001Oh my god. You got to get some more sugars. Everyone. Heat. Heat. Oh, I told you. What is that? Good evening everybody. We're trying to let everybody get settled for a minute before we started, but we're going to go ahead and start this meeting tonight um on February 23rd, a board meeting for us. Um we appreciate all of y'all coming tonight and we're going to start with the invitation and the pledge. the room by the heads and our most gracious heavenly father, we give all the praise, glory, and honor to you on this day. We thank you, heavenly father, for bringing each and every one of us out here tonight safe and sound. And for those that are on the way, Lord, we ask that you give them safe travel and grace. Lord, we thank
002you for allowing our students to be here to represent themselves. And we just thank you for the parents for supporting them. of Lord. We thank our community for standing beside us through the thick and thin. And we ask that you continue to grace us, heavenly father, as we continue to walk the pathway for our students and for our staff and for our city, heavenly father. Lord, we just ask that you be the head of this meeting today, heavenly father, that you guide each and every one of us. We just want to say thank you, Lord. Thank you for all things to come and all things that we heavenly father have no control of. We know that you have the control of when we just ask your mercy and your grace in Jesus name. Amen. >>
003To the flag of the United States of America and the standy for all. >> Thank you father. We can move on to item three, approval of the agenda. May I have a motion for the approval of the agenda? >> Madam Chairman, I'll make a motion we approve the agenda present. Thank you. I have a second. >> Second. >> Okay. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I. All >> oppose. Nay. I have it. Item number four, approval of the minutes from January 12th, 2026. Um, can I get a motion for approval of the minutes? So move. >> May I get a second? >> I second. >> Okay. All in favor? I. >> All oppose? Nay. Eyes have it. Number five, DC norms and protocols. I'll read from decision making. Make and support decisions
004for the well-being of the students. And for our code of ethics, I'll be reading from policy development. Periodically review and evaluate the effectiveness of policies on school systems programs and performance. Next, public comment. Miss, >> yes, we have a couple. Um, first we have Miss Martin. You come up and say good afternoon to each one. Superintendent Pu and all of the board members and to all of you here. I just come really in support of our Dublin city schools. I'm a graduate of Dublin City. I graduated in 1970 before the integration. Uh I think I'm uh John Bell in that class and it was 12 of us at Dublin High School. I come to represent every student, every teacher. I just I had my own business, kids. I just had a state visit from right
005from the start and I know it takes a lot of effort. I know a lot of money is being spent. We don't know where the money is. I'm not even discussing that because I was even here when the uh solar panel went up and I had parents in my center left and they had 18 for days. They never got paid. If we don't talk about schools, let's talk about keeping our schools. Let's talk about every child that matters. Every child matters. Should matter. It shouldn't be about your child, my child. It should be about every child in this building. Every child in the city of Dublin that kind of got their issues. I I don't go to the county. My child goes to the city school. My grandchild went to My daughter graduated from Dublin
006City. My grandchild is in Dublin City. I support Dublin City. I want us to make the effort to keep our citizens. We going to spend money. Keep it and get qualified teachers. Keep it and pay the teachers that you already have. Why would you want to go out to try to do something else with money when you got all these students here that we need to take care of? This is what they told me in the meeting right from the start. child birth. It doesn't matter if you have a child that can't read in your center or they got a special need that they handicap. That child matters. That child matters. So, every student in here should matter. And we should keep them in city school. We laid out 46 teachers. Where is the uh
007uh information for us to know how much money have you cut out? We're laying off 46 students. It has impacted every teacher. You've had teachers that's good teachers that's left Dublin City. You will still have to get teachers. My granddaughter's math teacher is gone. She was an honor student. She's having to get adjusted with extra children in her classroom. Overflow of students in the Dublin in her classroom. She goes to Iris Gifted. I sent her to Irish gifted cuz my daughter was an honor student. She didn't go over there because I know you and I know you. She went over there because she earned what she earned. Whether she was at Heel Quest, she was good. Whether she was at Susie Dasher, we should look to improve Susie Dasher. We should look to improve Hillrest.
