JC Board of Education Meeting - October 10, 2023

001board meeting to order Miss Dan we have all board members present thank y'all for being here we will begin the night with the invocation from Kevin Donovan and the pledge allegiance from Michelle Anton father thank you for another beautiful day in Johnston County Lord Lord I pray we go forward with our meeting that our decisions and conversations reflect your glory we continue to pray for a heads of protection for our staff and children in and outside of school in your name pray amen the United States of America thank you I entertain a motion at this time to go into Clos session Madam chair I make a motion that we entering close enter a close session pursuing to General statute 14338 11 a135 and6 to prevent the disclosure of confidential Personnel files under General statute 115c

002321 to consider matters relating to the initial employment of an individual employee and to consult with the board's attorney in order to preserve the attorney clown privilege and to discuss the handling of FB versus JC B OE okay I have a motion do I have a second second second by Mr Donovan any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying I I 70 okay we are now entered Clos session welcome back we're glad you're here um we have already done our invocation and our Pledge of Allegiance prior to going into closed session so we will um pick up at our regular session part of the agenda and uh I will call on Mr Carr good evening Dr bracie Madam chair Andrews Vice chair tippet members of the board and Miss coretto um it is

003a great day to be here celebrating our students and our staff at tonight's board meeting um let me first share with the family members who are in attendance this boardroom is your boardroom as your children are receiving their recognition feel free to come behind the board and take all the pictures you want and celebrate um I see one mother she became very prepared she's got the big camera cuz she's very excited about it so so feel free to celebrate and um congratulate your kids as they receive these recognitions um each month the Johnson County Board of Education recognizes students who have exemplified good character in their school uh we'll recognize each student then we'll have them come around and shake the hands of our wonderful board members as we finalize um our celebrating of them

004so if each of you would um students of the month if you would come to the front and join me please you could you can stand on either side no need to be shy stay to slide up just a little bit all right and parents you're more than welcome to come back here to take pictures principles as well if you feel like to yeah come on around come on around all right all right first we have uh let me see let's make sure we're there we go first we have grayan Scott a fifth grade student at Dixon rad Elementary where Dr Angela Hill is principal unfortunately Miss grayan is not feeling the best today so she's going to be just recognized virtually but we want to make sure that we celebrate her for all the

005wonderful things she's done grayan is recognized for being extremely respectful grayan is a highly respectful fif fifth grade student she treats students teammates and adults kindly and is always willing to help even without being asked and Miss coan's classroom grayan never talks over her peers or teacher and is always a Cooperative hardworking group member she works to encourage and support all of her classmates and respects their differences and beliefs and opinions as a peer helper in her assigned kindergarten classroom she was tremendously helpful as part of the jumping Dragon Squad she connects well with her teammates she is friendly she listens and she accepts all ideas for new performing routines grayan respects her environment by cleaning up Messes in the cafeteria and trash around our building grillin shows consideration and thoughtfulness to everyone and and

006is an outstanding role model at our school congratulations uh [Applause] grin next standing to my left is Miss V Swan Miss V is a fifth grade student at McGee Crossroads Elementary where her principal is the Miss Lindsay dun um vaa is being recognized for being extremely respectful as well beta is a fifth grade student who continuously demonstrates a level of maturity in school SE setting where she models positive behavior in uh for her peers she is attentive in class and listens intently as her teachers and peers speak waiting her turn to add to the conversation when she does not agree with the opinions of others she is able to express that in a respectful manner she advocates for herself in the classroom and has expressed to teachers when she did not like a specific style

007of an assignment sounds like she can speak up for herself she gives reasons to support her feelings without outwardly refusing to complete work vaa understands that her feelings and opinions are important while also acknowledging that those who view the view things differently may not align with her beliefs she is welcoming to all her classmates and treats everyone as equals congratulations [Applause] V next up we have a a wonderful athlete whose mom expressed that he was concerned that he would have to miss football practice to be here to receive the award so next we have Harrison Roberts who is better known as Reed who is an eighth grade student at McGee Crossroads Middle School where Lisha Shepard is the principal Reed has been recognized for being really responsible Reed stands out from the crowd as a

008respectful responsible young man who is most worthy of this recognition he is a dedicated young man who is committed to his individual assignments and to our school Reed is a a is a leader who works hard daily to give his best at all times he is empathetic and really hold and really upholds the ideas of our Mustang pledge which are to give his best to listen to follow directions to be honest and to respect the rights of others as well as to be resilient he loves his school his community and he loves his country he is an excellent student and involved in extra extracurricular activities in fact he is currently serving as the captain of the football team Reed is not only responsible to himself his peers teachers in school but he is also very

009kind displays good manners and is trustworthy he is a great student and an even better person congrat gratulations Mr [Applause] Reed our next student um I think is not able to join us today as well um um and last certainly not least we have Miss Alexandra Lima who is a fifth grade student at Westview Elementary School where David Hawks is the principal Alexandra is been recognized for self-discipline Alexandre has developed developed quite a reputation for herself at Westview in successive years at the school level she has been selected five times as Westview Elementary student of the month five times consecutive years um she does an excellent job representing all the characteristics of a true wise a student she works hard in class completes her work on time and is a kind friend to all other

010students she models for all her peers what a true wise a student should strive for each and every day congratulations Miss Alexandre if y'all would please help us celebrate these students for their exemplified character you may walk that way Miss congratulations again next we would like to recognize our October plc's of the month now for those of you who may not be familiar our professional Lear Learning Community or our PC's of the month is an effort to expand the way we recognize teachers for the great work that they do first we're going to recognize our fifth grade math team at West Smithfield Elementary the fifth grade team works really well together they are data driven and always want to do what is best for their students they work to build a positive culture they Implement

011Avid strategies to ensure that their students are future focused and academically prepared members provide leadership throughout throughout the school serving as mentors and sit co-chair they model what it means to Be an Effective instructional leader in professional Learning Community they have positive attitudes and always speak highly of their school and their students next we're going to celebrate the seventh grade uh Middle School POC of the month at Swift Creek Middle School Miss Arin and Mr Michaels work with Administration to Ure that all students needs are met they look closely at data to uh adjust instruction and plan additional instruction for students during pack time they plan to use pack time blocks to provide instruction practice informative assessments to determine if improvements have been made in addition they have identified a need for acceleration for the

012students in advanced math and have developed many lesson plans congratulations to the seventh grade team at Swift Creek mil and lastly we have the math one team at North Johnson High the math one PLC at North Johnson high is serious about ensuring math one and Foundation students have access to the best instruction possible they meet after school on Mondays to plan to plan dive into the data and align their instruction to the curriculum apps three of the four teachers are in international falcony each one has invested in their understanding of a PLC and found remarkable success by allowing the data to drive their instruction congratulations to the MAF one team at North Johnson High School at this time we'll recognize some of our most wonderful employees uh Mr patrano do the honor thank thank you

013Mr Carr board members always my privilege to stand before you and recognize outstanding employees first I'd like to invite Mr Jason Oliver to stand with me Mr Oliver is uh head custodian I believe at palenta elementary school his principal Miss Poland is here and I do want to just share a couple of things before I start reading this wonderful narrative this month is National custodian recognition month so I think it's just a wonderful opportunity to have you standing up here representing all of our uh hardworking custodians that we have but you were nominated by you know sometimes we get one or two nominations for employee of the month you had 23 nominations so they were determined to have you standing up here next to me today I want to thank uh those uh individuals at

014palenta who nominated you and congratulations but a few things they shared about you Mr Oliver has consistently exceeded his respons responsibilities significantly impacting our organization's cleanliness safety and overall morale he consistently demonstrates a strong work ethic he arrives early stays late when necessary and is always willing to take on additional tasks to ensure our facilities are in impeccable condition as the head custodian he has shown exceptional leadership skills he leads by example motivates the custodial team to maintain high standards and ensur ures all tasks are completed efficiently and effectively he also pays meticulous attention to detail whether it's cleaning classrooms offices or shared areas he consistently provides a level of cleanliness that enhances the overall environment for staff and visitors he maintains a positive and friendly attitude at all times he is approachable and responsive

015to requests and always has a smile Mr Oliver congratulations on being our classified employee of the month and thank you so much for what you do each and every day do you want to go ahead and meet them and he also has his family here as well supporting him congratulations here board members if you recall our certified employee of the month for September could not be with us so we're excited that she is with us tonight and our October certified Employee of the Month cannot be here tonight so that person will be here next uh month but miss Baron Christina Baron is uh serves at Cleveland Middle School as the um as a certified staff member there and and there were lots of things shared about you as well so I'm going to read these

016wonderful things to the board I told her we try to make this easy all she has to do is come stand next to me but if you want to speak I'll let you okay Miss Baron is a vital part of the Cleveland Middle School family she is well-respected she is a well-respected teacher leader serving as school Improvement team chair teacher advisory Council representative math PLC District teacher leader avid team member AIG team member and mtss team member that was a lot Miss Baron's compassion for Student Success is evident in all she does her guidance and support of all staff members is unparalleled Miss Baron's willingness to support where needed extends beyond the regular school day she regularly volunteers to assist with various tasks required for a smooth and well-planned school experience for all stakeholders Miss

017Baron thank you for what you do each and every day at Cleveland Middle School congratulations on being last months uh Employee of the Month certified employee of the month [Applause] congrat and Miss Langston one of the assistant principles is here supporting Miss Baron thank you again thank you congratulations thank you board members as we prepare to move along there are a few notable upcoming events attention to um October 6 16th we'll have our legislative breakfast at facility service um October 27th we'll have our RI Ribbon Week parade at Pine Level Elementary if you've never attended that that is a fun time um November 2nd through 3 we have Joko works at Johnson Community College which is a very um very wonderful event for our e8th grade students as we prepare them for their career path

018and then November 10th we have our annual Veterans Day celebration event at Trip s um we also have an event that Mr Brooks Moore May mention that we're still trying to finalize a date for which is the beam topic ceremony for the new auxiliary gym at Trip s high school so once we get that date um set in stone we'll be sure to share more information thank you thank you to all of those who work so hard to get our staff and students here to celebrate them we will move forward now through uh for the approval of the minutes I will um make note here that I will be skipping over the September 12th Clos session because we haven't seen those yet so we will come we come out of Clos session again at the

019end of the night we'll vote on those okay so I will entertain a motion for the approval of the August 8th 2023 regular session minutes so Mo second motion by Mr Johnson second by Mr Donovan any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed I entertain a motion for the September 12th 2023 regular session minutes approval motion by Mr Johnson second second by Mr Donovan any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed entertain I will entertain our motion for the minutes uh to be approved of the September 14th 2023 emergency board meeting some motion by Mr Donovan second second by Mr Wooten any discussion I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the September 14th 2023 minutes please indicate by saying

020I I any opposed no okay so that's 52 I entertain a motion for the minutes to be approved of the September 20 25th 2023 special called meeting um entertain a motion for that now some motion by Mr Donovan the second by Mr Wooton any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed 61 okay okay I will um does anyone have any adjustments to the agenda I've got five policies one is just as simple as a typo but I can give you the list of those policies when you're ready to pull from the consent agen yes sir there's second read and one of them we've already talked about the 3225 about the myi WiFi personal hotspot we talked about that okay so go ahead and give me that list 3220 would

021be the first 3225 would be the second and it's as simple as a typo 4240 in section D you just have a uppercase letter like in public so I just want to make you aware of that before you put in policy medicines 9200 energy consumptions 9200 is uh care and maintenance of facilities and that and a portion of it is regarding energy I'm trying I'm trying to look at the titles I apologize I should gave you the title any discussion we will move those under policy update okay is that good yes any other adjustments to the agenda um yes uh yes Madam chair I would like to uh have um section8 B3 National Training Network contract uh removed from the agenda this time okay any other adjustments to the agenda hearing none all those in

022favor of these adjustments to the agenda please indicate by saying I I I any opposed okay so we have moved uh you're straight with what's going all right thanks for that okay um let's move to our updates of committees uh Finance Mr wooden yes Mr Britt will during his section we we'll go over our audit uh Finance audit that was done by third party provider and also we have set in our next finance committee meeting for November the 1st at 8:30 so that is a public meeting as well okay um Mr Carol legal committee no report okay and Mr tipet policy okay if you look at the uh the first reads um I'm just going to note a couple of things as we go through the first reads U school trips one of the things

023that's different on those uh I would note that is that um Johnston County Public Schools will not sponsor trips outside of the continental United States and what that's what's that's saying is that those trips will be done through agencies and not sponsored by Johnston County um and we can we can touch on those later that also has an inclusion of our self-contained EC students uh is part of that group as well now the one that I will also um I think everybody's aware um every school board is addressing policies to meet the parent Bill of Rights um the next policy 1310 um parent involvement uh uh there's a section on there uh it talks about K4 um materials um that are not allowed and that would also include media center books of sexual orientation sexual

