two different components. The component that we're accessing um is their component where they uh come in and it's developed by this gap relief. They come in and support teachers because the

050work is hard and the teachers have the right hearts and they want to support the kids, but boy, they are weary by the end of the day and certainly by the end of the week. And so, this is an opportunity to really kind of pour into them and support them. We're excited for what the future of that looks like. Megan Taylor is our contact there. She's the co-executive director of Tears Gap Relief and has really been a lot of fun to work with. She brings fun and excitement into also a way to support the staff as they're dealing with kids who have stories that are just really hard and it's it's really hard to take that kind of stuff home with you and and be able to to come back the next day with a

051smile on your face. Um updates about admissions and transitions. We are looking at making our admissions and transitions process a more reciprocal process. So that the process that we go through to bring students to our campus is a very similar process that we'll go through to return those students and transition them back. That's a huge piece of the work that we do is preparing them to transition back to their zone school so that they can experience a traditional school life, right? because it's not the same when you're in a school with 45 kids versus being at a traditional elementary, middle school, or junior high campus. And so that's our goal. We're working with what I'm calling a boots on the ground team that's going to be um not only reviewing applications, but also helping provide

052some coaching and supports for teachers in other buildings. So going in and observing these students before we get the application at K8 to try to see is there anything we can do in addition before we remove them from that campus to support them on site and it's principles have been really receptive to that across the district. I've already worked with several and kind of putting some boots on the ground things in place and so we're excited about that. Um, and then the last piece that I'll share, um, we're transitioning away from our former point sheet program to what we're calling behavior care plans. And it's really just a way to create a narrative of how things are going for the kids. Parents have been extremely receptive. They love this idea because their kids are not

053coming home saying, "I lost my points and upset," but they're coming home and able to articulate what was good about their day and what do I need to work on with my day. So, we're very excited about those behavior care plans and how they will continue to develop um our future. Um this is kind of a play on words here. The kids obviously are our future, but we're also looking at what the future of K8 can be and we're looking at how we can provide some district-wide behavior supports. We know that that's certainly a challenge that every school faces and we've got to have a team of people that can kind of become the experts. We're not the experts yet, but we're going to be. And so that's what we're working on and building our

054staff's capacity to be able to do that. And one of the big pieces tying back to those two things is just restructuring supports for students who have IEPs and also 504s. Um because a lot of times we get applications for those kiddos and it's it's a different type of support. So really trying to keep keep an eye on the two different types of supports that are needed for those kids. Um, and if I may, I'll just end with um statement that I've heard often and I'm going to just add to that statement that our goal is so goes K8, so goes the district and so goes Springdale, so goes the state. And and we're excited to help lead that that work and very grateful for the opportunity. Dr. Cleveland pushed me out of my comfort

055zone and I'm grateful. So, thanks for that. Questions? be happy to answer anything you have. This was my bus ride home with my friend Lincoln today. The only way he would get on the bus is if I would get on with him. And so I said, "Well, I'll go to the board." A little bit of a hot mess with some frizzy curls and it'll be fine. And so here we are after my bus ride home with my friend Lincoln. Still made it back on time. The bus driver dropped me off at the street and in front of the school and I was able to get here on time. So a good end to the day. >> That's awesome. It's kind of like a mission Impossible choose. Should you choose to accept the mission, I'm glad

056you Thank you board. >> Thank you very much. >> I believe Dr. G is going to introduce a couple of people that you know uh for a very neat award. >> Well, thank you Dr. Cleveland and board for this opportunity to present. Um last week I was going through my emails and I came across one that caught my eye. It was from Athena Hang who uh graduated last year. Uh you remember her. She was in front of here presenting one time. She was our senior class president who gave an incredible speech. Um was involved in MCing National Institute of Health presentation. I mean just a complete rock star. And so we're certainly proud of her. She um is at Yale right now and within her email to me she said, you know, I'm doing great

057but I just wanted to let you know that um I recommended um Miss Farrar and Mr. ing for the Yale Educator Award. Um there were 300 applicants and um you know again I just think about going to Yale being so invested, so busy, a whole new world and what does she do? She says I want to stop and give thanks. I want to recommend two people and in her words she said they changed my life. I wouldn't be where I am today without Miss Ferrar and Mr. And um again I just think that speaks of her character. um they're the only two that won out of the state of Arkansas. So again, we're certainly proud of of them. And you know, when I think about the recommendation though, I I do want to say she's

058right. You know, Miss Ferrar and Mr. Frink, they go above and beyond every day. Coming to Harbor High School is not just a job, but it's a passion that they have. Um I know kids look up to Mr. Frink as being a mentor. Uh one that's almost kind of like a dad to them. He has their respect. And then I think about Miss Farrar and the number of kids that she serves and she does it with passion and I think about the details that go into her work to make these applications uh thrive and again I couldn't be more proud of them and again I just thank Athena for recommending them but um anyway I'd like for them to say a few words um board >> like to say a few words. Don't fight over

059who gets >> I know like oh my gosh I like to be behind the scenes not not in front of um I I last year was my first year at Harbor and I started in July and I saw this child coming up to me you know I'm like in gym clothes working in my office and she was like I'm Athena and I'm one of your new students and I need to meet you to make sure this is all going to be okay. I was like okay yes this is going to be great. And then from then on, she came in once a week and I really looked forward to her meetings every week. She she is a wonderful wonderful person and she was so easy to talk to and she was so grateful for our

060time and she would talk about that a lot like just having that moment that she could come and sit and talk with us and and form that relationship. And so it made it so easy to to write all these wonderful things about her because she was such a wonderful child and and I'm so excited for her. I I can't wait to see all the wonderful things that she does and and just so proud of her. >> Yeah, obviously she's phenomenal and so it was a blessing to get to teach her. I got to teach her for two years. So, uh it was really special to kind of carry on that relationship. I think Dr. Gre kind of cheated with the math a little bit. You know, it's like uh 300 and only one in the