008If you need a new school, do something here, Chris. Fix it up. Do something with it. Uh I went to the graduation. I'm on the um board from the governor's board for more street. I went to the graduation this past year. That that's a program. Some of our kids just get in trouble. Some of our children come from broken homes. All of that on the matter cuz they they I mean A CHILD. WE GOT homeless kids in THIS CITY. THAT'S WHAT we should be looking for. NOT SITTING UP HERE TRYING TO do something different. Let's take care of every student that we already have. Let's take care of every teacher that we already have. Okay? Have you laid those teachers out? Look for money and pay those teachers more that you already have. You got
009some good teachers that teach our children. And Hillrest, and Susan Asher, and at the Irish gifted academy, look for ways to get money to pay the teachers you already have instead of want to do something different. I applaud you all for the job that you done. I don't know. I just know that the impact of a child matters. And when that child's schedule has to change, it makes all the difference in the world. I've been in business for 23 years. I service black kids. I service whites, Hispanic. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, that child matters to me. That's what matters to me at the end of the day. And when those kids leave Kids Kingdom, anybody in the school system can tell you that those kids ex Kingdom. I'm not bragging
010about kids kingdom. I'm just talking about what God gave me. He gave me the gift to teach and that's what I do. I respect every teacher. I respect even uh Dr. the the principal at Dublin High School. I hadn't met a greater person that's been honorable and respectful to me. I applaud all of you all, but let's support every child that's in here. Let's support every teacher from the city schools. Let's don't cut no more teachers unless you can find some money. So, if you can find some money to do what we doing, let's find some money to pay the teachers that we already have. Keep the school that you already have. Don't make it about you. made it by every child in this class. Thank you. >> Next, we have Miss Regina McCrae. >>
011And Miss Martin, I apologize. I should have said this before public comments. You get three minutes, Miss McCra. >> Oh my god. >> Okay. I knew you did know, but I didn't want to I didn't tell Miss Martin, so I wanted to That's okay, Miss Martin. Okay. Good evening. I did write down cuz I can talk. So I did I'm going to say skip through. All right. Um but good evening. I wanted to stop by check in with my old friends. Um and just to say you know if you see me coming it's always friendly cuz I'm an ally, right? So, if I'm coming, um, we I feel like we all want the same things. Um, so we're on the same team. So, don't ever feel nervous if you see my name. Um, but I
012believe after reading the special examination audit that we wanted that we waited so patiently for, we finally have something in black and white that details the profound issues that the district faces. And we now know that DCS must come in line with its peer schools in areas of staffing levels, salaries, supplements, just to name a few. And my hope is that the recommendations of audit will be implemented with a sense of urgency. I also hope that we don't just do enough to get us out of the woods, but that we will do the hard work to stay out of the woods and be and move into a more long-term sustainability. That is the goal. My other purpose, um, well, excuse me. So, knowing that the district is in the process of making some very important
013decisions, I wanted to ask that you consider some of the following. Um, first and foremost, that you fairly assess the needs of all children that are serviced by the district to determine what truly benefits them. This may mean taking a deeper look at factors that are that are impacting our children and devising the plan um to provide support. Additionally, I want to stress the importance of partnering with the community and stakeholders. Some issues cannot be properly addressed without community partnerships. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is that you allocate resources fairly and equally to all children on all campuses. It is the district's responsibility to ensure that a quality education is accessible to every child. If there are barriers to providing credential teachers or implementing programs for all students, the district must address that. As
014I close, I want to use the M model of the IGA program. It's my understanding that the IA program was developed to service the needs of the gifted of our gifted children and based on that need a program was created and children were given everything that they needed to be able to make that program a success. >> Um >> 20 seconds. Okay. um and the program has been able to grow and do all the things and that tells me that the district has the ability to identify the needs of our children and create a plan and provide resources to support that plan. So tonight, what I want to encourage you to do um is to take then pay some attention to our middle school to identify the needs over there and to address to develop
015a plan to address those needs and to let us help you in the community because we all want it to succeed. And if you if you are open to our help, we are willing to get it because when they win, WE ALL WIN. NEXT WE HAVE PEGGY. I wasn't sure about that last name. That's it. >> All right, Miss Katie, you'll have three minutes and I'll let you know when you have 20 seconds. Um, my husband and I recently moved here. We know no one. We have no opinion, no prejudice, no idea, nothing. Then we got our tax bill. Now we have an opinion. It said the Dublin City School chose to get opt out of property tax relief for homeowners. If you have concerns, come here. So, I came and I would I found
016out later the reasons why you're in debt, why you chose to opt out of taxpayer relief. I found out the reasons for that. Uh we came to a board meeting. I saw one concern. Oh, I do want to make a positive note. the newspaper has reported that you've made some changes and I appreciate that and I want to recognize that the meeting we came to open the public then there was an executive session. I didn't notice I didn't pay close attention to the agenda but then it said after the executive session it would open up again to the public. I think that's very inconsiderate to expect the public to wait till the executive session is over and then you come back again and open it up to the public. And I didn't pay attention to
017the fine print and I I didn't stick around. I think that's a red flag right there because I noticed um when it's open to the public again, the topic was hiring. Um so now thanks because the Georgia Department of Audit and Accounts made a special report. Now I'm aware of the problems. In the interest of time, I'll just say that I noticed on I noticed fraud on pages 1 3 6 and 7. I do not see how they could possibly be mistakes or incompetence. We were very confident in opting out of the taxpayer relief. I looked up the bill and there was a lot of hoops that had to be jumped through and that was accomplished. So I don't think there's any incompetence here. I see deliberate choices made on purpose and there should be