024identity a whole a long list of things that is added uh what the committee has done at this point in time is make that K5 uh because otherwise what you will do is have to have you will have a special section in your elementary school media center for fifth grade only um so therefore it's it's going to you know we're looking at K5 that's why it was added instead of K4 um and and of course the process for doing that has to be looked at uh what this uh Bill what this law does uh some of you will remember the three prongs to remove books from media centers this bill overrides that and and so the the material in the media center has to be looked at now the committee is not have a procedure

025for doing that because obviously with 20 22 elementary schools that is going to be quite a task 24 every how many we got um so what we're doing again the policy part is the easy part when I say easy I mean we we we've got guidelines we have to follow the actual administration of those things is what we're going to have to look at and and um but again this is a first read it's on there for the public to see it's on there for our board to see and to look at so call special attention to that policy um I don't think there was a lot of other things that jump out on the other policies at this time again again they're all on there for first read we would ask again 4720 uh

026surveys of students again we're working on that uh districtwide surveys approved of the board uh parent consent for student well-being uh for K3 is part of the uh parent Bill of Rights again so the the surveys and how that terminology is going to be done um is what we're working on but that's there so make sure you know that as well I think most of the other stuff is is uh is not jumping out as I stated earlier a lot of the things that were in the the parent Bill of Rights are actually in our policies already it's just a matter of of coordinating everything and get the legal references and cross references for those for those things so that is your first uh first reads and I I'll take is there yeah and I

027know I didn't pull this one no no you're fine uh I think it's it's uh 4 335 which is and this is just a first read so I hadn't really formulated but I was going to see if you would be receptive to developing a framework for which I'm sorry which uh 4335 4335 which is which should surround the mandatory reporting to law enforcement there's about 13 I believe specific criminal offenses that you have to report while you're on campus I was going to see if we could develop a framework within that policy to develop a reporting system for things that happen that may not necessarily be mandatory that we report especially in after school of events so for example if you have like a major incident of a football game you have a large fight

028and or you have something I know we a lot of times we have off duty there but let's just say you have an incident at an after school event that would involve something that could potentially have an overflow into the community so for example you have an issue at a school it may spill over into a restaurant whether it be like a large fight or something of that I wanted to to try to develop a framework for reporting that to the you know local authorities so you don't have any spill over in the community and I can do that and I will get it to you you know before next meeting that that's fine yeah and uh and since you mentioned let me goe and say let me go and say this uh the normally

029we have our policy committee meeting the Thursday after the board meeting uh it's already out I think it will be next Thursday not this Thursday so I'm glad you said that because that reminded me of that so uh a week from Thursday will be the next policy committee meeting all right yeah yeah that's that's no problem just shoot me shoot me a thing uh Ronald for that and uh it maybe that we can we can adjust a terminology uh rather than we'll we'll look okay so that's your first read second reads and again I'm going to stop on the ones that that that U Mr Johnson had requested pull be pulled um you have the first 23 policies on here are those that fell under the technical changes again we just left those on so

030the public could see them so we could all see them so first 33 are typic are all cross references and legal references there are no no change in in anything then we get then we move down to uh 3220 technology and educational program uh do you have a specific question about that you want I may have missed it but I was skimming through the policy and I remember one of our previous policies identified like a mobile device whether it be a tablet or a cell phone is more like a right instead of a privilege now so I I was just curious is that going under the whole BYO T is that what is that what we're classifying as byot bring your on right yeah is that and and again the reason for that we obviously

031in your past technology was a reward for stuff but now it's a necessity for things and that's that was the terminology and that's why it's it's included um like that I I don't think there was anything else in that one was there any any language in there that classified it as a right or did I or was that in a previous policy I just wanted to be sure it wasn't removed I mean no it it just says it's not a privilege it's not considered a privilege I believe that was the wording of it I don't have that policy in front of me and I think the next one is the one where you had where you had a question I think you had the question about the the Merit did somebody say something no it

032was you're talking about 3225 yeah 3225 is technology responsible use um and you had you had asked a question and let me find my notes here um you had made reference and I think you were talking about blocking yeah hotpots and and and blocking access to Internet with that was legal yeah the communications act yeah and and I think we we did uh the committee did go back and look at that and and talk to Legal about that so I'm going to I'm I'm going to scan over those and just tell you something R out readward um I think that the case that you um you referenced um was the Marriott case um and I think the the wording of that um if I can find where she's got where I have it here the

033federal um guidelines is that we have to have um some way way to protect children from our students from things on the internet um what you referred to is the Marriot um the the the writing on that uh referred did not refer to public entities was the difference now does that mean we can block all internet access no it means that however we also have to have something in place to Shield students to Shield users and and miss corneto jump in if I if I leave some if I get some incorrect here we have something to to to Shield our students uh from certain material and that's what that policy does um it it doesn't you are correct in the I think it was 600,000 bucks they had to pay um so so I mean

034it you know I appreciate you bringing that up but but that's that was the difference in here and if you have a specific question then miss corneto can help us with that yeah well miss Cornetto in your legal analysis is there any issues I understand that the intent of the law is to not have software or any type of Hardware that prevents a myfi personal Wi-Fi that's not the law the regulation the Federal Regulation by the FCC that's the intent of that law we're not going to be in any liability situation because we're violating the spirit of the law by just go ahead and making a policy so instead of having actual software and Hardware we just have a policy so we wouldn't be in trouble for violating the spirit of the law we wouldn't

035open oursel up to any liability there would we uh we are required to follow sipa and Copa the federal regulations to prevent harmful content from extending to minors and so that's why we have these safeguards put in place in fact if we didn't have them then I think we would have liability but um I definitely can appreciate your comments and we researched it thoroughly so I appreciate that no works thank you you're good okay um looking at the next Poli es um the next one you mentioned I think was 6125 administering made us to students to one of the things in there was um and I think just probably been uh uh maybe Unwritten protocol at times or something where no no self administration of any prescription over the counter that is that the part

036you're talking about yeah and I'm just going to like come at it from like a practical standpoint I understand have at it if you know I have Tylen in my bag am I going to be in trouble now for taking Tylenol and am I going to be in even in bigger trouble if I give my friend or athletic teammate or you know somebody in the band if I give them a Tylenol am I going to be in a lot of trouble for that that would be a concern of mine right and I think like I said I think the the the protocol before was you never give it to anybody else um I think the issue and I and I understand exactly what you're saying because sometimes you put something in your pocket you got

037a headache in the morning because you might need that that tyen all by 10 o'clock I I I get where I understand where you're coming from and and and um so I mean that's that that we discussed that but yes I can address that um I think we should probably hear from the nurses who work with our school district to understand why we need to be on notice whether um any kind of medication is taken by students whether over the counter or prescription so that we make sure that they're responsible this is a recommendation from the school boards Association but I do think if you have for their questions we should hear from the nurses about the importance of this and and I don't have a problem in pulling this policy and getting that I

038don't have a problem because this is second read for voting because I I I I totally understand where you're coming from on that because I may have done that in my time in public schools as well okay uh so it's U I know that some school districts have a consent sheet that the parent sign that their child is allowed to take over-the-counter medicine on their own and that's something that may be practical too right Dr P you got you want to add to this and that still would be allowed at section c of that policy I think gives a little more input on how you can self administer the biggest Point behind that is is that people cannot just hand out medication so that we can ensure that they are allowed to have it and

039unfortunately I know for us Tylenol ibuprofen sounds very simple but if a kid says it's an ibuprofen as adults while they're in our safety we have to ensure that it's an OB proam we want them working through an adult not through another student that's really why that's been put in the policy right is the agreement to pull it or to I think it's a good idea to pull it to hear from the nurses I mean that's not going to hurt anything no I don't I don't have a problem doing that if we can just note that um P that one out um Dr pce you got that and we'll we'll look at that um and try to get uh some input from our our School nurses on on that area or the nurse has presented

040this okay okay that's fine and then we'll put it back next time all right okay and then um I don't think there's I think 9200 was the other one um Caren maintenance of facilities is there a yeah specific yeah when you go down to energy consumptions it looks like and there's one paragraph I could pull it but it looks like that the superintendent designated the responsibility to um take safeguards against energy waste which is great that's a great idea but does that open us up for multiple rfqs from Consulting companies and things of that nature that was I mean I'm looking at the policies and with the intent I mean where is when we're looking at energy consumptions um is that calling for a solicitation of rfqs or companies to come in and do these

041services or is that just giving him a very broad responsibility I think it's more of a broad are you talking about a paragraph where it says superintendence to insure facilities and evaluated evaluate and and inspect and then the the thing that was added was then to maintain in inventory of size capabilities I mean capacities age en energy consumption those things I think it was more a broad thing that um that a superintendent doesn't need was just looking at I don't I don't think it was a call to to call in a company to help us with to help us save energy right I just want to be sure under that policy would he be able or would the superintendent be able to do it without coming before the board because it's almost like we're giving

042him a directive so if you interpret it that way then you would open it up for him to do rfqs or would he still have to bring that before the board provided it was over a certain threshold no it it would still be before the board and then I think the last one which just Personnel files I think the only thing in there is just Board of Education can spec reviewed um is like in uh Personnel files files just notifying close session I think it just made reference to not copying photo I think I just add which is is pretty much again it's the protocol I think he just put in words the Protocol no you didn't I said I said that was the last thing no you didn't ask for that you P that

043no that's that was the last I was just going over the going over all but that that was the last one okay so we have pulled um because pulled um we actually pulled five but we're only going to vote on four of the policies because we have decided to pull 6125 and consult with the nurses to see what their thoughts are so what I'm asking you to do is I need a motion for approval for second read of policy 3220 32 25 4240 and 9200 do I have a motion Some Mo motion by Mr Johnson do I have a second second second by Mr Wooten any further discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approval of these four policies a second read please indicate by saying I I any

044opposed thanks all right um Mr Caroll anything from the bond committee we do not have anything as of now um legislative committee uh um not we gave a good update from the last one where we had our resolution and we have a legislative breakfast coming up on October 16th at 8: amm that'll be at facility services so if any of the public would like to join us we'd happy to have you and we should have some of our legislators there as well okay and just few quick updates for us um after our last meeting on September 25th we had a wonderful Retreat I want to publicly acknowledge our cabinet members and the wonderful information that they shared with us that day it was an all day they spent with us and we were grateful for

045that I would bring notice that we have separated we had celebrated National custodial workers day so thank your custodians and we are currently um celebrating National principal month so please thank your principles for all their hard work thank all of our staff for all their hard work um uh since our last regular meeting we celebrated the academic progress of many of our schools by presentation of banners that are now up in their schools and we are so excited for that as Miss Anton said we do have a legislative breakfast um next Monday so we're excited to meet with our elected officials and also we have moved our next board meeting to November the 7th instead of the 14th so we will notice that but I'm any chance I get to say that publicly I want

046to make sure everybody can put that on their calendars and that's all I have um at this time I'll go to advisory appointments Mr Wooten yes ma'am Mr Al Sasser principal at Pine Level Elementary is recommending two applicants to The Advisory as advisory members um Elliot author and Angelica alarz Gonzalez for three-year terms at Pine Level Elementary School that will be uh motion okay that's the first motion um and Mr Donovan yep the current advisory council at South Smithfield Elementary has approved and recommended recomended the following applicants on the advisory Council principal uh Chad mclam and advisory Council are suggested the following recommendations and Armstrong for a three-year term and Katrina Massie for a three-year term you go ahead you go to West Clayton and then West Clayton um current advisory councils for West Clayton

047have approved and recommended the following applicants on the advisory Council upon board approval Sandra Morris for a three-year term Mary EPS for a three-year term da strong for three year term John dut for threeyear term Amy Joyce for three-year term I'm murder this name m saterfield for a three-year term and Michael gby for a three-year term okay I'll consider those our second any discussion we appreciate all of you who are willing to serve on our advisory councils hearing none I will call for a vote all those in favor of an approval for these recommendations for advisory councils within these three schools please indicate by saying I I any opposed 70 we we are not quite um to six o'clock and we have one of our students who um was not here for our special recognition

048so I'm going to as a I was H over to Mr Carr to recognize one of our students Miss Alexandra would you please come join us so Mr David Hawks is one of those wonderful principles that we are recognizing asked if she could be recognized and just seeing her in the way she just sort of followed along with Y all she looked like she understood it better than me um she she s sat back there and was patient and so we want to recognize her if you would step up so that everyone can see you um Miss alisandra I'm sorry and oh thank you Mom and Dad if you all want to come up and take some pictures um feel free siblings also and you're more than welcome to come back here so you can