061state of Arkansas, but I mean like how many are in the state of Arkansas at Yale? So the the sample size is pretty small. So I I don't think this award really truly speaks to us as much as it is to her thoughtfulness and her gratitude um and her ability to write. U we didn't do anything special other than invest in someone who's special. And so uh it was humbling to get just nominated. I don't really care what people at Yale think, but it was nice to know that someone that I do know uh thought that our work was important and valuable. So, um I mean I think if you were at the graduation ceremony, she reminded us to thank your people and so it was nice to be thanked. But when I think you

062know we all have our own people and you know I've had to you know split myself as a teacher. We all teacher, principal, counselor. We split split our time and our heart with our family at home and our family at school. And so we're equally here for the support we have at home for the people we love. So I know my wife has had to share me with 100 plus kids every year. And um so I love her and she's just been my constant companion, support, encouraging and so it's really cool. You know, sometimes you feel like a doormat, sometimes you feel like a stepladder, some days a little both, but it was nice to feel like you helped out somebody that is going places and uh is willing to reach back and say thanks

063as she's reaching the top. So, thank you guys for having us here. I think it says a lot about, you know, a lot of these awards, a lot of times you fill out an application yourself and brag on yourself and then you submit it and then you win an award about how >> right well you did at talking about yourself and for, you know, for her to you said you didn't do anything. Obviously, you did a lot, >> but you also didn't do anything to fill this out, but you still were recognized for something. So, I think that says a lot that um somebody thought of you and you didn't just think of yourself and fill out an application. So, um and then I also thought it was pretty cool how you both um were

064supposed to talk about yourselves and why you won the award and you just talked about her the whole time. And so I think that just says a lot about the type of people that you are and where your focus is. And so that's why you're up here today in my opinion. But um thank you for all you do. >> Yeah. I was going to add to that, but I know somebody that feels exactly the same way about you too, >> just so you know. >> Yeah. I mean, great great students make great staff and so um I've had some in the past, some currently um and so it's not lost on us that we get to work with really uh high achieving students and um it's very rewarding. But um >> well, it's for I

065ask students across anytime I'm anywhere, I ask them even if they're in their 30s who their favorite teacher is. And the number of students though that will come back and one name you Mr. F that has is blows my mind. I mean like my kids won't remember a half a dozen people but they always will and they will name specific things like that you did or ways and so I think that reminds all of us that work with students is our attitude and our time with students affects them in a much bigger way than we can imagine. And so we should, you know, take a deep breath every time we're with them and go, "Okay, you're the most important person in the room." And I think both of you do that. Obviously, from what she

066said and from what we've heard from many other people, thankful to be here. >> She's ready to sit down. We're going to let you sit down. >> Good job. Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you very much. Well, that totally makes my award more fun. >> But, uh, I can tell you >> they're uh those awards from Yale. They're great examples of just about every teacher up and down the the line in Springfield. Great hearts. Proud of all. Speaking of um we have a list an updated list of of the staff that we've done this year 190 or so of those staff newly certified and then there's another list of classified and so I just wanted to submit those to you every month you'll have another list as we add most of them will be

067either long-term subs or in the classified arena but as you know the law has changed and so now I need to submit those to you. So, that's my effort to do so. And uh in effort to make make it easy on Miss D. Hobs who collects this information, I'm just going to ask her to add those names to this list if that's okay with you to people that are along. The next report that I have for you is student enrollment. Now, student enrollment uh report is is something that's a difficult report for me to provide to you. over time we've been a growing district and so it's hard for me to provide a report that's somewhat uh negative and that it appears that we like all the other districts in the state or most of

068the other districts in the state are experiencing a decline and you might ask well why are we declining birth rates in the state are down you have things like education premium counts and the rise of old school additional uh additions of of private school vouchers and things like that could be part of that. But uh you've also got you also have different kind of policies at the national level and state level that impact students and families decisions on where they live whether it's in our state or out of our state. I'm not going to go any further than that other than to say on the 11th day of 2024, we had 21,758 K12 students. And we count the 11th day because that's the day we have our 10th day drop, right? So every year if

069students don't show up on the 10th day, the next day we drop students we haven't seen. That's the requirement of the state. So we had 21,758. [Music] By the end of the year, we have roughly about 200 to 225 students that have left us. And most of those students left us after January. So we experienced rapid decline in the spring. On the 11th day of two of 2025 in August, we had 21,24 That's a a negative number of 554 students. Now, does that mean that we didn't grow new students? Now, we we've had a significant number of new students come into the district, but a net loss of 550. So, every day I have Mr. Jake Hilton, who's our east school guru, provide me a report of the number of students that are in the

070district and the number of students that leave the district and uh and then what the net gain is or the net loss. Sometimes we gain 11, sometimes we lose none. And it's interesting and I ask where they go. Do they go to a local district close? Do they go somewhere in the state, out of state, or out of the country? And um now I've asked him as of this evening to provide additional information which grade from each grade K through 12. What grades are we seeing the most loss? This year we're about 110 short in kindergarten from the previous year. So we're seeing way few kindergarteners show up to school. This is not unique to us. This is a a phenomenon that that we're seeing. I've asked my friends all across the district, superintendents across

071the state, I mean, and they're experiencing the same kindergarten loss. So, not sure if that's a birth rate situation or parents are choosing to hold their students out or if they're choosing to homeschool some form. We don't have that information. We're going to do some more research and I'm going to have another report for you next month that I'll be able to break out by grade the number of students that we've lost that were here this year or this past year compared to where they went and the number that came in. >> Does that sound all right? Are there any questions other questions that you'd like to have me answer related to student population? because I have a lot of questions. So, I just think it's important we find out. Mr. Donnell and I, we