018consequences for those choices. If I don't pay my property taxes, I'm going to have consequences. It could even reach the point where I could lose my house. So, there's consequences on my end, but at this point, I'm not seeing any legal or civil or any action of consequences of the um fraud that has continued. So I would ask for action whether it be criminal or civil. Thank you. >> Next we have Peter Lipski. I'm like that lady right over here that just spoke. I'm not far behind by being a new person in this town. And I have nothing into the school system other than what's going on. And what I want to talk about is this about this new thing they're trying to do here about charter schools. And I heard two important people talk
019about way you want to take care of our students here in town. This ain't right. There's nothing good about a charter school. If there is that I don't understand, how come money talks bad? So if there's something good about a charter school that I don't understand, how about someone saying that if we're supporting our schools and our system, that's what's happening. How can you afford this? I mean, how can we afford another system here? And if you read this article, I go to this meeting. But if you read this article, they want to do what they're doing school. They want their own private one. That means you people here that don't have the money that they have, you ain't going there. You're not going there. So they're going to take your money and say thank
020you taking it. They're just going to take it and take it. Now, we can't have two school systems. They said they're going to talk to you. Okay. When I read the article, my my opinion on this was the third article. You say no, no, and no. And you tell them to go to the state and those upper class people, whatever you want to call them, the people that got in my street that they need to do themselves, they like Mr. Curry in this meeting and all the rest of those people. I don't know, but this ain't right. And that's what I want to say. I pay my taxes like that lady. Okay? And I don't have kids here. I never did. And I'm never going to. But what's wrong is that here they are complaining
021about help our kids. They're asking us, man. They're asking us to help our kids. And then I see this. They wanted to start another school system. What is wrong here? And I enjoyed that. I've only been here 6 years and I enjoy nothing. But this ain't right. And we all know where the money goes mostly is the school system. If it ain't school first, police and fire second, we know this. This ain't right. Stop it. Please say no. Please say no. Next we have Christopher Johnson. >> Mr. Johnson, same thing. Three minutes. >> Few minutes. I'm going to take hold of the three minutes. Uh my name is Christopher Johnson. Um founder owner of Oak Community Association and also here representing the OK Consolidated Force. the citizens action group. We've, you know, taken on issues
022in the in the community in the past and, you know, you you talk and you work through things through consensus and that's probably what's missing here and this initiative a lot of people have spoke about um preserving our schools and doing what's best interest of community. What the consolidated voice is asking for is that community that community engagement piece where you meet with stakeholders in this community that have actually invested time, talent, and treasure in doing the same thing that you're trying to accomplish. We're doing it on a different level. We want to collaborate with you, share our perspective. I know things that you don't know because of where I'm dealing with families and children. And I can help you. you're helping us in the community. You know, it's a, you know, it's a two-way
023street. What we trying to do is open up the dialogue. Sit down with us. What's going on? How can we help? We're here last week's back. We're going to do what needs to be done. But the thing is, and I had I owed a few people apologies because of the misinformation that was coming about coming out about this topic early on. you make assumptions wrongly and I have opportunity to apologize to some of the people that I made wrong assumptions about this whole body but we would like to sit down and since the audit a lot has been clarified but it's still some things that has not been discussed appropriately or thoroughly or to the understanding of the people that have expressed their concerns here Hey, that needs to be uh addressed. So, we are
024sending out an invitation for this collaborative forum for us to talk about, share ideas so that informed decisions can be made. Okay. Thank you. >> So, next we have our board. Yes. Hi. How everyone doing? You see, I have a little issue going on here with my throat. So, I want to pass you all something out first before I speak. Yes. I have to make sure I do the right thing. separate it. >> Okay, I'm sorry. >> I'm Ray Bl. I'm here to talk about the preparatory school appearing in the news and on social media. I want to speak before any formal proposal come to you all. I support choice, school choice, but I do not support placing the charter under the D city school. Our school is in a deficit today and it served
02590 students. Shifting enrollment with drain funds while fixed cost remain and title one cannot cover the gap. The preparatory school will have its own board and school should be fully funded by the state. Our park is not financially impacted. I urge the board to require physical and equal equity and analyzed and strong safeguard for high need students before any approval with full transparency and room for community involvement. It's a lot of talk. I went to the breakfast and they do want to use the program under the gifted academy. They do have a plan to bring in other areas would not be paying taxes. I want this board to consider the community involvement in denying them coming under the umbrella of D schools. I would like you all to acknowledge this information that's out, address it
026with your concerns and issues to the community because I know you all know what's going on. So, I'm asking you all to to speak to the community about it. I did not support it. I have talked to several people in the community and they do not support it either. So I thank you for your time, Madam Chairman. That's all we have. >> Thank you. All right, we're on um section 8 superintendent comments and announcements. >> Yes. Good evening. It's great to see all of the wonderful faces out there this afternoon. Um, we've got a lot of student recognition coming up and that's probably my favorite part of our board meeting. Uh, so we'll get to that soon. Uh, just a couple of things I want to mention. Um, I did speak with Marvin Jenkins um,
