001regular board meeting. We're going to have the silence and we'll follow that by reciting the pledge of allegiance. Attention. Salute. Pledge. I aliance to the flag. of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, liberty andice for all. Are you even more have a motion to adopt the April 15th regular board meeting agenda? So move second. All in favor? I. I. Anybody opposed? They approve. Board may have a motion to approve the minutes of the April April 1st, 2025 regular board meeting and the notes of the April 4th, 2025 AASB whole board training retreat. So second. All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Those will be approved. Item number five, we will now recognize 2025 Alabama robotics competition awardees and school participants. Dr. Derry, good evening, sir.
002Good evening, Mr. Chairman and board. Um, so tonight is rather special. Um, you guys have heard us talk a good bit about being a premier school district. Um, it's in our strategic plan uh to to be the best for all students. One of our goals in our strategic plan is for our students to have extra and co-curricular activities and that every student is connected to the school in some way where their passion is. And tonight we are recognizing and uh our robotics teams from our schools across the entire Tuscaloosa City schools. And before I turn this over to an individual who has spearheaded this for several years, I do want to point out a couple of things. one, we've been at this work probably for the better part of 10 years. And where this system
003is now in a robotics program in competition in all schools across the school system is far different from where we were when we really got to this work 10 years ago. Um, there are a lot of people to thank and and I want to just name a few and I will miss some and I apologize for that. But one, we've got amazing sponsors in this uh room here and some who cannot attend. Our teachers, our educators who sponsor these robotics teams. What's important to note is some of them they're learning this as they go along. This is not necessarily in their lane and they are having to learn this and in many ways learning from their students, but they are learning this. They're stepping up to the challenge and and they're creating this experience, this
004opportunity for our students. So, a big thank you to our teachers, our sponsors. Another group, our principles, our sister principles, our leaders who support this work because it's one thing to say, let's have a robotics team in every school across the entire district. It's another thing to support it at high levels. And we have leadership from system leadership to school-based leadership that makes this happen. And then also our parents. A lot of the parents in here, we thank you for being here. We thank you for spending an entire Saturday with us at on the university campus um watching your child and and our students engage in a process of critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, all of the things that are important in a high quality education. And I'm going to conclude with calling somebody to
005the to the uh podium. But before I do that, I want to look at our students and say thank you. you'll be thanked tonight, but raising your hand and saying, "I want to be part of this is really special." And watching you all work these problems and solve and work as a team. And that part's really important. It's one thing to be able to code and to do this, but to be able to work as a team and to do the critical thinking and the collaboration, it's what we're about as a school system. So, our students and our parents certainly, we want to say thank you. But board, I'm going to introduce somebody who's not a stranger to you. And this is the individual who is, I believe, solely responsible for spearheading this in our
006school system and making this important for our community. And um he is certainly a friend of the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Dr. Jeff Gray. Dr. Gray. Great. How long do I have? How many how many time how much how many minutes? Got five, six, eight minutes. Great. Okay. An hour, whatever you need. Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. Daria. Thank you for the school board, parents, teachers, uh students. So, the contest that Dr. Daria mentioned started in 2011 with with just 30 students over in Shelby Hall and it's grown to over 300 students and about 600 overall participants. And what we do is it's an autonomous robotics con contest where students have to write computer programs to make robots go across um an obstacle course. This year our obstacle course was borrowed from the Wizard of Oz.