072talk a lot about this and he's working on potentially a survey. Um, in fact, he he may want to tell us where where he is in this about any parent or child that leaves us. Why did we do something wrong? Did you have a change in plans? Was there a a need to move? Something like that? Is there something we could have done different? Um, and so we we really want to be responsive to our parents. So, >> is there anything that >> So, >> I really like that. >> It's very exit interview. >> I know in your businesses you you do those things when you have personnel leave. Sometimes you have >> exit interviews. Yeah. And so we're working on to see if we can do better. We, you know, if we don't know,

073if we're doing something that's blatantly obvious and we're not asking, how do we improve? So that's our effort. That's going to be our effort. And if it's something that's a, you know, federal policy, state policy, or something else, there's not a lot we can do about that. But if it's simply because we didn't react appropriately or someone in the school, maybe it was me or talk harshly to your child or to parents, we can work on that. It's it's concerning to me, but school districts across the state is just fine. You know, I think we've gone from about 460,000 students in public schools to around 430,000 students. And that that's a significant number. >> What's our prek numbers? >> Our prek numbers, Miss Frink, uh, >> yeah, they're stable, but what's that max number? I

074don't know where we are today. Megan told me it's around a,000. >> We're about,200. >> Is it? Are we up to 12? Okay. So that puts us up higher obviously and I usually report K3 K3 12. All right. Well, I'll have more information because that's concerning for me. I know it is for you as well. If there are no other questions, I'm about to speak fairly good at the Good evening, Mr. Emerson and board. I There is a lot going on in elementary right now and I'm here to talk about third grade promotion. Um, but before I do, I'm going to give you a little bit of background to kind of remind you of why we're here tonight to talk about third grade promotion. And this is all stemming from the Learns Act. Um, before

075I do, I'll give you kind of the state of the state. Um, so every other year, fourth grade and eighth grade um, across the nation randomly take an assessment called the NAPE. and that stands for the National Assessment for Educational Progress. Um Arkansas is not immune to that. So every other year, um Springdale participates, um schools randomly are chosen to take this assessment. Um Arkansas, you can see, has 28% proficiency for fourth grade, 25% proficiency eighth grade. Um, nationally the score anywhere is between 30 and 35%. So it's not a super high score that we get nationally. We do not get these results reported back by school. We just know how we do as a state. So when Governor Sanders um took over um she decided that this was not acceptable for the state of

076Arkansas and we needed to do something about it. So therefore the Learns Act was born. And so part of the Learns Act um addressed third grade reading proficiency and a section of the Learns Act outlined requirements for promotion to fourth grade. Um good cause exemptions for promotion to fourth grade and required specific supports and interventions which we'll dive into deeper here in just a few minutes. So, in alignment with the Arkansas Learns Act, beginning at the end of the 2526 school year, which is this year, third grade students are expected to meet a minimum, and I want to emphasize, reading standard to be promoted to fourth grade. Um, this requirement aligns with the vision set forth in the Arkansas's Right to Read Act, which Arkansas's right to read act was born in 2017. They revised

077it in 2024 to align with the Learns Act, reinforcing the state's commitment to literacy as a foundation for lifelong learning, ensuring that every student receives the support needed to read read by third grade. And I'm emphasizing reading for a purpose, and you'll find out why here in just a second. So, third grade promotion at the end of the 202526 school year, third graders who do not meet the state defined minimum reading standard and do not qualify for a good cause exemption will not be promoted to fourth grade. So, this is how it will be determined. So at the end of the year um students in third through 10th grade take well actually third through yeah 10th grade may some of course exams in 11th grade I believe um take an atlas assessment and third graders

078um who do not pass the atlas assessment will not be promoted to the fourth grade and they're looking at an ELA score and I will give further definition of what that means. So students who do not receive a passing score of a two, three, or four will not be promoted to fourth grade or do not have a good cause exemption. So any student who receives a level one may not be promoted. And you see um in between a level one and a level two, they have reading standard. So level one, you're at risk of being retained in third grade. So this slide I have Atlas ELA score versus an Atlas reading score. So when students get their their scores back at the end of the year, they actually get two scores. There's an ELA score

079because they actually take a reading assessment and a writing assessment. And the ELA score is a combination of of the reading and the writing. So they take both tests and they combine them together and you get an ELA score. Then the students also get a reading score separate from that. But for whatever reason when the state gives the reports back, you can see I've actually put a student's um report up here for you. you have the ELA performance and and this act this student on this assessment when you combine his ELA performance his reading and his writing scores he has a level one but when you look at his reading performance he has a level two but for whatever reason when the state is asking us to make retention decisions we are making retention decisions

080on this ELA score for reading and writing. We do not know why. This was asked a thousand different ways when we were in a training session and a thousand different times they told us to use the ELA score. So, we do not understand why they're doing this. So this student according to his report can read and under the definition of what they what they say should count as a passing assessment score, we should pass him on to fourth grade. But because of how they're having us report this, he does not qualify to pass on to the fourth grade. Does not make sense to us. But this is how they're having us look at this report. So that's why I was stressing reading standard. The law says reading, but they're having us look at a reading

081and a writing score. So, the role of the district through this process, if you'll remember last year, um I brought um some teachers, brought some principles. We talked to you about the K2 screeners. We talked to you about the process that our teachers are going through um from kindergarten through 2 grade to intervene early on so that um we're not waiting until our students get to third grade to start this intervention process. We start intervening day one of school so that our students were giving them every possibility that they can get so that we're not to the point when they get to third grade that we're having to retain them as third graders. Um so we are using all kinds of formative assessments. We're using tools to progress monitor them. We're trying to um give

