0018 is now in session. If you so choose, would you bow your head with me for the invocation? Dear God, we come in your presence to seek guidance and your wisdom as we conduct the business before each of us tonight. Grant us pleased wisdom, courage to always do what is right in your sight. We thank you for the work before us. We thank you for the leadership, the teachers, and the staff in our district and all those that we come in contact with and get to interact with. Amen. All right. If you would please stand for the pledge. The pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Call on recording secretary Miss
002Neville to establish the role. Rex Blair here. Shel here. Jeremy Vice here. Have a board members. You have the agenda for this evening's meeting before you. Do I have a motion to approve uh the agenda to adopt the agenda? Do I have a second? All in favor? I any opposed? All right. The agenda is approved. You also have the meeting minutes from the June 10th uh regular meeting before you. Do I have a motion to approve these minutes? Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. The minutes are approved. Dr. Maddox. Thank you, Mr. President. Next, we have our consent agenda, which includes personnel actions, obsolete items, capitalized assets, and contracts. All right. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent?
003Do I have a second? Second. All right. At this point, are there any questions from the board? Okay. I have a motion to second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. The consent agenda is approved. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, board. Our business action items are next on the agenda. I'll ask our new CSFO, Melinda Buck, uh, to come up and provide an overview. Good evening, board. In your packet is a summary of general purpose financial statements for the month ending May 31st, 2025. River City Schools has received 86% of its budgeted revenue for fiscal year 2025. The majority of the district's airloom tax receipts are typically collected between October and March after which these collections generally decline. The result of operations represent eight months of activity accordingly. We would anticipate having having spent 67%
004of the budget of reoccurring expenditures. At this time, general fund expenditures are 66% of the budget for eight months of activity. The current month's reserve is at 11.79 months. This two will decrease as a tax collections decline for the remainder of the fiscal year. In May, we made payments related to the elevator modernization project at Simmons Middle School, Frost Gap Intermediate School, and Deer Valley Elementary School. Locker room renovations at Spain Park High School. Parking lot expansions at the Career Connection Center, RC3, and Green Valley Elementary School and Green Valley Elementary School. Phase three of the mechanical um renovations at Quinn Elementary School, and the purchase of the new operations building. Special revenue fund expenditures for eight months of activity were 14.4 million or 64% of the budget. The majority of federal funds are expensed
005during the school year and request are reimbursed accordingly in the months. So the cash dispersement um for this month of May was 8,525,294.90 [Music] and the payroll for June 2025 was 13,92674 13,92,67483. All right. Any questions from the board? Miss B. Seeing there are none, do I have a motion to approve the business actions? All right. Do I have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. The business actions are approved. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Miss B. Thank you, board. The next item on the agenda is a request for proposal for ice cream products. I recommend awarding the RFP to ice cream warehouse. Ice Cream Warehouse received a perfect weighted score during the evaluation process. Two vendors were invited to participate in both submitted responses. The proposed contract term is
006one year with the option to extend for up to four additional one-year periods. Okay. Do I have a motion to award the request for proposal for ice cream products to ice cream warehouse as recommended by Dr. Maddox? samples. I don't think they can approve this. All right. Do I do I have a motion? Do I have a second? All right. Uh, any other questions about this from the board? All right. I have a motion to second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. The motion is approved. Dr. Maddox. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, board. I'd like to ask Matt Wilson, director of operations, uh, to please come forward. Next, we have a bid for Hoover High School baseball lighting, Spain Park High School softball and football lighting. I recommend awarding the bid to Armstrong electrical
007contractors for $241,992.90. [Music] This amount includes a $30,000 contingency allowance. As a reminder, the combined cost of the lights, which were purchased by Hoover City Schools, was $632,900, architectural fees of $61,24246. and the installation bid remain within a total project budget of 990,000 with a total project cost of 936,13466. The cost of this project will be funded through our reserves. Excellent. Good deal. Do I have a motion to award the Hoover High School baseball lighting and the Spain Park High School softball and football lighting to Armstrong electrical contractors? Let me do I have a second? Second. All right. Any questions from the board? Matt, any idea on the time frame for installation on these different projects? So, the softball at Spain Park and baseball high will be in the fall somewhere around late September, early
008October completed before January. That's the current tendency schedule based on how we have now. That would be refined to be close to um the football lights. They're ready. They contract contract I'm shipping them to and they're plans to have them installed completely. [Music] Luckily, some of you might know he works for electric he's a very big fan of Spain park. So we know that's interested tomorrow. I noticed Dr. Eslinger smiling back there on that one. So we did something right. Good. And the Musco guy they work with. Jimmy. Jimmy Jumper. You don't know Jimmy jumper. And we're under budget. That's a great great thing. 60 grand under budget. All right, I have a motion and a second. Uh, all in favor? The motion is approved. Great. Mr. President, this time I would like to ask
009Dr. Bob Lowry, chief administrative officer, to come forward and highlight the code of conduct changes for the 2025 2026 school year. Thanks. Thank you, board. Um, we submitted our code of conduct to you. So you guys had some time to review that. One of the largest scale changes was including the consequence sequence when it come or schedule when it comes to cell. Um some of the other changes that we made to that were very very minor, but we talked about those as far as why are we still including in the code of conduct a recording device when we have the cell phone bill in place. Um because there could be recording devices that are not cell phone related. That's why that was stated. Um, are there any questions as far as what you have had
010for your review for the last uh 30 days? I think y'all done a pretty thorough job this I appreciate all you did all your focus groups and um you know keeping everybody informed. I appreciate that. Thank you Dr. Lowry. And yes, you and your team did a phenomenal job meeting with shareholders from our community, students and parents and teachers and administrators in an effort to try to craft the best response that we can uh in implementing um you know, not only our code of conduct but the other aspects of the focus act. So, thank you very much. Mr. President, I recommend the approval of the 2526 student code of conduct. All right. Do I have a motion to approve the 2526 code of conduct as recommended by Dr. Maddox? So, do I have a second?