007So we had find the yellow brick road, melt the witch, and making Dorothy's slippers click together. So that was what they had to do. They had two and a half hours to do that. We had 58 teams, 300 or so students from Gulf Shores all the way up to Decatur, Huntsville, uh Montgomery. So they're coming from all over. We had 12 awards and I'm excited to say that Tuscaloosa City Schools won five of those 12 awards from all across the state. So, I'll bring up I I'll call the schools and if the sponsor or the students want to introduce themselves, we can do that. I do want to say one thing. Um we did have a very um solemn occasion. Kaden Crump was a fourth grader last year at Woodland Forest Elementary and he passed
008away this past summer and we were so touched because in his uh announcement of his passing he was wearing our robotic shirt and it talked about how much he en enjoyed robotics and football. So, we had a special occasion. We had the Crump family come and help find someone that they identified in the audience or among the students who reminded them of a Caden and we gave them awards and um so we're going to always remember Kaden in the future for all of our our contests. That was a very special moment for us. Um I do so I want to bring up all the robotics folks, students and winners. And um I do have another special announcement that I don't think even Dr. Darian knows. I just want to make this 30 seconds to make
009this last announcement. But at um at the elementary school division, second in the state was Tuscaloosa Magnet School Elementary. [Applause] So I don't know if all the sponsors want to want to something or the students introduce themselves. I can't remember how we did this. So we got extra t-shirts for you. Yes, that's our t-shirt. Some of them are wearing their t-shirts now. for my coding. Sure. Okay. Hi, I'm Caroline Frasier. I'm one of the robotics coaches. Katie Steedman is our other one at Magnet. Um, and we actually we had one of our team score second place, but I want to recognize we have 14 fifth graders that are on our robotics team. 10 of them were able to participate in the competition, but all 14 of them have been at practice every month um multiple
010times throughout the year working so hard um working together really well. And I'm really proud of their teamwork skills and how they've developed that throughout the year because like Dr. Darius said, they all the coding comes naturally to a lot of them, but it's the teamwork that we've really worked on a lot. So, I'm really proud of what they were able to accomplish. Pull the mic down to it. Pull the mic down. On down. Tell them who you are. I'm Nicholas. Nick. Uh, my name is Thomas. I'm Ashley. I'm Trip. My name's Sammy. I'm Charlie. And we have a few other students. My name is Minnie. This is Mo right here. Looks like he wants to say hi, too. So, this is just a handful of the 14 students that we have that have been
011working so far this year. So, thank you. And I think we have t we have t-shirts for the uh students who were the cheerleaders at that at that day. So, um on the the um middle school division, we had a three-way tie. Um and and we only gave four awards, but we did a special recognition. I'm not sure if they're here tonight, but we uh in in the um in fourth place was Eastwood Middle School or fifth, I'm sorry, in fifth place was Eastwood Middle School with a score of 175. Is Eastwood here? I'm not sure if he's Come on. Last time we didn't have to speak, so I didn't stress all day about speaking, but this is a Jat. The rest of our team are athletes at the track meet and soccer game. I'm
012really impressed with us tying for fourth but really tying for third if you look at all of the specifics. Um especially I was kind of procrastinating and they really pulled it together last minute. So I was really proud they did some things on the competition that I didn't know they knew. So I was really excited every time they scored points. And also with a score of 175, the tiebreaker was on time solved. So what was the earliest time that that that that point uh was was um achieved? So Northwood Northridge Middle School uh was third place in the in the state at uh also with 175. So North Ridge want to come up? You always have to come up here and talk. Um I was really proud of my team. The team that actually scored
013third was comprised primarily of sixth graders, but they learned a lot from the seventh and eighth graders on the other team. So, it was a really good learning experience for them, and I feel really optimistic about what they're going to do moving forward. And unfortunately, they all had other stuff and couldn't be here. So, I think I think there's a middle school track event in town somewhere. My one of my kids is over there, too. uh in high school, excuse me, we had another stellar performance by your schools and there's there four awards in the whole state and Tusloo City Schools took two of those. So in third place uh we had Northridge High School with a score of 175. So we have Northridge here. Um, my name is Vernon Boon. Um, I really enjoyed
014the, um, competition. It was my second year there. Um, last year we got first. This year we got third. So, um, hopefully next year we, um, we win again. So, hi, my name is Maria Romero and this is my first year at this competition and I really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun. My name is Cassie and this was my second year going to the competition and it was really fun and a good experience. I'm Mrs. Fuller and I'm just honored to uh work with them. I also want to let you know that 15 of our past members have gone on to STEM related um college scholarships at different schools like Texas A&M, University of Alabama, NC State, uh BYU, and Georgia Tech. So, thank you. I appreciate it. So, what's really exciting,
015I have photos of fourth graders where I give them a trophy and they're now helping me in the contest as volunteers at the University of Alabama. So, uh we've had students from the city schools who from the Magna Elementary or or Verer or other elementary schools. I've just watched them year by year and all the way up through uh as seniors like you know compete every year and that really paid off this year for Bryant High School. Let me tell you what they did. So not only did they score a perfect 300, they did this in 52 minutes. They came to me and at the end of the contest said, "What do we do now?" So So I've never seen anything like it. They solved the first problem in I think like under 10 minutes.