082them every opportunity that we can give them early on um so that we're not having to retain students in third grade. So we talked about that last year. We're doing intervention reading plans. We're communicating with families um so that we're we're doing everything possible so we're not at this point. >> Quick question. >> Yes. >> Uh you said it starts at the end of this year. >> Have we having previous years numbers? Have we your test scores have we compared this being applied to those and what that does as far as like a projection of if it was in play in the last couple years like how many >> I'll get there in just a few minute. Yeah, a couple more slides. I'll I'll tell you what the implications could be. >> Okay. >> Um

083so we have explicit systematic interventions focused on literacy skills. Every school has this in place. We have data tracking processes in place. We know student by student what skills are missing. Um teachers are pulling small groups of students. Um they're communicating with families are giving individualized instruction. Progress monitoring is happening. Um all of this work is happening during the collaborative team meetings on Wednesdays. Communicating with families, professional learning for educators. We're giving training um through um our highquality instructional materials. Um the individual reading plans are being populated. They're updating those based on the data that's being collected. Um they keep referring to this district toolkit. Um that toolkit has not yet been released. I even checked prior to coming down here this evening to see if the toolkit has been populated. We still have not

084seen this toolkit, nor do we know what's in the toolkit because they haven't released it yet. Um, good cause exemptions. Um, so there are reasons why we could say that a student is that we could go ahead and promote to fourth grade. Um, these would be students who have um, significant cognitive disabilities. Those would be students who are in our CBI SEC classrooms. um students who have IEPs or 504 plans. Um if we can document more than two years of um science of reading aligned interventions that we've been delivering with fidelity and I would say that that would be all of our students who have IEP or 504 plans. Um students who have had less than three years of formal English learner instruction. And um I can give you those numbers here in just a

085minute. um students who have already been retained. So, we wouldn't retain a student for more than one year. If they've already been retained in kindergarten or maybe a student that um started kindergarten late, we wouldn't retain them again in third grade. um students who have already previously been evaluated for special education um but maybe have had a lot of intervention but continue to demonstrate a reading need um or students who have justifiable good cause exemptions because they've had a traumatic event. I personally have had this happen in my family. My oldest daughter, the week of um high stakes testing, took my youngest daughter across the street um to play at a friend's house on her way home. A dog chased her and her little sister and she picked up her three-year-old little sister, ran across

086the street, dropped her. Little sister hit her head on the concrete. We ended up at the hospital with her fractured skull. We had a one-way flight to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock and her principal mom did the best thing that she knew to do and sent her child to school the next day to take the high stakes test. And my very very smart daughter um who had passed every test that she had ever taken in her life did not pass that test that day. And so she would be a child that um experienced a traumatic event that did not do well on an assessment that would probably qualify for a good cause exemption um under that circumstance. So for the students that we're either retaining in third grade or we're promoting to fourth grade

087for good cause exemption, here's what we would be required to do. We would be required to assign them to a highly qualified teacher that would be in third grade or fourth grade. They would be required to receive at least 90 minutes of daily evidence-based reading instruction aligned with science of reading. We would be they would be required to receive um a readathome plan aligned with their individual reading plan including strategies based on the science of reading. They we would have to prioritize for at home literacy tutoring grants which we apply for every year, have access to additional interventions tailored to their individual literacy needs and be tracked through a schoolmat system to monitor progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions that we're providing. Now, this is how they're identifying a highly qualified teacher. Um,

088they take all of our teachers who teach ELA, that's third through all the way up through high school, and they assign our teachers a BAM score, which is how much they're growing students. And they rank all of the teachers in the state of Arkansas from the highest FAM score down to the lowest FAM score in the state, not in the district, but in the state. And so then all of the teachers in the state who are in that top quartortile, they're considering the most highly effective in Arkansas. So you can imagine um in our district, we have a handful of those teachers and they're kindergarten all the way up through high school. So, our high our highly qualified teachers are high school teachers, junior high teachers, and elementary teachers, but we need them in third

089and fourth grade. And our kindergarten, first and second grade teachers don't have VAM scores because they haven't given an assessment that's eligible to receive a VAM score yet. And so it doesn't make any sense to take a high school teacher, pluck them out of high school, and throw them in a third and fourth grade classroom. So the system that they have set up to do that doesn't make a lot of sense to us. Um, they can have a master professional education designation, which is really hard to get. It's nearly impossible to get added to your license. But then they added with a focus on science of reading. We don't really know what that is. um or they can be highly effective in the educator effectiveness system. But then at the bottom they says, "Need help

090developing your staffing plan? Refer to the district toolkit for alternative options for identifying a highly qualified teacher." Again, the district toolkit doesn't exist yet, so we don't know how to do that. So, here are the possible implications for Springdale. So last year in the state of Arkansas, 10,000 students were eligible for retention based on their atlas performance. Dr. Smith and I calculated that was approximately 30% of the students in the state of Arkansas were eligible for retention. So Springdale currently has 1,572 third grade students enrolled. Approximately 595 students would qualify for good cause exemption based on their ELLL status. That's 38% of our third grade students. And remember that's less than three years of um formal ELLL instruction. Um in Arkansas, approximately 221 students will qualify for good cause exemption based on sped status. Those

091are students with an IEP. That's 14% of our third grade students. Last year, 508 third grade students scored a level one on Atlas ELA assessment. Now, supposedly, now we just got last year's assessment data back like a month ago. Supposedly, when our third grade students take the assessment this year, we should get it back in less than 24 hours. So fingers crossed that really happens so that we do know who we will be retaining. We'll see. Um approximately 193 would qualify for good cause exemption based on their ELLL status. Approximately 71 would qualify for good cause exemption based on our sped status. which means potentially we could retain 244 students, which would be 16% of our third grade students. Is this number high? Yes, I do believe so. Will we retain this many children? No,