011Second. I know we've already been through this, but are there any questions at this point? All right. I have a motion, a second. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. The 2526 code of conduct is approved. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, board. Uh Dr. Dr. Lowry, at this time I would ask you to introduce two policy revisions related to the focus act. Uh these will be updates to keep us in alignment with the new law. Uh we will introduce those uh today and and they will sit for 30 days and be voted on in the next 48. Thank you board. As a result of this focus act, there are two major areas that impact our policy. um policy section 6.17 has to do with electronic communication devices. Uh what you have seen is that
012the top level is stricken because it was going to be more efficient to go ahead and strike what was repealed by law. Um and what you see below is uh the sample policy that was provided by um the Alabama School Board Association. And I would note that on section D where it references storage devices, there were three changes that were made from the original conversation about this in June, which is referencing immediate person um for the cell phone storage not to be on immediate person and we also included backpack and purse. So those were the the really large ones. And then section E is referencing the code of conduct when it comes to the requirement of the code of conduct schedule. Um and then the second part of this has to do with internet safety
013and use of technology which is uh section 4.09. And in that um Kelly Lane has been super helpful in going through and making sure that this matches up with the law using words like u age appropriate rather than inappropriate in including some of the very specific language from the law. So those are the two big pieces 4.09 and 6.17. Any questions? All right. Again those are just introductions. Thank you, Dr. Lowry. We will revisit those next month. Right. We now move on to the superintendent's information reports. All right, Dr. Matt. Um board members, just wanted you to know that we have lots of things going on right now. Uh I'm meeting individually with principles. Um looking at their plans for next year. Um kicked it off today with Riverchase Elementary School and Spain Park High
014School. really enjoy having an opportunity to sit down with our principles um to talk about their their vision and plans to celebrate su successes from the previous year and it's just a great time to for all of us to get on the same page. So, I'm really looking forward to that. That keeps my schedule really busy the next two weeks. We also have um a financial retreat tomorrow with all of our administrators. Um, you know, the first time I saw that, um, I thought my daughters need to attend that session. They probably could use a little training, uh, in finance, um, because they think money only flows one way. But, um, do appreciate, uh, Melinda, your efforts and your staff to help, um, educate our staff members as much as possible in the financial arena
015and, um, to to keep us all consistently doing the same thing. So that's very important. So thank you for that. We also have our administrative retreat on Thursday and that will be held at Spain Park High School and then we have a kind of a planned extra on that later on in the day. Um so really excited about that. That's always a great time for all of our administrators in the district to get together. I think there's 80 something administrators. I don't know the exact count. Dr. Robbins and his team have done a great job planning the administrative retreat. Um it was a lot of fun last year. Um a lot of collaboration, a lot of vision casting and uh so really looking forward to that and and setting a great tone for a new
016school year and getting everyone in the right frame of mind. So looking forward to that. Lastly and most importantly, um earlier in the meeting, um you approved our personnel report and in that report uh contained um the recommendation to hire someone to lead our largest school in the district. At this time, I'm going to ask Merrick Wilson to come up and do the formal introductions. Merrick and board members, I am very excited to uh get to introduce Dr. Chrissy Sars um and welcome her back to uh our Hoover community. Dr. Sars has 32 years of experience in education. Um and she spent 14 of those years teaching at Hoover City Schools. So we're excited to have her back um in our community and welcoming her back to Hoover High School. Um when when she left
017us as a teacher, she went on to school administration. She has served as assistant principal, secondary curriculum specialist, professional development supervisor um and principal. And so for seven years, she led Oak Mountain High School as their principal where she really looked at uh raising the bar for student achievement and student curriculum. Um while she was there, she was District 5's uh principal of the year. Um, so she has just done such a wonderful job throughout her career and we're so excited to have her back in the Hoover community. Um, she retired as a um, school leader and uh, when she did, she decided that she wanted to continue to mentor uh, uh, school administrators and teachers. And so she has been doing that for the last few years and um, has just been so excited