016So we've never seen that in like 14 years of doing this. and they've been on the stage before many years. So, I think that's just a testament to just continuing doing that, getting these students interested and um you know, moving on. So, first place in the state of Alabama for a robotics contest, Paul Bryant High School with a perfect score of [Applause] 300. Yeah, we are the brind. We did it. I am proud of my students. I I was expecting something good, but I wasn't expecting them to break a record. I am happy. Um I'm Aiden Townsley. This is my third and unfortunately final year competing in this competition. Um we won two years ago, um but weren't able to take it home again last year. So going into this year, we really wanted to
017um I really wanted to make this final year really count. So, I'm Nathaniel Townsley and I'm also a senior like Aiden and I'm just gonna say the same thing. So, see my way out. U my name is Aumpam and I'm a sophomore at Paul Bryant High School and this is my first year joining the robotics team and we've been to multiple robotics competitions but we didn't were able to win something but for this one we won and we actually it made us feel like we were worth something because um the competition that we won we actually beat the record and did something really good and it was my first year doing it and there well I've learned a lot from the seniors and the the people that were before us and the competition that we
018went to the UA was really exciting and nice that they gave everybody an award. Even even if you wouldn't win, they would get you an award in something like a paper. It was really nice and I liked it. Uh my name is Alam Kasm. I'm a junior. This was my first year joining the robotics team. I joined it just to have fun, but I actually really loved it. We learned a lot from the seniors and it was really nice to win. Maybe we can keep up our streak. My name is Remalashari. I'm also a junior at Paul W. Bryant. And honestly, I've learned a lot from these guys. Um, I wouldn't say I did a lot, but they have taught me so much about coding and I actually enjoyed the robotics team. Um, I see
019myself um being in the robotics team next year as well. So hopefully we can keep our streak. Yeah. you stay right here. Um, so you all got to come back and and defend your title, right? So, so you got some big shoes to fill. Uh, so we hope to see you back. Um, so I did this under I'm a professor of computer science in the college of engineering. I'm also director of the Randall Research Scholar program in the Honors College. and we bring what we think are the top 40 students at University of Alabama and they go on and win top awards. For example, the Goldwater award is like the top award in STEM related research. We had four winners this year. So did MIT and uh we were number one in the SEC. We
020have a research program that's really um strong and um we're moving now into another phase of our interview process and Aiden Townsley is um apply to our program and I would like to ask him right now if he'd like to come over and interview with us Mr. Mr. Chair, may I just say one more comment before Dr. Cra go back to the podium for one second. So, we have students from all of our schools here who participated and in so many different ways were were winners and represented our school system so well. So, if you're a student, whether you were one of the schools that placed or not, will you please stand up if you're in the robotics competition so we can see you please? All students on a robotics [Applause] team and just board
021just a a comment to because there there are some Dr. Hancock is not able to be here but Dr. Hancock helped lead our system in in this effort. And I want to also applaud our elementary folks in last year's competition. Um we watched our elementary students participate and we realized that competition is a lot. It's an intense competition with a lot going on. So our team is Langford who is here participated. we pulled together and TCTA hosted an elementary robotics fair uh competition earlier to prepare our students for prime time in in the competition at the UA. So again, just a whole lot of collective effort to make sure our students have the best experiences and that we win, which is what what is happening. So Mr. Chairman, I'm going to turn it back to
022you. I'd like to say long time ago, I was at Popeye's Chicken. Don't go nowhere, Dr. Graham. I'm talking about you. I was at Popeye's Chicken on Mac Fallen Boulevard and this big bus come in and all these students got off with a real nice uh jackets on and said that they was in the robotics competition at the University of Alabama. And back then we didn't have anybody in that competition. And um I think Eastwood might have competed So, we tracked down Dr. Gray and me and Dr. Gray and the superintendent met and then we went over to Central High School and tour the school and he said, "Well, we'll train every one of your middle schools to have a team." And from that far back, I had no idea that we'll be reaching the