027today and they will be at our next meeting to discuss the FY23 audit. Um, and that will be on March the 9th and they'll answer any questions that the board has. It'll be via Zoom. Um so they will be you know online with us but they will go over that audit with us at the next meeting. Um we have begun the process for FY24 audit and this is going to be with the department of audits rather than Morgan Jenkins. Um we do have Cognia monitoring review this week uh from today until the 25th. Um, and we have lots of celebrations, like I said, um, and we want to share those about our students, um, right now. So, I'm going to ask Jason if he will go ahead and start our slide presentation. >> All right,
028guys. Good evening. Um, so happy to see so many of these people that I see running down the halls. They call me a variety of names. Normally, it's Jason, our picture man. How are y'all? Um, we're going to jump right into it to show you the power of resilience and the fact that the Irish are always fighting. Our boys ended the regular season at 4 and 20. By the end of the week, they were playing for a region championship. Um that's due in no small part to the efforts by the players and by the coaches and believing in themselves that if they would just play one good game and then play another good game, they might play enough good games to get a trophy. And keep in mind this includes beating a 20 and five
029East Lawrence team that is one of the top teams in the state as well. Uh and the team they lost to in Southwest earlier in the year they lost to them by 51 points and played in close for most of the game. So, please, if you haven't won any of those young men, uh, Coach Chapman or Coach, please congratulate them because, uh, that made me cry thinking about the fact that they could have just laid down that first night and playing game, but they said, "No, we're fighting ours. We're going to keep fighting." And I think that's a testimony to who we are. Our young ladies also qualify for the state playoffs. U, they'll be traveling to Bon County tomorrow. Get the opportunity uh, to head down there. About a 2-hour drive. I've been there
030for baseball playoffs before. Um hopefully the girls can get a win and keep moving on and the boys will host on that Wednesday. Um this past Friday got to enjoy another Irish success. Zia Walker won the annual Rotary speech contest and um can't wait. I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait for 235 to post the video because her speech is phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. And the thing that I told her that resonated with me because I've got the good fortune of listening to her more than once is that her testimony comes through as well. She shares scripture and all that she does is because it's part of who she is. And if you know her parents, that's why because they poured into her entire life and she tries to use that platform to try
031to spread the good word. Um Emily Maddox was also recognized as student of the board by Rotary. So we got to do a double dip. Um, I enjoyed One bad thing for me is it's lunch. So, I didn't get to eat any fried chicken. I had nothing to eat cheese pizza. Last week, um, beat our rival East Warren 10 to nothing. Um, if you don't know, whenever the boys score a run, they holler out something and they put on a cowboy hat. And, uh, they got to put on the cowboy hat a lot last week. All right. Uh they're four and two on the year and both of the losses were by one one run which means they're just a couple runs away from being undefeated on the year. They're hoping to put some more
032wins on tomorrow. They'll be at home against Southwest and later in the week I think they go to Northeast. Is that right, Mr. Jeff? >> Uh Southwest tomorrow and Friday up there. Up there for Southwest. Okay. Tomorrow here Friday. Um hoping that they'll keep putting on some wind, y'all. like and you have to understand when I first got here um this team was finishing 4 and 20 in regular season and now we're we're trying to look to do more than just make playoffs. Our FCCLA had the opportunity to go visit the state capital as part of FCCLA day. I'm trying to say that slowly so I don't skip over all those letters. Not a huge fan of acronyms as you can tell. uh always excited for our kids to get the opportunity to fellowship with
033with other like minds and also to get to learn more. Uh if you've never been to the state capital, I strongly urge you to go. It's a wonderful experience to get to see how our government functions no matter which side of the aisle you happen to live on. Our jets, you need to understand our dance team has made the state all four years. uh this year they made it again. Uh they didn't finish as high as they wanted and I've been restricted from saying their exact place by the young lady. So I'm going to honor that. I'm just super proud they made it again. And one of the things that tickled me is um one of the cheer coaches from another uh school put a comment out there about how much they've improved and how
034much better they've gotten every year. And that really strikes me because those young ladies put in a ton of work. And this year we had our first fouryear uh dance competitor. I got the opportunity to do a video about her. If you guys want to check that out. Um we've got some upcoming dates. Lots of stuff happening. For the end of the week, our school will be hosting the Black History Month programs. These are always so inventive and unique. Not one of the schools are going to be like the others. and it's always neat to see how they try to do the spirit of the month into the program. Um, you've also got just a host of spring and winter sports happening all at the same time. So, if you guys get the chance to
035head to Sharemont Bowl or the tennis courts, they don't even charge admission at tennis courts. Just come watch some tennis. They're going to play Jefferson County tomorrow and coach Bran said they should do pretty well. And then lastly, which will lead us into our our student recognition. There's a couple folks on that just for a second. You want to go ahead and go to student commission? >> Yeah. >> Well, you usually just >> Okay. Yes. Let's go ahead and move on to student recognition under general administration item A. >> Okay. So, we have two guys that I would like for you guys to come up right now. 11 and Maria Walden. You'll come front and CENTER away from the screen so everybody can see the screen. And Mr. Jason has all kinds of great information
036about you guys. You want to tell them a little bit about what these two guys have done? >> I'm happy to. Um, so these two young men represented Bon Irish. They're u told me earlier in the year he won it. He got four to the state the year before he won the game board. He got six this year. Last year he had one state champ. This year he had a state champ and a state runner. And uh I couldn't be prouder of both of them. Mark was a backto back state champ. Um and that's a that's a homemade beanie by the way. I won't say anything, but um she might start marketing them cuz she makes them pretty quickly and they look nice. Quinton, how many losses did you have on the year? >> Three.