049get the really good angle all right all right yeah y'all could come y'all can come yeah if you have your phone and you want to take some pictures and all that and miss miss Alexandre you stay here with me you're being recognize give me all right here we go all right so miss alisandra Lima is a fifth grade student at Westview Elementary where Mr David Hawks is the principal and she has been recognized for self-discipline which she exemplified for the past 20 minutes Alexandra has developed quite a reputation for herself at Westview Elementary this is the individual that has been recognized uh and selected five times in in consecutive years as student of the month I certainly believe it um it says she does an excellent job representing all the characteristics of a true wise

050AIS student she works hard in class completes her work on time and is a kind friend to all other students she truly models for all all her peers what a true wise a student should strive for each and every day so if you all you all would please help us celebrate Miss [Applause] alisandra we got a future leader right there I know many of you are here for public comment I'm GNA move forward for just a few minutes and then I'll start public comment because we are scheduled for that at 6 o' so Dr bracie I would turn it over to you thank you madam chairman Madam chair at this time I ask that the board approve consent items numbers 1 through 10 I'll entertain a motion for those approval a motion by Mr Carroll

051second second by Mr Donovan any discussion hear none I'll call for the vote all those in favor of the items under consent agenda 1 through 10 in favor of those please indicate by saying I I any opposed thank you go to public comment now um tonight we have nine speakers signed up for public comment citizens who have signed up to address the board during the public comment sessions will be recognized in the order in which they signed up each speaker will have three minutes to present comments to the board however the public comment session will not exceed 60 minutes total except by a majority vote of the board the board suggest that specific Personnel or student matters be addressed to the school principal the Johnston County Public School System official responsible for a program or

052facility or to the superintendent citizens who address the board shall not use language that is obscene profane threatening contains fighting or inflammatory words or otherwise disruptive to the orderly conduct of business any person who willfully interrupts disrupts or disturbs an official meeting and who upon being directed to leave the meeting by the presiding officer willfully ref refuses to leave the meeting may be found guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor pursuant to North Carolina General statute 14338 17 our first speaker for tonight is Erica Hall um I just wanted to say that uh so many positive things are happening within our district that have been overshadowed um many significant issues can't be concentrated on due to the distractions of some um I am very privileged honor to have any opportunity to support Educators in any form

053instead of wasting precious brain power pondering why a couple of our board members seem to lack any semblance of care perhaps we should all collectively wonder why our hardworking teachers find the C in the awkward position of begging for assistance just to provide their students with proper chapter books I bought my daughter's class room over $100 worth of books that book is holes where are the funds for educators for supplies that were discussed last year to help alleviate the responsibility of purchasing said books and supplies we should focus on teacher and staff pay and how our legislative committee fights for JCPS employees not embarrassing them teachers are left to scrape by taxpayers are naturally so thrilled to pick up the tab and one of our board members gets to scream about crappy politically motivated constitutions

054still my daughter and her peers get to have a physical copy of a book book in in their hands because they some people do actually care teachers care some of you clearly don't two clout goblins are sitting behind this horseshoe they will do anything to create a scene to become a headline in our local media if I were a cartoonist I would make a political comic strip of Ronald Johnson and Michelle Antoine walking on the faces of children and breaking the backs of teachers like they are Stepping Stones so to some higher political office I hope you both are proud of yourself thanks for not doing your electric job once again thank you thank you our next speaker is Derek Wales if he's if he's not here I mean if he comes in because it's

055not six o'clock here so if someone's not here and they come in then we let speak we'll go back to them because we started a little early okay um our next speaker is Jenna Hayes chairman Andrews vice vice chairman tippet members of the board Dr bracie I'm Jenna Hayes a mother longtime Citizen and teacher in Johnston County I've been convicted to address the inappropriate unprofessional and downright embarrassing behavior that has been on display for all to see often teachers are made to feel like they should just keep quiet it don't make waves stay in your lane however I feel this is my Lane I love my community I love my school my colleagues my students and teaching there are more important things to actually stand up for instead of spending tax day or payer dollars

056on lawsuits due to JPS J cps's own board members we should be standing up for more funding to put additional support staff in our classrooms do more to recruit and retain teachers and other staff schools shouldn't have to run before and after schoolcare program just to afford to pay Tutors or full-time curriculum coaches to best support students we should be standing up for professionalism where you are whether you're a board member a teacher a coach bus driver IA principal or custodian no one especially those in power should be arguing the fact that we are accountable to the public for our actions and our words while we serve the community we choose to serve if you cannot promise to follow a code of ethics how can we expect public trust we should be standing for public

057education plenty has been done to undermine it JCPS has had so many gains but this political circus has been on that has been ongoing is it has taken away tremendously from this work while the information was presented at that last board meeting it was lost to a lot of drama we should be standing up for teachers this week we are losing a teacher to Wake County because of pay a letter was written to the state legislature on behalf of our district and we appreciate that but it was a tiny Band-Aid on a gushing wound the promise of 7% raises that isn't across the board it's an average over two years this raise actually causes teachers in years 15 to 24 to make less money because of inflation how is this acceptable it's interest instead of

058fighting each other how about fighting for us the greatest resource in our County are the many veteran teachers who help lead our district to the lofty goals we've set if if not more is done to keep them we will continue losing great talent finally our board should be standing up to for our Johnson County Community with families increasingly concerned about putting food on the table affording Child Care keeping the lights on the last thing we should they should be worrying about is whether we're doing the job that we're supposed to do for their kids how can we how can the board focus on serving families when we're wrapped up in drama we serve the public we are not here for lip service not self service but public service thank you thank [Applause] you did Mr

059Wales come in yes D ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is Derek I live in Johnson County and I'm here to speak in support of uh our middle and high school students receiving a copy of the pocket Constitution I know that a local group has offered to provide this and it has been offered to be provided free of charge to the students and the school board and I know these were PL there were plans in place to distribute this uh I think back in August and it looks like it has fallen through I know it there was a plan in place to get it to the 8th grade and 12th grade students before they become citizens of our community and it's unfortunate but looks like that has not taken place I wanted to

060encourage encourage the board uh to see past these administrative hiccups and work as a body to get these do documents distributed free of charge for Community thank you I yeld back my time thank you so much our next speaker is Deborah Bolan good evening my name is Deborah Bolin and I'm here today as a parent and a concerned member of the community I want to First congratulate the district for its academic growth in the 20 2223 school year while this is great news that is indeed worth celebrating I am concerned about the achievement gaps that exist between some student groups within our school district um each of you should have a copy of some information that I submitted that shows the percentages of black Hispanic and white students scoring at grade level proficiency or glp

061in all subjects at all grade levels which which I gathered directly from the North Carolina department and Public Instruction website as you can see from table one Johnson County Black and Hispanic students outperformed their respective groups at the state level by 4% in terms of the percentages that scored at glp and the percentages of Johnston County white students and state level white students who scored at glp are basically the same the concern for me is that when comparing the student groups across our school School District as seen in uh those tables 2 three and four I see a disturbing Trend where the percentages of Black and Hispanic students scoring at glp lag behind white students at the elementary middle and high school levels and then black students lag behind Hispanic and white students at these

062same levels further analysis shows that the lowest percentages of black Hispanic and white students achieving uh grade level proficiency occurred mostly at the same three schools with one exception as greatest Johnson County Schools is performing compared to the state we cannot stop there we must look at performance across the different student groups within the district my dive into the Department of Public Instruction data was not a deep one as I have taken only a bird's eyed view without parsing specific subjects across specific grade levels and I only looked at these three student groups My Hope Is that the district will thoroughly and critically study the data for direction and closing these gaps and propelling higher percentages of our Black and Hispanic students in our district toward achieving grade level proficiency finally I'm not one to

063point out issues without being part of the solution should the district move to create a working group to study these gaps or such a group already exists I am happy to volunteer and serve as a community member my information is is at the bottom of those handouts and I look forward to being contacted soon thank you for the opportunity thank you our our next speaker is um Ben Chapman hello again to the Johnson County Board of Education um my name is Ben Chapman and I've been advocating for lgbtq plus John iians I watched the special meeting I read the report one accusation compelled me to return tonight in office offer a focused rebuke Michelle anine accused members of this board of putting political Ambitions before students that accusation can be understood as a confession there

064are about a thousand LGBT youth enrolled in Johnson County Public Schools when a board member engages in vicious rhetoric opposing their existence they are putting their Ambitions before those students their parents and any LGBT employees Michelle Antoine you can and should resign from your elected position you have consistently demonstrated an utter lack of respect and compassion for lgbtq plus johnsonian to the board you can and should consider crafting a public statement directed to lgbtq plus staff and students a simple message of Tolerance and acceptance could go long way to reassure students staff and faculty that Johnson County public schools are safe welcoming place to work live and learn no matter your sexual orientation or gender identity there's been an increase in violence and threats of violence against our community in June the Human Rights Campaign

065declared a national state of emergency for all lgbtq plus people living in the United States of America earlier this year a student festival at JCC was cancelled because bigots threatened a local business owner we couldn't let that go unanswered and organized a rally on Harvey Milk Day for those students those students are why I'm here tonight so thank you to everyone in the Spectrum Club finally October is lgbtq plus History Month Michelle called out this observance in a recent post because presumably this is just another woke observance it's all fun and political games for you but for professional archists like myself this is not a political game this is about documenting the lives of diverse communities lgbtq plus people have always been here but our stories were hidden obscured and erased now teaching our history

066is being targeted by bigots thank you for your time and I hope that each and every one of you love and accept each and every one of your children no matter their gender identity or expression thank you thank you our next speaker is Alan Hall so first I'd like to extend my sincere gratitude to Lynn Andrews for your effort in working with the community to provide our students with the pocket constitutions free from any external political agenda I'm honored to be friends and partners with other concerned community members who came together to right or wrong specifically the failed attempt by an extreme right-wing organization to circum vent the rules surrounding these educational materials now what I like to do is actually turn to the first amendment's Establishment Clause a very vital part of our constitution

067we are putting in to our students hands the Clause aims to prevent any governmental endorsement or establishment of religion thereby ensuring the public spaces remain neutral ground inclusive of all belief systems so in light of this it's concerning that our schools serve dual roles as educational institutions and as teachers for daycare centers to make ends meet yet Christian clubs like first priority are given free use of almost 40 school campuses in Johnson County these Club pay no fees and aren't even required to complete a facility use form as a clear violation of Schoolboard policy 5030 a video I shared on the Facebook group Joko and the no showcases this preferential treatment if exceptions can be made for first priority then by the very nature of our constitution those exceptions must also extend to clubs representing

068other belief Systems Failing to do so violates the law and undermines the Very fabric of our educational system which should be an inclusive space for all students I expect a prompt response from JCPS officials to my and June Everett's emails on this matter equality under the law is not a privilege but a constitutional right and I assure you as you all know me I will not rest until Johnson County Public Schools starts respecting it I urge the board to address this issue immediately and extend the same exemptions to Alternative belief systems that you grant to First Priority thank you for your time and consideration I do have a little bit of time so in case I did I wanted to mention something uh Dr brace you told me when we had a meeting that if

069any teacher came to me and said they didn't have money for supplies or were not given money for supplies to let you know I've had a lot of them the administrators are not letting the teachers know what we discussed and that message is not getting out to them can you email me that list absolutely thank you thank you our next speaker is Marie rale radel good good evening back in the 90s a student in my class wrote that the fun and magic begins in first grade fast forward 30 years to the first day this year a student said I don't want to go home I really like this class I love to learn teachers just want to teach and get paid a professional salary the list of additional duties and responsibilities for teachers today in

0702023 is exhausting there's teacher tired and there's North Carolina teacher tired the general assembly is systematically increasing the teach teacher workload without keeping pay in Pace with inflation so not only are teachers exhausted we are the professional poor with budget talks over the summer I think many experienced teachers were hopeful like Charlie Brown optimistic about kicking that football into a really nice salary guide one that would give veteran teachers a rise and today's climate with a dire teacher shortage how could they not but they kept punting that ball into August into September before actually voting on it that was purposeful they knew what they were doing and just like V just like Charlie Brown veteran teachers got the shaft with 22 years of teaching experience my raise is $5 a day before taxes if your

071pay does not keep up with inflation it's a pay cut they are purposefully devaluing their most experienced teachers for shame you are all here for the children of Johnston County be our voice reach out to every school board member across our state and have a meeting Dr Bracy call upon every administrator and join together tell the general assembly that North Carolina teachers have graded their budget and it has failed it was past the deadline and not good enough we feel frustrated foiled forgotten you can add other alliterative words along that vein and you'll know exactly how your teachers feel because we are pitifully paid to do more than just teach this is what teachers are doing in 2023 expectations during the school Day lunch duty recess Duty I get to e for 12 minutes actual