092probably not. Um, I'm pretty good at helping people think about good cause exemptions that we would go ahead and promote students forward for. Um, but that would mean that we would have to have a whole bunch of highly qualified teachers in fourth grade um that we would put these students in their classrooms. So, are there any questions about third grade promotion? >> When do they take the Alice? Again, >> there's a window. They start taking it um in April, mid April, beginning of May. We shared this data with the department of education. >> We have not shared this data just because I just calculated it today. Um but I don't think that they would be surprised by this. Um, I know that Secretary Aliva was in front of a legislative committee the other day and

093I think he was being questioned pretty hard about 10,000 students potentially being retained in the state of Arkansas. Am I correct in what I just said, Dr. Cleveland? >> So, I think my question is, I mean, obviously we want kids to be on grade level. We don't want to just send them on just to send them on. But if a kid, if a student, let's say one of those 244 students is um a master at every other math, whatever, fill in the blank. So, we're going to hold a student back for a full school year. They're going to repeat everything else that they've mastered. They're going to repeat it again just because Okay, >> it's correct. >> And there's not there's no talk or um there's no way of once they master once they get

094to that proficiency level in reading a month in to the second school year, send them on to fourth grade in the middle of the school year. >> Yep. You see what I'm saying? Like once you have to stay >> I just feel like we preach personalization and customization and that is not either one of those things. If you're making a student repeat math when they don't need to, that's a waste of their time. But that's just my opinion. >> Well, I know Texas, they're going away from the STAR exam. They're going to a new exam. They're going to test three times a year. small chunks and they're going to look at growth and so they're not doing what we're doing. And Secretary Lee and I had a small conversation about studying that all see what

095that might look like if we move to something like that. So he understands that high stakes is hard and especially for some of the things like Miss Hink was talking about. You had small bites. >> Yeah. >> And you could really see what a student was doing throughout the year. That looks like it's more reasonable. >> That's just an aside. Yeah. >> That makes sense. it. I have a I personally have issue with um in my opinion, you know, because I have a second grader that will be going into third grade that I could see maybe would struggle with this next year. Um altering his life based on an assessment we take on one day. >> 100%. >> How many times have we given that? We're only This will be the third time, right? The

096Atlas test. >> Yes. Yeah. Well, this will be Yes. This will be the third year that we've given that assessment. >> Are only public schools having to do this? >> Yes. Public schools. Anybody who receive Yes. public schools, >> but not anyone who receives public money. >> No. >> Well, everybody receives public money that accepts the voucher. >> I'm saying. Exactly. >> That they do not have to retain. >> Correct. >> Is that correct, Dr. Cleveland? [Music] I'm sending you the article right now that I read and everything that the you know that all of the the up to the third grade we've had in place in Springdale forever. Um the intervention the RTI like we've we've had it >> like we intervene we We we start day one of school. >> I mean, I

097think nailed it that altering a person's life based on one day and one test is that's asking a lot. >> And then to not have any supports or game plan in place really, which is kind of status quo, but it is what it is. got to put the cart before the horse. >> And I think nationally, this isn't an Arkansas problem. If nationally we were seeing students achieving better, like if nationally we were seeing 85% proficiency, then I would say Arkansas has a problem. But if nationally we're only seeing 30 to 35% are proficient on the NAPE assessment. It's not an Arkansas problem. That's and that's how historically it's been. Does that make sense? >> Yes. >> The name's got some issues, too. Secretary Lee shared that still has questions on it about telephone. >>

098How many students are going to know about telephone? It's got to be relevant. today's world too. You're asking asking a question >> and I always question who's setting the bar for proficiency like what does that mean? >> And why why is writing included? >> Well, exactly. Why is writing included when the law says it's a reading? Like we're reading on grade level. In my opinion, that what I was showing you that two versus a one. That's my good cause exemption. You're reading on grade level. You're a two. You're not riding on grade level, which is causing you to be a one. That's the good cause exemption in my opinion. >> A lot of work yet to be done. I think there are a lot of people that are working on this issue. >> I know

099you can't answer this and I I know I don't even know if you could find this out, but I would be really curious to know what kind of like if we retain 244 students like what what would that look like from a staffing standpoint? And I mean, >> from a state budget, >> I can't imag I mean, I don't even know how you would begin to try to figure >> We played the sticky note game in Dr. Smith's office the other day trying to figure it out. And it's really hard to do because it's it it's like you go down to two fourth grade teachers and go up to six third grade teachers. But it's it's hard to know just depending on, you know, >> if you look at big picture, you're basically adding a

100year for 244 students to the state budget. I mean, and if it's 10,000, >> well, and then >> but then at some point you're going to have a bubble when these kids get up like you're going to decrease secondary. At at some point it's going to hit the secondary schools and it's when it's really going to impact staffing because it's easier at elementary because you just play the subtract two teachers from here and add two teachers here and you just switch swap teachers. But when it really gets up into the secondary schools, it's harder to play that game because you still have to have algebra teachers and you have to have geometry teachers and you have to have >> Are there restrictions on moving teachers? I mean, if I understand it correctly, not all teachers

101are certified in all grades. >> Elementary is easier to play that game because you're universally certified. Usually K6. Um it's when you get um to the content teachers where it's harder to do that because you can't swap an English teacher for a math teacher typically when you get to the secondary schools. So when that bubble hits secondaries when it's going to get harder to play that game and be efficient >> the potential of doing a third fourth split. >> It is really hard to do split classes at the elementary level just because the standards are so hard. There's so many standards to teach. Split classes are just really difficult at elementary. It It's easier just to swap teachers around at elementary than it is to do a split class. And we can do it efficiently,