037>> Yeah. And one of those was to the state champ. He was a threetime state champ. And had him on the ropes there early and I thought he was going to get him real quick. Part of the thing that I loved most is that y'all were talking to each other after the fellowship and wrestling unlike anything else guys. Uh they they were friends after the match. was on the mat after their buddies and then Mark just didn't didn't mess around. He just took care of business and got him the second one with that foot that was hurting. But we're super proud of them. >> We sure are. And then the coach will come forward and kind of take your workout. >> Good job. Thank you. We also would like to recognize our middle high school
038students that placed third in the Georgia College um and state regional science and engineering fair and that is Michaela Jones winter bats pa CLEANETS WALKER, Naomi Wilson, Julia Snail. Deon Lewis. >> Anybody? Zakaya Wiggins. And I just want to say these students um if they have moved on to the regional competition, that means that they won either first or second in the local fair that we had. And so they moved on to the regional fair and these students received third place in that. We also have a second place winner and that's Jess Brown from Fords. >> Congratulations. Thank you all for being great scientists. I want to say good job to the parents too giving the hours and the work and the research with their child developing that wonderful science fair project. Um, great job
039everyone. Next is item B, the Perkins B monitoring and risk assessment review summary report and CTTAE academic data. I'm going to call Ben Laneir, our CTE director to the front and he's going to tell us a little bit about this. I was excited to receive a letter on the job well done um about this monitoring um and risk assessment. So I wanted him to kind of tell you guys a little bit about that and uh what all they they said about it. pretty good. Um, I'm not coming up as a wrestling coach, unfortunately. Right now, I'm coming up as USC director, but I would like to say I'm incredibly proud of my two wrestlers. Something I deserve a certificate for wrestling. This one right here every day at practice. Um, so for CTE, the boarding
040funds come from a federal grant, the Perkins uh grant. And so with that comes a uh every five-year monitoring process. And so this year was entire year to be monitored for our uh Perkins uh funding used those grant funds. Um the entire report has been provided to you. So I'm just going to give you kind of the high high levels of what that report said. Number one, there were no findings which is celebration. only uh commendations and a few recommendations which we have already started addressing. Um so basically what that means is for the CTA department for our district we are fiscally sound and operationally compliant. So that that is a quality a quality thing for us. Um that means we will remain low risk for monitoring purposes for CTA. Um, and we will do
041it again in in five more years. Um, but you have any questions obviously uh you you can ask them of me. Um, it's kind of a lengthy report. So, um, I'm always available if you have any of those questions. Um, I'm also sharing um, our annual report for FY25. And so I do this every year uh, for um, for our graduating class of last year. So this is the class of 2025. And I'm I don't know what each of these mean. So I'm going to go line by line and kind of break it down for y'all. So so it makes sense. So this is the data for CTA concentrators in our district. Now you ask, what's a CTE concentrator? A CTA concentrator is a student who has taken at least two of the three sequential
042courses in a CTE pathway. So for example, we have a mechatronics course in mechatronics one, two, and three. If a student has taken one and two, they're considered a concentrator. A completer is someone who finishes all three. So this data that you're seeing is all CTA pathway concentrators or completers who graduated last year. It's lagging indicator. It's a lagging data from last year. So obviously the first one is the that four-year graduation rate. The second one is our second year graduation rate. Um, and you'll see so what I provided for you, this is the year we're looking at last year. I also provided the year before and the state target. Um, if you're I think it's if you're within three percentage points, you meet the state target. So all the ones in green were above
043the state target, which is great. Uh, yellow got some room for improvement. And red is something we really need to focus on. So first graduation rate, that's self-explanatory. Extended graduation rate is that 5year graduation rate. One thing that I'm really proud of these standards here, academic reading, math, and science, what that is is CTA concentrators who scored um three or four on the Georgia milestones for those courses. Uh so if you look uh especially for math and science, we're above the state target for our CTA students on those academic milestones. That's something that is really impressive. And I'll show you a little bit more data, dig down a little bit deeper in the next slide. our postgrad placement rate. Probably the most important metric that is uh measured by this is the amount of CTA
044concentrators who graduate and within 6 months of graduation have entered a 2-year or four-year institution, the military or the workforce. So that goes to show you 96% of our students 6 months after graduation are accounted for and contributing to society essentially. non-traditional concentration that is uh that is only gender uh in uh non-traditional fields. So you think about like women in welding uh stuff like that. So that's something I'm really going to focus on this next year. Um, I know that uh our our top t top state for talent grant that we secured this year, which is $140,000 of new equipment that's going in our mechatronics classroom, will help me get some more girls cuz there's a lot of cool stuff going in there. So, I'm really really going to try and push that um
045that piece hard. Next is workbased learning participation. 52% of our graduating class from last year participated in workbased learning which is which is really astounding because when you think about it that's not just the number that's working that's the number that's in the program as you you know as well as I did the majority of our students work they have to work and so for them to go through the process and still be included in the go jump through all the hoops to be in the workbased learning program is really impressive and as you can see we're about 12 points ahead of the state target on that pathway completion. Uh this is something that for the last 2 or 3 years we have really really honed in on in the CTA department because a few