072teaching and then this is what we're responsible for on our own personal time it's overwhelming it's crushing your teaching staff it's labor trafficking and exploiting our personal time when you go to the legislative breakfast bring this list with you tell the general assembly that your teachers have a homework assignment for them strike their sad budget strike items off this list make them make changes the fun and magic of teaching and learning won't continue if you don't thank you so much and uh stay right there no no stay stay right there Dr bracie that yeah but listen to Dr bracie stay right there I want to invite you to our legislative breakfast [Music] [Applause] yeah app thank you OPP yeah um yeah yeah perfect thank you thank you next our next speaker is Jennifer Medlin I

073want to go too but no that's neither here good evening the plethora of non-instructional requirements and due dates are threatening to outweigh the joys of our profession for both veteran and novice Educators elementary teachers specifically feel overwhelmed by the infinite expectations and work our planning periods are shorter and often involve meetings so parent conferences are held before after school we are for the most part required to eat lunch in the cafeteria while supervising students rather than enjoying duty-free lunch we're supervising in students after the instructional school day ends while kids are waiting for carpool names to display or bus numbers to be called we often have students up until the time we could technically leave in a recent conversation with a former co-worker who left Elementary for a teaching position in a local high school

074the word abuse was uttered in this individual's comparisons of the workloads between the two sectors since this teacher has remained in the high school setting I'm sure you can infer for which setting that implication was targeted if salaries here were competitive and if per inmate funding didn't s surpass per pupil funding the additional hours of work so many of us put in would be a moot point it would be second nature but because our salaries are subpar and our regular Ed Case loads inconceivably immense let alone case loads for EC teachers it's hard for us not to resent the many hours spent outside of 815 to 4:30 just to stay afloat much of this extra time is devoted to the current needs of our student students therefore the non-instructional due dates continue to roll in

075our heads like movie credits many such requirements are mandated by the state including letters safe schools yearly sexual harassment training North Carolina yearly testing training along with the AIG training modules for fourth and fifth grade teachers which on that note how is it not an unjust bias to require completion of AIG training to teach gifted students when there is no such training mandated in order to teach students with disabilities I've enjoyed teaching students with IEPs for learning disabilities autism and other health impairments for years without any mention of additional certifications required how's this Equitable what can our board do to help lower the classroom sizes in the Upper Elementary sector by granting additional fourth and fifth grade teacher allotments um despite the lack of an enrollment cap in these grades DPI the state board and

076the general assembly still expect proficiency and progress to remain consistent the fact that many non-title one schools have upwards of 26 kids in class and team teach means we could easily have data from 75 to 80 kids to desegregate anytime we assess that's a lot when I ask my principal at what point we might get a sixth fourth grade teacher she explained that usually the numbers have to reach 30 in the current classes call for an issue allotments needed to provide a protected daily duty-free lunch for all teachers this would give elementary teachers 20 minutes each day to plan grade check items off to-do lists schedule personal appointments or simply sit and eat in silence and be compressed thank you why do I have to be so long with thank you that's okay thank you

077so very much our last speaker is April Lee good evening chair Andrews Vice chair tippet Dr bracing and members of the board I'm April Lee I'm a parent and resident of Johnson County I'm also a classroom teacher in another District a former Johnson County teacher and a public schools Advocate um what I'm going to say tonight has a lot to do with what um Miss Medlin and Miss ryell said before me um I'm going to talk about where we can get some funding um last week I attended this is slightly different though last week I attended another local District's Boe meeting meeting and while they are smaller than us they allowed for public comment sign up until the beginning of the meeting at 6:00 they also observe the same limitations that we do the limi

078in the time and the number of people who speak um so I would like to encourage our board to make public comment sign up more accessible for our working parents and School Employees it is difficult for many folks to make it to sign up between 4 and 5:00 p.m. especially esally if they are on a bus like driving one at their school supervising children who haven't been picked up yet uh getting their children off a bus or at their jobs next as the deadline for spending of Esser funds approaches we need to explore all possible sources to increase funding the Leandro decision decided in 1997 and thoroughly abused by our legislature um but then reaffirmed last year by our state supreme court would help fund our schools and provide opportunities for our children if our

079legislature would fund Leandro it would mean an increase of $ 105.6 million for Johnston County Schools that funding could provide 231 more teacher Assistance or 247 more nurses psychologists social workers or counselors or 100 1,00 257 per teacher for professional development or any combination of those things it could also mean an $18.1 million increase for our birth through pre or for our birth through five prek program imagine how much that early intervention can impact children and our communities instead our legislators have chosen to divert public funds to unaccountable private schools I encourage our legislative committee and our board members to have real conversations with our legislators let them know how providing These funds can change the lives of children in our communities by providing the support and resources they need thank you thank [Applause] you

080thank you to all of those of you who come forward to speak okay you want a break okay I'm sorry we'll take a five minute break 10 minutes probably welcome back we'll get started Madam chair before we uh move on if I can make a comment about I think we um the Constitutions I think we had a couple of speakers speak to that if I can just address that real quick um some of you recall we had a a group um that were going to donate the Constitutions um this is actually the one that was presented to be donated um which is generic in nature and we had the discussions because it would it would be pretty much handled the same way as school supplies from church groups from Civic groups from whatever um and

081and I had asked you know I had told the the individuals um that you couldn't have stamps or logos or anything on them and then what we got what he got was was these which is actually this is 917 society which seems to be a very legitimate organization um there there there's some other issues with it and and it it um because you had the extra stuff on it that was the issue about immediately sending them through the schools now the only I think chadam County were given some like this um which which they did not give out uh as a school um this was in 2022 they had the um mons for Liberty actually gave them out through the 917 um this is from chadam chadam newspaper um they gave him out um and

082and what chadam county chose to do was to have parents request permission for them they didn't give them out as such but they made them available and the issue with this is it kicks it back into the 5210 policy which that policy we remov from second reading because quite frankly I told you before there's still some things in that policy that that kind of it's kind of difficult to to comprehend some things and then there's some things you can argue different things on um so that's what we're doing with that now we've since had a group that donated um this um um style whatever you want to call it um identical to this those were were purchased by some friends of Johnston County Public Schools um to give to eighth graders um in addition we

083have enough of these for next year's eighth graders now I'm not speaking for the board at this time I'm going to stop it speaking for the board I'm not saying we can't do something with these okay I think it's how that's how they're done and I think it's the process to get here okay um I'm not um and again I'm speaking personally in looking at things and I some people may not agree with it may not like it but when you start looking at the pocket pocket constitutions it seems that a lot of these are are printed and given out by right leaning groups that's the way it is I mean I that's what I've seen anyway I'm sure there's some some difference so you're going to have some things and some issues again the

084issue you have here is that you you have all the specific references to a group um and and you have the group asking for donations which they have every right to ask for donation they're legitimate 501c but do we want that in the public schools asking to meet the $2 million goal um or to join the organization and that was the issue that that's one of biggest issues I have with this uh inside the covers both of these are identical the Constitution is is there okay nobody's opposed to the Constitution it's just how it's packaged and and we'll get there um the policy states that is now and the interpretation of policy is that if you want to give these out it's got to it's got to go through the principles of that school I

085if I were a principal I would not approve it I would let it come to the board so I think that's probably what's going to happen and then we'll see how we can Implement things uh but again uh and again that that's that was Terry tippis speaking and now the Johnston County Board of Education okay so um but as far as the board goes we will um again we'll continue work with the group that gave these we'll continue to see what we can do because it again it's the Constitution and and the issue is how it's packaged and I just wanted to make make that known and uh again um to give an update on that because again I don't I don't want people to think that that we don't care about people that are

086any group that trying to Support Johnston County public schools for the right reasons all right can I just make just one little comment there because you directed them to to go to the principles which is for non-school materials and non-school materials is defined in that policy as non-curriculum related it doesn't matter who published it we have lots of Publishers that might have different views and different things that we allow those Publishers in our schools um but it's still a curriculum related document um which would go to the superintendent by policy not the principles I don't think putting the principles into a difficult position is necessarily the right thing to do um I would suggest that if you want to direct the people that are offering these that you would direct them to the superintendent and

087not and not put the principles in the middle of something and I and and I hear you and that's that's what I just said your interpretation and that's what I'm saying it it's it can be interpreted different ways and that's I'm not going to argue with you about interpretation because it g it gives a definition for non-school material as well as a definition for school sponsor curriculum related materials so I mean that there's that's why the policy was pulled to try and look at some things okay all right uh Dr bracie you want to introduce our um next item thank you madam chair Madam chair in absence of a chief academic officer I'm going to ask Miss Kenall to come forth and introduce items one and two good evening Madame chair board members our first

088item is um we are going to have Dr Thomas come up to discuss the school Improvement and support plans and as you all know you have your binders of those School Improvement plans and so she's going to go over the process with you and it will be for your approval all right great evening Madam chair Vice chair tippet superintendent Dr bracie is it well with all of our board members this evening love to see the smiles isn't that awesome I'm just glad tonight is not as long as last week that's all it is all right so here we are School Improvement plans let's Dive Right on into it short presentation and so according to our general statute 115 c105.2 7 School Improvement plans are to be designed by school Improvement teams they're voted on by

089the teams at the schools reviewed and accepted by our local board and so we had presentations last week specifically for our low performing schools but just so you know overall August 28th all of our schools had to have their websites updated with their school Improvement information so that everyone can access that readily uh prior to September 12th you all received your binders as officer kikendall has shared and last week you heard from our six schools designated as low performing just so you know as background all School Improvement plans have to align with the implementation of research-based best practices for continuous School Improvement so all 40 of our schools have to have an overall student achievement goal subgroup performance which looks specifically at identifying subgroups that are not performing up to par okay and then social

090and emotional learning we want to make sure we're covering the entire child further Dr bracie has set forth the expectation that all schools increase in their targets by at least five percentage points so when you think about it you have some schools where you can't do five percentage points because you're already at that 99 or 100% right and so we just have this blanket piece going here but that's your background and at this point we would love for you not that you have all this information to approve our 48 uh School Improvement action plans for the 2023 and 2024 school year that is an action item so I will entertain a motion so Move Motion by Mr Wooten second by Mr Donovan any discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor

091of approving the school Improvement plans for our district for 2023 please indicate by saying I I I any opposed thank you you thank you Dr Thomas our next item is an information item uh Miss Johnson cower who is our executive director for Middle Schools is going to talk about the UNCC writing program that we'll be using in our middle schools thank you Anna okay good evening Dr bracie and all of our board members thank you for the opportunity to share information about the UNC sixth grade writing program Grant we will begin tonight with the purpose of the study the purpose of the study is to examine a practice-based professional development program for sixth grade ELA teachers that teaches the use of research-based writing instructional strategies with students this model will provide strategies to promote the

092development of writing skills to ultimately improve the students quality of writing this evidence-based model has been successful in one-on-one situations and small group settings but has not gone full scale yet in the regular education environment during this writing program the North Carolina Ela writing standards will continue to be implemented throughout the program in all of our Ela classrooms for sixth grade the next part that we have here is the implementation of the study we have one group of sixth grade ELA teachers who will receive training by UNC Le in conjunction with George Mason University in professional development they've already had one professional development they will have another one um later in the month the other group will receive PD later in the school year UNC will cover all of the costs including any substitutes that

093are needed and also for the teacher stens ELA teachers will be provided PD to help them effectively deliver specific research-based instructional writing strategies teachers will use these strategies while using unit three in my perspectives which is our JCPS Core curriculum for ELA students will write three essays during the course of the program they will have I mean this is tied in with unit three as well with my perspectives they will have a prompt that they willite right to pre-instruction another prompt during instruction and then there will be a different prog prompt at the end of instruction the last piece that we have is student participation parents and Guardians will receive letters prior to the start of the project the letter will explain the purpose of the project that no names will be used during the

094course of the project and parents can opt at without their child participating in the research component students can still receive the instruction and can still write the essays even if they opt out of the research project we look forward to partnering with you and see with this project as our students learn to use writing strategies to become proficient independent Writers Do you have any questions thank you so much thank you appreciate it our final two items are two surveys um for your approval and Miss Stevenson will be giving you more information about those all right good evening board members Dr brce um annually we give a local stakeholder survey um to collect perception data um we hear from this is where we get bring in student voice we also survey our staff and teachers as