102I think, at elementary. It's just when that bubble hits when you get to the content grade levels. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. bring that to our health. >> Good evening, board. >> Dr. Cleveland, Leanne, I get the great privilege of uh letting you all know that this Saturday is the Springdale Public Schools Education Foundation 8th annual Duck Race. It will be from 10:00 to noon at Turnbo Park in downtown Springdale. They will drop 5,200 ducks into Spring Creek. There will be 10 winners of $1,000 each. So, whichever ones go across, those schools will get $1,000 grants. Um, we will have the George Junior High band and it will be livereamed by J. Kelly. Interesting side note, this is the seventh year that J Kelly has live streamed the Duck Race. And um Miss Abigail

103Ferrell shared with me a couple days ago that the very first host 7 years ago is now a declared broadcast major at the University of Arkansas and wants to pursue uh this as a career. So I said that's great. we should bring her back for the 9th annual duck race and maybe she can co-host with us. So, thank you. I hope we see you all out there. Do you have any questions? >> Okay. All right. Let there be ducks. >> Hello, board. Dr. Cleveland, I've got a uh construction update. So, um, Harbor, the multi-purpose field, the rain last week put us behind. So, that's what it looked like yesterday. And, um, this morning they started pouring concrete at about 3:30. And, um, so they'll finish that. They're going to start the concrete again in the

104morning at 3:30 and they'll finish that concrete tomorrow. And then they'll start putting on the padding and the and the turf. So, um, also another job we've done is at George Elementary, we did an HVAC upgrade over there and it is 100% complete. We got all the punch list items completed. Um, I did the process the final payout today and we had a little over $36,000 in savings on that job. That'll come back to to us. >> Nice. Um we're still working on Westwood and uh Jones designs. Um and then so we're also working at Harbor and Springdale High to do some covered um areas over the band bleachers. So this is what Harbor could look like. We've still got uh to do estimating and and cost analysis on these projects, but so this would

105be on the north end of of the football field and it would cover the existing um bleachers. And then there's a locker room that would be underneath uh this building. Um >> kind of mimic a hospitality room as well. >> Yeah. Would have a ticket booth, team store, hospitality suite um overlooking the field. a lot like Springdale's is. Um, at Springdale High, we would just we would cover the existing uh band bleachers there. So, like I said, we still have a lot to go on estimating on these projects. Um, if we can get everything lined up, we would I mean, we would like to start it in January as soon as uh football's over. >> Possibilities. >> Yep. Yep. And these are just what they could look like. So, we'll be modifying those as we

106start getting estimates in. Um, at the PDC, we're 100% complete there. And then at the industrial arts, we're about 90% complete. Um, we've got to finish up, my crew will finish up the polishing the floors this weekend. Um the contractor, well the teachers that are there have placed all the equipment on the shop floor. So the contractors coming back in and wiring those in um to the power. Um we're still working on some signage with um Kelly Williamson and then just a few uh roof and awnings to finish up over there and that'll be complete. Um and then Southern Brothers did a a video at the PDC. I brought that Heat. Heat. [Music] Nope. >> Yeah. So, we'll have a video of the industrial arts hopefully next month when it's completed. Um, but we have

107had a lot of interest on Ranel at at the PDC. Um, so we're trying to get all that completed ontoron. >> You did a good job on that project. >> It it turned out pretty good. >> Awesome. >> Dr. Smith did a great job, too, orchestrating it all as well. >> Yep. She has her team done. >> Did he come in on budget? >> They pushed me hard in a lot of areas. >> It looks awesome. >> Yep. Do you guys have any questions on any construction? >> Okay. All right. Thanks. >> Wait, before you leave, we have some chair on Westwood. >> I will. Um, so Westwood, we've we've got the drawings pretty much completed. We're putting in the uh today we've picked all the uh plumbing fixtures. Um, we've got the heat and

108air systems picked out which style system will go in. So, they're putting that all into the Revit system, making sure everything lines up. Um, you know, in all the just all the drawings throughout the whole set. So, we're getting really close to being able to submit that uh to the city uh planning commission and the city council for their approvals and then it'll go to the state and um hopefully we'll be able to break ground probably about the second week in November at Westwood. But I will I next month I'll put some we've got some renderings of what it could look like and um the an overall floor plan of both both floors. Make sure the board has final look at that >> overall. >> Yeah. Yeah. Once they get the HVAC systems put in,

109we can make sure we've got the the minimum square footages in every room and then I'll be able to to present that for for the final approval and we can get it to the planning commission. All right. Thanks, SCA. Good evening, school board and Dr. Cleveland. My name is Valerie Hannah. I am the president of the Springdale Education Association and also a teacher at Springdale. Uh it has been a positive start to the school year and I'd like to share a couple of updates. In the past week, myself, Miss Day, and uh Miss Watts, who is a uh instructional assistant at SHS, travel down to Little Rock for our committee day. Um we are thrilled to share that Miss Watts was nominated as Springdale's educational support professional of the year and has been submitted for

110consideration to the state and we will find out in November whether or not uh she will be selected for that honor. Um, we are also proud of Miss Day that she will be presenting at a professional development session at the Arkansas Education Association Representative Assembly in in Hot Springs this year. Uh, and with a possibility of also taking it to a national leadership conference in the spring and we would like to thank Dr. Cleveland for supporting her in that opportunity. And it's real short and sweet tonight because it's we're only we're only a couple weeks in. But as we move forward in this school year, we are looking forward to continuing to support all educators and working together to ensure that Springdale remains an outstanding place to teach and learn. >> Thank you. [Applause] >>

111We have no patron comments. So, um, with that, we will move to the consent agenda. Anybody have any questions about the consent agenda? >> I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> A motion by Mrs. Cook and a second by Mr. Ramos to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. There you go. >> Good evening board. Good evening, Dr. Cleveland and Leanne. Um, the first item that I have on my section of the program is to seek approval of the 2526 proposed budget. Um, we had a board training last Friday and uh had a few of you that were able to attend. I know that it's hard to get away from your day jobs to to come and but I appreciate those that came. I