046years ago pathway completion was around the 20% mark. So that is the number of uh class of 2025 students who completed a pathway that's three sequential courses in a CTA pathway or a technical certificate of credit at TCSU. So that that's what that that means. It does not count dual enrollment for traditional education courses. It it only counts the trade dual enrollment. So well in cosmetology, things like that. And then the one I'm most proud of, the one we've seen the most growth on is our credential value rate. So this is the amount of uh class of 2025 D school students. I should have said this earlier as a caveat. This is the entire system. This includes more street and the high school. This is not just Dublin High School data. This is the entire
047district. Um, our credential value rate is essentially how many students graduated last year and took an end of pathway assessment and got a industry recognized credential from us at the school who administers the test or from the technical college system who gives them, you know, a certificate that says, you know, you're certified in underwater basket weaving, you're certified in welding, you know, things that industries look for and recognize. So that's a whopping 81%. That's up last year from 58% and almost double the state target which is 43%. So that is very impressive and I'm very proud of my team for addressing that in the way they did. I want to show you uh kind of I was talking earlier about our academic milestones. Um, a lot of people and I think our system does a
048really good job of kind of shifting the paradigm about CTA classes, especially through our delivery model or our career academy. Um, that they're not just elective classes or rotation classes. They are vital and make our students better students. For example, in American literature average for prof for proficiency is 43.57. The CTA students is 68%. Algebra 43%, CTA 56, biology 35, CTA 49%. So what this data shows is that the more students that we can get in CTA courses, the better students we will have. Um, and so that's kind of been my my push forever. I'm thankful to Dr. Over Street because he came from the career academy. He knows exactly how important it is. Um, but I think that this data just goes to show how critical CTIE instruction is for the overall academic achievement
049of our district. Um, and I'll I'll be open to questions now if you have any. >> Good job. Yes. >> Awesome job. Thank you. Next on the list is financials. Okay, this is our first board meeting to present financial a lined up so you'll have quick tutorial on how to work this thing. >> That's right. All right. and now have >> all right. Um, in your board package, you have the following reports for the month. January, the general ledger, which is the balance sheet, general fund balance sheet. We have that. And um, I understand that you have not recently been getting a balance sheet. This balance sheet is been a hard um thing to come up with. We've uh, had the help of DOE personnel, myself and and a lot of prayer and questions asked
050and answered and will um so that we've got a balance sheet for this month and it is u we still have a deficit uh I mean down there you go $5.1 million as we make adjustments to other funds. This might go up or it might go down. Um we're it's a work in progress process. >> Okay. >> Can I ask a quick question? Um so this is as of January 31st, correct? So this doesn't reflect property taxes in February or March? >> No. >> Okay. This is just January 31st. This is yours. Report your priorities. >> Right. Right. I'm saying that the property taxes, there's a lot to to come in. It'll be on next month. >> Right. That is correct. And also we paid out will be paid out lucky loop in February also.
051So that will be like one offsets the other one. There you know there is a balance there but it's going to offset one another. >> The lucky loop. Where is that? Is that in the payroll withholdings and the liabilities? >> It'll be in payroll. >> It's not It's most >> It's not even on here. Okay. >> Most of that that amount is for your um state health equity plan that we are are currently making payments towards. >> Right. But it was it was a liability in January, right? When we had that money, >> it was a liability in January. It'll be a liability until we pay it off. >> Right. But but where is it in the in the balance sheet here? >> It's in the back payroll withholdings. >> Okay. That's That's what I
052was asking. Yeah. >> I misunderstood. >> No. So So Lucky L in January isn't payroll. >> No. No. I thought you was talking about state help. No. Lucky L is not payable. It's only paid one time a year. So it's paid in we paid it February. So it's not there. >> But we're withholding that money through the year. Right. >> Right. We have not paid it out. It's in it is it's an obligation liability. but they have never booked the liability. Now, if y'all want me to book the liability, we can do so, but it will be it varies because you're not going to have the same people when you start off a year when you get to Lucky Loop, >> right? But if we're withholding somebody's money and owe it to them later, that
053needs to be reflected somewhere. >> Well, we can look at putting that as a liability. I will get some guidance from Department of Education, right? >> And look at what gap what your standards are for reporting. obligations and we'll look into that and I'll get back to you with >> Thank you. >> I'll send you all a report in the next board meeting. >> Okay. All right. Give me the revenues and expenditure report. Here's your revenues expenditures for the month ending January 31st. Now, I want you to know I added two columns over here to the right. I reported the ear the expenditures for the month last year last January 25 and the year today as January 20 January 31st 25. But don't get too excited about that. Hey, our expenses are down because in
054the second line item um appropriation of business revenues appropriations um from city taxes, you've got 6.7 million and we've only so far this year uh as of January the 31st, we've only collected 446,000. So that's the difference in the revenue. So don't you know you're going, "Oh lord, we are dire straits." that we had revenue coming in in January from taxes. We have not had we received it in February. So slide slide it up down. Yeah. And also in expenditures we have this time last year we had $6.6 million in expenditures. We had 17.5. That's mostly due to paying out Lucky Lou in January of last year. You notice the top line 2.6 6 million and the current expenditure is 1.1 million. That's payroll for January and this was payroll for January last year which
055includ included Lucky Lou >> last January. >> Yes last year. >> Any questions on that? Anyone you get looking at and won't have other questions if you would just let me know. I'll bring the answers back to you next week. Just give me a list. All right. And then I've got a fund balance which we've already discussed is $5.1 million still outstanding. So far our this year our total revenues have come in at 13.8 million and our total expenditures have been 15.1 million. So our expenditures are still out out um over what our revenue is. that that's probably a reflection of lack of tax revenue. >> Exactly what it is, a reflection of we haven't had any tax revenue received this year. >> Now, are there any questions about this? And I also uh had