023level of the competition that we reached. I want to say thank you. I know Dr. Daria talked a lot about all the great things that you do at the university and how you've helped our system, but we would not be here if you didn't take those few extra minutes to say we want you all to be a part because we are right here with you in Tuscaloosa. And I want to say personally, thank you. And no way in the world would I imagine we had reached the levels that we have reached. Thank you. Yes, certainly I'll echo that. I'll echo those comments, but I'll also say thank you to Dr. Daria for making robotics a priority and um showing all the potential of all of our students and all of our schools and all of
024the administrators. Thank you for making this a priority in your schools and all of the teachers for spending extra time with your students to to make these kinds of things happen. So, thank you for from the bottom of our hearts for from the board. So, thank you. Thank you all students. I think what we're going to do is we're going to go outside Miss Avant here. We're going to take a picture with the all the Tuscaloosa City School team together. Okay. So, and parents, you can stay the rest of this meeting if you'd like, but you don't have to. So, if you'd like to, you can certainly leave now or stay. And we thank you all so very much for being here tonight. Thank you. What's up, big man? Good. How you doing? You still
025going to be president one day? [Applause] What's up? [Applause] Yeah. [Music] [Applause] So, how you doing, man? You doing good? Something to the room. What' you say? Huh? The vent straight down. All right. Item number six. We will now receive and present the digital assurance certificate bond certificate of excellence. Dr. Daria. Yes, sir. Board members, our last recognition tonight is really a great one and one that we don't get to do enough. Um, as as you all have so rightfully done, you have thanked we have an incredible team um, in our finance department who do amazing work and really the evidence of that work is what you saw in the last couple of weeks with our audits and um, a very clean zero findings audit and that is becoming the norm in the Tuscaloosa City
026Schools. Well, what you have tonight is, and you see it in your board report, a digital assurance certificate bond of excellence. Um, to the Tuscaloosa City Schools finance department for their high quality work in making sure all of our operations are right, that we're functioning at a high level, that we're budgeting the right way, and that all of our internal operations are working as they should. Uh, Mr. Duke, our CSFO, is here, and I'm going to turn it over to him, and he will do this, but I also want to do the same. Um you see what is our finance team here tonight and um we have a remarkable and an outstanding group of professionals who do all of the work to make sure this system is running right that it's financed the right way
027and that all of our internal operations are working as they should and by the book and your audit that you received and that we'll receive formally later and then certifications like the one that I'm going to provide to Mr. Mr. Duke here tonight continue to affirm that we've got the highest quality professionals that any school system can have and I and we are enormously thankful. So, I'm going to hand this to Mr. Duke and let him say a few comments on. Yes, sir. Thank you, Dr. Derry and and Mr. Chairman, board members from one championship team that we just recognized a few minutes ago to another championship team and that's the finance and accounting department of Tuscaloosa City Schools. And uh I just want to thank them for uh this certificate. It should have each
028and every one of their names on there and they lead the way and and um you know all the way from bookkeeping to purchase orders to serving 1600 employees, 11,000 students and we handle tens of thousands of transactions, $190 million budget and uh they just hammer away every day and they're um just a pursuit of excellence every day is um recognized here tonight and I just want to say thank you to them. Thank you for the support from the board and um again just I appreciate what y'all do. [Applause] You know Jay, we only really work closely with with you and to some extent Laura Sue and Shay and just an incredible team and we're extremely thankful that this is an area that certainly we focus on and and review and study but it's not
029really keeps us up at night because of you and your and your team. And um that's very comforting for this board to to have. And so from the board, we appreciate all of y'all's professionalism and and excellent work and allowing us to focus on things that we really need to focus our time on. But it's because of y'all's excellence that allows us to do that. So, thank you, Jay. Thank you for those kind words. Okay. Public comments on Agenda items. I don't see this. I don't see the sheet. I don't see anybody wanting to talk. I don't think we have any. Which brings us to item eight,formational reports from the superintendent and his executive staff. 8A. Yes, y'all may leave if y'all want to. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for