112think we had a very good exchange. We were able to uh walk through the budget line by line and talk about different items and so I just wanted to uh share how appreciative I am to have that time with you guys to talk about it. Um on the in your board packet you had a 2425 fiscal year summary is the first page of the packet. Um that is the complete school year including period 13 for school year 25. Um the summary includes funds one two and four which are kind of what we consider our unrestricted or our district dollars. That's money that's coming either from our tax revenues or from state support that we get. Essentially, it's everything except for our federal dollars, which are funds, any fund that starts with the number six. I

113also included on that the building fund transfer that was made as we closed out the end of the year, which was a $6 million transfer from operating over into our building fund. Historically, that amount has been usually 3 to4 million other than during uh the time that we had the esser funds and we were able to put I believe the maximum that we transferred one year was 9 million and that was because we were able to push some of those operating expenses over into federal funds at that time. And of course those those dollars have gone away. So, um, just wanted to talk about these different funds for just a moment as to what those are. Uh, fund one is teacher salary funds. That's going to include your gross salaries of your certified staff as

114well as, uh, the dental benefit that the district provides and some of the disability benefits. And so, we are required at the end of each school year to end that fund,000 group at a zero balance. And so we transfer whatever amount is needed from operating which are your fund two accounts into fund one so that we can zero that out. Um fund two is includes uh the transfer that I just discussed going into fund one. It includes all of our classified gross salaries uh benefits for both certified staff and classified staff as well as all those other expenses that we need to operate our district. uh school buses, fuel, uh operations, electricity, all those things are included in fund two. Uh building fund is fund three. It's presented here just so that y'all can see

115the transfer that was made. Uh fund four is our debt service. Included in debt service is the bond fees that we have to pay to our bonding agents and then our interest in principal on our debt. Again, that fund is required to end in a zero balance at the end of the year. And so, we just transfer whatever is needed from fund two to clear that account as of the end of the year. So, all of that to say that we started our year with a balance of 30,336,892 as our um essentially unrestricted funds. That would be what was in fund one, two, and four. and we ended the year at 35,387509 which is about $5 million more than what we started the year with. We're doing that kind of as a step down just

116because of our concerns with some things that are coming up this school year and more so my focus is kind of hedging and uh kind of getting us prepared for school year 27. Uh Dr. Cleveland talked about earlier this evening about the situation that we're in with declining enrollment. Um, of course, our funding for school year 26 is based on our third quarter average that was for school year 25. So, we're really not seeing that decline in enrollment reflected in our funding for school year 26, but my concern is that we're going to see that for school year 27. And so, um, I kind of wanted to hold on to a little bit more in our fund balance just in preparation of that as we move forward. And also, we've got some things that are

117some new cost to us or maybe some increasing cost as far as how um the access act that was passed through state legislature this past year affects us on providing funding for concurrent classes. Um we're it's also expanded the dyslexia intervention requirements which is an unfunded mandate that we've had for several years. Um also uh we've we have chosen to um bring in our special education uh prek services to in-house. Previously, we uh utilized the services of the co-op for that. And this year, we decided it was in the best interest of the district to do that ourselves. And so, we do get funding from the state for that, but we've never received enough funding to cover even what we were paying the co-op. And as we uh strive to provide all of those services

118that are required in that um I have some concerns that that's going to cost us a little bit more than what we've had in the past. So all of those things rolled in together is why I wanted to carry over a little bit more than what we had in the previous year. So are there any questions on page one? Just wanted to also uh let you know that you'll see on page three and page four where we talk about revenues and expenditures. Those numbers kind of roll up into this first page. I tried to do this document just the same as what you're accustomed to receiving on a monthly basis. So you'll see those numbers roll forward. On page two, I've got again the district dollars, fund one, fund two, and fund four, which is

119our teacher salary fund operating and our debt service fund. And so, um, what I'm projecting, and we'll talk about it just a little bit more as we get into the subsequent pages, but I'm projecting that we would have an ending balance of a little over 40 million on well actually just shy of 41 million. And this is based on um our projected tax collections. We had increasing uh assessments this year. It it hovered a little around 9% and so it didn't put us into the point where we had to look at a roll back of our millage rate, but we still did get the benefit of that gain. So I would like to direct you now to uh page three which is where I have um summarized the potential revenue for the year. What we've

120um what we've calculated as our uh tax revenue or our operating revenues for the year. Um the first part of the segment talks about our property taxes. As I stated our assessments increased a little over 9%. We're guaranteed 98% of the collections on our first 25 meals by the state. Um what we're not guaranteed is collection of our debt service meals which is 14.8 mills. So historically we've our collection rate has been at about 26%. I did did my budget based on the collection rate of 95%. So I I lowballed it just a little bit. Um, another option on our miscellaneous revenue sources. Typically, we end up with about 2 million or more is what we generally collect. In school year 26, I mean 25. You'll see that it was about 2.6 million. I try

121to budget revenues low and expenditures high to kind of be sure we meet in the middle. And so, I've only budgeted about 1.4 million for local revenues. I think it will be higher but just to be conservative that's where I set that um some of these uh different in or revenue streams are just simply based on previous years like national board stipens for instance it's just a flow through the board the state tells us how much that is they send us that money we pay that out so I base that on previous year residential treatment um I've based that on previous years as Well, pretty much everything else we have gotten some sort of notification as to what that amount will be for our for this school year, either via state aid notice or some

122other notification from the state. One thing that we have not received so far this year is our ELLL budget. Um, so on this presentation, I've simply presented what we received last year. Um, you'll notice that our grants and aid from the state is significantly less. That is because we have not received notification for some things as yet. And so I've only presented the items that we know for sure what those amounts are going to be. There's some things that we received last year. Uh, for instance, we received some teacher equalization funding. Um, it was about 875,000. This was not a guarantee that we will receive again this year. This was just a few schools that received it that were already over the 50,000 prior to the Learns Act. And so when they uh did the