056a um an outstanding open table that y'all have asked for and we haven't had a chance to put this in this report yet. So we will you know it's available for you to review cuz we didn't see that. >> Yeah. >> Well, I do have a question. They're tax financials but we've got page one and three and page three of three. So it seems like page two of three guys. >> Sorry. I will send you that. >> You just email it to us. It would be great. Yes, I have it for you. >> It was on the back and so can you make a copy of it? You know, it will automatically copy back. >> Apologize for that misunderstanding. Yeah, >> the only other thing um we will as time present accents and we keep
057going through the process of looking through our accounts and uh the fund balances and all we will make more stuff available in your monthly reports uh such as we don't have our capital project here our grants is not reported our debt service and other any other uh funds that we might have if they are review for accuracy and completeness. We will add those to the balance sheet and revenues expenditures. >> I'd like to see a splash, too. >> Well, that's what I'm talking. >> We will have all those available to you as we go through and check them for accuracy and completeness. Um, and I also would like to give a shout out to the Department of Education's personnel for being so patient and understanding and giving us guidance through this process. And it's our
058goal up to um reviewing all of this. At the end of process, these funds will be included in your monthly report. >> Most complete financial we've had since I've been on the board. I feel >> we try. It's been a work in progress cuz I don't know the accounting system. I haven't had a lot of insight. >> All right. Any questions for me? >> Just one more real quick. It looks like last year lucky week was about a million and a half dollars. Do you think that's about what it is? >> I was going approximately. Yes. >> Okay. Well, thank you. This is great. Thank you for all doing. This is This really helps. >> You're welcome. >> Yes. Thank you, Miss Betty. >> Okay. At this time, we need to approve the financials for
059January. >> Madam Chairman, I'll offer a motion that we approve the financials as presented for January. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. May I have um a vote for yay for it and nay against it. So for it >> yay >> against. All right. 70. Thank you. >> And then Miss Betty, you're going to email us the expenditures, correct? >> Yes. >> You got one of those for us aside. >> Yeah. And then >> do you have a blank one? >> Can you use mine? >> I have one. I didn't make an I pass that. And then item C, Miss or you want Miss D to speak on that? >> Miss Corvette, would you also speak on C, the bank account closure? >> Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot what I was. Um, yes,
060we have a bank account, the Bank of Dudley, and mostly and the only thing that is depositing is Medicaid reimbursements that we receive. And we'd like to close our account and move everything into the general fund check uh checking account. Does everyone understand what she was saying? All right. Stop signing that one. Jeff. Um okay. At this time, I need a motion to close this bank account at capital city and sorry. And move it to capital city. Madam chair, I offer a motion that we close the bank account. >> Second. Okay. >> All in favor? I. >> Second. >> I miss water. >> All in favor? I. >> All oppose. Nay. Eyes. Have it. All right. Item 11, board member comments. Mr. Walters. congratulate for all the schools and the wrestling team and achievements that
061our students have and let's keep appreciating. We got our eyes open and trying to make it happen. Please be welcome to come up here and raise questions. Appreciate all y'all guys coming out. >> Thank you, Mr. Walkers. Mr. Laneir, >> just want to say thank you'all for coming. I appreciate it. Chris, thank you for reaching out to me. Thank you for showing up and convenient come through the program. Yes, sir. >> Uh just want to say thank you for everybody to come and be in attendance. This is the kind of meetings that we'd like to have. U you know everybody screams about transparency but nobody wants to come be transparent. So let's all come and be together and have talk about the opportunity that we have to be better because we all have opportunity to
062be better. all of us. Uh, also want to say thank you to the financial department for finally getting us a financial statement that that I have have some confidence in. Um, thank you for that. Uh, thank you for the hard work all our staff has put in and long and hard you guys have put in getting us headed in the right direction. Um, it's not going to be an easy thing, but it's going to be a thing that we're going to do and uh, we're going to we're going to we're going to stay the course. Um, double city schools is not going anywhere and we're going to do our best to make sure that happens in spite of whoever else wants it to happen. That's all I got to say. Thank you, Miss Glover. >>
063First and foremost, I want to say thank you to our lovely kids, our young students. You all have shown us as to what we have been speaking about about the great achievements that you all have accomplished. I just wish now that since the last statement I made about having the kids here that we can find somewhere to put on our agenda where we can appreciate and show them our appreciation award giving them verbally because they all most of them dashed out. Yeah. As as you hear us say that we are we are so very proud of you all. Uh it goes to show that the double city school does have support in the in the teachers. They do have your back. Um, where's Ben going? Thanks to the Oh, thanks to all the on that
064you're doing with the young men's with the wrestling and with the education department for those kids that with the um literature and speaking and stuff. Oh, God. Just awesome kids. Just awesome. Y'all just continue to keep doing that. And God knows, do you know where your future is going to be? We just ask the pastor to continue to support them and support us and just be patient. It's working things out. God is working things out. We just have to be patient and get ourselves out of the way. And to the young ladies and you know, Mr. U Peter, thank you all for your comments. I'm quite sure I can speak for myself. I'm not going to speak because I'm only one voice and it takes all of us to have a a vote. But I'm
065quite sure we're going to take heed into everything that you all talked about because it is basically about the kids, about improvement in our school system and what you all as a community want to see change. y'all want to see what's happening. Mr. Johnson, as far as with the collaboration, I'm quite sure that we all have been thinking about and talking about collaborating more in the community. And so, we're just looking for something more from ourselves to help our student in our city out. And thank y'all. I'm sorry. I'm glad I time. I just like to congratulate all the students on everything y'all have done and are doing and there's a lot of uh a lot of great students that were here tonight uh really studing and and they're learning and they're getting awards and
