001Almighty God, thank you for your love and your kindness and your common grace that we all enjoy each and every day. I ask that you strengthen our hands for the work set before us today that we may conduct our business with wisdom and courage. I pray for your wisdom and protection be given to our leaders and our country uh nationally, statewide, and here locally as well. And I pray that all that we would do tonight would be pleasing in your sight. Amen. You would please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Salute. Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Miss Merrick Wilson, our executive director of communications, will call roll establish. Alan Park
002here. Rex Blair here. Amy Ty here. Shelley Shaw here. Jeremy Vice here. Forum has been established. At this point, I'd like to welcome Mr. Jeremy Vice to the first official school board meeting. Glad to have you a board. Thank you. Glad to be here. All right. Very good. All right. Board members, you have the agenda for tonight's meeting before you. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? So, do I have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? None opposed? The agenda is approved. All right. Next item on our list is the approval of the board minutes for uh May 2025 a special called meeting and the May 21st 25 regular meeting. Do you have that before you guys? Do I have a motion to approve those minutes? Do I have a second?
003Second. All in favor? Opposed? The approve the agenda is approved. Okay. Dr. Max. Thank you, Mr. President. Next, we have our consent agenda. I recommend the approval of the consent agenda which includes personnel actions, obsolete items, capitalized assets, obsolete items for non- capitalized assets, behavior age required work days for 2526 and contracts. Very good. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as recommended by the superintendent? Do I have a second? Second. All right. on these items. We have any questions from the board? Seeing there are none. All in favor? Opposed? None. The consent agenda is approved. Thank you, Mr. President. Board. Business actions. Our business actions are next on the agenda. I'll ask our CSFO Melinda Buck to provide us an over. Thank you very much and good evening. Included in your
004packet is a summary of general purpose financial statements for the month ending April 30th, 2025. For FY25, 81.4% of the budget revenue has been received for the month ending April 30th, 2025. City Schools receives the majority of the revenue generated with the room taxes receipts from October through March. And as we slide into the summer, those tax receipts begin to decline. The results of operating represent operations represent seven months of activity. Accordingly, we would anticipate spending approximately 58.3% of the budget for reoccurring expenditures. At this time, general fund expenditures are 57.9% of the budget for the seven months of activity. The current month's reserve is 12.13 months. In April, we continue to make payments related to multiple roof projects, locker room renovations at Spain Park High School, elevator modernization project at Fox Gap, Hoover High
005School Theater renovations, and the Blood Park module building projects, special revenue expenditures for seven months of activity or 17.4 million dollars and 75% of the budget. The majority of federal funds are expensed during the school year and and requests for reimbursements occur a month in the readers. Uh for FY25, the cash dispersements were 4,964,35310 and for May 25 payroll was $14,153,3274. All right. Thank you, Miss Buck. Are there any questions from the board? Seeing that there are none, do I have a motion to approve the business actions? Do I have a second? Second. All right, I have a motion to second. All in favor? I business action items are approved. Mr. President, thank you for all right. So, superintendent uh information reports. Uh first, I would like to ask Dr. allow the chief administrative officer
006to come forward uh to introduce changes and highlight any areas that are changing in the 2526 code. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Maddox. You have a graph of our code of conduct that's in front of you. Um majority of the changes had to do with consistency and simplicity, but I do want to point out things that were uh what we would consider to be larger scale changes. um point 4.15 the discipline process that clause has been added to three different sections in our code of conduct which talks about appropriate alternative placement days for students registering from another school district shall be determined by multiple factors. You can see the rest of that there. What that does is it has to do with when students are coming into our school system that have multiple disciplinary actions