030coming tonight. All right. Item eight, receive the Tuscaloosa City Schools Educator Hall of Fame and Memorial Proposal. Board members, um what you're going to be briefed by Dr. Childs on this proposal. It's not yet a proposal. This is work that we've been quite frankly meaning to do for a long time and and it's just time to get it to move. We have amazing folks in this in this school system now and in our history and I think it's core to to who we are as a school system to make sure we recognize folks appropriately. Dr. Childs, principal of Tuscaloosa Magnet Middle School, has accepted the the role of pulling together a system team and getting this into motion. Dr. Charles, you want to brief us on what this is, please? Yes. Good evening, board. Good
031evening. Good evening. So, this proposal or so to speak, a draft, a plan um was brought to my attention from Dr. Derry and I took the charge because I have been a member of Tuscaloosa City Schools for 19 years. So, I am committed and would like to see something like this in our district. So, the whole goal is to build a hall of fame, a memorial to seek and honor the legacy of dedicated educators. And when I say educator, I mean everyone. Lunchroom staff, teachers, principals, bus drivers, finance, central office, everybody. So, educator, anyone that impacts a child, educator, that is the realm. Um, so, but not just anyone. They have to be the best. They have to be exceptional. They have to be excellent in all that they do. And there is going to
032be a process. So, we're going to put together a team of people, get feedback from those people, including you. If you all would like to provide some feedback, you can send me an email. Um, you can call me. I will make sure I put down all the anecdotal notes so that when the team comes together, we put together um, a package deal, so to speak, so that if you are inducted into the Hall of Fame, you meet a certain criteria that not just anyone can meet. It has to be of excellence or 25 or 30 years, whatever the team decides. And you have to have been committed to Tuscaloosa City Schools for that number of years. Um, also a lifetime service recognition. Um, that one may be a given. Depends on what the team says.
033If you've committed 30 years and you've had a great track record, then that may be something that you earn um in memorial or someone dies or passes away when they're in service to Tuscaloosa City Schools. What will that look like? How will we honor them? Also, the Hall of Fame, which I think is probably going to be the toughest to uh lay out because we have to be specific when you say Hall of Fame. We don't want it to be a participation trophy, so to speak. It needs to be something that is people are proud of if their name is on it. Um, also the next step for that is the finance part. So, what will that look like? Um, will we have bricks outside of TCS? Will we have a bench? Um, we have
034several options um that we've been looking at, but of course that will be part of the team. So, board of course your input would be um needed on that because it wants something that's classy, something that looks good outside of TCS. um not just any other you know piece of brick in the ground. So again something with excellence. So we have a timeline if you have read or whenever you have a chance to look at it there is a timeline. This is part of that timeline. The next step is to get the group together. uh we have identified possibly identified some individuals who have been committed to TCS um from all areas um bus drivers it doesn't matter educators but excellent educators to be part of this group so we have that timeline and the
035whole goal is to recognize the best the best in TCS again there's several stages of it but the outcome of that will definitely depend on a group effort but at the end of it people will be be able to say that this is done with excellence. That's it. Any questions? Any questions? I had one. Yes. And I'm trying to distinguish this between our um naming opportunity so that you know it's kind of clear that it doesn't get if I'm here my name should be on the name and that's not with you. that's more directed over here, you know, so that the lines aren't blurred. Because some people will say, well, I should be named here, but I should be here, too. It's not that you can't do both, but it needs to be clear what
036the differences are because there's a difference between naming a room after you and what we're looking at as far as excellence because once you hit that bar, somebody may automatically feel the library plaque or this room should be named after me. So just making sure that we're you know good point. I was going to ask um definitely because the van is named after he died he was the name we talked about that um but that will be something that the committee decides you all like for your input send me that your input on that we talked about do we go back and honor educators of the past who were excellent because we didn't have this in place then so yes very valid point he was definitely excellent yes ma'am I will go throughcess yes ma'am
037absolutely feel I'm a person. So, I think this is awesome. Thank you. And then when we're fundraising, we're fundraising just for this and not confusing it with the 30,000 other things we're fundraising for. There's a fund um we have already a few few dollars in there. Not much. Um, but there is a fund. But what I was thinking would people would earmark the money. This money goes to these bricks. This money goes to the hall of fame. This money goes to whatever it is that they want it to go towards so that there is no gray area and it has a separate account and making sure that it's all separated. Dr. Daria, did I answer that correctly? We we what you see the timeline. We plan to get the input from our committee and then