018to have her come back and join the city. Um, so I'd like to introduce Dr. S to Thank you, board. Thank you, Dr. Maddox, and your leadership team. It is an honor to lead Hoover High School, and I want you to know that it's not lost on me what a privilege it is to join the Buck Nation. And I'm going to daily do my very best to lead and to instill in others and to model those three core principles of Hoover High School. The respect and the responsibility and the integrity because that is my job. That is something that I am passionate about and I'm so excited to be able to do that. The 14 years that Merritt mentioned, those 14 years in Hoover City Schools really did mold me into the kind of educator
019that I am today. And that's because I was surrounded by excellence every day. And it is my goal to become a a longlasting member of the Buck Nation. And I am thrilled to start that journey tomorrow at 7 o'clock a.m. and do my very best every day. And I've been told, as I was already going to do, that I should end with go Bucks. Dr. Savage, you also have someone here with you tonight. I do. I really need to thank my husband who has allowed me to come back. Wow, what a ride that's been. Um, want to take this opportunity to just really give thanks to Dr. Smith and her team. She's trying to sneak out on me right now for for all of your efforts. And and I can say this now when I
020when graduation is over, we all kind of take a collective side. And uh in my mind, I was thinking, you know, June is going to be a pretty smooth easy month, right? And then a few days later, I find out that we need to hire principal at Hoover High School. So all of a sudden, my calm, peaceful June turned into chaos. Dr. Smith has has handled every detail of of the search, the interviews, the screeners, countless hours that she has put into this effort. She and her team um to to make this happen. And I just want to publicly thank you for all of those efforts and I believe they were extremely fruitful. We are delighted to have Dr. Sers and know that it's a result of lots of hard work. So thank you so
021much for that. Uh I appreciate that. And with that, Mr. President, I yield back to you. All right. I do not have any formal request for public comments. May I speak? Yes. Yes, sir. Come forward. [Music] I apologize for not apologize for not filling a form. Sometimes as we go through this agenda, we find items that we would have spoken about had we known what what the topic was going to be. And this particular one uh relates to the code of conduct, the 2526 code of conduct. As you may know, students pre-register for the school year and one of the registration things that they do during that registration process is acknowledge that they have read the code of conduct for the following year. Well, they haven't seen this particular code of conduct. So, I would
022like to suggest that since it's been amended for the 2526 school year, and this one has some things that will impact them in a in a pretty heavy way with the with the new cell phone rules that you send out an email to the parents that so they can read and the students as well, the new code of conduct. So, although they have acknowledged they have read it, they haven't read the new. So, I I would suggest that uh that be done so that they know what they're getting into as the school year. Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's move on to board comments. Opportunity to uh talk about what we all have in mind and just we'll start at the far end with Mr. Vice. You have a comment. just that I am
023u continuing to enjoy the the journey that I'm on uh meeting the administration and looking forward to this upcoming year and getting uh plugged in even further than than I have been over the past couple of months. So, thank you for the opportunity to uh serve and uh looking forward to the school year that's coming up. Michelle, I just like to say I know a lot of work is going on in NGY for August. So, um I'm just very excited to hear about all the plans that faculty and those that are working, all the employees, all the things that are coming together for these students in August. I appreciate that and um know that this time is closed. So, thank you. Uh I would just say I'll call out Lowry the uh for the the
024cell phone communication devices uh just the policy the effort that went into to really reach out to the community schools and students teachers parents administrators. it have been so easy just to go with, hey, this is good enough and really double down to make sure you you tried to get a hold of anyone you could to get some feedback uh to give us the best foot forward on what's probably going to be a challenging uh thing to implement here. I just really really appreciate you taking us so seriously. So, you know, most people uh in life, and I'm no different, don't really like change. um whether it's the cell phone policy. Um I had an opportunity to talk to Dr. Hogan a little bit yesterday. So we have change at Hoover High School. Uh at
025some point in my life, I decided that change regardless is always good. Maybe not at the time, maybe a little painful, but when you look back at it, it's always good. I'm excited about uh a new start, a little change at Hoover High School. I'm actually excited about even this policy uh and the effect it could have on student learning and test scores and other things that I have read uh many many stories online of other states are way ahead of us on this. Um again it's going to come down to great buy in by everybody from the students to the faculty and the parents. I think we're gonna get it and I think we'll look back a year from now and we're gonna look at all these changes that we've gone through and we're
026gonna say the change was good. So, pretty exciting. All right. If there's no other business, the next regular board meeting is August 12th at 5:30 right here in this room and we are adjourned. Make your husband.