095well as our um families and the reason we give our surveys is to improve is to inform our continuous Improvement efforts um also the survey are utilized um specifically to help schools um monitor the progress of their um seal goal that is in their school Improvement plan um we give the surveys up to three times a year um in the file and in the winter those surveys are optional for schools schools opt in um with the exception of third grade in the fall third grade is the first time we administer the survey and so we do have all of our third graders take that student survey for the first time and then in the winter winter which will be in January um we'll look at students as well as staff members for those schools that

096wish to have a a progress monitor for their seal goal and then in the spring in April is when districtwide we give the survey to all three stakeholder groups um one thing about our surveys is um since since we have adopted the College and Career Readiness framework from Avid we have reworked our um our our student surveys to align with that College and Career um Readiness framework with Avid um and the domain areas that we are getting student feedback on and assessing are self-management learning strategies and social awareness that is falls under our um competencies uh survey which the because these are skills that we can help students grow in the second student survey that we give is more aligned with the climate and culture of the learning environment and the domain areas there are

097um student engagement building relationships and a sense of belonging for our student surveys um in grades 3 through five we are changing our survey from an opt out to an opt in for those grade levels however in grade six through 12 we would continue that survey as an optout survey for our staff and teacher survey we have also aligned those questions um with that with the Avid College and Career Readiness framework also in conjunction with um with feedback from our administrators to provide so that they are able to get more actionable data than our previous surveys were given us um our family survey Remains the Same as it has in previous years and those surveys have been provided to you to review um and tonight we request approval of our local surveys this is an

098action item I'll entertain a motion motion by Mr Caroll second by Mr Donovan any discussion these are Panorama surveys correct they are we use the Panorama platform to administer them but the questions are from the Avid College and Career Readiness framework they are not from the item bank that Panorama provides us so after they're collected does Panorama take them and compile them and give you the feedback the data yeah so um yes I'm sorry so yes when the when the students take the surveys the data is analyzed by Panorama so when the student staff or families um all that data is compiled it's the percent of positive responses by domain that is provided and does Panorama give you individual scores too that are tagged to each student so so under the student perceptions and skills

099and competencies one that data is used in our Student Success platform which the Student Success platform has academics discipline attendance as well as an seal component and it gives us the overall not the in what an individual student said but the overall positive response rate for the domain area an individual overall for each individual student so what it's not you're not going to get individual responses for each question but just an overall score yes so like in the self-management I would be able to tell Christie responded her average response was a 3.9 it's on a scale of one to five right so they're scored based on their responses to those questions that's compiled by Panorama the aggregated data is panoramas to use to data mind do whatever they want with the aggregated data not the

100disaggregated ma'am that is our data they Panorama does not do anything but report to us what the summary data gives us they PanAm our contract with them does not have use of the disaggregated data the large volume data right they are not sharing the data they're not doing anything with the data but taking the results and compiling up for us to use and then the platform is also Panorama platform that it's actually plugged into right like that shows the attendance and all those other things the the Student Success platform yes so so Panorama has a Student Success platform that we use and schools use that to um inform continuous Improvement efforts as well as you know work um when we're thinking about mtss it it um we utilize it for our intervention plans as well

101as a survey tool and then when these scores come back these children can be intervened on based on a low score so it will based off of their responses if there is an area that a student is weak in so like let's go back to self-management then that gives the teacher information on as well as counselors information on who may need additional support in self management and I actually I think I brought it I have a sample of what that looks like if you would be interested in sure I think we looked at some of this earlier when we had a panorama meeting yes yes and I'm kind of familiar with the format and what it looks like um but I was told in that meeting earlier in the year that um if a if

102a student has low scores two low scores in two areas then they will be intervened on based on I mean one of the questions on social awareness for example is I respect different opinions and points of view I I don't have to respect an opinion that says the Earth is flat right I just don't believe that I don't respect that opinion I'm not going to get into an argument with somebody but so a student reading that could answer unfavorably and then they're low scored see my point here yeah but it I mean inter intervention plans aren't formed around specific seal goals that's more through behavioral things but I think it also is good for teachers to know if I have um if if a large number of my students for example in looking at learning

103strategies don't aren't equipped with strategies to help them in their learning then that's important for me to know as a teacher so I can provide a variety of learning strategies to my students and actually just a way that the district uses that data learning strategies is an area of focus for us that's one of the reasons why we've got a focused area or we've got an instructional uh high level of instruction Focus this year what are those High leverage instructional strategies that any teacher can introduce so from hearing our students saying hey I'm not equipped that we know how to better respond um so one of the for the learning strategies you make a very good point uh one is like um I show up to class prepared to do my best work so what

104a student reports at least what my eighth grade student Report with what the teacher knows about them would be wildly different I have a feeling um I trust teachers I don't necessarily need a survey if you think it's instructional I I think that's good too but um I just have some issues with that any other questions do you have issues with it Miss Miss Antoine are the issues with the panorama platform or the survey itself you know it's a little of both it's not necessarily one or the other I I think um I just and maybe I'm old school in that way that I I really do trust teachers and I think if if I talk to a teacher about a student I bet you they could tell me a whole lot more than these

105self-reported things on a survey that the student tells me that's all let I will say this and and you know I don't have all that internal knowledge about Bank Panorama but in my visit to some of the schools and talking with principles you know they have taken me to you know hey we have a platform here that provides us with wonderful data that we're able to move kids to a higher level of education so you know the input I've had from principles is it is a wonderful piece of information that gives them a road map to helping a student succeed so I just put that out and really it's a timesaver for teachers because when you think about all the data that's located in one place so when I'm sitting down having a problem solving

106meeting about a student or a group of students I'm not having to go pull 10 different spreadsheets it's all right there and we can look at it so so yes and and I think we talked about that in power in um that Panorama meeting as well and there are and panoram was the first to come out with that platform to do that but many many platforms have been introduced since that we could also use this isn't necessarily the the one and only anymore that does that oh you're yes yes there are others out there it's too any other questions uh this is an action item so I'll entertain a motion oh I've already done that hadn't I I'm sorry I'm sorry no well no uh no no other questions I'm sorry that's my fault I'll

107take sole ownership of that okay I will call for a vote all those in favor of um this proposal please indicate by saying I I any opposed I 52 is that right okay all right I think you you have another one all yes I'll um I'm going to introduce um David Allen our executive director of external Partnerships and strategic planning as you all know our strategic plan um comes to an end our goal anyway comes to an end of June of this year um so um Mr Allen is here tonight to share with you um our plans for development um for our next strategic plan um that will span 24 through 29 and additionally there is a survey component of this that we are requesting board approval for so I will turn it over to

108Mr Allen evening board members Dr bracie good to see you tonight in a different role so thank you for that uh as Miss uh Stevens has already alluded to uh you can see on our first slide uh just sort of a history lesson on where we've been the last couple of years with our strategic plan uh Chief among that has been our goal for all of our schools to achieve a or C status by the end of this school year and so uh we are in the iteration of uh rewriting that plan uh we have partnered with RTI International out of Raleigh to help us with that effort uh just as more of a process Orient piece than anything else uh we'll be driving of course the content of our plan uh as we continue

109to go through our own data as we uh reach out to our communities and talk to our stakeholders and so I'll talk about that process uh throughout the presentation uh here are some of our goals for excuse me for our new plan and uh you know we really could just summarize it by just saying we want to make sure we are engaging our staff and our communities and collecting their input and how we uh how they perceive the current state of our district and how they perceive what the future of our district should look like and so so uh and of course everything will Evol revolve around a uh Central focus of uh teaching and learning and uh that will occur through all of our uh departments throughout the district uh right now you know

110we've really been goal focused on academics which has been really great it certainly has paid off for us but as we build out this new plan uh we will involve all of our other departments and that will allow everyone to align their work uh very strategically against the entire the entire District strategic plan as we lift together so we should be able to go further um in that matter speaking the plan will be built around three primary structures uh to in its writing and its infancy uh starting with the project team the project team is uh essentially uh Dr bra's cabinet members and uh key leaders throughout the district uh then we'll also have a steering committee uh that will be made up of uh mostly community members uh much like a bond committee if

111you will uh where they be they will be ambassadors throughout the process they'll be reviewing the data that comes in and just really kind of steering that direction and making sure that again what we write as a district is reflective of what our stakeholders are are looking for and asking for and hoping for in our district and then finally we'll have some focus groups that I'll talk a little bit more about uh but our focus groups will be groups of about 10 to 15 uh all of our uh feeder patterns will have focus group meetings for parents and then we will also have focus groups for uh for our staff members uh throughout the district in different categories so everyone will be touched through the process in some way uh this is just another iteration

112of that snapshot uh of Engagement and that's where the action item is for this tonight uh we will be uh doing some uh questionnaires for our students in Middle School and High School uh the questions for students will be open-ended questions and so they're pretty straightforward questions for the students to really just talk about what they hope to accomplish as a student or what are two things they're most proud of in their school or how do they think their school could most improve and so uh you know RTI will help us uh sort through those open-ended questions because that's a bit more of a process uh to to go through but uh we'll be doing that with them and then our uh community and staff members uh will answer another another survey with about eight

113lyer questions for you know which is sort of ranging questions for how much do you agree or disagree with this statement and of course they will likewise have uh some open-ended questions on their survey likewise uh building principles helped helped us select the uh both the steering committee and the focus groups incidentally so that we are so we already making sure that we are including voice from across the district uh our Focus to our principles has been to make sure we are hearing from folks that we don't typically hear from we all know who's at the front door and we talk to those people readily but we want to make make sure we're talking to all people throughout the district uh this is just a broad timeline of sort of what our work looks like

114over the next couple of months uh in these uh in the fall months now getting into the winter uh we really are going through the process of collecting our data uh going through our questionnaire once you it's approved by you that'll be distributed later this month uh that'll s probably be ongoing through uh November and December possibly into January again our our focus is to make sure we collect data from all of our stakeholders so we'll be constantly monitoring who we've received information from to make sure we are hearing from our entire district and then as we get into the winter uh we'll begin formulating those goals and those priorities that stuff will really be coming together from what we see on the questionnaire uh what we hear in focus groups and then as we

115get into the spring of course we'll be putting the final touches on the plan and U making final edits of course before they come before you for a final vote and of course throughout the process we'll keep you uh informed of what's going on the project team and the steering teing uh both are sort of working through this you know they cogs in that wheel uh throughout the whole process to make sure we have a cyclical process uh so just some uh next steps for us uh the project team will continue to meet and provide context and Direction uh the steering committee will begin meeting soon as along with along with focus groups will beginning uh will be beginning the 1 of November and then uh and then our questionnaire as I stated once you've

116approved it we'll be going out uh sometime around the end of this month 1 of November and uh and we'll continue to work together to uh to provide information for you one of the things we're going to do right away is uh take some of the data points that we already already have in the district with respect to our academic data and other data points that we have and formulating a state of the district address just to say to you formally this is where we are now and so that we can use that to build on uh one thing that we're missing is some cohesiveness around our core beliefs and values as a district and so that's part of the process we'll be going through and establishing through some of those open-ended questions that's why

117those open-end questions are so important because they really will drive at what people believe in and so also we want to make sure that the goals that we build uh or that we that we write out reflect what we've say we believe in as a as a district so the action item is for the questionnaire if you have question this is an action item I'll entertain a motion so move a motion by Mr woen do I have a second by Mr Johnson any discussion thank you hearing none I'll wait wait got something for me Mr Johnson go for it I'm sorry yes sir we we we partnered with RTI yes sir right so this is a questionnaire that is is I think this goes to is this a community student or Community thing the the

118one you're the one you're holding there it says JCPS questionnaire language yes sir that is for staff and for community and Community all right a question I had you got like ler questions framing uh and I guess the liyer scale is strongly disagree to strongly agree yes sir there's a neutral and an I don't know also included because we know we're recognizing those questions that there are some things that staff would be more aware of we do we have strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly and and and and I don't know yes sir is that that whole scale yes sir that that is the that is the scale yes sir is is that is that listed for each question so they don't okay when I saw this I I said well you know I might

119not feel this thing out right because I don't know who lier is yes sir I do understand yes sir yeah I'm really novice when it comes to like strategic planning tactical planning operational planning I'm learning a lot of things I imagine you are trial by fire but what I what I do know is before you even jump into some of the things that we're looking at you always evaluate simply put where you are and where you want to go so when we look at those factors imagine student achievement is going to be number one um I know that that's been our focus and in no way I don't think we're going to change our Focus but what other factors and you can answer this question at a later time this may be a Dr braci