038we'll certainly bring that back to this group for input and um get a get an adoption when we're ready and if it takes more time we'll we'll get it right. We want to get it right so that this can be done really well and honor folks who deserve to be honored and and certainly we take into account the points you've made of the difference of our naming policy and how that may intersect with this. But we'll work all that out and um there's no rush. The only thing we want to make sure is that we get it done and we get it done right. Can I say one thing? Um A lot of people just like I don't like this like okay we have children in our system just like those children they might want
039to go to so I again think it's a great idea and I opened things like Dr. Thompson was saying. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I have a quick question that I don't um will there be a handful of people inducted the first year and then so that was some talk too. We talked about how many do we start with, you know, so that yeah, we don't have the answer to that, but that was actually a question we all posed um in the executive team meeting like how do you start that? We talked about it being at the Apple awards, so that's a yearly thing, but how often or how many or who meets the mark? So those are the big questions that I think is going to be the difficult part to
040answer. So that's why I think we need to have input from all departments, all people, um you all to make sure we do it the right way. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Item, excuse me, item 8B. We will now hear from our CSFO, Mr. J. Duke. Good evening, sir. Good evening again. And it's my pleasure to bring the financial statements through January 31st, the fourth month of our fiscal year. That's 33% of the year. So you'll see some numbers here. We'll kind of compare them to 33% of the budget for the year. I'll jump right in. Start with property tax. And January is um as you can see by far the biggest month of property tax collection. That and December are the bulk of it. As a matter of fact,
041it'll start to tail off, but we seem to be tracking as we thought. So again, that's property tax. I'll keep going. Certainly stop me if you have any questions. We'll go next to car tag tax. Slight increase from the previous month last year. And um just slightly above um the prior year actual. You see the word compare there down there with a blue arrow. We're slightly above where we were last year. Sales tax. Sales tax very similar as well. Tracking slightly above last year's actual extremely close to the same month last year within $2,000 out of two million. So that's interesting. So again, you've heard now for over a year that flattening that's real and and this month shows it u as much as any. I can't talk about sales tax when when we talk
042about that flattening. We've got to continue to talk about this SSUT situation of which we get none of that contributes to that flattening because we get none of the online sales tax. That's a real dilemma that's slowly slowly uh entering the conversation into education and those numbers are getting big that we're um on the outside looking in. So I think the city of Tuscaloosa's got something going on that we talked about and um probably need to join hands and and a lot of school systems as well are looking at a fix on this. But that's a situation that we we will continue to have to address the SSUT. On to the general fund management report. Again, our target at this point through January 31st would be 33%. Uh revenues seem to be consistent with what
043we thought and and uh consistent with the prior year. So, I'll kind of jump down to expenditures. You see in the red brackets there, uh we are slightly below budget. That's mainly because we've uh been waiting on some school buses uh to come. You see auxiliary services, that's our transportation. You see it's 23%. Well, that's a little bit of a false read because we've got some school buses at $138,000 a pop that are coming. So, we'll catch up when we start purchasing those. Those started coming this week and over the next several weeks they'll come in and we'll end up with about 49 or 50 school buses again at $138,000 a pop. So, we'll move closer to that target as a few months rock along here. But everything seems to be close to what we
044budgeted. One thing I do want to on the next slide, we'll hit this. The actual figures are just um you know just continue to go up. You've heard it for several years now. uh the cost of doing business is going up. So this this chart here kind of focuses in on the expenditures from the previous slide um versus the same period last year. Uh there's a lot of things that go into that number. Uh some of it um some personnel that we brought back into the fold from uh from the car's act where we were able to defer some uh positions over there. We brought those back into the general fund. So that was expected that was planned. Um, and then a lot of other things factor in there. Again, the cost of business continuing