066everything and I appreciate everyone that all the citizens that spoke tonight and um believe me I really do appreciate y'all and also I went down to see them all today and I signed up. Well, I couldn't sign up. I had to go get my wife. She's got to go back with me to get my year citizen discount on education taxes. It might hurt us a little bit, but when you're 80 years old and you're going to you won't even be paying school taxes anymore starting at at the end of this year. So, you live in Berlin. It's a gradual gradual law. I'm 74 years old. My wife 68, so she's messing me up on one of my should. But anyway, I appreciate all of y'all, >> Mr. Davis. >> Good. Good luck, John. Your wife
067is definitely not messing you up. Um, I thank everybody for coming out. We We've really worked hard as a board to increase transparency and that requires an informed citizenry. Y'all have certainly put in your part of the work. So, thank you all for being here. Uh, it's really the point I didn't catch your name, but the lady sitting behind Mr. Ma'am. >> No. Um, the Susan Scott, what was your name? >> Miss Avery. >> A G R E. >> Avery. Okay. That John touched on it and um you you said the city, the tax bill said we opted out of House Bill 571 and it did say that. Uh, it didn't tell the whole story. Uh 571 was a bad bill. Um I think about 70% of all um districts in the state opted out
068of it because there was some uncertainty. There was some u there were just a lot of concerns. Um but we did pass a better bill here in the city of Dublin. I want to commend the former board the prior board from last year for opting out of 571. >> 81 >> 581. Okay. On 581. So I I commend the prior board for opting out of it because if you opt it in, you can never come out and and over 70% I think of all districts in the state opted out. Um John's talking about 803 which is a graduated scale. It kicks in. They didn't put that on the tax bill. Um but it starts at 62 it steps up at 65 at 73 and then at 80 you are completely exempt for city school tax
069in the city of Bubble. Uh now that's not your property tax to the city government county but that's that's probably 2/3 to 70% of your entire property tax bill. Uh it goes with your home state exemption. So uh but go city hall uh everybody you know over 62. If you are married you need to take your spouse but there is there is real tax relief available for senior citizens uh in the city. So, um, I apologize for looking at my phone, too. I wanted to verify two things. Uh, Mr. Hog, can we put that on our transparency website, department website, so people can >> Yes, sir. and the city, the city of government put out with the tax relief. So, Mr. Hul, we'll put that on the website. Uh, thank you for that. The other
070thing I want to check, I want to thank you again and thank the board. Uh, we are live streaming. We're going out now. when my phone started making noise. I was checking I was watching Ben on my phone while he was right there. But uh you know anybody who can't make the meeting, we're on we're live now. These will be archived on our website on our YouTube channel. Um so thank you for that. Thank the board for for doing that. Um I think that's the final thing. Uh ma'am, Miss Fi, um you know, consequences. We hear that a lot in the community for and and all I tell people is that working. Um the district attorney's aware, the sheriff's aware, the GBI is investigating and uh we have a great district attorney and um if
071you want to know more about where that is, um you know, you you know as much as we do at this point, but I I don't know what more we can do as as a board other than continue to support law enforcement, anybody who's investigating that situation. So, uh but again, thank you all for coming out. >> Thanks, Mr. Rose. I would just like to say good evening and it's always good to see a large crowd with children. We're honoring our students. I always enjoy that and um because it just help us to see the children what they're doing, you know, and just put a face to names. And I also want to thank the people that came forward, the citizens that came forward with their comments. And I really do appreciate when you all
072come and make your public comments whether they are in favor of something we're doing if it's not. But we need to hear all of what everybody want to say about what we're doing in uh in the district because it is everybody that uh in our district with their students and people that don't have children in our system. you know, is everybody that that has a say that help makes the uh our school district even better than what it is. I mean, I'm of the mindset I don't believe in everybody thinking the same way because it's the different ideas that really make a good district. Uh sometimes that's how you find out you may not have the right thing just from people challenging what you say and so it stimulates different thought and that's what we
073need. So, I appreciate every voice that comes and everything that uh people suggest or whatever they say. And believe you me, we do think about what you say and we will be looking to see if there's anything that we can do to make our services better to accommodate our citizens in a better way. Um, Miss Pery, uh, I've been thinking about the fact of how, uh, the of the the the impact of the, um, excuse me, the impact of the executive session, you know, sometime and particularly now that we're live streaming, how it would impact. So, you know, we do understand that. Um, and we will have some conversations to see what we can do. And um and also u I appreciate the support that we have. You know, sometimes some of the comments I
074see in the papers more negative than positive, but I know that we've had a lot of positive support because I see people on the street and they encourage me and and they let me know that they are for the school. And so I just want to say to the teachers, to uh staff, you know, to the Georgia Department of Education, to everybody that's helping us, we needed that help. We appreciate all the hard work you do. And I just thank you. And this is opportunity to me that even though we're going through this crisis, it's also an opportunity to for us to make improvements in other areas that maybe we didn't know about that surface. and and I'm thankful for that opportunity. So, we're getting an overhaul in a way that wasn't intended, but I'm
075glad that we're able to be able to make the necessary changes so that we can make our school district the best possible district for all of our students. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. Johnson. Just want to say thank you'all for coming tonight. I think um all the board members touched on everything I was going to say, so I'm not going to repeat, but just want to say great job students and staff. Um, we still got a ways to go, but we're gonna get there. So, that makes us cool. Um, at this time, I need a motion to go into executive session. >> Madam chair, I make a motion that we go into executive session. >> I second. >> We got a motion that's been seconded. All in favor? I. >> All nay. I haven't. Thank
076you. Good job.