120question as well but you know what are we looking at as far as the factors when I simply put where we at and where are we going you know you had your ABC goals you know admirable goals but what how does that apply here yes sir I don't mind speaking for a minute Dr bra but yeah so so as in in formulating that state of the district summary uh we've taken in all kinds of data so so data about our current uh you know our current vacancies and what our retention efforts are and what our recruitment efforts are uh all of our facility data you know sort of where we are with facilities and where we are with trying to build new buildings and uh provide there uh the number of our students in preschool

121uh to the number of our students who percentage of our students are free reduced lunches so we really are looking at a whole spectrum of data uh throughout the entire District great answer thanks so I have a question is um why RTI and were there other companies that you thought of partnering with when you did this yes ma'am we uh we interviewed several companies and with RTI uh we felt like RTI had a context we've done some work with rti in the past in the district uh they're also local so even though they're an international company and do work all over the world uh they're right here in our backyard so they really do have a better understanding of who we are in Johnston County and we felt like that was very important for us

122so um just a quick look look at RTI I've looked at them for a couple years um if we're concerned about right linging groups inside of our schools influencing things these are this is a very left leaning Progressive type company organization um and I wouldn't mind that necessarily if all you were going to do is feed them data and they were going to help compile and help compress give back but you said they are going to be helping with the open-ended questions on our culture so I'm not exactly sure if Durham based RTI um is going to have the same culture as maybe a Johnston County uh parent would have so that there's a little bit of concern there for me with um them being a partner in this I don't have any other concerns

123I think everything else you did was exceptional and put together very well understandable so I appreciate that no thank you and we'll go with with that lens's you know eyes wide open as as we do that again I'll just emphasize as I stated earlier right RTI really is driving the process we're driving the content so again much like the other data Miss Stevenson spoke of we own our data and so so we'll receive all that raw data and can make sure as we read through that data that it matches all the pieces that we look at but thank you for that David what do you me what did you mention about the opening of questions are they going to take those in pretty much categorize them based off how they're answered yeah so they'll sort

124of take them and the best way I can understand the way they explain that's right they they've got fantasy software right that'll run all this all these words through a machine and it'll come up like a word cloud right what what what what sticks out what has things in common and uh and then how can we use that to formulate really our our really our goals uh and and our value our values perhaps more than anything else right what shows up over and over again for people that says I'm I'm most proud of this or I'd like to see us do this more or I'd like to see we don't we don't think we're doing this yet right so so there really just be some wonderings right we we really won't be able to formulate

125complete sentences with that but uh we'll a to get some idea of where we're going Dr Alan when was the last time this has been like overhauled like to the degree you're doing it is this I would have to defer maybe to miss Stevenson but I we did not do this type of ever hul in our current strategic plan uh so this is my firstand knowledge Miss Stevens anything to add I don't know that we've gone this deep yeah maybe 10 years Miss Stevenson to say and so 10 years okay yeah so again so yeah so so this this is obviously a deep dive Dr rce has given me a great task and and again you know with with a growing district and a changing District it's important uh that's really why you hear all

126the iterations of how we're going to listen to people so we're going to listen to people through surveys we're going to listen to people through focus groups we're going to listen to our project team members our steering committees probably about 15 to 20 uh community members faith-based community business Community higher ed community so uh you know this is very very broad stroke and you and Miss Stevenson would have final edit rights on those questions right oh absolutely yes sir absolutely indeed indeed again we we control all that yes sir thank you another discussion if not I'll call for a vote it is an action item all those in favor please indicate by saying I I all opposed No 5 two thank you Mr Brooks More all right good good evening EV everyone tonight I have

127a um Chiller replacement project for approval at South Smithfield Elementary School this is what we are called call in FA phase one of a much larger extensive HVAC overhaul for that school to which is underd designed um but for this one is um to H to contract with Superior Mechanical Services to replace place the chillers and some other electrical cool gear and some other things um the bid was for $1,429 th000 which which was O overbid um I'm noticed some some some strange electrical designs and stuff in there so we did we did work work with the town of Smithfield and we got that uh contract cost trimmed to 1,1 151,925 so a savings of $277,500 for that school school to cover any unforeseen issues that may arise this is is a Sesser funded project

128as well and it is an action item I'll entertain a motion so move uh who did Mr a motion by Mr Carol second by Mr Mr Donovan second by Mr Johnson I'm sorry any discussion when is the turnaround time of getting the chiller and it being operational so they have come come down some uh they are around 40 weeks now so roughly next summer which is within in our s deadline time frame thank you Brooks just want to say I appreciate your sharp ey for saving money CP couple of dollars helps out any other any other discussion I just got a the age you may have said that what is the age of those chillers yes sir old um no not not not not quite that old I think they're like 95 96 so 30

129almost 30 30 years you can tell if you ride ride by that school too 27 years or something yeah I thought about you I was going into a facility the other day and there was a tractor trailer bed with a chiller on the back of it cool in the building and you always told me that's our worst nightmare absolutely it's about 30 30 grand a month to park it there Y which is why you try to stay ahead and replace chillers absolutely yes sir and we've I think this is be about our 14th 15th chillers so and how much time 14 and how many years two two three years uh capital and now Now esther has really helped helped that out so we've we've we've come a long long ways where does this put them

130Brooks schoolwide as far as their needs at that particular School South Smithfield well keep in mind this is just just the central plant of the phase one so uh we're we're designing a much larger overhaul of the in individual units that serve serve the classrooms thank you any other discussion just one quick question uh as far as s or funding that's going to be out pretty soon and with the turnaround do we have other projects that we're going to be able to get in yes in time oh yes okay we still have um a couple of controls packages we're we're wrapping up design now um we're designing the Four Oaks o overhaul Cleveland Elementary overhaul but do you feel confident that um I know you're working hard on the design but what about getting the

131products here yes um everything that I I bring will be within that time frame yeah does does the erer deadline if we if if we have it ordered does that count or do we have to spend the money the after the deadline so we have till September 30th of 2024 uh to encumber all the money or to to reserve it after that you have until December 28th or something like that to to spend it there is a in other words get the checks out the door uh there is um a waiver process that you can potentially get an EXT that uh but we haven't DPI hasn't released that process to us do they allow once you order a prepay uh has to we have to have it have to have it in in the house

132before okay just check and if I could just say this September 30 may be the federal deadline but the Brit deadline is June 30 thank you thanks oh we didn't vote on it come back up here come back Brooks not that we're not going to do it all those in favor um please indicate by saying I I any opposed thank you Mr ventano and um it's bitter sweet to say this is the last time we'll call you up here um it's good for you but it's bittersweet for us but uh we wish you the very best in your retirement we're looking forward to celebrating your retirement soon thank you much I appreciate it it's been a a privilege and honor to serve the school system for so many years can you tell us how many

133board meetings you have done this at countless 10 plus years in this position um all been fun we have two Personnel recommendations uh board members for your consideration first um we we brought this uh to you before but um due to unforeseen circumstances Mr herrings unable to transition to carth Holders elementary school as principal so we are recommending to you this evening that Michelle Butler currently assistant principal at kenth holders Elementary School will transition as to interim principal for this school year this is an action item I'll entertain a motion for approval Some Mo motion by Mr Donovan a second by Mr Johnson any discussion all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed the second recommendation is for the chief academic officer position and the recommendation before you is Miss Anna

134kikendall it is an action item I'll entertain a motion motion by Mr Donovan second by Mr Wooten any discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor please indicate by saying I I any opposed 70 thank you Mr vent thank you Mr Brit a everybody okay probably probably not probably not an hour for both it depends on how many questions you have okay all right good evening board members Dr bracie uh we have two items for you tonight hopefully it will not be an hour of of items uh the first item we have is item of information it is a presentation of our 2022 2023 uh financial statements and Auditors report U and with me tonight I should to also introduce I have uh Adam from Anderson Smith and white and I

135have Miss tabith Al who's the assistant finance officer here and she is going to be driving tonight uh to scroll through because we have a 83 page financial statement for you to review tonight and I promise you I made I made Adam I made Adam promise that you were not going to have to go through all 83 Pages here this evening but U I think yeah the crowd is standing behind me so Adam turn it over to you at this time good evening Madame chair Dr bracie we'll go ahead and just plan for the intermission the 30 minute Mark so uh again my name is Adam seark I'm your uh independent uh partner from the Independent audit firm that you hire to conduct the audit of management um many of you have seen me before

136I go through these statements kind of point out the numbers that I think are important the pages to pay attention to uh some of this information you may have heard before why some of it might be less important but with the new faces uh new people viewing um I apologize again for some of the the same information year after year but um I really do think inside this 83 Pages you can narrow it down to some key schedules that uh I think really um focus on the finances um that matter most to the board and to management so again we're hired to conduct an audit by the board um and issue an opinion on the financial statement so if we're looking at page one that is the letter uh the opinion letter with the opinion

137paragraph As the first paragraph that basically states that we believe these financial statements are accurate and reflect the net position and fund balance of the school system as of June 30 2023 now we are looking at a draft statement um I anticipate the only thing that will change within these statements is the date uh at the core of any audit is a uh verification and confirmation of assets a search for liabilities confirmation of Revenue and testing of expenditures one of those verifications and searches for liabilities is sending a letter to your attorney to get their response and that's what we're waiting on before we finalize uh this packet here so again I anticipate the only thing changing being the date you will be forwarded a copy of uh the final ized version with the updated

138date along with a letter uh addressed to the board letting you know um that the audit went is planned again you hire us to conduct the audit of management we include a letter to the board which I can already tell you states that we had no difficulties performing our procedures we had no disagreements with Management on how to apply accounting principles uh there are no new standards in here which we were not able to audit or apply so again a a clean um professional audit that went as planned and again uh here to present the results before October 31st and eventually issue and submit this to the LGC the local government commission who oversees these audits uh by the October 31st deadline so again um pointing out a couple of important Pages after page one

139the opinion letter there is about 10 pages of management discussion and Analysis and if you note in the opinion letter we are stating an opinion on net position and fund balance to me for management for the board fund balance is more important than net position net position includes assets like the value of your buildings that you cannot borrow against it also includes the value of liabilities that are really State liabilities but your portion of that state liability is allocated to your statement so your net position might be $40 million but that doesn't mean you have $40 million in the bank fund balance if you've got $40 million a fund balance you do have $40 million in the bank and so those distinctions uh really lend towards whenever you're reading through this discussion analysis or whenever

140you're looking at a schedule focusing on fund balance rather than net position so if you look at page four under the financial highlights two of the bullet points that I want to point out is the first one your total government wide net position increased by $46 million that is not because you made $46 million but yet you constructed buildings paid for by the county to the tune of 50 plus million minus depreciation and so that creates positive net position but is not the same as money in the bank when you look at that third bullet point you actually used $6.4 million of fun balance in your general fund so again those two data points show conflicting information Rising net position declining fund balance to me the fund balance is most important again because a lot

141of that net position is driven by liabilities you don't really control they're calculated by actuaries and construction of buildings that you can't do anything with you know financially after they're constructed if you would turn to page 14 exhibit three is a balance sheet for those funds for those fund balance numbers including that $6.4 million decline in the general fund um the first two exhibits are balance sheet and income statement at that net position level so instead of looking at your net position going up $40 million I really like to start at exhibit three page 14 these are your uh governmental funds you have your general fund the state public school fund and federal grants funds which do not carry fund balance those funds are use it or lose it oh yeah there's a yeah if

142you're looking at a PDF uh those numbers won't line up with um the document page number I'll be it's okay so we're looking at the overall document number yes yes the overall yes I will be going over the document page numbers um so yes page 14 exhibit three is a balance sheet for your governmental funds state public school fund federal grants funds they do not carry fund balance those allocations those allotments are used and spent as you receive them you write an expenditure check you get money from DPI to pay for it and you don't carry fund balance in those funds your other special Revenue fund capital outl and individual School funds those uh and the general fund those four funds carry uh all of your fund balance the First Column general fund at the

143bottom of that First Column total fund balance at the end of the year $24 m938 th000 a decrease of 6.4 million from the prior year the other special Revenue fund has 2.2 million of fund balance which is an increase of 265,000 for the year the capital outlay fund 5, 296,000 an increase of 1.9 million from the prior year and the individual schools fund balance increased 141,000 to 3.2 million for a combined fund balance of $ 35.7 million there any questions about uh this balance sheet again to me this gives you really the the the financial position where you stand what you have available for Appropriations if you look on that first column in the general fund there's a line under the fund balance subsequent years expenditures already anticipating for the 23 24 budget you anticipate