045to go up. The next slide, the final slide is the um the state required all funds report exhibit F2A they call it. But that's uh again the the the general fund we just looked at specifically is on the left hand column there. And then you got your special revenue column there. second column that's generally federal funds. Think child nutrition program, title one, those type funds. Debt service, of course, you see, if you could kind of look down at the bottom there, we'll end up um having about 10 or 11 million in debt service. That's on our 2015 2016 $172 million capital uh project fund. So that debt service for us is at about 10 or 11 million a year. capital projects. You don't really see any big numbers there. We don't uh necessarily have any
046big cu capital projects going on right now. Mr. Chairman, that concludes the report for January. Certainly be glad to take any questions, but if not, that concludes my report. Any questions for Mr. Duke? Like to say thanks again for such an excellent job. Well, you saw that crew earlier, Mr. Lucas, that they they make it happen. Yes, sir. All right, let's move on to 8B2 received September 1 through March 31st. Report all contractual agreements under $50,000. Mr. chairman, in the routine course of business uh that we do every so uh every so often u every few months, we just like to present to the board the contracts under $50,000 and the board has had a chance to review those. Are there any questions for Mr. Duke? All right. Thank you, sir. Item number nine, introduction
047of motions, resolutions for our first reading, of which there are none this evening, which brings us to the consent agenda item 10. Consent agenda items 10 A, 10 B, 10 C, 10 D, and 10E. Board may have a motion to approve. Second. All in favor? I. I. Anybody opposed? Each of those will be approved. Thank you, board. Item number 11, regular agenda items for final adoption. 11A, approve the superintendent recommendation regarding changes in personnel. Good evening, Dr. Cameron. How are you tonight? Good evening. Hope you all are well. The superintendent's uh recommendations regarding changes in personnel and I have also have a supplemental list. I'll go through both with you. Starting on page one, you have five retirements, nine resignations, three new certified personnel, one new support personnel, two transfer of certified personnel. You have
048two reassignments, three part-time extended day tutors, one request for a leave of absence, 19 summer learning academy that's contingent upon student enrollment, and four certified personnel on 30-day summer supplement. to the supplemental list. You have five resignations. One new support personnel, two new certified personnel, one part-time extended day tutor, one transfer of a certified personnel, seven reassignments, two certified personnel, 30-day summer supplement, six change in contract days, and one summer summer learning academy contingent upon student enrollment. All right. Thank you, Dr. Cameron Border. Are there any set aides for a separate vote? Number one on the first sheet, number 10 on the supplemental sheet. Any other set aides? Last call for set aides. All right. Board accepting number one and number 10 on the supplemental list. May I have a motion to approve? Second. Questions
049or discussion? Hearing none. I'll call for a vote. All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Those will be approved. May I have a motion to approve number one? Second. Questions, discussion. Well, what is the tenure the uh number of years of service? It's 40 plus. Outstanding. Really remarkable. Really is. I'm impressed. Yeah. I didn't think she was going to do it right now. So, that must mean, which is a good thought, she said she wasn't going to do it until she felt the school was moving in the right direction. So, that's a positive for that school that it's moving in the direction that she feels really comfortable with saying, "We're here." She does. And I know we had a bump there, but she said she had identified where the weaknesses were and they were working on
050it. You know, getting coaches in. So, that's a positive. She has a great staff and they're working hard. Yes, ma'am. All right. Any other questions or comments? Call for vote. All in favor? I. Anybody opposed? be approved for have a motion to approve number 10 on the supplemental list. Do I have a second? Questions or discussion? So question is one, she just got the library the way she wanted it, I thought. So are we going to go get a new library the way we want it? We will. So, uh the principal will be out there and uh she will look at full post and look for candidates. So, um she'll she'll enhance it even more. Uh she did a great job at MLK, but uh we look for someone who can take it even a