007outside of our school system places our our students our Hooper students at a little bit of a disadvantage when we talk about sequencing discipline action. So that's what that is kind of level leveling the playing field. Uh when we look at 4.16 that has to do with crossroads placement um you see a a phrase down there at the bottom that comes from the Alabama code. Um, and what that has to do with when we have students that have drug or alcohol offenses, weapon offenses, physical harm to students, when they come into our school system, that allows us to go ahead and put some cautionary type things in place. Um, that is part of that act. So, that's really a copy and paste from the law. If we look at 6.2, this is a a new
008addition to our code of conduct. What this has to do with the unauthorized recording and or sharing of inappropriate actions. This has to do and we're going to talk about some other things in a minute, but people recording actions that are taking place. And really easy one to think about is a fight. A fight's recorded. It's put on social media or all different kinds of outlets are shared. So this is making that a class two infraction. So that allows us to go ahead and deal with that situation as disciplinary infraction. 4.2 is one of my favorites. This has to do with attendance. They told me I'd put my eracks away. You no longer have to have parent notes written on a piece of paper and a picture taken of it. We uh the technology department
009has introduced parent square. It is a secure login for parents and that will allow parents to go ahead and submit parent notes without that required signature from the parent because they are using a secure login. um we still will need them to do doctor's notes the same way they do, but there's there's a vehicle for that. So, that's been modified as well. And then the last change um 17.25 um has to do with Taylor's law. Dr. Maddox has requested that we be more explicit about Taylor's law. What that is is a punitive point system for kids that get in trouble in school and it prevents them from getting their driver's license at the the time that they're expecting or their learner permit the time that we're that they're that it's expected. Uh in in the
010past that gets calculated and valid by the state and then the family goes, "Oh, it's your, you know, 16th birthday. Let's go do it." Then they get there and then it kind of hits the face and they didn't realize. So, we're being much more explicit in middle schools about this. And you see that law that's in there um on 17.25. We're being more explicit and more intentional about making sure parents are aware of that and students are aware of that starting in middle school. And Dr. Lowry, correct me if I'm wrong, but um this information I mean this isn't something we're managing, right? This is something that Aaliyah is managing. They're pulling this data from the state department and then and then they're enforcing it on their end. It's not something that we're technically reporting
011to them. That's correct. Accurate. That's correct. So, as far as our code of conduct, those are our immediate changes that we have at this point. Can I ask one other question to your one of your earlier points? Um, and and one of the one of the reasons that we're making a change in the code of conduct. So, it is technically possible for a student to come to Hoover from outside, enroll at Spain Park, Dr. Esinger, um be and go to class, have a schedule, go to class, and you be completely unaware of that student's previous discipline in the school from which they came. Is that accurate? That that is correct. Okay. because because that is not that is not a required part of the record. So we ask for it as part of registration, but
012we're not guaranteed that we're going to receive it. So part of this has to do with the fact that if if that happens, we can you know once we find out about those uh you know previous incidents, we can we can circle back to the student and then enforce discipline if there's any pending and enforce it here in Hoover. So that has happened multiple times in the last year and so you know hopefully maybe legislatively at some point that can be addressed but as of right now it's not required. So we depend on the parents providing it to us. We ask them questions about it. The administrators try to do the best job they can do to ascertain, you know, what we're working with, but sometimes we're just not given uh all of the information.