144to use $7.4 million of fund balance so that just gives you kind of an idea of how quickly uh $24.9 million can decline when you're looking at 6.4 and $7.4 million used in a year if you turn two pages you'll find the income statement for those same funds and you can see across the top your revenues from the uh General sources local fund $78 million $280 million comes from the state public school fund $32 million in federal grants I wanted to point out a comparison that $32 million when you look at that fund preco 2019 you received 14 million million dollar she've received significant Federal fundings for Esser funds used on uh uh bonuses learning loss construction so when you look back at the kind of federal dollars you received preo we're really at like

145$14 million being a typical year for uh your federal grants the other special Revenue fund collects collected $18 million but in that was a significant emergency connectivity Grant to pay for computers one-time receipt so that is not a typical uh Revenue source that you see every year so that is higher this year Capital outlay $28 million of Revenue that fluctuates with the amount of construction done uh in any one year and then at your local schools collecting $7 million across all your schools after that you have your expenditures and below that you can actually see those changes in fund balance that I noted when we are looking at the balance sheet the $6.4 million decrease in general 265 and other special Revenue 1.9 and capital outlay in 141,000 so your total fund balance went from

14639.8 million down 4.1 million to 35.7 any questions about the results from your so so that 30 32 million will essentially drop to 14 million after the um after Sr funding is disappears so uh when we get to the back uh I was going to point out when you look at oh no I'll go ahead and when you uh when you look at the federal Awards um Esser this year was $10 million so your title one EC all those other programs they have gone up so if you you would really would look at at that 32 minus about 1011 so you're you're currently at uh $20 million of repetitive um well uh yeah $20 million of repetitive fund three um Federal expenditures like Title One and EC there are some other federal grants like that

147uh emergency connectivity but that does not run through that that same federal grants fund so this Federal grant this Federal grant of 32.3 million is that include exceptional children it does okay they're Federal EC prc's okay um but this is where the cliff is is that right the cliff that you speak of this is where the cliff will most likely happen yeah all right after that you have some schedules showing budget versus actual uh no violations uh in your budgeted expenditures uh the next chart I want to look at is is uh page 22 exhibit 7 so the first two exhibits we looked at exhibit three and four those are your governmental funds you also have two business type funds considered business type funds because they sell a service or sell a product that being

148your after school care and your school Food Service fund These funds actually record their fixed assets right within the fund it actually has to record their portion of the pension plan directly within the fund so for these business type funds because they're considered full of cruel net position and fund balance are one and the same so we can't really look at the net position which for cha nutrition is $8.3 million instead I like to look at the cash number the top of that First Column cash of cash equivalence $15.1 million and increase of 3.9 from last year and the child care fund 1,925 th000 an increase of 82,000 from the prior year so a profitable year in both those funds those funds are uh especially the Child Nutrition fund uh significantly impact by participation when

149you look at page 23 the income statement for those same funds there's a couple of things I want to point out trend-wise again a very positive year and a very positive last uh prior year has actually given you a nice balance of cash on hand in that Child Nutrition fund that Child Nutrition fund is primarily uh funded with federal funds USDA reimbursements for meals before last year for the last three years during coid students ate for free and were you received High reimbursement rates you were able to uh maintain large profits add to that cash on hand but this year completely different story you had to go back to free and reduced meals based on uh need uh you have some uh schools that eat that where all students eat for free but it it's

150still a mix of free reduced and and paid meals so when you look at the revenues in China nutrition there was $4 million of food sales which is up at the top and then halfway through there was 12.2 million of USDA reimbursements that's a combined um total of $ 16.3 million of revenues when I look last year you had $19.8 million of USDA reimbursements so a decline in sales essentially of $3.9 million a decline in participation usually that decline in participation also results in a decline in food cost but with inflation your food cost uh which is towards the top of the page $6.3 million of food compared to 5.9 last year you served nearly $4 million more in meals and uh last year serving four 4 million less this year but cost went up

151300,000 that is a Trend we're seeing with every District uh being able to still maintain a profit a positive cash flow in this environment is definitely a a positive uh note in the financial uh picture of the school system as a whole there is a lot of districts that really another Cliff so to speak that saw participation really Dro um because again kids eating for for free every day not wanting to pay the $ three to4 dollar per meal and with those food costs um going up the way they are uh a lot of districts are not profitable anymore so again still maintaining a profit um in this postco year I think is definitely a a positive bright spot in these statements one of the reasons you are able to pay for some of your

152Child Nutrition expenditures with restart art funds so when you look at uh that First Column transfers from other funds $1,167 that helped obviously with the um positive Cash Flow by having other funds uh pay for some of the expenditures of that fund um but again uh three three adding uh those dollars to cash I think is very important and again a positive sign so those restart funds won't continue inflation continue to impact cost of food salary increases continue to impact profitability um but I do do think you have a nice uh cushion on hand to weather uh a lot of that any questions about the two business type funds I had a question because we just TR we just got into a new program that covers all about five of our schools for food service

153what do you see the impact being from what he's showing us to what we can expect next year so by having this a positive cash balance that gave us a a the ability to take a risk essentially with this new C program so this C program that that's implemented could potentially lose money so we may end up losing a million or more dollars in within that program but a great thing is with school nutrition being as strong as it is now uh with a cash balance it the school system can can afford to take that risk and so that's where the just like Adam and Dr Pierce has talked about before participation is is huge and is key with this the better participation rates that we can get the more funding that we will get

154from the C program and the more likely that it'll be that we can sustain that indefinitely and so that's really the kind of the hope that we have so what what will we end up with this year with the program I really don't know we could potentially like I said lose money in it uh but we have that bu do you know what participation has been like so far it's been U I've seen I've seen the emails from Dr Pierce's team there and uh I think uh I think the last I saw breakfast was uh just ad be able to go to school inil so still cross that bridge but it's definitely inreasing we and in a perfect world we'll be able to not only continue CP but then add the last five schools so

155that's really our goal not to speak for Dr Pierce and his team not stealing his Thunder because this is all this is all they're doing you know we're just we just crunched the numbers so y thank so I work on several districts throughout the state some uh fully CI C some no schools with C just because of demographics and um uh location of of those counties the districts that were 100% C before coid did see slight increases in participation they definitely saw increases in reimbursements because the reimbursement rate was higher but when they came off of the coid feeding back into C the participation really sustained and maintained at those level because those kids were used to eating for free uh part of the risk of not being profitable under the C program it uh

156you do the calculations assuming one level participation but again time and time again we see across school systems that participation goes up more than anticipated because again it's free food you don't have to worry about packing a lunch and so hoping for growth and participation outside of that uh original calculation would be essentially the risk um but again one one of the one of the things um across all school systems you know feeding those kids it's obviously very important for learning learning loss uh so anything that puts meals in front of kids I think um I I'm not sure if that's really a risk but um your participation even without those CP programs uh last year was still strong compared to uh other districts on that that fall off from the coid parti of the

157coid meal uh feeding plan after that there are about 20 pages of footnotes going over all of your accounting policies there are schedules of your receivables pay your fixed assets uh rolled forward from last year to this year about 10 pages of information on those various pension plans that again actuaries calculate a mythical number that will someday be owed across time and your little portion is allocated to you and the those Actuarial calculations and the um assumptions are all listed in those footnotes there is also some uh more detailed schedules for your general fund in the back another detailed schedule of your Capital outlay fund but it's the same information as summarized in exhibit three and four just broken out in a little bit more detail those schedules start on page 56 page 50 59

158is a detailed schedule of your uh School Food Service fund that takes out the effects of those non-cash expenditures like depreciation like change in pension plan so again I like to look at Cash what does cash do go up or down that's the main gauge but you can also manipulate cash you can you can hold back reimbursements and grow receivables and that makes Cash go down you can't uh adjust cash and adjust this schedule on the back so when you look at this schedule on the back this is a um a non-gaap schedule modified acral but it does show 3/4 of the way down revenues over expenditures 3,988 that is revenues whether they're cash or not expenses or revenues that are only cash expenses that are only cash analyzed for operational so that that number

159also supports the increase in cash again a positive operational profit uh in that school Food Service fund if there's no other questions about any of the financial statement data the other part of our audit is a compliance audit the letters for that start on page 61 so we issue page one a opinion letter on your financial statements we also issue three three additional letters opinion over State compliance an opinion over Federal compliance and an opinion over your internal controls over financial reporting these three are also clean un non unmodified opinion letters basically we did not find any areas of non-compliance with state requirements under your state major programs we did not find any uh errors in compliance with with Federal requirements for the for this year your federal major programs that we audited were the

160coid dollars which have to be audited every year along with your EC cluster and that emergency connectivity fund Grant uh that you receive uh to pay for computers so those were your uh three major federal programs and then this year the state public school fund which has to be audited as major every year that's your big State program and then also uh your buses program you basically get free buses from DPI paid for through leases uh that is a state Source um so that was your other major State program we have to audit every Federal program once every three years unless it's considered high risk like the coid dollars we have to audit the state public school fund every year um we also have to audit 20% of your federal dollars every year so there's

161basically a rotation of EC Title One um supporting education um uh CTE State programs uh drivers at those programs alternate you know at least once every three years to be major programs that we audit for compliance finally if you look at page this is your schedule of federal and state Awards this is all federal and all state Awards whether they come through the federal fund or through the special Revenue fund or through the state public school fund on the state side but page 73 gives you um a subtotal for that education stabilization fund those are your coid dollars the cares act the crsa the ARP and that's that 10 million 814 that is um the coid dollarss where if you didn't receive those that 30 million would become 20 million and that's all I've got

162thank you any questions you you all all at local funds too right that's right the the general fund is your uh local funds and then also um if the individual School funds the the funds collected at the schools that's you're referring to there's been some insinuations that we might have hidden 8 million is any money hidden anywhere I didn't see any money hidden again the basis of any audit is uh confirming assets searching for liabilities verifying assets um cashing in cash out cash balance yep um as uh as silly as it sounds uh a balance sheet and income statement is it's like a puzzle but it's a puzzle that always balances comes to zero your debits have to equal your credits cash goes up what went down or what else went up um any dollars

163that make it into the system become a part of that puzzle and so to move $8 million off of that system requires an $8 million red flag sitting somewhere else so so thank you thank you again for coming and spending some time with us and waiting for your turn because my pleasure so much thank you all right board members the last item I have for you tonight as Miss Lee cues it up on the screen here is our uh 2023 2024 salary schedules and so this has been a long time coming you know we started this way back in the early part of the spring with when we're building our requests to the County Commissioners because you know there's two uh significant components to it there's the local funded portion and then there's the state

164funded portion of course the state is the largest funding uh source that we have and so that's the the largest piece that we were waiting on to be able to to build these and present them to you uh some of the highlights uh of the schedule uh of course if you recall we have an additional local supplement for teachers and assistant principls uh that was the $50 per month $500 per year we also are able to implement a you know thanks to the county commissioner's funding a $16 per hour uh minimum pay for permanent full-time employees and we finally have a uh 30 step uh scale for classified staff so if you recall that is down from 54 steps uh that we had several years ago if you recall we also have the recruiting and

165retention bonus and so that's the $7.4 million line item that Adam just covered that was going to be for our fund balance spend down this year and that is to um to spend down food balance by providing a minimum $1,500 bonus for teachers uh that escalates up to I think it's 4,000 at the highest for certain positions and so we have also have a new principal uh supplement scale uh and then looking at the Timeline uh for this uh uh this schedule uh it's uh we just got it implemented let's see what was it last week I think uh is when it finally became law and so we uh will implement the new salary schedules for all employees this month so you should see it in your check in fact I think the fedal staff

166is probably still back there working on that right now as I as I speak so they are the only other folks in the building at the moment and uh did they and yes and does it it retroactively yes so are they going to get it all paid at once in the next check yes so the looking at the Timeline uh we uh we have we are every month we have a mid-month payroll and end of the month payroll the mid-month payroll I think is the 13th or to 15th of this month for and that's for our hourly employees they'll see their pay increase at that time for that our salb employees and teachers will see their increase on October 27th or 28th whichever our date is uh for uh for that and then uh October

16731st Halloween will will be our retray date if everything is as some people say Lord willing and the Creeks don't rise that will be what we uh we get out on October 31st for a Halloween treat not a trick so yes that uh that is the that is the plan so if we look at the bachelor's degree schedule on the very first page so just flipping into your attachment and those at home you can see it on the screen here and it's also attached to our agenda tonight as well and then later this week I'll be sure to get this out to all staff as well but the uh very first schedule that we have if you uh if you look on the far left of your screen you've got your step and so you've

168got go Step Zero through 25 and then uh next to that you've got the state salary schedule so this is the brand new salary schedule that was just passed into the law uh that for beginning teachers starts at $39,000 and runs up to $55,100 uh this is the um closer to the Senate version of the bill you know as you recall where was a house version and then a senate version we were hoping that the house version would would uh come to fruition because it had several very positive things in it for our teachers including a better pay raise and uh implementation of the um or re reinstatement of master's degree pay uh unfortunately that did not make the final uh verion version uh the Senate version uh looks like it took uh the majority