051step further. She's done a great job at MLK. She's one of the most dynamic people I've come across. She did it at MLK. She can do it next. Right. So, all of our schools do have a librarian. So MLK will have opening and Skyland has an opening. Believe I'm right. I know they going to miss them. Any other questions for number 10 on the supplemental list? Call for a vote. All in favor? I. I. Anybody opposed? That be approved. Thank you, Dr. Cameron. 11B. Discuss approved 2025 Tuscaloosa City School Science Textbook adoption. McGraw Hill Inspire Science. Excuse me, Dr. Pope. Before he starts, sorry, it just hit me. When will we get a list of like where we are with retirements? And I know we do we have to do something before May. We will
052have a series of personnel actions in May. Dr. Cameron's office will send you notification about that shortly. So, and then the retirement T of course is in a couple of weeks I think of 30 plus retirees 33 retirees. But yes, in May we'll have a series of personnel entrance not until May. So we still if the window is closed or is still open if if the internal transfer window that goes through a part of June. So we still have plenty of time on that. I'm so sorry. interrupting your very important report. Thank you, Doc. Good evening. The um so it's been over 10 years that we've adopted a science um textbook and I'm using the word textbook. However, most of our um curriculum is digital and also we have hard copies. But this year the
053um team actually worked with teachers um literacy coaches, principles and the state department and it went through materials and supplies re look researched and they had a top three choices for our science programs which were elevate um science stem scopes and McGraill Inspire Science. the um all teachers got a chance to vote from grades K through eight and 9 through 12 and the top choice end up being McGra Hill and if adopted again it's been 10 years however 2023 the state department um re revised the curriculum in 2023 and that was delayed therefore we're just getting back to adopting science if this is approved tonight we'll be up for adoption in six years. You have any questions? Thank you, Dr. Pope. Board, may I have a motion to approve? Second. You've read the entire textbook,
054I assume, Dr. Pope. Yes, sir. Okay. All of them. Any um anything uh out there that's going to get us yelled at or Nothing's going to get us yelled at. Um hopefully, I can't I'm not going to say that. Hopefully nothing will get us um yelled at or um any angry parent would come in front of us about anything that's political or any negative connotation. I think it's worth noting that McGra Hill was picked overwhelmingly to the other two consensus. Thank you. Yes. All right. Thank you, Dr. Pope. Board may have call for a vote. All in favor? I. I. Anybody opposed? Be approved. 11C discuss approved prek professional development October 28th through the 30th 2025. Yes, board. Um the state department is doing a mandated training for all of our prek teachers and assistants
055October 28th through the 30th. So this recommendation is basically asking for the teachers to go through the training. It's a different format. Normally it's in December. This time is in October. Therefore the prek students will not be able to attend school on October 28th through 30th. And with this recommendation, we're asking for a revised um calendar and we will do a communication plan for those parents for pre-K students. Board may have a motion to approve. So move a second by Miss Grant. Any questions or discussion? Call for a vote. All in favor? I. I. Anybody opposed? Be approved. 11D. to discuss approved fifth grade off-campus event for robotic world worlds competition in Dallas, Texas for Rock Corey Elementary School. Dr. Pope. Yes, sir. Keeping that spirit of robotics alive, tonight we are um asking for
056approval for Rocky Elementary School to attend the world competition um robotics competition in Dallas, Texas um May 13th through I'm sorry, 11th through the 15th. that um they got the notice and invitation to attend after we already approved all of our board um um board approved field trips and off-campus events. Therefore, we're asking for this to be approved for Rockware to attend. This will be the first school to participate in a world competition for robotics. Mor have a motion to approve. Second. Any comments or questions? Call for a vote. All in favor? I I. Anybody opposed? Be approved. Thank you, Dr. Pope. Thank you. Item 12, unfinished business. We have none to attend to. General announcements. Um, student hearings next Tuesday. 5:30. How many do we have? One. One right now. Okay. And then a
057week from Saturday is the mayor's cup. And I think we need everybody's t-shirt. Have Dr. Cameron and Dr. Darius scouted the course yet? See where they're going to cut out this year. And I just think it's just a big deal because I know it's awesome. It is an awesome event. I think that chair cut the corner the last race, Mr. Han. That is my memory of of that. Pretty. Yeah, the chair doesn't run anymore. So, the chair did. Don't worry. Me and Miss House will be at finish line for whoever cross the line. Cut or no cut. All right. Do we have a group of students here this evening? Are y'all from the university? Yes. Okay. What class? Okay. Well, awesome. We appreciate you guys being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Does
058any other board member have a general announcement to make? All right. Hearing none, we're going to stand adjourned. What' I say? 6:35.