013Well, you think with the uh like the information for Taylor's law, the state education department has that, right? Um they should also potentially have a database for disciplinary actions throughout the schools, somewhat similar setup where everybody has access to see it. So you don't have to call XYZ high school and hope that somebody there isn't going to be cooperative. Exactly. And we are we are dealing with that right now. Kelly Lane has been helpful on the technology side of it. The CIS is capable of of producing those records and pushing it through from one school system to another school system. But there are some concerns at the state level and those are some things that we're working on addressing because that is creating a safety issue in school. And while we do request those records
014of the school itself, sometimes it may take a long time for them to come. We're we've got some some pieces in place that are going to be taking place for this next school year which is in a little relation to due to Hoover that we've discussed in the past of resources that those school registars can utilize to get those records and and put some people in place that can go ahead and go get those records. So Dr. Elinger requested the principal of whatever high school to provide that information. They're legally required to, correct? They are supposed to. This an educational record, but we we hear lots of reasons why that may not happen. Okay. Yes. Uh do you mind updating the board on where we are with the new cell phone law? Okay. Um in
015your packet, you've got a paper clip packet that talks about the cell phone law. What these are is this is a sample policy from the Alabama Association of School Boards. Um this is uh what they have drafted as a usable policy and what we are doing is we are trying to pull our community in and u some other stakeholders. Next week I'm holding a meeting with uh school administrators on what this cell phone bill will look like. also holding a meeting after that with some SGA high school SGA students and other students that the schools are recommending because we want to get their take on, you know, what does it look like, what kind of messaging do you want, what kind of messaging would be beneficial to you. And then on Wednesday, I'm pulling in
016some PTO and HBTC folks to have that same kind of conversation. There are some non-negotiables with this law and this is not a a Hoover issue. This is a state law that we're responding to. So I'm going to make sure those groups know what those absolutes are and then work within that area that we can work within. And when I say work within that area, we have to outline consequences and that's going to come from these focus groups as well. And we need to outline what storage means of person. So does that mean a lock? Does that mean a car? Does that mean backpack classroom? So there's some components with that. We'll also talk about a little bit of the uh the exceptions. At the end of the day, the act is put into place
017to design a better learning environment. And what we want to do is try to help our families and our and our stakeholders understand and see that there is some positive components to this instead of my kids or something, right? Because it's larger than that, right? And a timeline to finish that and then start communicating to our stakeholders. So that piece will be done on Wednesday of next week. We'll compile all of that information. Hopefully have some some sort of structure with that. I would imagine by the end of June, we would have something and we have an educational campaign that we're going to be launching in July that we'll be involved with students and be involved with parents. Um and that will also be coming out of these these next week. I have a question.
018So the this right here is sample policies. Are these the things that the state is telling us we should include, we have to include in our own policy? This is the the policy based on the law that the school will So these are the non-negotiables, right? Yes. Yes. And the reason why there is a and I failed to mention there's a second strand of this focus act. The first one that everybody's really fixated on is the cell phone use and wearables and things of that nature. But the last page in that package says internet safety and use of technology. That's another piece of it has to do with ways to and social media ways we need to protect our kids. I've been working with Kelly Le on that. We're we're really there already. And at
019the bottom you'll see we're we're mentioning changing words like we have in our in our policy in our code of conduct and and the technology use the word inappropriate. and the state wants us to we want to match it to be more state which is age appropriate. So very very minor little tweaks. So we're in a really good place with that technologies we mastered that well before we ever I'd also say when you start talking about with the other folks you know you have the exceptions if it's used in the classroom you didn't say that that's how I'm taking I think that level of permission should be somewhere high within the the the school otherwise you're going to have somebody making a call without come on maybe the principal I'd have actually be okay with
020the principal or hire until we get this thing under control otherwise it's going to splinter off Each school is going to have their own. Well, I gave this person authority to make that decision. I almost feel like we should pull that up, but y'all should pull that up at a high enough level where no one gets to delegate. It has to be made by that person all along. I hear you and I agree. I think that's a fantastic idea and that will be part of the administrative uh discussion that we have on two. We'd rather start super strict and over time kind of see how it plays out. There there's a component of this law that has a survey. It's done by all certified teachers and those certified teachers are reporting and we haven't seen
021the survey yet supposed to be developed by the state department in October and we have to get that survey at the end of the year. That survey goes to the principal then comes to super then super submits it to the state and they're going to publish that on the website. Now are we publishing numbers? Are we publishing districts? Republic and say this all those are things that we don't know yet but those are things that we are going to make sure that everybody is aware of which I think will drive a little bit of intentionality into your point of who makes that decision. I think one of the things we uh Dr. E you'll appreciate we actually looked at your party policy at Spain Park uh and the way that that's enforced and and the