123Learns Act funding for teacher equalization, we did not get to participate because we were already over the 50,000. We did get 2,000 per teacher, but we didn't get any beyond that. where some smaller districts might have been at teacher salaries of like 36,000 and they got the benefit of that additional 14 per teacher. We did not get that kind of funding. So last year they gave us some one-time funding of 875,000. We haven't gotten any notification as to whether or not we'll receive that this year. So I did not budget that as potential revenue. Another uh item that we received last year was the school safety grant. We got 1.1 million, a little over. We have not received any notification as to whether that's going to be available this year. Um, a professional learning grant

124was over 700,000. Again, no notification. So, I tried to be very conservative with what I thought our revenue amounts would be. Um, if I could direct you to page four, that's the summary of our um, expenditures and our budgeted expenditures. It includes what our actual uh for for the full calendar year or fiscal year of 25 what those actual expenditures were and then also our budgeted expenditures. You'll notice that fund one we have a slight decrease budgeted as far as a comparison between budgeted expenditures for um certified salaries for 26 versus what we actually spent in 25 25 excuse me. I ran out of air for a minute. Um, that has to do with some of the staffing efficiencies that Dr. Smith and her team have really worked hard on this last two years that

125we're kind of seeing a culmination of that in this school year. Um, regular operating fund, I've budgeted about 5.5% higher than what we um spent last year. And if you look at if you uh look at what our state foundation funding amounts increased from 7,771 for school year 25 to 8,162 in the current school year. It's about 5%. So we feel like that's a good number to work with. On page five, um I have listed out all of the uh federal funds that we will be receiving this year. Um and comparing that to what was available in school year 25. Um you'll note that it's about a 6% increase, but it's a little bit misleading on that because most of our increase is attributable to the expansion of our afterchool programs, our 21 CCLC programs.

126And then also we did see an increase in the funding for special education. So when you look at exactly our title comp one or our title fund comparisons looking at like title one, title two, title four, all those different ones, it was about a 5.8% decrease about 455,000 is what we have been notified so far that we will receive in less funding from federal for title funds. I also wanted to note that even though we are um getting more uh about 315,000 316,000 more in uh special education funds from federal. We're still um the state the school district from local dollars we have to meet minimum requirements as to what we spend from local money for special education services. And so that has been remained steady at about $19 million. So, um, when you look

127at that, I just wanted to point that out because you can see, and I know Dr. Cleveland has mentioned this many times that I've heard him speak, is that at a federal level, we're seriously underfunded for special education needs. So, I just wanted to point that out to the board. On the food service summary, I just did a budgeted um revenue projection to our actual paid meals is slightly reduced. And the reason why I budgeted it that way is because this year, as you know, we'll have free breakfast that'll be um available for all students. So that means that we'll have fewer paid meals because we'll see that shift and we'll get that state funding. So you'll see the correlation that my state funding um aid that I expect to get for food service has

128increased significantly. I think that we'll see a greater participation of our students in uh the breakfast program. So, I feel confident that we'll see that increase. I held federal aid relatively steady. Um I know that as we see um more students that are eligible for our free and reduced with all the work that Mr. Donell and his team has done. Um, we should actually see probably an increase in federal uh, funding reimbursements because we'll have more students that will be eligible for that. On the very last page, I provided just a summary of our building fund for school year 25. Uh, and we started the year with 47,818,000. Of course, part of that was some of our bond proceeds that we had where we were finishing out those projects like with Southwest Junior High and

129Central Junior High. Um, like I said previously, we are were able to transfer 6 million out of operating funds. And so, our beginning balance that we'll start the year with in our building fund is 44,948,131. So, are there any questions? I probably should have stopped along the way on those different pages if there were any questions and my apologies for not doing that. >> I'll make a motion to approve the budget as presented. I'll second that. So, have a motion by Mr. Hutchinson and a second by Mr. Bell to approve the 2526 proposed budget. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you. The next item that I have is to seek board approval of the August 2425 financial statements. Um it, you know, it's hard to tell exactly where you're going to

130land at the end of the year um right now, but the budgeted revenue that is in the column on this report now matches what the B it matches the budget that you just approved. So, this will start the reset of the clock for this school year. Um we're pretty well on target with our percentage collection of revenues to date. there's been a little bit of a time lag on receiving some of the um revenue from the state and so I think that accounts for that little bit of difference when you look at the 12.4% versus the 11.59 but it will catch up as the state starts processing that information for us. Um expenditures look pretty well on target for where I would expect us to be. Um of course debt service fund we won't have

131any payments out of that for a couple of months. So, are there any questions on the August financials? >> Okay. >> Make a motion to approve the August 2025 financials. >> Second. >> A motion by Mr. Ramos and a second by Mrs. Cook to approve the August 2025 financial statement. All those in favor? Opposed? Yes. >> The very last item that I have that was in your packet was to consider a resolution to rec approve a related party transaction. We have a teacher um Ms. Black whose husband owns a 10% interest in Westwood Gardens. Um this is a kind of a new um we've done business with Westwood Gardens for a number of years. They're a big supporter of our FFA Mums project, but apparently this is a family-owned business and kind of as their

132succession planning in the in recent uh months, they have um I guess gifted I don't I don't know what that process was on their side, but anyway, u Miss Black's husband now owns a 10% interest in Westwood Gardens. And so I presented this to seek approval for us to continue to do business with that with them um as a related party. >> A motion to approve the related party uh transaction. >> Question. Have a motion by Mr. Hutchinson and a second by Mrs. Creek to approve the related party transaction for Bale Black and Westwood Gardens. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you. Thank you board. Appreciate it. Do we have any questions about miscellaneous committee report items? >> Any other questions, comments? That meeting is good.