169of that negotiation away uh and so that's what you have here before you and so going from left to right the uh the next column that we have is the $50 per month supplement or $500 per year next to that is the percentage based County supplement this is paid uh this is divided in two and then paid twice a year paid once in November uh and then once in j June and so that's a percentage based that starts at 11 A half% for A Step Zero teacher moves up to at step nine to 12 12% 13 and 12% at 17 and then uh at 25 year plus teachers get a 14 and a. half% uh supplement there next to that is the uh state funded supplement and so this is also called the low wealth

170supplement but uh we initially had a plan for being able to differentiate or use this uh this extra funding last year it was $3.5 million and to uh this year they're expecting it to be a little bit more than last year uh the plan was to differentiate between our teachers so that we could U help with that um you lack of pay increases for our most veteran teachers in other words move or shift that uh funded amount to our veteran teachers so that they could get a 4% at minimum pay increase through State funds unfortunately as I was working through the schedules and reading the budget uh there is a little line in there that to paraphrase this uh the phrase in this uh uh in the budget is basically saying uh the local Boards

171of Education you can have any color shirt that you want as long as it's red and so it says that you can't uh you can basically the board has discretion over this fund it except that you can't pay any more than what the average uh rate of pay is for that calculation so if it calculates $900 per teacher we're not allowed to pay more than $900 per teacher it's a very uh interesting uh interesting little blur that was in there it's not even a whole sentence long but it had the is that a DPI thing or a general assembly thing General Assembly okay so I have that as one of our topics of discussion for the legislative committee again this is something that where we didn't need any more money from the general assembly we

172just needed the ability to use the funding that we already have to try to uh make things right that's right it was masterful what you were trying to do and I I can say and I think everyone of around this horseshoe look at 16 16 years plus we see what you're talking about the pay increas is nothing compared to everybody else's is and not to get not to get on my soap box but quite literally everybody that was funded by the state budget whether it was do or state troopers or you know any anybody else that was funded with that got a 4% pay increase except our veteran teachers so years's 15 plus teachers are are the the only ones in that whole budget that didn't get a 4% uh pay increase out of all

173state employees not just teachers all state employees out of the whole 625 page St and for us that is half our teachers almost half yeah yes that's right yeah I think our average uh teacher step is like Step 13 so almost half of our teachers uh only got from the state only got a 2% now we've been able to add more to that from local funds and uh which you will see here on the screen but it doesn't you know we don't have enough local funds to offset the millions of dollars that could come from the state so next to this I included this in in here it's not a true pay amount is a retention bonus amount that's the 7.4 million that we mentioned earlier the minimum amount of pay for teachers this year

174is $150 a month or $1,500 per year and so then you see the total pay column next to that that includes the retention bonus and then next to that is the 2024 uh pay amount with a step increase so that includes getting a step from the previous year which is already kind of built into the the uh you know already built into the scale so there's some debate about should you advertise you know the step increase or not because it's already there it's not really a a new uh pay increase but just to be consistent with what the state uh has advertised that's included here so our our other schedules are very similar to this you know you've got the bachelor's degree national board your master's degree schedule and so on uh so but if

175we go forward uh to uh page eight which is our occupational and physical therapist uh schedule uh these employees are paid from a non-certified code and so their whole their salary is built into one code so you don't see the supplements separated out like you do for certified employees or for teachers and so that's just one of the rules with the state of what we're allowed to do and so we're able to put the local bonuses or excuse me not local bonus but the local supplement built into the salary itself and so that's what you see there so that so like for year zero occupational and physical therapist that includes the U increase in local supplement it also includes that $500 per year supplement as well so that's buil in if we go to the

176next page there we look at the uh assistant principal schedule I did not include the uh the retention bonus in this list just because we didn't have enough room on the page it's hard enough to read as it is but that just goes down and shows the different uh supplement amounts as it's broken down between Elementary uh on the left side of the screen middle in the middle and high on the right and so they also received uh the $500 per year $50 per month uh local supplement and they also have a um additional local supplement as well which is 14 and half% for uh 15 and a half% for middle and 16 and a half% for high school I'm talking fast to out of respect for your time but if you have any questions

177or any comments feel free to jump in at any point looking at the state principal schedule on page 10 this is a 4% increase for principles as part of the state salary schedule so they they just took the you know if you recall from the uh from years past they've gone to a performance-based pay scale for principles where if you don't meet growth or if you're a new principal you start out uh on the far left with in the B column if you meet growth you're in the G column and if you exceed growth uh you are in the E column there as well one thing on the next slide which will be impossible to read by itself unless you have much better glasses than I have this is our new local principal supplement schedule

178so before you it was kind of a a one pager but then it had a a lot of different components to it had a floor that were base pay built into it which was a bit outdated I think the old schedule that that this one replaced was in place at least 10 years or more I think is the from what I understand so um so yeah this is the first update uh working with HR and uh principles including the principal advisory committee you know they put a lot of time into this as well and uh we just uh built this over the last six months or so so this is the additional funding that we received from the County Commissioners as part of our funding request for this past year or excuse me for this

179current year and so this schedule here while it's a bit hard to read on the screen uh the hope is that it's a little bit more clear uh whenever you uh principles or or decide in you know whether to come to Johnston County Schools or to remain with Johnston County Schools because the the goal is to be a lot more competitive with uh some of our neighbors and and and our to have a little bit better schedule than what we've had in the past this is actually the last group that we have uh to finally get the schedules in place you know we've moved uh teachers up with a percentage increase and we've mve assistant principles and we've finally been able to get uh principles on board as well Mr Brett yes ma'am do we

180have any elementary schools that are over a thousand students right now we have let's see that for Forex Elementary yeah yeah so we actually do yeah they're really close oh and I should mention too one of the positive things with this new state budget is that Elementary School principles will now get credit uh for uh preschool students at their at their school so in in years past yes on or on the on the local schedule and on the State schedule so they're actually going to get credit for those students so it might actually put them above a thousand students so so moving forward is's any questions on the principal schedule before we move on moving on to page 12 uh for supplements and Longevity so again this is uh looking at certified supplements AP supplements

181that we already talked about uh if you scroll down on the page uh you can see our low wealth supplement where we talk about the dollars that are it for it it is funded for both this current fiscal year and for next fiscal year so it is recurring funding so that is locked into place for at least these two years but it's not to my extent understanding is not codified in the law uh to where it would be reoccurring year after year so hopefully we can get get that um put in place uh underneath that a couple years ago we implemented the school nutrition uh assistant the TA and bus driver supplement so this helps our hourly employees uh when we have basically snow days or inclement weather days uh this is a $400 supplement

182uh that helps them with cash flow because when we close school for the year or excuse me not for here but for today uh you know uh our hourly employees lose money they lose pay for that time even if we make those days up later it come it gets uh folks into a cash flow issue because they were expecting a certain level of pay this month and it doesn't help them now that the uh you know the work days are now in April instead of January and so what happens is we pay this um we pay every time that there's a snow day or inclement weather day we pay $100 to all of our our hourly employee staff that's listed here up to two four days per year and so that helps smooth that transition

183if we get lucky and we have a year to where where there's not any inclement weather days or snow days then we pay the $400 out at the end of the year so to get it staff gets it either way so on the next page is our coaching supplement schedule there and is broken down by range and steps as you can see there moving on to page 14 which is our instructional assistant dual roll and Driver only scale so this is the only scale that isn't changing uh with the new uh budget if you recall uh the board gave us permission to basically upfront uh pay increases from the state for all our bus drivers and and dual R employees so we didn't have to wait for State funding in that regard and we could

184go ahead and start recruiting and advertising these new scales uh so these actually will not change this is the same thing that You' saw last year but it's a minimum the I think the minimum pay increase in this scale was like 4.25% and it goes up to like 177% over what was being paid last year so if we move to the uh the next page page 15 uh this is our beginning uh salary schedules so if you start with 54 and and work our way from there this is part of the $16 hour minimum pay for our uh full-time permanent staff here so it's not a ideal schedule um but it's certainly better than what we've had in years past uh so it does not escalate that one one downside to it if you look

185at the the range and and the climb from from year to year it it just does not climb like we would want it to but the challenge with it is if you look at 55 uh that is is our school nutrition assistance 56 is where our custodians start so they're going to get a minimum of a dollar per hour increase or about six point something percent pay increase so more than what the the state was doing but the downside is it it kind of compresses our schedule and not in a good way and so like if you know if you look at how our beginning pay at Step Zero is $16 now all the way up till you get to 59 and really it's only 16 to at that point and so it's not not

186a great schedule but unfortunately what happens is let's say we were to bump 55 so that it was a higher amount than 54 and then that would cause us to have to bump 56 higher than that and so on and so forth all the way through our scales and it quickly ends up being millions of dollars and so we're already put we're already putting in quite a bit more money so it's not an ideal scale but it does move staff you know ahead of of where we were and in addition to what the state has been able to do and so and one thing to keep in mind too is when you look at this scale this is in addition to what the what the state does so if you get you might only get

187a you know 25 cent per hour off of your step increase but you also get a state increase on top of that so it it adds to and it compounds to that and if we look through some of the other scales here uh then you get into the U to the salar scales and they they're much the same thing finally we have a 30 step schedule here where there's a step increase every year may not be a significant increase uh and in some cases is a very small increase but at least we have a scale now it's not 54 steps long with no increases at all and this uh kind of repeats all the way through our schedule and and if we move to the last page page 21 uh we get into some of

188our other notes in here so um looking at our substitute teachers to implement the pay increases there we're looking at a moving up to $125 a day for non-certified and $145 a day for certified which is a substantial uh increase over the last uh three years or four years that that we've been raising raising these uh substitute rates there and that in a nutshell is our salary schedules for this year I got a quick question well for you uh Stephen on the um this is just for clarification for me because I'm I'm not aware uh on the supplement the coaching supplement schedule um I see it's for athletics is there anything that we do for Fine Arts or band that put just a as much time in as coaches there I don't want to tell

189you something wrong but I I can't recall right off top of my head there I know we have I I don't want to tell you the wrong thing I I'll research that and and get back to you on that y yes sir this is an action item I'll entertain a motion so move a motion by Mr Wooten second by Mr Donovan any other discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor of the this salary scheduled please indicate indicate by saying I I I any opposed thank you Mr Brit Dr Pierce good evening board members Dr bracie uh two quick items first one is the town of Clayton is requesting a three-year mou uh for their fourth of July celebration uh we have added since the last time you re reviewed this

190a termination clause and so it's brought to you for approval this is an action item I'll entertain a motion so Move Motion by Mr Donovan do I have a second second second by Mr Wooten any discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor this mou please indicate by saying I I any opposed okay and the last item is three easements for the town of Clayton uh one is the greenway easement on 490 Guy Road another one is an access easement on 490 Guy Road and then the last is an actual um utility easement on 490 Guy Road and uh those are presented for approval this is an action item I'll entertain a motion motion motion by Mr Mr Carol do I have a second second second by Mr Wooten any discussion

191I was looking at this and the the map is not constructed very clearly um it has an inset map and an outer map it looks like the only one that I have a real question on is the utility easement there's two proposed temporary construction easements and then proposed permanent utility easement are those on the boundary it looks like they maybe just on the boundary and just slightly come in on the property is that correct yes the way they walked it with us yes ma'am any other questions Miss Antoine did that answer your question okay um hearing none I'll call for a vote all those in favor please indicate by saying I I opposed okay 70 thank thank you at this point I'll entertain a motion to go back into close session to complete our business

192um pursuant to does he need to read that again I just to pursue it to the same reasons that we met before so I'll entertain a motion you don't need read a Move Motion by Mr Wooten second second by Miss Antoine all those in favor please indicate by saying I I we'll go back into we're now back in close session okay welcome back to open session we have a couple of items to um vote on okay um we're going to go ahead and vote on the closed session minutes of the September 12th meeting I would entertain a motion to approve so move Mo motion by Mr Wooten second by Mr Carroll any discussion hearing none I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the September 12th 2023 close session meetings please indicate

193by saying I I any opposed our next order of business is to approve the Personnel the Personnel report um which was discussed in closed session I'll entertain a motion motion by Mr Carroll second by Mr Donovan any discussion hearing none I'll call the vote all those in favor of approving the Personnel report and that was discussed in Clos session please indicate by saying I I I 70 thank you hearing no other business before the I entertain a motion by Mr Carrol second by Mr Donovan all those in favor say I I we're Jour thank you