022the discipline progression of it. Um, and I think, you know, and I may have me mentioned this to you guys, one of the most difficult and challenging things about this is creating districtwide consistency and enforcement. That is the most difficult thing to defend. And that's the thing we're going to hear from with parents is if they feel like we're not consistently enforcing it across classrooms, hallways, schools, and the district. And so that's going to take a lot of work. and then finding, you know, where are the gray areas if we have them, identifying them, for example, uh on the bus coming to school. Um, and if you say, well, you can't have cell phones, you can't use them on the bus coming to school, then you have to have a mechanism to enforce it. And
023that would it would be difficult for that mechanism to be the bus driver when his back is to all of the students. So finding, you know, maybe defining that instructional day and figuring that out. But then um um Mr. Pette's going to call and say, "Well, what happens, you know, if Ryan is traveling to RC3 from Spain Park on a bus?" He's not in class. He's on a bus. Um but if he drove to RC3 or rode with someone, he could he could use his phone. But because he's on a bus, he can't. It's just all of those little things have to be worked out ahead of time. so that we can be consistent and and then the progression as I referenced with the tardy policy what happens the first time the fourth the ninth
024if there is such it has to be progressive and disciplined and we talked about yesterday you know the discussion is is there a point where it resets starts over in the school year we do have some scenarios where that happens now maybe with some class twos but um you know that's a piece of it as well because it can get fairly significant with consequences down the road. And then then there's the whole idea of, you know, do we take possession of devices? And then that's a whole different category of challenges. You know, how do you how do you catalog them? Where do you store them? How can you ensure that, you know, they're in the same condition when they returned as they were when they were taken? It's it's those kinds of things that that
025have to be worked out ahead of time. I would assume we're not going to enforce it on the buses. The way the law reads is instructional time. So, but it does give the LEA the opportunity to expand beyond that, just not shorten that, right? And I think that's going to be a really good important conversation. Uh, I want the driver focused on the road on his phone. I don't want the teacher on the bus or something. [Music] Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Lowry? Right. So, so the the code of conduct will sit for 30 days and then we'll come back in July and ask you to approve the code of conduct and the only addition should be the consequences, the progressive consequences that we come up with that will be added later in
026June. We will put those on the website and make sure they're available for everyone to view u so there won't be any surprises. And then our communication campaign in the month of July, we will be very clear about what we expect. But but another component I want you to know, we also want it to be educational uh in nature. So we can share some research with parents and um the anxious generation, you know, we're familiar with that book and just, you know, kind of supporting the law with with research and other information other than saying these are the consequences if this happens, but kind of helping having the parents help us help students and that's really what we need. It's a partnership. So we need everyone. So just real quick clarification back to kind of
027Amy's question. Is this what you're saying is your first draft that we would be that 30 days from now we could be signing off on or because you said the the consequences part would be a change I think. So so this is more this this will be reflected more of a of a board policy right and we will have to adopt a board policy. There's debate right now about whether the consequences have to be in our board policy or not. What we're trying to do is develop the consequences for the code of conduct. So I view these things as completely separate items right now. But so portions of it being added the whole thing gets added to recommendation was to put that in their head. I I would encourage all of us to read the
028entire code of conduct to us there sometime between now the next board meeting. If you have comments or concerns or anything, shoot them in their direction. let them chew on it a little bit. So, awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ler. I appreciate it. All right. I don't have any public comments. You got more? Yeah. I'm sorry. I know it's not on yours. I' I'd like to ask Matt Wilson, our director of operations, to come forward and provide the board with an update on our summer capital projects. Well, they're all in their way. about 30 right now. Um so we're doing a lot a lot of project about 32 in Q either in design or if you want to work through contractually now we get completed by the summer. Um we're briefly we're working on
029rock module project that's in design and provision now a very athletic restroom project that is underway and on schedule. We are also upgrading a lot of the elevators throughout the district because we have wise project going on as well. Office lighting is underway. Uh Hoover the Hoover renovation that is just contracting now and that'll start probably next month. We also have clean phase three renovation. Two park lots, one in Green Valley, one in RC3. We have RC3 on This should finish up first, second week in July. They're down to the point where they're starting to install lifts a lot of equipment. So that's pretty short there. We got two playgrounds, one in Gwen, one at Shville. We're doing bowler replacements at Brock Scout and Park. And then we got a host of rooms. Of course,
030we got four rooms going on. One's delayed because of fasteners which is we're going to change our middle school which get later this month. We'll solve that. That's a two-year problem. They think that they can still do what they originally plan next year. We also have park locker rooms going on right now. That's ongoing. No delays on that. Haven't even seen a change order yet. I got a couple built into contingency to see how good they and I'm also working on football at Stan Park as well as softball at park and baseball. So we got a lot going on on top of what we do internally. We got a lot of internal projects. I say departmentally we're doing about 130 projects this summer within the department. So it's a busy song for us. The the
031only real delay I've seen is Bruce because so I'm just curious. I had a question in terms of which ones are behind schedule as I read through here. That's not super clear. Now the only ones that are a little behind schedule nothing else. Um we got I'm sorry lighting a little behind schedule rain. They had a ground drive outside everything else. Is it about rain? Rainfall. We've had some rain. Rain is the cause of delays. The RC get those. What brand is that? It's shingle. It's a shalting. But everything else is on schedule. And I think the football lights will approve. We'll open those bids on July 2nd. last July. [Music] Complete by June. We're busy. Any questions for members? The um modules or I don't recall the extra classrooms. Any concern about those being?
032I do have some concerns. We're working through some requirements of DCM loan. We've already got the lease the building worked out with the module mini modular and now the bid is on the street. We did a pre meeting for Thursday contractors about the installation. We might have to slide that bid till the end of the month working out to the details but we should be our goal is to get the doors open. At this point, it's still possible. Well, Matt, thank you so much. I was talking with Matt earlier today, and he jokingly said, "Yeah, when I when I first came here and took the job, I thought the summers were just kind of laidback and and uh uneventful. I was wrong." He was wrong. We appreciate all the work that you and your team
033do. We know the summertime is hectic. I can't do everything in the summertime, but it's nice to be able to knock out as many projects as we can. It's also nice to know that we have contractors that are that are on schedule because that's a big big deal. I know Dr. Eslinger has been attending the OAC meetings and if there were concerns, I would know about them. So, you have a hard hat. I'm sure I'm sure you guys all that have time since starting after so there's an incentive for them to finish on that. Good deal. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, uh board members just wanted to follow up. Um, you know, it's it's been a minute, but graduations were a few weeks ago, and it was uh it was a fantastic night
034at Barto and at Sanford Hoover in Spain Park. Um, I didn't didn't have a chance to see both last year because my own daughter was graduating. So, I didn't I didn't have an opportunity to see who was graduating. But, uh, to see the culmination of all the work that those students and our staff members put in and parents poured into them over all those years to see all those smiles and happy faces um, really validates the work that that that all of us do each day. So, I always enjoy graduation and uh, all the events related to it. But it's it's definitely a check off moment for principles. I know when graduation occurs. So Dr. E, you're our only high school principal in the room. So thank you for all of your all of your
035hard work. Um so next year, speaking of graduation, next year's graduation for Hoover High will be a little bit different. Uh next year's graduation is May the 20th. So we flip-flopped the two schools. This year Hoover High School went earlier. Spain Park went later. Uh, Hoover High had prom on Saturday night. Spain prom Spain Park had prom on Friday night. So, we flip both of those each year. So, uh, this year, Hoover will have prom on Friday, Spain Park on Saturday, and then in terms of graduation, Spain Park will graduate earlier. We haven't set the time yet on May the 20th. Hoover will graduate later around 6:30ish, but Hoover's graduation will have to be held at the ship, which is Hoover High School's uh onampus football facility. Uh so it will be an outside graduation
036because Barto Arena is being renovated. Um the graduation for Hoopa will return back to Barto in May of 2027. So, um, that that's kind of a curveball next year, but those things happen. Sanford isn't large enough for Hoover to have graduation there, and we're really limited in in terms of having it in other places. So, um, I guess we've had it there before outside, and hopefully the weather will cooperate, and we'll be able to to pull that off again. We are in summer mode. So, we're all running and u everyone we have we have professional development going on. We have conferences. We have HR's continuing to to interview and make recommendations for hiring to try to fill positions um as they turn over. Um we we just have lots going on in the summertime. It's
037a busy time. Um but it it's also fun to prepare for the next school year. Um, and that's what we're what we're doing right now. Um, Mr. Vice, so excited to have you on the board. Had an opportunity to go through orientation with you. um you may be more confused now than you were when you came after that, but um it's a lot to absorb, but with your experience on the park board, uh I know you're going to be a great fit for this board and just really thankful and delighted to have you uh serve in this capacity um for the big fat salary of nothing, which is which is big, but uh all right, Mr. President, with that, I'll yield back to you. All right. Thank you. Well, I don't have any public comments
038tonight as no one has signed up. So, we'll just go straight to board comments. And uh Mr. Vice, since you're on that end, we're going to let you go first. If you want to share anything or it's our time, we get to brag on the school district, something we might have been able to experience or we've noticed. Uh or we just, you know, wave and smile and do all that. So, I'll let you go first. Just just a quick comment. Um just from a personal perspective um it has been a lot to uh meet with and take in so much information in a short period of time that I have been so impressed with everyone that I've come in contact with. Um and so I appreciate uh all of the leadership u in the system
039and just the uh welcoming stance to sit down to invest time in and meeting with me and sharing information. So, I've always been impressed with every interaction that I've had, but this has just reinforced that over the last few weeks. So, thank you to everyone who's carved out time and spent time with me. Hi, Michelle. Welcome. Glad you're here. I moved up a seat, so um actually I'm just thrilled that we're here in summer and there's so much happening. Mr. Wilson, thank you for the report. Um, that's a lot. And uh, I I I started looking at RC3 and thinking that might be kind of nice to drop by and see what you were talking about, how it's getting ready, the automotive waiting for. Um, anyway, thank you for working on these projects. Um, the
040students are going to really benefit. Thank you. Thank you. I have to say you're welcome. And I griped earlier about my chair moving. I don't like to not know things in me, but I like this. If I can get the camera on you, send it on. Uh, so Jeremy, welcome. Thrilled to have you on the board. Can't wait to get you spun up and dive in. Lots of stuff to cover. And I think what's great about this board is our background. that we have each other maybe some areas we're not too strong in but our communication and just working together is great uh you know the summers people think you know you said Matt it's going to be easy I happen to know there's always something going on at the schools whether it's football practice
041or uh it's summer school or you know health or whatever it is so u just appreciate all the dedication it takes to keep all that stuff going month so excited for the upcoming year but also glad I'm sure a lot of people are taking deep breaths and trying to And Matt, there's some things here that need to be done. You have no idea what he's talking about, right? Well, and I may be talking more. All right. He likes the pressure. Couple things. Um, I did sit through the orientation with Mr. advice and one thing I walked away from there was as our chiefs and our different directors uh walk through what their department does, what they do, all those things. Um I left that day with two things. Number one, I felt like we I
042always thought we had good people. I left that day feeling like we had great people, but even more important is we got great processes. um how we get things done, how we handle problems, how we respond to crisis in all these different areas, our processes are really, really good. Um and that for us on the board, it just takes, you know, we don't have to worry. Uh when you got good people and good processes, you know, we just get to celebrate what y'all are doing all the time. Um the other thing is I talked to Miss Buck before the meeting. uh the lifeblood of our school system really is the funding that is required to do all the great things that we do. You know, that's going to be a hot button politically, I think,
043coming up by August. But also, one of the things I'd like to do at some point if we get everybody's cooperation and do a work session where we talk about all these different sources of income when they come in, what they can and cannot be used for, where they go, where they come from, all of that. Uh it it's complicated. four years on the board starting in fifth year. I still don't have a very good handle on it. Um you know, I know it'll be a day of acronyms and uh that we'll get used to, but it's just something hopefully maybe even after school starts back next year. You all got a lot to do this summer and kicking off in August uh let the dust settle and do that thing. So I I would
044just for me I definitely I need constant supervision and education. All right. If there's no other you got anything else you want to share? All right. Well, our next regular board meeting will be July 8th right here in this room at 5:30. Uh being there's no further business, we are ajourned.